Tyler is a comedian, actress, talk show and podcast host, a voice on the animated series “Archer,” and she's about to direct her first film; David O. Russell and other prominent directors talk about the important job of script supervisor.
Aisha Tyler on transcending failure and the 'pure comedy math' of 'Archer'
Aisha Tyler has what she refers to as "all the jobs."
Most people know her as the voice of crime-fighting, take-no-prisoners Lana Kane on FX's animated show "Archer." She's also a daytime talk show host on CBS's “The Talk,” the host of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and has a recurring role in the police crime drama “Criminal Minds.”
What else? She has a podcast, she's written books, she does standup and now she's directing her first feature-length film. "Axis" is a micro-budget thriller, funded through Kickstarter, about an actor trying to turn his afflicted life around.
Tyler visited The Frame to talk with John Horn about her many pursuits and the philosophy of embracing failure that has driven her forward.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Is it important to you not to do the same thing every day over and over? Are you someone who needs variety?
Yeah. It's not like I woke up one day and was like, my prescription for happiness is diverse pursuits. I think I looked back and was like, oh, I'm clearly happier when I'm on the verge of cardiac arrest. I used to worry that if I wasn't having a dynamic life, then I wouldn't have anything to talk about.
You wouldn't have material.
Yeah, experiences that are meaningful. I think art comes out of meaningful experiences, and it's hard to make art when your meaningful experience is getting into your electric car and driving from your fancy house in the Hills to your fancy job in the Valley. I think the thing I fear most in life is waking up one day and not feeling challenge — feeling ambivalent or glib about what I have to do that day.
That gets us to the whole idea of failure. You wrote a book called "Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation." The premise is, if you don't fail, you're not pushing yourself. Is that something you learned the hard way, or looking back?
As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing. It is integral to the process of becoming a comedian, getting up on stage and performing to silence. You don't get better until you get creatively and mentally tough, and it's only those moments that make you funny.
I want to hear about "Axis," a micro-budget movie you're funding through Kickstarter. It's your feature-length directorial debut. As you're thinking about how you would direct other actors, do you think about the people who were horrible to work for, and how you'll avoid it — or the people who brought out good performances and how you want to imitate that?
When I decided I wanted to direct, I spent as much free time as I could shadowing directors. That was a big part of my life, approaching directors I respected and asking to spend time with them on set. I shadowed on "The Wire," on "24," on "Vikings," on shows I was on. I watched them work and asked so many questions. There are so many aspects to filmmaking that are not about talking to actors. Everything from where you put the camera to whether you want the statue to wear this belt or this slightly thinner brown belt.
My favorite directors to work with are actors who've become directors. You have a shorthand with each other.
And your movie is about an actor.
Yeah, the script was presented to me, but I was drawn to the story. It resonates for me. The actor in the story is someone who was very successful and then wrecked his life through his own personal failings — addiction and self-abuse — and he's trying to put his life back together.
And we talked about failure. I think people who are trying to transcend difficulty, extraordinary circumstances — that story has always been meaningful. It's why we still have action movies. I mean, "Die Hard" is a movie about a regular guy trying to save his marriage. And he goes to pretty extreme lengths to do so.
As an artist, I'm most interested in people's frailty. I prefer people to be human. That idea really interests me — someone who's fully human, but is also trying to transcend the frailties of their humanity in specific ways.
You've been doing your podcast "Girl on Guy" for about 5 years now. You've talked to a lot of very interesting, creative, accomplished people. In some ways, is that a way for you to learn about what makes people click? Is it like a way to see how creative successful people got where they are?
Absolutely. ... I just recorded an episode with Viola Davis. She came from incredible poverty, abject conditions as a child. How did she get to be the Viola Davis that she is now? When I listen to stories like that, it helps me process and organize how I see my own life. And — here's Tony Robbins! — just to know that I can transcend. You hear how someone like that has battled back against extraordinary conditions to become this person, and in fact those conditions made her who she is today.
I want to ask about "Archer" and playing the character Lana Kane, and what that's meant to you and your career. What has that helped you accomplish in your career outside of that show?
