Mad Men

Mad Men is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner and produced by Lionsgate Television. It ran on cable network AMC from July 19, 2007, to May 17, 2015, with seven seasons and 92 episodes. It is set during the period of March 1960 to November 1970.

Mad Men begins at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, and continues at the new firm of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (later named Sterling Cooper & Partners) in the Time-Life Building at 1271 Sixth Avenue. According to the pilot episode, the term "Mad men" was coined in the 1950s by advertisers working on Madison Avenue to refer to themselves, "Mad" being short for "Madison". (The only documented use of the phrase from that time may be the late-1950s writings of James Kelly, an advertising executive and writer.)

The series's main character is charismatic advertising executive Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm), a talented creative director at Sterling Cooper. Though erratic and mysterious, he is widely regarded throughout the advertising world as a genius; some of the most famous ad campaigns in history are shown to be his creations. In later seasons, Don struggles as his highly calculated identity falls into a period of decline. The show follows the people in his personal and professional lives, most notably Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), who is introduced as Don's secretary but soon discovers her passion for copywriting. It also focuses heavily on the characters of Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), a young executive at the firm; Betty Draper (January Jones), Don's wife; Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the firm's office manager; Roger Sterling (John Slattery), one of Don's partners; and in later seasons, Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka), Don's oldest child. As the series progresses, it depicts the changing moods and social mores of the United States throughout the 1960s and early 1970s.

Mad Men received widespread acclaim for its writing, acting, directing, visual style and historical authenticity. It won many awards, including 16 Emmys and five Golden Globes. It was also the first basic cable series to receive the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, winning it each year of its first four seasons (2008–2011). It is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time and as part of the early 21st century Golden Age of Television.

The series covers the advertising industry centered on Madison Avenue in New York City in the 1960's, primarily following the professional and personal life of protagonist, Don Draper, a creative director and partner at a Manhattan firm. The plotlines also follow the personal and professional lives of Draper's family and co-workers as they relate to him and each other. Overshadowing the series is Draper's double life both as to his true identity, and his unfaithfulness to his family, while he tries to maintain a brilliant and charismatic outward appearance.

In 2000, while working as a staff writer for Becker, Matthew Weiner wrote the first draft as a spec script for the pilot of what would later be called Mad Men. Television showrunner David Chase recruited Weiner to work as a writer on his HBO series The Sopranos after reading the pilot script in 2002. "It was lively, and it had something new to say," Chase said. "Here was someone [Weiner] who had written a story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism."

Weiner and his representatives at Industry Entertainment and ICM tried to sell the pilot script to HBO, which expressed an interest, but insisted that David Chase be executive producer. Chase declined, despite his enthusiasm for Weiner's writing and the pilot script. HBO CEO Richard Plepler later became a fan of the show and congratulated AMC on their success with it. In 2017 he named passing on Mad Men as his biggest regret from his time at HBO, calling it "inexcusable" and attributing the decision to "hubris."

Weiner then moved on to Showtime, which also passed. Lacking a suitable network buyer, they tabled sales efforts until years later, when a talent manager on Weiner's team, Ira Liss, pitched the series to AMC Vice President of Development Christina Wayne. "The network was looking for distinction in launching its first original series," according to AMC Networks president Ed Carroll, "and we took a bet that quality would win out over formulaic mass appeal."

Weiner cited Alfred Hitchcock as a major influence on the series' visual style, especially the film North by Northwest. He was also influenced by director Wong Kar-wai in the music, mise en scène, and editorial style. Weiner noted in an interview that M*A*S*H and Happy Days, two television shows produced in the 1970s about the 1950s, provided a "touchstone for culture" and a way to "remind people that they have a misconception about the past, any past." He also said, "Mad Men would have been some sort of crisp, soapy version of The West Wing if not for The Sopranos." Peggy's "psychic scar for the entire show, after giving away that baby," Weiner said, is "the kind of thing that would have never occurred to me before I was on The Sopranos."

Tim Hunter, the director of a half-dozen episodes from the show's first two seasons, called Mad Men a "very well-run show." He said:

The pilot episode was shot at Silvercup Studios in New York City and various locations around the city; subsequent episodes were filmed at Los Angeles Center Studios. It was available in high definition for showing on AMC HD and on video-on-demand services available from various cable affiliates.

