{"id":5783,"date":"2016-03-22T10:29:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T14:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/"},"modified":"2016-03-24T16:46:48","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T20:46:48","slug":"masterpieces-rebecca-eaton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/","title":{"rendered":"Masterpiece\u2019s Rebecca Eaton"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2016\/03\/1_RebeccaEaton.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-5809\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5809 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2016\/03\/1_RebeccaEaton.jpg\" alt=\"1_RebeccaEaton\" width=\"225\" height=\"274\" \/><\/a>Masterpiece on PBS has been delivering some of the U.K.\u2019s best dramas to American viewers every Sunday night since 1971. Rebecca Eaton, the executive producer of Masterpiece, has been with the service for most of its history. She tells <em>TV Drama<\/em> about filling the gap left by <em>Downton Abbey<\/em> and spotting compelling scripts and ideas amid the deluge of British drama on the market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0Now that\u00a0<em>Downton Abbey<\/em>\u00a0has come to an end, what is next for Masterpiece? What do you have in the pipeline?<br \/>\n<strong>EATON:<\/strong>\u00a0We saw the end of\u00a0<em>Downton<\/em>\u00a0way ahead of time, because our partners at Carnival Films and Julian [Fellowes] were talking about it and knew roughly when it would end. So we began to gear up some other projects a few years ago.\u00a0<em>Poldark<\/em>, for instance, with Mammoth Screen, captured a very solid audience, as did\u00a0<em>Grantchester<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>Home Fires<\/em>. They\u2019re all returning, as is\u00a0<em>Indian Summers<\/em>. And now we are buying into shows like\u00a0<em>Victoria<\/em>, which hopefully will be returning for many, many years. We have cleared the decks, making sure we can do the continuing series (if they\u2019re successful), and trying to bring on a new show at least once a year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you look for when assessing new projects?<br \/>\n<strong>EATON:<\/strong>\u00a0It is the unanswerable question! You never know. You can put together the recipe and collect the ingredients, and yet the souffl\u00e9 can fall flat. I look at the team that presents a project to us; that really opens up the conversation of who is going to be looking after this in terms of an executive producer. By the point at which we come in, there\u2019s usually a script, so clearly what I look for is a plot and the [quality of the] writing. When I say \u201cgood writing,\u201d what does that mean? It\u2019s not just good writing\u2014it has to be writing with wit and with heart and with substance. You would think that\u2019s easy to do, but it isn\u2019t! You could have wit and substance but no heart, wit and heart but no substance. So that\u2019s the sacred trinity for me in the writing. If I get a script that has all three, it has a team and the plot moves like a freight train, then I\u2019m comfortable and we can move on to the other things.<\/p>\n<p>The next hurdle is the casting. Whoever is doing the casting must have the sensibility that matches this witty, heartfelt, substantial script. And then you\u2019re setting production values and the rest of it. It can fall down at any point. The television program you make in your mind when you read a script as a co-producer is rarely the finished product. Sometimes [the finished product is] better, often it\u2019s different, and every now and then it\u2019s just not as good. How to pick the winners? Who knows. I do get a very strong feeling when I finally screen the first episode. That\u2019s the point at which you can take a deep breath, or you can have a sinking heart and think, Uh-oh, we need to get this out of the way as soon as possible! [<em>Laughs<\/em>]\n<p><strong>TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0How much creative input do you offer your partners as these shows are coming together?<br \/>\n<strong>EATON:<\/strong>\u00a0It varies tremendously. Every project is different. With some we come in very late and we\u2019re technically a co-producer. And there are others where we are in at the first pitch, before there is even a script. At the moment, I\u2019m dealing with projects all across the board. Sometimes we option books and find a British production company and then hire a writer, so we can come in at the point of initiating a project. We don\u2019t do that very often, but we\u2019re doing it currently with a book by Elizabeth Gilbert called\u00a0<em>The Signature of All Things<\/em>. We can come in at the very end after screening the final cut of something. When we come in very early, we\u2019re involved often in the choice of a writer, the cast and the director. Of course, our partners have the final decision on that because of the relative amount of money that we put in and what the [commissioning] broadcaster puts in. I give notes on drafts of the script, go to the set and begin to screen the cuts as they arrive. Sometimes we get dailies. We tend to do that less and less [during production]\u2014maybe just the first week to see if we\u2019re all on the same page. And then we work closely with our partners in terms of how to publicize the show.