Producer and screenwriter Daniel Knauf discusses finding success after switching careers and new series ‘The Astronauts’
Daniel Knauf has been the mastermind behind a number of television shows and has always loved writing and creating. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English at California State University Los Angeles. However, one might be surprised to hear that he had a career as an employee benefits consultant before getting into the writing world.
“I was on that track as a kid, I was very creative,” Knauf told amNY. “I majored in art and English in college, but the career in insurance happened when I got married at 22 and I wanted to be able to feed everybody. It seemed like I had to set aside childhood things.”
Though he found a lot of success as an employee benefits consultant, by the time he was 27-28 years old Knauf felt the itch to start writing again.
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| Photo: Chris Cuffaro |
“I’ve found that creative people are like sharks — you have to keep swimming or else you can’t breathe,” said Knauf. “Once the kids went to bed, I would spend a couple of hours a night learning the screenwriting process. I kept that up for years and years and focused on getting better at it.”
For years, Knauf wrote from his home and by the time he reached his 40s he figured it was time to try and sell something. His first major project was when he sold Carnivàle to HBO. Part of the reason Knauf believes the show sold was because he was able to hone in on his craft before working in the industry.
“I think that I had forced myself to sit on the launchpad for as long as I did so I could understand my craft before I launched a career,” said Knauf. “Many writers who start out in the business are learning as they are working — I don’t think that working on staff on a show is a great place to be learning. There’s too much pressure there. But I have the luxury of having a well-paying job so I could really take my time.”
Knauf signed on as the Creator/Executive Producer of the series, which ran on HBO from 2005-2007. The series focused on a traveling carnival in a bleak American landscape of the Great Depression.
For Knauf, landing a job on HBO was like going from zero to 100 right off the bat.
“It was completely terrifying. I was suddenly in this weird bubble that is Hollywood,” said Knauf. “There’s a completely different language spoken there. In Hollywood, there were these specific things that you needed to do and on Carnivàle I made every single possible mistake you could make from the standpoint of office politics. I usually only made them once — I had run my own business for 22 years and brought a skillset that most showrunners don’t have. But we were making a really terrific show, to this day people say that Carnivàle was the beginning of what we think of when it comes to contemporary serialized television. It was a great experience overall.”
Knauf has since gone on to write and produce many shows, including producing and writing on the hit STARZ series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, serving as the writer-Showrunner on Dracula for NBC, and working as a writer and Executive Producer on the NBC series The Blacklist, just to name a few. While he’s used to working on darker subject matter, Knauf’s latest project comes in the form of a new live-action series on Nickelodeon entitled The Astronauts.
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| THE ASTRONAUTS: Episode 101: Doria Taylor (Kayden Swan), Elliott Combs (Bryce Gheiser), Samantha Sawyer (Miya Cech), Will Rivers (Ben Andrusco-Daon) and Martin Taylor (Keith L Williams) in THE ASTRONAUTS on Nickelodeon. Photo: Michael Courtney/Nickelodeon (c) Viacom Internation Inc. |
Produced in partnership with Imagine Kids+Family’s Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Stephanie Sperber, The Astronauts centers around five children whose parents work in the aeronautic industry. While they all know of each other, they aren’t the best of friends. The kids manage to check out a spacecraft but ultimately end up getting launched into space together. The kids and their parents have to work together to get the kids back down to Earth safely.
“I’ve been in really dark material up until The Astronauts, so this was a huge change of pace for me. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, I was getting kind of burned out on stuff that was so edgy,” said Knauf. “When my parents were alive, we would watch TV and they would be afraid to go outside because some stuff was so grim and horrendous. The world isn’t really like that. I wanted to make something that people ages 7-70 can enjoy together and not feel worse about the world than they did when they sit down.”
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| THE ASTRONAUTS: Episode 101: Doria Taylor (Kayden Swan), Elliott Combs (Bryce Gheiser), Samantha Sawyer (Miya Cech), Will Rivers (Ben Andrusco-Daon) and Martin Taylor (Keith L Williams) in THE ASTRONAUTS on Nickelodeon. Photo: Michael Courtney/Nickelodeon (c) Viacom Internation Inc. |
Working on The Astronauts gave Knauf a chance to write through the eyes of children, which wasn’t particularly prominent in the work he was doing. Knauf says that while adults usually have their public perception figured out by the time they are in their mid-20s, kids are still under construction.
“There’s not a lot of subtext with kids, they are a little more emotionally honest. Kids kind of have lousy poker faces,” said Knauf. “You might have to write a lot of scene work for adults to get to the truth in a situation, but with children, it’s usually right out there.”
Though it is technically children’s programming, Knauf says that The Astronauts explores some bleak material, essentially if Apollo 13 happened with children. The show itself is one of the most ambitious and cinematic projects Nickelodeon has brought to television, with Knauf saying that the space world that is created is incredible to look at, and the network is exploring this new kind of programming that could appeal to a broader audience.
Knauf hopes that families who watch The Astronauts together are able to find some hope in the world around them.
