Sitcom writing pages or books?

[Bradley_groot]

Hey, I'm trying to write a pilot and possibly a season for a sitcom style comedy, but there is a lot I don't know about how the basic formula works, what scenes go where, how does the plot progressions normally go, how short can I make it, etc.

So basically I'm just asking if anybody knows of any good books written by sitcom writers that go over how everything normally works. Or even online resources where people have shared their experiences.

Currently I'm just going threw watching a lot of the more current single camera comedies. But deconstructing those only get you so far, and i don't want to write something that overly mimics a show in particular.

 

[directorik]

http://www.writersweekly.com/this_weeks_article/000561_09112002.html
http://www.amazon.com/Successful-Sitcom-Writing-Hottest-Format/dp/0312144261
http://www.televisionwriting.com/sitcom.html

 

[Bradley_groot]

sweet, thanks.

 

[Bradley_groot]

I feel sorry for Hollywood writers, now that I read so much of what they have to do seems geared towards training themselves to operate appropriately within the Hollywood system. I think I'll just start my own production company, seems like a lot less work.

 

[directorik]

People in business follow the appropriate system.
Accountants are geared towards training themselves to operate
appropriately within the expected system.
Baseball players must learn the appropriate way the game is played.

If you find it less work to reinvent the wheel and do it your way I
wish you the best of success. But don't feel sorry for us. As a Hollywood
writer, I find the format and steps and the Hollywood system very
easy to work within. Just like the rules of any sport, the business of
TV production has rules.

What will you change when you have your production company?

 

[Bradley_groot]

I'm not saying my system will be better, I'm just saying that all the effort that would be required to find a place in the Hollywood style system I might as well spend that effort trying to start a new production studio.

Distribution is the only real force that keeps Hollywood in control, with the advent of the internet and the Major Studios completely disregarding it, we are going to see dozens if not hundreds of new production companies completely go around the hollywood system and set up shop on the internet. The internet is still 5 or 10 years away from being as profitable a distribution medium as television and film, but I fully intend to be extremely experienced and entrenched in internet production when that time comes.

I'm very young so I have nothing but time, and with the advent of new technologies the only day to day costs of operating a production studio is man power . Ten thousand dollars you can get all the camera, audio, and editing gear you need to produce a cable quality show.

You can produce and distribute as much content as you can physically have time to shoot. why spend thousands of hours trying to be somebody when you can spend thousands of hours producing as much content as possible. Sure the content will suck at first, but that doesn't matter, if you make a crappy webisode it doesn't cost you a dime, you read the comments as to why people don't like it and you make it a little different the next time.

But who knows, maybe I'm completely wrong and internet will never become a preferred media distribution system, but it sure sounds like a whole lot more fun to manage everything yourself then to write sample scripts for pre-existing shows hoping one day the right executive will read it.

But mostly I just want to watch some media that doesn't take place in California or New York, and since nobody else wants to step up, I guess I have no choice but to have all the fun myself.

*see look how self indulgent I'm becoming, maybe I have more hollywood in me then I thought

 

[directorik]

Distribution is the only real force that keeps Hollywood in control, with the advent of the internet and the Major Studios completely disregarding it, we are going to see dozens if not hundreds of new production companies completely go around the hollywood system and set up shop on the internet. The internet is still 5 or 10 years away from being as profitable a distribution medium as television and film, but I fully intend to be extremely experienced and entrenched in internet production when that time comes.

I hope it's less than 5 years that we can start making money
by distributing independently on the internet.

You can produce and distribute as much content as you can physically have time to shoot. why spend thousands of hours trying to be somebody when you can spend thousands of hours producing as much content as possible.

I agree with you. A movie maker like you could offer 10 to 20
hours of content per week - maybe more. Making money on
this product is difficult.

But mostly I just want to watch some media that doesn't take place in California or New York, and since nobody else wants to step up, I guess I have no choice but to have all the fun myself.

If you want to watch some media that doesn’t take place in
California or New York you will find that in all “Bollywood”
movies. The output of films from India surpasses the output by
Hollywood three to one. You should also watch movies made in Asia
- Japan, Hong Kong and Korea have thriving film industries and
offer some great films - and Europe.

I’m under the impression there is are a lot of movies being made
in Canada. Am I incorrect?

 

[Bradley_groot]

Actually I take back the Cali,New York statement in regards to movies. I'm from winnipeg and they actually do shoot movies here fairly often. Canada actually has a pretty decent movie scene, but fictional television production is basically none existent across the country.

