Translating Essay Material into a Television Format: A Conversation with ‘The 1619 Project’ Showrunner Shoshana Guy

This interview was conducted in April 2023.

Hulu's six-part limited docu-series The 1619 Project, is an expansion of "The 1619 Project" created by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times Magazine.

In keeping with the original project, the series seeks to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the center of our national narrative. The episodes - "Democracy," "Race," "Music," "Capitalism," "Fear," and "Justice," - are adapted from essays from The New York Times No. 1 bestselling "The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story" and examine how the legacy of slavery shapes different aspect of contemporary American life.

The 1619 Project is undeniably a poignant and important show about the history of America. Showrunner Shoshana Guy and host Nikole Hannah-Jones peel back the seemingly forgotten and untold history like that of the layers of an onion - making one stir with raw emotion. The truth is hard to swallow, but it's important we understand our past and how important events and a culture of people shaped our nation.

Shoshana Guy spoke with Script about how her journalism background working on network news helped guide the mini-series, the importance of roadmaps to structure the show, scripting documentaries, her collaboration with Nikole Hannah-Jones and Roger Ross Williams, what she hopes audiences take away from watching the show, and so much more!

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: How did you connect to the project and help shape it into the narrative that we have now as the documentary TV mini-series?

Shoshana Guy: Yeah, so originally, I already had a relationship with One Story Up Productions, which is Roger Ross Williams’ production company, because I had showrun High on the Hog with him. And so when that came into their shop, I was kind of a natural fit for it, because I had the sort of elements that the project needed. I had experience in doc storytelling, but I'm also trained as a journalist. And so that was really important. I had worked at NBC News for over a decade. And so, I had the kind of journalism chops that the project really needed. And then met with Nikole [Hannah-Jones] and we were a great match. And from there, gathered the team and really started to dive into what it means to translate the material from the essay format into the television format, which is, of course, no small feat. [laughs]

The density of essay work, of course, has to be extrapolated for our medium. And so, we read, I mean, up, down, and sideways - when we first actually started the project, the book wasn't even published. The essays were embargoed. I couldn't even send them out to the team by email. So, I printed about $300 worth, old-school style, not Kinkos, but I'm dating myself [laughs] but a copy center [laughs] and we all came to my house and sat around and we just read them backward and forwards.

And of course, once the book was published, we were able to just continue to read them and pull out the sort of core ideas that we thought need to be tackled. And from there, it was like, how do we make it visual? Who are the subjects? How can we make it as narrative as possible? Who are the subjects that we can follow that will illustrate how slavery is still ingrained in modern life? It was a wild adventure to get us to the point where we got it on television, but I couldn't be more honored to be the one to lead the effort.

Sadie: Yeah, and it's really extraordinary what you and your team were able to do in just the amount of time that you were allotted with these six episodes, because each chapter, really, you hit so many poignant topics, all in one go. Just the enormity of what this is, you really can't put it in words, but you guys somehow did it. [laughs]

Shoshana: Listen, thank you for acknowledging the timeline, because it was a very tight timeline. And of course, as a lifelong perfectionist, [laughs] I always want more time to craft narratives. And that's the thing that takes the most time is just finding the stories…so I think the team did a very good job with the amount of time that we had finding compelling stories that would fit in. And we had to let go of a lot of stuff. I mean, there is a lot packed in, and I am proud of that. But we really just had to also let go of a lot of stuff that we just wouldn't be able to fit in, but I am very proud of the work. And yeah, so thank you for acknowledging the timeline.

Sadie: Of course, you’re welcome. There’s this beauty and silver lining with documentary filmmaking that you go in with very determined intentions about the subject matter and questions, and in most cases, you end up finding something new that opens up the door to new story elements, etcetera. When going into this one and sitting down with the subjects, did you have a blueprint of what you needed to hit topic-wise? And did you have moments of where things took a slight turn, for the better?

Shoshana: Yeah, it's kind of a bit of both. I'm the outline queen, and my team all knew that there must be an outline, because we need, to your point, a blueprint or a roadmap. If you don't have a plan for what you're doing, then it makes it that much harder in the edit room, because you end up kind of making it up in the edit room, which is no favorite task. So, we did have a very strong roadmap, and we knew, again, the points that we really needed to get. But then, of course, the beauty of making documentaries, organic things come up. Particularly when you're following subjects and then you have the “Democracy” episode, where we were in an election and all of a sudden as we're following the subjects in their fight to make elections fair, this group of people are locked out of voting. And so then that obviously wasn't planned or expected.

