CHICAGO – An executive with a cable television network known for pushing the edge on television drama described for credit union executives how her network has clung to core values at the same time it engaged in revolutionary innovation.

Nicole Clemens, senior vice president of series development at FX, spoke Tuesday to executives attending CO-OP Financial Services' THINK 13 conference, held at the Chicago Swissotel from April 29 – Ma

Clemens and her development team oversaw the creation of leading FX series such as “Sons of Anarchy”, “Archer”, “The Americans” and “The Shield.”

She recounted how FX's production process differs from typical network television, which she said focuses on taking in lots of ideas and scripts and then winnowing them down to produce just a few that are often a product of consensus.

FX, by contrast, develops ideas and is content to work with an idea over time with a goal to developing a dramatic series, television which tells a dramatic, character driven story over a number of years but which has a definite story arc with a beginning, middle and end.

This means that most script ideas for which FX develops a pilot program then go on to become series, Clemens said.

Clemens said FX's commitment to innovation comes in its resolution not to rule out any story idea without at least hearing it and to take familiar story lines in television, the police story, the medical story and the legal story and turn them on their side so that they are unlike any others in their genre have ever been.

“The Shield” told a police story unlike any other ever on television, likewise “Nip Tuck” did the same for medical stories, she said.

“We take established genres and subvert them,” Clemens told the audience.

But at the same time, FX demanded that the stories keep their authenticity, grit and originality, even when that has meant that they depart radically from their original ideas, such as by making a character which had only been planned as a guest or one time character into a co-lead after the pilot showed them how important the character was to the storyline.

In a question-and-answer period, Clemens suggested that credit unions could carefully target their innovation to maintain their core business but try to expand and grow in new areas.

Also from THINK 13:

Instant Insights /

Onsite Coverage: Innovation Has to Maintain Identity, Entertainment Executive Says

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