TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIES

With the holiday season upon us, have you been watching Hallmark Christmas movies? With wine (or eggnog) in hand have you said confidently aloud to yourself, “Hey! I could write one of these things!”?

Well, if you’ve made this proclamation, you’re not alone. We know because every December, we get a bevy of requests around the library from patrons wanting to read Hallmark Christmas scripts to study the formatting and see how it’s done.

If you’ve ever had the holiday-time burst of tenacity to say, “Hey! I could write a Hallmark Christmas movie!” and want a deeper glimpse at the structure and conventions, we’ve created this primer for you.

As many an online publication or TikTok account are quick to point out, there is a definite recipe for these movies. With nearly 40 of them produced every year plus a stalwart and passionate viewing audience, Hallmark Christmas movies are a serious business. Some writers make fruitful careers writing primarily Hallmark Christmas movies. While many feature writers can languish in years of development waiting for their rom-com script to get made, writers of Hallmark Christmas movies see their dialogue spoken, their tinsel-y worlds realized, their work produced.

This post is part of our ongoing “TV Format Fundamentals” series whereby we breakdown the act structure and elements of different script TV formats. Information presented here is based on looking at the handful of Hallmark scripts we have in the library and from talking to friends who’ve written Hallmark Christmas movies. For further reading, check out this article by Tom Nolan for Written By in 2019.

While we won’t break down a full script in this post (it would make it too long), we will offer pointers along the way. It’s part of how we’re making script information accessible beyond our WGF Library doors. Plus, it’s the holidays and this is fun—so grab that eggnog glass and let’s go.

Hallmark Christmas movies have a history that goes all the way back to the beginning of television. Perhaps knowing the history can help a fledgling Hallmark Christmas movie writer better understand the contours of the format… the recipe. To know where you’re going, it’s best to know where you’ve been.

What we now know as the “Hallmark Christmas movie” is descended from the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Hallmark, the greeting card company, used to sponsor radio shows like Radio Reader’s Digest in the late 1940s, then moved to sponsoring the television program Hallmark Television Playhouse.

Hallmark Television Playhouse began on Christmas Eve 1951. The inaugural broadcast featured the first opera ever written for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors. Later in the 1950s, Hallmark Television Playhouse became Hallmark Hall of Fame. Like a lot of nascent television, these programs were essentially filmed versions of classic plays. Lots of Shakespeare.

Later still in the 50s, Hallmark Hall of Fame evolved into television movies that aired 4 to 8 times a year. As a greeting card company, Hallmark wanted to sell cards. These prestigious TV films — based on novels or plays and starring top-level actors — aired around the major holidays to keep GREETING CARDS at the top of the audience’s mind. Check out UCLA Film & Television Archive’s book Hallmark Hall of Fame: The First Fifty Years next time you’re in the library.

Hallmark Hall of Fame continues even to this day — except now the movies don’t air on the major networks like CBS or NBC. Rather, they air on the Hallmark Channel, which began in earnest in 2001. Hallmark and The Jim Henson Company became co-owners of what was then a Christian cable channel, The Odyssey Network. Their aim was to make a network anchored by family friendly and family oriented content.

With emphasis on family values, optimism and not taking on particularly heavy, political or controversial subjects, Christmas movies quickly became a staple of the Hallmark Channel’s programming. With these movies, Hallmark stays true to the original modus operandi of Hallmark Hall of Fame — to sell us on Christmas… the mother of all greeting card holidays. (That’s why they make Valentine’s Day movies too.)

FORMATTING

Hallmark movies are made for television NOT streaming. This means commercial breaks factor heavily into the script structure and formatting.

Remember from previous TV Format Fundamentals posts, act breaks in a TV script typically denote where the commercial breaks are. Scripts from the heyday of Hallmark Hall of Fame on network TV are broken into three acts. This works well if you’re using traditional three-act movie structure:

Later in the 1980s and 90s, the scripts gained additional acts, bringing the total to six:

Current scripts for Hallmark Christmas movies have NINE ACTS. Watch any current Hallmark movie and you’ll probably clock eight commercial breaks. Looking at the Hallmark scripts we have in the library, the first act is the longest, sometimes totaling as many as 30 pages.

In the first act, we meet the main characters. Hallmark Christmas movies are rom-coms most of the time, so we meet the characters in their day-to-day lives; we learn their dreams and aspirations (and, of course, their feelings on Christmas), then they meet each other… and probably don’t like each other. The following eight acts run 8-12 pages. These smaller acts pile on complications and higher stakes for the couple and their belief in Christmas magic until the inevitable happy conclusion where lovers unite, families come together and Christmas is gloriously saved:

If you’re wondering how the act breaks look on the page, it’s just as if you are writing an episode of network TV. At the start of any new act, you put ACT TWO at the top of the page and END OF ACT TWO at the end. Most of the time, text is centered and CAPITALIZED, but we’ve seen act breaks on the left-hand side of the page and bolded, so we’re guessing you don’t have to feel totally beholden to the act formatting.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Hallmark Channel knows its audience. They don’t hide that they make movies mostly for suburban women in middle America (even if they’re not the only people who watch them). The movies follow a certain trajectory and rarely stray from it. In the present day, the form has been pushed a tiny bit forward in terms of casting and trying slightly different storylines…. but if you’re looking to blow-up tropes, this might not be the type of movie you should endeavor to write.

Either way, you’ve got to know the tropes to break or conform to them:

• FEMALE PROTAGONISTS. In the great Written By article by Tom Nolan, writer Robin Bernheim explains: “The most standard story is girl-meets-boy not boy-meets-girl.” The lead is typically a woman with a white collar job, whose profession puts her at odds with her former small-town life, etc.

• CLASSIC ROMANTIC COMEDIES. Know them. Breathe them — the movies where the two main characters are totally at odds with each other and totally wrong for one another. When they’re together, it’s instant banter and chemistry. Another thing that’s been re-iterated to us is that both characters should have a viewpoint on Christmas. This is another place where the two leads can diverge. One might LOVE Christmas; the other might HATE it. Of course, the one who hates it will come around by the conclusion of the story. If they love or hate it, they’ve also got to have a good reason for it.