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0With so many American channels and platforms now in the market for British drama, it is harder for you to access the projects you want?<br \/>\n<strong>EATON:<\/strong>\u00a0People understand that we have a very solid audience who will watch anything we put on at 9 o\u2019clock on Sunday night. At least 5 million people will be there. That number can go up to 15 million people, as was the case with\u00a0<em>Downton<\/em>. We have a reputation as being a good, respectful partner, not an invasive and intrusive partner. I really believe that these projects are made by some of the best producers in the world. The best thing to do is leave them to it. Money talks, and if there is a project that HBO\u2014which has very deep pockets\u2014wants, or somebody with a lot of money goes after a project, we can\u2019t compete. But there is enough to go around at this point. We do 50 new hours of British drama a year. And we\u2019re nearly full up for 2016.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TV DRAMA:<\/strong>\u00a0Is the sheer volume of scripted coming out of the U.K. at present overwhelming?<br \/>\n<strong>EATON:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, it is. My eyeballs are spinning freely in my head from reading scripts! I used to have a development person who would read all the scripts. Then there got to be so few that we didn\u2019t hire her anymore; there was nothing coming in. Now I think I probably have ten on my queue at all times. And they\u2019re not scripts you can read and say, this is ridiculous. They\u2019re all serious possibilities. They\u2019re very different. We\u2019re still doing the period adaptations. We\u2019re now doing some contemporary material. There are a lot of new writers whose work I don\u2019t know. So they are all worthy of careful time and attention. I love it! That is one of my favorite parts of this job\u2014I love reading scripts and making the project in my head. People think you can read a script and it\u2019s easy. It\u2019s not. Even as you read you are casting it, doing the [set] design, shooting it, editing it. So it is quite overwhelming, and that\u2019s a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>Who knows what will happen in a year or two. There are so many changes at the BBC, so many changes at ITV, so many changes in technology and in the business models. It is a very unstable time in international television. A lot of this drama is very high end. The people who are writing, acting and directing are really good. That benefits the audience tremendously. It\u2019s a fact that Masterpiece has prided itself on first-rate British dramas. Will there come a time when there just aren\u2019t enough hours in a day and enough eyeballs to support all this drama? Most people don\u2019t spend 24 hours a day watching television. There is a limited amount of time you can spend watching tele\u00advision. What will be the fate of all this product? How will the audience, even with time shifting, be able to manage it? I don\u2019t know. It does seem a little unsustainable to me, and I speak from a focus group of one, myself, just trying to keep up with the [shows] I want to watch. And something\u2019s gotta give, as the old saying goes. With all this drama, I don\u2019t know how anybody can keep up in the numbers we need them to keep up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The executive producer who has been with the service for most of its history talks about filling the gap left by Downton Abbey and spotting compelling scripts and ideas amid the deluge of British drama on the market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":5784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,70],"tags":[596,595],"class_list":["post-5783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","category-top-stories","tag-masterpiece","tag-rebecca-eaton","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Masterpiece\u2019s Rebecca Eaton - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Masterpiece\u2019s Rebecca Eaton - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The executive producer who has been with the service for most of its history talks about filling the gap left by Downton Abbey and spotting compelling scripts and ideas amid the deluge of British drama on the market.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-22T14:29:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-03-24T20:46:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/2016-03-22-RebeccaEaton-web.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/\",\"name\":\"Masterpiece\u2019s Rebecca Eaton - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-03-22T14:29:50+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-03-24T20:46:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/masterpieces-rebecca-eaton\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Masterpiece\u2019s Rebecca Eaton\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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