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Issue 1/2005
Voice Over
edited by Henrik Anttonen
Assistant editors:
Mukta Raut
Don Boose
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| Issue 1/2005 Contents |
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INT. VOICE OVER
Announcements
Writing for a Virtual Series
Interview with Bruce Snyder
Walters Memories
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| INT. VOICE OVER |
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It's been awhile from the previous issue of this magazine, but no worries, we're not dead, yet. I've been very busy in my work as well as writing scripts, so I just decided that this is going to be the one project that I take no pressures from.
To kind of repay the really long delay in this issue, I've made the longest Voice Over issue in history. Not only did I write the longest article ever to be seen in VO about writing to a Virtual Series, but I also conducted the very first live-interview we've had with Bruce Snyder, the executive producer of The Lunchroom, the Walter-winning Virtual show.
And of course we take a look back to this years' Walter's ceremony that Alan made look very... well, Alan-ish. And therefore that look back is also written by Alan Holman, the frequent contributor to this magazine.
Well, as a completely unrelated note, I did what I thought I never could've done. I actually read and finished a book about scriptwriting. Mostly it was made able by the fact that I had bought it and it was quite expensive, but of course a big factor was the fact that it was very well written. I'm not going to tell you what the book is since I'm not into advertising anything unless I'm being paid for that, and it's beside the point anyway.
But that's right. I've never read any book about scriptwriting before this. Actually, I haven't been able to read any kind of book about fictional writing. I've read several books by authors who tell how they work, but I've never been able to read a book that tells me how I should write. But that's not because I wasn't open to suggestion and advice, not at all. The simple reason is that all of the books seem to tell the exact same things over and over again, and quite frankly I've known all those advices since I started writing.
Now, how can this be? I'm not a writer ready for professional career and I'm not the greatest promise on earth. Still I get unbelievably tired when the seasoned professionals tell me how to plot something, how to contrast the action and emotion and how to build exciting stories and characters. I've known that all along and done my best to follow those prociples from the day I started writing. And this is not me being arrogant, I'm not saying that I'd be as good of a writer than those people are. The point of writing after all is not what you write, since every story has already been told a million times, but how you write it. And that can't be taught, that is something everybody has to learn. You have to learn how you get your readers to buy the stuff that's happening, how you make it believable.
It made me question what on earth is the point of writing these books then? Writers know how to plot something and how to make their characters click by heart. They don't need someone to come and tell them. I'm pretty sure that most of the people who writes those guides has never read one of those when they were aspiring writers. So who are these books aimed for? The only conclusion I can come to is people who don't write.
But that doesn't make sence, now does it?
henrik anttonen
scriptmag@hotmail.com
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| Announcements |
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Have you kept a working diary during writing of a major work? Is that diary an interesting insight to the creative process of a writer? Are you interested in making that diary widely available?
Why not do it here in Voice Over. Voice Over is interested in releasing a working diary of a writer as a continuous series. If you're interested about the possibility, email scriptmag@hotmail.com and we'll set the details.
No money is provided since the magazine is free, but hey, we don't care for such earthly things, right?
Right?
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| Writing for a Virtual Series |
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by T. Henrik Anttonen
In the very first issue of this magazine, I wrote an article about how to set up and run a Virtual Series. At the time, I had only experience in setting up one series that failed to make it to even the start of the pilot because of personal conflicts within the team. And disappearing writers were a pretty big factor there as well. Now I've had a lot of experience in writing as a staff writer for several series, including Guardians: Outlook, Star Trek: Exodus, Star Trek: Renaissance and the upcoming Star Trek: Renaissance, and I noticed that the process of writing for the Virtual Series was totally omitted from the first article.
Well, now I'm going to patch that omission very carefully. In this article, I'm not going to go over the basics of how to build a story since all of the writing guide's does that to you, but instead I'm going to go over the technical aspects of creating a complete teleplay for a series.
Of course, all series has their own way of making things, and as a staff or a freelance writer, you must work the way the showrunner of the specific series wants you to work. But this can also be seen as a guide to showrunners and potential showrunners how these things have proven out to work quite well.
In real television world you'd act as a credited ghost-writer for the showrunner, your stories and plots would have to conform to the standard in which the show has proven itself and there's little room for completely new ideas. In Virtual Series, this is exactly the opposite. That's why I'm writing this even though there are several guides for television writing as it is. To take a deep look and make a guide to the day to day life of a Virtual Series.
The Idea
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Of course, at the core of what you're going to do for an episode of a series, is the idea. This is the most important thing. Now, the sad fact is that every single story the human mind is going to accept as ‘complete’ has been told thousands of years ago. Therefore, you need to find new ways of telling the story to keep anyone interested. Your story might have been told a million times, but your plot is unique. It has to be, because otherwise you're sunk.
So, how to come up with an idea? This is the question that most writers (and all creative workers) get again and again. This process is unique to every writer. There are those magical moments when some heavenly light comes to you and you get the best idea ever created by a human being and everything is clear from the start. Very handy, isn't it? However, if you're working as a staff writer with maybe five or more episodes you need to take on in a year, you can't afford to wait for such a convenient occurrence. You have to do something to get an idea without help from any omnipotent being or concept. I've found several approaches to the problem to be very helpful and have helped me out of a tough spot with practically every script I've written over the years.
