Although fans of shows like
Community
and
American Dad
may already be familiar with Jordan Blum’s words, they may not be used to seeing them spoken by the man himself — until now.
Starting at 7 p.m., Blum, an OU alumnus, will join the collected OU students in Baker University Center via Skype after they view a handful of his episodes.
“I hope I can give them some interesting insight on the TV shows they enjoy and teach them how the sausage is made,” Blum said. “I think there are a lot of misconceptions about TV writers’ rooms. I know I had a bunch until I got to be in them. I still get asked, ‘Who writes the jokes for Abed or Roger the alien?’ The answer is we all do. TV is really collaborative and a pretty unique writing process.”
Hosted by Kirby Woolever and Jason Flood, seniors studying film and video production, Woolever was able to get this event together after he met Blum during the School of Media Arts Los Angeles Spring Break program last year. He felt it would be a great opportunity to get to have him speak to the current students of OU.
“One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is the reaction of people who weren't on the trip,” Woolever said. “We have so many alumni in Los Angeles and a lot of them are doing really well. When we were out there Jordan was working for
American Dad
and now he's also on
Community
. I hope the we not only get questions about the shows involved, but the industry as a whole.”
Flood said the seniors will show one episode from the current season of
American Dad
and two episodes from the recently completed season of
Community
. All three, of which, Blum helped write.
“What I am most looking forward to is to learn more about the writing process of
Community
,” Flood said. “I am also excited to just get to watch
Community
on a huge screen.”
In addition to hearing his stories, Woolever, Flood and especially, Blum said they hope students can walk away with the better understanding of how they can network and work their way into the television writing business. In fact, one of the reasons Woolever decided to put this event together was because he was planning to go to LA himself to film a documentary in September.
“Also, if any of the people attending are interested in pursuing writing and moving to LA, I hope I can guide them to avoid the many, many mistakes I made along the way,” Blum said. “And also maybe towards the few good decisions I made as well.”
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@thewillofash
