What's your favorite S&P note?

(S&P, BS&P, B&E, legal clearance...y'know, "the censor.")

It's been over two years since we got this one, and it's beome a "house number." We only have to mention the punch-line to relive it:

In an episode in which a character was to play an onerous number of practical jokes (a subject I now refuse to write about), we had him place a "kick me" sign on someone's the back. Not a brilliant bit, but the 22-minute episode needed about fifteen practical jokes. This proved really hard in the harsh light of the "Imitable Behavior" bugaboo.

S&P reminded us that we don't want to encourage violent behavior. "Perhaps the sign could read 'Tickle Me'." Tickle Me. The writers slapped "Tickle Me" post-it's on each other's back all day long after that.

If you're ever pitching episodes to me, don't even try "The Practical Joke episode" it can't work nowadays. We wanted to have a birthday cake frosted with toothpaste--couldn't do it. Money glued to the ground--defacing currency.

Then there's a flip-side to this: all the things you wrote when you only meant the thing you wrote--yet you get the note about a more-obscene variation of your scene which you were not obscene enough to have even thought of.

Pretty much every writer for the tween audience I've ever met takes their obligation to the kid audience seriously, and doesn't want to show the charagter burning himself alive with gasoline--because what self-respecting kid wouldn't want to at least try that if they saw it on TV. Most writers I know laugh at the constant implication that we have a secret agenda of corrupting the audience.

Sure, there are the rare occasions where scripts are turned in with the attitude of "Hey, it's funny, it's on the line, let's see what the studio thinks." Still, I'll bet every writer reading this has met the Unbelievable S&P Note.

The Nevermending Story

Logic--the bane of a cartoon writer's existence sometimes. The argument, "it's a cartoon" too often fails to win the day when trying to justify actions in the script that defy logic--even if you're writing about a dead child's ghost who befriends a suburban everykid.

Oftentimes, when presenting scripts to studios, it feels like the goal isn't to entertain kids, it's to make sense. Are kids tuning into their favorite shows because, "Hey, this one makes sense!" "I love Skippy & Flippo because it's so LOGICAL!"

The link below will download an article by Andrew Nicholls, who's wrote the book I posted about last week, "Valuable Lessons."

Click Here for The Nevermending Story

Here's an excerpt:

Meanwhile, you are trying to think of a way to have a character who’s never been on a date or talked to a girl stun an auditorium full of kids with his dancing skills. Sorry; skillz. And the same people who want you to do that because it will be funny (actually, because it was in a movie they saw) urge you to keep it “truthful.”

Hard work and craft get us through 99 percent of our days, but every writer prays for an epiphany. Over the past year – my tenth writing animation, overlapping 30 years of live action – I’ve begun to have a heretical one. It’s that when we alter reality in order to entertain, Story cannot be fixed, not properly, anyway. It’s not only broken, it’s inherently broken. The best we can ever do is to find the least conspicuous fudge to glue it back together.

Andrew Nicholls Valuable Lessons

Andrew Nicholls & Darrell Vickers have written more television than you. The number of shows they have on their resume is in the hundreds. In the past ten years, many of those shows have been animated series for the very company you're trying to get to hire you right now. Since I'm not their press agent, I'll stop there, except to say this--they've written on a lot of shows. They're also wickedly funny, prolific and fast. In the time it's taken me to write this post, they've finished act two.

Andrew Nicholls wrote the tell-all book "Valuable Lessons" about their life in television, and the fun people they've met along the way, I predicted success. I was wrong, but Andrew's loss is your complete gain. He links to the manuscript for a free download on their website, and you should read it. The book is eloquent, acerbic, terrifying and depressing, as he tells the stories about the rollercoaster ride of their career. He talks about money, he names names, he shares his valuable lessons.

If you would like a free download of the manuscript no publisher has yet been smart enough to pick up, then go to their download page, and click on the button for "Valuable Lessons" for immediate download as a .pdf. NichollsVickers.com

When Roy and Vincent agree, a new post must be created

roy quoted:
::Getting footage back that is 3 to 4 minutes short is a bitch to deal with ::

Then roy said:
I've never, EVER seen this happen. Every single artist I know in the industry complains that their scripts are too long and they work their asses off on whole sequences that just wind up getting cut for time.Are they all just full of shit or lying?I doubt it.

They're not lying. But I can tell you, there is a mentality of "I would rather be over than under," and while I'd like to not be three or four minutes over, I like having extra footage to cut.

And as frustrating as it must be for an artist to see their work not end up in the cartoon, it's easier to subtract than add.

The way I protect myself against that so I don't have to go way over on a cartoon? I try to make sure there's at least one or two gags in the show that can be elongated... In that "It's funny, it's not funny, it's funnier" sort of beat structure. I'm aware, at the animatic phase - what things I think can be used, used again, and used in future episodes for cutaway gags.

