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Working Bad: 'Breaking Bad' Producer Melissa Bernstein On Exploding Turtles And The Secret Of The Perfect Pilot

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Heading up to this Sunday's Breaking Bad series finale, one question stands out:  What makes this show so good?  Maybe the best way to answer that question is to  change the "what" to a "who." So I've  talked to a cross-section of the smart, creative people who make Breaking Bad and collected those interviews into a series called Working Bad.

The series stars off with co-executive producer Melissa Bernstein, who was a member of the Breaking Bad team from before the beginning, and whose duties on the show have ranged from hiring the writers to producing the Insider Podcast. She took a few minutes from the preposterously hard job of taking a showrunner's vision and bringing it to your flat screen, to break down just how she does that. (This post contains spoilers for Breaking Bad up to Episode 514)

Look for more Working Bad interviews all this week.

ASJ: So how did you start out at Breaking Bad?

Melissa Bernstein: I run television for [producer] Mark Johnson and Mark has known Vince for like 25 years. Mark sort of “discovered” Vince--although he would probably shy away from that term--through a screenwriting competition in Virginia. Mark has made two of Vince's movies so they’ve been in touch for a long time. And Mark really want to find a way to work with Vince in TV. We're honestly blessed that Vince shared this idea with our company. Mark was so excited about doing this in partnership with Sony .  But unfortunately, Mark was also producing the first Narnia film. He had to be on two continents  and two hemispheres at the same time.

I was very lucky and just as the Breaking Bad pilot was coming together, I was the TV presence. Vince and I had gotten to be friends over the years that I worked with Mark and he had a comfort level with me.

I was at the first meeting with AMC and the first meeting with Sony once we were a go at AMC and got to be a part of everything. Hiring all the crew. Auditioning the cast. Going through drafts of the script. Actually I just re-read part of the FX draft. It’s been my complete privilege  to be part of the process right from the beginning.

ASJ: Breaking Bad is not exactly a commercial idea. One executive said it was the worst idea for a television series ever.

Melissa Bernstein: That is absolutely true. Vince had this idea about this guy who had terminal cancer, who is middle aged, lower middle class and is doomed to die, and is going to sell meth. There’s nothing about that that’s commercial. Nothing. So to sell that upwards is an enormous challenge.

I think it was everybody’s enormous faith in Vince and his passion for the idea gave people like Jamie [Erlicht] and Steve Mosko at Sony the courage to say to their boss “C’mon we gotta do it.” At AMC, Christina Wayne read that script and recognized immediately it was genius.

ASJ: A pilot has two very different and challenging mandates. It’s got to be a sales tool to convince the network that it’s going to work and they should buy it, but it also lays the groundwork for things that will happen, if you’re lucky, five seasons down the road.

Melissa Bernstein: I think Vince wrote what is quite possibly a perfect pilot. Not only is it beautifully written but the journey of the pilot is a mini-journey of the series. We see Walt break bad for the first time. His eyes light up with the thrill of that and we see him return to his wife at the end of that a slightly different man

If you had only seen that one episode, I think it would be satisfying. Is it as satisfying as seeing 62 episodes?  No. But in and of itself, it didn’t feel like just a beginning. It had a beginning a middle and an end. I think that you have to have the courage of your convictions and make choices that are exciting to you from a character point of view. And that’s something Vince had in spades.  He really heard this character in his head and knew how to write him. Walt never cheats on his wife the whole entire series.  That’s not common in a dramatic series that’s this dark. There are choices you have to make about the character and you start the first steps in the pilot.

ASJ: It must be kind of rewarding to come back, three episodes from the end doing a reprise of the pilot in 514 one of the most important episodes in the series. 

Melissa Bernstein: It’s due to Vince’s clarity of vision with this character. He’ll say, I didn’t know exactly how the story was going to go.  But every choice he and the writers made they kept track of. They don’t drop balls. They’re very loyal to the choices that they’ve made. That’s why they feel so real, so tangible.

In episode 514, you can see the pants that flew off the RV in the the pilot. If you miss it, it doesn’t hurt your enjoyment, but it you catch it you feel like, “Hey, they’re paying that much attention to what’s going on in Walter White's universe.”

ASJ: I think people were too busy throwing up during 514  to catch that on the first viewing.

