Episode 8 - The First Ten Pages

Hello and welcome to sitcom geeks a podcast about writing situation at comedy. I'm James Carey, this is Dave Cohen, and we are being produced as always by a Katie story, and we're back, we are today looking at the first 10 pages of scripts, but before we do that we should probably do something we haven't done very well and that's look at our emails. We have been sent some, if you have an email for us you can email us at sitcomgeeksatgmail.com so you can do that and Dave what have we got? I'll start with this is from Hannah Coughsham I think and she has said she says how in our discussions we occasionally reference sitcoms from decades ago, which is not surprising partly given my age.

You may have grown up with some of them, yes I certainly did, James is not going to be by the way. Not much. I imagine others who look up as part of your own research for younger sitcom writers, which is in my case everybody, which sitcoms past are worth actively seeking out? Well that's a good question.

I have recently published my blog, my 10 favourite sitcoms and of that list a surprising one or two would be the fact I've recently done the 10 American ones and the American ones we're seeking out is The Phil Silver Show also known as Bill Co which they made 142 episodes in four years. I was amazed when I read that I knew they had done 142 but I hadn't realised it was that. 13 or 30? Yeah, 13 or 30?

It's astonishing. Phil Silver Show, that's a really neat simple show based around a really clear central performance so I thoroughly recommend the Phil Silver Show. I know I go on about Frazier and I think what I would do is definitely go to one of these other sites like Scriptorama and look up the script, read the script because I think that's a great way. I think Frazier is not the greatest sitcom in terms of watching it but I think in writing terms it's a beautifully beautiful craft to show and I think you've learnt a lot from that.

I think it is technically one of the best. It would be in my top 10 definitely and I think it is just so rigorous. The subject matter may be a little bit elitist for some although it does do a very nice job of the psychiatrist versus the blue colour policeman but it is technically amazing and every time I watch it I'm always impressed, impressed, afresh each time. I am oppressed by its brilliance.

I think it probably is. Okay well thanks for that and good luck with your sitcom writing and this is from Mark Lelevera I'm not sure if I pronounced that very well. He says is it possible to discuss how he would theoretically fix existing sitcoms to be more effective. We probably should do a separate podcast on that which is fixing existing sitcoms.

We are the beavis and butt head of this search show. We sit on the sofa and we can't put the other sitcoms. I think it is incredible that the number of steps from the point of which you think I am going to write a sitcoms which goes out, the number of ways in which things can go wrong. And even if they go right the number of times you have to redraft, redraft, redraft, you are probably going to write it three or four times before you can even show it to anyone and then the work starts.

And then it is filmed and then it is out of your hands anyway and then that is when it really starts to go completely wrong or different or right even. And I think a lot of these problems usually stem from the first 10 pages. Normally it is not set up right. It is quite normally within a script, reading a script of a show that someone submitted a new script, a new writer, actually a lot of the problems are that they are in the set up and you can probably fix them or hide them if you are clever but actually you often have deeper reach problems that you need to address.

So I wonder if we should stagger straight on to the main business. We have some more emails and we will read them out in the future episode but thanks. Keep sending them to sitcomgeeksoutgmail.com. So yes, I mean how this idea came about was that recently I was asked to read a whole load of scripts but not actually the scripts, just the first 10 pages of the scripts and then I was to meet and chat with the writers and obviously you cannot tell everything from the first 10 pages of a script but it was interesting what I did find.

It is a good order for you to carry on. It is a good order for the first 10 pages because I don't read scripts for people by and large and I know them personally and offer to read them. Please don't send us your scripts. We are not going to read them because we aid out of time and be, you might think that we have stolen your ideas so it is easier if we don't go down that road.

But thanks for asking. Thank you for asking there. But we have a few emails saying could you read my script and the answer is please don't ask us to read your scripts because embarrassment is often a fence. So on the occasions where I did offer to read a script for someone I didn't know particularly well I said I will promise to read the first 10 pages and if I get beyond 10 pages and I want to read more then I will let you know but that is all I am going to promise to read is the first 10 pages and I stopped at page 17 and emailed them and said hey you know I got to page 17 that is pretty good.

So let me just tell you what I think is the problem with the first 10 pages because the first 10 pages are wrong. It is no point really fixing the latest stuff. The first 10 pages is everything. I am really interested to talk about this.

What have you been picking up? The first big problem and this happened a few times was the main character, the lead character that didn't appear and they barely featured. There were a couple of instances where I read a scene and I talk about it and they would be like the first page of the next scene so I wouldn't know much about it. So the whole of the first 10 minutes and I talk about what I assumed was the main character because this was the same starting with that person and they drove that scene and I said this and the other.