“I think it’s a show that celebrates a hopeful future. It’s about people working together to find a common goal,” said Knauf. “It’s a hard road they’re on, but at the end of the day, it’s hopeful. These days when a hotspot is on what separates us, The Astronauts celebrates what brings us together. I’ve never been more proud of something I’ve done. The team has been phenomenal. Every day is like Christmas morning to see the final cuts. I’m not a pushover, but this one is something special.”
The Astronauts premieres Friday, November 13 at 7:00 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. Visit https://www.astronautsonnick.com for more information and follow the series on TikTok, https://www.tiktok.com/@theastronauts.
Photos from The Astronauts season one episodes #101 and #102; Credits: Michael Courtney, Ricardo Hubbs, Nickelodeon, (c) Viacom Internation Inc.
From Parentology:
‘THE ASTRONAUTS’ — NICKELODEON SHOW BREAKS THE MOLD & SOARS HIGH
The Astronauts, Nickelodeon’s newest live-action series, premiers November 13, 2020. But, if you’re expecting a typical kids’ show featuring pre-teen hijinx, slapstick humor, and a laugh track—think again. Nickelodeon has made an active move to entertain the whole family with this series, not just the youngest members. Along with Imagine Kids+Family’s Ron Howard (Apollo 13), Brian Grazer (A Beautiful Mind), and Stephanie Sperber executive producing, the network has launched an ambitious out-of-this-world show unlike anything else on TV right now.
Check out the latest trailer, then meet the man who has created this new ground-breaking series.
Meet “The Captain”
The Astronauts depicts the drama that ensues when five untrained adolescents are accidentally launched into space. With survival their only option, the kids must assume their new roles as astronauts and brave harrowing tasks, as their parents rush to find a way to take control of the situation.
Daniel Knauf is the series creator, writer, and executive producer. Knauf has written and produced a host of other well-known movies and series, most notably HBO’s Carnivale. While adolescents in space seems a bit of a stretch from the supernatural and dark themes depicted in Carnivale, Knauf didn’t necessarily feel that way.
“It was something that I really wanted to do,” he tells Parentology. “I really wanted to tackle something that you could have multi-generations sitting on the sofa and enjoying it. Something that spoke to what we have in common as human beings regardless of race, sexual orientation, age—anything.”
The show focuses on the struggle and uncertainty faced by both the young astronauts and their parents trying to guide them home. Knauf is able to tackle the solemn situation while allowing the natural humor to shine through. He credits the focus on the young protagonists.
“There’s the aspect of kids where you’re putting fresh eyes on problems,” he explains. “Kids are going to have different solutions to problems than anything an adult would come up with.”
Real Struggles from Real Life
The Astronauts depicts the trials and triumphs of both the kids and their parents in a real, multi-faceted way. It also depicts children growing up into their own identities. Knauf cites his own experiences as a parent of five children as a creative influence on the show, and his goal to make it different from others on TV.
“When depicting family these days, there’s such an emphasis on dysfunction — and there’s a reason for that. It’s built-in conflict and often it’s just comedy gold,” he notes. “But I kind of wanted to take a step back and say, in reality, I don’t know many families actively are rooting for other people in their family to fail.”
The Astrounauts also gave Knauf a great opportunity to dramatize something seldom seen on television: “That whole process from the parents’ point of view and the kids’ of individuation. It’s a painful process.” This is something that resonates with viewers of all ages, not just kids coming of age. “It’s geared toward human beings and what we all share,” Knauf says.
The show also depicts a diverse group of children and parents. Knauf says that is both intentional and organic, created through the show’s diverse group of writers offering many different points of view. While that diversity is celebrated, Knauf also wanted to utilize the premise of the show to focus on how people can come together, no matter what their background.
“In a perilous situation, the things that separate you from the people that you’re relying on take a distant back seat to what you’ve got in common,” he says. “We share an ocean in common. We all admire courage. We all admire sacrifice. This transcends religion, it transcends race. One of the things I felt we could do with this show is to celebrate what we have in common.”
The Astronauts is one of Nickelodeon’s first endeavors to move toward programming that viewers of all ages can truly enjoy. Knauf believes that what he’s created will be just that. “Everybody has brought their best,” he says. “It’s been a really great experience—we’re doing something really special here.”
The Astronauts begins with a one-hour premiere on Nickelodeon, Friday November 13, 2020.
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From Space.com:
Exclusive: Inside Nickelodeon's 'The Astronauts' space adventure with showrunner Daniel Knauf
Five kids sneak on a spaceship bound for a mysterious asteroid. What could go wrong?
Award-winning writer/producer Daniel Knauf is best known for creating an eclectic body of work that leans into darker, adult material like HBO's acclaimed supernatural saga, "Carnivàle," NBC's "Dracula" starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Starz' "Spartacus: Blood and Sand," and NBC's Emmy-winning police procedural "The Blacklist."
Now he's taking his sterling reputation and talents into outer space with Nickelodeon's "The Astronauts," a new family-friendly sci-fi series from Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment. This refreshing adventure show airs its first two episodes on Friday, Nov. 13 and surrounds a group of whiz kids who sneak onto the spaceship Odyssey II and are accidentally launched into space toward a mysterious asteroid while the craft's AI system malfunctions.
