[How to: TV] Joss Whedon interview

This is from InFocus magazine, a big story about Serenity, Toy Story and the frustration of writing Alien:Resurrection among many other things. Some of the specific quotes I think are worth noting here:

... that’s the dream job for a script doctor: a great structure with a script that doesn’t work. A script that’s pretty good? Where you can’t really figure out what’s wrong, because there’s something structural that’s hard to put your finger on? Death. But a good structure that just needs a new body on it is the best.

... as a script doctor I’ve been called in more than a few times, and the issue is always the same: “We want you to make the third act more exciting and cheaper.” And my response inevitably is, “The problem with the third act is the first two acts.” This response is never listened to.

I don’t remember writing, “A withered, granny-lookin’ Pumkinhead-kinda-thing makes out with Ripley.” Pretty sure that stage direction never existed in any of my drafts.

The way I work, I’m like a vulture. I circle and circle and then I dive. I usually don’t actually write anything until I know exactly how it’s going to turn out. I don’t “let the computer take me away.” I’m an absolute Nazi about structure. I make outlines. I make charts and graphs with colors.

Being on set is important for the writing?
It really is. Just because once you’ve written something you have to make sure it’s actually shot the way it’s written. Because with TV directors there’s a lot of hit-and-miss. You can get a terrible hack or you can get a really great guy who just missed one really important point.

I had directors who I conflicted with and I just flat-out thought they were not getting it done. I’ve had conflict. No regime is without it. But good work on my show always stayed on screen. If somebody wrote something, and it was right, I’d never change it, because I am too lazy. There are producers who need to control everything and I needed to control exactly what needed controlling, and if somebody could get it done I would walk away faster than you could see me. Like I was Bugs Bunny. There would just be smoke in the shape of where I was. Because that’s not what it was about. It was about, “Is the work being serviced?”