529 FBF: Out of Range with Hank Steinberg

Welcome to this week's edition of Flashback Friday. Your opportunity to get some good review by listening to episodes from the past that Jason has hand picked to help you today in the present and propel you into the future. Enjoy.

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It's my pleasure to welcome Hank Steinberg to the show. He is the acclaimed creator and award winning CBS of the award winning CBS series Without a Trace, HBO's 61 and author of his new book out of Range, which is becoming a movie pretty soon. He's also got a new series coming up entitled the Last Ship and that will be on TNT and it's a great Pleasure to have him here. Hank, how are you today?

I'm doing well, really. Thank you so much for having me.

Good. And you're coming to us today from Beverly Hills, California, I believe.

I am indeed. I just took a break from my writer's room for my new series to step out and talk to you. So I'm happy to be here.

Fantastic. Well, we're happy to have you. So first of all, maybe we should. Well, so let's talk about what's new first and then we'll kind of go back in time a little bit. And I especially want to talk about Without a Trace. But your new book is entitled out of Range and it's a novel and it is being turned into a movie as we speak, I believe. Tell us a little bit about it.

Well, I'd always wanted to write a thriller, obviously, coming off of Without a Trace. I kind of had some of those skill sets from doing a thriller of the week for 160 episodes on that show. And I was intrigued at the idea of doing something Hitchcockian, which started small with some small domestic situation. And Hitchcock's heroes were always kind of everyman who got thrust into an impossible situation with a much larger scope than they ever could have imagined. And they always started with a small incident of mystery and then just got bigger and bigger. And I've always been attracted to those kinds of stories. So that was something that I'd always wanted to do and I was just kind of waiting for the right point of inspiration. And that actually happened. It just happened to me by accident through something that happened in my own life. And so my wife was driving home from Disneyland three years ago and she had my 18 month old son in the car with her. They had just had an exhausting day in Toontown on Dumbo the Flying Elephant and they were both frazzled and exhausted and they were driving home at night. My wife called me from the road and she said, I'm trying to figure out how to get home. Can you guide me through? There's like six different freeways and you know the way. And I said, sure. I started navigating her through and I was on the Bluetooth. I could hear everything going on in the car. And my son starts to just freak out, kicking and screaming and crying, and he's inconsolable and my wife can't do anything to help him. From the front seat she says, I'm just going to pull off. I'm going to pull off the freeway and I'm going to get off and try to deal with him. And I said something in my stomach, said, honey, you sure? I'll call you back in five minutes. And she hung up the phone.

Phone.

And we click. So a few minutes went by, and my mind, My paranoid mind just started racing.

Well, that was in LA where your wife was pulling off the freeway. So I think you had good reason to be concerned, right?

Yeah, very much so. And of course, you know, off the freeways, it's always a little bit kind of deserted. So it's at night, and I'm just having these imaginings about what might. What could go wrong there. And then I start to think to myself, if he doesn't call back, how soon would it be before I grab the keys to my car and jump in the car myself and go chasing after her? Because I was talking to her on the way home. I know approximately where she got off the road, almost the exact exit. So I could go. You know, it would take me 45 minutes to get there, but I could go after her at some point. Anyway, she ended up calling back. Everything was safe and she was fine. She came home. But it gave me the kernel of an idea if that was the setup to the mystery. A husband on the phone with his wife. She pulls off the side of the road. She says she'll call back in five minutes. And she never calls. And now he waits, and he waits and he starts calling hospitals. He starts freaking out. And after 45 minutes, he says, screw it. I'm going in the car. I'm going after her. He finds the freeway exit, and he finds the car. And there's cops everywhere. And his kids are out of the car. They're young kids. They're crying. And his wife is missing. What happened to her? Why did somebody take his wife? Why did they leave the kids? Why is her car in this spot on the road? And then the worst part is the cops look at him and say, what are you doing here? How did you find her? And his story doesn't sound plausible. 90% of the time a woman goes missing, it's the husband had something to do with it. They trace his phone records. It turns out he was calling her five, six, seven times in the last hour, but never left a message. It seems like he was stalking her. And now it just looks like he's showing up to the scene of the crime the way people always do. So now not only is his wife missing, but the police aren't going to be helpful. So I thought that was just a great Hooked for a story about a guy in over his head with this fundamental urge to find his wife. And then lo and behold, just like on any good episode of my TV show, it turns out the more he sneaks into it, he realizes his wife has been lying to him. She's been keeping secrets. She's been communicating with an old boyfriend who may himself be embroiled in some international conflict and problems. And that's how the story starts to widen out. And it turns out she's got an in over her head. And our hero, Charlie Davis has to a find his wife and solve the riddles of his marriage. Does his wife still love him? Should he go after her given the fact that she might have given up on their marriage?

