Polly writes:
Maybe the half-hour drama is something to experiment with. Viewers seem less frightened of committing to 30 minutes than 60, and it would certainly keep production costs down (the reason I've been given why Cdn broadcasters are wary of one-hours). And as you say, instead of an act outs, you've got a good string of episode cliffhangers - is that such a bad thing?blueglow has a slightly different take:
It's something I'm trying to wrap my head around as I develop what I presume are one-hour dramas - could I possibly tell the stories I want to in 22 minutes? (though I'm pretty sure that was a cable half-hour last night I'm thinking... Weeds length...)
Maybe the tide is turning and the attention deficit generation will tune in for a half hour drama but that format has had a pretty spotty track record so far. I know I've done a few of them in my time and they've had a real hard time resonating with an audience that was hard wired to believe that comedy is half an hour long and drama is an hour. (Even when it is labelled as a dramady).Then Cunningham weighed in, as Cunningham tends to do:
but who knows, they're cheap to make, and that makes them attactive to our poor cash starved networks.
but if they make it as a half hour they need to be aware of the track record -- Boccho failed with Hooperman (despite having John Ritter, Mr TVQ himself, as the lead) and also failed with Beverly Hills Buntz (which I believe was a half hour as well -- if not, sorry, but it still failed anyway). Denis Leary's "the Job" which was IMHO better than Rescue Me also didn't do very well.
Listing those three shows reminds me of something else -- all the half hour dramas I recall seeing in NA had a light tone to them (even leary's) that suggests a reticence to fully commit to telling a true, or heavy, dramatic story in this format.
The solution therefore is to chart a show that combines the dramatic nature of say, LOST with a half hour format - a serial. A show that can be re-edited to feature length after four episodes (if necessary).Of these various musings, I think Bill's probably comes closest to the mark. Although Good Dog pointed out, helpfully, that the BBC had some success last year with their adaptation of Bleak House, which went 14 half hours. I still tend to think that makes it the exception to the rule.
You aren't telling a whole story in one episode, but just a chapter, leaving the audience to tune in next time.
I think half-hour serial dramas could work, especially in genre pieces.
I don't know if you could sell people on a serial, half-hour commitment each week. To me it's a heck of a gamble, and it comes down to this: is the problem with serial commitment really the time? Or the show? Have people really turned away from the serial dramas that came on this fall because they don't have any more time to add a new show, or is it the shows themselves?
Are people simply out of the half-hour habit? Has the dearth of comedy successes lately left room for a half-hour show that offers something other than comedy to sneak in there?
I tend to think not. I'm more in agreement with blueglow that comedy wants to be a half hour, and drama wants to be an hour. Part and parcel of the whole "Is Comedy Dead?" argument to me that gets missed in a lot of these articles is that a lot of hour long series have gotten funnier. Procedurals like CSI and Law & Order retain their seriousness, but shows like Boston Legal, The O.C., West Wing, Grey's Anatomy, and Rescue Me make sure to pack in dollops of humor amidst the drama -- and that, to me, is part of the reason why they have such appeal.
But when I talk to Production Managers and number crunchers, I get a different vibe off the idea of the half-hour drama:
It's money.
When you think of a half hour comedy, whether it's studio-based four camera or single camera, most of the times the rhythm of the story surrounds a home base and plays out very much within that home base. Scrubs stays in the hospital. The Office stays at Dunder Mifflin.
Dramas tend to open up and travel more. They also tend to have more extras. That means more locations, a more complicated shoot.
The name of the game in this business is amortization. If you're doing thirteen episodes, it's easy to write off the cost of sets, locales, etc, and spread them over 13 than if you're only doing eight, or six.
Similarly, a half-hour does not cost half as much as an hour. Because you still have to cast, you still have to build sets, populate those sets, pay location fees, etc. Unless you're doing a big bottle show every week, it's probably going to cost you sixty or seventy percent of what you'd spend on a hour drama to do a half hour. (Unless you're ultra-low budget.)
Breaking a half hour, writing a half hour also doesn't take half the time as a writer. It's pretty much the same job. It's the same amount of work. (I'd actually say it might be more. I think finding a compelling story to tell in 21 minutes would be tough, unless you were going to go with Bill's model of ending on a cliffhanger every week.)