There are a few problems with that and they would say things like well actually that wasn't the main character. The main character is X and X has got like two lines in the scene and so I said well I'm reading a different sitcom already and this sitcom is about X but X has barely appeared. So you've set up a cracking sitcom about a waiter who is clearly unhappy with their job but unfortunately the waiter leaves on page 18 and you never see them again. So this is a very important question.

You have to ask yourself quite early on really. In fact I'm just having this situation now is that I've been working on an idea for a sitcom for a couple of months which I'm just kind of working up and in fact I just started to ask myself of the sort of six or seven characters who I have populating this. Actually is the person whose name is in the title and so far and who I've assumed is the main character. Is this the main character?

Is he strong enough to be is he a big enough larger than live character like we've discussed before? Is he monster enough or is there enough conflict with the other characters? And I actually am now rethinking this sitcom and I think that's something you do have to be very aware of who is your main character? Why is that person your main character?

And not only that but we want to be seeing that main character in the beginning of the episode. I mean so for instance you've got wrote on a show called Miranda starring Miranda Hart. That's like Miranda. Very good.

We kind of know who's going to be in the open ten pages. What's how do you approach she? Well that's I mean Miranda is an extreme example in a good way. Miranda sensed straight away that she was what where the show was.

Every single scene is from her point of view. She is at the start. She is when she leaves the scene is over. She knew exactly where the show was and it for me was a real genius master stroke because I don't think many other people would have had the courage to say no no it really is about me rather than just have the scene that Stevie is very funny her mother's very funny.

There are lots of funny characters on that show to say no no they're not going to do any scenes without me. It's all going to be with me. So it obviously sounds quite arrogant to do that but it was just the right comedy decision. For my other show which I did please don't fall too straight we would slightly break this rule because slap down middle we had Mike McShane as an American CIA attaché but they're talking about the main character Nick.

You've got Nick and Milsey talking about disposing your bombs. They're in a helicopter. They're on the way to dispose of a bomb. This is it and each of the characters then has a line which pretty much says what sort of person they are.

Max's first line is talking about taking a dump in a Tesco Metro. That sort of tells you all you need to know about that character and it's that first scene you do need to show the audience who the main character is because one of the things I don't do when I read scripts is I don't read the page outline that sometimes comes with it to tell you what the setup of the show is. And again on the occasions I do read the script I say I'm not going to read that outline of yours of what the show is. I'm just going to read the script because it's not in the script it's not in the show.

So I would assume that people don't really know who the main character is. So write the script accordingly because the audience at home they weren't mailed a copy of your outline in advance. That may happen in the future. Maybe Netflix will start issuing programme notes.

When you're first when we first see the character on the first page what you can do rather than worry about how are they going to see about this character. Well you want to maybe have two or three words enough to describe this person you know Fred Brackett's young arrogant. Yeah thinks he's it. That kind of tells you all you want to know about that character.

You can get away with having that there. Once you've said that we know we start to impose that on the sentences that are not really having with the other characters. So you are allowed to do that with your character especially when it's a new show and you're introducing all these new characters. You can get away with that.

I've done scripts partly because to save time but in general you shouldn't really quite need to do that. You should only really be able to really do physical description. The line should tell you everything what they're wearing what they're how they enter what they're carrying what they're not saying what they're not doing what they're not reacting to as well as what they are reacting to. I wanted to just mention that opening of Blue Stonefault and I was thinking about that in relation to this sort of first ten minutes and how as you say it kind of breaks the rules of what we're talking about and of course in comedy rules are there to be broken.

But the I was actually wondering if you could have technically got away with putting it in making that episode three for instance. Yes possibly what we the reason that character was in the show is the cheap we were cheating slightly although not we thought the most important thing to establish other than the main characters which I think that opening scene does is that this is an active war zone and you will die if you get it wrong or even if you get it right. So spoilers but it's the first episode and it was a few years ago he takes a sum off and he shot in the head and he died and we wanted to show that this isn't in our pop mum this is a show in which the Taliban are there and they will kill you. So we he was very much put on this earth to die he was to show something about the tone of the show which is this is a dangerous situation.

