So these last few weeks have been a little hectic and more importantly quite devoid of any new ideas being worked on as of late (a few have been generated but nothing actually written on Courier New on a blank piece of paper! However, what I have been doing is writing a spec script for the Warner Brother's Writers' Workshop over in the US of A (http://writersworkshop.warnerbros.com/) it's a programme that the studio runs to try and bring in new writers to compete for a position on the staff of one of their shows. Graduates from the programme include: Terrance Winter (Boardwalk Empire), Marc Cherry (Desperate Housewives), Greg Garcia (My Name Is Earl) and Felicia Henderson (Soul Food). As you can imagine competition is tough with out of nearly 2000 submissions they only select the top 10, though they're better odds that winning the lottery!
In order to be considered you have to write a spec script of a show of your choice - after my rant the other day about Community losing its way as of late it would be rude really if I didn't give the opening episode to season 4 a crack - so that's just what I did. I took one of my ideas - The Inception spoof and decided that I'd run with that one.
Working on the screenplay I was constantly out of my comfort zone - I hadn't created these characters - I could never know them as well as the people who had first penned them but it was important that I tried to get their voices right else the show wouldn't ring true. It was the first tip that I'd give to anyone writing a spec script - you have to be a fan, and not just any fan, a super fan. You have to be able to take the characters you're writing about and bring them into your world. I thought what would Abed think about gay marriage, how would Troy react to there being no service on his phone, what would Annie do if the group split up - and there I had my story.
Watching back a few episodes to freshen my memory about some of the idiosyncrasies of the characters I realized that Jeff is really the main character of the show even though it has become more of an ensemble piece as of late, and with him graduating at the end of series 3 it left the group at a crisis point that they probably wouldn't realize until it was too late. I thought that Abed being unable to cope with Jeff's absence would again try another of his and Troy's high-jinks to solve the problem and convince Jeff to return to Greendale by going into a dream within a dream within a nightmare.
However, with the group parted the boys had to try and bring them all back together before they could even attempt to break into Jeff's mind. I had a little fun trying to reunite everyone before they finally all met back up at the study room to begin their adventure.
Once they got into Jeff's dream the big twist was that he wanted to come back to Greendale anyway as he missed the group and was really dissatisfied with his return to being a lawyer. I played a little with the ending too bringing the spinning top motif from the ending of the actual film - giving it a little wobble - hopefully everyone will know what that means and won't spoil the ending of Inception to much for anyone who hasn't seen it!
From writing the spec script I thought that I'd try and impart a little wisdom from my own experience to help out anyone who is thinking about writing one for next year's programme or even for a bit of a giggle:
- Know the characters that you're writing about - as I said before be a superfan - get the characters out of the world that you've previously seen them in and see if they still live in your head as they do in the series - that's when you know that you can tackle a spec script.
- Tweet/Facebook/Email/Stalk the writers of the series - never before in the history of the world can you easily access the people who actually write the show for a living from the comfort of your own home. I sent out a couple of tweets to the guys who write the show and got a response from Chris McKenna! *girly squeal!*
- Take risks with the series - don't go crazy and flip the world on its head but do something out of the ordinary - creativity will excite the reader and make them aware that you're a writer who will come up with something completely different in the writers room (if you ever got there) a good trait to have.
- Do the obvious - if you've got this far with the blog you're probably a writer and know how to write a good script - carry those rules into writing a spec script; make it about the human condition, write from the heart, proofread the darn thing once you've written it!
Anyhow what I really wanted to do was to see if anyone fancied giving the script a once over to see what they thought - fan or not of the show - it's linked from dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rz8szazgofblu5/Community%20S4E1%20It%27s%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20nightmare.pdf
Once they got into Jeff's dream the big twist was that he wanted to come back to Greendale anyway as he missed the group and was really dissatisfied with his return to being a lawyer. I played a little with the ending too bringing the spinning top motif from the ending of the actual film - giving it a little wobble - hopefully everyone will know what that means and won't spoil the ending of Inception to much for anyone who hasn't seen it!
From writing the spec script I thought that I'd try and impart a little wisdom from my own experience to help out anyone who is thinking about writing one for next year's programme or even for a bit of a giggle:
- Know the characters that you're writing about - as I said before be a superfan - get the characters out of the world that you've previously seen them in and see if they still live in your head as they do in the series - that's when you know that you can tackle a spec script.
- Tweet/Facebook/Email/Stalk the writers of the series - never before in the history of the world can you easily access the people who actually write the show for a living from the comfort of your own home. I sent out a couple of tweets to the guys who write the show and got a response from Chris McKenna! *girly squeal!*
- Take risks with the series - don't go crazy and flip the world on its head but do something out of the ordinary - creativity will excite the reader and make them aware that you're a writer who will come up with something completely different in the writers room (if you ever got there) a good trait to have.
- Do the obvious - if you've got this far with the blog you're probably a writer and know how to write a good script - carry those rules into writing a spec script; make it about the human condition, write from the heart, proofread the darn thing once you've written it!
Anyhow what I really wanted to do was to see if anyone fancied giving the script a once over to see what they thought - fan or not of the show - it's linked from dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1rz8szazgofblu5/Community%20S4E1%20It%27s%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20dream%20within%20a%20nightmare.pdf
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