Script Analysis: “Pushing Daisies: Dummy”

So, being jobless while I wait to start school again in the summer, I’ve been working on a few spec scripts in the comedy/dramedy categories so that when I graduate next May I’m not moving out to LA with nothing but some journal entries from the 8th grade. Unless WMA wants the juice on what a bitch my best friend was to me at lunch that day? Dude, I need an agent.

Anyway, as everyone knows TV shows are pretty traditional in structure, some even bordering on formulaic. However, it seems that the number of acts in each show (not Aristotelian acts, but the formal kind used by Networks to chop the story into bite-sized breaks in between their far more entertaining commercials) is on the rise. It used to be four acts to a one-hour drama, yet shows like “Pushing Daisies” are going into six acts to allow for more commercial breaks.

So, to get a feel for this teensy acts and how to make them flow as smoothly as “Pushing Daisies” did, I sat down with a script and video of the episode “Dummy” and plotted out its basic structure and timing. I’ve pasted the messy, un-spellchecked results of this study below the jump. Some things of note before that, though:

• It seems that the first act is always longer than the others by about five minutes (I’ve checked with other episodes of “Pushing Daisies” and this is fairly consistent)
• There always seems to be one shorter act of only 5 minutes
• Action scene play out longer than dialogue, which tends to eat up pages.

Anyway… I promise to be neater/more wordpress friendly next time, but so far here’s what I have:

The Goal: Learning to Write

Let me begin with a simple statement: I don’t know what I am doing, and that’s what this blog is all about. My purpose in crowding the internets with yet another log of personal jibber-jabber is a selfish one. Quite simply, I am hoping to learn how to write.

When I say I am “hoping to learn how to write,” I obviously don’t mean phonetically or even in the classic literary sense. Obviously, the presence of nouns and verbs in a relatively readable pattern is enough to prove I can toss around some blog-level prose. The tricky part is that I am hoping to learn to write for the screen. I don’t want my words to flutter about in some lonely reader’s head while he pretends he isn’t sleeping next to the queen bee of domineering wives or echo the next day in the mind of a 17-year-old girl who thinks poetry is the answer to all of the problems brought about by the existence of senior prom. I want my words to flicker. On a screen. I want them to disappear so that nobody notices they’re there and all that is left is an interesting character living life out in one cohesive story.

How does all of this translate to the blogosphere? I’m not sure yet, but here’s some answers to the questions I’ve posed to myself about this blog:

How do I learn how to write?

Everyone I’ve asked this question has given me one or both of these two answer: Read and write.

Why do I learn how to write?

Because it’s something that needs to be “learned” in the same way a sport or musical instrument must be learned. Master the technique first and then improvise as the situation arises.

Why do I write?

A local novelist once told my book club (yes, I’m a geek) in high school: “If you can stop writing, do it. Real writers can’t stop.”

What will I post here?

This is where it’s difficult to draw some boundaries. Clearly, everything here should have something to do with my process of improving my screenwriting, but what does that entail? Script analyses? Movie reviews? Practice outlines? Links to Internet resources? Pictures of my dog when he’s being particularly adorable? That’s what I’ll have to decide as I go.

What will I not post here?

“OMFG. I cant beleeeev he dumped me. U r so rite!!! He is soooo mean.” Except when/if I am dumped by a mean person whose personality you were spot-on about.

What is the point of making this public?

In my small, conceited mind, I secretly hope my repeated failures and occasional successes can either a) help other writers not make my mistakes or b) provide a healthy dose of schadenfreude to you cynical/snarky bastards out there who, like me, occassional poke fun at self-indulgent bloggers when they hit rock bottom.

So what’s with the name? Is it supposed to be dirty?

“Cliffs” refers to cliffhangers as well as the rocky steep drops that provide a convenient, albeit cliched and slightly scary, metaphor for writer’s block. “Stiffs” refers to the old-fashioned nickname for dead bodies that make fun plot twists as well as the not-so-old-fashioned nickname for crappy scripts. Get you mind out of the gutter.