Writing for Television

Television has come into its own in the past decade. Thanks to smart, creative shows like The Sopranos, Lost, and Mad Men, to name only a few, TV is no longer the poor stepchild of feature filmmaking. TV series can have a depth and breadth that is impossible to achieve in a feature-length film. They have room to explore many characters and to develop multiple storylines to create the “arc” of a season so that there is a story that occurs within each episode, and then a greater story that occurs over the season, and then, with longer running shows, a narrative that occurs over the entire run of the series.

Scripted teleplays in the United States fall into two basic categories: hour-long and half-hour. It used to be that hour-long television shows were always dramas and half-hour shows were always sitcoms, but today those strict delimitations are increasingly blurred. Nurse Jackie is a half-hour show that contains as much drama as comedy, while True Blood is an hour-long show that offers much comedy in addition to its gothic thriller elements.

Formats for TV shows can vary a lot, even within the same genre. The following short list is a good place to start, but if you are writing for a show that already exists, you should do some research and make sure that you are using the right format.

nHour-long dramas usually have four acts, not including teases, the montages of clips from the previous or upcoming episode(s) that usually open and close a TV show. Assuming a minute per page, the script should be about 40 pages long.

nHalf-hour comedies usually have three acts, not including teases, and are about 20 pages long.

Other than varying lengths, teleplays use formatting and rules similar to movie screenplays.

A Word About Teases

Writing teases is definitely part of the writing of a TV show, but no one writes them until they are in the middle of a season that is actually airing. In other words, leave them out of your original spec teleplay.

WHAT TO WATCH

Friday Night Lights, season 1 is an excellent example of how a TV series can successfully develop a story arc across the entire season without sacrificing character development.

24 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

Writing for “Unscripted”

Unscripted projects, such as documentaries, reality television, and the news still require some “writing.” Documentary writing is a little different from the other forms of script writing that we’ve discussed because it’s usually more of a journalistic type of writing. There are two approaches to documentary production:

nInductive, where you spend as much time as you need (or can afford) shooting your subject, and then cut that source footage into a finished product.

nDeductive, where you write a scripted piece and then go out and shoot the footage you need to support that script.

In an inductive documentary, the shooting and editing is, in a sense, the writing process. During shooting, you’ll capture all of the raw material that you will then pare down and organize into a finished edited piece. In a deductive documentary, the production process is more akin to that of scripted projects.

There’s no right or wrong way to work, although there are advantages and pitfalls to each approach. An inductive process is usually better for covering an event, person, or place. You’ll want to keep an open mind and not have any preconceived notions about your subject, lest you blind yourself to good footage or important events. But even if you’re committed to being open-minded, you’ll still benefit from planning and anticipating the problems and challenges of your shoot by creating a shot list or simply having an idea of what you need to capture in your head. (For example, “Joe admits to Jenna that he is moving to Las Vegas.”) Then ask yourself before you wrap that day if you feel you achieved what you wanted. Later, when you get back to the editing room, you’ll look at your footage and try to see what kind of story is there. Often, you’ll be surprised to find out that the final story is very different than what you thought it was going to be.

In the deductive process, you’ll do your research and learning at your writing desk. Once you’ve finished writing, you’ll then try to find footage that illustrates your text. Though shooting will occasionally lead you to revise your script and make changes on the fly, in general your final project will probably end up fairly close to what you scripted.

WHAT TO WATCH

Catfish is a riveting documentary that was shot with the inductive process. The filmmakers followed their subject and were rewarded with some stunning twists and turns.

Outlines

Outlining is an excellent way to “script” or previsualize a documentary project. It helps ensure that your project has a beginning, middle, and end, and it also can serve as a quick checklist on the set.

Reality TV is a blend of traditional documentaries and game shows. “Competition” reality TV shows like Survivor and Project Runway feature a strong game element, whereas “follow” shows such as Little People, Big World are much closer to traditional documentaries. Soft-scripted reality shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians or The Hills use real people in situations that are often dreamt up or enhanced by “writers” (aka producers). The issue of “writing” in reality TV is a hot button topic, and some people define writing very broadly (creating ideas or soft-scripting), while others define it very narrowly (writing text in a document). Controversy aside, reality TV typically does involve writing scripted texts such as voiceover, dialogue for the host(s), teases, recaps, and so on. Soft-scripting typically looks more like an outline or a bulleted list or maybe just an idea someone has on the fly.

The Writers Guild Foundation

A non-profit offshoot of the Writers Guild, the Writers Guild Foundation offers valuable resources for screenwriters of any level. Lectures, workshops, and writers’ commentaries after screenings are often available as streaming video on their Web site.

WHAT TO WATCH

Project Runway, season 8 introduced us to an HIV-positive designer at the beginning, but didn’t reveal his health issues until a very moving episode half-way through the season, a great example of how in reality TV strong choices can be made even though there is no “writing” involved.

Writing for Corporate Projects

For the most part, when you write for any type of “industrial” project—be it a training video, marketing piece, or presentation video—you face the same issues and concerns as when you write a fictional short or feature. You still have a story to tell, that story needs to have a structure, and you must tell that story visually. So, just as you need to apply a goal and a structure to a fictional script, corporate and industrial scripts also need to have the same type of beginning/middle/end narrative drive to them. Corporate and industrial scripts are usually heavily based on interviews, or on voice-over narration with additional video footage or graphics to illustrate concepts. Even though these types of video do not always have “dramatic” real-world scenes in them, they still benefit from a sturdy three-act structure.

Before you commit any words to paper, try to get a clear idea of the “problem” that will be solved. Introducing and explaining the problem will constitute your first act. Next, you’ll want to explain why this problem is difficult or worthwhile to solve. This will serve as your second act, the complication. Then you present the solution to the problem.