#COMEDY PILOT STRUCTURE PROFESSIONAL#
#COMEDY PILOT STRUCTURE DOWNLOAD#

#COMEDY PILOT STRUCTURE PROFESSIONAL#

With that in mind, what were those markers that indicated to me that this screenplay came from someone who understood professional standards, despite the fact that the writer, for the record, was just starting out?Ī feature script, it came in at a lean 96 pages. They spoke about having a USC professor who taught them that, when executed right, a screenplay should be read (for the most part) vertically – up-down instead of left-to-right – and look like an Indian blanket with lots of white space, lots of indents. OJ SIMPSON, THE ASSASSINATION OF GIANNI VERSACE). LARRY FLYNT, BIG EYES, MAN ON THE MOON, THE PEOPLE VS. I once had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (THE PEOPLE VS. Me being me, a bit later as I was chopping up broccoli, I got to thinking: What exactly did I mean by that? What impressed me enough optically to make me think that the material on hand looked like a professional-enough screenplay, implying that the read ahead won’t be a rough one? With that in mind, I decided to break it down:

“Well, at least it looks like a screenplay.” And when I put it down and headed for the kitchen, I thought to myself: So I did just that, flipping through pages quickly on the iPad. As the clock was ticking down to the oven beeping at me and calling me to the kitchen, I decided to do what I often do when I have just a couple of minutes: Take a quick gander at the screenplay, and see what I’m in for.

#COMEDY PILOT STRUCTURE DOWNLOAD#

Everyone has to eat, right? But I had just enough time to download the screenplay I was going to read that night onto my iPad (it’s an old model, you have to be patient with it). In a few minutes, I would have to get up and make dinner for the family. You always want more, rather than less.Įmail responses got written and sent, written and sent. All, for the record, great problems to have for anyone who’s self-employed. I had a bunch of emails that I still needed to answer, and, just as importantly, a screenplay I needed to read that night for a meeting the next day. I had just finished 9 client meetings back-to-back. I hope we get to see more of their directing work.It was a long day. But Jeff Diebold and Aaron Davidson really make the comedy work, with some of that credit surely going to Novak who foregrounds the show’s warmth while letting it be the way it was written to be.

In every other production I’ve seen, including that has been a cringeworthy collection of Teutonic stereotypes that bring the show down. In fact, director Tommy Novak’s Mercury production in some ways works better than the original, especially when it comes to the dumb subplot involving a German father and son who want to bulldoze Dennis DuPree’s historic Bourbon Room club. I’ve reviewed “Rock of Ages” a half-dozen times before (New York, Las Vegas, Chicago, Chicago again, Aurora) and the new made-in-Chicago production at the Mercury Theater impressed me the most - at least since the original Broadway production with Constantine Maroulis playing the rock star wannabe Drew in love with the conveniently named Sherrie, fresh off the bus from Kansas and altogether too interested in the badly behaved rocker, Stacee Jaxx.

Comedy pilot structure