Those are the sorts of beautiful things that happen in documentary work, where things kind of just pop up or someone will tell you a story that they never told, or one of the things it's always unpredictable, is emotion. People get emotional when you didn't expect them to and, of course, that's always welcomed for us because it helps the audience to connect when people are really being vulnerable. So, I think the kind of spontaneity happened, vulnerability happened. And those are the things that you can't put in a roadmap. So that in combination with roadmaps sort of makes us special sauce.

Sadie: Yeah, it really does. And speaking of the vulnerability as a documentarian, setting a tone on set for both your team behind the scenes and for the subject – how do you create a space that’s safe, open, and welcoming?

Shoshana: I think it's a team effort in terms of making folks feel comfortable and safe. I think that starts with the team building. And it starts with making the team feel comfortable and safe. And so that's really always a part of my leadership. I choose very carefully. That's one of the things that people are like, ‘What is in the strength of your showrunning?’ And that really is in choosing the right chemistry for the team. And it's kind of an instinctual thing where you're like, ‘Oh, that person is the right match for this.’ Because the teams worked in teams as well, they had the associate producers with field producers, they worked in tandem with the producers that worked in tandem with the director. So, they made little teams to work on their episodes.

And so really building trust and making sure that people really felt heard and that their ideas were welcome. And that foundation that Nikole, and I, and Roger really laid then helps when we go out into the field. And then, of course, Nikole is the one interviewing, so it's up to her to be the one to make people comfortable. And she's an extremely skilled interviewer. And she is also very vulnerable in her approach. And so, when you're vulnerable in your approach, then people relax, and they are able to give you what you need. And so again, it's sort of a team effort between building the team and then Nikole's sort of expertise in the field.

Sadie: It's really remarkable just how knowledgeable she is about every little facet, and then just her connection to every little thing – she’s this vessel that carries that whole thing through.

Shoshana: Well, it's her baby. It's her project. It's her vision. I was just there to support that vision, and an honor to be able to do that. But that is really the thing that she dreamed of when she was a teenager and made it happen in her adult life. And so, she knows it inside and out. No one's more of an expert than her in that realm of what it is that she was trying to do. So, we really followed her lead. And we're kind of there in lockstep with her as we tried to execute this.

Sadie: It's amazing. Before this chat, I was reading up about the book and the show and noticed that when this show first aired, there was a lot of people coming out with their own fact checks or denying that certain historical moments/timelines actually happened, which I found interesting. In terms of breaking this down to six episodes, based off the book and all the research you guys did, I'm just so curious, how did you parse all that information down and structure those six episodes with additional research and so forth?

Shoshana: Yeah. Well, to go to one of your points, this was deeply fact-checked for anyone who wants to know. It was fact-checked on multiple levels, up and down. We hired outside fact-checkers, we had our inside fact-checkers and then to fact-check our fact-checkers, we hired outside fact checkers. And the book is deeply fact-checked. So, everything is very deeply fact-checked. 

But to your point, we already came in knowing, and by we, really Nikole came in knowing that there were episodes from the book that we absolutely must do, we must do “Democracy,” we must do “Capitalism,” we must do the “Justice” episode, which is the call for reparations, which if you watch the first five episodes, now, we're gonna give you the reason why Black people are owed and take this deep dive into this, look at how Black people over the generations were denied the ability to build generational wealth, over the centuries, I should say.

And so, then the other ones were sort of like, OK, with music, we wanted to sort of give everybody a little bit of a breather in between, even though there are serious issues that we get into there, it's music, and you can have some fun. And the topics are so heavy, and emotional, and dense to wade through that we thought, ‘OK, it will be good to give people a little rest.’ There were some that we really wanted to do. And there was this kind of debate. And then, we thought, ‘Well, hopefully, second season we'll be able to do that.’ 

But yeah, it was just kind of a back and forth until we landed on what and also what we thought we were able to do in the timeframe. We very much thought that the Second Amendment episode was the one that we were going to dive into, because we thought that is, and then given the timeline that we were in, it became apparent that we weren't going to have enough time to really unpack it in the way that it deserved to be unpacked. We chose fear, which was not simple, but a little bit more straightforward in terms of finding narrative.

Sadie: It's the beauty of storytelling and just finding those little things.

Shoshana: Yeah, it shows itself. I always believe that the stories show themselves. And whenever I start working on a project, like I'm working on a project now, and the stories just start to show up in my head. And then I know, I'm on the right track. It's like, ‘Oh, OK,’ it starts sticking with you, you start thinking about it more, you start lgetting kind of obsessed with it. And then you know, ‘OK, I'm on the right track.’

