A buddy of mine is/was a TV writer. He had an hour long TV crime script for a show that Webb's company produced. Webb brought him in for a meeting and told him how he liked the script and had some notes. Webb said: "you're missing all the reactions. This could easily be a 90 min TV movie instead of an hour episode" The writer listened and asked Webb to go on. "Well, look here. Your character tells the perp so and so, then we go back to the perp who says, Why's that? Then he tells it too him again. You're missing all the back and forth"

Webb's answer to everything. Just put in some back and forth and you can stretch another half hour out of this thing.


He also had a great story about meeting with Burt Reynolds for a feature script. Reynolds is going through the script and comes to a section he has circled and X'd out. He asks: "What is this section here, pages 16-21"? The writer explains: Well, that's your character's back story. It explains why she is attracted to him and falls for him. Reynolds replies: "Hey, I'm Burt Reynolds, you don't have to explain to the audience why she falls in love with me"
End of conversation.