"Archer" is one of the purest expressions of creation that I've been involved in, and that means it's just about the voice. There are no props or an environment in which to bolster your performance. It's pure comedy math. How do I say this line in the funniest way possible? That has hopefully sharpened me as a comedian. I'm in constant awe of the team behind the show. For people who don't know, we're never in the same room together and they cobble these conversations together so they feel real. And [creator] Adam [Reed]'s mind is like a wild labyrinth. He's the king of the obscure reference.
I want to come back to your book. Can you think of something that happened to you that was an epic fail that made you a better person?
Oh God, so many. ... I opened for Maceo [Parker], who was James Browns's musical sidekick for many years, in Santa Cruz in the mid-'90s, and I just — I mean, the thundering wall of boo was impenetrable. I couldn't do any material to win them over because they couldn't hear me. But I had to get it out because you didn't get paid if you didn't stay onstage for your allotted time. They wanted Maceo or Mo'Nique and neither of those people were going to come out. So I powered through and it just made me mentally tough.
Prince was booed off the stage when he opened for The Rolling Stones. People were throwing stuff at him.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team! I mean, what those experiences tell you is it's mental and creative tenacity that wins the day. You just have to get back up. My favorite quote is from "Rocky V." It's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you can get hit. That's definitely been a mantra for me in my career. The people that are still here are the people that just didn't stop.
Tracy Scott and the invisible art of script supervision
There are so many people behind the movies we love, and often they don't get the widespread recognition they deserve.
For example, Tracy Scott had some amazing credits. They included five movies that were nominated for the best picture Academy Award. She worked on David O. Russell’s “American Hustle,” Spike Jonze’s “Her,” Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air,” and Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash,” among many others.
Scott was considered one of the very best at her craft, but she worked in a job that not a lot of people recognize or even really understand.
She was a script supervisor.
It’s one of those credits that goes by in a blur at the end of the movie, somewhere around best boy, grip and Foley artist. But like so many of these below-the-line positions, script supervisor is a critical job, working alongside a director — often right by his or her side — virtually every minute of a film shoot.
Scott died last Saturday in Florida from breast cancer. She was 46 years old. Some of the filmmakers with whom she worked joined us on the show to talk about the skills that make for a good script supervisor, plus all the qualities that made Tracy Scott a great one.
Interview Highlights:
Peter Landesman, "Concussion":
When you work on your first feature and you think you might know what a script supervisor does or doesn't do, how are you educated into what the job really entails? What surprised you about the responsibility that a script supervisor has?
A script supervisor's job is to keep you honest and to remind you of you, essentially. When you're directing and shooting — last night I was shooting from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m., and at 4 a.m., you start to lose track of things, you forget and get exhausted — they're there to remind you of all the things you already want to be.
If somebody were to look at a screenplay as marked up by a script supervisor, it would appear to be written in a non-English language, but those notations are incredibly important. What does the script supervisor notate, and why is it so important to what happens after a day of shooting is finished?
A script supervisor delivers a — basically a novel — of notes to the editor, about matches of shots and screen directions, the technicalities that an audience might never metabolize when they're watching a movie, because the movie's cut together smoothly and with continuity.
A lot of that is due to the script supervisor, who sends notations and ideas about how scenes can cut together, how looks are matched, how performances are matched. But script supervisors also applies times of the day to every moment in the screenplay, even when it's not relevant to the story.
I remember looking at one of Tracy's pages once, and from scene to scene I saw "6:34 a.m." and "7:52 a.m." and "9:26 p.m.." I wrote the screenplay, but believe you me, I'm not thinking about times of the day when I'm writing, and certainly not when I'm directing, but she is. She applies a certain level of organization to a movie that not even the writer or the director has in mind.
She imagines characters as real people stepping out of their shower and into their clothes, into their car, at work, and makes sure that everything makes sense. It doesn't need to be in the movie that way, but she's the last line of defense between you and creative anarchy.
This isn't a job that gets a lot of credit, and people like Tracy aren't well-known outside of Hollywood. What are the satisfactions for script supervisors? Why do people go into this field?