The series is directed by DGA Award nominee Dean Israelite ("Are You Afraid of the Dark?," "Power Rangers") who also serves as an executive producer, Jonathan Frakes ("Star Trek: Discovery," "Star Trek: Picard"), and Marcus Stokes ("Criminal Minds," "The Flash").
Nickelodeon's 'The Astronauts' got tips on space from real NASA astronaut
Knauf not only penned the show's 10 episodes, but also acts as "The Astronauts" executive producer and showrunner. We connected with him to learn about how this throwback project originated, the challenges of working on a big special effects shoot, dealing with issues of weightlessness, and how the design for the Odyssey II was created on a restaurant napkin.
How did you get on board Nickelodeon's hopeful, kid-centric project?
As an artist I'd been wanting to do something for a long time that multiple generations could sit on a sofa and enjoy. There's so much darkness on TV and I don't think it reflects reality. I don't believe familial relationships on TV reflect reality either as so many of them are dysfunctional. So I thought let's do something that makes people feel good about being human. Plus, you always want to do something different. I've done a Western, I've done "Carnivàle," I've done the epic, I've done "Dracula," "Spartacus," and with "The Blacklist" I've done the procedural thing. Now let's see what I can do here.
Can you describe the pitch to Imagine and what narrative themes did you wish to explore?
From the get-go, meeting with Imagine, I told them this was not going to be "Kids Shot Into Space And Hijinks Ensue." I wouldn't do that show. What's of interest to me is doing what would happen in reality if five untrained children were inadvertently launched into space. It would be fraught with danger and tension and these kids trying to get along.
They all come from different backgrounds and they're all finding their way and they're going to have solutions that would never occur to adults since they're obviously putting fresh eyes on every problem. The humor would come from character, not jokes. I don't write joke-driven stuff because in reality, life isn't joke-driven.
This show in many ways is sort of a throwback to the kinds of shows they were making in the '50s and '60s. Things like courage are valuable attributes in any homo sapiens. There are no stupid parents on this show. We don't have kids disobeying their parents without a fallout.
Since these kids are millions of kilometers away from their parents, we get to really do a deep dive when it comes to the process of individuation. And what that painful moment is like where you realize maybe my parents are wrong. For the parents, it's seeing that child go away forever to become an adult. It's this essential process of growth and I think every episode features that.
What was the inspiration for the Odyssey II design and how was it working with a big special effects team?
I've never done a space show before so I was sort of a babe in the woods. I had this super embarrassing moment when I saw my first set of effects shots. I was horrified. I told them it looked like a toy. There's no directional lighting! Where's the ambient lighting? It's practically a wireframe! [laughs] Our special effects guy very patiently said not to worry and that this was just placement in the frame and was very early in the process. As a showrunner I've gotten an education in the special effects arena and it's been really neat to see these shots evolve. You're basically painting on a blank canvas. It's wholly fabricated on the computer in photoreality.
When Netflix's "Away" came on, I'd be watching it with great interest and think, "Oh, our launch is better than their launch." [laughs]. Our launchpad is on an island in the middle of a bay and I wanted to see the shockwave across the water.
And the weightlessness thing is very difficult to do on a television schedule because it's very time consuming. Wire rig removal and those kinds of things were all new to me. Your heart's in your throat when you've got a twelve-year-old dangling thirty feet above the floor of the set.
Nickelodeon's "The Astronauts" sends an intrepid kid crew into the final frontier.
With Imagine on board, because they've got such a legacy in space dramas, there were no compromises made as far as the science goes. When I first came in I didn't want to deal with weightlessness on the show because it's going to be impossible. I thought I'd just go with the Ridley Scott thing of having an announcement, "Artificial Gravity Engaged."
But our production designer and Dean Israelite, my AP director and colleague, said we'd do it with various configurations that would allow for centrifugal gravity. We literally worked it out on a napkin at the Black Angus restaurant. I thought we'd make it like a tri-lobal, face-on design. That way we could have two-story, almost bus-like outriggers. It's like no spaceship that I've seen on TV. I was pleased with the fact that we really stuck with the science.
Stephen Petranek has been the consultant on almost all of Imagine's space projects and we'd be able to run scripts past him and make sure we had the science right.
Was there a specific aesthetic you wanted to capture for the spaceship to distinguish it from other fictional sci-fi craft in movies and TV?
I wanted there to be a consumer design ethos, especially in the crew quarters, that would make the ship look more like a yacht or a private aircraft. There would be pseudo industrial design cues combined with exotic materials like carbon fiber. It's not as swoopy as the "Star Trek" world but it wasn't going to look like "Apollo 13" anymore either.
I'd say it would look like the first class cabin in an Emirates airplane. There's a lot of Bird's Eye maple and they're very understated. And that's what we brought to the party. Then when you get into the cockpit and the work areas, these are places we don't visit as consumers.
Nickelodeon's "The Astronauts" sends an intrepid kid crew into the final frontier.
What do you hope audiences take away most from this new Nickelodeon series?
