CableFAX 2009 Program Awards: Best Producer
WINNERS: MATTHEW WEINER AND SCOTT HORNBACHER, MAD MEN, AMC
Honoring Weiner (top) and Hornbacher is particularly appropriate since the series’ production elements are critical to its tremendous success. Half the fun of Mad Men are the 1960s clothes, the hats (on men and women), the furniture, the cars, the interiors, the hairstyles. Weiner’s attention to detail and historical accuracy for each Mad Men episode has become well known. In this obsession he’s joined by Hornbacher, whom he brought in after the two worked together on another series that savored the details, The Sopranos. For Mad Men’s first season they assembled an all-star production team, including Emmy winners Dan Bishop for production design and costumer Katherine Jane Bryant.
Honorable Mentions:
Vince Gilligan and Mark Johnson, Breaking Bad, AMC: Gilligan wears multiple hats, having created and produced the series. He also writes episodes in the saga of Walt White, the chem teacher who takes to cooking crystal meth. Co-producer is Oscar winner Mark Johnson, who discovered Gilligan while judging a screenwriting contest.
David Eick, Battlestar Galactica, Syfy: A veteran studio exec, Eick was "present at the creation" of Battlestar Galactica, having exec-produced the 4-hour miniseries pilot and the series from its inception in ’04.