- Welcome back to another segment
of behind the scenes of "The Waltons".
Today, I'm really kind of going behind the scenes
more about scripts and schedules
and how a lot of that worked.
So hopefully you will find some of this informative,
entertaining, interesting.
Anyway, thanks for joining me
and if you're enjoying, please do like, subscribe
and share with your friends.
So I get asked various different questions
and so this kind of falls in line with an Ask Judy question.
Jim said that INSP Network is restarting the series
and is hoping that it will
be bringing back Friday airing the series.
I hope so too.
So his Ask Judy question is
"What does the script look like?"
Here is "Day of Infamy".
So this is what this script looks like.
I have,
I have some revisions it looks like
that I didn't actually put into the script, the pink pages.
Oh, there we go.
Yeah, I had separate pages, that I, uh
looks like I never put into the script.
I have pink pages
and I have yellow pages.
So those would've been revisions
and so I didn't actually take the time
to put them into the script.
But basically,
I'll just kind of show you.
Uh, let's see.
So at the top of what they call
Act
Three.
Okay, so what you've got is, you've got
Fade into the Walton house
and then it sort of describes
what the setting is.
The exterior of the Walton house, day,
the truck, coupe, station wagon, Jim Bob's car,
and the Godsey vehicle are still parked out front.
Then we go into an interior of the Walton living room,
which has Scene 51.
And then it describes what's happening from the radio,
what we're hearing, the commentator's voice.
And then it goes in and continues with what's going on
with that scene.
So this script, so he also asked
"How many lines have to be remembered in advance
to complete a scene?"
Well, that depends on the length of the scene.
If it's a couple of pages,
then I would need to make sure
that I knew all of my lines in those two pages.
And then when we went to the next scene,
I would need to make sure that I knew the lines
for the next scene.
If I had,
say 6 or 8 pages of dialogue
for the next day of filming,
I would learn all those lines the night before.
I don't have to memorize the entire script at one time.
I would just do it day-to-day.
Short-term memory is what it's all about
when you're doing television.
Then he said,
"Does a complete script of an episode
have to be remembered on a deadline?"
So no, just in time for the actual filming.
And "Are scripts the show's guide?"
Yeah. Basically, the script is what we are going
to use to shoot with.
So,
then when I thought I would do
is share with you a little bit,
how we know what's going to happen.
In this case,
we have what is called a Call Sheet.
So on the Call Sheet,
it has the day,
the date.
So in this case, it was for the episode, "The Valediction".
It was the shooting date of January 30th, 1980.
So, Hey, the day after my birthday.
And it's a day and a half into the shooting of the episode,
the production number, the crew call.
The director was Harry Harris.
The crew call was 7:30 AM with a shooting call
for 8:00, lunch at 1:00 PM.
Then you have like the,
the section here where it has the set description.
So that tells you where we are.
So interior the kitchen, interior the kitchen.
Then into the interior the living room,
interior living room,
interior boys' room, interior boys' room.
Then you have the scene number in the center,
and then you have a bunch of numbers next to that.
Those numbers next to it,
correspond with
the numbers of the cast members.
So if it says Scene 15,
Scene 15 would be
interior of the kitchen.
And the cast members who are in it are 8, 9 and 13.
So that would be David,
Kami
and Peggy Rae.
Then it says whether,
D and N means is it a day scene or a night scene?
Then how many pages is a scene.
In this case Scene 15 is 1 7/8 pages.
And the location, it was on Stage 26.
So each day,
we have one of these for the filming.
And this is basically what the cast and crew follow
for the day.
Then you would have, under the cast section,
you have the actor's name,
the character name,
what time you were called for makeup.
What was your makeup call?
And what time then did they want you on the set?
So for me on this day,
I had a makeup call for 8:30 AM
with a set time for 9:30.
So they were allowing an hour for me
to get hair, makeup and wardrobe.
Knowing that they had one or two short scenes
before I was going to work
or something like that.
So they, they actually had a couple of scenes.
But they never want to wait for actors.
So they'd rather have the actors there and ready
for when they are looking to work with them.
Moving on with the call sheet,
we have special instructions
and the special instructions were
"Cast and crew. Thanks to all of you,
we are now shooting the 200th hour of 'The Waltons'."
So "The Valediction" was our 200th episode.
Atmosphere and stand-in section.
So that was our stand-ins and what call they need,
- call time they needed to be there.
And then a welfare worker who was our, our school teacher.
Then there's an advanced schedule.
So it'll talk about, this was a Wednesday.
So then it says what was going to be shooting Thursday
and where that was going to be.
So those were going to be exteriors
on the flats and Laramie street.
And then Friday, we were going to be at the flats
and the jungle and the flats.