• CONFLICT. Where does it come from in Hallmark Christmas movies? It usually bubbles up around the lead character’s commitment to family or small-town values vs. her commitment to her career or “big city values.” As in any great romantic film, these values are often embodied by her potential suitors, e.g. a small-town carpenter vs. a big city lawyer. This is an over-simplification, of course, to make a point.

• THEME. A Hallmark Christmas movie is no place for cynicism. Despite accusations of being cliched or cheesy, the movies resonate because they’re one place in our divisive world where togetherness and tradition and fun are guaranteed. Think of older classic Christmas films like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Bishop’s Wife. It’s all about heart and miracles and family.

• CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS! If you look at a script for a Hallmark Christmas movie, there’s hardly a sentence in the description that doesn’t mention tinsel or scarves or ice skating or snow. If you think you’re talking about Christmas too much, you’re simply not talking about it enough. Remember: the whole point is to pump viewers full of Christmas joy — to literally sell them on the greeting card holiday.

• HAPPY ENDINGS. Duh.

Well, we hope this year — or next — when you proclaim that YOU could write a Hallmark Christmas movie that this blog post jumpstarts the process of shaping your idea.

Until next time, CHEERS! Happy writing and happy holidays!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: ANIMATED SITCOMS

Here in the WGF Library, our aim is to help you hone your ability to study TV shows (and their scripts). After all, it’s through this rigorous study that one hopefully becomes a better, more thoughtful writer. With this in mind, we jump back into TV Format Fundamentals, a blog series that explores the background, elements and style of a handful of scripted TV formats.

This week we're looking at animated sitcoms.

As we’ve explored in previous installments of this series, sitcom stands for “situation comedy.” In our post about multi-cam sitcoms, we defined situation comedy as “shows in which a specific group of characters find themselves in a new, ridiculous situation with each episode. The humor occurs as the characters struggle to get out of that situation.”

To peer closely at the DNA of the animated sitcom, we must go all the way back to the origin of the live-action sitcom. Families—biological families, chosen families, workplace families, school families—are the most fertile ground for situation comedy because you have a group of characters that are naturally always together to get into “situations.”

In developing their seminal animated Stone Age series THE FLINTSTONES (the first animated sitcom to air in primetime, CBS 1960) producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera took great inspiration from THE HONEYMOONERS (which aired a few years prior).

On Wikipedia, THE HONEYMOONERS is described as such: “[the show] follows New York City bus driver Ralph Cramden, his wife Alice, Ralph’s best friend Ed Norton and Ed’s wife Trixie as they get involved in various schemes in their day-to-day living.” You don’t have to look too hard to see how THE FLINTSTONES follows this template almost exactly. Its logline could be: the show follows Stone Age construction worker Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, Fred’s best friend Barney Rubble and Barney’s wife Betty as they get involved in various schemes in their pre-historic day-to-day living.

THE JETSONS, the futuristic counterpart to THE FLINTSTONES, which premiered in 1962 (also on CBS), seems to draw on FATHER KNOWS BEST (1954-1960) for inspiration. Both shows feature a hapless father, his spendthrift wife, a hip/boy-crazy teenage daughter (or two) and a genius young son. Note that while the show may take place far into the future with flying cars and robot housekeepers, its characters reflect staunchly 1950s stereotypes.

We mention all of this to illustrate how animated sitcoms are firmly entrenched in the conventions of their live-action counterparts. The difference is just animation. 

So, what does this mean for the way animated sitcom scripts are structured and formatted? 

Both THE FLINTSTONES and THE JETSONS predate formal act structure in their scripts, but if you watch the shows on HBOMax and pay attention to the commercial blackouts, you'll notice a distinct three-act episodic structure. Before the first commercial, the problem of the episode is introduced, i.e. Fred, Wilma and the Rubbles get invited to a fancy gala, but fret because they're not fancy enough for said gala. Between the first and second commercial, complications ensue as the characters prep for attending the gala, then after the second commercial, they actually go to the gala. 

Sometimes episodes begin with a short cold open that previews what the episode will be about… but each episode contains three distinct acts — a beginning, a middle and an end — much like a feature screenplay.

Over the years, the act structure for animated sitcoms hasn’t changed much. THE SIMPSONS, FUTURAMA, FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD and KING OF THE HILL all use three simple, straightforward acts.

Some animated sitcoms utilize a four-act structure. Examples include BOB’S BURGERS and THE GREAT NORTH. The first act is the setup, acts two and three feature complications and higher stakes, then act four wraps everything up:

In prepping for this post we found one animated sitcom that uses two-act structure. That show is CENTRAL PARK. The easiest way to understand two-act structure is that the characters get into trouble in the first act and struggle to get out of it in the second:

A lot of cable and streaming animated sitcoms use the classic three-act structure, but add a cold open in most episodes. Examples of this type of structure include BOJACK HORSEMAN, ARCHER and HARLEY QUINN.

Finally, you might look at the scripts for a streaming show like BIG MOUTH and see no act breaks nor a cold opening. As we’ve discussed in previous posts in this series… just because act breaks are not specified in the scripts pages does not mean the writers are not thinking about act breaks.

Most animated sitcom scripts are formatted with double-spaced dialogue, much like multi-cam sitcom scripts. Then, the description is single spaced. Oftentimes, scene headings and sound effects are bolded. This is generally the case with animated series, but should not be taken as sacrosanct. Some shows — like BOJACK HORSEMAN — single space their dialogue and IT’S OKAY.

In live-action sitcoms, emphasis is usually on the timing or physical comic abilities of the actors. Animated sitcoms work best when the creators take full advantage of the animation. If the main character isn’t an anthropomorphic horse, if Homer’s wife doesn’t have three-foot high blue hair, if the Flintstones have a dog as a pet rather than a dinosaur, why would you make the series animated? Great animated shows take full advantage of animation where you can present out-of-this-world scenarios and jokes. Something to consider when you’re developing an animated show.

