Battle Star

Emmy-nominated executive producer Casey Patterson started her career in the ‘90s at MTV Networks by answering phones in the talent department.

From there, she held “every job on her way to executive vice president of production, talent involvement, and film studio relations.”

Not only was MTV the perfect upbringing, but the socially conscious and pro-risk taking environment at the cable network continues to infiltrate her work to this day, especially when you take a collective look at the three television specials she has coming out this December.

Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland hosts the one-off spin-off special, Lip Sync Battle Shorties, on Nickelodeon which features everyday kids lip syncing their favorite songs. Similar to the celebrities on Lip Sync Battle, the “shorties” are involved in every aspect of their performances—from song selection to choreography and staging.

Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard spread holiday cheer in Taraji and Terrence’s White Hot Holidays. A music and variety show (in its second year) featuring performances by Pharrell, Missy Elliott, Alicia Keys and more.

Dwayne Johnson hosts Rock the Troops, held at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii and honors the men and women of the United States armed services. Performers on the show include, Kevin Hart, Terry Crews, Matthew McConaughey, George Clooney and many more.

Let's start by talking about the, not one, but three shows that you have coming out the first half of December.

It just dawned on me a couple of weeks ago that they were all airing within a week and a half of each other. It's been a crazy build up but it's a good problem to have.

Tell me what you are most excited by with regards to each of these shows.

They're all so different. That's what's most exciting. Yeah, we're really fortunate. We're a very young production company.

In my tenure at Viacom, I was able to build really fantastic collaborative relationships with some pretty spectacular talent, so all of these projects are passion projects. It's sort of the best way to do things. When you have people whom you love and they’re wildly talented, you just want to create together.

Beyond being appreciative for being busy, I'm appreciative that I have such talented partners in each one of these projects.

Lip Sync Battle is a labor of love for old partners. We are all friends and family—Jimmy Fallon, John Krasinski, Stephen Merchant, Chrissy, LL [Cool J], and John Legend to a certain degree. He's at every taping with us and so supportive.

We were thinking when we had success with Lip Sync Battle there were a lot of offers to expand the brand. The kids direction was most exciting to all of us, mainly because of things like the great [All New Mickey] Mouse Club tradition.

I grew up watching Mouse Club and I know how much it meant to me to go home and watch those kids that I could see myself in or aspire to be. That was the one thing that really resonated the most.

It looks really fun, like there's a whole lot of personality going on.

That's what's so great. The process of Lip Sync Battles with the celebrities in that in the adult version is that the celebrities come in and they do it top to bottom. I always say that I would love to take credit for their choices but all of it comes from the celebrities.

By the time we get on the first phone call they know exactly what they want to do, what songs they want, the songs that they love. They have a very specific take on it. We're there to make all of it happen and to produce that for them.

That show for the audience is about The Rock, in a certain way, or Jimmy Fallon in a certain way, or Channing Tatum in a certain way. They do something against their persona and you can see that they're really risking something and showing you a different side of themselves. The fans just love them for it.

On Shorties, what's really amazing is we get to see them in their process. They are equally in control. We have great stories with the Shorties. There's one little boy Artyon, who's training for the Olympics and Michelle Obama is his personal hero.

He's a spectacular dancer. He's 8 years old. His performance all came from his mind. He chose the song, he did it as a tribute to Michelle Obama which I thought was incredibly sweet and had her in mind as the inspiration the entire time. He got to show off his specific skills, which is gymnastics. It gave him so much confidence.

You can absolutely see that these kids found confidence, strength, and a lot of self worth in their unique style.
Tell me how White Hot Holidays got started.

I created that show with Taraji [P. Henson]. We're producing partners. It was born from her doing Lip Sync Battle. She came on and she was so fantastic and she told me a story that was deeply funny. I know she is an incredible dramatic actress but I didn't realize how funny she was.   

As we were just talking and working together that week she told me about how Carol Burnett is actually one of her heroes and the only person she's truly been starstruck by and couldn't speak to when she met her.

We just decided that we would do something where she got to play and stretch a little. We produced the show together both years. This year we have Tyler Perry and Chris Rock. This is a really busy time for her. She has Hidden Figures coming out which is brilliant. She has the book. She has Empire, but this is something she's really passionate about and made time for.

