I’ve just finished reading the two pilot scripts for Life on Mars. One was the 2005 “Amended Pink” draft of the British original, written by co-creators Tony Jordan, Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah. The other was the 2007 first draft of the American remake written by David E Kelley and Stu Moss.
(”Amended […]
I love Reaper. I love it. It’s written by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters. What I read is an unnumbered draft dated in December and is clearly not a production draft. No scene numbers. I had to count them: 45ish (accounting for my margin of error). A fast fun […]
I’m in possession of a second episode of Jekyll. I haven’t watched it yet. I’m going to save a few and them binge. Don’t you find tv is better that way? You immerse yourself in a show.
I don’t want to watch tv the way they dole it out: in weekly installment. […]
Jaime J Weinman, in his blog TV Guidance, recently discussed what I’m doing here and then dove-tailed into a broader discussion of “premise” or “setup” pilot versus the “typical episode” premise. He makes good arguments on both sides from a viewer’s perspective.
But if you’re a Canadian screenwriter trying to get a show on the […]
I’m almost done with Teasers (for a while at least) but before I move on I thought I might compare Aaron Sorkin’s approach to the opening moments of three different shows: Sports Night, West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.
Sports Night was a half hour series so you can’t compare it to […]
Let’s take a quick tour through the opening acts of some of the pilots that aired thus far this year.Traveler is a summer replacement series with a pilot written by David Diglio. It opened with the main titled followed by ten minutes of drama before the first commercial break. These ten minutes are […]
Will Dixon asks:Can you elaborate? Are they still teasers anymore or just Act One’s with a sexy beginning? And where is the title sequence falling in that opening chunk…pre first image? Or after 18 pages/minutes?
Can I elaborate? I was afraid to, lest you think my obsession with these details a little over the top, […]
Filed in Jekyll, Reaper, K-Ville, New Amsterdam, Babylon Fields, Life on Mars, the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Pushing Daisies, Viva Laughlin, structure, The Darlings, Dirty Sexy Money, Teasers, pilots
|
I have a bunch of scripts for the pilots that got picked up by the US nets for the fall. I’m still working my way through the reading. But leafing through I’ve noticed a trend toward the beefy opening act.
Sometimes the script labels this section Teaser, sometimes Act One, but by and large […]
The airing of a pilot is your big chance to hook in an audience for your series. In the week or so before broadcast, the show has had it’s launch publicity and tonight’s the night people are going to check it out. And by the time the titles or the first commercial break […]
