To start off, my name is Lee Scurry and I just finished my graduate work in Television, Radio, Film at Syracuse.
I wasn’t always sure what I wanted to do. I enrolled in undergrad at the University of South Carolina with the intention of eventually going to a seminary. (Those who have spent any time with me might find that slightly amusing) I was a Religious Studies and Broadcast Journalism double major with a minor in Business Administration. By my senior year of college my interests had changed considerably: I had done enough course work in my religious studies major and worked in enough broadcast jobs and internships to know that my interests were no longer going to seminary, so I dropped the major and focused on working in television. I did, however, know that I didn’t want to work in a newsroom the rest of my life.
I had done a lot of news writing for my various jobs and internships and I enjoyed the writing aspect of the news business but not everything else that comes with it. So, for the first time in my three years of college thus far, I began to think of ways that I could make money writing for television without being in a newsroom. I was watching tv one night and I literally began to think, “Oh…someone has to write these shows. Someone has to write those jokes on The Late Show…maybe I could do that.”
So I eventually found Newhouse. It was a year long program where I could sort of tailor my course work to fit my interests and most importantly for me, the people teaching there were all at one time a writer, or a producer, or even a development executive. BINGO!
Over my time at Newhouse I took as many writing courses as I could (which I am still on the fence as to whether or not that was the way to go. It might would have been more beneficial to take one writing class a semester and really just focus on it. I don’t know, just something for thought) The more I wrote, the more I realized that I really like late night comedy shows like Letterman or SNL. Now I am doing a writing mentorship with Jack Helmuth who has worked at SNL where he would contribute jokes to Weekend Update and various late night monologues.
I pretty much write all day (some of the day) everyday. I write jokes based on the news, sketches, commercial parodies, and material for my potential venture into stand up. I write those things and then I have a professional writer who is there to critique them and help me figure out how to write them better.
Will I get a job out of this, probably not. Would I rather be doing something else with my time…no.