What's really a kick about "The Astronauts," is that there's 10 half-hour episodes, so you get like 10 pounds of coffee in a 5-lb. can. There's really a lot going on. I got to use all these screenwriting techniques I picked up on "The Blacklist," another incident driven show. Like how to cram a lot of narrative into a very small container. The episodes fly by and there's no mid-season slump on this show. Every chapter is a three-ring circus. The last three episodes make the first two episodes look boring!
Everybody who's been involved in the show, from the tippy top of Nickelodeon, all the way down to the PAs, everyone involved in building this pyramid feels like this is special. This is one I'm going to remember and be proud of. And that's my job as a showrunner, to encourage that sort of ethic.
I hope people watch the show and feel that ecstasy of recognition when you see things you haven't seen before done quite that way, but they've experienced something like that emotionally. My job description is to move people. I think everybody's relationship with their TV is trying to make sense out of their own journey.
By dramatizing journeys with various characters, whether they're FBI agents or freaks or vampires or gladiators is to dramatize those things that are universal in a way it hasn't been dramatized so often that it becomes cliche. To find that untilled patch of soil, turn it over and have the audience go, "Oh Goodness!"
"The Astronauts" premieres on Nickelodeon at 7 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 13.
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From Screen Rant:
Creator Daniel Knauf Interview: The Astronauts
Daniel Knauf, creator of Carnivàle and the new Nickelodeon sci-fi series, The Astronauts, discusses his ongoing odyssey through the world of TV.
Typically, writers in Hollywood work their way up from the bottom, eventually getting the opportunity to create a television project of their own. For Daniel Knauf, things didn't work out that way. After a made-for-TV "blind gunslinger" film, and a couple of other projects, he found himself as creator and executive producer of the HBO original series, Carnivàle. Though the series was unceremoniously cancelled after only two seasons (of a planned six), its layered storytelling and Lynchian sensibilities made Carnivàle into a cult classic whose popularity persists to this day. After years working on shows as varied as The Blacklist, Dracula, and Supernatural, Knauf is back with a brand new show, and Imagine Entertainment's The Astronauts marks something of a departure for the writer.
Unlike all of his previous projects, The Astronauts is a family show on Nickelodeon, targeting that network's tween audience. The science fiction series follows a group of children who are accidentally sent into outer space. As their parents look on from the mission control center, the kids have to survive and handle a variety of crises as they pop up. The Astronauts is a family program that doesn't talk down to the children and aims to thoughtful and engaging to parents, as well as younger viewers.
While promoting the release of The Astronauts, Daniel Knauf spoke to Screen Rant about his work on the series, as well as his life in the television industry. He talks about how TV was always his passion, but not his initial career choice, as he spent many years working a finance office job to pay the bills before finally turning to his one true destiny. He discusses The Astronauts and how important it was for him to make a show that appealed to both children and adults on different levels, so that two groups of people could watch the same episode and come away with important lessons and understanding of themselves, and their family. He also shares his satisfaction with working alongside the producers at Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard's production company, and how he was pleasantly surprised when they brought the show to him to develop.
The Astronauts airs Fridays on Nickelodeon.
You've had such an interesting, atypical trajectory in the biz. Do you mind if we talk about that for a bit?
My weird career (Laughs).
I know a lot of people in jobs that are really tough, and they're doing what they can to get by, and I know a lot of rich young people who are artists, because one way to look at it is, pursuing art is a luxury that most can't afford. From what I understand, your story was, "Man, I want to be an artist, a writer, but I should probably get rich first."
(Laughs) Well, I got married really early. I was, like, 22 when I got married. And I had kids soon after that! It was like following the path of least resistance. When you're growing up, the hardest part about being an artist is... Well, artists are born. It's like a birth defect, you know? The hardest thing about it, and every artist I've talked to, it's true: the people who are closest to you, who love you the most, who really want to protect you, i.e. your parents, your family, they know it's a hard road. You really need a backup. Saying you want to be an artist is like saying you want to be the President of the United States. It's one of those things you want to be when you draw a picture of it in the first grade, know what I mean?
Yeah, sure!
Concern is a reasonable, responsible adult choice. And it's out of pure love. They're not trying to discourage you. I like to put it this way: you bring home a picture you drew at school when you were five years old, you get a pat on the head, mom puts it on the refrigerator door, and you're really proud of it. But then, around when you're 16 or 17, and you're still bringing pictures home, they start getting really nervous. (Laughs) Like, "Uhh, maybe we patted him on the head too many times. Maybe we knocked something loose!" So what happened was, I bought into that whole thing. I said, "Well, okay, I've studied English. I was a Creative Writing major in college, but that's just a no-go." My father had this business, a family business, so I decided to move into that. It really only took me about five years to go completely mad. I realized this was not for me. I put on the suit every day, and the tie, and it felt like a costume. I did the job, and I was good at the job, but it wasn't... I wanted to do this other thing.
You knew what your calling was.