The most important is to think of something you want to write about. Every story should be about something, otherwise there's hardly point in telling the story in the first place. I'll demonstrate with a true story.
Michael Piller, the head of writing staff for Star Trek: The Next Generation had gotten an idea where an omnipotent being (the infamous ‘Q'-character) pretends to lose his powers and toy with the Enterprise crew. Excited about this new idea, he goes to Gene Roddenberry, the legendary series creator and executive producer of the show and pitches the idea.
‘What's it about?’ Gene Roddenberry immediately asks. This confuses Piller a great deal.
‘What do you mean, what's it about? It's about this character coming to toy with the Enterprise crew and getting a kick out of it.’
Gene Roddenberry does not like this. Instead, he suggests that the omnipotent being has really lost his powers and has to face the challenges of mortality and his true morality that he hasn't had to think before and by that learns more than in millions of years of omnipotence.
‘Now that's about something’, Roddenberry added, and it sure did. This made the episode idea much more viable and set the episode to become one of the best in the series.
So, there we get probably the most important lesson. If I have to think of a new story, I deliberately set on thinking what I want to write about. Is there an issue I want to make a statement about, is there feelings I need to explore or do I want to give a new point of view to any issue. You can do all of this in a television script.
Of course, the problem is that nobody's determined what is a reason enough to write about. That's up to you, or rather, the showrunner you have to pitch the idea to. Is ‘it's an episode about dashing about, shooting, driving like a maniac and doing cool stunts’ an enough of an ‘about' to write an episode or do you want to go deeper into the human existence and feelings. It depends on where you write. If you're writing on a simple action series, it's likely that that's enough when if you're writing to a serious drama series, you have to write about ‘high concepts'.
Another way to find ideas is of course looking them in places you like or are interested about. I, for example, got highly intrigued about Antarctica and have been reading tons of books about Antarctic expeditions and such. As a direct result, I came up with the idea of an upcoming Guardians: Outlook episode called ‘South', which is set on Antarctic. And I've came up with several Star Trek episode ideas relating to my fascination with science and in particular the Relativity Theory.
Now, you've got your idea. What do you do with it? That's simple. You have to pitch it to the showrunner(s). You do this by sending an email, posting to a message board or whatever is the agreed way to do it in the series you're writing to. In order to efficiently do this, you have to ‘sell' the idea to everyone else. You have to present the idea so well that everyone else will see in that short pitch that this is going to be a great episode. I've noticed that the shorter the pitch, the better are the chances of getting your idea approved.
In the real television world, you'd present the producers with a ‘logline' which is only a sentence or two where you snappily present the idea you want to develop into an episode. For example:
‘Jim and Anna go to a romantic camping trip only to find out that living in the wild can bring out unpleasant sides of a person.’
‘Gilbert gets a new job at a local convenience store with hilarious consequences.’
Or:
‘Starship Enterprise is faced with an age old puzzle when the crew finds a relic that can change the way people look at their inner selves.’
I don't know if those were the best of ideas, but they are all presented in a swift and efficient manner. They feature the focal points of the story but the producer can read trough them in a second and decide right there and then if the producer wants to go with this idea or not. If you give a wealth of details and plot points at this stage, it might be that the producer doesn't have the energy to go over it and time is wasted waiting for a response, and more importantly, you waste a lot of time making all these points and writing them down if the answer is no.
Sometimes it happens that the producer asks for more details before making a decision and then it's your time to give them, but usually you probably should wait for the outline.
The Outline
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Yes, the next, and maybe the most exhausting part of the process is to make the outline of the episode. By the way, notice how I'm not using the term ‘treatment'. I have to admit, I've been using it to this day when actually speaking about outlines, but I've learned the difference now. Many people think there is none, but there is. A big one. A treatment is always written in prose form and it covers everything happening in the script written in great detail. Sometimes even more detail than the actual teleplay because of the nature of the prose format. Not a single Virtual Series to my knowledge uses the treatment and it's very rare in real television too.
The outline is a simple run-trough of the story where you go over every scene, what happens in them and what they are about. As an example, here is the beginning of my outline to my published Guardians episode called ‘Never Enough’:
‘TEASER:
‘We open on the planet where it rains constantly. The crew has spent quite some time on the planet and James is getting bored at it. They have started a camp with a couple of large tents and we see James trying to carve some wood, but not getting anywhere. Aya comes to the scene and we find out about things. How they've spent time there because Hans is trying to solve the communication methods of the inhabitants. James thinks the whole communication method via projected colour patterns is thoroughly stupid. Aya is excited about the delay because this is one of the few times they've actually stopped to collect scientific data about a planet. She's waiting for the Lander to bring more equipment. Ivan tries desperately to find something to drink and is somewhere.
‘Lander comes. Anna is driving it. Anna makes some remarks to James on how she got it down in one piece and they start a little quarrel. Then a lightning strikes to the Lander and starts fires. James is uncontrollably amused by this.
