"Better Call Saul": A Masterclass in Embracing Excellence

Every few weeks this thought letter will focus on something or somebody that the author believes is quotthe absolute best in the world bar nonequot and that is available to everybody for little to no cost that bears listening to watching or engaging one39s attention with Today it is a television series that will make you feel see and think differently about yourself other people how to look and listen and much more It is not just a great body of work but a work of art that will reverberate for yearsA case can be made that we are living in the greatest time for television There are nearly 500 scripted shows in the United States alone Modern digital tools and competition for content among a plethora of streaming services are enabling more voices and more shows to be more available to more people than ever beforeAt the same time our televisions are getting larger with better pictures and sound Listen with wireless headphones for a theater experience Streaming gives us the opportunity to eliminate commercials and to consume the storytelling on our own schedulesThe pantheon of great shows spans the world and include shows like Borgen The Bridge Fauda The Bureau and many more from outside the US and The Sopranos The Wire Mad Men and Breaking Bad from the USAnd then there is one that matches the quality of these legends but could be the best television series made to date A series that ended last week after six seasons spread over seven years and 63 episodes and is now available worldwide on Netflix and other platforms Better Call Saul the prequel to Breaking Bad which itself is usually on the list of the best two or three television shows everSaul tells the story of how one of the main characters of Breaking Bad a lawyer called Saul Goodman played by Bob Odenkirk came to be Over the years the prequel went from being very good to being equal to and then maybe better than the originalHow does one reach for excellence By focusing on five things that this television series personifies Emphasis on talent Culture of excellence and teamwork Attention to and sweating of details Aligning with and leveraging technology Respecting and trusting viewers1 It all begins with talent The show runners and much of the crew of Breaking Bad worked on Saul and many of the stars of the first show play roles on the new show joined by many new actors You begin with world class talent and stir in years of experience and you have magic2 Culture of excellence and teamwork Because of the quality of Breaking Bad talent of every sort wanted to work on Saul But it was not just the quality of Breaking Bad that attracted talent but also the atmosphere and culture of diversity fairness empowerment and teamwork that made for an amazing working atmosphere which made everyone jump at the opportunity to work on the new show There was an emotional buzz to every day of production that ran across everyone from the main stars to the carpenters working in the prop department This showed in the work You can feel it here in the outtakes on the last day of the set3 State of the art craft and attention to detail The late Roger Ebert quoted director Howard Hawks who said a good movie has quotThree great scenes No bad scenesquot As we get into the later seasons of Better Call Saul we have three or four or five great scenes in an hour and there is no single episode among the 63 episodes that will not make you stop and say quotI have never seen anything like that beforequot or quotHow did they do thatquot From scripts that are written by wordsmiths who do think visually to casting that is perfect to editing and lighting that moves you this show has it all The attention to detail includes the need for space and silenceHere is an article in the Wall Street Journal titled How quotBetter Call Saulquot Redefined the Art of Television It contains this quote quotThe visual language of Saul begins with its writers Their breakdowns of how scenes should look are more extensive than those in typical TV scripts 39A lot of people think writing is about dialogue but for us it39s the spaces in between the dialogue that are the most important39 series creator Vince Gilligan saysquot4 Leveraging technology This show looks different because of its Breaking Bad history and its focus on movie theater screens versus television screens quotIn its final episodes the prequel has caught up to the timeline of Breaking Bad 39When that show first hit cable in 2008 more and more viewers had flat widescreen TV sets in their homes but many TV directors had not yet abandoned techniques used for oldfashioned squarish screens39 says Mr Gilliganquot39Everyone was still framing claustrophobically tight39 Mr Gilligan recalls 39For today39s TV screens with similar proportions to cinema screens I wanted to frame in the way John Ford and Akira Kurosawa did to crib from two of the greats We tried to make Breaking Bad look as much as we could like a western39 quotSaul also set in Albuquerque NM premiered in 2015 Before production started Messrs Gilligan and Gould presented a slideshow for their crew with images from films they wanted to use for inspiration They included 197039s The Conformist known for director Bernardo Bertolucci39s unique angles and framingquotBecause the later seasons of Better Call Saul were produced a decade after Breaking Bad ended the better technology truly enhances the visual aspects of the storytelling Here is just one scene less than two minutes long that took days of filming5 Respecting trusting viewers Some of the best art and storytelling in the world is effective for what it leaves out or does not depict as much as what it leaves in or depicts Many of the most powerful scenes and storytelling in Better Call Saul trusts the audience to connect the dots and fill in the blanks More is less when you respect the audienceNot only is Better Call Saul among the best if not the best television show but it39s companion podcast is possibly the best free master class one can get on every aspect of how excellence is sculpted Unlike other podcasts about television shows this one is unique in what it covers and who appears in it First it is not about what happened in each episode but on how the episode was crafted Not the entire episode but maybe two or three key scenes Second the creators of the show Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould participate in each podcast and the guests are not just the actorsactresses but makeup artists sound engineers editors directors of photography script writers location scouts prop creators music choreographers and the entire spectrum of talent that goes into the making of the showIt is a master class that will blow your mind on not just how this show is made but how stories are told and the details that go into each minute You will never ever see feel or listen to anything you watch in the same way A master class on how a masterpiece is created minute by minute block by block by the people who crafted the masterpiece speaking in English for nonexperts Here are links to the podcast on Spotify and Apple but it is available free of cost and free of advertising and promotional interruptions on every major podcast platform Watch an episode of TV and then listen to an episode of the podcastIn the end what made Better Call Saul was its delicate and nuanced understanding of humanity It combined the quest and search of Homer39s Odyssey with the comedy of The Simpsons39amp160 Homer Simpson It mixed tragic elements of Shakespeare with the uplifting elements of the redemptive power of love The complexity of individuals and the forever journey of becoming It was a series that was constrained in one way that it needed be true to its sequel but as the best creative people have always stated there is nothing as powerful as a tightly constrained brief to unleash the powers of imagination and storytellingIn one way this is much ado about a fictional story and a television show But in the end that is all we are We are stories and one person is many storiesJoan Didion wrote quotWe tell ourselves stories in order to livequot Like most great art Better Call Saul makes you feel more alive when interacting with it and transforms your perspectives long after the experienceClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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"Better Call Saul": A Masterclass in Embracing Excellence

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Rishad Tobaccowala

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"Better Call Saul": A Masterclass in Embracing Excellence

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