The writers, including Weiner, amassed volumes of research on Mad Men's time period, so as to make most aspects of it—including detailed set design, costume design, and props—historically accurate, producing an authentic visual style that garnered critical praise. On the scenes featuring smoking, Weiner said: "Doing this show without smoking would've been a joke. It would've been sanitary and it would've been phony." Each episode had a budget between US$2–2.5 million; the pilot episode's budget was over $3 million.

Weiner collaborated with cinematographer Phil Abraham and production designers Robert Shaw (who worked on the pilot only) and Dan Bishop to develop a visual style "influenced more by cinema than television." Alan Taylor, a veteran director of The Sopranos, directed the pilot and also helped establish the series's visual tone. To cast an "air of mystery" around Don Draper, Taylor tended to shoot from behind him, or frame him partially obscured. Many scenes set at Sterling Cooper were shot lower-than-eyeline to incorporate the ceilings into the composition of frame, reflecting the photography, graphic design and architecture of the period. Taylor felt that neither steadicam nor handheld camera work would be appropriate to the "visual grammar of that time, and that aesthetic didn't mesh with [their] classic approach"; accordingly, the sets were designed to be practical for dolly work.

According to a 2011 Miller Tabak + Company estimate published in Barron's, Lions Gate Entertainment received an estimated $2.71 million from AMC for each episode, a little less than the $2.84 million each episode cost to produce.

In March 2011, after negotiations between the network and the series's creator, AMC picked up Mad Men for a fifth season, which premiered on March 25, 2012. Weiner reportedly signed a $30 million contract which would keep him at the helm of the show for three more seasons. A couple of weeks later, a Marie Claire interview with January Jones was published, noting the limits to that financial success when it comes to the actors: "We don't get paid very much on the show and that's well-documented. On the other hand, when you do television, you have a steady paycheck each week, so that's nice."

Miller Tabak analyst David Joyce wrote that sales from home video and iTunes could amount to $100 million during the show's expected seven-year run, with international syndication sales bringing in an additional estimated $700,000 per episode. That does not include the $71 to $100 million estimated to come from a Netflix streaming video deal announced in April 2011.

The opening title sequence features credits superimposed over a graphic animation of a businessman falling from a height, surrounded by skyscrapers with reflections of period advertising posters and billboards, accompanied by a short edit of the instrumental "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2. The businessman appears as a black-and-white silhouette. The titles, created by production house Imaginary Forces, pay homage to graphic designer Saul Bass's skyscraper-filled opening titles for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and falling man movie poster for Vertigo (1958); Weiner has listed Hitchcock as a major influence on the visual style of the series. In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the show's opening title sequence ranked No. 9 on a list of TV's top 10 credits sequences, as selected by readers.

David Carbonara composed the original score for the series. Mad Men – Original Score Vol. 1 was released on January 13, 2009.

At the end of almost every episode, the show either fades to black or smash cuts to black as period music, or a theme by series composer David Carbonara, plays during the ending credits; at least one episode ends with silence or ambient sounds. A few episodes have ended with more recent popular music, or with a diegetic song dissolving into the credits music.

Apple Corps authorized the use of The Beatles song "Tomorrow Never Knows" for the Season 5 episode "Lady Lazarus" in a rare instance them licensing a Beatles recording to a television show. Lionsgate paid roughly $250,000 for the use of the song in the episode.

In addition to creating the series, Matthew Weiner was the showrunner, head writer, and an executive producer; he contributed to each episode through writing or co-writing the scripts, casting various roles, and approving costume and set designs. He was notorious for being selective about all aspects of the series, and maintained a high level of secrecy about production details. Tom Palmer served as a co-executive producer and writer on the first season. Scott Hornbacher (who later became an executive producer), Todd London, Lisa Albert, Andre Jacquemetton, and Maria Jacquemetton were producers on the first season. Palmer, Albert, Andre Jacquemetton, and Maria Jacquemetton were also writers on the first season. Bridget Bedard, Chris Provenzano, and writer's assistant Robin Veith completed the first-season writing team.