UCLA Extension Writers Program Public Syllabus Note to students: this public syllabus is designed to give you a glimpse into this course and instructor. If you have further questions about our courses or curriculum, please contact the Writers Program at (310) 825-9415 or via email at writers@uclaextension.edu. We are happy to answer any questions and to help you find the best class to achieve your writing goals. BEGINNING WRITING FOR SITCOMS AND ANIMATION: BUILDING THE STORY AND OUTLINE COURSE DESCRIPTION Instructors: Julie Chambers and David Chambers This course teaches you how to create an airtight story and outline--the absolute critical first step in writing a strong half-hour comedy spec script and a process that makes writing your script much easier, faster, and more successful. You begin by learning how to pinpoint what makes any half-hour comedy show tick, studying the appeal and quirkiness of the main characters and the unique spin shows put on their stories. You then focus on your own script for a current show, finding the story and identifying the comedy in it, learning how to pitch it, and creating a workable outline from which to write. Instruction also covers the "need to know" business aspects of the half-hour show, such as the current use of spec scripts to get jobs and the basics of how a comedy writer works on staff, how freelance writers move onto staff, how a writing staff is structured, and how writers work collaboratively "in the room." All student projects must focus on current shows; no pilots. WEEK ONE THE BASICS Class description and goals. Getting to know us: Where have we come from? Our backgrounds as writers. Getting to know you: Who are you? Why are you here? Fill out questionnaire, e-mail address, contact sheet. Get to know your fellow students. What the class will involve developing and completing a solid outline for a show currently on the air. What are your expectations for the class? Our expectations for the class can be summed up in one word participation. That means you come to class, you do your assignments on time, you contribute to the ongoing discussion. How do you get a job writing a sitcom or animated show if you re not the niece or nephew of the network chief or the showrunner? With a spec script.
2 The spec script its nature and purpose. The basics of half-hour comedy animation or sitcoms: A comedy set in a situation which recurs weekly. Episodes are self-contained. In the half-hour of program time there are less than 22 minutes of program. Series television has a cast of regulars and sometimes a few recurring characters. A small number of sets and regular locations. Animation shows have more flexibility about locations, but they also have home sets and budget constraints against creating too many outside sets. Multiple-camera shows are shot in a studio, usually in front of a live audience. Single-camera shows are shot like a movie, both in a studio and on location. Animation shows are shot in Korea, or another nation with incredibly cheap labor. How is a half-hour show different from a feature? The characters don t develop much, they rarely learn from their mistakes, and they do not grow. They are who they are and make you laugh by consistently being the way they are. Think Homer Simpson, George Costanza, Lucy Ricardo, Louie DePalma. If they do learn something one week, they forget it by the next. We will watch a half-hour show and then discuss its elements. What is its genre? Format? The premise? Style? Theme? Settings? Who are the main characters? What are they like? What are their relationships? Where do the laughs come from? Simulating the experience of being in the room or at the table of a show in production, we will work together in class, brainstorming and pitching for a half-hour series which has recently concluded its run. The purpose is to develop an outline for an episode of that series over the course of the ten week class. Some weeks we will use the workshop time to discuss and develop your outlines. Rent, tape, or TiVo episode(s) of the show you might like to write an outline for. Watch as many episodes as you can. Watch one episode at least twice, or more. This will help imprint the characters voices and the show s rhythms in your brain. What is the genre of the show? What is its format? WEEK TWO THE STORY What show did you watch? What did you learn about what you watched? What did you like about it? What did you dislike? Did you get any ideas for stories for that show? Do you need to pick another show?
3 Where do stories come from? What do all stories have? A beginning, middle, and end (and why that is a less trite and more important truth than you think). The development of a story on television springboard (or premise), to beat sheet, to outline, to first draft, with notes every step of the way. What makes comedy? Truth plus pain (other s pain), incongruity, surprise, exaggeration, reversal, character flaws, fish out of water, physical comedy, sight gags, signage. How is a half-hour story told? Two or three act structure, teaser and tag, A story and B story, story threads, cliff hanger act break, scene blows, tender moments, treacle cutters. We watch a show and discuss its story elements and comedy elements. What made you laugh? Why? What was the A story? The B story? Did the act break make you want to come back after the commercials? Were the scene blows good? Was there a tender moment? What didn t work for you? The class functions as the room as we continue to develop our outline with special emphasis on defining and shaping the story to best use the characters. Watch an episode of the show you want to spec. Watch another episode. Watch one of the episodes more than once. (If you change your mind and want to do a different show, that s okay, too. But then watch that other show. Repeatedly.) Access your show on-line (every network and show has its own web page, and often there are independent fan sites as well) and find out what you can about it. Try to get a script for the show (every show has its own formatting peculiarities and it s good to know what they are). Do character breakdowns for the show s regulars their names, ages, jobs, background info, history, relations to other characters, strengths and weaknesses, character prototypes. WEEK THREE CHARACTER What did you learn about the characters in your show? Defining character physiology, sociology, psychology.