‘ACT ONE:
‘We open aboard the Outlook in the mess hall where we find Ensign Witters (from 1x04) eating something. Lieutenant Gerathy comes to him to speak about Witter's morale problems. Witters is frustrated about the fact that they are in the middle of this amazing journey but the senior staff are the only ones who gets to experience ‘anything at all. All the other crew members get to do is to watch the walls of engineering or sickbay and repair the damages. He remarks that this is not an unusual problem.
‘On the planet, Ivan examines the damages to the Lander with James. The systems are pretty fried up, but nothing is beyond repairs. All the communication systems are fried up as well and the backup systems were packaged in metal containers so that they're fried up as well. It takes a while to repair it though.
‘The senior staff on the planet is keeping a meeting about the Lander. Hans is not there because he is working with the translation program he is compiling in the other tent. They discuss the situation when Hans comes in with a first translation. He says that the populace of the planet believes to be dead any minute now.’
There is almost never any dialogue written in an outline, except when a line is absolutely pivotal to the scene and it's more efficient to write it down than describe it. But in other ways, you should write down the story as complete as possible. Don't even try to be too literal as it would be wasted energy. Just get the point across. (This again differs from real television business as there you'd have to sell the outline as well.)
To me, this is the most fun part of the process. This is where you write the story down, you get to play with the characters, lay out scenes, think of amusing situations and live with the characters and their feelings. In other words, you get to escape from reality without any kinds of narcotic substances (well, I guess you can use them too while writing the outline, but I don't recommend it). You have to understand how to plot an episode. You have to understand how to move the story from one place to the other and think of how you can affect the story and the characters in a way that seems natural. You must never force a plot point or a character development, but spend a great deal of time to set it up if necessary.
In real television business, you have to get to the point of the episode very quickly. Present the problem as soon as possibly, preferably in the teaser. In Virtual Series', we're free of such inconveniences if we want to. I've often ‘wasted’ the entire first act to just show the characters living out their lives and setting up things to the actual problem of the episode as I happen to like that.
The outline, when approved, will be your guide. The producer expects you to write the story you've specified in the outline. So you should write the story to be compelling enough that your interest will hold when basically you're writing the same story in the teleplay and possibly trough several drafts.
But how to get an episode's worth of material that'll flow naturally? This is more in the line of other creative writing guides and I said I wouldn't touch it, but I do now.
Usually when you get an idea you really like you immediately get vision of few scenes where your idea is being played out with the characters. Or maybe you get an idea as to how to start or end the episode. That's a good start. You should hang on to these ideas because usually you already have the ending, possibly the beginning and perhaps the beginning as well. Now all you have to do is to link these moments you've already seen in your head with a plot that'll make them happen.
Remember, don't completely waste any scenes. You don't have the time for that. Even if I said I'd ‘waste’ entire act's without the point of the episode evident, I still use that time to deepen the characters, or laying out the groundwork for the story. If you're writing to an hour-long format, you'll probably notice that you don't get enough of a material to fill the entire episode. That's why there are so many b-stories around to fill the time.
But in addition of filling the time, b-stories can have lots of other purposes too. The most used is probably that it acts as a relief to the heavy a-story. B-stories are often quite light hearted and act as a contrast to the ongoing big story. Often it is also used to develop characters while the a-story is more about survival or solving the problem of the episode.
But when it comes to outlining, b-stories give a tremendous advantage that normally a reader doesn't even realise. And that's to pace the story properly. As said earlier, a b-story can give relief and/or contrast to the a-story, but often I've found myself in a situation where the a-story is in a point that nothing can or should not happen in awhile. What are you going to do? Show the characters hanging around, waiting something to happen?
No, you can put in a scene of the b-story and you can naturally skip any amount of time in the a-story because cutting a scene gives you that possibility. Cutting to the same location with (LATER) added to the slugline, but that's almost always quite awkward and doesn't feel natural. You can use the same advantage with act breaks, by the way. You can skip a week if you want during the commercials and it still feels natural.
Usually you have to write at least two drafts of the outline because usually your producers and/or co-workers will spot some inconsistency or something that'll make the story better. This, at least as far as I see, is only a positive thing. But when you get a green light from the producer, don't touch it, because now you've achieved what the showrunner wants. And your coworkers also assume that that is what you're going to write and develop the future episodes with that in mind. And so it's time to move to the real thing, the teleplay.
The Teleplay
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Ok, I'm going to start this with the issue that has been under a lot of controversy lately. And that's the format. I don't see any reason for controversy at all. The fact is that if you're going to write teleplays, it has to look like a teleplay. End of discussion.
Well, not quite, because I never make a point without telling why. There is a reason why scripts look like they look like. Most of them are because of production issues. Well, we're doing this virtually, aren't we? Why should we bother? Another point of view presented is that it doesn't matter what format it's in if the story's good and it's written well.
In return, I ask, why write scripts in the first place if you're not going to do it properly? Writing scripts without proper format is like drawing a picture of a house and calling it architecture. Sure, it might look nice at its own right, but you sure as heck can't build a house based on it.
In addition, Virtual Series is considered being the final and ultimate testing ground of new writers that are serious about the craft and attempt to get into the industry. And if a writer intends to be serious about it and have any hopes for getting into the hook, the writer has to write to format. That is a fact. No producer or even agent will even go as far as glance at your writing before that. That separates the amateurs from the pros and the serious writers.