CASE STUDY:

FUTURAMA “Pilot”

Written by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening

If sitcoms are foremost about a family or group that can run into countless funny “situations,” a great sitcom pilot is about meeting our primary group of characters and setting up the world or overarching “situation” they’re in. A pilot script that does this particularly well is FUTURAMA (1999), which is why we’ve chosen it as our case study this week. In addition to introducing its central gang of misfits with pathos and wit, the pilot does a great job establishing the three-act structure it will use in subsequent episodes.

FUTURAMA is about a good-natured slouch named Fry, who works delivering cargo planet-to-planet nearly 1000 years in the future. His crewmates include Leela, a cycloptic alien (or so she believes herself to be at first) and Bender, a foul-tempered robot who drinks heavily. The pilot is where we meet them and the far future that they inhabit.

COLD OPENING

While many other FUTURAMA episodes don’t include it, the pilot features a brief cold open. It’s where we meet Fry, a New York City pizza delivery boy who (it appears) would rather be playing video games than delivering pies. He lives in the year 1999. On the first page, we see him get made fun of by a kid. Ouch! This starts to pique our empathy.

Over the course of the cold open, we watch Fry on New Year’s Eve get dumped by his girlfriend and delivery a pizza to a cryogenic laboratory where he calls out that he has a delivery for “I.C. Weiner.” Aww poor guy. He walked right into it. He also trips right into a cryogenic tube as New York City counts down to the new millennium.  

And, like Dorothy emerging from her tornado-spun Kansas house into the world of Oz, Fry emerges from his cryogenic slumber into a New York City 1000 years in the future. End of Cold Opening.

ACT ONE

After the cold opening, the first act begins on page 7 as Fry begins to figure out where he is and what’s happened to him. The year is 2999 and Fry believes he’s been given a fresh start. By the way, characters seeking a fresh start are a fantastic way to open a television series because it means right from the get-go the character is in pursuit of something.

Fry’s hopes for a new start 1000 years into the future are dashed when he meets Leela, a one-eyed alien, whose job it is to “chip” him with his permanent career assignment, which is – much to his horror – delivery guy… even 1000 years into the future. Fry also finds out from Leela that he has a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great nephew, a haggard old man by the name of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth.

Fry manages to evade Leela and her chip implanter for the time being. As you can see, Leela also lands in a cryogenic tube. However, Fry has mercy on her and sets the timer for 5 minutes. It’s a favor he does for her that will later be paid off.

On escaping Leela, Fry goes in search of his nephew, Farnsworth. He finds what looks like a phone booth, but it’s really a “suicide booth.” He ends up stepping inside the suicide booth with one very unhappy robot named Bender. We break for commercial wondering if Fry will survive this horrific ordeal, then onto…

ACT TWO

Act two begins on page 20. Spoiler alert: the suicide booth proves ineffective. The act begins with Fry and the robot, Bender, unscathed. Now what are they gonna do?

Meanwhile, Leela has to report that Fry got away from her. Her boss insists that she track him down and implant him with that chip. After all, it’s her job.

As Leela gets harangued by her boss, Fry and Bender go for a drink and get to know one-another. Think again of THE WIZARD OF OZ… Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, then she meets the Tin Man. Fry learns that Bender is a robot who is very dejected with his lot in life.

Given that he is unhappy himself with the prospect of being a lifelong pizza deliverer, Fry empathizes with Bender and the two become friends.

Their bonding is interrupted when Leela shows up at the bar in pursuit of Fry! As Fry and Bender see her and run away, Leela calls for back-up! The two hide in a museum, specifically in the “20th Century Gallery.” The show’s creators obviously have great fun with the museum, making it a testament to “the past” which is really our present (or it was our present in 1999).

Leela’s back-up comes in the form of two police officers, Url and Smitty. They all reach the 20th Century Gallery just as Fry and Bender are being attacked by the heads of former U.S. Presidents.

Url and Smitty draw what look like light sabers and plan to brutally attack Fry and Bender.

Leela presumably feels bad for Fry and Bender and tries to get the officers to back off, but they make fun of her (which makes us feel for her). She kicks and punches enough at the officers that Fry and Bender are able to make an escape.

They then find themselves in a back room of the museum where the only escape is a small window with bars on it. Bender doesn’t believe he can destroy the bars. While he’s a “bender” it’s just not what he’s programmed for.

Act two ends with Bender summoning his courage and ripping out the bars, but subsequently destroying his arms in the process. Note that act breaks or commercial blackouts almost always end on a question… Will they successfully escape? End of act two.

ACT THREE

Act three begins on page 32. Having escaped, Bender and Fry walk around the ruins of old New York City. This makes Fry sad. What he’s lost in traveling so far into the future starts to weigh on him.

At this moment that Leela catches up with them, chip implanter in hand. Fry just wants to be left alone… but it seems Leela understands Fry more than either of them realizes.

Rather than implant Fry with the career chip, Leela decides to quit HER job. This leaves our new trio directionless and without a clear plan. It’s here that Fry remembers his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great nephew Farnsworth… and it’s off to see the Wizard… er… the Professor!  

It’s New Year’s Eve again… 2999.

Fry finds his Uncle and introduces himself.

Professor Farnsworth has a spaceship but lacks a crew to fly it. As it turns out, Leela knows how to fly a ship. Leela, Fry and Bender agree to be Farnsworth’s crew… but what exactly will they be doing out there in space?

At the end of the episode, Fry is essentially back where he started, a delivery boy with a newfound crew and family. Pilot episodes are critical for getting an audience on board with the show's central characters. Here, we empathize with Fry, Leela and Bender as they are all misfits or misanthropes wanting a little something more from their existence. Who can't relate to that? We want to follow them through all their foibles and hijinks. The pilot also facilitates a perfect setup for new situations to arise with each new episode AND establishes the three-act structure through which those stories will be told. The script ends on page 46 (but keep in mind that the dialogue is double-spaced).

