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04/16/2006: International Hour


Well, it's time to open the ol' mailbag again. Nic from Germany has a question about the spacing between action lines and character lines in a script – is it single or double. Oh! I love an easy question. The answer is whatever the produced example scripts do. As always, the point with technical execution stuff is not so much to do things right or wrong, but to do them the way the show does them. Get those produced examples! Nic—you were looking for Gilmore Girls scripts, right? Check out scriptcity.net for these.

If you simply cannot get produced examples of the show you want to spec? Well, if you're using Final Draft, you've probably noticed that it has built-in templates conforming to the styles of many existing shows. These will help you get those little technical things right. If you're still at sea? Well, I guess you can use the format of another show – most hours have a very similar format. But if this is really the situation you're in, you might want to consider specing another show. It's just too hard to get it right without produced scripts – and I'm not just talking about formatting details; there are so many other elements you can only get from produced scripts. You might think recorded episodes are good enough examples, but they're really not.

There's also a fantastic letter from Ryan in Canada. He wants to know how a Canadian might get work in the US TV industry. Well, Tracey Forbes was a Buffy writer who moved from Canada to take the Buffy job, and the way she got in always seemed very smart to me. She worked in Canadian TV first, got established there, then had her agent, armed with produced Canadian scripts and a strong US spec script, look for work for her here. It didn't even take that long – it's not like you'll have to spend ten more winters huddled over the meager warmth of your LA dream. I think getting set up there first is more likely to pan out than to try to go from zero to Hollywood. I want to be clear here, that I'm not thinking of this as a disadvantage, but rather as an option that the rest of us don't have -- an extra way in.

Also, as I tell everyone, check out the ABC Fellowship. It might be a good option for you. Good luck to you, Ryan!

(By the way, this is probably a good place to mention that I'm not an expert on stuff like this… just a humble scribe with opinions on spec writing -- ask everyone you can, Ryan. Maybe someone will have a better answer.)

A big wave and thank you to the other writers, including Jen, whom I met at the Serenity premiere. Hellooo!

Lunch: boysenberry yogurt and "reverse" Pocky -- chocolate cookie on the outside, chocolate goo inside.