#had a breakdown while drawing VA properly

[ohnogodpls]

Mini-golf on the express

[sol1056]

What really bothers me about VLD is the disrespect the EPs had for their own staff. Their staff wrote a season where Shiro was the Black Paladin, and they not only changed major plot points - they were too lazy to properly rewrite the script. No wonder half the writing team left mid production, they were tired of their hard work being completely undermined and underrated by their self-centered bosses.

IWell, the first thing to note is that getting stuff written out from under you… happens. Things change; the execs get arbitrary or retire and the new one has different ideas, responding to the market/fanbase (ie an unexpectedly popular character), responding to trends (ie shows with girls are hot right now), responding to current events (ie skip the ep with the school shooting), VA death or unavailability, budget (ie cut the fight scene), and sometimes it’s just “we had this awesome idea and we got the go-ahead.” 

Some of those things, a head writer (or a really good EP) can see coming and will adjust in advance. But not all of them, and that’s just the nature of serial creation. Admittedly, you’d think a series like VLD — which is not broadcast weekly, but in seasonal drops — wouldn’t bother as much to adjust for the vagaries of things like scheduling, trends, or fanbase response. With the need to drop an entire season at once, theoretically it’d work much further in advance. 

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be some changes, along the way. All you can hope for is that the vision you were following doesn’t get gutted, and then your name stuck on something that the fandom loathes or the critics panned.  

However, I wanted to call out this particular bit: “half the writing team left mid production,” because there’s more to unpack, there. 

There have only been two points of turnover on the staff. One was in S3, when May Chan left the staff (I think she’s listed as staff writer on all S3 episode credits, but her IMDB credits end at S3E2) and Mitch Iverson moved from script coordinator to staff writer (starting with S3E4). The second was somewhere mid-S7, when Hedrick left and Hamilton became story editor. 

That, though, raises a more interesting point: from S1 to halfway through S7, there were never more than two staff writers (Hamilton and Chan/Iverson) and one head editor/writer (Hedrick). As of the end of S7, the writing team consists of one story editor (Hamilton) and one staff writer (Iverson).    

Here’s the breakdown of episode credits, including non-writing staff (EP, director) and freelance (per union reqs). 

Hedrick has 18 “written by” listings, and Hamilton has 20. Iverson has 9.5 and May Chan has 6.5, since they share credit for S7E1. Here’s what it looks like if we break out by season for what the writing staff (dark tone) produced, versus what they tagged freelancers (light tone) to write. 

Given Iverson and Hedrick were also writing the comics, the bulk of that work might’ve been going on while S4 (what became S5-S6) was being written. That would be reason to tap more freelancers to fill in the gaps. 

To compare, let’s look at another American cartoon of similar length as VLD currently (65 episodes). Avatar: the Last Airbender clocked in at 66 episodes, so it’s a good comparison. Here’s the writing credits for all three seasons. 

Of those names, six are staff writers. In 2005 (not including Ehasz as head writer), there were 4 staff writers; in 2006, Eagan left and Hamilton joined, so still 4 staff writers. In 2007, Chan joined, and the writers’ team was 5 people for the last half of the series. 

(Note: 7 names have half-credit to differentiate them as having written a segment of Tales of Ba Sing Se; some of them wrote their segments jointly. Almost every segment-writer was part of the production staff, ie directors or coordinating producers.)   

I mentioned “tapping freelancers” but if you break down the actual number of episodes written by non-staff, it comes to about 20% for both productions. It seems VLD shoved the majority of that 20% into S2 and what would’ve been S4 (current S5-S6). 

I’d need to compare to other series, but it seems AtLA considered 4-5 staff writers to be a good setup, plus writer’s assistants (which VLD doesn’t have). Additionally (and most curiously), VLD had a script coordinator (Iverson) for S1-S2, but when he moved onto the writer’s team, it appears no new script coordinator was hired to replace him. 

Which means, basically: VLD cut corners on its story the most. It expected a staff of 3 (or 2) to produce, edit, and coordinate everything. That’s madness — and that’s without counting side-line products like comic books. No wonder the chapter books and vlog scripts were farmed out. 

Considering VLD’s production from that angle, I couldn’t blame Hamilton and Iverson (the two remaining staff) from opting to reuse as much as they could. Even if they had time to rewrite, would they have had the cycles it takes to re-envision from first version to new? 

With all that in mind, if the two writers sat down and said, “okay, we’ve got to rewrite everything ‘cause JDS has this idea to redo it from the top…” I’m not sure I could blame them for cutting and pasting dialogue. In their shoes, I’d probably have to accept I’d need to do the same. 

I’d hate every minute of it, and I’d feel like I was betraying the story I’d spent so much time on, and gutting the characters, but… you gotta pick your battles. And sometimes, a job is what pays the bills, and you gotta draw the line or it’ll make you go crazy. 

You do what Hedrick, Iverson, and Hamilton have done — and what the EPs seem constitutionally incapable of doing — which is: you smile, you retweet for promotion, you say nice things in interviews, you mention nothing of the long nights or the migraines or the times you really wanted to punch someone in the face. You find a close circle of friends you can complain to over drinks, then you pack that away and move on. 

Not gonna lie, you do move on, but most people — it’s only human — may also sometimes daydream of telling what really went on. To someone, anyone, just for the record, so posterity doesn’t think they suck as writers. 

So, maybe we’ll get lucky after S8 drops, when the silence can be broken and we can hear what led to what we got. Until then? Just us and the crickets.