David Chase’s gangster series shattered the industry’s preconceptions and showed what TV drama could be. Part crime thriller, part domestic drama, and part social satire, The Sopranos was also innovative in its structure. It split the difference between serialized, long-form storytelling, in which an entire season was united by ongoing plot strands, and more traditional TV narrative, where characters and conflicts were introduced at the start of an episode and resolved neatly at the end.

These qualities and more are exemplified by Season Three’s “Pine Barrens,” in which Paulie Walnuts and Christopher Moltisanti ineptly try to kill a Russian gangster in a snowy stretch of New Jersey forest, with an ending that is classic Sopranos, offering a conclusion at once inevitable and surprising—and also prankishly frustrating, denying both characters and viewers the closure they crave. In that respect, it feels like a harbinger of the show’s notorious 2007 cut-to-black ending, which Sopranos fans argue about to this day.

Yesterday at Split Screens Festival at IFC Center in NYC, the episode’s screenwriter (and executive producer on the show) Terence Winter and director Steve Buscemi presented David Chase with Split Screens’ first-ever Vanguard Award, then took us behind the scenes of one of the greatest of all Sopranos episodes. Here are some excerpts

How did the idea for the episode originated?

How did the idea for "PINE BARRENS" Originated? | SOPRANOS panel with David Chase, Steve Buscemi and Terence Winter, at Split Screens Festival 2017 NYC

The episode has so much more than just "The Russian"

"Pine Barrens" has so much more than the Russian - Scrabble, Steak, Ari Graynor! | SOPRANOS panel with David Chase, Steve Buscemi and Terence Winter, at Split Screens Festival 2017 NYC

Why is "What happens to the Russian", not an important question.

"Pine Barrens" (SPORANOS) - Why is it not important to know, "What happens to the Russian" - David Chase & Terence Winter | SOPRANOS panel Split Screens Festival

How to make a great TV show - David Chase.

David Chase (SOPRANOS) - How to make a great TV show | Split Screens Festival 2017 NYC

In any dictionary, as an example of “smart business practices” that marry "innovative storytelling" there should be three spots for HBO.

Their ability to make new rules and then break them and create something stronger and better is noting short of remarkable.

Home Box Office announced today the name of its standalone premium streaming service – HBO NOW – and that the service will launch this April, bringing the highly anticipated new product to audiences in time for the fifth season of "Game of Thrones.”

HBO and Apple also announced that for the first time an HBO subscription will be made available directly to Apple customers through HBO NOW.

HBO NOW provides instant access to HBO’s acclaimed programming. Watch every episode of every season of the best series programming, more of the biggest and latest Hollywood hit movies, original HBO Films, ground-breaking documentaries, sports and comedy and music specials. To subscribe to the streaming service HBO NOW, consumers only need the internet.

Apple will give viewers the ability to enjoy HBO programming via HBO NOW. Upon launch, customers can subscribe using the HBO NOW app on their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, or directly on Apple TV for instant access. Users can purchase HBO NOW directly in-app for $14.99 a month. Upon registering, subscribers will also be able to watch at HBONOW.com.

HBO will offer a 30 day introductory free trial period to new HBO NOW customers who sign up through Apple in April.

HBO continues to be in discussions with its existing network of distributors and new digital partners to offer HBO NOW. At launch, HBO NOW will be available on iOS devices and on PCs.

“HBO NOW is the next phase of innovation at HBO,” said Richard Plepler, chairman and CEO, HBO. “With this new partnership, a natural evolution for the network, we have access to millions of Apple customers who are used to getting their favorite apps immediately. Now, they can do the same with an HBO subscription.”

“HBO NOW offers a new generation of HBO fans many of the best TV programs in the world without a cable or satellite subscription,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Now, with the same simplicity as buying an app, customers can subscribe to HBO NOW and instantly start viewing their favorite HBO programs as they air – this is huge.”

Similar to HBO GO, HBO NOW will offer more than 2,000 titles online. This includes current critically acclaimed series like "Game of Thrones®," "True Detective®,”" Silicon Valley®," "Girls®, Veep® and The Leftovers®, as well as classics like The Sopranos®, Sex and the City®, True Blood®, The Wire® and Deadwood®.

Highly-anticipated upcoming original programs like “Westworld," the drama series starring Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Evan Rachel Wood; "The Brink," the dark comedy series starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins; the new season of the Emmy®-winning "True Detective" with Vince Vaughn, Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams; and HBO Films’ Bessie, starring Queen Latifah, will become available on HBO NOW as they air on HBO.

In addition, HBO NOW will showcase Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, named “best of 2014” on many critics’ lists; VICE, the Emmy®-winning, cutting-edge news magazine series hosted by Shane Smith; HBO Sports documentaries, series and World Championship Boxing events; and ground-breaking documentary programming like Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst and the Oscar®-winning Citizenfour.