Now let's look at the network. Everything's about real estate. Right now in network land you have about five viable programming options: Hour long Drama. Half Hour Comedy. Reality. News Magazine. Game Shows. All of those other shows are hour slots, except half hour comedy.
So where do you program the half hour drama? Do you pair it with a comedy? When? What does it match with?
In the end, I think there's a good reason why the half hour drama format isn't dominant. If you get people involved in a drama, and can keep them for the hour, that's way more solid than having to take a risk that they'll tune out bottom of the clock.
Of all the things that need to be fixed in TV, I don't find shrinking drama series to be a credible solution to anything.
21 comments:
But the example you cite, Adult Swim, isn't really germane because they weren't really doing anything very new.
If you go back to Looney Tunes, you'll see that the format for animation has often been shorter program segments, even within the same program. Many kids and tween shows tell multiple stories within a half hour format -- with shorter cartoons. Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain - they've all done this. It's a known quantity. There's plenty that Adult Swim has done that's interesting and new in presentation and framing the shows. But not the length.
Similarly, a movie deliberately split up into half hour segments isn't germane either. And TVO is hardly a conventional broadcaster.
As for Doctor Who, well...how long is the current, 21st century incarnation of the series?
The reason I "weighed in" on the issue (do I look fat in this blog?) is because there is a way to make the half-hour format work -WHO being the most obvious example.
I'm thinking genre here, but I'm working on a serial to be shown before a certain cable channel's original movies. Basically to create a warmup for the saturday night movie, and get the audiences to return next week. Hopefully to get them to stay for the feature again.
Denis, you're right about holding audiences for the next program in the block, but there's also the issue of destination viewing - getting the audience to return to that "same time same channel" next week - or at least get them to set the Tivos for it.
I see nothing wrong with a half-hour comedy, followed by a half-hour serial, followed by an hour drama or a feature. Granted, I have eclectic tastes in my programming. I am not the norm.
But considering the fact we were initially talking about a vampire show here, I think the genre audience would accept a half-hour serial that could later run as special-event all day programming. I think that's what's required - a show that's familiar and yet easily publicized as being different from the norm.
So yeah, we're looking at "shorter but more of it" as a programming option. Work's for the budget. Works for the story. Hopefully works for the audience who could see it on their TV or online...
there are half hour drama's that do work and are structured around cliff hanger endings -- the daytime soaps -- but I don't know if you could do it unless you were showing them at least three times a week as opposed to once a week.
I do agree with Bill that the only possibility of having a half hour drama work was if it was a genre piece like vampires where you are basically writing for an audience that would scare you if they ever came into your home. I did a vampire show once -- the obsessive nature of the fans (how come in ep six character b said this but in ep 11 he was wearing a...)made the star trek crowd seem like casual viewers.
After sticking my hand up and saying “Me sir, I know of a half hour drama, sir!”, then mentioning the BBC’s Bleak House, it feels, in hindsight, like a bit of a cheek.
To begin with, it’s an adaptation, so the material is already there to condense, which gives it an advantage. Dickens had originally written the story in to appear in serial form. After so many period adaptations over the years, the BBC Head of Drama, Jane Tranter wanted something different that 4-6 x I hr scheduled on successive Sunday evenings, which is the traditional slot for such dramas.
Instead it went out 2 x 30 mins on Thursday and Friday, before the watershed and tucked into the schedule behind the popular primetime soap opera EastEnders with an omnibus edition on Sunday afternoon/early evening. So goings-on in modern day London, with multiple storylines and cliffhanger endings, were followed by Victorian London shenanigans, ditto. Which added fuel to the sort of people who declare, “Well, if Shakespeare were alive today he would be writing soap operas!” Dickens too, obviously.
That said, what Bleak House did do was get rid of the endless languorous shots of horse and carriages travelling down long driveways toward stately homes that have become the signature shots of Bronte or Austen adaptations. Scenes that do nothing to advance the plot, but, together with all the fancy frocks, show where the budget went.
Given the time constraints, a thirty-minute drama would have to rely on cliffhangers and be ongoing, rather than self-contained stories. Sure, in the early 1960s, the Patrick McGoohan spy drama Danger Man started with half hour episodes before switching to the hour-long format. But that was back in a time when people were less demanding.