If you want to talk more about animated sitcoms, make an appointment to visit the WGF Library or e-mail us at library@wgfoundation.org. Until next time, happy writing!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: SERIALIZED DRAMA

Welcome to TV Formatting Fundamentals! In this blog series, we explore the on-page structure of different types of TV series.

In earlier posts we’ve looked at multi-cam sitcoms, episodic dramas and single-cam sitcoms. All previous posts have explored scripts with clearly delineated commercial/act breaks—meaning they’re scripts that tell you where each new act starts and stops.

This week we’re charting new territory and diving into serialized dramas, the kind you find on streaming services and the upper channels of your cable subscription.

Serialized dramas include Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, Pose, The Wire, Breaking Bad…. Unlike episodic drama, serialized drama tends to treat each episode like a chapter in a book. Episodes might have some self-contained elements, but for the most part, they’re pieces or fragments of a much bigger season and series narrative. A standard episode of serialized drama typically includes four acts or four acts and a teaser.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, HBO shows like Oz, The Sopranos, etc. didn’t include act breaks in their scripts. The episodes weren’t airing with commercial interruption, so there was no need for them. As a result, these shows have a more cinematic feel.

These days, it’s rare to find serialized drama scripts that actually include act breaks on the page. It’s particularly rare amongst shows that drop/air on streaming platforms.

Neophyte TV writers might assume that because a script doesn’t explicitly note its act breaks on the page that a script does not contain act breaks.

Such an assumption is easy to make. Even some of our earlier blog posts about spec script formatting are somewhat perplexing on this matter. If a script doesn’t delineate its act breaks, we say it doesn’t have any.

But almost every TV show is broken into acts, even if those acts are not spelled out on the page.

Good stories have turning points, mysteries, and revelations in order to keep a spectator interested. Just because a writer doesn’t flat out state that this is the end of act one doesn’t mean the end of act one isn’t there. Feature screenplays are often broken into acts, but the writer doesn’t announce “END OF ACT ONE” on the page.

So, with this blog post, we’ll do a little something different. We’ll offer instruction on how to spot the act breaks in cable/streaming scripts that don’t explicitly show them.

We’ll stop looking at scripts without act breaks like this:

And start to see them more like this:

This knowledge will come in handy when you’re spec-ing a serialized drama show, writing a serialized drama pilot… or trying to get more efficient with outlining and drafting.

The best way to learn serialized act structure is, of course, to read scripts. It’s especially helpful to start with shows that air(ed) with commercials… shows like Pose or Breaking Bad. This way you can see specifically where the acts stop and start on the page. 

As mentioned before, you’ll find that scripts of this nature often have four acts. Sometimes they include a teaser or even a fifth act, but four acts seems to be the standard.

The great serialized dramas tend to feature huge ensemble casts, but those huge ensemble casts are usually anchored by one protagonist (or sometimes a small group of them). Part of what makes a season of serialized drama feel like a movie is that we follow that one central character (or, again, a few of them) in the way that we follow one central character in a film. 

In fact, the structure of one serialized drama episode can feel a bit screenplay-like in nature, especially if you’re looking at a pilot. 

ACT ONE is where we meet the protagonist in their ordinary world. By the end of that act, there’s a catalyst, a big decisive action or an event that shakes things up. In the shooting draft of the Pose pilot, the first act is 16 pages long. We meet protagonist, Blanca, in New York City in the late 1980s. She walks/competes in balls for the House of Abundance. After testing positive for HIV, Blanca decides to pursue her dream. At the end of the act, she leaves House of Abundance to start her own house. This is not unlike the first act in the pilot for Breaking Bad, where Walter White lives a quiet, dull life as a chemistry teacher, but then one day collapses at the car wash.

ACT TWO finds our protagonist(s) in a new situation, pursuing something new with great agency and meeting the people that will help or hinder them in that pursuit. In Pose, Blanca meets Damon, a brilliant dancer and a runaway from Pennsylvania, who has no place else to go. By the end of the act (on page 35), Damon joins Blanca’s new house—The House of Evangelista—and his dancing talent will help them compete in the balls. In Breaking Bad, Walt officially gets diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, but he spots a former student, Jesse, who now cooks and deals meth. He blackmails Jesse into letting him join his operation.

In a way, you might say that ACT THREE is where the protagonist makes the decision or takes on the task that will be the backbone of the entire series. Blanca decides that House of Evangelista must challenge House of Abundance. She wants a name for herself. In Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse gather equipment and an RV and cook their first batch. Right at the end of the third act, Walt encounters some jocks making fun of his son, Walter, Jr., who has cerebral palsy. He stands up for his kid by kicking the instigating jock in the back of the leg. As the script says: “Walt feels a kind of power—one that’s completely brought on by an absence of fear.” This provides a hint of the profound character change that’s to come (and what the show will be).  

ACT FOUR is the final act (but really it’s the beginning of the entire series). In Pose, in their first ball, Blanca and the House of Evangelista lose to the House of Abundance, but gain two new members in Angel and Pito. Despite losing, the house becomes more of a family and is equipped to meet future challenges head on. In Breaking Bad, after cooking starts a brush fire and the threat of sirens leave him spooked and beat, Walt possesses new vigor, energy and power in his life, which he too (with the partnership of Jesse) will bring to future challenges.

Both shows end their acts with “act outs” or cliffhangers that make a viewer want to come back after the commercial break. With this knowledge, let’s see if we can locate the act breaks in a show that does not specify them.  

CASE STUDY:

THE SOPRANOS Pilot

Written by David Chase

The general gist of The Sopranos is this: Balancing family and work life starts to take a huge toll on the mental health of New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. When he starts having severe panic attacks, he quietly visits a therapist.

Will it work for him? Will he find balance and well-being? Will he quell all the nagging, threatening voices around him? Is he doomed for a downfall?

