 Probably the top three
things an emerging television
writer should do if they
want to write a pilot
and they want it to be good--
get your hands on
some pilot scripts.
Find the shows that
you loved their pilot,
and you thought, man, if only
I could have written something
like this.
Get your hands on
those pilot scripts.
They're easy to find now.
Read them, and then watch
the pilots again, and then
read the scripts again,
and then really just
start to dissect the pilots.
What was the structure?
How did they work?
How many acts did they use?
What were the pages
counts of each act?
Why?
If it's a comedy, how
many jokes do they have?
Every last aspect of
those things is important.
How do they introduce
the characters?
So dissect the scripts,
dissect the pilots, one.
Two-- then go watch some
pilots that really didn't work,
that you thought--
I mean for you they didn't work.
You thought they were terrible.
If you go watch some pilots
that you really, really hated,
you will see very
different things.
And you will learn a bunch of
stuff about what does not work.
I think it's absolutely
essential, actually,
to pick a show, a show that
you love, a show that you think
is good, and dissect the
crap out of it, frankly.
Take a show you love.
For me, I did "The West Wing."
I am obsessed with Aaron Sorkin.
I think Aaron Sorkin
is a genius, truly.
And I took "The West
Wing," and from the pilot
through, I think, season three.
And I dissected the
heck out of that
show for myself to
really understand,
A, what good storytelling was,
B what good structure was,
and just understanding
how he used language
and how he used structure
and how he built characters.
It was really an education
for me to the point
where I could pretty much
do an entire episode.
I could say all the words
of an entire episode
because I liked it so much.
And while I'm bummed now
because I can't watch that show
and just watch it
anymore, I can say
that it was an
excellent way for me
to learn so much
about television
at a time in which I was trying
to figure it out for myself.
Probably one of the things I
learned by watching "The West
Wing" was the need to be
original in my use of dialogue,
the need to not copy
anybody, the need to not be
simple in my use of dialogue.
And I also got the freedom
to let my characters
be intelligent, which I
really thought was great.
It was one of those things
where you watch something
and you think, oh, in
everything else I've ever seen,
there seems to be a
slight dumbing down.
And Aaron felt like he was
making everyone a little bit
smarter than the audience.
And that was a very
freeing thing to see.
Because letting
your characters be
the smartest people in the room
is a relief in a lot of ways.
There are things that
you can learn just
by watching that are not about
copying how something is done,
but just by understanding
how something is done,
or discovering that sometimes
it's really effective to have
an episode where things
are really quiet.
It's just about
watching and seeing
what makes something good, and
then understanding that those--
maybe they're breaking
a rule, or maybe those
are some rules to
think about, and then
understanding what makes
something not good.
It's helpful.
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