Doctor Who was always a kids show – even up to it’s first demise in the 1980s, I think I’m right in saying that the money for the came out of the Children’s Television annual budget rather than the Drama department – in the format of the old Republic serials. The new show is 45 minutes only because it is a sickeningly cynical ploy to fit the US hour time slot, but let’s not go down that path.
Having watched the first four episode of Dexter and Heroes over the weekend and Monday night, I could see the latter adapted quite easily to a half-hour format because it is plot-driven. But Dexter, which is just as good, but more character-driven, would certainly prove to be more problematic in the format.
The question of course is why would you want to do it?
Actually, going back to the new Doctor Who, if someone went back into the edit and shaved fifteen minutes off each episode, I’m quite sure it would improve them a hell of a lot.
To grab onto a topic mentioned but not important to the overall topic: what are all these [number] camera shows referring to? I keep hearing stuff about one camera, three camera, four camera. . .and I've got speculations as to what they mean, but I'm not a TV professional, so I can't be sure. Thnks!
It's an easy definition.
"single camera" refers to just that -- series made like a movie, with one camera shooting multiple setups, which are then edited together in post production. (All one hour dramas, and shows like Scrubs, Weeds, The Office, 30 Rock, MASH, etc.)
"Three or four camera" -- shows that are usually performed live in front of an audience, and run like a play. These tend to be studio based shows. Rather than running and shooting the scenes out of order, and doing them multiple times and putting them together in post, you block the action to take place like in a play.
Different cameras shoot different angles, and in the control room a director switches between them on the fly, to capture the essence of the live performance. This is essentially unchanged from how the first series were shot when television was new and cameras waved 10 000 pounds. (Friends, Frasier, Two and a Half Men, Roseanne, Cheers)
Used to be that you could tell them apart because most 3 camera shows were videotaped, while single cameras were filmed. But then sitcoms switched to film. These days, both are usually shot with HD cameras. The only difference is -- is the bulk of the show performed and captured as a performance like a play? Or is it made in pieces to be assembled later, like a movie.
Interesting. Reminds me of an essay I read by Bertolt Brecht (?). I'll have to check out that one.
But does the number when it's >1 matter, or could someone just say "single camera" or "multiple camera"?
Thanks!
I suppose that it is easy to forget that the "half hour drama" was once the norm rather than the exception or the virtual rarity. Most of the drama series of the 1950s - American and Canadian - were half hour shows, and very few serialized. An hour was the norm only for special presentations like live dramas and presented. That changed as the 1960s arrived so that by the time that "Adam-12" left the air in 1975 it was either the last of the half hour dramas or one of the last.
Woops! Wrong essayist. I should have said Walter Benjamin and his essay: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
The BATMAN TV show used to run twice a week and pulled numbers that execs today would kill for (of course there were only three networks at the time besides PBS).
The point is that if half-hour is good for the budget, good for the storytelling and is something new for audiences (or at least something new to this generation) then you have a potential distribution and marketing plan. You have a format that is unique and attention-grabbing (caveat: attention-grabbing to the right audience).
If the format is flexible (re-edited to hour length for weekend screenings - similar to what's happening with these english-language telenovelas, DESIRE and FASHION HOUSE, which air five nights a week with a recap episode on Saturday) then there's the potential to do a lot of things with the content.
HEROES is adding story to its episodes via their online graphic novels and web content. Who's to say you couldn't provide the same thing for a half-hour vampire show?
We are in a freaky time as many of the things we took for granted programming-wise are changing - and fast - in order to keep up with videogames, websites and DVDs. We can't just think of our content as JUST one thing because it isn't...
As a viewer, I started finding the franchise-dependency on story elements annoying since The Matrix, even though watching 2 and 3 in direct succession without any noticeable pause, I could appreciate them more.
Glad to have sparked discussion!
A couple of thoughts on 1/2 hours:
Denis, I totally take your point that a 1/2 hour is not 1/2 as expensive to make as an hour, but if the production values of the show could increase 30% with the savings maybe it would be worth it? (not sure if Weeds is an example of this. I would not call that a comedy, but I don't need it to be twice as long.)