4 Types of characters the fool, the wit, the rogue, the hero, supportive parent, idiot, idiot savant, clown, operator, mentor, confidant, irritant, wisecracker, romantic interest, snob, slob, boor, toady, outcast, shameless, stingy, boaster, greedy, authoritarian. Questions to ask about characters: What does he want out of life? How does she handle trouble? How does he relate to the other characters on the show? What is her style of humor? What does he sound like? What is she afraid of? What is the character s view of the world? What are the funny gaps between how she sees things and the reality which is apparent to the audience? What redeeming humanity is in the character? How does he evoke the audience s sympathy? How is the character exaggerated? Watch an episode and then discuss its characters. How would you categorize them as to type? What traits were combined in particular characters? How did they handle trouble? How did they interact? The class works on breaking a story for our in-class outline, developing the big, fundamental story points the episode hangs on. Write two or three springboards (story premises) for the show you want to write. The ideas don t have to be fully formed (you may or may not have a beginning, middle, and end) but the ideas should have comic potential. Exercise: How would three different characters (for example, Bart Simpson, Earl from My Name Is Earl, Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men, Christine from New Adventures of Old Christine, and definitely one character from the show you re writing) celebrate their birthdays? These celebrations should be different from one another, funny, and true to the characters. WEEK FOUR WHAT IF..? How do you feel about your springboards? Which is the strongest? How to develop a springboard into a story. The building blocks of story. What if..? Beginning, middle, and end (sound familiar?). Rising action. Conflict. Crisis. Resolution. Problems call for solutions, which cause new problems. What does the character want? What are the obstacles? What are the stakes? Does the story originate within the character(s)? Does an external event trigger the story? Discuss why a good spec script does not introduce a major outside character to
5 carry the action, and why a good spec script focuses on the typical behavior of the main character(s). How to fit a story (often two stories, A and B, or sometimes even more story threads) into 22 minutes compress, condense, cut. We watch an episode of a show the teachers worked on and discuss its storytelling techniques. Does it concentrate on a main character? How are A and B stories and other story threads intertwined? How does the action rise? What are the stakes? We continue in the room to break or develop the story of our in-class episode. Turn your strongest premise into a story. It doesn t have to be long or detailed, but needs to have a beginning, middle, and end. Watch an episode of the show you want to write and simply (in no more than a single page) describe its beginning, middle, and end. WEEK FIVE PITCHING The writer as performer. Much of writing television comedy is pitching. You don t squirrel yourself away in your office and then show up with a perfect script that gets shot as written. You sit in the room with other writers and pitch pitch story notions, pitch breaking stories, pitch scenes, pitch act breaks, pitch scene blows, pitch jokes, pitch attitudes, pitch fixes for problems. At each stage of the script beat sheet, outline, writer s first draft, writer s second draft, table reading draft, first stage draft, second stage draft, third stage draft, shooting script the writers sit in the room (or on the stage) and pitch ideas on how to improve the script. The writers may even pitch on how to edit the show after it is shot. Watch an episode of a show, then discuss how it evolved, through pitching, going from a springboard to a finished product. We continue pitching on our in-class outline, laying it out from front to back.
6 Turn your beginning, middle, and end into a sequence of scenes. This is the beginning of putting your outline on paper. Practice pitching your show out loud. Your pitch should be less than five minutes long. You don t need to describe every scene, just the general thrust of the story and how it ends. Next week you ll pitch it to the class. WEEK SIX THE EMOTIONAL STORY Beneath the comedy lies an emotional story. In fact, the comedy won t even connect with the audience if it lacks an underlying emotional story. Why good comedy writing requires the study of human behavior, not just the funny behavior but all of it. Recognizable human behavior provides the support system that gives comedy life. You now have a sequence of scenes. But what is the sequence within each scene? A lot of this sequencing is emotional. What do the characters want in general and in this particular scene? The events in your story have to follow a logical emotional sequence or no matter how funny you think something is you lose the audience. A beat sheet is not an outline. An outline is written in smooth prose and is intended to go outside the room. A beat sheet is a list of the story events in sequence. Often it will be bullet-pointed. A beat sheet is not given to the studio or the network for their notes. It is an in-house tool for the writing staff to evaluate the story, on paper, that they ve already talked out in the room. It s style is telegraphic and not overly detailed. Once the emotional story is clear, then you can add more funny stuff situations, jokes, physical bits, twists. We watch an episode, mining for the emotional story beneath the comedy and discuss why that makes the comedy work. Everyone has no more than five minutes to pitch his or her show idea. Class comments on the idea. Please note: any ideas, suggestions, jokes, or whatever that are pitched belong to the writer of the piece. This is how it works in the real world of television comedy. The sharing of ideas benefits everyone s work and learning experience. Take last week s assignment (the sequence of scenes) and briefly note the sequence of events within each scene. Put the basic story events of each of scene in
7 order. Keep it simple. Do not get lost in detail or over-elaboration. Just the facts, ma am. WEEK SEVEN FIRST ACT Many shows begin with a teaser (which may be related to the story, or not) and then proceed into Act One. We discuss the teaser and how it is like other scenes only more so. It absolutely must have a good scene blow (that is, it must end on a solid joke or an arresting incident). This is the first thing that the viewer watches and so it must entertain and intrigue or else the viewer hits the remote and watches a different network, or the History Channel, or Lifetime, or Bravo, or the Moldavian Pottery Channel, or The outline must be a smooth telling of the story, blending the different threads together as seamlessly as possible. The actions should be fully described and particular short bits of banter or individual jokes may be included. But the outline is not where you write the dialogue. Ideally, the outline is detailed enough that to write the script all you need to do is add the dialogue. As you write the outline, visualize the scenes. Think of how long it takes to do things. Do not, for example, have a character open a bottle of wine and pour a glass. That takes a minute of time (you only less than 22 minutes) and it s boring to watch. Act One is the set up for the following act(s). Yeah, lots of funny stuff is going on and good jokes are whizzing by, but you are really setting up what you ll pay off in the final act. You also need to balance your A story and your B story. You generally do not want to put scenes from your B story back to back. The A story needs to be predominant. The Act Break. Any professional who reads your spec script is going to be looking carefully at your act break(s). Ideally, the act break is a cliffhanger which is also a big joke. But failing the ideal, it still has to be one or the other. We will explain proper formatting for the outline and the script. We will watch an episode of a show which has a good teaser, an Act One that sets up Act Two, and a killer act break. We return to our in-class show, making sure we have clearly developed Act One and know where we re going with Act Two.