The show wrestles with a lot of moral, existential questions. In the pilot, we’re introduced to Tony, his overarching problem, and the array of frustrating family members and colleagues around him. The script is subtly broken into a teaser and four acts—all structured around Tony’s panic attacks.

TEASER

• The episode begins with a teaser of sorts, where Tony visits Dr. Melfi’s office for the first time.

ACT ONE

• Sitting with Dr. Melfi, Tony recounts the events leading up to his first panic attack. As he does, we meet all the stressors in his life, a.k.a. his wife, kids, mother, and business family.

• Tony is deeply affected by ducks making a home in the pool in his backyard. Carmela (his wife), Meadow (his daughter) and Anthony, Jr. (his son) are bored and apathetic.  

• Meanwhile, his nephew Christopher is entitled and lacking real enthusiasm for the business.

• Also note: in screenwriting, we’re always told “show don’t tell” but Mahaffey yelping “Oh fuck, oh fuck, the bone’s poking through!” really says a lot about his character and would not be as funny(?) if his injury were simply shown.

• Uncle Junior plans to whack someone at Tony’s friend Artie’s restaurant… which is another stressful situation for Tony.

• Tony’s mother, Livia, is unhappy and seems to actually derive pleasure from making other people miserable.

• This pilot introduces the reader to everything and everyone stressing Tony Soprano out. The first act ends with his first panic attack, the one that brings him to Dr. Melfi. He collapses at a family barbecue, an event at which most of his triggers are present. (Remember Blanca getting diagnosed with HIV or Walt collapsing at the car wash?)

• Note the presence of the ducks.

ACT TWO

• This is the new situation. At first, Tony thinks he’s dying. See the exchange below with Carmela. Then, later he finds himself aligned with someone who can help him: a therapist, Dr. Melfi. This is the central relationship of the show. (Remember Walt teaming up with Jesse and Blanca finding Damon?)

• Now in therapy with Melfi, Tony expresses doubt as to whether counseling and anti-depressants actually work. In this memorable monologue, he insists men shouldn’t have to whine so much about their problems. What happened to the strong, silent type?

• We’re over-simplifying here and bypassing a few key plot points, but act two ends with BAM! Another panic attack as Tony takes his mother on a visit to a nursing home.

ACT THREE

• Remember, this is the act where the protagonist commits to the thing that’s going to drive the series.

• Tony starts taking his Prozac:

• Then, rather than skulk away from his wife when his wife confronts him about his shortcomings, he’s simply honest, which probably helps him avoid another panic attack.

ACT FOUR

• Back at Dr. Melfi’s office, Tony believes the medication is helping and that he doesn’t need therapy anymore.

• Check out this monologue that encapsulates perfectly what the series is about. The joke about “The Birds” is perfect.

• There’s also this great moment between Tony and his daughter, Meadow:

• Wrapping up some of the other storylines in the episode, Artie’s restaurant gets burned down, so Uncle Junior’s whacking of Little Pussy Malanga can’t occur there. Junior complains to Livia about Tony and wants to take a bigger hand in family business. “Something may have to be done, Livia, about Tony,” creates all kinds of suspense and anticipation, not to mention questions. What kind of mother would cast her own son aside like that?

• By the end of the pilot, we’re back at the site of Tony’s initial panic attack: a family barbecue. We know he’ll continue to see his therapist, and we know he’ll continue to struggle with finding peace amidst all the stresses in his life — and we can’t wait to see what happens next.

So, there you have it. We’ve identified the act breaks in a serialized drama pilot that does not specify them on the page.

We’ll close on a question that we sometimes get in the library.

Say you are spec-ing Stranger Things and can easily identify the act breaks in that show. Should you include act breaks in your spec even though the show itself does not include them?

Emphatically: No. You should study the script for act breaks and break your story according to those parameters, but always default to the scripts from the show. If a show has act breaks, your spec should include them. If a show does not have act breaks, you should not include them.

But it’s always good to know the act structure.

Happy writing!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: SINGLE-CAM SITCOMS

TV Format Fundamentals is a new blog series that explores the background, elements and style of a handful of scripted TV formats. This week we look at single-cam sitcoms.  

Inheriting much of their structure from radio comedies, television sitcoms began in earnest in the late 1940s and early 1950s. As we covered in our first post in this series, I Love Lucy premiered in 1951. Filmed in front of a live studio audience using multiple cameras, it became the first “multi-cam” sitcom. With I Love Lucy’s success (and with the many shows that followed in its wake), there became two types of television sitcom: multi-cam and single-cam.

What we now define as the “single-cam sitcom” took off with The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which started as a radio program in 1944, then became a TV series in 1952, premiering one year after I Love Lucy.

Ozzie and Harriet (as well as a few shows the preceded it) was shot with a single camera, utilizing real-world locations as well as sound stages. This remains a stylistic hallmark of single-cam comedies to this day. Because they’re able to get out into the streets, the comedy and the stories often possess an element of grit and realism. Over the years, the unrestricted camera has given way to more unrestricted performers. The single-cam format is natural territory for improvisation. As we’ve noticed in the library, the scripts for most single-cam sitcoms are chock full of situations which invite improv.

Just like their multi-cam counterpart, in the early days, single-cam sitcoms tended to favor a two-act structure vis-à-vis I Love Lucy where the characters get into trouble in the first act and struggle to get out of it in the second.

Before there was formal act structure, there was Leave It to Beaver, whose scripts simply specified an opening commercial, a middle commercial and a closing commercial.

A few years later, The Andy Griffith Show codified these commercial breaks into “act breaks” and included a brief tag. In the 1970s and 80s, M*A*S*H used this exact same structure.

Throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the most prevalent structure featured two acts plus a teaser and a tag. In the library, we’ve noted this structure in The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitched, Get Smart and even in contemporary sitcoms like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

In the early 2000s, the single-cam formatting evolved a bit. During its run, Malcolm in the Middle oscillated between two and three acts. Shows like Arrested Development and The Bernie Mac Show used three acts:

The Office used a cold open, three acts and a tag.

