A few of you responded to my last article, which delineated – perhaps too glibly – what I consider to be webisode essentials.  You took me to task, insisting I get practical, and answer such questions as what a webisode script looks like on paper.

Your wish, my command.

First off: webisode “scripts.”  The man who ran the writing staff at Stan Lee Media, Bryce Zabel, was and is a TV and film writer-producer (at the moment, he’s the President of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences).  So we used typical script formatting, which looks a little like this:

***

INT. CIA - DAY

BENTLEY "BENT" WALKER wanders through a series of increasingly bleak, damp, cob-webbed halls deep in the bowels of the CIA building.  Down rusty ladders, over storage boxes, through air vents.  Finally, he reaches a polished mahogany door with a brass nameplate on it.

CLOSE ON - THE BRASS NAMEPLATE

It's engraved with the acronym: S.P.O.O.K.I.E.S.

It's also engraved with a definition of the acronym (it's a large nameplate): Special Paranormal Operatives Overseeing Kooks, Invasions and Eerie Stuff.

INT. BULLPEN - DAY

Bent enters the Spookies bullpen.  The first agent he encounters is MONTY, a dapper and... open-minded... VAMPIRE who's pouring himself a mug of blood.

BENT
Zombie horde.  You game?

MONTY
I'd rather not.  Just pressed the suit.

***

This is an excerpt from a project called, not surprisingly, “S.P.O.O.K.I.E.S”, which was a web-series under development at SLM.  Some brilliant concept art was created by the SLM production staff, a series “bible” was written, as was the pilot script… but it never saw the light of day, for a multitude of reasons.  I still think it could have been a fun show – it involved a secret division within the FBI made up entirely of creatures apprehended by Special Agents (a vampire, a yeti, an alien and a zombie, among others).  Think of it as the Monster Squad meets the X-Files.

Back to formatting.

As time passed, our script-writing evolved into a hybrid of screenwriting and comic book writing.  The latter breaks down the story into pages and panels, with more detail than you’ll find in most movie scripts.  It helps the artist understand what the writer is trying to do, and, as a bonus, gives the writer more control over what the viewer will eventually see.

Let me emphasise this point: because animation doesn’t require actors and line producers and caterers and managers and agents and all of the other baggage which comes with shooting a live-action production, the writer and the artist have a staggering amount of creative control.  Sure, there are editors and publishers (for comic books and graphic novels) as well as directors and studio execs (for animated TV and film), but regardless, the amount of creative interference is minimised by the medium.

Which is wonderful.  Enticing.  Liberating.

But it requires a lot of communication between writer and artist, which is why the screenplay format didn’t work for the webisodes.  We needed to break down the animation shot by shot, with a lot of specific details, but not so much that the artists felt constrained.  A delicate balance, but a rewarding one, when handled well.

Eventually, we had webisode writing down to a numbers game – thirty to thirty-five shots per story, which translated to about four or five script pages.  One of the laws of screenwriting is “one minute per page” – over the length of a script, one page averages out to one minute of screen time.  SLM was producing three-minute webisodes (after we figured out that five minute webisodes required a cumbersome download for 28.8 users; remember, we were all learning as we went along), but our scripts broke the one minute per page law because the new hybrid format was inherently verbose.

Which is a long-winded way of saying to keep your scripts short – five pages, max – if you really want viewers to be captivated all the way through.

A few more rules of thumb: Keep it visual; keep the dialogue to a minimum; and remember, talking heads are good for TV, horrid for animation… voiceovers work well, though.

I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, however.  The script is the last step in the writing process; before we ever typed the words “Fade In” we had to write a concept proposal, then an outline, and then – if it was a new show idea – a series Bible.

You can probably guess what the concept proposal was like: one page, maybe two, giving an overview of an idea.  Usually, Bryce (or eventually, Will Meugniot, who replaced him) would read and react.  Occasionally, Stan would get involved this early, but not often.

If the concept passed muster, it was on to an outline.  Much more detail, with a beginning, a middle, and perhaps an end (if it wasn’t an open-ended series).  This time, it was read by the entire writing staff, Bryce/Will and Stan.

Next came the Bible, which incorporates concept art, series overview, character breakdowns and long-range series goals, ideas, hopes and dreams.  You have to have at least a vague idea how your story will ultimately end… if you don't know, who does?

In the best of all possible worlds, the Bible is a tome which will make anyone and everyone drool over the series, both what it is and what it might one day become.  As with any project, it’s all about potential.

In my next article, I’ll share some of the material we developed at Stan Lee Media.  Ideas I came up with, ideas from the other writers (if they give me permission), and some of the ideas which Stan asked us to develop for him.