I started taking one or two days a week where, after the kids would get put to bed, I would drive to the office because back in the early 1980s, it was the only place where you had a computer. I would just sit there and work on screenplays. I would go to the AFI alumni association, that was one of many writer workshop groups that was active in LA at the time. I'd go to that and take some classes at UCLA extension. I was basically... I was like, I want to learn this, and I want to learn how to do it really well. So I was focused on my craft in a vacuum, for almost 20 years! At a certain point, I thought, "Maybe it's about time to try and sell one of these things."
Was that your first TV show?
I had a sale back in the 1990s for a Western I did, that was released as Blind Justice, which was basically just a Western version of the Zatoichi movies. A blind gunslinger, you know? But then there was nothing. I sold something, and then nothing happened. I come from a really long line of sore losers. (Laughs) We're the people who flip the Monopoly board and throw the tennis rackets. So I thought, okay, well, I built websites for my business, let me build one for this. So I built a website in the late 1990s and posted the first acts of everything I had ever done. Somehow, the pilot for Carnivàle, and this guy, Robert Keyghobad, who was an assistant for Scott Winant, had gotten orders from his boss, that he was tired of cops, doctors, and lawyers, and he wanted something different. And he found this. Nowadays, you'll find spec screenplays all over the internet, but back then, there weren't that many. I got the call, I went in, and it became Carnivàle. My first real TV gig, I was the executive producer and creator of an HBO series.
Starting at the top!
And I've been working my way down ever since! (Laughs) No, it was really weird, though. I came out of nowhere. I hadn't done any TV, and nobody really knew who I was. Once Carnivàle went... We did really well with it, won some awards, and created an amazing, beautiful show, and once I came off of that, everybody was like... There was a rumor going around that I didn't exist, that I was a pseudonym for David Lynch. Which is really flattering, but bad for the brand, you know? (Laughs)
Oh, that's funny.
So I had to almost start out again, coming off of Carnivàle. The first gig I did after was, I did a freelance script for Supernatural. And then I started getting jobs on staff on various shows. Meanwhile, I was creating shows. I was basically doing all the stuff I did on Carnivàle, putting together spec pilots and spec bibles, all that stuff, going around and pitching stuff... My career's kinda funny, it's backwards, in a way. So I spent the last 20 years becoming a known quantity in the television community, and working with a lot of really good people. I didn't run another show until I did Dracula for NBC. I did a stint on Spartacus: Blood and Sand with Steve DeKnight, and The Blacklist. This is the first show I've created and run since Carnivàle.
It's the obvious successor. They're practically the same show.
Yeah, clearly! (Laughs) I've written in every genre there is. Most of it's been dark, adult stuff, and supernatural stuff with horror and so forth. Even The Blacklist is an adult procedural, I have no idea why Imagine called me and said, "We'd like to talk to you about this idea we have." It was the one thing I hadn't done, a family show. And it was the one thing I really kinda wanted to do! I've got five kids. I've raised a lot of children. I've raised children to adulthood, and it's a pretty bleak landscape out there, these days, for intelligent family drama. I thought, you don't have to go completely brainless just because you're doing a show for kids. Kids are pretty smart. I was a pretty smart kid, and my kids were pretty smart. I wanted to do something that a child, mom and dad, and grandpa can sit down on the sofa together and watch and enjoy, and enjoy for different reasons, and not feel ambushed. We're not going to be really snarky and attack some core value you have. You know, where you have to have that talk afterwards, with, "I know Belinda gets really sassy with her dad and it seems sassy on the show, but it really isn't funny at home." That kind of talk.
You nailed it right at the very beginning, when you described it as a family show, and not as a kids' show. That's such an important distinction that a lot of, quote-unquote, "people at the top," don't always understand.
Because of my delayed liftoff in this business... I was a consumer of this product for over 40 years before I turned into Walter White and started making the product myself. As a consumer of the product, I understand the relationship people have with their television sets. That's something a lot of people who come into the business right out of film school don't really know, and a lot of executives don't seem to know that. Fortunately, the people at Imagine, they do. They understand that it's all about the characters. Kids are the same as adults. Writing for kids is not that different than writing for adults. You don't dumb anything down. We take some really deep dives on this show.
And you got people like Dean Israelite and Jonathan Frakes to direct. I imagine they're not going to phone it in because many of the viewers aren't in high school yet, right?
These guys make their decisions off of the scripts. When I wrote the pilot, it was, like... I think they responded to the quality of the story and characters. We have a lot of people who came in, other directors of a pretty high profile, before we decided on Dean. I was actually very flattered by how many people were vying for the spot to direct this thing. I think it's a ridiculous cliche, but the truth is, it all starts with the script. I think we developed a really good script. That's what drew the talent in. Plus, they knew, with Imagine, they've got such a stellar reputation. They're such nice people over there! A lot of it, too, is "What am I working on, and who am I working with?" Their reputation is very artist-friendly.
At Imagine, you mean?
You walk into the Imagine offices, and there's a whole wall that's papered with pages from scripts. To me, that says a lot about that organization.They understand the foundation, that everything comes from the written page.
I love the way your work... Wait, let me figure out how to phrase this... It's set in the world of storytelling, not the world we're stuck in.