Sadie: I love that you brought up the music episode. And doing a deep dive into the history of music from blues to jazz and hip hop and everything in between. While watching that, I came upon a realization that the original iteration of funk music the catalyst for punk rock music back in the day and what they were saying through music, politically.

Shoshana: Right.

Sadie: How did you guys explore that episode, specifically speaking to one of the biggest icons behind funk?

Shoshana: It was such a fun episode, too. We used Nikole’s records, the record collection from her father, as a kind of spine and a guide post to like, ‘OK, how are we going to get into this?’ But it's just kind of like, as usual, America, you're welcome.

[BOTH LAUGH]

Shoshana: Because there really wouldn't be the culture that we the American culture have here without Black people. And certainly, there's no expression of that probably more evident than music. Because we're everywhere in the sort of fabric of our musical life in America. And, Nikole always said that her favorite interview maybe of all time was with Nile Rodgers, because, you know, just sort of learning, and diving into the breadth of his experience and to talk to this person who really has just written for everybody you don't really understand how prolific he is until you start to dive into his catalog. And so, she just really enjoyed speaking with him, which became very evident on screen.

And the archival work was a very heavy lift for the team, but also very fun to be able to find all these clips and it's always so enjoyable. I just watched Lisa Cortes’ Little Richard documentary, which is fabulous. And you know, you really are just like, ‘Oh my god, Little Richard,’ just you're welcome. [laughs] Once again, you're welcome. [laughs]

Sadie: [laughs] I feel like in your second season, you just need an episode that's called “You're Welcome.”

Shoshana: [laughs] Yes, exactly. You're welcome. And really, it's thanks to Africa, you know?

Sadie: Yeah. In terms of scripting a documentary – I’m sure a lot of writers aren't aware that documentaries are scripted - you have to actually transcribe and write it all out and make sure it flows.

Shoshana: Yup!

Sadie: What was your process in tackling this show and when does it start?

Shoshana: We get transcripts kind of right away, and then we read through them, we make our selects. That's how I work. And sometimes you have to make multiple selects, like you're sort of paring it down. You sort of start in a selects process, and you start building a very rough, big long, I mean, sometimes they start out being like two hours long or whatever, and then you start shaping it, because sometimes, you can't really know what plays until you watch it. So, when you read it on the transcript, it sometimes doesn't always translate, so you're really like, ‘How does someone actually deliver this as opposed to how it reads? ’And then, you really start, hopefully, going off the structure that you built. But then sometimes it changes a lot.

With the actual writing, we were using the essays. And a lot of the writing, particularly Nikole, and Wesley's writing, really translated well into our medium because they write very lyrically. So, we were able to lift a lot of their writing right off the page and into the actual scripts, which was immensely helpful. But that doesn't have anything to do with the structuring. [laughs]

And so, the structuring is the big heavy lift. I'm thinking of “Capitalism” - I think I rewrote that like 40 times. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but if it wasn't 40 times, it felt like 40 times. [laughs] It was so complicated to try to get right. And of course, we had four cuts for the network to watch and sign off on. And so, the notes come back, and it's like, ‘We don't really understand this. This isn't clear.’ And so then you have to go back to the drawing board. And that often means restructuring.

And when you really get into a hole, I go back to my graduate school days, where you put things on index cards, you put the script, like literally cutting, like an art project, on index cards and put it on the ground, that's when you know you're really like, ‘OK, I'm in trouble here.’ [laughs] And you're moving them around. And I had to do that with “Capitalism,” because it was just so complicated. But eventually, you get there. And then when it finally clicks in, when you're on the right structure, it then almost like ‘click, click, click, click, click, click, click,’ but you sometimes it just takes forever to get to that. All the structures were challenging, but that one, in particular, was huge.

Sadie: Yeah, I imagine you in a full-on Beautiful Mind-type scenario. [laughs]

Shoshana: Oh no, that's what it was. [laughs] People will come into my place - I mean, I didn't see anyone for two years - everyone's like, ‘Wow, we missed you. You're back.’ But close friends would come in and be like, ‘What's going on in here? Are you OK?’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. Let's sit over here.’ [laughs]

Sadie: Oh, don't look at that. It's OK. Don't think about it. [laughs]

Shoshana: Don't look at that. It's fine, it's fine. [laughs]

Sadie: The overall visual language of this documentary, I'd love to just dive into how you and your directors, and Roger, collaborated with your DP in shaping the tone and keeping the tonal consistency throughout the series. And also the importance of having different directors and their perspectives.