8 Write Act One of your outline. If your show is in three act format, write Act One and half of Act Two. WEEK EIGHT FINAL ACT The second half of your show (whether Act Two, or Acts Two and Three, depending on the format of your show) must have rising action, meaning the characters actions become more fraught with desperation, anxiety, frustration. It also means more and more is at stake. You should already have a rising action in your beat sheet, but now think some more about it. What can you do to bring increased interest to your story? You could put a clock on it (that is, require your character to accomplish something in a given period of time or pay a penalty of some sort). You could make the consequences more dire (jail time, appearing even more silly to even more important people). Just consider if there s a way to amp it up. You probably want to have a mid-point turn in the middle of the second half. That s a spot where the character thinks he s gotten out of his dilemma cleanly only to discover that now he s in it worse than ever. In three act structure, this will often come at the second act break. In two act structure it will be somewhere in the middle of Act Two. We will watch an episode of a show in class where the action in Act Two really amps up to a big and satisfying ending, then discuss why it worked so well. Taking our project s final act, we will pitch on ways to make it more funny and compelling. Write the second half of your outline (whether that s simply Act Two, or the second half of Act Two and then Act Three). WEEK NINE PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER, FASTER AND FUNNIER Now you have outlined the acts. It s time to put the acts together.
9 You ll need to smooth out any logical glitches, making sure everything in the outline tracks and makes sense. You ll need to make certain that comedy is bursting out of your outline. As executives will tell you, make it faster and funnier. How do you make it faster? Make sure every scene is necessary. Sometimes a scene helps you get the story together, then you discover after it s all laid out that you don t need that scene anymore. Get rid of it. That legendary funnyman William Faulkner once said that in writing it s necessary to kill your children. You can also make it go faster by starting every scene as late as you possibly can. Writers like to put amusing little head pieces at the top of scenes before the action of the scene really starts. If you shoot them, nine times out of ten they are edited out. You only have 22 minutes; there s not enough time to dawdle. How do you make it funnier? Make your character s predicament even more awkward for her. Have more and better jokes. Let s talk about jokes. There are quite a few elements to good jokes. Things like rhythm, timing, arrangement, surprise, repetition. We ll talk about how to make a joke pop, why the set up is more important than the punch line, why the first way you think of a joke is usually the best way, where to look for jokes (runners, call-backs, character traits). We watch a classic half-hour comedy and discuss how well the jokes worked and why. We pitch on how to make our in-class project move faster and be funnier, particularly emphasizing putting in more and better jokes. Revise and put together the acts of your show. Now you have an outline. Exercise: Write two jokes each for the following set up lines. A) How do I look? B) What s with her dress? C) What do you call that cologne? WEEK TEN IT S A WRAP We discuss the importance of notes, how to take them, how to give them. The importance of connecting with a community of writers. You get the best feedback by searching out a range of views. Some notes will be helpful, some not so good. How to separate the wheat from the chaff? But know that you will be able to divine a consensus from those differing views, and that consensus can really help you zero in on what s working and what isn t yet in your writing.
10 The nuts and bolts of the business. The realities of the marketplace. Show staffing and free-lance. Agents and managers, studios and networks, the guilds, hopes and dreams. If we re not having too much fun we may watch one last episode of a classic. We share our outlines with one another and give final thoughts. Put your outline in a drawer. Look at it in a week or two. Think of how it could be better, faster, funnier. Take the next Extension class and start writing your spec script. Thank us when you win the Emmy. A word about grades. If you want to take this class for a grade, these are the criteria: Attendance: 25% Participation: 25% Completion of Homework: 25% Outline: 25%