There's a little bit of world building going on here, but the world... It's almost like composing something for a string quartet. The world is inside that tin can of a spaceship, and mission control. It's the parents down on Earth, and the kids up in space. So it's a very compressed kind of world, you know? You don't know what's going on outside of mission control. You don't know what kind of issues society's dealing with outside of it. We don't go outside of mission control, and outside the ship. We're just dealing with this situation. One thing that really appealed to me about the concept is, I always wanted to do... Something you don't see too often is this process of individuation that everybody goes through, and how painful it is, not just for the child, but for the parent as well. And these kids are literally millions of miles away from their parents. We get to dramatize a bit of that, too. Like, "Dad's telling me to do this, but I know he's wrong, and we need to do that instead, but I have to disobey him to do that." In a lot of kids' dramas, that's short-handed as, "Wee! We're just gonna do what our parents told us not to do!" You know what I mean?
Totally.
Whereas, our kids really struggle with this, you know? Because the stakes are so high. And we really wanted to ground it in reality. I think, whether a child decides to go out for a space walk against his parents' wishes, or deciding to not go out for football this year against his parents' wishes, those are gut-wringers, those decisions. It was a nice opportunity to be able to dramatize that.
The Astronauts airs Fridays on Nickelodeon.
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From Metro Philadelphia:
“It’s a show that celebrates a hopeful future”
Daniel Knauf has been the mastermind behind a number of television shows and has always loved writing and creating. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English at California State University Los Angeles. However, one might be surprised to hear that he had a career as an employee benefits consultant before getting into the writing world.
“I was on that track as a kid, I was very creative,” said Knauf. “I majored in art and English in college, but the career in insurance happened when I got married at 22 and I wanted to be able to feed everybody. It seemed like I had to set aside childhood things.”
Though he found a lot of success as an employee benefits consultant, by the time he was 27-28 years old Knauf felt the itch to start writing again.
“I’ve found that creative people are like sharks — you have to keep swimming or else you can’t breathe,” said Knauf. “Once the kids went to bed, I would spend a couple of hours a night learning the screenwriting process. I kept that up for years and years and focused on getting better at it.”
For years, Knauf wrote from his home and by the time he reached his 40s he figured it was time to try and sell something. His first major project was when he sold “Carnivàle” to HBO. Part of the reason Knauf believes the show sold was because he was able to hone in on his craft before working in the industry.
“I think that I had forced myself to sit on the launchpad for as long as I did so I could understand my craft before I launched a career,” said Knauf. “Many writers who start out in the business are learning as they are working — I don’t think that working on staff on a show is a great place to be learning. There’s too much pressure there. But I have the luxury of having a well-paying job so I could really take my time.”
Knauf signed on as the Creator/Executive Producer of the series, which ran on HBO from 2005-2007. The series focused on a traveling carnival in a bleak American landscape of the Great Depression.
For Knauf, landing a job on HBO was like going from zero to 100 right off the bat.
“It was completely terrifying. I was suddenly in this weird bubble that is Hollywood,” said Knauf. “There’s a completely different language spoken there. In Hollywood, there were these specific things that you needed to do and on ‘Carnivàle’ I made every single possible mistake you could make from the standpoint of office politics. I usually only made them once — I had run my own business for 22 years and brought a skillset that most showrunners don’t have. But we were making a really terrific show, to this day people say that ‘Carnivàle’ was the beginning of what we think of when it comes to contemporary serialized television. It was a great experience overall.”
Knauf has since gone on to write and produce many shows, including producing and writing on the hit STARZ series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” serving as the writer-Showrunner on “Dracula” for NBC, and working as a writer and Executive Producer on the NBC series “The Blacklist,” just to name a few. While he’s used to working on darker subject matter, Knauf’s latest project comes in the form of a new live-action series on Nickelodeon entitled “The Astronauts.”
Produced in partnership with Imagine Kids+Family’s Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Stephanie Sperber, “The Astronauts” centers around five children whose parents work in the aeronautic industry. While they all know of each other, they aren’t the best of friends. The kids manage to check out a spacecraft but ultimately end up getting launched into space together. The kids and their parents have to work together to get the kids back down to Earth safely.
“I’ve been in really dark material up until ‘The Astronauts,’ so this was a huge change of pace for me. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, I was getting kind of burned out on stuff that was so edgy,” said Knauf. “When my parents were alive, we would watch TV and they would be afraid to go outside because some stuff was so grim and horrendous. The world isn’t really like that. I wanted to make something that people ages 7-70 can enjoy together and not feel worse about the world than they did when they sit down.”
Working on “The Astronauts” gave Knauf a chance to write through the eyes of children, which wasn’t particularly prominent in the work he was doing. Knauf says that while adults usually have their public perception figured out by the time they are in their mid-20s, kids are still under construction.
“There’s not a lot of subtext with kids, they are a little more emotionally honest. Kids kind of have lousy poker faces,” said Knauf. “You might have to write a lot of scene work for adults to get to the truth in a situation, but with children, it’s usually right out there.”
Though it is technically children’s programming, Knauf says that “The Astronauts” explores some bleak material, essentially if “Apollo 13” happened with children. The show itself is one of the most ambitious and cinematic projects Nickelodeon will bring to television, with Knauf saying that the space world that is created is incredible to look at, and the network is exploring this new kind of programming that could appeal to a broader audience.
