BRIEF PLUS: J.J. Abrams—The Art of the Franchise

As the broadcast industry struggles for viewers, the emergence of J.J. Abrams has given new life to the
term “television franchise.” From early shows such as “Felicity” and “Alias” to the much-heralded arrival of
“Lost” and “Fringe,” the executive producer and composer has not only received multiple Emmys for the
quality of his work, he has also delivered the coveted hype and anticipation to the launch of his shows.
One of a handful of producers who are now household names, Abrams now boasts a six-year television
production deal with Warner Bros., the first result of which is “Fringe,” as well as a five year film deal with
Paramount worth a reported $55 million.
He recently took time from his work on ABC’s “Lost” and Fox’s “Fringe,” as well as one of entertainment’s
greatest franchises in the upcoming “Star Trek” movie, to talk about the art of branding with brief editor
Chris Pursell. In the interview, Abrams discussed the future of big-budget television shows, his approach
to marketing, why he would happily take a job in music and his role juggling both the business and
creative elements that go into a tentpole series.
How involved are you in marketing and is marketing more or less important now than ten years
ago?
J.J. ABRAMS: I think ten years ago it was a real anomaly to see shows advertised using outdoor
medium as you do now. You never saw TV shows have previews in the movie theater; there really was
no online advertising at all. Promotion of TV shows used to be: you watched that network; you are going
to see an ad for an upcoming season or week, but now it’s become with magazines and outdoor and
Internet, the promotion of TV shows has become a multi-billion dollar ordeal every year and marketing is
definitely more important just because it’s in use in a way it wasn’t ten years ago.
But my involvement on “Fringe” for example, I could not be more grateful or impressed by what Fox did
on that show. They really came up with wonderful creative that reflected what we were doing in the show
and then we were collaborating with them where it was a real dialogue at the very beginning where we
would be responding to one another in a wonderful way that was an example of incredible and inspired
creative working to sell something they were genuinely enthused about and I think you can see it in what
they did.
ABC, meanwhile, on both “Lost” and “Alias,” did an incredible job. The ratings for “Lost” were as good as
they were not because everyone had seen the show and knew about it and liked it, and not because the
reviews had been out there. It was because ABC made the show look compelling, they did an amazing
job with a great outdoor campaign that had pathos and emotion and it looked like an event. My
involvement with these things varies but I am deeply involved in how things get sold, especially on the
film side.
The sale of the idea, which is not just about the poster or the advertisements, but it’s also about the timing
of the release of information. All of that is something I think is critical, and I’m involved in that as I can be.
At what point in the process do you think about marketing?
J.J. ABRAMS: I tend to work from the inside out, trying to figure out what it is that gets me genuinely
excited because whenever there is something that is honestly and purely thrilling from the inside, there is
invariably a way to externalize that, to create a message and deliver it. People just feel that there is
something interesting there because there was something interesting to the people who created it.
Rather than looking at it from the outside in, thinking “Ok, what would be a cool commercial?” or “What
would be an interesting image that would be compelling?” I think that for better or worse, try to look on the
thing that grabs you at the onset at its essence. In a way, the marketing of that thing ended up being an
outgrowth of that.
Where do you see the future of big budget dramas either on the air or online?
J.J. ABRAMS: I think obviously, especially with the economics of today, big budget anything is making it
less and less possible for people to take those risks for those kinds of projects. That’s not to say there
aren’t models of it, there are people who say that when times get tough, people turn to TV for comfort. But
in terms of big budget shows like “Heroes” (and) “Lost” certainly where enormous budgets are spent, I
think it’s true with some shows that don’t even look like they would be that expensive, but we are still
spending three, four, five, sometimes even six million dollars to do an episode of a television show that’s
an hour.
Now if you factor in the amortization of that and you double it to be a two-hour movie, you could be talking
about easily a $50 million dollar movie every week. That’s lunacy. Meaning that you can’t do too many
shows like that, and if you do a show like that, it had better work, otherwise it’s a big expense. I think the
challenge of shows like that are numerous, including making a pilot that is so elaborate that the series
can’t live up to that and then (what) you end up doing (is) basically you are cheating the audience out of
something. You can’t have the famous action director, like McG, direct every episode of the show. So you
do the pilot and you marvel at all that amazing energy and then week to week you realize it is really a
whole other thing.
So, the challenge is to figure out how to do a show that is from the beginning true to the show and
maintain a consistent feel and a look. I think what’s going to happen is budgets will have to come down
but it can never go back to the early days of TV. It probably can’t go back to a time when they would do
36 episodes a year and they would shoot an episode in five days. No one would accept a show now that
looks the way “Dynasty” did when it was on the air. The question is how do you take the limitations and
turn them into an advantage and do something for less money that embraces the aesthetic those
limitations create, which is what we did on “Cloverfield.”
We decided to do a movie that which when you read the script you think this is a $150 million movie. We
had to find a way to do it for under $25 million and accomplished that by embracing the aesthetic of the
videotape from the single-cam point of view. That let us do a movie that let us have a huge monster, had
all these crazy scares. It did it in a way that didn’t require a kind of expense that would have made that
movie ungreenlightable.