Bill, I'm intrigued by the idea of a half hour as a lead-in to another show...
How about Anthology series? Maybe we're ready for one (and I have one in mind). Brent's example of the 50s shows is right on. The Twilight Zone is often billed as sci-fi and thus genre, but really, it was often (melo)dramatic stories with a little twist. Or how about Naked City? They were able to pack a lot of story into half an hour.
With the number of people watching on cable, DVD and PVR, maybe the exact # of minutes in a show isn't as important as it used to be? I for one have a backlog of shows to catch up on, so if there was one show I could get up to date on twice as fast, I'd be happy...
Down here in RSA where we don't have the luxury/absurdity of producing pilots, where shows are commissioned usually on a brief put out by the broadcasters, there's been a definite trend towards half hour dramas.
I've worked on two this year, one a navy diver drama, the other a boxing drama. Having a background in sitcom, the format itself is familiar to me, but it still feels awkward. Like it doesn't want to be this. Like just as you're getting into the meat of the episode, badabing - roll credits.
As Bill suggested, I've found by trialand error that the best way to approach it is to do the "Prison Break" type serialised writing - end on a cliffhanger, directly pick it up the next episode, quickly resolve it, move onto the next story beat, end on a cliffhanger, and on.
But it's tough. There's very little time for character development, laying pipe, etc. B plots are generally no more than texture to a current ep or a set-up for a future storyline.
Both shows I've worked on have been serials - I'd hate to try write a procedural or episodic in half hour (22 minutes). Go something like: there's the body, there's the fingerprint, there's the suspect, there's the end.
Riveting stuff.
Ooh, some interesting conversations here. Let's kick in.
Soaps
Here in the UK, a large bunch of primetime is taken up with soap operas. These days they're mostly running at 4 episodes a week, in half-hour chunks, with an omnibus catchup at the weekend. Because they're all set in a constrained exterior location, it's usual to build the street or streets that it's set in and amortise that over the life of the series for exterior sets. The remainder of the drama plays out in interiors, and they're fairly stable: houses, local pub, plus one or two others (eg nightclub). And, of course, every episode ends on a cliffhanger.
Bleak House
Is basically a telenovela. One story played out over 16 episodes, half-hour chunks again. It's interesting to note that it played out in 2 half-hours a week - I'm not aware of a half-hour drama that plays just once a week any more.
The Sixties
Yep, they used to have half-hour dramas. And now they don't. This experiment was tried again most recently with Jack of Swords and Cleopatra 2525 (ok, they're comedy-dramas) from Sam Raimi's Renaissance Pictures - interestingly, they were designed to air as a one-hour block comprising of two half-hour shows. Neither took off.
Doctor Who
Was always made by the BBC's drama department. Apparently this used to really piss off the Children's department. Course, now it's made by neither.
Scheduling and Drama Concept
I'm interested in Bill C's concept of the re-editable feature. What you get is a four-act feature with a cliff-hanger at the end of each act. Show it over two weeks in two parts per week, then release to ancillary markets as a feature.
Doctor Who tried this in the eighties, but was placed against one of the biggest UK soaps. Bad scheduling - it may have died anyway, but that certainly did it no favours.
I also think the Bleak House route would be worth looking at - a telenovela over 26x half-hour, aired over 13 weeks.
Amortisation
And as DMc mentions, you need to amortise set and location costs. So Alias is out - you're looking at a tightly-told story in just a few locations.
And finally
Cliffhanger, cliffhanger, cliffhanger. I don't see how you can successfully wrap a drama in 22 minutes, week-after-week. Cliffhangers let you amortise your story.
Crikey, this did turn interesting, didn't it?
CBC (under previous regime) commissioned those two new soaps last year -- 49th and Main and North/South. I thought the former was okay and I really liked the latter -- and they followed that soap format pretty heavy. But I think they're dead now. So there.
I guess I'd forgotten about those 60's dramas. My feeling is that they probably grew for the same reason I'm saying above. If you want to tell a more expansive story and you're paying that money, making it an hour isn't that much more expensive.