So that's, that's all the key information
for actors
and whatnot.
On the backside is all of the information for the crew.
So it lists out
the different departments.
The camera department,
the grip department,
the greens department,
the makeup and hair, sound, set decorating.
So you've got basically camera
and photo, special, technical,
electrical, makeup, wardrobe, sound,
property and set dressing, music, studio police, production,
first-aid, location,
cafe, which is basically anything to do with,
like this says
"Ice, two bags" (laughs) for transportation
to pick up and a gallon of coffee and donuts and rolls."
Those were all special notes to make sure
that those arrived at 7:00.
I can't read. It's 7:00 or something like that.
And then you have the transportation department.
So, and then there's like any special things,
at the bottom, special instructions,
which has to do with labor,
"Waite's, mobile home, all seven regulars
for specials at Stage 26 at 7:00 AM, hooked up
with heat."
(laughs)
That's good to know. They were going to make sure
cause it's January and it was probably cold in the morning.
So it was going into those dressing rooms first thing,
when they were outside and they'd been
outside cold overnight, it would be cold in there.
And then to make sure lights and water
and things like that were hooked up as needed.
So that's your basic Call Sheet .
And each day the,
the production team,
so that, if we had production assistant,
he would work with this with the first,
with the second assistant director.
But it would all be based off of an overall schedule
for the episode.
The overall schedule for an episode is laid out
before we even start filming.
So they have a big board
and they take every scene that is going
to be involved in that.
And they figure out the schedule to shoot it.
And that has to do with locations.
It has to do with actors.
If you have a guest star and you only have them for one day,
then, and they need to shoot all of their scenes in one day.
That'll be worked into the schedule.
When we could have what locations.
All that kind of stuff.
And they put together what they call
a one-line.
Now this is a one-line for a film of mine,
"Finding Harmony"
which is, hopefully will be out soon.
But basically,
this, uh, you see
has,
it has the location.
So it was in Sheffield, Alabama, where we were shooting.
And it'll give all the scenes
and it'll say that's what we're shooting on day one.
Then, you know, will be end of shooting day.
This was,
so we had a total of 3 1/2 pages, 3 5/8 pages
they were shooting that day.
Then the next day,
it'll list all the scenes
that were being shot on the second day.
And so as an actor, when you get this,
you can kind of take a look and say,
"Okay well, am I shooting that day?"
Because, again, it will list what the scene is.
So I can go and I can look at my script and say,
"Well,
Scene 24."
And I go and I look at the script and I go,
"Am I in scene 24?"
And if not, I know I'm not working in that.
There's also a edited down version of this
that just gives who works what day.
And so then you, you can have some advanced sense
of what's shooting. And also for me, when you, again,
you asking about lines and things like that.
If I know, okay, by Thursday,
I have a heavy day with a lot of scenes.
So I need to be prepared.
If I need to do any advance work.
Also to prepare, make sure any scenes, any character work,
any background work, any homework I need to do
that I haven't had chance to do yet
With a series you move fast.
So all those things,
this gives me an advanced sense of what's going on
and when I need to be ready.
So that is the one-line.
Danny asked, "If the crew was ever short-handed,
did you ever have to move equipment
or assist in getting a scene set up?"
And that would be a definite no
because every department was union on "The Waltons".
And so nobody touched anything
that wasn't in their department.
You could be fined
for touching something,
or moving something that wasn't part of your department.
So if a light had to move,
an electrician had to move that.
If a cable had to move,
the right department had to do that.
If the camera was moving,
a piece of camera equipment was needed.
Transportation, you didn't just, "Oh, I'll run that over
for you."
No.
Unless you were driving yourself to set
and that was agreed upon.
No, you just didn't do somebody else's job.
Cause it could,
it could be dangerous if you weren't trained
in that department.
And also you can be jeopardizing someone else's job.
So unions were there to protect people
and the jobs they were doing.
You want qualified people doing their job
and the smoothness of how things shoot depends
on the expertise of those people in those departments.
Now, when it comes to small productions
and non-union productions, or, I mean,
I certainly have worked in a lot of theater
where it was all hands.
You know, we helped build sets. I've built costumes.
I've done all kinds of things.
So it just depends on the parameters of the project.
But on "The Waltons", no.
You did your own job and that was it.
So that's just a little touch of some
of the behind the scenes.
Specifically about scripts and about schedules
and how it all worked for the actors.
Learning their lines,
knowing when they were working,
how the coordination of all the shooting went on.
And that's just a little touch of that.
So I hope you've enjoyed this little piece
of Ask Judy, behind the scenes of the scheduling
and the scripts and stuff like that.
I'll be back with more behind the scenes of "The Waltons"
and more Ask Judy.
Thanks for watching.