Thursday, August 13, 2009

Tv Series Scripting: Part Four: The Second Draft

Earlier in this series: Part One, Two, and Three.

THE AXIOM IS simple: writing is rewriting. It is in the 2nd draft that we see (hopefully) the creative direction of the script solidify. The second draft also represents the symbolic handover point of draft from a purely creative document to a practical production document.

The first draft is submitted to the network, and they come back with their notes.

Their notes rarely, if ever, take production considerations into account.

This is a bit of a flaw in the process of making TV in Canada – in the USA you’d get notes from both the studio and the network.

The network notes view everything through the prism of what they think their audience wants, and what will get them excited, and what will get them to NOT change the channel. That means they’ll talk demos and about their brand, and wonder if things are clear enough. Networks sometimes vacillate between giving the audience too much credit and not enough credit. My impression is that the audience is WAY smarter than the network gives them credit for most of the time, but that’s an argument that’s very difficult to win. Because if you’re right, you get a cooler show, but if they’re right, they lose a viewer and money. And they’d rather err on their side than on yours. Of course, you can make the case that being too obvious will lose them viewers too. Good luck with that argument.

But I digress.

What the studio (who in the U.S. system, is deficit financing the show) would generally come back with, besides creative notes, (everybody gives creative notes, because though few people can write, everybody feels they know why something is written badly,) is notes on shootability. This is where you would get the red flags of nervousness about those numbers of locations and extras, and the VFX you’re asking for, and the problem location that you’ve just written yourself into a corner and really, really need.

Here, we have to make do with the network notes, and trust the producers will catch the really problematic budgetary pitfalls that lurk on the way to the 2nd draft.

The network notes may be extensive. Usually they’re a mix of “make this clearer” or they may react viscerally to a character beat they don’t like or something they think will make the viewer change the channel. Sometimes the writer’s task is to figure out what the note is really saying. As I said above, everybody thinks they know why something is bad – but in actuality, most of the time they don’t. When networks offer solutions in their notes, it’s very rarely the best solution.

Sometimes you have to figure out what the real bump was for them.

Like radiated pain, or a medical condition that presents as a set of symptoms that may have little relation to the organ causing the problem, diagnosing what’s really wrong and what might fix it is a bit of a devilish, voodoo process. But seeing the networks’ reaction to the notes also serves the happy purpose of clarifying your reaction to the material, too.

By now, you’ve sat with that first draft for a week. You’ve thought about everybody’s notes in the story department a bit, and maybe you’ve even had a “are you fucking crazy?” discussion with the nervous producer.

You might have had time to count the day/night splits and realize that they’re unworkable. Maybe the AD is truly perverse, and boarded the 1st draft just for shits and giggles.

With the notes back from the network, generally the writer meets with, or hears the story department’s reaction to those notes, and comes up with a plan of action.

In any case, you go into writing the second draft with the determination to make the creative work. The object is to come out the other side with a script that, in a perfect world, you could shoot and have it be a well told, structured, and paced story.

It's a big amateur mistake to judge a script based on the first draft. (And I'm not talking about reading a first draft, restructuring or throwing out so much of it that it's barely recognizable and coming back with another draft. That's not really a second draft, so much as a second first draft.)

Experienced series writers and showrunners will judge a first draft by a different yardstick than many. What it comes down to, basically, is this: if I had to rewrite this sucker, could I do it fast? Would it mean just changing dialogue or shaping scenes, or is there major, major structural work to be done?

That's something that you only really learn as you go along.

But if you talk to a lot of experienced writers and directors, they will generally tell you that when the writer's on the ball, it's shocking how much the quality of a 2nd draft can come up from the first.

I first learned this lesson before I even really got into the business. I was teaching, and a student of mine had written a West Wing spec script. I'd written one myself the year before, and it was smoothing my transition into the business, so that combined with my love of American politics meant I gave this student a bit more time than I usually would.

Her first draft was not good. It was a very student-y script -- long dialogue without shape, but also a certain fuzziness on the workings of American government. The character voices were off, and it lacked the crisp details, the "aha" fun moments of wonkery and, of course, the flourishes of poetry and oratory that Aaron Sorkin brought to his best scripts for the show. (This was in the show's 2nd season, when it was arguably at its creative height.)

The student listened, and took copious notes, and went off. And I expected I'd get a script back that was slightly improved.

I was wrong. What I got back was frankly, a bit humbling. She'd listened and internalized all the notes. She'd researched, and fixed all her story problems. She'd filled in the political and personal motivations, sharpened the fuzziness, aligned the voices, and come up with ingenious and creative solutions that in many cases were far, far superior to the suggestions I'd proffered.

I was caught by surprise by the dramatic increase in quality from first to second draft.

I haven't been, since. It happens all the time.

So, on a series, besides swinging for the creative fences, and showing all the confidence the first draft lacked, tackling the 2nd draft also includes you seriously considering the impact of the script on production. As you worry less about whether people will get the story and be able to understand and enjoy it, that space is filled by anxiety that comes from worrying about how this sucker will be shot. The writer may find himself unable to meet the AD’s eyes. Maybe there’s been a preliminary scout and the writer knows that there’s simply no way that they’re going to get that abandoned amusement park or casino. Maybe a swingset in a playground or a VLT section at a bar might suffice?

The writer in the 2nd draft does their best to try to get close to shootable. Where they can eliminate a scene, they do. Where they can combine a scene, they do. Where they can eliminate or combine characters, ditto. Maybe the four beats in the action sequence only needs to be two. Yes, maybe most of Act 2 doesn’t need to be at night. Maybe Act 3 can be a new day. For the responsible TV writer, this is where you sharpen the creative as best you can, and you do your best to take every single Production suggestion you can comfortably accommodate and have the story still work.

In the WGC contract, a script payment covers two drafts and a “polish.” A dialogue polish is supposed to just be line changes, and not substantive changes in structure, and should comprise no more than 10% of the script. Because this is not generally the most useful thing to do at this stage, most productions tend to just eat the polish, pay out the writer on that, and keep moving. If the writer is on staff, that “polish” might wind up being yet another big rewrite to get you to the Production White draft.

When you submit the 2nd draft to the network, generally it’s assumed that the basic structure is sound and won’t change too much. The act outs are in the right places. The scenes are in the order, and in the ballpark, of how you’d like to shoot them. The showrunner might have taken a pass to better “voice” the show.

The notes from the network on the 2nd draft are generally -- but not always -- lighter. You might find out one or two things they’re being sticky about. But generally, it’s seen as the end of the road of putting the story needs first.

Next Time: Going White

3 comments:

wcdixon said...

And that student's name was...? Was...?

DMc said...

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, of Great Britain. Really.

Piers said...

So that's what she went into after politics.