With the final season of “Schitt’s Creek,” a Canadian sitcom, having already been aired on television and put on Netflix in October, it is the end of an era for Daniel Levy. Daniel (Dan) Levy is the son of the award-winning actor, Eugene Levy, and the co-writer and co-star of “Schitt’s Creek.” The show follows a once wealthy family as they discover that they're broke and lose everything that they have, forcing them to move into a motel in a small town called Schitt's Creek. The six seasons follow the family as they navigate their new life, realize that money does not provide happiness, and highlights the bonds/relationships that they form with one another and the people who live in Schitt's Creek.
Dan Levy was the MTV Canada after show host for a popular show called “The Hills” before his path to stardom with "Schitt's Creek." When the after show ended, Levy left MTV and began taking small writing gigs to support himself and thought that his television career was pretty much over. Levy told himself that if he was meant to be in the industry, it would happen, but up until that point he was having little to no success in auditions and was beginning to think that he needed to begin looking for a new career path. It was when he was taking these small writing gigs that he started thinking of concepts for a television show. One day, while at a café, Levy came up with the original concept of “Schitt’s Creek.” Levy went to his father with his idea for the show and asked him if he wanted to help him with it. His father agreed and the rest is history.
An extremely important part of Dan Levy’s creative process while working on the show was his collaboration with others. His father ended up not only being an actor in the show but also became Dan Levy’s co-writer. While it was Dan Levy who came up with the basic concept of the show, he credits his father for helping him make it a reality. Through their collaboration in brainstorm and writing sessions, they were able to come up with what they did and didn’t want the characters, setting, and plotline to be. Bouncing the ideas that each of them had off of each other allowed them to snowball into a more feasible idea, ultimately landing them a deal. The Levy’s also collaborated with other writers, spending weeks at a time working on the episodes of a single season to make sure that everything was perfect. Without this massive amount if collaboration, both with family members and other professionals in the industry, it is likely that the show would not have become what it is today or be as beloved by fans.
Dan Levy is a very intrinsically motivated individual. Growing up, he was exposed to the industry through his father' s career, which influenced his passion for writing and acting. This passion is what ultimately motivated him to come up with the concept of “Schitt’s Creek” and put in all of the work that is necessary to have the show picked up by a network. Levy doesn’t believe in letting anything get in his way, even if it’s himself. It is this intrinsic motivation to be a successful writer that motivates him to follow through on his ideas and not give up. Levy believes that it is the inability to follow through on ideas that is the reason that so many people fail, something that he says simply wasn’t an option for him.
Dan Levy is more of a middle-C creative. While he has not completely changed the industry, his progressive themes, storylines, and character development (especially in regards to the often underrepresented LGBTQ community) have definitely made waves within the industry. At the 2020 Emmy Awards, "Schitt's Creek" broke the record for most wins in a single season for a comedy television series. The show won nine awards, including best comedy series, best supporting actor in a comedy series (Dan Levy), and best directing for a comedy series (Dan Levy and Andrew Cividino). Daniel Levy is truly the mastermind behind this show and without him, it would have never come into fruition.
Sources:
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/daniel-levy-interview-schitts-creek-1234571257/
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/what-you-can-learn-from-dan-levys-journey-to-schitts-creek-66953/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/emmys-schitts-creek-sets-record-for-most-wins-in-a-single-season-for-a-comedy
I enjoyed this post! I love the show, and I love Dan Levy as a person and an actor. It was definitely interesting and insightful to read more about his background in this post, it helped me to understand some of the ideas he incorporated into the show and his creative process that he used while developing the show. I hope Netflix does not take the show off before I can finish it! Watching interviews of him and his coworkers definitely shows how important collaboration is to his creative process.
ReplyDeleteI binge-watched the first season of Schitt's Creek in a weekend. I was hooked, partly because of the humorous characters and the idea of a rich family losing all of their money and being forced to move into a motel (that's hilarious and a fun spin on the classic lose all your money type plot). But what was refreshing about Schitt's Creek was its progressive story line. Like, the wine metaphor for sexuality. That was brilliant. And perhaps a show that explores these themes in a way that's not like other shows (i.e., being gay doesn't always have to have a tragic storyline in tv) earns Levy a big-c title. Have you watched the behind-the-scenes documentary yet? :)
ReplyDeleteI just started Schitt’s Creek last night! I have been hearing about how great it is for months, and this post is a great insight into the creator’s process. I knew Dan and Eugene Levy were in the show, but I did not realize that they are also responsible for creating it altogether. I think it is really cool that they were able to work so well together and with others in order to make the show what it is. It is good to hear that they spent time making sure everything was perfect; it makes me more excited to continue watching the show. I really enjoyed this post!
ReplyDeleteMy mom watches Schitt's Creek as her night time TV wind-down sitcom and while I watched with her in the past I certainly noticed a lot of things that made it different from other sitcoms I've seen. First of all, it strays away from the 90s laugh track over emphasis that sitcoms like Will and Grace and Friends have used which made them so easy and almost hypnotizing to watch. Instead of having the audience rely on audible laughter to recognize when a joke was made, Levy just let his show speak for itself. Even though Schitt's Creek falls under the umbrella category of sitcoms, it's different from other ones because it does not rely on outdated tropes to assure audience engagement with the plot line. In addition, like our classmates have said in other comments, the subject material itself is not something typical to most sitcoms. It's fun to watch Levy attempt to blend intimate and honest life experiences with gritty comedy. One of my favorite shows that does something to the same effect is Shameless- there's just something entrancing about watching celebrities act out scenes of familiar tension and unprecedented tragedy. I think I just like to see people on TV experience the same things "normal" people experience, it makes the program more worthy of my attention in a way.
ReplyDeleteBob actually just convinced me to start watching Schitt's creek. I have to admit, the first season was hard to get through because it was so cringey ... but I am starting to become addicted to it. I love how casual the representation of the LGBT+ community is in the show. And I love your post's emphasis on the collaboration that made this show possible. Learning about the family behind the family was really fun!
ReplyDeleteOne of the best "modern" sitcoms on Netflix, Schitt's Creek, I watched all 4 seasons on Netflix at a shockingly reasonable pace. While it took some time to reel me in, I now have several stickers on my laptop proudly displaying how to "fold in" cheese to make quesadillas. This post was extremely insightful, as I (like some of the other commenters above) did not know that Dan Levy was ultimately the architect responsible for such a light-hearted yet extremely engrossing show. It, for me, it falls under the same umbrella of "realistic" as The Office, where, like mentioned, there is no reliance on laugh tracks, and the show speaks for itself. Overall, a wonderful show with an extremely creative mind at work.
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