Shoshana: Yeah, we came up with a sort of look, so to speak, of what we wanted color-wise, palette-wise. And then we really worked on like a stylistic guide sort of. And we came up with ideas and sort of poured them all into a bucket and then said, ‘OK, this is kind of how we're going to make it look.’ And then, of course, it was up to the directors and the producers, and then Jerry Henry, who was our director of photography to make that all come alive. And to choose setups and, we're really visualizing, sort of recreating some iconic Black photography, and sort of trying to figure out different elements, like the “Democracy” episode, the opening episode really felt like it needed water when we were talking about us coming over at 1619 on the shores of this country. 

And so, really using those ideas, sometimes abstracting them, and then working in very close collaboration with Jerry Henry and his team to make it all come alive, which I'm very proud of. And I think it looks very beautiful. It's very much a team effort.

Sadie: Did you guys shoot on film at all? Or is that just all movie magic?

Shoshana: We did! Yeah, there is film. You see that when we use the sound of film underneath it. And you can see that it's film.

Sadie: You mentioned previously that you started out in journalism, but what just inspired you to take the path of a documentarian?

Shoshana: Well, actually, technically, I started out in theater. I have a theater degree. And then I think…as I turned 30, when I moved to New York, I was like, ‘Alright, here we go. Is acting the only thing that I can do?’ Because I think if you are an actor, it's such a hard life. And it's such a difficult craft, that you have to really, I think burn to do it. Like it has to be the only thing that you were put on earth to do. That's how I felt about it. And so, when I asked myself the question, ‘Is this the only thing I can do?’ The answer came back, ‘No, you can do something else.’

I was always drawn to journalism. Actually thought that I was going to do journalism in my undergraduate work, and had signed up for a communications degree, and then realized it was really the study of media and not actually journalism. So that's when I switched into theater. The school I was going to didn't really have a journalism program. So, then I did a master of journalism at Columbia and spent over a decade in broadcast news.

I was an anchor producer, I worked for Tom Brokaw, I worked for Brian Williams - let's just put it this way, I reached the ceiling at network news, it no longer felt like what I had trained to do. And I really craved being able to put context in my work, and particularly, where race is concerned, I would get frustrated because I felt like we're quick to run out and show Black folks, quote-unquote, rioting, really protesting, in the streets. But they always call it rioting for convenient ways - you can watch the “Fear” episode to understand. But when I pitched the reasons why, and for context, why you don't want to do those stories. So, when will I be able to do the stories with the nuance and context, particularly around my own people that it deserves? And so, I quit. It was an amazing 10 years, but it ran its course.

And so, really now, I feel like I've gotten to the point in my career where I have the freedom to choose the projects that I want. I've earned that and that is very liberating, because I get to work on things that I'm passionate about and that light me up. But I was always a storyteller from the very beginning. Even as a child I wrote in a diary from the time I could write really - I have diaries from when I was six and seven years old. They're hilarious. [laughs] It's just who I am. And so now at this age and being able to be honored enough to work with people like Nikole, and really establish myself as a strong storyteller, in my industry, being able to choose now what I get to do and continue to contribute to really interesting work is really just an honor and a gift. And I'm just very pleased to be here.

Sadie: As am I. I'm so glad that you decided to do this. The show has been out for several months now, what do you hope or want from an audience after they watched this first part of the series?

Shoshana: I want as many people to watch it as possible. So, everybody who hasn't watched it, please tune in. It just went international. So, you can now watch it in Canada and Australia and New Zealand and Singapore, and Japan. And it's not in Europe yet. So, it's now gone global. And I hope more people will continue to watch it.

But I really hope that people understand, particularly in America, Nikole always says this, that this isn't Black history. This is American history. And in order to understand where we are today, you must understand this history. And we must as a country, we must recognize - in the process of truth and reconciliation, before reconciliation, we must tell the truth. And that's not an original idea from me. That's been said by a lot, Bryan Stevenson says that all time, but that really is what has to happen.

And Black people are owed justice. And that has to happen politically. It has to happen on individual levels. It has to happen in families. It has to happen in the way that we teach our children. And you see this backlash happening right now, where there's this refusal to teach even the basic Black history, let alone understanding truly how slavery and beyond not just slavery, but the hundreds of years of oppression, from the white power structure has impacted and continues to impact not just Black people, but the entire country. And until we get it right, we're going to continue to suffer. So, I want people to grapple with that. And then I want them to get motivated to change it. Whether it's on a personal level or a political national level. That's what needs to happen in order for us to move forward as a country in order for us to heal.

The 1619 Project is available to watch on Hulu.