Richard Manning has been a television writer/producer for… well, for longer than he cares to remember. His writing/producing credits include Farscape, When Calls the Heart, TekWar, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Knightwatch, Once a Hero, and Fame. He has also written episodes of Sliders, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Exosquad, Space Precinct, She-Wolf of London, and some even more obscure stuff. With longtime writing partner Hans Beimler, he co-created Beyond Reality, a half-hour science-fiction/fantasy drama for the USA Network. He created Fusion, a webisode series, and shot the pilot (which can be seen here) with a bunch of insanely talented, generous, and fearless volunteers.
Ricky is available for private consultations.
He frequently teaches television writing for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program (and has a ball doing so). He recently taught a six-week TV pilot writing course for the Master’s Program “Serial Storytelling” at the ifs internationale filmschule köln in Germany.
He grew up in various suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the same high school (Bedford High) as Halle Berry (alas, not remotely at the same time), after which he travelled west to study Cinema Production at the University of Southern California. He has lived and worked in Los Angeles, Toronto, and Sydney, despite the language barriers. He adores the work of Sergei Prokofiev, Buster Keaton, Keith Jarrett, the brothers Coen, John le Carré, Preston Sturges, the Who, and Monty Python. He (responsibly) imbibes single malt Scotch and Australian beer. He is midway through his second marriage. To the best of his knowledge, he has no children.
You wrote some of Exosquad?! And I’m just finding this out NOW?! What the hell?! That ‘toon rocked! Well up to the somewhat cliffhanger-ish final episode but still. Wicked cool!
Chris
Yep, Hans and I freelanced two episodes of Exosquad, our only animation work to date. Fun little series with some solid sci-fi chops; wish it had gone on longer. A delightful working experience, mostly thanks to story editor Michael Edens, who (unlike us) knew what he was doing.
I almost fell out of my chair when I saw your picture. Thirty-eight years after Bedford High and I could still recognize you. A recent picture of Stan proved that he is still recognizable. When I looked in the mirror this morning, some old dude was staring back at me. Good luck on this project, and many, many more to come – I hope!
Street Fighting Dan! (Guess all that street fighting left you twice dead?) How the heck are ya?
I almost fell out of my chair when I saw your picture.
Yeah, I get that a lot. That and clocks stopping.
LOL… yes, ’tis I. I’m doing pretty well. The TwiceDead moniker is because I’ve had two separate bypass surgeries. They’re a lot of fun. I highly recommend them to everyone. I’m still kicking, but just not as high.
I live in L.A., Lower Alabama that is. I have two sons, the oldest passed away in October, the youngest lives about 25 miles from me. The youngest is 30 years old, married and has three daughters.
By the way, my wife is still ticked about Farscape going off the air.
Apologies to your wife about the interruption of Farscape, then show her this. Congratulations on being a grandfather (thrice!). Deeply sorry to hear about your eldest.
Take care!
Thanks Ricky. I appreciate that. Also, I will show my wife the link you sent. As for me, as long as they keep Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International on, I’m happy. Believe me, if I was in better shape, I’d be ghost hunting myself. Fortunately for me, the SciFi channel has a marathon of their programs this Sunday. I don’t do football.
BTW, you do your own HTML to set up this site?
Nope, this site and FusionTheSeries.com are both WordPress sites, based on a coupla free themes (Fluid Blue in this case). I did some customizing and stylesheet tweaking (that’s why there’s lotsa red and no blue in this “Fluid Blue”), but no heavy HTML lifting.
I did, however, hand-code my current spouse’s site, BetterBonsai.com, in kindergarten-level spaghetti HTML, but it works. Had I But Known about WordPress way back when we set up her site, I would’ve made life easier on myself and done it in WordPress.
Thanks Ricky. I can understand that. Fooling with HTML can be fun. I’ve played a little with it myself, but it’s been several years ago. I appreciate clean. well laid out sites that are easy to navigate. This page looks clean. Two thumbs up dude. I’ve migrated completely to Linux for all things online a few years back. I only use Windows for playing games any more. I do like my first person shooters. That’s pretty much the extent of my geekiness. I have assembled a vast reserve of useless knowledge. Take care.
Richard,
Matt Ford. Remember? Farscape? I am heading through LA in a few weeks. Beer?
Beer! Yes! Most excellent! Have emailed you using last addy I have (from 1000 years ago) and we can plot. Looking forward to seeing you; it’s been Far Too Long.
Richard. I was looking around for someone I could ask questions. I am trying to break into tv/film writing/producing and need someone I can ask questions too. I have been sitting on a show bible and pilot script for a sci-fi series for a while now and I think it’s time I started doing something about it. Just looking for someone awesome like yourself that I could maybe email and ask questions occasionally. Love your work by the way.
Josh
Hi, Josh! Here’s an awesome book that I’m sure will answer 99.9% of your questions: Successful Television Writing by Lee Goldberg and Bill Rabkin. Best of luck!
Froooooooon!
It’s Syn, and, yes, I am still running for President, but that’s not why I found you.
And I won’t go into it here. It’s just great to find you again and to learn that you are well. As you can guess, my long-distance wooing of Gigi never came to fruition. Not even sure she ever learned I existed. Ah, well… a long time ago.
Be awesome, Mr. Manning. I’m not giving you a choice.
Howard
Are you there? Hope you are well. Need a favor. Is there someway to stream beyond reality second season shows. I need my two episodes let’s play house and reunion.