Also, it makes a heck of a better read. Reading jumble that's supposed to be kind of a script, but isn't, is quite irritating. The chances are that the potential readers will search out the series that look professional, because it sends out a message of a professional approach. It's not coincidence that quality products are put in expensive packaging.
So in effect, even if you wouldn't care, most of the others will. Why send a wrong kind of signal when writing to proper format isn't all that hard. You don't need to buy the expensive screenwriting software's. In fact, until very recently I've been creating all of my scripts with Open Office and a script template I downloaded and then modified to my taste. Open Office is free. So was the template and modifying it was very easy (much easier than in MSWord, by the way). Open Office is available for Windows as well as OS X and almost every single Linux distro comes with it. I use it in my Linux system so that I didn't even have to pay for the operating system.
I'm not going to give you inches and margins and telling you that this is what a script looks like. Usually every series has its own version of the teleplay format that can vary a lot, but still looks inarguably a script. Even the real series seem to all abide to their own formats, logic to which is pretty unclear to anyone involved. So the best thing for you to do is to ask the showrunner what kind of format he/she wants to be delivered. And there is a good chance that the showrunner will make the final edit and makes the format to suit his/her taste anyway.
So, after making that clear, I can actually start talking about the teleplay writing. Now, we have to remember that if you're in real television industry, the finished product is the complete episode that's getting aired. In virtual series', the completed product is the final draft of a script.
Surprisingly enough, this does not change anything in the process. Every teleplay in existence is written with the aim of making it very enjoyable to read. To have the scenes, situations and locations to come to life in the readers' mind whether it is an average Joe reading your virtual series or the production staff of a real television series. A script is a literate product by its own right in any case.
Before you begin, I'd suggest you read trough your outline one more time so that you know exactly how your story works and remember all the details you want to include. Even if you begin from the first scene, you might come across something in scene 15 you can deliciously foreshadow in the first scene. You couldn't do this if you can't remember the detail you're about to write.
This brings us to another issue. Do you want to write in sequence or in seemingly random order making sense to you at the time? That's completely up to you. I myself prefer writing in sequence because then I'll follow the characters naturally when they go trough the story and it's easier to get the emotions and reactions right. I also like to put little references in the dialogue to earlier plot points and other stuff that is easy to get right when writing in sequence. But if you've written your outline carefully, this should not cause any problems even if you're writing in free order.
The biggest difference between writing for real television and to the virtual series are the use of parenthetical and camera movements. If you'd be writing for real television, you should be very careful with both since there are trained and creative personnel to handle those things. An actor might be even insulted if you don't trust his or her professionalism enough to let the actor make his/her own interpretation of the text. All these inconveniencies are gone when you write with the script being the final product. Most of your readers will not be directors of photography nor are there that many actors present. Mind you, you still should be somewhat careful, if you overdo it, you'll seem amateurish and that's something you should definitely avoid.
The one thing you should avoid in particular is the ‘beat'. This is something that drives most of the beginning writers berserk. Including me, I have to admit. What I've done about it that I put in lots and lots of beats, whenever I feel like it. Then after I've finished the draft and make my first edit, I remove most of them, keeping only the essential ones in. Note that all of the produced scripts I've read, there are very few of them around.
So, however you wish to do the actual writing, always put your best effort in. The most important thing is to try and make the characters seem as real as possible. I've read so many virtual series where the characters are nothing more than dull cardboard images with no substance. And with no substance, no interest. At least from my part. A television series relies on good characterisation. The readers come back because they like the characters, not because of cheap thrills that they can't even see.
But now I'm speaking more about creating a series, aren't I? Sorry about that. Of course, if you're really good, you can pump in new life to the characters with that one episode, but it might be that the showrunner doesn't like you making too much independent decision on his/her series.
The actual writing is the part that I personally resent. With only a few exceptions, this is the part that can be called work. You need to sit down on a computer and hack away that keyboard until your eyes and finger bleed. I know that some writers enjoy this a great deal. But if you're like I, who doesn't get much kick out of this, I've developed some means of making it more pleasant.
The first thing is to not to do it for too long if you don't feel like it. I usually have the goal of writing 10 pages per day when I'm in the process of actually having to complete something. This is of course an average, mainly because I never end a days work in the middle of a scene. I try to do it all in one sitting because starting is the hardest part. At least for me. I find that the closer to the end I get with the episode, the more pages I average a day with the final day usually being the most productive.
Sometimes, you might get those brilliant days when everything just makes sense. Words fly in your head faster than you can type them and you can live with the characters and your description is more descriptive than pictures. Those days you can write for the whole day. However, once again, you can't count on that to happen.
Other thing that I do is mark to the outline every time a scene has been completed with a dash so I have the satisfaction of seeing that the number of scenes to complete reduces day after day. Another important thing is to take breaks and allow a day off now and then, even if you're on a tight schedule. It's not going to help anyone if you get so fed up with the process that you turn your back on the entire thing.