Let’s switch gears and talk about your other project, Rock the Troops.

I've been working with Dwayne [Johnson] for years. We just have a similar… I was almost about to say we have a similar work ethic but that's ridiculous because no one has Dwayne's work ethic. He was up at 4am, he worked out and probably shot a season of Ballers as we've been on the phone.

But we share a similar sensibility about producing and he's an incredibly kind, generous, and dedicated producing partner.

He is so in touch with his fans. He doesn't speak to his fans through a 3rd party. He talks to them directly and they talk back. So they are in this 360 conversation all the time. They are very vocal about letting him know what they love and why they love it. He has a better sense of his fans than anybody I've ever worked with.

Dwayne comes from a military family. He has Navy Seals in his family. When he travels and when he's touring he always stops at bases, He's always interacting with the troops and he's done it in a public and a private way. Its just something that he's always done as a person because its important to him.

We thought Rock the Troops was a great way in to sort of do music and variety which we both love and wanted to develop, but also with a purpose.

It is meant to be pure, fun, excitement, celebration, and just a show of love to the troops. It was big in body like Dwayne, and he has such fantastic co-stars and friends. Kevin Hart came to support. Jack Black came to support. Rob Riggle who was in the Marines for 24 years came to join. Matthew McConaughey—I cannot tell you how far he flew to make that happen and then stay.

We were expecting 5,000 people and we got 50,000. It was all service men and women and their families.

How did you manage that from a logistics perspective?

It was tough. I'll be honest it was really tough. We had to close gates at a certain point because for safety and security reasons. We felt so bad for any of the families that had spent so long in traffic trying to get in. It was the first year. We had no idea that the response would be what it was.

We really wanted to reach as many people as possible. I can tell you when they opened those gates and we stood on stage, Dwayne and I both had tears in our eyes. We looked out and saw how many people. Every day during rehearsal we would talk about, you know, we would say, ‘God I hope they come. Do you think people are going to show up?’

What are the traits of someone who would be successful at this type of work; the live event work? What makes you good at your job?

I think you need to be emotional and passionate because its all about lives. It’s all about connecting masses of people around one concept, one idea, one performance, one cause, at once. The power of that, the power of what it feels like to bring that number of people around one thing that they can talk about and they can be entertained by or moved by in some way.

I think we all live for that. It’s grueling at times; just the schedule and there's such an unbelievable race to the finish. Lorne Michaels has a great saying that the show is going on at 11:30 whether you're ready or not.

A clear vision is a must. People have to be willing to follow you. It’s a battle. They have to know that you have a vision for it, that you have a plan to get there and they have to believe in the content. They have to believe in your ability to get there.

There are so many different platforms that are now available for people to access content, how are you finding ways to kind of expand your reach?

It's interesting, Lip Sync Battle was the first and probably the best example. We developed that format in a different way. We stripped it, and it was so they could travel and live on multiple platforms. We stripped away any of the traditional music competition tropes, like prizing or complicated voting systems and counts and recounting.

We stripped all of that away so that we could have the maximum time in a half hour show for performances.

The real work for Lip Sync Battle was to have the confidence that we could build a half hour format that could hopefully be successful and go on for now I think we're approaching 60 episodes. We are in 150 countries. We're in 20 different languages. We had to build a format that could travel all around the world.

If we could strip the format down so that it could be four pure performances we knew that each and every performance would have a life of its own and travel all around the world. Which is exactly what it did.

Addressing that, people like to consume content three and four minutes at a time. The clips are a really big deal. We released more than what was traditional or comfortable for a network. There were rules about how many seconds you release of a certain thing and how you would use the programming.

Everyone helped to believe that these two things could co-exist. At the time Lip Sync Battle really paved the way for people to produce in those three minute segments and to release it.

We reached a ton of people online, and it didn't take away from the linear rating. They didn't cannibalize one another, they fed one another.
I know we are running out of time, but I have one more fun question. What are you binge watching right now?

My dad is English so right now I'm obsessed with The Crown. I cannot get enough of the pomp and circumstance of The Crown. I love it. Just those worlds, it’s so beautifully done. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Feels like a little piece of home. The perfect binge for me at the moment.