Timing is Everything

A Conversation with Series 7 Writer-Director Daniel Minahan

by Paula Schwartz | Published February 3, 2007

Daniel Minahan, Brooke Smith and Donna Hanover

Dan Minahan with Brooke Smith and Donna Hanover from Series 7
Photo by DMI

Daniel Minahan is the 37-year-old writer-director of Series 7, a movie that takes reality TV to the ultimate Twilight Zone degree. In this show, five contestants are chosen by lottery to challenge a champion. The current champion, Dawn (Brooke Smith), eight months pregnant, is the ferocious queen on this bloody battlefield. She has already blown away 10 rivals. Her five challengers are chosen by lottery and notified by a knock on the door. Unlike Mission Impossible, there is no way to refuse this mission. Here, Minahan talks about reality television and the fine line that exists between writing entertainment and writing exploitation.

Paula Schwartz (MM): Did you have a crystal ball? How could anyone have better timing in planning a satire of reality television?

Daniel Minahan (DM): I feel like some idiot savant, like I just stumbled into this thing unknowingly. I didn't see the same thing Mark Burnett, saw of course. Mark Burnett is the guy who invented Survivor. He has this whole franchise. I saw reality TV as some kind of Orwellian "Big Brother."

MM: Is your timing basically luck, then?

DM: Yeah, I mean I wrote it in 1996. I could have made it in '96, but then it wouldn't have the same impact it has now.

MM: Let's clarify the rules: you don't choose to be in this show, and there are no money prizes?

DM: Exactly. It's a satire. It's a world where being famous is like a death sentence. And there's no money. I wanted to make it an inside-out world where it really was more about an invasion of privacy, and people just accept it. That was part of the humor of it, too.

MM: How did you come up with the opening of your film--where the very pregnant Dawn comes into a convenience store and blows away a customer?

DM: You see "Previously on The Contenders…," and it's the last kill of the previous series. So it's the last kill of Series 6. It seemed like a good way to just throw the audience off balance and get into the story immediately.

MM: How did you come up with image of a pregnant killer?

DM: It just seemed like the way to do it. That makes her instantly sympathetic. I just thought it up. I was thinking of westerns. Right after she shoots the guy you see her walking through town, alongside these strip malls and she's carrying her grocery bags and ready to move on. She's kind of like this outlaw.

MM: Talk about shooting that scene at a Qwik Mart in Danbury, Connecticut. Is it true people were just moving around the body?

DM: They didn't want to close for business. People just walked in. There were no signs saying this is a movie crew, people just kind of walked in, ordered their stuff and didn't really look down and bother to ask any questions. They must have seen the body because they stepped over him.

MM: Another scene that's really gripping is the mall scene. Talk about that scene.

DM: I felt like it was an important scene and when we first sold it to USA, the head of USA was concerned that maybe it was too strong. I said it was really important to me because it's the point in the film when it's not funny anymore. Up until that point, the film just kind of bubbles along and it has this crazy kind of inside-out logic to it and then, when the teenage girl is killed by the old man, it's not funny anymore. When we tested it in Santa Monica, everyone in the focus group noted that scene as their most memorable.

MM: Talk about shooting the film on video?

DM: I grew up making documentaries and shooting them on videotape. I know about shooting on tape and editing on tape. It seemed like the perfect marriage of a story with the subject matter.

MM: What are the disadvantages of shooting on digital?

DM: It's a whole extra step involved where you shoot on tape and then you blow it up to 35mm film and then, if you ever want to make any change to your print, you have to blow up another piece of tape and cut it in. It's a little bit complicated.

MM: Because of all the reality TV bag of tricks you use--the you-are-there action, the quick cuts, the commentary--do you think viewers may start to lose themselves and think maybe this is possible?

DM: Well, I hope so (laughing). The plot is really like a soap opera with all the people in it and the alliances and the ex-boyfriends.

MM: How does such a gentle guy like you have such a dark streak?

DM: I don't know. It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for. My professor in college used to say there are two kinds of film directors: the ones who want to please their parents and the ones who want to shock their parents.

MM: You mentioned somewhere that your mother hadn't seen it and you were a little concerned about how she would react. Has she seen it yet?

DM:She saw it at Sundance. She loved it. My friends kind of cornered her after the screening and said ‘Mrs. Minahan, what did you think? Did you love it?' She said, 'Well, I don't know if I can say that I loved it. I don't know if I would have seen this film if my son hadn't directed it.' And then it became known as 'the film only a mother could love'--that could go on the poster.

MM: In addition to Series 7, you also co-wrote I Shot Andy Warhol. Do you enjoy the screenwriting process?

DM: I hate writing. It's torture. And it's lonely. I really like collaborating with people. It's why I want to make movies. I love the whole craziness of it. It's like re-creating reality. It's re-creating a world and telling a story.

MM: What kind of reaction are you expecting?

DM: I hope this is the kind of movie that people go away from the theater seeing things differently… I'd like people to go out for a drink afterward and talk about it; argue about it.

MM: Do you think everyone will get it?

DM: It's like WWF--I think it's very accessible. I think the language of it is so accessible because it really walks you through the story just like a TV show.

MM: Some people will criticize the way you portray the young man dying of testicular cancer as insensitive. Are you concerned about that?

DM: That's really challenging because it's not making fun of cancer; there's nothing funny about cancer at all. But the way the media or television shows depict it, they manipulate the situation and the way it's talked about. That's what it's poking fun at. It just seemed the best way to criticize TV language was to do the same thing. Did I make a movie that's about exploitation or did I make a movie that's exploitative? I don't know.

MM: One final question: if you put Dawn and Richard Hatch on a desert island, who do you think would be left standing?

DM:: I don't know. Richard Hatch is a pretty tough cookie.

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