Knauf hopes that families who watch “The Astronauts” together are able to find some hope in the world around them.
“I think it’s a show that celebrates a hopeful future. It’s about people working together to find a common goal,” said Knauf. “It’s a hard road they’re on, but at the end of the day, it’s hopeful. These days when a hotspot is on what separates us, ‘The Astronauts’ celebrates what brings us together. I’ve never been more proud of something I’ve done. The team has been phenomenal. Every day is like Christmas morning to see the final cuts. I’m not a pushover, but this one is something special.”
“The Astronauts” premieres on Nickelodeon on Nov. 13.
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From Parentology:
‘THE ASTRONAUTS’ — NICKELODEON SHOW BREAKS THE MOLD & SOARS HIGH
The Astronauts, Nickelodeon’s newest live-action series, premiers November 13, 2020. But, if you’re expecting a typical kids’ show featuring pre-teen hijinx, slapstick humor, and a laugh track—think again. Nickelodeon has made an active move to entertain the whole family with this series, not just the youngest members. Along with Imagine Kids+Family’s Ron Howard (Apollo 13), Brian Grazer (A Beautiful Mind), and Stephanie Sperber executive producing, the network has launched an ambitious out-of-this-world show unlike anything else on TV right now.
Check out the latest trailer, then meet the man who has created this new ground-breaking series.
Meet “The Captain”
The Astronauts depicts the drama that ensues when five untrained adolescents are accidentally launched into space. With survival their only option, the kids must assume their new roles as astronauts and brave harrowing tasks, as their parents rush to find a way to take control of the situation.
Daniel Knauf is the series creator, writer, and executive producer. Knauf has written and produced a host of other well-known movies and series, most notably HBO’s Carnivale. While adolescents in space seems a bit of a stretch from the supernatural and dark themes depicted in Carnivale, Knauf didn’t necessarily feel that way.
“It was something that I really wanted to do,” he tells Parentology. “I really wanted to tackle something that you could have multi-generations sitting on the sofa and enjoying it. Something that spoke to what we have in common as human beings regardless of race, sexual orientation, age—anything.”
The show focuses on the struggle and uncertainty faced by both the young astronauts and their parents trying to guide them home. Knauf is able to tackle the solemn situation while allowing the natural humor to shine through. He credits the focus on the young protagonists.
“There’s the aspect of kids where you’re putting fresh eyes on problems,” he explains. “Kids are going to have different solutions to problems than anything an adult would come up with.”
Real Struggles from Real Life
The Astronauts depicts the trials and triumphs of both the kids and their parents in a real, multi-faceted way. It also depicts children growing up into their own identities. Knauf cites his own experiences as a parent of five children as a creative influence on the show, and his goal to make it different from others on TV.
“When depicting family these days, there’s such an emphasis on dysfunction — and there’s a reason for that. It’s built-in conflict and often it’s just comedy gold,” he notes. “But I kind of wanted to take a step back and say, in reality, I don’t know many families actively are rooting for other people in their family to fail.”
The Astrounauts also gave Knauf a great opportunity to dramatize something seldom seen on television: “That whole process from the parents’ point of view and the kids’ of individuation. It’s a painful process.” This is something that resonates with viewers of all ages, not just kids coming of age. “It’s geared toward human beings and what we all share,” Knauf says.
The show also depicts a diverse group of children and parents. Knauf says that is both intentional and organic, created through the show’s diverse group of writers offering many different points of view. While that diversity is celebrated, Knauf also wanted to utilize the premise of the show to focus on how people can come together, no matter what their background.
“In a perilous situation, the things that separate you from the people that you’re relying on take a distant back seat to what you’ve got in common,” he says. “We share an ocean in common. We all admire courage. We all admire sacrifice. This transcends religion, it transcends race. One of the things I felt we could do with this show is to celebrate what we have in common.”
The Astronauts is one of Nickelodeon’s first endeavors to move toward programming that viewers of all ages can truly enjoy. Knauf believes that what he’s created will be just that. “Everybody has brought their best,” he says. “It’s been a really great experience—we’re doing something really special here.”
The Astronauts begins with a one-hour premiere on Nickelodeon, Friday November 13, 2020.
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From Backstage:
Why Creating TV for Kids + Adults Is Similar, According to Nickelodeon’s ‘The Astronauts’ Showrunner
Daniel Knauf’s journey to running a TV show is a long one and a short one, and it’s so unlikely that it would be unbelievable as a character arc on television. After writing for practice on the side of a long career as a health insurance broker, he began to post his work online around 1999 and 2000, before blogs and internet discoveries were normal occurrences. A producer looking for something other than police or medical procedurals found the first act of a feature script that had potential for a slot on HBO during the time that “Sex and the City” was the premium cabler’s big series. With some adjustments, that script became the two-season series Carnivàle. After creating and running his own show as his first major foray into the industry, Knauf learned how hard it is to get a project made, and how unusual his trajectory had been. His TV education continued with writing and producing on series like “Supernatural” and “The Blacklist”, before returning to the top spot this year with a bit of a different project, Nickelodeon’s “The Astronauts,” about a group of kids that are accidentally launched into space and have to find their way home. Knauf shares his experience making the family-friendly dramedy, which premiered on Nov. 13, plus what happens when COVID-19 interrupts a television shoot.