New Girl and Superstore use four acts often without specifying a cold open or a tag.

What we see most commonly today is four acts and a cold open. This is the act-structure of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

As we move into our case study this week, we find ourselves wanting to delve more deeply into three and four-act sitcom structure. When we previous looked at Living Single, the structure was very cut and dry. The heroines get into trouble in act one and struggle to get out of it in act two. How does it work when you have to include an extra commercial break or two?

Let’s take a look at the wonderful season 1 finale of Broad City.

CASE STUDY:

BROAD CITY “THE LAST SUPPER”

Written by Abbi Jacobson & Ilana Glazer

Broad City is a quintessential example of contemporary single-cam comedy. The show does not confine itself to a soundstage, but rather exists brashly out in the street. The two broads – Abbi Abrams and Ilana Wexler – often help each other through hilarious crises or find themselves at odds with fellow weirdos or with sophisticated society. There’s always some new scenario where they’re out of place or have no self-awareness.

This episode finds the gals visiting a fancy restaurant for Abbi’s birthday. Remember that a characteristic of single-cam sitcoms is practical locations and realism, which can often leave the door open for improvisation.

In this episode, there’s one umbrella situation: Abbi’s birthday dinner. Each act in this episode’s three-act structure is a complication to Abbi having a nice birthday. Each act feels like a new twist added to an improvised scenario.

In terms of formatting, single-cam sitcoms are single spaced. Much like multi-cam sitcoms, any description is minimal and unrestrictive to the performers.

COLD OPEN

• Sometimes the cold open of a sitcom is self-contained and has absolutely nothing to do with the primary story of the episode. This is the case here as Abbi and Ilana debate the attractiveness of men playing basketball…. Or maybe they’re talking about something else….

ACT ONE

• Right at the top of act one, we’re presented with the main situation of the comedy. The girls are at Octavia – a very upscale restaurant – for Abbi’s birthday. Later on down the page, Abbi explains that she learned from Oprah: “… your birthday dictates the kind of year you’re gonna have.”

• This sets the stakes. This birthday dinner had better be amazing, then!

• Already the girls are out of place and at odds with the maître d. Also, what makes the exchange below hilarious (and makes Ilana endearing) is her utter lack of self-awareness.

• Later once the girls are seated (at a table where Jay-Z and Beyoncé recently sat, no less), we’re introduced to the concept of food allergies. Ilana blatantly dodges the waiter’s question about them.

• Amidst the birthday elegance, Abbi visits the bathroom and pees out a condom…… which is a gross and unsettling thing to happen on a regular day, but it’s ESPECIALLY gross and disruptive when it happens during your birthday dinner – the singular event that will determine the outcome of your entire year.

• Note: The end of act one – or the discovery of the condom – is the setup for act two. The writers give this new situation to us, so that we’ll come back after the commercial break.

ACT TWO

• So, Abbi tries to reassure herself after peeing out a condom, which, as mentioned, is the major act two complication.

• The broads then decide to go smoke weed before dinner. They meet Mario, a busboy, and talk about how animals from movies they loved as kids are definitely dead now. This is a subtle and poignant way to raise the stakes in the episode, too. Who wants to think about death and the passage of time on the day that will determine the outcome of one’s entire year?

• When they get back to the table, Ilana’s face is red and puffy – and she admits that she’s allergic to shellfish. Despite her concern, Abbi tries to ignore and push through her friend’s obvious suffering.

• Abbi goes to talk to Doug – the alleged leaver of the condom. When she returns to the table, she’s met with the complication that will kick off act three. Ilana’s shellfish allergy has caused her face and tongue to swell up gruesomely.

ACT THREE

• We learn Ilana pushed through her allergy because she didn’t want to ruin Abbi’s birthday. (Aww.)

• Her plan is to keep eating, then have Abbi stab her with an EpiPen, of course.

• Abbi ultimately…. Stabs herself with the pen.

• If you’re ever wondering how to describe physical comedy on the page, this is a solid example:

• Abbi – using her new superhuman strength – brings Ilana to the hospital, where they decide to revisit their bucket lists. The notion of the brevity of life comes back around, especially when the patient in the bed next to Ilana dies. It’s horrifying, caustic and real, but also funny.

• Abbi ultimately spends her birthday eating molten lava cake in a hospital room with Ilana.

TAG

• Sometimes Broad City includes a short fourth act. Sometimes they go with a tag. This particular episode uses a tag. The gals walk down the street and ponder what the year will bring.

• It’s a phenomenal season finale for an episodic show because it doesn’t provide much in the way of resolution. We’re simply left with two friends and more adventures to come. That’s how Abbi’s year will turn out.

It’s nice note to end on. Until our next TV formatting adventure, happy writing!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: EPISODIC DRAMA

Welcome back to TV Formatting Fundamentals – the blog series where we take a deep dive into the evolution and act structure of various TV formats.

This week we’ll look at Episodic Drama.

Over the years, television has evolved to be more serialized than episodic, but it’s helpful to understand both types of storytelling. When we talk about episodic television, we refer to shows like Scooby-Doo, where a character or group of characters is presented with (and fully solves) a new case in each episode.

The recent decline in episodic drama series can be tied to the rise of streaming platforms where episodes tend to drop all at once rather than airing week-to-week.  

Episodes of serialized television are more like chapters in a book. Each episode builds upon the previous one and is a slice of a much larger story (think: LOST, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things… even the Marvel Cinematic Universe, etc.). Serialized TV is made for bingeing because the spectator simply hops to the next part of the big, season-long story.

By contrast, a viewer can understand an episode of Star Trek, Law & Order, Seinfeld (and the comedies we discussed in last week’s post about multi-cam sitcoms) etc. without having seen the previous episodes. Whether comedy or drama, each installment of an episodic show uses the same characters, yet is self-contained. For this reason, these shows tend to do well in syndication.

