Film Courage: What are the different structures for television?
Pamela Douglas, Author/Professor of Screenwriting: Television usually exists as half hours, hours
and limited series. Within that there's some flexibility
the half hour form which used to be limited to sitcoms and really isn't anymore
really only runs 20 22 minutes it's very short but how is that divided well
some people used to say the comedy structure was three beats up three beats down with a whoops
in the middle I don't think that holds any more there are comedies that are in three act structure
standard three act structure they're comedies that are in four rack structure there are comedies
that are what the heck is going on here and and they can all work because they're propelled by
the characters and the kind of material and the kind of humor if there is humor half hours are
also not only comedy more half hours or dramedy now or what you might call as simply half hour
dramas and that's different also if you look at something like atlanta which is not bound by
legacy structure that it has to fit within a half hour plus ads which brings it down to like a
20-minute show you might have a 40-minute episode and hbo is perfectly happy to have that happen
up coming away from comedy which is not my specialty ours are
depends where you look an hour might be more than an hour
on on hbo or might be a full hour and even a little more on hbo or netflix or even amazon
it might be much less than it might be on legacy television it's 40 some odd minutes
because they're allowing for the commercials so it varies and then the limited series
are all different if you look at something like Ava DuVernay's When You See Us that's six hours
brilliant six hours most of those hours are one hour long but sometimes I think
one of them if I recall the beginning one was two hours long and you often see that in the
in the I don't want to say miniseries in the limited series you'll also often
find that one of those hours is a two-hour segment
they call it special it's also called as finishing the show
but are they an hour long yeah mostly kinda mostly kind of they have to fit on the schedule
game of thrones was often not an hour it was more
a handmaid's tale is less because on hulu it shows with commercials
so if you're if you're working on a show you have to look at that show and see how they work
and then better call saul you said it called amc and amc has commercials and it could certainly
it certainly has the depth to go for an hour but it doesn't it runs more like 50 minutes
what's the difference between a five act and a six act structure well I first of all don't
really believe in acts structures so much anymore I really like to look at the forex structure as a
basis and the five act structure is a forex structure with the fourth act divided in half
a sixth acts sometimes is those buybacks and then you add a tag which is some extra
material but there's also another way of doing it which is that every act is a little shorter
I don't I don't recommend anybody writing a spec episode in six acts
I really think that if somebody out there is watching this in order to learn how to
write a sample a spec sample script which is required by many of the fellowships
that you should really go with the four act plus teaser or no wax at all
the six-ax structure is clumsy because it keeps breaking first of all and then also
the reader anticipates it's going to be ending and then oh wait a minute here's another piece
so I don't think anybody should do that and so for a first-time spec writer submitting something
should they stick to an hour well yeah if they're doing drama they have to stick to another you have
to okay I mean if you're a comedy writer that's different then clearly you will write a comedy
sample and that's that's another world all together this if it's if it's
taped I mean if it's multi-cam not too many people are doing that anymore
but if it's a multi-cam sitcom in the old fashioned sense it's probably going to be
in a different page format as well you have to look you'll look that up
whereas dramatic scripts and live action filmed comedies look like feature films can you explain
a b and c stories a b and c stories are parallel stories that are not subplots
in dramatic shows especially you will have major full plots that are linked to primary characters
the a story generally has more beats the b story may have the same number beats or fewer and the
c stories sometimes a runner it's just a way of thinking about storytelling when you have
the kinds of narrative that lap over from episode to episode so you might have an a story in episode
five which is actually continues in episode six as a b story and comes back to being an a story
in episode seven and you might have it weaving so the b story which is also very important but not
the prominent one in episode five really has a major turn in episode six so you're you're
weaving throughout the season as well as weaving within your episode that isn't to say the episode
can't stand alone because it should but that's that's what parallel storytelling is it's just
multiple narratives they are not subplots to each other they are full stories could we try using
that with an example of something maybe better call saul better call saul might have jimmy saul
as the a story kim his wife might have a separate arc in that show even though she also intersects
with him but there also might be a story for nacho which doesn't even include saul or kim
and takes place at a different it takes place in mexico is in a different place a different
time well at the same time usually but a different location with different characters they all impact
each other and there's usually a thematic link but they're actually separate stories in themselves
if you look at the precursor breaking bad walter white will have a story
would jessie have a separate story with different characters maybe maybe walter's
in breaking bad walter white really was the dominant person
but there were there are other characters who might have scenes that he isn't in
and might have a number of beats that tell whatever their arc is for that show how do you
stretch out an idea over multiple episodes without it feeling too drawn out you never stretch an idea
there is no such thing as an idea that stretches there's only a story that needs to be told
if you find that your material is too short that the story you have does not last for an
hour or for whatever length of time you need to think about your story and who these people are
and what more needs to be told never stretch and never shrink
i've seen people i've seen students do things that are just silly
which is to work with the final draft to make more space between letters to make it look bigger
or take out space to make a that doesn't fool anybody plus it won't work because when you
actually make the show it's going to be the length it is so that's silly
if you find that you don't actually have enough story
you can do a few things one is go back into your characters and ask are there layers of
this character that I have not yet examined go back into your secondary characters and say
is there more to them are they too superficial do they have arcs or stories in themselves that
could become a b story is there a different place to end my story am I if it's too short
have I stopped before it really concluded or more likely have I failed to develop the middle
generally people who are lacking material are lacking it in the middle they think they're
lacking it at the end and they need to go on and that's never that that's rarely the truth
sometimes I have found early scripts that don't start in the right place
the general notion is to start as close to the action as possible so you want to start
as late as possible but there are a number of instances where you really need to know
what led what caused this story and they needed to back up and add essentially a whole act
for what happened before or what propelled the character so they're missing something
never stretch never never fool with it the idea and the story tells itself
so a better problem to have is how can I condense this
you might say a better problem is how to condense it if you need to hit an hour if you need to hit
60 minutes and if if it's running too long there are a few things you can look at the simplest
is are your dialogue speech is too long and that's a common error that people are just simply over
talking that they say play it don't say it and is this something we can see visually instead of
explaining it or that you've got exposition that needs to go because it's obvious anyway
on screen or because you have indulged in directing on the page or set decoration
so there's just simply too much writing that isn't part of telling the story so that's an editing
thing often editing won't if you're way long it it won't cut enough pages I mean if you're up at
75 pages for something that should be 60 pages editing might not get you there
what may be happening in that case is that you've actually strayed from the focus of
your story or that you even have a whole other character or a whole of a story storyline that
needs to be in a new episode so those those are things you can do if you're running long
in general or sometimes that your script was really over and you went on but you'd have to
look at it case by case there is unless you're Aaron Sorkin and you're writing something that's
normally 70 pages because it's so dialogue rich that it's running it's 6 70 pages are
going to run 60 minutes but unless you're doing that and you shouldn't be doing that
you should get you should tighten your script to what works within an hour but
if you're if your first inclination is how do I stretch this out then that maybe go back to
what your your whole idea is even about because it sounds like there needs to
be if your question is how do I stretch this out you're asking the wrong question and you
need to go all the way back to who you are as a writer and what is the thing you have to tell.