Where's the tie in with Uzbekistan though?

Well, the man that she her ex boyfriend who she had started talking to is an Uzbekistani billionaire who's involved with some nefarious things. And the backstory, which is the prologue of the book, is that Charlie and Julie had spent some time in Uzbekistan. Charlie is a roguish international war correspondent who goes into the darkest corners of the world and tries to snoop out stories that nobody's telling. And he and his wife have met in Uzbekistan and it turns out whatever she's gotten involved in is going to draw them both back there. And I love that kind of roguish hero that's sort of in the Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones mold. A guy who's a self starter, who's savvy, who's dauntless, who takes on the tough stories. He's kind of self starter, does things on his own. And I think what's a cool combination of this storyline is because he has done that job and he has that skill set. He knows his way around the world and he speaks different languages and he knows how to bribe people and he's savvy and he knows how to get in and out of tough situations. It makes him equipped to find her, equipped to get to the bottom of what's going on in the larger story. It makes him equipped to be that kind of physicalized hero. But at the same time he's kind of a regular guy, just like you and me and we can relate to him when he can't find his wife and she's pulled off the side of the road. So it's kind of a combination of Everyman and Superman, which allows him to do these adventurous things and have it be plausible, yet have him still be an underdog.

Fascinating stuff, fascinating stuff. That's one of the things about a great novel. There are so tie Ins to things, lessons that people might learn for real life. It's not just fiction. And there's. There's a lot. A lot of substance there. And maybe you can tie in, going back a little bit to Without a Trace. And how did that tie in with the novel? Or did it at all? It seems like it would have just based on content a little bit.

Well, the underlying metaphor of the story is, you know, that Julie's been lying to Charlie because there's something empty and missing in her marriage, and she has not wanted to confront him with it. She doesn't agree with some of the choices that they've made together as a family that he has pushed, and he starts to come to realize that he's got some culpability in what's going on in their relationship. So the underlying metaphor of the story is there's problems in the marriage. And when you don't talk about your problems, bigger problems arise. And I think that's. That ties back to most episodes of Without a Trace. The missing person has some problem or some secret or something that has led to their disappearance. And because in some way, they have been hiding their problems and not dealing with it with the people that are around them, that. That comes back to bite them. And I think that is a valuable lesson for anyone who's married or anyone in a relationship to not simmer and seethe and hold resentments and carry things, but to get them out in the open before they bite you. And of course, that what happens here, it explodes into a huge situation, something with a lot of scope. But it works as a metaphor for any marriage, because I think people in all marriages hide things from their spouses at times because they don't want to deal with it or they don't want to confront the issue. And it almost always causes problems.

Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, that's good advice. So do you have any favorite episodes of Without a Trace that maybe you want to just talk about for a mom? Sure.

I mean, there's a handful that ran.

For what, like nine seasons, right?

It ran for seven seasons and 160 episodes.

Yeah. Very successful.

There's a lot to choose from.

It's a lot of content.

There was an episode, our season one finale, called Fallout, which dealt with a man who was in PTSD after 9. 11 was a very powerful episode that I wrote and was very attached to. There was an episode called Wannabe, which dealt with bullying in schools, which I wrote and was very, very close to my heart. And I drew on some personal experiences to write that both as someone who I had been bullied and I'd also bullied other kids. And that was what was interesting to me, which I explored. I think we often demonize kids who bully and it is an awful thing to do. But I think there's a whole culture, it exists where it's almost a kick the dog phenomenon where someone gets bullied by someone else and then they turn around and in order to make themselves feel okay, they turn around and bully someone else altogether. And the episode was very, very effective. We actually ended up having 3,000 schools call the network the next day to ask if they could get a copy of it because they wanted to use it as a teaching tool in the schools. And this was back in 2003, I think. So it was well before a lot of the cyberbullying that we've seen. And the issue has become an issue that's been much more powerful and that schools are dealing with more head on. But at the time 10 years ago, I think it was a little bit ahead of the curve of calling attention to these things that were happening. And that was a very gratifying thing to be able to turn a personal experience that I had into something that I felt was artistically inclined and be able to evoke really strong feelings in people and then have it be able to deliver a message that was hopefully effective in opening up conversations in schools and having people deal with it and having it be put to some use, which is the best thing you can do when you create a piece of art.