Because they require a new case, situation, or monster each week, episodic dramas tend to be workplace shows. They’re about detectives, doctors, lawyers, vigilantes, ghostbusters…. professions which operate on a “case-by-case” basis.

Episodic drama on television has origins in police procedurals, which are an offshoot of radio detective shows. Dragnet is an early and prominent example.  

Beginning as a radio show in 1949, Dragnet became so successful it was developed into a TV series in 1951. Airing on TV, its format didn’t change much. Each episode finds Detective Joe Friday chasing down a new perp and using lots of technical police jargon along the way. Dragnet predates formal act structure, but the scripts do specify three commercial breaks. In fact, right before the closing commercial, the show leaves the viewer with the evidence presented to a jury, but the viewer must return after the commercial to learn the jury’s final verdict.

Also co-created by Dragnet writer/producer/star Jack Webb, Adam-12 is another early procedural full of realism and technical mundanity. Two police officers ride around and work to solve a new crime each week. With Adam-12 and other shows of the 1960s, the formatting evolved slightly. The Adam-12 officers, Malloy and Reed, are presented with a new case or situation in the show’s teaser, they then make progress and face setbacks across three acts. In the final act, they solve the case or apprehend the perp they were chasing.

Later, episodic/procedural dramas evolved from the Adam-12 style teaser and three acts to simply four acts. A dead body almost always appears in the first act of an episode of Murder, She Wrote; new suspects and red herrings come to the fore in acts two and three, then Jessica Fletcher solves the case in act four. Other examples with four-act structure include: Cagney & Lacey, The Practice, St. Elsewhere, Hill Street Blues.

Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise crew are presented with a new intergalactic situation in a short teaser, then face complications in acts one, two and three and some kind of resolution in act four on Star Trek.

Adding a teaser to the four act structure became especially fashionable in the 1990s and early 2000s. Law & Order, The X-Files, ER and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all use this type of formatting. The new case or situation is presented in the teaser and characters spend the next four acts, working to cure the patient, slay the monster or find justice. During this era, episodic dramas became a bit more complex and started taking on more serialized elements. Buffy is a great example of this. There’s a monster of the week that she must fight, but there’s also an overarching monster of the season, causing the episodes to build on each other in interesting ways.

In the early days of episodic television, characters were just damn good at both their jobs and family lives. They rarely messed-up or had to deal with their own issues or trauma. After all, it’s hard to have new stories or cases each week, if the emphasis is on the character’s growth and evolution.  On Buffy, the titular heroine fights a new monster every week, but that monster is obviously a stand-in for whatever crappy thing she’s going through in her day-to-day teenage life. It’s a smart blend of both episodic and serialized elements.

In the mid-2000s, the way viewers consumed television began to change drastically with DVR and streaming. The need for more commercial breaks translated to more act breaks in scripts. See shows like Boston Legal and Medium for a teaser and five-act structure.

Most episodic-leaning dramas on TV today utilize the teaser and five-act structure or they utilize six acts.

In the early days of episodic dramas, a show followed one Joe Friday or Jessica Fletcher around for the duration of the two-to-four-act episode. With more commercial breaks and a more sophisticated viewing audience, today’s six-act episodic dramas are likely to utilize A, B, C and sometimes D stories to fill the full episode.

The idea of balancing multiple plots in one episode might seem a little intimidating, but it’s helpful for a writer working in today’s market to look at six-act structure since it’s the commonly used structure of the day.

Believe it or not, even whilst juggling multiple plots, detective and medical shows still utilize the idea of a monster or a case of the week. With six-act structure, there tends to be more than one case/monster per episode. Act structure and theme play a massive role in giving A, B and C stories a sense of cohesion.

Let’s look at a great episode from season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy.

CASE STUDY:

GREY’S ANATOMY “BREAK ON THROUGH”

Written by Zoanne Clack

This episode has not one, but three surgical intern protagonists: Meredith Grey, Christina Yang and Izzie Stevens. While the episode services ALL of the characters, honing in on these three helps the reader identify the A, B and C plots.

Throughout the early seasons of Grey’s, Meredith is the main character with Christina and Izzie often serving as foils—one competitive and bossy; the other hyper-empathic and nurturing with patients.

ACT ONE

In “Break on Through” each woman is presented with a “patient of the week.” Each patient represents a variation on the episode’s theme, which is introduced through Meredith’s voice-over at the very start: “In surgery, there’s a red line on the floor that marks the point where the hospital goes from being accessible to being off-limits to all but a special few.”

The theme is “crossing a line,” and each case this week will cause each intern—Meredith, Christina, and Izzie—to face a hidden, hard truth about themselves.

In a six-act episodic drama script, think of the first act much like the first 10 pages of a feature screenplay. The characters go from being in their “ordinary world” to being assigned their case, which acts as a catalyst.

• The first thing we see is Derek and Addison talking in his airstream.

• Then, Meredith goes to visit her mother Ellis, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s in a nursing home. Meredith finds her boss, Chief of Surgery Richard Webber, visiting her mom – and decides not to confront or interrupt them. This is the start of the Meredith / A storyline.

• The theme of “line crossing” roars into high gear when Meredith gets to work to find the Seattle Grace nurses have gone on strike and are picketing outside the building. Her fellow interns George, Izzie, Christina and Alex debate whether they should “cross the line” and go into work.

• While the others go inside, George stays with the nurses and doesn’t “cross the line.”

• On page 3 – We’re reminded that the intern’s resident, Dr. Bailey, has started her maternity leave. The interns are to spend their time being supervised by Dr. Sydney Heron, a ball of pep, which immediately doesn’t sit well with Christina and is the start of her storyline. For our purposes the “B” storyline.

• The B storyline continues as Dr. Heron sends Christina and Alex to consult on a patient with a mysterious rash. The patient is a marathon runner who happens to be on her honeymoon. BOOM! Christina is presented with her case this week.

• This scene is followed by Meredith’s case of the week: Grace, a woman in her 80s who is having trouble breathing and calling out to someone named “Len.” This is a catalyst.

