Bryan Burk and Damon Lindelof
Bryan Burk (pictured left) is a producer with Bad Robot (J.J. Abrams’ company). In this interview, that covers everything from LOST to Star Trek, he talks about how the idea for LOST was birthed.
I didn’t listen to the interview, but as a LOST fanatic, I was fascinated with the details of the conception of this amazing show. (I’ve slightly edited the transcript for readability)
Lost” was born out of a late night meal. J.J. was working on another script and it was like midnight at this restaurant we always go to and the head of the network, Lloyd, had sent down this script that they’d been working on… that they’d been developing that wasn’t going…Then we started having a separate conversation about a show that I always wanted to do or something to that affect and he was like, “Well why can’t we do that on an island” and the next day—none of us were thinking about actually doing a show obviously—and he came in the next day and had conversations with some of our other “Alias” writers, just fleshing out like when the head of the network calls, you have to call them back, okay?
And J.J. said, “Well you know if we did a show about people on an island it would have to be man against man, man against nature, man against the unknown or something vague like that”…In which case Lloyd was like “great. Let’s do a series” and that was a Friday…And J.J. was like “Well, I’m working on all these things. I don’t have time to just sit down and write it right now” and they’re like “Well, we’ll find you a writer”.
Enter Damon Lindelof, who was sent that same script, and had the same reaction I did and started fleshing out ideas. He came in Monday morning and we instantly all fell in love with each other, or I can say for myself I fell in love with Damon, and it was just amazing. It was a few hour meeting like where he came in and started talking and he and J.J. instantly started riffing on ideas and he came every single day for that….he came Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – and all those days he was fleshing out the idea and typing up an outline and he and J.J. together fleshed out what it was. By the end of the week, we turned it in. On Friday a week later.
And on Saturday Lloyd called all of us at home and said “You’re going to go make this pilot”.
8 Days.
In 8 days LOST went from being a vague idea in the head of some writers to getting greenlit for a pilot by ABC. All it took was some creative minds, the right people being in the right place at the right time, and a couple of random ideas that those people fit together to create into an amazing show.
The Lesson: Ummm, I don’t know. You tell me what the lesson is.
I’m too geeked to think of one. LOST Season 5 Finale!. 2 Hours. Tonight!
Since Jordan and I didn’t get around to a LOSTcast this week, here’s 7 thoughts heading into the Season 5 Finale:
- Would you give up years of experiences just because there was a lot of misery? Jack wants to. Kate doesn’t.
- So, jughead is buried under the DHARMA village. Is this why women eventually couldn’t give birth? Or does that have to do with The Incident?
- Looks like Ellie was carrying Faraday in her womb when she killed him. crazy. (if u don’t watch the show, don’t ask.)
- John Locke seems convinced that Jacob doesn’t exist. He almost had me convinced too, but I’m not sold. I think Jacob is real, and I think there’s a good chance he’s a LOSTie from the future.
- Either Richard Alpert is from Egyptian times or he’s from the Black Rock. After last week’s episode where he’s building a ship in a bottle, I’m leaning towards the latter.
- I think the biggest line is this whole season to this point might have been what Richard said to Sun on the beach about recognizing the LOSTies in the 77 DHARMA photo: “I watched them all die”. Wow. I have no idea what that means, but I think it’s huge.
- The wait between this finale and next season’s premier will feel different than the others, I think. There will be anticipation and excitement because of the cliffhanger we’ll see tonight, but there will also be a little sadness because it will be the last time we experience it with this show. When next season ends, it will be over for good.
But hey, we’ll save the sadness for later. Tonight, it’s rejoicing. 2 Hours of LOST! Enjoy!