Right and that's one point that should make that it is only ten pages you can't have everything in your first ten pages so but if you can have the main character that's the first thing but then the next thing which kind of comes out of that the thing that you really want in there especially if you've not the main character not the main premise officer which you have just there perfectly described. So this is the thing we talked about this we've done the podcast you know what's your sitcom really about usually it's about it is about the flaws in the main character in the particular case of Bluestone obviously it was as you say it's about a bunch of people who could get killed at any moment and Jake about it yeah so but thinking about show like a show for instance again for Hannah here is another show that we mentioned a lot and I mentioned a lot that's army of course which apart from anything else literally is a show about class and you see that every single virtually every scene every conflict whether it's about the home god or not it's about class it's about manneering and Wilson and it's about manneering trying to show these the boss but Wilson actually really being in charge I mean you think other examples about every every scene you get the premise of a sitcom yes I mean you sort of don't realize they're doing it when they do it and actually we it would be worth going back over the writing pilots episode we did which I think is episode for my for something worth going to have a listen to that because it is the hardest thing to do writing a pilot and the first ten pages of the hardest ten pages to write of that pilot it's the hardest episode to write of your whole series it's the first series of the hardest series to write of all the series you it's as steep as they get but anything that you can do to compress that main premise and to not draw it out I think is absolutely critical and again to show in rather than words and spelling it out but you're showing in looks in reactions in clothing that's usually an army show is you can see who's in charge because they still even call each other sir and you're working out but it's worth going back to look at what the show is really about ever-decreaching circles you've got Martin Bryce is set up beautifully as he's volunteered to work with the kids local football team they've just got absolutely hammered but he's completely undaunted by that he comes in wipes his feet the ages turns the phone the other way around and you know oh this shows about this guy when he comes in and his wife is there she's not surprised by his behavior and and Paul is there rather swab new next door neighbor and you're off to the races the show sort of started so the masters really do make it look easy and it is really hard but you just have to be brutal about anything you can get rid of set up as fast as you can I think you mentioned in that pilot's episode how effectively your first your first series is six pilots you have to think about that and it's probably helpful to when you're writing your first episode is just try not to have too much backstory we've talked about backstory before but you cannot say it enough because you read so many scripts that are full of backstory and it's boring yeah and there are obviously there are the exceptions that prove the rule and Kimmish mates would be one of them yeah my name is Earl which we both talked about big fans of Kimmish mate how long has that been said is that a whole first episode is that pretty much wasn't it yeah I think he gets away with it because you need it it's a high concept yeah because then we're absolutely tuned in the whole set of titles yeah but also as I say you know we say things and it's always possible to say ah but what about this to which we have our pic and eat it and say well it's called it you know they broke that rule and also they had somebody like the scripts enough and somebody like the performance enough of a network like these people enough and said you just go do what you want to do when you're Dean of A you can do what you like yeah but also I think because the story is about her dealing with that so I need the event that's not about stories and me to the show is she's adjusting to New York she's just in his life everyone keeps going around the mall women and she's trying to be someone and yeah which is fine if you're doing the thing but if you are even you know I say even if you are James or I or someone else if you're not if you're anyone apart from Richard Curtis in this country I think pretty much yeah you can't just say well actually the whole of the first episode has to be a set because I next well and to be fair I think Peter Kay did that we talked about it last time he had an email about it as well the setup of car share for me is unhelpful the first two minutes he's getting lost with a sat-nav that does not help the show it doesn't establish character but he's me to Kay so people are watching they've decided to watch it they can watch it to the end he's very watchable people like that show and so if it was me I would do it differently but it's not me I'm not me and if I was to Kay I probably wouldn't be doing this podcast that's probably true but this brings us to the next point which is the world I don't mean the world but I mean the world that you are creating when you're sitting there thinking what's my sitcom about who's it about what's it really about and then you start to think about your characters and you're starting to think about the world the location obviously Bluestone v one two that is defined by the fact that it's set where it is Afghanistan I was saying yeah car share you know virtually the whole of car share takes place in a car and you know and we're drawn into that world really and we come back to that and we know what's going to happen we want to do that I mean my favorite example is a show like Seinfeld which which on the surface is just a yet another sitcom about four friends some of them live together and they've got some of the flat across the way and they all they all act out most of the episode in Jerry's flat but the more you kind of watch that show you know the more you're sort of drawn into that flat and that just becomes such a kind of it's almost like a character in the show really so where you know what is the world yeah so you've got like the Central Perk really drew people as well in friends you just wanted to be there you want to go there and I think that's one thing that maybe we're not quite as good at partly because we don't there's a lot of single camera shows now single camera shows because they can go anywhere and do anything they don't feel as warm and cozy as that one central set that you get in a studio show maybe that's why studio we in so often do get more loved by the audience in spite of whatever critics might say about and can't laugh or anything because I think they do have that warmth to them based around location whereas and that's why even example but on a half 33 year show I wrote about Blessy Park for Radio 4 I always started pretty much every time the episode I could have started anyway to the radio but I always started it in half 33 it's the beginning of the day they're sitting down right code breaking let's get on with it Josh comes in with over the message we had to do this today we don't that day that we run out of spuds we've got that kind of thing because I wanted the audience in their mind to have that little cozy place that they always start and then there's usually a scene in the pub where they were and so I was trying to create that and I think as a rule for radio or even for studio for for non-linearistic comfort single-camera shows you do well to think whereas the audience is going to sit is there a chair for them where are they and I do think what I like about audience sitcom I like about the discipline of it is it forces you in the same way that you're you're always looking for your character to act in the same misguided way every episode but you're forced to use these situations you know there's the two or three key places that you've got that you have to do because you can't afford to have other places and even like a really expensive well you know something like Phrasing for instance I mean the flat Phrasing's flat which is such a vital part of the show in terms of you know this sort of beautiful wonderful place that has this horrible chair plonked in the middle of this sort of cafeteria or electrical table and that's