Melissa Bernstein: <laughs> It’s a reward for the people who watch it 10 times.

ASJ: Well then, I can’t wait to go back to watch it for the fifth time in five days.

Melissa Bernstein: Yikes. I’m not sure that’s healthy. When I read that script I had to take breaks.

ASJ: So what did your job as a producer consist of?

Melissa Bernstein: Something I’m proudest of is staffing the writers and directors of this show. Finding the art department heads. Finding our writing team. And the directors. Being able to go after someone like Rian Johnson because I loved his work as a filmmaker.

The way I see my job now that it’s up and running is executing Vince’s and the writers' vision, Those scripts are works of art in themselves. So we're taking those scripts as blueprints, trying to take what’s on the page and bring it to life.

Vince is in Burbank and the cast and the crew is in Albuquerque, so the producers have to stay in step with what’s in the head of the writers. We have to make sure that we’re seeing the show the same way, and that we’re seeing each scene the same way.  Because every scene matters. Every moment matters. Everyone’s really bringing their A-game, but it’s a matter of focusing that energy in the same place at the same time.

ASJ: How much of your job is about getting as many dollars up on the screen as possible?

Melissa Bernstein: AMC is basic cable. But there aren’t limitless budgets. It’s a really ambitious show.

We do blow things up. We blow people up. It takes time. It takes the right people’s talent and it takes a lot of communication.  That is a battle every day: How do we maximize our resources? You really have to prioritize. You have $5 scenes, you have $10 scenes and you have $100 scenes. And you ask yourself: What are the scenes that require specific financial and logistical resources?

ASJ: Can you talk about one of those scenes that seemed like a challenge when you first read it and then made you really happy with the way you were able to pull it off?

Melissa Bernstein: Vince is a wonderful character writer but he’s a showman, too, and he has packed those kinds of moments in the show from the get-go, from Ken Wins’ car blowing up, to the head blowing up on the turtle in Episode 207.

I heard that progress from"Let’s have a decapitated head on the turtle taunting Hank" to "Let's have that head exploding."  It’s delivering a jaw dropping scene and raising the stakes and pulling the rug out from under you all at the same time. That was one of the scenes where I said “Oh my God how are we going to do it?”

ASJ: So how do you do it?

Melissa Bernstein:It really is about pulling it apart and talking about it, shot by shot and looking at the components and getting the best people in the business to contribute.

Like making a cast of Danny Trejo's head.

Getting the right kind of turtle that would actually be in that desert.

Getting the right kind of trained turtle to Albuquerque to because Albuquerque doesn’t have all those Los Angeles based resources.

A turtle that’s going to walk the way you want it to walk.

Having the right special effects team and the right filaments and the right timing and the right visual effects and having post involved from the get go.

Those are not things we can afford to reshoot.  And above all to be safe while we’re doing them, because these are big gags we’re doing. And making sure the rest of the episode doesn’t get tossed aside just to make that happen.

ASJ: So what's the biggest challenge in your job?

Melissa Bernstein: The biggest challenge is that Vince has seen the show in his head before we shoot it. To make sure it’s as good as that. And hopefully even better. It's hard to beat Vince’s imagination. But we do it every once in a while.  Because [cinematographer] Michael Slovis is a genius and [production designer] Mark Freeborn comes up with sets Vince never conceived of and directors like Michelle McLaren and Adam Bernstein and Rian Johnson come up with shots he hadn’t thought of.

ASJ: How does the fact that the show is so good help on the money side?

Melissa Bernstein: People are inspired by Vince’s work and Vince’s vision And that gets people to want to be on board and money takes a backseat.If you can get people excited about what you’re doing and have that be the motivating factor, then it changes the game. Actors who could make a lot more money doing other things, choose to come work with us because they find it creatively fulfilling. It’s part of how John Toll, a two-time Oscar winner cinematographer ended up shooting the pilot.  That’s someone we couldn’t afford in a standard way. But he wanted to do in and he fit it in.

What's your take? Add your comments below about all things Breaking Bad and watch these pages all this week for a series of exclusive Working Bad interviews with key members of the Breaking Bad team.

Please follow me on Twitter (avincent52), friend me on Facebook (allen.stjohn), or follow me on Forbes.