What a day on set looked like for Knauf on “The Astronauts”:
“I do things a little differently than most showrunners. First of all, I like the writing to be one part and the production phase to be another part, so we had eight of 10 episodes written before we even did any filming. Once we go into production, I like to be on set. Most of my job is watching the rehearsals and seeing if the lines are working. Is the scene working? Is everybody aware of the purpose of the scene? You make sure everything’s blocked right and then once they start actually shooting coverage, you’re revising pages and monkeying around with future episodes and fine tuning things. If some of your cast has trouble with certain kinds of lines you make little tweaks that you can’t do in the vacuum of a writers’ room.
I want to create an environment in which everybody will come away from it saying, “I did the best work I’ve ever done.” Sometimes that’s just getting out of people’s way if you’re really doing the job. If I ‘cast’ the right production designer, if I ‘cast’ the right stunt coordinator, if I ‘cast’ the right, wardrobe person, then ideally I don’t really have to do anything, I just have to get out of their way and let them do their job. I like to give people creative wiggle room. I like to be surprised by something somebody’s done. When I go home every night, I run an inventory of all the things I did really well. And then, what didn’t I do well? If there’s a situation where I feel like I owe somebody an apology, I go over to their office and apologize the next day.”
How COVID-19 changed the way he operated as a showrunner:
“It really affected the production. All of a sudden, we can’t have more than 50 people on set. Generally it’s like 200 people. It became this very complex thing. We finished four episodes and then we shut down and then in August, we started shooting again. I had a live feed to the camera so I was able to sit in my living room in Westlake Village and in real time watch what was being shot. If I’m on set, that means there’s one less person who could be on set who’s actually maybe more necessary on set. It was really weird because it was by remote control. But then again, when I was shooting ‘The Blacklist,’ we’re shooting that in New York and all the writers were in Los Angeles so I’m used to working by remote control.”
The difference between running a show for young and adult audiences:
“You can try to convey the truth of every scene and not get lazy, not fall back on what we’ve seen a million times before. The gold standard is what they call the ecstasy of recognition, where you’re watching a series and a person reacts to a certain situation in a way that’s wholly unexpected, but completely in line with that character, or, more importantly, in line with something that reminds you of a situation you might’ve had. You think, Oh my God, I thought I was the only one, but I guess I’m not and it reconnects you with humanity. When I’m looking around and people were responding to the scene similarly to me, it means they could get it. I’ve never seen it that way before. I’m always kind of going for that, whether you’re writing for children or adults, it doesn’t make any difference. I think the big change is how dark you can go. There are places I’m not going to take kids. Even the way people have a conflict, I’m probably going to be a little bit more general. You’re not quite as intense when you’re writing for kids and families. But it can be really scary. We actually were able to go to some places in the story there that are fairly dark, but I’m a big believer in redemption and I don’t go to dark places just to go to dark places.”
What it’s like to work with a cast of mainly young talent:
“When writing for kids, I write like I’m writing for really honest adults. Kids just generally say what’s on their mind. They’re not very good at diplomacy. There’s not that much subtext. Less subtext I think with children is the main thing. These were 12-year-olds, so they’re just on the cusp of becoming adults. They’re moving into that territory. They’re fun to write. Adults are always hiding behind masks. Kids are just in the process of building that mask.”
Advice he has for aspiring showrunners:
“Sit down, write some episodes, pull some friends together, and just start shooting. What used to be insanely impossible, the equipment is consumer level now. The best thing to do is get a job where you’re supervising people because it’s really about management. You’re managing people and material and making sure that you’re exploiting that material in service of creating something wonderful. You’ve got to like people and you’ve got to inspire everyone you’ve come in contact with and give people enough room to create. Another good thing is to look at people who have been in leadership positions. Read some biographies, they all relied on really smart people. Emulate people who did it successfully.”
What Knauf thinks makes a good showrunner:
“Somebody with a clarity of vision who can function inside the fog of combat production. There are a lot of moving parts and there’s a lot of people asking you questions. It’s maintaining that this is the show we’re all making and making sure that everybody understands that and the showrunner maintains that and doesn’t let it become distorted. At the same time, if something better comes up, be smart enough to seize that too. It’s maintaining that clarity of vision.”
What he thinks makes good TV:
“Television that when I’m watching it, I go, ‘I have no idea what’s going to happen next,’ but it’s not coming from left field. I think it’s a matter of constructing characters that are going to do unexpected things or handle things in a way that is different than what we’d expect them to do. That all comes from character rather than you going, ‘I’ve seen this a million times, but I’ve never seen this. So let’s do this.’ It can’t just be this weird creative contrarianism; it needs to be embedded in that character. It’s about who they are and not just because what the plot means.”
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Originally published: Tuesday, November 10, 2020.
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