that that is the sitcom isn't it that's that's what it's so that's one of the known things that it's about so so do you think in in those first 10 pages you're not just establishing who is it about that you're kind of making up a place it's like when you start reading a novel you want you know a novel in the hands of a great novelist you plunge into the place that the novel takes place you know from page one so we've we've looked at who is the show about showing who the character is and not focusing on the wrong characters we've got setting up the world and in particular the place and making sure we reinforce that but I think the thing that's really struck me recently reading a few scripts is the story we hinted at this in the last podcast about jeopardy and it's really interesting that the last two scripts I read one of which was written by a relatively experienced writer my my note was what what currently happens on page 17 needs to happen on page 4 yeah because there's just that you're introducing me to the characters I know what the world is I'm really getting that but at the moment you're just sort of showing me around this is sort of like my first day at work where I've worked out where the photocopieries I know how to make tea and everyone's sort of having their lunch but actually on my first day at work what would be quite cool would be if this was the worst possible day to start at work because there's a fire drill and it's pouring with rain and the next thing between the next the whole load of stuff to happen and that's what that time going to really get to know people is not everyone sitting at their desk showing me pictures of their kids and I sort of work out what situation they are in life but if there's if there's nothing outside of the pool in rain because some bozo has been trying to make toast and that's going to teach me stuff but it needs to be much more than that still because it's going to store the story that you need to take you through 25 minutes and it is the story how you know and people often neglect that and they say and people say oh because it comes all about character but the story also is about character and it is about what's going to happen and I think that's a very good point that you made there earlier about when well you know I will read your first 10 pages and if I'm hooked I'll carry on reading and I think we're all like that really on with books or whatever we really want to we want to carry on reading you know that's hence the phrase page turner and I know it's unfair but unfortunately when you read a lot of scripts you do you kind of almost decide not even the first 10 pages you've kind of got a you've got a sense haven't you pretty much at that point you really do after a couple of pages you think whether this person can really and unless you have a really key event happening in those first three four five pages that's going to get you painting turning the pages to get me past page 10 which is the only pages I promised to read and if you don't do that you're basically saying my dialogue is as good as Tarantino's because he can make a virtue out of just dialogue and that's his thing but most of us can't do that so you you will need a story you will need something to pull you through the characters need to do stuff that's how we'll find out about them so just not doing that you're just making your life and of course remaining aware that it's a television as opposed to a radio visual medium show us things we want to see things we want to know we want to see the world as well as get a sense of it so you know think visual so there's all these things that you have to remember when you're writing your first 10 pages having already done all the work preparation up to that point so you want to know in those first 10 pages we want to see our main character acting in the way that main character will act throughout the show and the episode and the series and the next series Victor Mildred being an obvious example we want to know the story as James just said there what's what is going to happen we want to know how is the character going to react we want to know what this sitcom is really about and we want to know where it is we want to be comfortable in this world we want to be drawn into this world we want to come back to it we want people to keep coming back to this world that we've created and say oh yes it's all I'm I'm home now I'm in safe houses now I'm in Jerry's flat I'm in Central Perk and so those are the things that you're looking for in your first 10 pages you've got anything more I think in terms of so being being absolutely brutal about what every single line is doing in your first 10 page you want to do that with the script anyway but you want to spend extra time on the first 10 pages and I wonder if also if you have any way of doing it reading it out loud reading it with two or three other people reading in parts and when you hear it read out loud quite often a lack of action and story becomes extremely obvious because even though you've invested emotionally so much into writing your own show you've realized that the first scene is seven pages and even your board by page five and you think it's hilarious so just trying to read out loud if you can with a couple other people with as many if you know any actors just get get a hold of them and read it we often when we were doing Bluestone we just meet Richard the exec producer the producer maybe the director or script editor 456 of us would actually read the scripts out loud but before we get the cast to do it a few weeks before and you really get a sense of oh wow this is pretty boring actually for especially for a war zone you would think that something would happen wouldn't you and sometimes you're trying to show it's the stuff that's not happening that's interesting but you don't get to do that in the first show so you really want to get stuff to happen and that's one of the things I really have learned through working with both Miranda and also Stephen McCramar's producer on Bluestone he is a real stickler for saying look come on the stuff that's happening on page 10 page 15 you want to really move that up so crack on get on with it and very rarely do you think no no that's the wrong thing you might initially because you just can't bear to cut some really nice jokes that you think are really funny but unless they're driving the show forwards it's it's not going to happen all right so those are the keys really key points to looking at the first 10 minutes based on experience of really not to them recently and I wonder if there's anything to add to that kill the backstory kill the backstory no backstory no backstory backstory is death we do not want any backstory um I think we're done we're done about half an hour is that about right cool let's knock it on the head a few of the general natures to finish if you want to hang out with myself and Dave Koein we are doing a sitcom writing workshop seminar type thing workshop probably better on the fifth and sixth of November look on Dave's website for that which is in dot org.uk there's also a link on my six-com blog so I think there's even a link on the British Comedy Guide website on our six-com blog page so at that day we'll be talking about stuff in much more detail and going through stuff showing working examples and we'll be getting you to actually do some stuff as well so that's quite good it won't just be us talking because even we get bored with that the amount of how much we like the sounds of our own voices I've written a book called Writing That's Itcom which you can get via Amazon for the Kindle Dave has written a book called How to be Adrizy Successful comedy which is really helpful and realistic and painful at times in terms of the pain that it is to write comedy and we've been talking about in this episode the importance of cutting jokes that you really like because they are not helping comedy is pain photos it is as the later greats David, whoops, that's always said comedy is cruelty yeah it's both cruel to the characters and cruel to the writer yeah if you like the podcast please rate it and on iTunes and leave a comment that would be a really kind thing to do that would be a great way of showing appreciation if this is something you want to do. Katie I'm a producer I'll be a very grateful to Katie, but she produces her own podcast tell us about that. It's called The Royal Review it's a summer break so it's back in a few weeks when you won.

