Celeste Bronfman: Writer
JAY
Degrassi has been a popular Canadian coming-of-age series. But, Degrassi: New Class is a Netflix project.
CELESTE
Yes, you’re correct. This season of Degrassi is a Netflix original.
JAY
The characters are easy to latch onto in this series. You can tell of their relationships, struggles and goals.
CELESTE
That’s good to hear! Yeah, I mean, I jumped in fresh to do Degrassi. So, I also had to learn all the characters and had to catch up on it. I’m really happy that it didn’t take long to catch onto the characters. And, hopefully we did an okay job of re-introducing them. So, that’s always a challenge. Especially in a show that’s long running as Degrassi. We did our 500th episode when I was there. Which is unheard of. To have such a legacy and able to bring in on new viewers. It’s not just for those who watched the show when they were young, which is good, as well. I know people who still watch it, for nostalgia’s sake. But it’s also getting in a new generation who can relate to the exact issues that are taking place.
JAY
A lot of series for teenagers start from novels, was Degrassi like that?
CELESTE
Actually Degrassi was started by Linda Schuyler and she was a school teacher. She started out by making small videos of her students in class and that spun out into a television series in the late 80s. It went off-air for a while. And I think they went on again for ten years. In the series, one of the characters becomes pregnant. So they revived the series in the 2000s, with this character's journey and that's the one that had been continuing. That’s the one with Drake (Canadian rap artist) was doing.
For me, coming on board, I hadn’t really known a lot about it. I was a little young to watch it when its season in the 2000's premiered, and so, I kind of missed the boat there. But when I started meeting people from Degrassi, I did my research and Linda Schuyler was kind of a mentor, when I was in. I needed to watch quite a lot of episodes, because when you have so many, you don’t want to tread the same territory. But something they used to tell me, and I think is fundamental, is this coming-of-age genre shows that each issue affects each generation of teens, differently. And it’s also time and place.
Degrassi had done so many abortion stories, at this point, but they’re different depending on the year. We did an abortion story that was very different from previous seasons.
JAY
Can you give us some insight as to what it's like starting a season?
CELESTE
Yeah, so, before we start a season of television, we kind of get together, all the writers in the room for, I would say three weeks to a month, and we all bring ideas that have been percolating – ideas that we’ve read in the news, when we were on our hiatus between seasons. At that time, a lot of Syrian refugees were coming into Canada at that time, we were reading a lot about it in the news. So, that became something we were really interested in exploring. So, that became something we kind of decided together. But some issues come from our personal life, and we bring them into discussion and say, if we wanted to do a story, say, like self-harm, what would that look like? Which character would we do this with? So, there’s definitely that, We can bring issues to the table and explore which character would it be interesting with, but sometimes, it would also come through the character.
So, if I was to talk about Zoe, who, when I joined, she was figuring out her sexuality. And, we would decide what, about that is, interesting, what would that look like? And, we’re writers with different experiences. For me, that was a very personal story, I had also come out, so we talk about our own experiences. It’s very much a show where you talk a lot about yourself, eventually. We decide which characters we’re exploring issues with, and then we send that to the networks and see what they say. Discuss it with the creator of Degrassi, Linda Schuyler, who’s still very much involved, and she knows the show better than anyone. It’s really exciting in those first few weeks. Also, not only are we are bringing news articles to the table, and issues. In that time, but, and it’s something I know other shows are doing, we went to high-schools to talk to students about various topics.
JAY
Who is the targeted audience of Degrassi? Has it changed over time?
CELESTE
That’s an interesting question. I can only speak from my perspective, and Linda may have a different view. But, she started because she was seeing a lot of students struggling and wanted to help them. She started it as a documentary. Just to help other students whatever they are going through. And so, it was always targeted to teens.
I think that agenda never changed, and I think that’s the power of Degrassi. It really is for the teens at the time. It’s for themselves and how they can help each other. And of course, it’s entertainment. We’re making a TV show, so, it’s not a documentary. Hopefully, the lessons help in some way, help you overcome a problem, help you feel less alone, help you reach out in some way. That’s always been the constant, ever since the beginning.
JAY
When you worked on Degrassi: New Class, you were a a story-coordinator, can you tell us a bit about that job?
CELESTE
That’s an entry-level job, and it’s a position familiar in both Canada and the USA. Essentially, there are four positions – a writer’s assistant, a show-runner’s assistant, a script coordinator, and a writer’s PA. I was, essentially, all of those roles. I was in the writer’s room. There were only six of us, and I was pitching in all of these things, but in addition to that, I would go to production meetings, take notes. Everything, visual effects, editing, prop meetings, art meetings - everything. I would take scripts, take notes, apply changes to the script, I would be the one who issued all the revisions of scripts. So, if we were in a meeting and needed to change a production location, for example, instead of a scene taking place in the coffee shop, it needs to be taken in the school, because of the schedule. With the show runner’s help, I would rewrite the scene to the adjustments. Also, I was in every editing session. It was a very demanding job,
I had to be everywhere the show runner was, and every meeting with Netflix.
JAY
Advice for a potential screenwriter?
CELESTE
Good question. Get an assistant position, just to learn the dynamics. I was a PA on fourteen reality TV shows - that got me a job on Degrassi. Going around real production. Meet a lot of people. I am in LA, I went to Comic Con, meeting people there. And I love writing comics. Twitter is also a powerful tool. I have not done it, but people network through Twitter. Keep writing. The thing you don’t want, is people not have work to show. Working in production helps you to get close to those people.
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