No question, that's a huge problem. And hopefully that episode helped attack the problem to some extent. At least. Tell us about what you're working on now. Your new series is entitled the Last Ship and that'll be running on tnt. What's it all about?

It's about a Navy ship, its captain, and the 230 people that are following him in the wake of a global pandemic that wipes up most of the world. And on board the ship is a scientist who may be able to create a vaccine to solve the problem of the pandemic and save who's ever left in the world. And it's kind of a high seas adventure. A little bit of Star Trek on the water or Mad Max on the water with them having adventures every week and trying to find the cure and save people and fight their enemies. It's big, very big production value. It's a Michael Bay production, so it's huge and exciting. And Eric Dane from Grizz Anatomy is the star he plays the captain and it's been really fun. And I'm sitting here with my six of the writers breaking the story for the first season. The pilot's been shot and it came out great. And the whole first season, all 10 episodes, will air next, next June 2014.

You know what amazes me about shows like the Last Ship? That when it's an ongoing saga, as you mentioned, how do you, how long do you plan to have the shelf life of that, that series be? I mean, because it's, it's the same story, right? And they're, they're constantly just adding to that. So it's another hour, another hour, another hour of the same people, the same situation. And then I guess the, the end as the situation resolves one way or the other. How do writers plan for that?

Well, you hope to start with a premise that you feel like has legs, that you can see, that the story can continue to unfold and open up and expand in a way that you can feel like you can see. Even though you don't know what the third and fourth and fifth seasons are going to be, you feel like you know that it's going to provide. The premise is going to provide you with the real estate to be able to do that. So that's for starters, especially when you're doing a serialized show like this show is. So you start with that and then it's always an interesting push and pull between how much storyline, how many storylines you burn through at the beginning because you just want to use up all your great ideas and just get everybody hooked. And a balance between not burning through stuff so fast that you run out of steam and end up having to jump the shark and do something, to bend over backwards now to sustain what you have. And those are the kinds of debates that people have in writers rooms on every show that has that serialized storytelling element is how quickly do we, or slowly do we unfold this stuff? And if you stay grounded with your characters and stay true to the characters and have their motivations feel real, then I think the audience will go with you. It's when you start pushing your characters around into plotting that you've created, where the audience goes, oh, that feels like the writer's telling the character to do that as opposed to the character wanting to do that, that's when you get into trouble. So it's difficult to do, which is why most shows fail. But when they're done well, they're incredibly satisfying.

Sure they are. And I so much appreciate things that are well written, whether it Be a book or a television show or a movie. It's just all about the writing. It's amazing. When you look at sitcoms, I think Seinfeld was so far above so many others. You may disagree with me, you probably don't, but I don't know.

No, it's one of my all time favorite shows and still watch it a lot before bed, smile before I go to bed.

It certainly does. It's so brilliant the way they tie things in later in the show and so forth. I wish they'd make a more contemporary version. But then I compare it to a show like Friends, for example, and I just don't see the writing. I mean, it just. I don't know, it just doesn't impress me the way Seinfeld does. But. But writing matters so much. And it seems like. And what I was really getting to in making that statement is that it seems like writers don't get enough credit. Now maybe you feel that way sometimes because you're so integral and so important to the production. I mean, the writer, you know, unless you're in the business, most people don't know who the writers are. Right?

Yeah, there's definitely a thing with that. It depends on the medium. I think what's gratifying about writing a novel now is there's no one else to get the credit besides me. It's my name on the front and there's no actors interpreting my lines. There's no directors shooting, there's no production designers making the sets. All which is very gratifying when you do that because that's a very collaborative experience. And that collaboration can be really fun and exciting. So I also just wrote a play, so in that case, the playwright's name pretty much goes above the title. That's just how that industry works. And in movies and tv, in movies in particular, the writer is really at the bottom. In television, we do get a lot of the credit within the industry. And a lot of the power of a TV series rests with the show's creator and executive producer and writers. But at the end of the day, people go to see the actors. The actors were the ones on the red carpet. And I think half the people think the actors make up their own lines, which sometimes they do, which we don't always like. But look, I love my job to be able to come to work every day and create stories and use my brain and think creatively. And the case of television, be able to work with other really talented, smart people in a room all day just talking about how to Tell a great story. It's pretty hard for me to think of anything else I'd rather do.

