"A Fine Day in Austinville"

The Big Picture

Now that we have our first act of scripts heading into production, we need to start writing the second act of scripts. And it really behooves us to set down the broad strokes of where we're going with this series.

Our Season, in Five Acts

I think we should aim for a total of thirty episodes. Why? Because it gives us a total running time around an hour and a half -- and while Sketchville doesn't have much to do with the feature-film format, 1.5 hours is something that people can wrap their heads around. You can put it on a DVD. You can screen it at a film festival.

Sure, we might not make it to thirty episodes. But I think it behooves us to have a plan regardless. Alternately, we might make it to thirty episodes and want to keep going. In that case, we could just start "Sketchville, Volume 2", rebooting on a brand-new narrative day.

For purposes of writing, I'm going to break down the season into five 'acts' of six episodes each. Then we can give the season an overall structure by figuring what each act should accomplish, story-wise.

Act 1: Introduce Things

This is, of course, the act that we've already written.

Its purpose in the narrative is to introduce the characters, hint at the storylines they'll be involved in, and set the ground rules of the series. (It's a consistent reality, there are a few fantastical elements, we see little odd details that get explained later.)

Its purpose w/r/t the audience is to get our audience engaged with these characters -- these people are interesting, and we want to see what happens to them.

Act 2: Create Gaps

Having introduced our characters, the next step is to create gaps. A gap happens when the audience sees two sketches that they don't quite know how to reconcile. Bad example: in #1, we show Ted in the woods at 4pm preparing to bungee jump; in (say) #8, we show Ted at a security desk in the wee hours of the morning, acting far more timid. We see that, and have to wonder how Ted got from point a to point b.

Our other priority -- and this will be a goal to aim for throughout the series, but especially here in act 2 -- is to reveal a different side to each character. If act 1 shows Tiffany in her professional capacity, act 2 shows her dealing with her parents. If act 1 shows Mike playing high-status, act 2 shows him kowtowing to his boss.

Ideally, by the end of act 2, the audience will find these characters intriguing, and will wonder how exactly these characters connect the dots we've seen so far.

Act 3: OMG It's a Quest

In Act 3, we go beyond just "how does this fit together?" and give the characters an overall quest to pursue in this show. So for example, we explicitly reveal Ted's pressing need to do all the things he had always been afraid to. Or, if we already know the quest (Tiffany wants to sell a haunted house), we find a way to raise the stakes on it (she'll lose her job if she doesn't).

You could argue that we should be raising the stakes throughout, and you'd be right. I'm just saying, in act three, we absolutely must accomplish this. By the end of act three, the audience will like these characters, wonder how the hell this all jigsaws together, and be OMG anxious as to whether (say) Jesus gets to enjoy a single day off without being run to ground by Gabriel.

Act 4: A Low Point

This might be tough to write, because there are two things the act should accomplish.

First, we want to put the characters at a low point -- get them somewhere where it seems like this day is just going to defeat them, and whatever little dream they were pursuing. Ideally, we'd do this through a reveal showing that the task is more difficult than we (the audience) thought, or that the character is even more ill-suited to the task than we (the audience) thought. So: the audience should think, "Oh, there's no way they can succeed."

But the other task is to hint at "The Incident", described below. The audience should know that something big is coming, even if they're not sure what it is -- they should see the characters gathering up in one location; they should see some of the consequences of whatever happens there.

Act 5: The Incident1?

This also might be tough to write.

The last act of sketches has to feel like the end of the story. I think the right way to do this is to have a single dramatic incident -- I'd suggest a hostage situation, even though that was already done in The Nine -- that involves all four of the protagonists.

Why am I going this route? First, like it or not, the audience will expect these characters to come together. Second, I want to end this with a bang. Third, giving multiple viewpoints into the same incident would be a great technical flourish to end on.

Narrative-wise, we will ideally give the characters some sort of small victory to end on. (For example, Ted gets to do something wild & crazy. Or Jesus and Gabriel agree to blow off the next few hours at the Alamo.)

For brainstorming about what this incident should be, click here.

The End

I think the last sketch should end at midnight, and somehow reiterate our Big Theme of how little we recognize the 'sprawl' of the world around us.

What Does This Mean for Our Intrepid Writers?

First: DON'T PANIC.

Yes, this may look like a demanding structure. But remember: so long as we keep producing sketches that are funny, and maintain the gimmick of a consistent, one-day reality, we'll find an audience. Even if the larger structure fails utterly, we can coast nicely on funny little scenes that work on their own.

So don't think of this structure as an intractable puzzle.

Instead, think of it as a source of inspiration. Of the eleventy-billion scenes we could do next with (say) Ted, let's focus on writing one that's far removed from "Ted Bungees" and shows a different side of his character. Instead of fretting over how many tangential sketches to use, let's just put at most one or two in this act, and spend the rest of the time on our protagonists. And so on.

Second: PANIC (but only slightly) about figuring out the act-five incident.

Really, there's a ton of choices that we can make here. Let's just come up with a big list of dramatic situations that could involve a small group of disparate people. Then we can pick one and build from there. The sooner we get that waypoint nailed down, the sooner we can start accounting for it in the rest of the season.

What Has Changed, and Why?

When I first came up with this concept, I envisioned it as a low-key sort of thing with friends and cheap camcorders. It was designed to run for an unspecified amount of time (i. e., until we all got bored with it), and it wasn't supposed to be ambitious (so: easy to write).

With the amount of time, effort, and capital people are putting into the project, I feel like it behooves me to make it more ambitious and, well, just 'better'. It's less about being easy to write, and more about winding up with something that will accrue an audience and provide them a satisfying season arc.

Note that I'm certainly not complaining; "this is turning out better and far more professional than I expected" is not a complaint. However it does alter how I want to write this.

For example, we don't want to repeat scenes. Originally, (when the concept was more of a crutch for ease-of-writing), I thought we could run a character through essentially the same sketch over and over and over, with at most slight variations. I think we're now aiming for a level of quality where that will look like cheating (or at least running in place) to our audience.

Also, I'm leaning towards the 'tying everything together' ending that I kind of swore against earlier. If we're going for a specific number of episodes, it makes sense to end it with a Rashomon-like flourish that brings in all the main characters.

This is not to say we can't have the occasional tangent. (A scene about, say, the lost elephant should be fun to write.) The theme of sprawl, and of how everybody has their own story, can still work here. But we want to wind up with a finished piece of work that (1) is finite; and (2) feels like it ends when it's supposd to end.

Footnotes

1? Yes, I'm ripping off that word from LOST.