This, of course brings us to the infamous ‘Writer's Block’. What to do when you get a writer's block? Well, the one thing you don't want to do is to panic or take pressure about it. There is not a single case of writer's block that hasn't gone away after a while. Usually you need to take a break, think of something else. I go to extended walks to the forest (sometimes too extended, causing family members thinking that I've fallen off a cliff and died instantaneously). I've often skipped the scene giving me a headache to find that I can do better at the next scene and then come back to the problematic scene with a new momentum. Trying to write something completely different for a change might be a viable choice as well.
But sometimes Writer's Block can be a symptom of the fact that the story or the scene just doesn't, for reason or another, work as well as it seemed to work on the outline. If this is the case, there's nothing else to do than get back to the outlining and thinking of something else. But I strongly recommend that you discuss with the producer so he/she can approve the changes.
Your job as a writer in a sense is the hardest one of them all, because in order to write a really smashing script, you have to get into all of the characters, know their past, their present and feel what they feel. You need to see every set in your head and every single effect and sound the story needs. It's easy for the actor's, isn't it? They only need to figure out one character. The writer needs to know them all. In and out. Because your characters are really the ones telling the story and if you're not feeling it, neither will anyone else.
One tip of making the writing a much more enjoyable and less hazardous to your health is that don't keep your monitor too bright. If you look at a bright screen, not only your head will hurt, you become tired and irritable and you're going to need glasses sooner than you can think. So, turn down the brightness and maybe even manipulate the screen colours. I hardly never write to a white page because it's very uncomfortable. I always set the background to grey and the text black. I've noticed that this helps a great deal. But you should be careful of not making it too dark either. If you set your background colour too dark, you'll have problems making out the black text and that's not going to be good for your eyes either.
And when you've finally, after putting everything you've got to this literal product, put down those sweet and magical words ‘The End’, it's far from over. The very first thing for you to do is Ð do nothing. Take a break. Take another walk. Take a bath. Do anything that's not working with that teleplay. I know it's hard, because finally your brainchild has been completed and you'd want the entire world to know.
But you don't really want them to know, do you? Not after you make a first writers edit to it. You really should do this because you'll find several points you want to change at this point. You should take the break, preferably wait until the next day, before doing it because you have more perspective on reading it. You might not think that couple of hours would make a difference, but it does. It allows you from switching from ‘writing'-mode to ‘reading'-mode. And that's where you want to be when you make the edit and it allows you to spot a lot of weak things on your script that you don't spot when you're writing it down.
After you're satisfied, your work is finally ready to face the world. Or at least the rest of your staff and your producer, because hardly ever the first draft is the one that is the final release. The other staffers and your producer is bound to find something that's weak or badly written that they want to change. Or just don't like even if it was decently written. This means you'll have to do ‘polishes' to your script and every script goes trough a few of them. We don't call them new drafts as such, because unlike a film screenplay, a teleplay story is almost never revised after a draft has been written. You have to make as many polishes as the showrunner asks because you teleplay is not completed before that.
The Conclusion
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Well, I notice now that this is easily the longest article ever to be featured in Voice Over. It's as long as usually the entire issue is, but I still haven't done much beyond scratching the surface. But the best way to learn is by doing, so if you're interested of trying it, try it.
Even though there are rules in Virtual Series and you have to abide to your showrunners wishes, it's still a lot more flexible and maybe a bit more creative than the writing to a real television series. The practises and routines are more relaxed as well since you usually only have one or two producers who can give more space to everyone because there are neither network executives nor viewer ratings to look at.
I have to give you a warning, though. You have to be ready to everything I've mentioned in this article because that's what's expected of you once you go into a staff of a series. Do not apply to any series if you're not 100% sure that's what you want to do. I've had a lot of grim experiences in the series' I've worked for that a new writer comes in and then leaves without a word when it is implied that there is actual work involved in this thing and that the writer can't necessarily write whatever he/she happens to like if it doesn't fit the storyline or characters. By doing that, you're just going to end up hurting everyone and the series and nobody wants that to happen.
So writing for a Virtual Series is excellent practise in many ways. In addition of giving you more experience to actual writing, it gives you valuable experience of working in a group and most of all, it teaches you discipline as a writer because there is a showrunner to look after your writing and you have deadlines to abide to. But it's definitely everything a starting writer could hope for. So on you go and give it a shot.
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| Interview with Bruce Snyder |
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conducted by T. Henrik Anttonen
Bruce Snyder is the head writer, creator and showrunner for the hit virtual series The Lunchroom, that won a Walter award for the best virtual series of the year 2004.
Living in Centerville, Indiana, he titles himself merely as a big movie and TV fanboy. During this first ever live interview for the Voice Over, I found his thoughts about the craft of writing and producing to be most interesting, and refreshingly unorthodox at times.
Voice Over: Well, first of all, thank you for agreeing to talk to us and do this interview.
Bruce Snyder: You're very welcome.
Voice Over: Well, your series won a Walter award. How does that feel?
Bruce Snyder: Very strange and surreal. It was a series I figured that maybe, only 3 or 4 people would get and think was funny. So to win something like an award is very surprising.
Voice Over: This interview will be largely centred around the series and the virtual series as a whole, so where and when did you came up with the idea of The Lunchroom?
