The Americans pilot was a clear exception to the page count rule due primarily to an extended teaser. If you go over the suggested page counts for each act by a couple of pages, no harm or foul.
This is often due to scene description or more visual sequences that need to be explained, and sometimes it is also due to extended dialogue that takes up additional script real estate. But overall, these guidelines will offer you an easy way to craft that one-hour television script.
Most half-hour shows are sitcoms. However, especially with the expanded platform of streaming channels, that line between comedy and drama within half-hour shows is beginning to blur. And within that half-hour, situational comedy realm are two different types of shows — single-camera and multi-camera.
The single-camera label is a misnomer, mind you. Such shows often use more than one camera. The important element to remember when trying to decipher what a single-camera show is can be found in the way that the show is shot. These types of shows are filmed much like a film, as opposed to episodes filmed in front of a live studio audience.
The multi-camera sitcom often entails shows that do shoot in front of a live studio audience — The Big Bang Theory , Friends , and Roseanne as prime examples. These comedies are shot in a live stage, using multiple cameras to capture the performances often spread out between different portions of a set. Characters move from room to room and different cameras follow them. Even in single locations, multiple cameras catch different angles during live recordings.
The single-camera show is written much more like a feature script or one-hour drama. For established writers and showrunners, some television script can push some pages, often due to the dialogue.
But as a spec writer, you should keep within the sweet spot. Friends was famous for unrelated cold openings that just offered some funny character moments and laughs that often had little or nothing to do with the story. But, they always showcased the dynamic of the characters, which for a sitcom is just as important.
With The Last Man on Earth , the cold open introduced us to the premise of the show, which is standard for pilot episodes. As the episodes went on, the cold openings would vary from plot-oriented to character-oriented. The first act of a sitcom script quickly throws the characters into the conflict or situation and usually goes on for pages or so. Just as is the case with the one-hour drama script, the second act shows the characters at their worst.
For the audience, the laughs are at their pinnacle. For the characters, they are struggling their most. If we were watching an episode of The Goldbergs , this act would end with the mother walking off disappointed in her children, and her children feeling down in the dumps as a result of that.
The third and final act is the resolution. It is where the characters begin to figure things out and try to survive the situation or move past it. August 13, at Kimberley says:. August 4, at George says:.
Oliver W says:. June 24, at August 8, at Gavin says:. June 10, at Jon Furlong says:. June 7, at Poppy Cavendish says:. June 4, at Justin says:. June 3, at Tony Burgess says:. Colin D says:. May 30, at Aycil Yeltan says:. May 21, at Aaron says:. May 12, at Lou says:. May 11, at May 23, at Jay says:. Muyedul Tuhin says:.
April 26, at Kathleen says:. Stefan W. March 31, at Cleophas says:. March 29, at March 30, at Dewa P says:. March 28, at Frank says:. March 21, at Sabine says:. March 12, at Greg Witherell says:. Sven Malmquist says:. Vic C says:. March 3, at Harriett Smith says:.
February 28, at Michele Pick says:. January 25, at Milo says:. Eric Fujino says:. January 10, at Westie says:. January 9, at January 8, at Jeanette Bradford says:. January 7, at Johnny says:. December 25, at December 19, at Rick Nash says:. December 18, at Ari says:. December 17, at Art Dumas says:.
December 12, at Darren says:. December 11, at Mike Burrell says:. December 8, at Emily White says:. December 6, at H Green says:. December 4, at Evan Hall says:. Souza P says:. November 14, at Wayne Hoss says:. November 13, at Lawrence Galvin says:. Deborah says:. October 17, at Luca di Gioacchino says:. October 11, at Heather Andrews says:. October 3, at Maria says:. While there's no exact formula to follow, there are some basic guidelines that will help you steer each act.
Generally speaking, hour long episode scripts can be anywhere from pages, although a majority of the time you want to stick with pages. The basic sense of it is that one page equals one minute, and with a sixty minute show, you obviously need to account for commercial breaks. Thus if you go above 60 pages, you're already over an hour. So use that as a gauge. It's not an exact science by any means, but as a novice television writer, it's a good place to start.
With five act television scripts, you generally want to keep each act between pages, give or take a page. The old benchmark was 15 pages per act for four act television scripts, but with additional commercial time these days — not to mention more story — it can now often break down differently. The Breaking Bad pilot:. There will surely be differences throughout each and every show, but Grey's Anatomy is one of the better examples of a tight pilot script, which is what novice screenwriters want to shoot for.
You'll also notice that some pilot scripts like the the 70 page The Sopranos , the 55 page Mad Men , and the 61 page Game of Thrones don't have act breakdowns at all. In the case of The Sopranos and Games of Thrones , both written for HBO, there are obviously no commercial breaks, which may be a factor.
That's not to say that those scripts don't accomplish the same type of structure explained above — minus the aesthetics of act breaks. In the case of the Mad Men pilot, it was written on spec by the writer to use as a sample to attain assignments on other shows. The Lost pilot script is unique because it was written as a 97 page pilot script.
Essentially debuting as a feature length pilot. It does have act breaks, but due to the feature length script, the page number for those breaks is different. Because sitcoms are usually just half hour episodes, the structure and page counts are obviously condensed. Four to Five acts becomes a more simple two — the standard beginning, middle, and end. In the end, they're the same and are thus portrayed in the same manner. The page counts for sitcoms vary.
From established writers and showrunners, a half hour sitcom script can be as long as 44 pages. Keep in mind that sitcoms are more often than not dialogue heavy, which would account for the increased page counts. For novice writers, it's best to shoot for pages to get you under that thirty minute gauge. The Office pilot:. In sitcoms, you'll also see the use of the TAG. This is a bookend scene, usually after the episode's story has played out.
Your beat sheet is high-level. So the number of scenes required to realize those beats are entirely up to you.
There are resources out there to give you a rough estimate of how many scenes you need per act. And try to connect the dots with as few scenes as possible. Revisions will help with that. Every writer is different. Some writers like getting very specific with their script outline. How detailed you want to get is entirely up to you.
I like to get pretty detailed. At some point you just need to get started. After all, writing is rewriting. Script outlines can be boring to read. Make sure your scenes have a direct cause-and-effect relationship with one another. Years ago, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone shared a very helpful nugget on how they mastered this technique.
Once you have all of your scenes together in your script outline, think about how you would explain them to someone. That would disrupt the flow of cause-and-effect crucial to any plot. If Indiana Jones, say, got lonely and struck up a conversation with one of those snakes then… yeah, I can hear you yawning. So this is a good litmus test for knowing if your plot is on track.
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