I think my passion is closer to T.V production. My goal is to eventually make some serialized shows or webisodes. Internet productions at the moment are very gag focused which I think is more people adapting to the traditionally short allotments of time for free video hosting. I'd like to draw a lot from network comedy shows and adapt that to the unique internet culture.

I might be wrong about the 5 years thing. I'm interested to see what sites like YouTube do with their partners program. If they can offer reasonable profit sharing rates I sure like the idea of somebody else handling the ads/bandwidth and me being able to focus on grabbing as many viewers as possible. Also making deals with existing websites to provide exclusive content is another option as sites seem to be trying harder and harder to produce there own video content(sites like cracked and college humor). There are a wide variety of distribution options and of course you could always buy your own server space and go completely independent.

My problem at the moment is getting a handle on the writing, I'd like to have a half dozen 5-10 minute scripts done before I even start shooting. I'm not sure if I would be able to maintain writing once I start to ramp up production though, the hope is I can produce at high enough quality to attract talented writers to join up and pick up my slack.

I think the key is consistency, lots of the people who do internet focused productions seem to leave large gaps between content releases, I would like to organize some sort of release schedule so viewers will know when to check back.

 

[directorik]

Sounds like an excellent plan.

I, too, hope that someday what you want to do makes money.
Starting your own prodCo might be less work, but keeping it
running is a LOT of work. Especially if your goal is quality but
there is little revenue coming in.

I love your goal of consistency. All the serialized/webisodes I’ve
worked on have the large gabs you have noticed because it’s very
difficult to keep up the production when no one is getting paid.
Soon everyone involved from the writers to the camera ops to the
editors to the cast must do something to make money and their
commitment to a production wanes.

Attracting talented writers with high enough quality is possible,
but they don’t stick around if they are working for free.

Why are you having a problem getting a handle on the writing. Do
you have a serialized show or web series concept? Or is it just
the idea that you want to do something but not sure what you want
to do?

 

[Bradley_groot]

I have a couple thousand words written simply outlining the concept, plot and characters. I am just having trouble balancing interesting dialog and plot progression. I'm more of a prose writer and a lot of the stuff I love to write is exposition. I try to make characters real and give readers the choice to treat them as sympathetic or incongruous. The problem with all of that is it is very self serving I find and if I push it to far people become disinterested or worse they become hostile when they feel the media if forcing on them feelings they don't agree with. The problem I am facing is weaving all of that into each episodes plot so it does not feel preachy or inconsequential.

I am worried about the payment issue and plan to spend the first year doing various single off projects, I'm thinking it will be like producing a wide variety of pilots(to use the t.v term) that all use different actors and involve different themes. Then after I finish that first year hopefully i will have been introduced to enough local talent that some solid arrangements can be made and I can get a series of episodes filmed. the actual payment is something I'm trying to find a solution to. a problem is my actors I'm sure won't be comfortable with the idea of doing all this work for free and signing releases that allow me to sell it, but if I don't get some money incoming I don't see how I can afford to finance any future content, and I don't see how I can really justify paying any significant amount for something that might not make any profitable return or at least not make a profit until a large amount of time has passed. i was thinking about profit sharing from future revenue the project makes but I'm almost convinced i do not have the legal experience or resources to manage complex arrangements like that(one big advanced large studios obviously have).

I have been in photography for many years so I have a very secure handling on how to operate a camera(including tripods,cranes,steady arms, etc) and light a scene quickly and efficiently, I also have a lot of experience operating editing programs like the Adobe creative suite. I also have a fairly firm although not as cohesive a grasp on how to properly capture audio and edit it. The hope is over the first year I will be able to minimize a lot of the uncertainty and wasted time by making a very specific guidelines that will be followed from shoot to shoot so I don't need to labor over these projects endlessly in the editing room trying to find some none existent perfect balance. The goal is not to produce small amounts of extremely refined content but to favor more structured quickly repeatable content.

I have a couple things going for me in terms of visual quality as well. i am going to be one of the first shooting on a new Hybrid still/video dSLR which has a imaging sensor of 24x36mm which is significantly larger then standard 1/3" 3ccd cameras used by independent studios. This increased sensor size means i will be able to use lens originally designed for still photography which commonly have a much thinner depth of field and are significantly cheaper then the specially made proprietary lens you can get for 1/3" cameras. Here are some still shot examples from my current non video dSLR, when my new camera finally arrives(it is backordered) i will be able to reproduce these frames in full 1080p video, as you can see it presents a much more cinematic look.

thiner depth of field helps separate the background from the charecter

low cost macro lens offer extreme close up possibilities

larger sensor also allows the camera to have much better low light sensitivity

cheaper dedicated portrait lens are available and can reproduce close up quality that rivals network television and movies.