Author with ties to Saratoga Springs writes for some of television's hottest shows
By KONRAD MARSHALL, kmarshall@poststar.com
Updated: 11/6/2005 8:02:45 AM

You want Matt Witten to be L.A.

You want him to talk a mile a minute on his Blackberry, to tell you a story about brokering a TV deal while ordering an organic double-half-caff macchiato with a twist of lemon.

But the former Saratoga Springs novelist, who moved to Los Angeles six years ago -- leaving behind a quiet life writing Spa City mysteries in his pajamas for a job writing scripts for "Law & Order" -- still has a pretty normal existence.

On Thursday, by phone interview, Witten told The Post-Star about a standard day in his life as a writer and producer for the hit Fox show "House."

He gets up early. He takes his kids from their Pacific Palisades home to the bus stop. He goes to Starbucks and sits down to make longhand revisions on his latest script. Then he drives into his office in Century City, Los Angeles' alternative downtown district, and spends a few more hours revising his script or reading someone else's.

Witten has a comfortable groove, but when he first went west in 1999, he found the Hollywood scene, and the general vibe in the sprawling city, "very odd."

"This was when everybody was getting cell phones," Witten said. "Nobody in Saratoga had cell phones, and everybody here had these little tiny ones."

He complains about the traffic, the worst part of the City of Angels, although since moving there, Witten has cut his commute time to 24 minutes, which has had "a tremendously positive impact on my life." When Witten wants people in Saratoga to feel better about living in northern New York, he talks about traffic.

"It's totally like track season all year round here," Witten said. "You can be driving at 1 in the morning on a Sunday and run into a traffic jam. It's just bad. It's terrible."

The traffic is almost a metaphor for the city.

Witten has worked for NBC's "Law & Order," writing stories about Detective Lenny Briscoe, slipping in references to Albany, Hudson Falls and Saratoga Springs "just for kicks." He also worked briefly for CBS' "CSI: Miami," putting words into brooding forensic investigator Horatio Caine's mouth. And now he comes up with storylines for maverick anti-social medical genius Dr. Gregory House.

Witten is a "supervising producer," though the title is insignificant to the role he has. Witten writes two to three episodes a season and assists other writers with their work.

When the show is taped, Witten is on the set, supervising, keeping an eye on all the aspects of production, from the acting to the set. Sometimes he gives advice directly to the actors, but the etiquette is to go through the director so the actors don't get two sets of messages.

The most common suggestion that writers on the set of "House" make, he said, happens when the doctors are sitting around in House's office discussing a complicated case -- and they are all complicated.

"We want to make sure there's urgency in the scene," Witten said. "That's the toughest part of this show -- to make medicine come alive, and not to bore the audience with big medical words."

Witten said the writers also have to make sure the actors understand their character's medical point of view, and how it relates to those they're talking to in the script.

"If one of the actors is saying 'No' to the other actor, we want the fact that she's saying 'No' to be clear, and to show how it relates to their characters' interactions," he said. "We try to get them to keep it real, not to be too over the top, and to play it low key."

Witten was full of praise for the show's star, British actor Hugh Laurie.

"His intuitions are terrific," Witten said. "He's very smart. He's a writer himself, so he's very responsive. It's a joy to work with him on every level."

Witten also spoke highly of the rest of the cast, particularly of how pleasant they are as people, in addition to their talents.

"I have been in other situations -- and I won't go into specifics -- where actors weren't quite as easy to work with," he said.

Witten said Laurie -- whenever he's on the set, and the whole day he is performing -- only speaks in his put-on American accent, including at the office or at read-throughs. One night though, Laurie took Witten and others out to dinner and started speaking in his regular accent, "and I was stunned. We were all stunned," Witten said. "We said 'Enough with the fake British accent!'"

Laurie is very conscious of the accent, he said.

"Hugh said that acting for him, in America, it's like 'Everybody is playing tennis with a tennis racquet, and you're playing with mackerel,'" he said.

Despite the attention to detail required in television and the constraints of the schedule, Witten said their work is still an art form. Sometimes it can feel like a grind, particularly at 4 a.m. on a Friday when the crew is trying to get that last scene down. Each episode is shot in eight days, and they churn out 22 to 24 every year.

"But it feels like magic sometimes, where you're watching Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard doing a scene of yours a million times more funny that you imagined it," he said. "That's a joy. Or when you see the director of cinematography do a really good shot that you hadn't expected."

There are about 10 other writers on staff, and then there is a head writer, David Shore, and every script goes through him, Witten said. Shore has the final polish. He also gives the other writers extensive notes, and his constant presence in script production helps keep the tone and quality of the show consistent.

Witten said writing for a medical program with no medical experience isn't hard, which is in large part because of the experts writers speak with. The show has a writer on staff who used to be a doctor, and they have additional consultants. Lisa Sanders, who writes a diagnosis column for The New York Times, for instance, works for the show.

As for ideas, "You meet doctors at parties and ask, 'Have you heard any good stories lately?'" Witten said. "Most doctors that watch the show really like it."

Witten's next episode, called "Heartless," is about a 66-year old man who needs a heart transplant, and is not given priority because of his age. The plot was based on a newspaper article he read.

"It's an interesting kind of ethical issue," Witten said. "Do you consider age? If a 66-year-old man and a 19-year-old man need a heart, do you think about it?"

Witten loves the genre. Drama -- medical or crime-based -- suits his personality as a writer. He likes putting ordinary people in extraordinary situations, but he admires writers who can create something compelling from seemingly normal settings.

He enjoys "Desperate Housewives" immensely, for instance, and loves the way "Curb Your Enthusiasm" takes inane things to the realm of high comedy. Could he make a show work about, say, plumbers?

"How do you make a show about plumbers work?" he mused. "It's not the first thing I would go to, but if someone tried to, I would cheer them on."

As far as "House" goes, mystery upon mystery keeps landing on House's desk week after week, but Witten thinks viewers are still suspending disbelief.

"So far, so good," he said. "The basic concept of the show is that cases only come to House if it is very difficult, if the regular doctors are unable to solve it. ... In terms of our always finding difficult to diagnose diseases, again, so far, so good. I think we've done a good job."