How did you get into it? I mean, did you just go to college and then decide you're going to be a writer or did it happen later in life?

Yeah, that was pretty much it. I mean, you know, I always love these kinds of stories. I always love emotionally rich, character driven stories and I love thrillers. So Without a Tricks is kind of a perfect mix for that. And hopefully that's what the book out of Range is going to accomplish also. But, you know, it was just writing was always an interesting. It always interested me. And then I just was a junior in college and I said, I'm going to do this. I was just naive enough and blindly, ignorantly blissful enough to think I could do it. And I moved out to LA and hustled and struggled and wrote a bunch of bad scripts and then finally figured out how to write a good one and broke through and got an agent and started getting work and things and they started to come together.

Was your educational background in English or journalism or something else? Or film?

I was an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and I wrote a screenplay for my senior thesis. And my advisor was a playwright named Romulus Linney, who was a great guy, who was actually Laura Linney's father, Laura Linney, the great actress. And he was really supportive of me and really helped me kind of get over the first hump of finishing that first script. I was also a journalist at Penn. I was actually writing sports for the daily paper there. So I had that training too, and ultimately decided screenwriting over journalism. But I think it's something that you don't have to have formal education to be a writer, that's for sure. Sometimes it helps. It's definitely a skill and a craft and you can learn things, but it really takes practice. You just have to keep working as like Malcolm Gladwell talks about that 10,000 hours.

Right, right. In the book Outliers. Yeah, yeah.

You've got to put in that time. That was the really gratifying thing about doing television is up until that point, working on my own schedule, it was easy to procrastinate. Once you're in TV and you got to do 22, 24 episodes a year, you just got to burn. And you get those 10,000 hours under your belt and you come out of that just with a whole other level of craft that you now have to lean on.

Sure, sure. And I know this is all over the board to answer this Question, but I'm just so curious and hopefully the listeners are too. How long does it take you, an experienced writer, to write one episode of the Last Ship, for example, or an entire movie? Well, I guess out of Range is really. I mean you'll write a screenplay as well, but it's taken from the novel. But how long does it take to do this work?

Well, it's funny because most people think of writing as probably being the process of sitting down and writing the script. And there's actually so much more that goes into it before you start that process. So to physically write the actual script of an episode of television can take 10 days. It can take as little as three or four days, but that's because all the legwork has been put in in the writer's room. Coming up with a storyline, going over every scene beat by beat and coming up with an outline. So by the time I sit down to actually write the script, the lion's share of the work is done. The hardest part of the work is done. And the fun part is actually writing a script where you're maneuvering within what you've done. You make changes, of course, as you go. You discover things in the scenes and with the characters.

Do you lay things out? Do you lay a storyboard out on the floor or on a wall? Or do you use a software program? There's a lot of those screenplay programs out there nowadays. How do you do it, the mechanics of that.

Most TV writers rooms have a cork board with pins, very old fashioned, and index cards. And on each index card is the scene, two or three lines about what the scene is. And you put those up on the board so you can see the whole story. And if you want to move the scenes around, you take, you take the index card off the pen and you move it to a different part of the board. And then when you feel like you've got it completed, you write it up into an outline and then you go to a script when you're writing a. That's standard for TV and it works really well. And you're working with other people. I do the same thing if I'm writing a script. And even for writing out of range of the book, I did the same thing where I had a cork board with every chapter plotted out. And then of course when you get into writing, you discover all kinds of things. So that's generally my process. I very rarely just sit down and start writing with an idea without knowing where I'm going. It's pretty hard to do that in a story that has to be intricately plotted. You kind of have to spend a bunch of time thinking about the story and the story points before you actually write.

Yeah. Good stuff. Well, this has been a very interesting discussion, Hank, and I appreciate you joining us and telling us about this. Do you have any websites that you want to direct people to?

Well, people can go to the HarperCollins website to check out out of Range and some books and of course Amazon.com it's up there and readily available. It's in all the Barnes and Nobles and a majority of probably local bookstores if people are browsing. And I will probably have a web page, an author page probably in the next couple days. But if you're looking to buy the book, Amazon.com is the easiest and HarperCollins.com fantastic.

Well, the book again is entitled out of Range and it's by Hank Steinberg. And Hank, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you.

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