• At the end of act one, George doubles down on his decision to NOT cross the line. He continues to support the nurses.

ACT TWO

• At the start of act two, Meredith stays with Grace, who quickly panics and declines. Without the usual help of the nurses who are striking, Meredith doesn’t know anything about the patient and intubates her. She also sees Dr. Webber and mentions seeing her mother, but doesn’t confront him about visiting her.

• Meanwhile, Izzie gets assigned a case (the start of the C plot) – helping Dr. Addison Shepherd with a pregnancy in which a mass is growing on the unborn baby’s neck. Izzie helps to explain the surgery needed and relate to the patients. As viewers we get a sense that she has a deeper understanding of this situation than she lets on. It’s juicy writing because we MUST KNOW what’s going on with her and what she’ll do next.

• We jump back to the B plot, where Christina, Alex and Dr. Heron learn that what seems like a rash is growing out of control past the lines of a circle that Christina drew on it…

• Richard laments the lack of nurse power.

• Meredith has an awkward encounter with Derek, who is back with Addison. (The Meredith-Derek relationship is one of the serialized elements of the show.)

• Meanwhile, Christina, Alex and Heron learn their patient has Necrotizing Fasciitis – the flesh-eating bacteria – and they have to act FAST.

• The striking nurses try to convince George to cross the picket line to go check on their patients.

• Back in the A storyline, Meredith’s patient Grace is visited by some friends. Meredith learns the patient was DNR (Do Not Resuscitate), that intubating her was a mistake and she was supposed to let her die. This is a great act out. In the last line, we learn Meredith is in big trouble, so obviously we have to come back after the commercial to see what happens.  

ACT THREE

Act three might be seen as the act where the case becomes more personal to the character.

• Here, Meredith learns that her intubated patient is a widow and that her daughter lives far away in Oregon. The patient is not unlike Meredith’s own mother.

• With their Necrotizing Fasciitis case, Dr. Heron, Christina and Alex operate on their patient. Despite the extremely fast-moving bacteria, Heron argues to try to save the leg. Christina thinks this will jeopardize the patient’s life and advocates for removing the leg, to which Dr. Heron implies she has no compassion.

• Both Dr. Shepherds will be able to get help pregnant teen Cheyenne deliver her baby a bit earlier than expected. Izzie stays with Cheyenne after the consultation and wonders if she’s made plans for actually having the baby. Again, Izzie gets more personally involved, but we’re not quite sure why. There’s “something in her face.” The mystery of WHY this is personal to her keeps us watching.

• In another intense act-out, Christina goes to Dr. Burke and informs him that her new resident is trying to kill a patient!  

ACT FOUR

Act four introduces higher stakes and tough choices.

• Dr. Webber comes to assist with Meredith’s patient, making the situation seem all the more close to the one with her mother. Here’s a stake-raiser: if the patient’s daughter makes it down to the hospital and confirms that her mother is “Do Not Resuscitate” Meredith will have to pull the plug or “kill” her patient.

• Meanwhile, Dr. Burke – on behalf of his girlfriend, Christina – goes to check on Dr. Heron to make sure she’s not killing any patients. The normally peppy Dr. Heron sternly calls Christina out for lacking in compassion…

• A, B and C plots all intersect when Meredith, Christina, and Izzie go to lament that situations they’re in. We’re still wondering what’s going on with Izzie. In beautiful counterpoint, the nurses celebrate George for not technically crossing the picket line, but nonetheless helping their patients.

• Izzie pays an after-hours visit to her pregnant patient Cheyenne, revealing that she is from the same trailer park in Chehalis. In another powerful act-out, Izzie reveals that she has a daughter. We’re definitely coming back after the commercial break to find out more….!

ACT FIVE

Act five is the act with the major setbacks, where our principal characters find themselves in the deepest trouble.

• Izzie suggests to Cheyenne that keeping and raising the baby aren’t necessarily her only option.

• Burke gets real with Christina about asking him to question another surgeon in her own O.R., which puts strain on their relationship.

• George meets with some of the doctors to pass on information from the nurses about what their patients need. In the same scene, Meredith is met by Alice, her patient’s daughter AND Izzie is confronted by her patient’s mother and chastised for putting the idea of giving her baby up for adoption into her head.

• Meredith goes with Dr. Webber and Alice to remove the patient Grace’s breathing tube.

• Dr. Heron has saved the bacteria-ridden leg and looks for an apology from Christina.

• At the end of the fifth act, Meredith finally tells Dr. Webber she saw him with her mother. He asks if she would like him to stop going but she doesn’t give him an answer.

ACT SIX

We arrive at act six, which is the final strain and climax of the episode.

• Meredith’s patient, Grace, passes away. Look at writer Zoanne Clack’s description here: “… Grace, gasping for breath. It’s terrible and beautiful and ethereal and painful.” That’s some involving description.

• Meredith runs out of the room, sick and hyperventilating. This hits just a little too close to home. Derek (who we’ll remind you is happily back with Addison), finds her in a supply closet and helps her catch her breath. They don’t kiss.

• Dr. Burke forces a reluctant Christina to apologize to Dr. Heron, who wants to hug it out.

• Dr. Webber, the Chief, decides to meet the nurses’ demands and bring them back because clearly they can’t do their work effectively without them.

• Izzie helps Cheyenne after the birth of her daughter and processes feeling about her own daughter that maybe she hasn’t really processed before.

• George goes back to work, having managed to stay behind the picket line.

• Derek and Addison decide they’ll build a house.

• The final scene finds Izzie and Meredith crawling into bed with George. The characters have gone through a whirlwind of emotions with their patients, but at this moment, refrain from sharing their deepest secrets with each other. Rather, they just lay there.

And there you have it.

The case or the patient or the monster of the week has your character(s) dealing with emotions that they’re afraid to talk about with their closest friends and colleagues. The episode helps to draw them out.

Food for thought next time you sit down and write.

Until next time, happy scribbling!