So you didn't do one, you should live simulcast whilst the Queen became the longest serving one. I know that's quite interesting, whilst there was sort of clock was there a sort of moment. It's 5.30. They really did count it down on Twitter I saw someone say only two hours left.

What's that waiting for her to not do? Yeah I did. I tweet I was really proud of because there's an emotional rate low key because apparently she didn't want to rub it in child's face. She was like still trying to make her attention to herself so I wrote this tweet which says is the Queen Andy McDowell because she's still raining and she hasn't noticed.

But I had to put in brackets this is a tweet about the low key celebration. This reminds me that's a great joke. That's a proud, did you be proud of that later? This is the very first song that Pete Sinclair and I wrote for Spitting Image was in 1988 I think and it was Alistair Burnett who was a news reader at the time who was the Nicholas Witchon of his day and he was a very, very sycophantic royal reporter so we had Alistair Burnett singing a love song to the Queen Mother and the nature of writing songs for a show like Spitting Image they have to be written and recorded months in advance so there was this sort of period three or four months when the Pete and I, these staunch Republicans were hoping and praying that their old 88-year-old Queen Mother would stay alive, please stay alive, just at least until our song goes out.

So we can get paid. And so our song goes out first song we were really proud of it. Yeah yeah but it's pretty good to get paid too. It is so yes.

That helps. Does help a little bit. Great well on that very tasteful note thank you very much thanks to Rushforth Media who hosts us here in their wonderful offices. Pickwick is also based here, I'm actually written a novel called Crossword Ends in Violence which is published by Pickwick which I promised to read at some point.

Yes and our logo is by Debbie Saunders, she did this very nicely complete video and Jay Walking's did our thinking. Thank you for listening and see you next time.