Bruce Snyder: I believe it was the Summer of 2001. And actually the idea started off as a film. I wanted to write something different from my friends. A lot of them were trying to write and they were always writing fantasies. And I can't for the life of me do that. So I thought it would interesting to make a movie script about the my school experiences and the people I know.
For the next 2 years I took some notes and started 16 different drafts, that would never go past page 28. There were so many stories and characters I wanted to add that I would constantly start over again so I believe during the Summer of 2003 I shelved the idea and focused on my other movie script "Summer Adventures." But then in December, I decided to "Fix" the material up and do a virtual series. That way I could have as many stories and characters as I wanted.
Voice Over: At what point did you start looking for a staff?
Bruce Snyder: At first, I thought I would write the complete 1st Season by myself but then my best friend Vincent Biga read the first two episodes and said he wanted to try writing. And he ended up writing 3 episodes. And me and him ended writing pretty much all of that Season (with the exception of the little help from Casey Wrenn.) Then when that Season ended I started looking for Staff.
Voice Over: How did you approach the task of finding it?
Bruce Snyder: Well the first real staff writer was Alan Holman. And we got him by basically asking nicely. But then such writers like Tyler Schwartz, Melinda Waterman (another old friend of mine), and Edward Drogos, who were all at the time beginners pretty much contacted us and asked to help in any way possible.
Voice Over: Could you tell us a bit more about the staff members?
Bruce Snyder: Vincent - He truly uses everything from real life. I mean exact word by word conversations always end up in his episodes. It also helps greatly that he knows the people these characters are based on. Around here, Vincent is kinda seen as a "Anti-Social" person and he is basis for the Brian Vandele character.
Alan Holman - He really helped a lot with Season 2. His first episode was 2x04 "Comics and Comedians." During that time he was constantly emailing me about ideas, he would send possible conversations the characters could have and possible storylines. Now a days, he really is busy with his own stuff but we still get the occasional ideas from him.
Edward Drogos - Ed was the man during Season 3. I believe he wrote or helped write 5 episodes. This guys stuff is fast and funny. I remember, I told him to write 3x11 "Slow Fuse" on a Sunday and I gave him only 7 pages to work with. And the next night, he gave me a finished 32 page script. He's one of the best writers in the staff.
Max Majernik - Max brough a whole new kind of comedy to show in Season 3. His stuff is much more "In Your Face" and lot more edgy. And I think that's what we needed. He can also come up with some great one liners.
Melinda - She's not so much of a staff writer but she basically puts the scripts into our usual format. She basically comes in and either finishes an episode or changes a bit. Me and her will go threw a script and add some stuff and take some stuff out. We've also taken some of her character quirks and given them to the Stacy Cifaretto character.
Voice Over: Do you have a private discussion board dedicated to the series or how you manage the day to day activities of the series?
Bruce Snyder: Yes, we do in fact have a Private Discussion board. Edward Drogos created it a few months back during Season 3 writing. A lot of writers have access to it. We basically talk about Lunchroom stuff. We have production meetings, we talk about what we want to do every new year, or just talk about random things.
Voice Over: What did you do before you had the board?
Bruce Snyder: Email and AIM basically. But with people like Melinda and Vincent I can actually meet them in person or talk with them over the phone.
Voice Over: The show features a large set of characters. Does any of those stand as a lead character from the group or do you see them all as equal?
Bruce Snyder: Well, in the first two seasons, we always saw the characters of Will Cooper and Brian Vandele (Will is based off me; Brian off Vincent Biga) as the two leads. But as the series went along, we tried to downplay those two because we found that the other character were popular.
People love Reicther's craziness. A lot of people think Brock's strange "family" is hilarious. And I think people just like see a Black, British, Jew in the form of Chris. And, usually, Will is the main focus during a Season. But during Season 3, He wasn't the main focus, it was the Joel Mayberry character.
So yeah, we're trying to make them all equal for Season 4.
Voice Over: How did the featured set of characters come about? And has the staffers helped to refine them with their contributions?
Bruce Snyder: The original main cast was Will, Joel, Brian, Brock, Casey and Reichter. And since then, we've added three main characters: Chris, Stacy, and Mr. Parker.
The entire original cast is based on real life people. Chris was only going to be a one time deal in 1x07 "Politically Incorrect", but when a friend of mine read it, he thought it would just be funny as hell if we kept that character around.
Stacy was created because I received an email where someone asked why don't we have any female characters, so Vincent came up with the idea of Brian having a sister. Me and Vincent had different ideas on her though: He wanted her to blonde and extremely beautiful while I wanted her to be black hair, thick glasses. But we ended up making her a red head and sort of good looking.
Mr. Parker was based on my High School Geography teacher. That guy was paranoid, always spook his mind about politics, and I thought he'd be a great kind of character to have.
Voice Over: What's the process to which a normal Lunchroom episode goes trough from the initial idea to the finalized script? Is there one?
Bruce Snyder: I would like to think there is. In the early days we never really planned out too far, so basically if we got an idea, we'd write it down as an episode and it would go up.
Now we usually have the entire season mapped out, and then we split up and write it. I'm not sure what the other writers do when they write, but I always get blocked when I think "I've got to be funny, what can I do to be funny in this episode?" It's when I'm not thinking about, that I get ideas and scenes in my head.
