{"id":979,"date":"2023-10-05T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T17:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rickollie.com\/?p=979"},"modified":"2024-04-13T07:15:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T11:15:02","slug":"meet-mickey-fisher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickollie.com\/es\/2023\/10\/05\/meet-mickey-fisher\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet: Mickey Fisher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer For the Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 5, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writers Note:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

First for all my female readers, you got the man you’ve been asking for. And to Mickey, sorry not sorry to make you my first male interview. But honestly, it’s been a long-awaited write because you are a favorite and ‘Thank You’ <\/strong>for agreeing to do this. Absolutely love your work and hope to do you proud. – Rick <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

About:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/strong>I love doing interviews with folks from the ‘Midwest.’ <\/strong>They’re friendly, understanding and get the meaning of hard work. No bull and perveance is a model I like to attribute us to. And yes, I’m a Midwesterner as well as Mickey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Born and raised in Ironton, Ohio, about a hundred miles south of Columbus,<\/strong> Mickey attended ‘The University of Cincinatti’s College Conservatory of Music.’<\/strong> Trained as an actor he, also, studied ‘Musical Theater.’ <\/strong>He accomplished this by doing a wide array of jobs which included directing theatre, teaching acting classes to children and even sold merchandise while touring with the production of ‘Annie.’ <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"ESPN
ESPN Photo, Hail to the Victors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kickoff:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>There was one pressing issue I had to address before we moved forward.\u00a0‘The Game.’\u00a0<\/strong>That’s much bigger than my customary two-word sentence. It’s legendary. It’s motivating. For that one\u00a0‘Fall’<\/strong>\u00a0Saturday afternoon each November, it’s hating Michigan or it’s hating Ohio. It’s college football’s biggest rivalry and I had to know where his loyalties lied before I began. Mickey deferred the kickoff and gave me the ball first.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     “Let\u2019s get this one out of the way early,” I began. “You\u2019re originally from Ohio, how big of a Buckeye fan are you?” I attacked any defensive scheme he could muster as I went ‘Hail Mary’ on the Ohio native on the first play of the game. But certainly, wasn’t expecting his reply. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      “I\u2019m not a huge football fan but I\u2019m always aware of what the Buckeyes<\/strong> are doing because my friends and family back home are huge fans.  It\u2019s funny, when I was a kid I did my first big play at the community theater<\/strong>, and in my bio, it said that I hoped to grow up and play for the Buckeyes,” he began. “I don\u2019t know where that came from, other than osmosis, because I was NOT cut out for it!” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not sure if the creator and writer of\u00a0CBS’ ‘Extant’\u00a0<\/strong>stopped me with his candor on that opening drive or I forced me to settle for a field goal. But the game had begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Script Writing:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

      “I started writing scripts seriously when I was going to school for musical theater at the Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati<\/strong>, Mickey continued. “Until then, I always thought I wanted to be an ‘actor<\/strong>.’  But then I started seeing a lot of cool ‘indie movies’<\/strong> and reading plays that I loved and had the opportunity to write some original pieces for auditions and projects at school.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     He, also, told me by the time he left CCM he wanted to be a writer as much, if not more, than he wanted to be an actor and stated, “I finished my first full-length screenplay the fall after I graduated.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smoke Filled Rooms:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     During my tenure as a reporter there were many mornings filled with staff meetings and a smoke-filled room as reporters puffed away at cigarettes or cigars. One of my earliest memories of such a room were days prior to the Space Shuttle Challengers launch in January of 1986. I had asked our publisher to travel to Cape Canaveral, Florida for its’ launch but my request was immediately denied as he said, “launches have become routine.” We all recall what happened next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      I asked the writer for Nat Geo’s<\/strong>, ‘MARS,’<\/strong> “What is script writing like? Is it like many assume a smoke-filled room with a bunch of writers kicking around ideas” and he replied, “The actual scriptwriting part is still mostly a solitary exercise, but figuring out the stories, coming up with overall ideas for the season, much of that takes place with a room full of writers. They may have been smoking in the old days (you rarely see a picture of Rod Serling<\/strong> without a cigarette) but these days it\u2019s much tame. You may see plenty of junk food, but you\u2019ll see just as many kale chips and green juices.  But yes, writing for television is essentially an office job, anywhere from 4-8 hours or more in a room, working it all out.”  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     How much oversight do you as a show creator have, was my follow-up. “As a creator you have a ton of input and oversight, especially if you\u2019re also the Showrunner. The Showrunner is in charge of all the, day to day administrative aspects of a show but you\u2019re also final say on the scripts and the edits, so it\u2019s really your job to shape the creative direction of the series,” he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mickey,
Mickey, Girlfriend Julie and Ellie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Music Th\u00e9\u00e2tre and Better Half:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     “You studied Musical Th\u00e9\u00e2tre,<\/strong> what was that like,” I asked next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0“I carry so much of that experience with me as a writer.\u00a0 The years I spent being onstage helped me when it came to writing dialogue, studying my role and its function in the shows helped me understand drama on a more macro level, and I just made so many great friends who are still with me today, including my girlfriend!\u00a0 We met doing\u00a0LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS!”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/strong>Mickey excitedly adds, “Julie<\/strong> (his girlfriend) is pretty much my wife, we\u2019ve been together for 25 years, but we are not actually married.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music Th\u00e9\u00e2tre vs Screen Writing:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     I hadn’t the slightest what the difference between the two were, so I asked the former Bearcat, <\/strong>and <\/strong>he retorted, “The great thing about musicals is when the emotions get so big or a character is dealing with an internal problem, they can break out in song.  In screenwriting you have to find a way to communicate all of that with dialogue or using images.  Unless you combine the two and make a movie musical, which is something I would love to do some day!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extant; Halle Berry and Jeffrey Dean Morgan<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     “We first started following one another when \u2018Extant\u2019 aired (2014),” I initiated, “Where did the idea of the show come from?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      “The idea for EXTANT<\/strong> started as a play, with a lone astronaut on a space station, hallucinating the images of loved ones who had passed on.  It came out of my desire to write a story about an astronaut, my love of space, and obsession with exploring how technology impacts our connection to one another,” came the words from the final authority of the shows leading character ‘Molly Woods.’ <\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Molly’s character was played by non-other than\u00a0Halle Berry.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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