This is fabulous! I especially like the idea ME was working on in 1998 called Grampire. Grampire, a feature film family comedy about "two kids who suspect their grandfather is a creature of the night" That sounds hilarious!

electricspacegirl | May 24, 02:24 CET

Wow! Sounds like Ats was desperate for writers. I should have sent them my idea written in crayon on the back of an envelope.

And no wonder Marti Noxon always has a smile on her face, you'd be happy at work if every other week they promoted you!

zz9 | May 24, 03:01 CET

Saved that one for a rainy day. Great work.

Caroline | May 24, 03:05 CET

That was awesome. I wonder how much time it took him to do that?

400lb_Gorilla | May 24, 03:37 CET

Great Post! We should appoint Occipital as the Official ME Historian.

Invisible Green | May 24, 03:46 CET

Now just how does one get a job like that? If only I could get in on a Great Brains or a Mutant Enemy just before they make it big and then ride that wave. That'd rock. I'm going to all the wrong parties and rubbing elbows with all the wrong people.

ZachsMind | May 24, 06:09 CET

I presume 'ankled' means fired? Cause I wasn't sure about that one...

talented_bink | May 24, 07:11 CET

This seems like a weird question to ask, but what are the jobs entailed in all these positions? I'm not a TV person, and I have no idea what it means to be an exec. story editor, or an executive producer as opposed to a co-executive producer or a consulting producer...

mchan | May 24, 09:53 CET

Would Ocipital mind if we included that in the WhedonWiki?

Caroline | May 24, 10:01 CET

Rankings, low to high:
Staff Writer (No specific credit, other than "written by" when applicable)
Story Editor
Executive Story Editor
Co-Producer
Producer
Supervising Producer
Co-Executive Producer
Executive Producer

Generally, a writer is promoted one step each year, but obviously promotions come sooner for those who show extraordinary promise.

Some shows use a "Co-Supervising Producer" rank, but ME doesn't.

Also mentioned in this piece are "Script Coordinator" (Mere Smith) and "Script Supervisor" (David H. Goodman). I don't know exactly what the script coordinator does, but the script supervisor is the guy who sits in a chair next to the director with a copy of the script, and his job is to make sure that the director doesn't forget anything.

Invisible Green | May 24, 10:38 CET

"That was awesome. I wonder how much time it took him to do that?"

Me too. Actually wrote a lot of it as I went along, some of the paragraphs are lifted from some old posts I made. That was all quite quick cos you pick up a lot of knowldge about the principal writers, though I wish i'd kept a bibliography. Some of the minor writers took quite a bit of research to find out about. This was actually pretty much finished 3 months ago, but I thought I'd wait to see what was happening with the Angel staff before I posted it.

"I presume 'ankled' means fired? Cause I wasn't sure about that one... "

It's variety slang, but its actually quite useful because its a word that English lacks, namely saying someone departed a show without emphasing whose idea it was to leave. So it means both sacked and resigned. Its very useful since its almost impossible to find out if someone was actually fired.

"This seems like a weird question to ask, but what are the jobs entailed in all these positions? I'm not a TV person, and I have no idea what it means to be an exec. story editor, or an executive producer as opposed to a co-executive producer or a consulting producer... "

Mainly it just means more money. The ranking is
Staffwriter
Story Editor
Executive Story Editor
Co-Producer
Producer
Supervising Producer
CoExecutive Producer
Executive Producer

and Consulting Producer is a part time job. The main issues of the position is Co-Producers and higher get to be part of the casting process for their episodes, and the highest ranked avalible writer will in charge of the writers room. The ranks are mainly arbitary, and the titles meaningless. writers are guaranteed one promotion a year upto the rank of CoExec, and normally keep their rank or thereabouts into their next job

"Would Ocipital mind if we included that in the WhedonWiki?"

Would be honoured

Ocipital | May 24, 10:45 CET

Ocipital and Invisible Green -> Thanks...so that means that all those titles are all kind of meaningless? Well, aside from Joss's title...

mchan | May 24, 10:54 CET

That was great read and it explains seventh season of BTVS.

ilanit | May 24, 11:32 CET

Cool, thanks Ocipital.

Caroline | May 24, 12:34 CET

Thanks Ocipital, that was a very good read and very enlightening. I didn't realize just how many writers had been involved and I didn't realize how desperate Ats was for writers for awhile there. Makes it even more surprising at how good the seasons were considering the lack of writers. Also amazing that Joss Whedon was able to juggle so much at once.

Firefly Flanatic | May 24, 20:22 CET

Amazing & remarkably thorough. Great to have all this information in one place. Just to let you know, Scott Murphy stated that he left Angel to work with Miramax on a feature script of his. This is archived at the Bronze VIP

section.http://www.cise.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/hsiao/buffy/get-archive?date=20011204

Also, Brent Fletcher wrote AtS 5.10 'Soul Purpose' which I believe is the only writer you missed.

Again, this is just awesome. It really gives a sense of history & scope to the series production.

Unitas | May 24, 20:49 CET

Scott Murphy was one of my favorite writers. Too bad he only did two episodes.

Invisible Green | May 24, 21:06 CET

"Amazing & remarkably thorough. Great to have all this information in one place. Just to let you know, Scott Murphy stated that he left Angel to work with Miramax on a feature script of his. This is archived at the Bronze VIP "

Cheers for that, Murphy was one of the hardest writers to get any info on at all (the name is somewhat common). Though Ty King was equally hard to find any info on till I found out his real name (think Buffy is the only time he's credited as Ty)

"Also, Brent Fletcher wrote AtS 5.10 'Soul Purpose' which I believe is the only writer you missed."

Yeah I was getting a bit bored towards the end since it only happened 6 months ago, and was pretty sloppy with that. Brent Fletcher is another of the Strange World refugees by the way

Ocipital | May 24, 22:40 CET

Now archived at WhedonWiki and ready for (more) wikification.

Caroline | May 25, 00:02 CET

Oh speaking of WhedonWiki I tried to get in there and I either don't remember my password or I never knew I had one. I think it might be the latter but I could be mistaken.

ZachsMind | May 25, 07:41 CET

Now endorsed by Tim Minear:

Just read Ocipitial's "brief history..."

And I must say -- wow. I'm impressed. A very fine and accurate chronology.

Yay Ocipital

Simon | May 25, 10:13 CET

Lots of fun facts to know and tell. Some very nice work, Ocipital.

Smo | May 25, 11:49 CET