Voice Over: So the season is planned as far as overall arcs go, but not to the specifics of what's going to happen in the individual episodes?
Bruce Snyder: Well, for this new season, we have arcs and specifics for the episodes all that planned out, but we never did specifics before.
Voice Over: So you'd wing them as you go along?
Bruce Snyder: Pretty much always for the first 2 seasons. Then, for season 5, we had about the first 5 episodes planned out. But then for the last 8 episodes it was just me and the others winging it.
Voice Over: I've noticed when I've read the episodes that a regular Lunchroom episode doesn't have only one or two, but several small stories going at the same time. Has this been a conscious choice?
Bruce Snyder: Yeah. Because usually in TV shows, it's always the A story and the B story because they feel that people might be too dumb if there's more. Well, I think people are smarter then that. I think that they can keep try of 3, 4 or hell even 5 stories going on in one episode. It's also a way to keep the show fast paced, and if you ever get stuck on one storyline you can just jump and begin writing another one.
Voice Over: But isn't there the danger that you can never be very thorough with a story when you have to cram up so many of them to a single episode?
Bruce Snyder: There's that risk but then again you have to be willing to take risks when writing. And besides, we really don't have a set limit on episode lengths, so that could range from long to short depending on the stories. But yes, there is that strong risk.
Voice Over: It's interesting to hear that you don't have set episode lengths while most virtual series do. How did you come to this decision?
Bruce Snyder: Um, I think near the beginning. I think it was just one of those things we wanted to separate ourselves. But we've never really had too long of episodes. We've had some that go like maybe 32, or 35 pages, but nothing seriously long like 50
Voice Over: Have you ever run short? Do you have a limit as to how long an episode has to be before it can be said to be really ready?
Bruce Snyder: We ran short a bunch during the first two seasons. But now, with so many characters and storylines, it's almost impossible to run short. There's no real limit.
Voice Over: As the executive producer, how much of your own material you put to the episodes written by other staffers?
Bruce Snyder: Sometimes I'll add some lines of dialogue or add a scene or two to make a story longer. And sometimes, while editing, it really depends on the material I'm given.
In Season 1, Casey Wrenn gave us only 4 pages. And it was overly dramatic, stale dialogue, and was just un-original. So for that, there was tons and tons of editing.
But something like Edward Drogo's 2x10 "Fast Car" needed very little if any editing.
Voice Over: Do you take writing credit if you make edits?
Bruce Snyder: Sometimes. Usually only if it's major edits. Like with the "Comics and Comedians" episode. I really change the stories around (meaning gave them to different characters) and added some new dialogue. But a lot of the time, I don't.
Voice Over: Do you take submissions made by non-staffers who wish to write to the series?
Bruce Snyder: Absolutely. I can always need more help.
Voice Over: How long before a release are the scripts usually completed?
Bruce Snyder: Sometimes, it can be months. "The Camping Trip’ was written in May 2004, but didn't get on the net till Jan 05. Then sometimes, like with the KKK episode, it's complete the day or two before.
Voice Over: Do you have set release dates or are they released when they get there?
Bruce Snyder: Well, before a season a have a set dates for all episodes. And so far, with the exception of season 1, they've never been met.
We either start way too early (Season 2), or have too many breaks (Season 3) that screw up the original dates. I mean, originally, we were going to have Season 3 run from Jan 05 till the beginning of Apr, but due to constant rewrites and other problems, it was like a new episode every month instead of every week.
Hell, it's the end of June and we're still putting the finishing touches on the two part Season Finale. And we started this whole Season in November.
Voice Over: How many episodes do you release per season?
Bruce Snyder: We wanted to 13 each season but season 1 is only 10. But this upcoming season 4 we're (hopefully) going to 18.
Voice Over: You release the episodes as htm-files. Why have you chosen that format?
Bruce Snyder: Easier to read. More people can access that quicker and easier then say doc or rtf.
Voice Over: Why not PDF? That's hugely popular with virtual series today.
Bruce Snyder: I honestly don't know. I guess it's because I mainly don't know how to set up anything in that format.
Voice Over: Does the series have a website?
Bruce Snyder: It does but I haven't updated it in months. I'm re-working it right now.
Voice Over: Do you want to share the url?
Bruce Snyder: www.thelunchroom.tk
Voice Over: Ok, going from the series to other things: When did you start writing?
Bruce Snyder: 8th Grade. So about 4 years ago
Voice Over: What inspired you to start writing?
Bruce Snyder: My teacher. I wrote short story for her class and she told me that it was very good and that I should try doing more of it.
Voice Over: So you started with prose?
Bruce Snyder: Yes.
Voice Over: So how did you find the script format as a viable alternative?
Bruce Snyder: I guess I saw it as the only alternative. It takes me forever to write in story or novel form and it just seemed obvious since I was a big movie freak.
Voice Over: Have you written anything besides The Lunchroom that you've released to public consumption?
Bruce Snyder: "Summer Adventures". Which is basically "The Lunchroom"'s bastard little brother. It was a movie about a group of young teens and their adventures in love, religion, family and creativity over one summer. It's 150 pages long and horrible grammar and spelling. But I do remember that The Goose gave it a short review and said he loved the one liners. But that's about it.
