Friday, August 14, 2009

Tv Series Scripting: Part Five: Production White & Beyond

Earlier posts in this series: Part One. Two. Three. Four.

RIGHT AROUND the time when the notes from the network come back on the 2nd draft, the writer/story department & showrunner have a “Come to Jesus” discussion with Producers, the AD department, and others about how this sucker is going to be prepped and shot.

The Director has also weighed in at this point – emphasizing the parts of the 2nd draft they really liked, and those that left them a little colder. They may pitch for scenes to be done a little differently, for the emphasis to be switched up, or any one of a hundred other things that they think will make the show sexier or cooler. In many cases, they’re right, and the writer dies a little inside. In a lot of cases, they’d get you a lot further down the road of “we can’t do this in eight days,” in which case the Producer puts on their best stern, “no no no” look.

Ideally, if you board the 2nd writers draft of a script, it should not….quitefit. A board will show you a few days that are just ungettable. There are locations that just can’t really be accommodated. Maybe there are three stunts and they say, “choose two.” Maybe there’s a night lighting job that just is too extensive.

In any case, now the script process becomes about horsetrading, and the writer tends (with the showrunner’s blessing) to start making the changes that may not be ideal, but need to be made to make the show, and the board, work. In some cases this results in happy accidents that require a bit more work, but end up making the show way better. It’s a collaborative process, after all. In any case, from the 2nd draft, you hopefully find yourself, with the work and toil of the showrunner, the draft writer, the director and the AD, putting out the LOCKED PRODUCTION WHITE a day or two or three before the start of official prep. Generally, this represents the showrunner/head creative’s last pass on the script – it’s the practical blueprint for how you will work over the next eight days. The network continues to give notes, but they’re mostly line notes, and brief.

From here on in, changes to that locked WHITE script that generate coloured pages are driven almost entirely by production.

The main exception to this is dialogue changes that come from the read-through, which is the first chance for the story department to hear the story on its feet. Actors can sometimes drive a full pink simply by their read.

It’s possible that between WHITE and PINK and BLUE, props might disappear. You might lose a character or two. Maybe ACTOR lines will disappear. ACTION beats might be scrubbed. Bigger changes are usually as a result of a production problem: A location falls through, and needs to be re-imagined. A story beat has to be moved from a location day to a studio day. Actor availability problems force a rejuggling of lines or scenes, or a last minute re-configuration of a character for a different actor.

For most of this, the writer is now a surgeon who’s taking orders from the Director and the Producer and the AD's, (and in later years, the actors... yup, there's an old saying in TV -- first year the actors work for you, 2nd year you're working together, 3rd year you work for them, god love'em.)

It’s a general truism of production that the script on a TV series that gets shot is usually one draft past where it was best. I don’t know how true that is. I’m guessing if you’ve gone to DBL GREEN or TRIPLE BLUE, that’s probably true. In any case, the sides get made, the scenes get shot, a couple may get dropped and picked up later, or not – and the show passes from writing to shooting to editing, where it’s – in effect – written for the third and final time.

So that’s it. That’s the process. If you take anything away from this, let it be this: the idea that all first drafts and early drafts are trying to fix the creative, and are, yes, by their very nature, probably not shootable. It’s a process you have to go through to get you where you want to be.

Also, remember in film that these processes occur over years of development. Part of the juice that writers get from TV is that all this needs to happen quickly. Instinct drives so much of it, that flexibility and the ability to talk your way through change quickly become great advantages. It’s not about writing the absolute best script – it’s about writing the best script that can be shot. It’s not obsessing over commas.

It’s a high wire act. It might seem like the writer doesn’t take production concerns into account. (Every series I've been on, production and the story department start out a little wary of each other.) Believe me, we do take things into account. We just can’t really process and implement them, until such time as the story works.

And more or less, that's it -- from the writer's perspective, of how you get from start to finish. Thanks for reading.

7 comments:

Brett Sullivan said...

and sometimes 'a writer'(initials DMC) will put in an underwater Arctic submarine collision... and it actually works... cuz like you mention, the production concerns are taken into account...

Alex Epstein said...

" It might seem like the writer doesn’t take production concerns into account."

In every single show I've been on, the writers paid at least as much attention to production concerns as anyone on staff. In most of them we paid more attention than the producer. (And, of course, as you say, the directors were mad stallions on a stampede.)

Writer: "Uh, we need to cut some pages."

Producer: "Worry about that later. Just write the best script you can."

(Sounds nice, but if you're going to end up in a pint box, you should be writing for a pint box. If you write a great script for a quart box, and then have to cut it down to pint size, it won't be pretty.)

Frank "Dolly" Dillon said...

good series of posts. don't really agree with the philosophy of thinking of each step as an "unfinished work" I generally treat each stage as something i could go to the floor with if I had to.

also by episode 16 it all goes out the window and it becomes six bullet points per act written out on a piece of paper and then three days later you got yourself a script.

DMc said...

Doesn't surprise me that that would be your process, Frank. I imagine at this point you've written so many first drafts that the stuff that I and others need to step out just happens automatically.

I think it's dangerous to go there to that point before you're ready though, and I see writers both novice and at or around my level doing that all the time.

Part of the pitfalls of this is that it's just a such a subjective process.

But I hear you about episode 16. Or if you're really fucked -- Episode 7.

northtwilight said...

Hey Denis, great series of walkthroughs, really informative for me; really liked it.

Hope it was as fun to write as for us to read.

Cheers
Mass

Wil Z said...

The other difference between writing film and commercial TV is that at some point in the episode's production, everyone becomes a slave to the script supervisor's stopwatch.

There is nothing like the panic of coming in short on an episode. If, on day 5 of production the script supervisor says, we're running 2 minutes short, the writers have to scramble to come up with a two page scene using the available actors and sets; something that can be tacked onto the already overburdened schedule with minimal disruption and cost. A two-hander with three setups max, please. Oh yeah, it's gotta fit the story too.

Unknown said...

Great series - thanks *very* much!