For a 10:20 cartoon, we tend to get animatics back at 11:00 and, once we fiddle with it, it still ends up about ten to twenty seconds short... most of the time.

Roy quoted:
::perhaps we have learned from experience that one minute per page doesn't work for the kind of shows we work on?::

Roy replied:
How would a writer know? Since when do writers deal with the animation timing?

Well, as a writer that deals with the timing of my shows, and since the shows I do are in flash, giving me the ability to sit at a computer with my editor and say "add four more frames of hold," or "make that fall happen in two frames," - I think it goes writer to writer.

Like I say over and over again... I'm trying to learn the skills, and the language, to make better cartoons.

Roy Also replied:

I'd also question your definition of the term "work"... does a "working script" in your opinion require a bunch of editing and rewriting and revising once the storyboard is finished?

Somewhere else, Vincent said:

I've worked on Script shows and I've worked on Storyboard shows, and I feel the Storyboard shows are funnier. The more funny people you have trying to push a shows humor forward, the more chance you have for said show to be funny.At Spumco everyone looked at everyone's boards and if they thought of something to push the story or a gag, they would share that thought. If it made the finale product better, stronger, and funnier it went in to the show. It was a constantly growing and morphing process.

And that's how I define "working" the story after the script is finished. After the record, we look at the board and punch it. After the punch, we look at the animatic and punch it. After the take one returns, we look at the cartoon and we try to plus it - and if we want to create new animation and place it in the cartoon, we have an in-house flash team that can aniamte stuff.

The show isn't done until it delivers.

Vincent also said, somewhere else:
On script shows the polar oppisite is true. My experience has been that once a show is locked into script, very little is going to done to plus the content. Everyone starts to worry that THIS is the Approved Script, we shouldn't alter it.

In fact when I got into this business, if as a Storyboard Guy you started altering content of a script, you wouldn't be around long. I would get red scribbles on Slimmer Storyboards from the writer showing the angle he preferred the scene to be staged.

Ick. When a storyboard artist points out something in a script that's going to be a nightmare, I try to listen. When a board artist has an idea that makes things easier, or better, or funnier or more economical, I listen.

Yes, there are absolutely times that "I want what I want," but that's what comes out of being in charge. I'm either right, or wrong, but the decision falls to me when those responsibilities are entrusted to me.

That being said, if I don't listen to the people who know execution better than I do - people who were HIRED because of that skill - I'm an idiot.

It's funny, because this debate takes two turns:
* Don't lock the script, because it might change.
* If you change the script, your script sucks.

I think the answer is this: On a script-driven show, the production has to be just as flexible in changing things as you would on a board driven show... especially in comedies, you have to look at the script as you would a "thumbnail pitch" and know minutia of the script might change as the story unfolds. If the story changes? That's a crappy script.

One of the reasons I don't like outlines in 11 minute cartoons is that I think the story goes where the story goes and nine times out of ten, that outline goes out the window. It's a waste of time and I don't make people writing on 11 minute comedies write them.

Let me repeat that, because it's important: It's a waste of time and I don't make people do it. Economy of production starts there, and hopefully, continues all the way through

It's animation. You can go anywhere and do anything. Why would you ever lock a show at the word stage when you can continue plussing it when the actual animating is happening?

Vincent also said:
The point you're all failing to see because you're so defensive about these issues is that these rules are GENERAL guidelines. A good animator can look at a script regardless of how many pages it is and tell you if it's likely to be too long or too short.The real point is that if someone tells you your scripts are coming in too long, you SHORTEN THEM.

But, yet again, here you have another issue where the overhwelming majority of animators are telling you what one of their problems with writers are and your response is simply to say "There's no problem. We're right, you're wrong."

Nah, I'm not. And it's absolutely something I could be better at.

Almost finally, Vincent also said:
I have been handed 62 page scripts for an eleven minute show. When I pointed out that this would be a problem, I was brushed off with "Oh but we're not doing one of those Nick type shows."

I don't even know what that means. Were Rugrat scripts 11 pages because you could write "The baby crawls" and know that would take 30 seconds?

When I started, I wrote some HEINOUSLY long scripts. It took smarter people than me to break me of that habit, and they did... for the most part.

And Finally, Vincent said:

We all over-write. I do it, you do it. One of things that seperates a good writer from the pack is the ability to say more with less, or you can just change the font size. Hahaha.... uh ya, that's not funny.

Well, I don't know who said it, but all writing is rewriting. Anybody who thinks their first anything is finished is either lazy, or fooling themselves.

And I might consider going back and looking at my responses, but... at least in this instance, I'm gonna be a little lazy.