Voice Over: Virtual Series in general has become very popular among unproduced writers. How do you see them as a phenomenon?
Bruce Snyder: I guess a great way for writers to tell long stories or many stories over a long period of time.
Voice Over: Do you read other virtual series?
Bruce Snyder: Yes. "Reporting Live".
I was a huge fan of Alan Holman's "The Creator".
"Seers" is another great one.
And "Carl's Video" is pretty damn funny.
Voice Over: And now, it's time for the VO regular series of closing questions: When you have an idea for a script to develop, is there any usual process between the idea and the finished script?
Bruce Snyder: So far I've discovered that every time I develop an idea into a script the process is always different from the last. It might take longer or shorter but it always seems different.
Voice Over: Many writers have special love-hate relationship with writing. How do you feel about the physical work?
Bruce Snyder: It can be difficult sometimes. And on several occasions I've seriously thought about quitting "The Lunchroom" because the physical work was just very tough.
Voice Over: Since you obviously haven't, what drives you doing it over and over again?
Bruce Snyder: Mostly it's the other writers. They inspire me to stay and to continue. And sometimes it's nice to hear that someone likes your work.
Voice Over: When you write, do you require special conditions? Do you have any certain rituals you do when you write or can you write anytime, anywhere?
Bruce Snyder: I write mostly in the evenings. Only conditions is that I have a computer to write with. I have some rituals. I do like to listen to old Jazz music when I write episodes
Voice Over: What software do you use to write your scripts and why?
Bruce Snyder: Microsoft Word. It's the best I can do with my money.
Voice Over: Do you use any kind of script template or do you do the formatting yourself?
Bruce Snyder: I format myself.
Voice Over: And finally the big question: Why?
Bruce Snyder: Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um...Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh...Like what... okay...um...For me, uh... ooh... I would say ... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh...um... and Wilie Mays... and um ... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony ... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues ... um ... Swedish movies, naturally ... Sentimental Education by Flaubert ... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra ... um ... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh...the crabs at Sam Wo's" - Woody Allen, Manhattan
Voice Over: I thank you for joining us, and good luck with the series.
Bruce Snyder: Thanks for having me.
The Lunchroom website: www.thelunchroom.tk
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| Walters Memories |
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by Alan Holman
Well, the Walters this year was probably a more successful ceremony than any previous online ceremony for honouring amateur and unproduced script writers. People nominated. People voted. Invisible accolades were distributed.
The WALTERS project aims to give writers extra clout and exposure, but that can only happen if it's taken seriously, as that important pillar of the online screenwriting community which it aims to be. But barely anyone paid attention to it, or noticed it, or even participated, since its inception.
The 2004 Walters - which I Produced - was arguably the third ceremony of its kind. The first, in proper screenplay format, was written by a man whose screen name is bodegage. The second evolved no further than a discussion thread. And I took over because I didn't want to see any further deterioration in the WALTERS franchise.
The first ceremony was great. It was an original idea. Everyone was hyped about it. The script contained a lot of in-jokes. Maybe too many in-jokes. But mostly, it was great. My only problem with it was that some of the clips contained too many uncensored wears. Call me Canadian, but I don't want too many instances of the "F" word to occur in an awards show.
I took over by stating simply in a discussion thread that if no one objected to me taking over it in two weeks, I'd proceed with the project. No one objected. And perhaps those who'd have objections didn't even see the thread. Regardless, two weeks seemed fair, and it worked.
The first thing I did was ask for people to suggest categories. Then, I put an absurdly large list of categories up for scrutiny, and I asked everyone to nominate five scripts per category. I knew it was an absurd amount of categories, but it reflected many conceivable permutations and combinations of every idea that was proposed. I knew that people would only nominate in the categories they felt belonged in the awards script anyway, so I kept my mouth shut until all of the nominations were in, and then I trimmed the category list to reflect only those that the nominators seemed to care for. Consistency was the key, and in order to avoid certain rough edges, I had to cut certain nominated scripts from the running, a decision which still eats at my conscience a bit to this day; however, no one made any specific complaints about that, so it seems as if the people who were affected by those decisions understood those decisions.
Originally, the voting was going to be done with polls on a discussion board, but I didn't have the time to put in the effort to figure out a way for voting on such polls while keeping the results a secret until the ceremony, because such polls have a tendency to provide results to voters right after voting, thereby devaluing the awards script.
The votes were counted, and double-checked by a third-party. There was no fraud, but I got to cast the swing vote in the event of ties, and sometimes that meant giving my own scripts the extra vote they needed in order to win.
The awards script was easy to write, especially because barely anyone seemed to notice or care that one was being written. Because barely anyone was giving any credit to the project, I interlaced the awards format with scenes from an unfinished script that I wasn't going to finish anyway. The characters took time out of their ill-planned plot to give awards. Some people found this concept hysterical; however, it was far too easy, and if I'm still doing this next year, I'll hopefully stick to the awards format a little better.
Executive Producing the 2004 Walters was easy and fun, and I'd do it again ... if no one voices any major objections between now and early next year.
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| End of Voice Over issue 1/2005 |
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