Over the weekend, I finally got a chance to watch the episode of Grey's Anatomy, which was penned by the one, the only, Chris Van Dusen. ' It 's a pretty cool feeling to see the name of one your good friends flash up in the opening credits of a hit TV show--especially when he's billed as the author of the episode! Even back in 7th Grade, I knew he was destined for stardom, and it's clear that he's well on his way! I'm sure not many 27-year-olds can claim they've to be the writer on a hit TV show!
Anyway, I'll stop gushing now, but wanted to share with you this article about Chris from the Emory Wheel, which expands a bit on how Chris got this gig.
Grey's Anatomy: Guiding the Scalpel
Emory Alum Works Behind the Scenes on One of TV's Most Popular Shows
By: David Marek
Posted: 3/23/07
Two years ago, with its dramedy "Boston Legal" struggling to find a consistent fanbase on Sunday nights, ABC decided to switch out the floundering law show for an untested and relatively unknown medical drama called "Grey's Anatomy." It was a bold midseason move that some speculated wouldn't succeed.
Around that same time, Emory alum Chris Van Dusen ('01C) had just finished his graduate work at the University of Southern California's prestigious screenwriting program. Looking for work, a mutual friend introduced him to up-and-coming producer and writer Shonda Rhimes who had just successfully pitched "Grey's Anatomy" to ABC. One thing led to another, and Van Dusen quickly found himself Rhimes' assistant as her show was heading to prime-time television.
Flash forward two years. That inconspicuous mid-season replacement has now grown to become one of the most popular shows in recent memory. "Grey's Anatomy" regularly beats out CBS' long-time ratings champion, "CSI." Fans of the roller-coaster medical drama, many within the highly coveted 18-24 demographic, tune in religiously to watch the show.
During the first Thursday of sweeps in February, "Grey's Anatomy" raked in a grand total of 23.9 million viewers. To give you an idea of how big that number is, more people watched "Grey's Anatomy" that night than live in all of Saudi Arabia.
And those numbers don't include the Friday reruns and the Web-only repeats.
Likewise, Van Dusen's career has grown with the show.
Although he started out merely doing general office work for Rhimes, the show's creator soon started giving Van Dusen more and more responsibilities. He wrote a blog for the show in the voice of the Joe - the characters' favorite bartender.
The popularity of the blog then led to Van Dusen co-writing a book in Joe's voice with another blogger from the show, editing the show's official magazine and working on clip and recap shows.
But Van Dusen's career reached a new high with last night's gut-wrenching episode, which he wrote in its entirety.
"This season, after working for [Shinonda] for two years, I pitched an episode idea, and she liked it, and I got a chance to write it," Van Dusen said in an interview with the Wheel.
And the show was an important one at that, providing some clarity to the increasingly complicated relationship between Izzie and George and setting the stage for the rest of the season.
"A lot of fans are torn and confused right now, but the stuff that lies ahead for Izzie and George makes for some awesome television," Van Dusen wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel.
Although Van Dusen was the principal writer for last night's episode, the writing process is a collaborative one.
The roughly 12 writers for the show get together at the beginning of the season and brainstorm ideas. They present interesting medical cases, talk about the direction of the characters and bounce ideas off each other. Rhimes and other producers also play an integral part in the writing process.
"Shonda Rhimes really sets out where she wants to take the show throughout the whole season," Van Dusen said.
From there, the writers are assigned to work on their own specific episodes.
However, at this point the writing process still isn't over. In fact, even during the filming of the episode, changes are made to the script and storyline.
This ever-evolving writing process has forced Van Dusen to be flexible with his own writing style.
"For example, in the early stages of writing my episode, we never had Izzie confess to Addison about her sleeping with George. But Shonda felt we really needed to see Izzie confide in someone. The resulting scene between Izzie and Addison adds another great, fantastic layer to that whole storyline," Van Dusen wrote.
In addition to writing his own storyline, Van Dusen also had to worry about fitting his script withing the larger "Grey's Anatomy" plot. This meant that Van Dusen had to work closely with writers like Executive Story Editor Stacy McKee, who wrote the episode that immediately follows Van Dusen's.
"We had a unique situation in that he and I were sharing custody of a single storyline (with a new character) that spans both our episodes," McKee wrote in an e-mail to the Wheel. "So as soon as a beat in his story changed, it meant that I needed to shift the story in mine as well."
While at Emory, Van Dusen didn't show much interest in television or screenwriting. He didn't take one screenwriting class. Instead, his focus was journalism.
Van Dusen was a staff writer at the Wheel for four years, and he graduated with a co-major in journalism and economics in 2001.
Van Dusen got his first taste of working in the entertainment industry when he took a summer internship for NBC's "The Today Show."
"I always found myself leaning towards the entertainment side," Van Dusen said.
After college, Van Dusen decided to change his life radically when he applied and was accepted to USC, where he studied scriptwriting.
This change eventually led to the Emory alum's involvement in one of the popular shows on TV. In the beginning, it was hard believe how successful the show was going to be.
"During those first couple weeks we started to air, I would go to restaurants, grocery stores, video stores - wherever I was - and I seemed to always overhear some kind of conversation about Meredith and Derek, or Cristina and Burke, or just about the show in general," Van Dusen wrote. "And it wasn't just because I live in L.A. When I would go home to visit my family in Maryland, I overheard the same kind of stuff."
- Contact David Marek at dmarek@learnlink.emory.edu
© Copyright 2007 The Emory Wheel