Coming off the successes of “Fringe” and “Lost,” how do stay inspired as both a creative as well
as a businessman?
J.J. ABRAMS: It’s a dream to do these shows, these movies and work with these people. I’m still
shocked that I get to do it. The inspiration usually comes from a feeling about a character or a situation.
Sometimes it’s incredibly singular and small such as “Felicity.” I knew I wanted to do a story about a
young woman, a girl who follows a boy to a college she never would have gone to, and in the process of
doing that, discovers her past somehow. I didn’t quite know what that meant or how that would look, but I
knew there was that idea or character who was that romantic that she would do something that foolish.
“Alias” was really inspired by wanting to take that premise, that “Felicity” model, and say “God, if she was
a spy than that would really be fun.” The double life idea was compelling.
“Lost” it was Lloyd Braun calling me saying he wanted to do a show about survivors of a plane crash and I
called him back and said “You’re not going to like what I’m going to pitch you because it’s very weird but
here’s the idea.” He said “I like it” and we came up with the specifics of the show. A lot of that was
inspired by what the challenge was and desperately wanting to see something that is not out there.
What is it that inspires you?
J.J. ABRAMS: There is no one thing but it is the magic of the process. It is the idea of creating a story
that the people will believe. It’s like doing a magic trick, taking something that’s not real, that is an illusion
that seems incredible, and making people feel that it’s real. It could be a very straight forward drama, it
could be comedic, horrific, science fiction, it could be anything. The process of filmmaking is the thing I’ve
always known that I’ve wanted to do, which is why I feel so lucky that I’ve been given a chance.
Walk us through the process of creating music for your series…
J.J. ABRAMS: I’ve always thought that music is at least 51% of the experience of a movie or a show. So
it’s always been really important to me. It’s one of the reasons I do the theme songs to the shows that I’ve
done. It’s because I would love the music and no one would ever ask me to do the theme for a TV show.
So if anyone ever asked me to do a theme for another TV show, I’d be thrilled.
But the fun of doing a theme is setting a certain kind of tone for what the show is. It’s like making a great
little theme song and the best ones ever are some of the best recorded music ever, like the “Sanford &
Son” theme song is spectacular. It’s one of the greatest things ever.
Anyway, the scores for the shows themselves, we have since “Alias” been collaborating with Michael
Giacchino, who has also done the movies I’ve directed and recently produced, and he’s as good as they
get. He’s sort of the next generation of composers.
What are the keys to establishing a franchise or branding in a multimedia world with so much
competition out there?
J.J. ABRAMS: I think that one of the important aspects of approaching the work you do is not to
consider the branding at all.
The real brand is the result of the work of making something that feels particularly exciting or high quality.
Brand loyalty is the result of simply doing something that is of value to people whether it’s a product or a
movie, story or song.
For me, branding is more of a by-product and less of a goal.
Speaking of brand loyalty, you’ve now inherited “Star Trek” as well as the avid fan base that goes
with it.
J.J. ABRAMS: As someone who was not an avid “Star Trek” fan as a kid, my approach was less about
absolute and pure reverence to what came before, as it was appreciation that I need to revere what came
before. That means that I didn’t have that natural sense of “Oh my God, I must follow every aspect of
Trek canon moving forward.”
On the other hand, I knew it was critical to fans of that universe, and I couldn’t do something that was
blasphemy to them. One of our writers Roberto Orci is a massive “Star Trek” fan, so he was keeping me
honest the whole time in that regard.
As far as the brand is concerned, I think maybe the advantage I had coming into it is that I think I saw
“Star Trek” more the way the average moviegoer sees “Star Trek” and less the way a devotee sees it.
That made it easier for me to pinpoint things that I felt were the most important things to be true to. For
example, I knew I wanted the look of “Star Trek” to feel like it was of the original series and yet withstand
the high resolution of seeing the movie in IMAX. I wanted it to have elements that I knew were iconic to
that franchise like the shape of the Enterprise. I wanted to do something that die-hard fans would go
“Ooh, that’s a little bit different. That’s not the Enterprise I know.” But at the same time, at first glance,
know that it was the Enterprise and have people who have never seen “Star Trek” but are somehow
genetically are born with this knowledge of Kirk and Spock to be able to glance at the Enterprise and
glance at the wardrobe or even glance at the fonts and know that was “Star Trek.”
But if you actually look at it, there is something about it that isn’t exactly what you remember. That’s just
because if we literally used the same wardrobe or design of the original series, it would literally look like a
campy joke.
So I think the key to doing “Star Trek” is the following: maintain elements that you know you cannot and
should not change, and be true to that and even more than that, be true to making what you consider to
be a great movie. The more important thing is to be relevant to today and to now, because if you simply
let yourself be led by or serve the master of what has come before, you are immediately backwards
looking and the odds of doing something that is truly relevant, compelling, impactful, exciting and of now
are very small. It’s critical that you allow the process to be inspired by what’s come before, but you have
to use that as one of a number of criteria that guide you creatively. If you’re only serving that, you are
probably going to be not just limiting your audience, but limiting the potential of what it is you are working
on.