It's one of the few jobs in the industry that someone does because they absolutely love the craft. They love the work, the sweat, the long hours, and they love rolling up their sleeves to make something better, even if no one outside of that movie set will know who they are. It's one link in the very long chain of making a movie, but without a script supervisor, that chain would break over and over again.
David O. Russell, "Joy" + "American Hustle":
What does a script supervisor do?
A script supervisor is, in many ways, a very intimate co-filmmaker to the director and to every department, whether it's camera, wardrobe, production design, or even asking the actors how they wore their necklace after a scene wraps.
Sometimes you're in an editing room and it doesn't matter, you can get away with it, but if you cut you might lose continuity — the necklace might jump from the left to the right side of somebody's collarbone. It's walking that fine line of when it matters, but they always give us the choice.
Why was Tracy so good at her job?
Tracy was meticulous about her work, and if you wanted to chat about something creatively or constructively, she was there to do that. You could count on her for her good spirit, which was essential to have, since what you're doing is so — creatively and practically.
Even now I don't know who's going to replace her, like, Who's going to sit next to me all day? You need to find someone who you can have a happy, creative rapport with, who's great at their work, and that's not easy.
Scott Cooper, "Black Mass":
In the 1940s and '50s, this job was called "script girl" and most script supervisors are women. Why do you think that's the case?
You know, I don't have a good answer for that. I'm certain that there are many men who would be capable at this job, but perhaps because that position gained an importance in the '40s and '50s, I don't know if the directors or the studio-heads at the time were misogynistic? I never even questioned it, really, it just so happens that the majority of them are women.
I love having as many women on my sets as possible — my films tend to be somewhat male-centric, although I don't design them that way, and the crew's largely made up of men, so I like to have as many women as possible. My first assistant director is female, and she's worked with Tracy on many David O. Russell films. There's just something about that presence that's calming. [laughs] Under fire and under pressure, women seem to be calmer and be less ego-driven, and typically directors are megalomaniacal, and they help that.
I guess what you're saying is that a great script supervisor, in many ways, is like a great spouse.
Indeed, but they're more than just a script supervisor — Tracy was part-therapist, she was a psychoanalyst, a filmmaker and a friend. You work so closely with your script supervisors and you have intimate relationships with them, because they're right at your elbow, even closer than your cinematographer.
But yes, it's almost like having a supportive and great spouse who will tell you when you should do something differently or give you suggestions for other things to do. I just can't speak highly enough of Tracy, and [her death] was just so sudden.
Damien Chazelle, "Whiplash":
What was it like to shoot "Whiplash" with Tracy?
Tracy was by my side at every moment, and that movie, even more so than your average movie, was so dependent on her. There's not even one specific moment where she saved us — it was more like she saved us every single scene, every single day.
We knew the shooting style wanted to be pretty quick and we wanted a lot of material to edit, so that meant a lot of different setups, a lot of different coverage, and then at the same time we're trying to blast through pages and pages of the script because we only had 20 days to shoot the whole thing.
A great script supervisor is as integral to the making of a movie as almost anyone else on-set, and yet you don't hear people saying, When I grow up, I want to be a script supervisor. Why do you think that is? What kind of people are drawn to this field?
I think it's like editing in that it's an invisible art form — it's hard to watch a movie and say, Wow, that was clearly well script-supervised. [laughs] The only thing that people really notice in a finished movie that can reflect on a script supervisor is continuity, which is why I think that's often what we think is the only thing script supervisors do. But it's so much more than that.
I love being on set, but I also really love and maybe feel most at home in the editing room, and I think the thinking is similar to that of a script supervisor. The people who make great script supervisors, like Tracy, are some of the same people who make great editors — people who like standing behind the camera and watching for the things that no one else would notice, and thinking of creative solutions to stitch things together in a way that, ideally, would be completely invisible to the people that watch the finished movie.
At its highest ideal, it's an invisible art form, but it's absolutely an art form and it requires a certain kind of mind that's so detail-oriented, but is also constantly aware of the big picture in a way that only few people can really do.