Remember in Canada the problem is that you are competing against US programs as they're shown -- so smaller scale dramas without a lot of oomph or location isn't going to cut it.
But maybe there's a place for it. I don't know. Smarter people than me have to show me the plan and the reasoning.
But I agree with African Den -- It doesn't sound like something particularly easy to write.
Remember in Canada the problem is that you are competing against US programs as they're shown -- so smaller scale dramas without a lot of oomph or location isn't going to cut it.
[begin rant]
That's the same situation everywhere isn't it? Cable stations here program against the three networks (I'm specifically thinking of USA Net's Sunday night lineup or Scifi's Friday night lineup). Somewhere, sometime -stations around the world are up against US network programming.
FX programs against the nets with THE SHIELD and NIP/TUCK. Bravo's PROJECT RUNWAY programs against the nets. All of these programs are produced at a cost far less than a typical network hour of TV.
The fact you are up against US programming is not the problem.
You said it yourself - your shows lack "oomph," and no one is out there shouting that your shows do have "oomph." They're too busy blaming the fact that someone in your country was smart enough to buy cheap and reap the rewards. Boo hoo.
Give your shows "oomph." Then get off your ass and tell the world. Somebody got off their ass and told the US that if audiences liked CSI and NYPD BLUE they were going to like DAVINCI...
and it worked.
If they had done that earlier, DAVINCI might still be on the air because it would be a cash cow no matter what the ratings were in Canada.
Good programming (read: entertaining programming) with good publicity wins. You have to do both cheaply. That means not being polite, but being loud and attention-grabbing. If necessary being obnoxious. (Okay, yeah -being American)
It pisses me off when someone says they can't do something because of money or that the competition is too big. Think around that barrier and find a solution. It's there. You're just not looking hard enough. A band of guerillas can be just as effective as an army given the right tactics and motivation.
I never have enough money for any of the films I've made, but for every one we got the job done, and the movie was profitable for all concerned - even when our box covers are next to larger, star-filled, blockbuster studio films at the video store.
[end rant]
Bill, ours is a slightly different problem in Canada. We are not only up against US programs but US networks. If the Canadians don't show US series at the same time, our viewers will flock to the US channels. We have channels here whose entire programming budget is less than NBC's promo budget on a top 5 series. There's the rub.
I agree, good shows will stand out and find their audience. But the competition and marketing challenges we face here and unique and unlike no other in the world. In addition to getting the US terrestrials and many of their major cable channels like TLC, Spike and A & E directly into the market, we have our own 300 or so channels (if you include English and French) and we are a market of 33 million people/11 million cable households and a quarter of those are French.
That's a lot of TV competition for a small audience and a relatively miniscule pot of advertising $$. Canada is regarding as being THE most competitive and difficult tv market in the world for these reasons.
Yeah. Respectfully Bill, it is actually more complicated than you make it.
Canada's market is like a colonized U.S. domestic market. In your estimation, the solution is to appeal to the U.S. market. But part of the problem is actually trying to assert a modicum of cultural sovereignty. And the moment you do that, Americans go kaploo. This self-absorption is unique to Americans, and the American cultural machine.
In other industrialized, western nations, the citizens like American product, but they also like their own cop shows, doctor shows, etc...they like them because they're homegrown. They get great slots and good ratings. The indigenous culture and the American culture live side by side and don't conflict. (and by the bye, most of these nations like to watch their homegrown shows in prime time, and show the American fare in off hours)
In Canada, which whether you understand this or not, is actually, like, a whole different country -- Canadians have gotten used to watching U.S. networks at the same time, all the time.
the playing field is NOT level, and it is NOT a case of the best idea wins. In the US, the American idea wins.
there are plenty of challenges that have to do with not being honest, not promoting our own stuff, and quality issues. But there ARE larger structural things at play, too, which you simply do not understand because you are part of the dominant culture. Of course you would see the problem as simple.
You started out your post by saying, "it's the same situation everywhere isn't it?"
The short answer?
No. It's not.
You don't have to remind me Canada is different from America - I work for a Canadian company after all.
But - it's the similarities that make it worthwhile.
;D
We're producing a 26-episode drama series in Botswana: three-acts with closure. Our series website/blog is here: http://storylinebotswana.wordpress.com/
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