John August

QandA

McGuffin and Set-Piece defined

Glossary

While I was fixing up the [Glossary](http://johnaugust.com/site/glossary) yesterday, I added two new requested definitions:

McGUFFIN
Often associated with Hitchcock, [PageWise](http://sc.essortment.com/alfredhitchcoc_rvhd.htm) has a good definition: A device or plot element that catches the viewer’s attention or drives the plot. It is generally something that every character is concerned with. The McGuffin is essentially something that the entire story is built around and yet has no real relevance. That is, it’s what the movie says it’s about, even though it really isn’t. In the first Charlie’s Angels, the McGuffin was stolen voice-identification software; in the second, it was a Federal Witness Protection List. In both cases, the villain’s real motivation was greed and revenge. In early drafts of Full Throttle, the Angels had to retrieve a glowing vial labelled “McGuffin Industries.”

SET-PIECE
A scene or sequence with escalated stakes and production values, as appropriate to the genre. For instance, in an action film, a set-piece might be a helicopter chase amid skyscrapers. In a musical, a set-piece might be a roller-blade dance number. In a high-concept comedy, a set piece might find the claustrophobic hero on an increasingly crowded bus, until he can’t take it anymore. Done right, set-pieces are moments you remember weeks after seeing a movie.

Producer credits and what they mean

Film Industry, Glossary

Over a year ago, when I wrote up the [Glossary](http://johnaugust.com/site/glossary), I decided that defining each of the individual sub-categories of producer would just muddy it up, so I included a link to “the producer page.”

Unfortunately, I never wrote that page.

So here, now, is what that page would include. Note that the terms mean different things for features and television, and that all bets are off in Europe, which has evolved different names for certain jobs. Also, keep in mind that there are no hard-and-fast rules for what the various titles mean, which is one reason why the [Producers Guild](http://www.producersguild.org) is trying to be more assertive about who should really be called a producer.

For Feature Films:

The highest ranking producer is simply called Producer. This is the person ultimately responsible for the film. He or she is also the person who collects the Oscar if the movie wins an Academy Award.

After that comes Executive Producer, who is involved in the development, financing or production of the movie, but generally not all three.

Below executive producer, the credits get a little murkier. Occasionally, you’ll see Co-Executive Producer, but the third-highest ranking is generally called Co-Producer. Then comes Associate Producer. These two “junior producer” credits often go to someone who performs a key function in getting the movie made, but who doesn’t have the power or clout of a producer or executive producer. For instance, I was a co-producer on Go.

Line Producer is really a job, rather than a title. This person, who is directly responsible for many of the day-to-day burdens of production (such as budgets, unions, and bureaucracy), would often have another title, such as Co-Producer or Executive Producer. Many line producer functions overlap with a Unit Production Manager. Depending on the film, you might also see a Production Supervisor or Production Coordinator listed.

To summarize, for features:

1. Producer
2. Executive Producer
3. Co-Producer
4. Associate Producer

Related Jobs:

* Line Producer
* Unit Production Manager
* Production Supervisor
* Production Coordinator

For Television:

Because scripted television is run by writers, the majority of producers you see listed are writers.

The highest ranking producer is the showrunner, the man or woman ultimately responsible for the creative direction of the series. Showrunner is a function, not a title — this person is credited as an Executive Producer. In many cases, he or she has “Created by” credit on the series.

Many TV shows have multiple executive producers, and without knowing the specific situation, it’s hard to say what the individual people do. For instance, a TV show derived from a movie (like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), may bring with it Executive Producers from the original film, who have little direct involvement with the show.

In terms of the writing staff, below Executive Producer comes Co-Executive Producer, followed by Supervising Producer, Producer, Co-Producer, Story Editor and Staff Writer. While some writers will occasionally leap-frog a few credits up the ladder, generally it takes years of work to climb to the upper ranks.

On some shows, you’ll see a Consulting Producer or Executive Consultant listed. This is generally a high-level writer who is contributing to a show, but is not one of the principal forces.

Obviously, it takes more than just writers to make a TV show. The line producer is a crucial function, and that person is often listed simply as Producer. The person who heads up post-production on a television series may be an Associate Producer. On some shows, there is an in-house director who also gets a Producer or Executive Producer credit.

To summarize, for television:

1. Executive Producer (the showrunner)
2. Executive Producer
3. Co-Executive Producer
4. Supervising Producer
5. Producer
6. Co-Producer
7. Story Editor
8. Staff Writer

Related jobs:

* Consulting Producer
* Executive Consultant
* Line Producer
* Associate Producer

[Update: For no explicable reason, I had left off co-producer. Thanks to Mike, below, for pointing that out.]

Stressing over structure

QandA, So-Called Experts, Writing Process

When you write, are you consciously aware of
structuring your screenplay, or it is something that
is more instinctive?

— Brian
Galway, Ireland

When I was first starting out, I was paranoid about structure — but that’s because I didn’t know what it really was.

I had of course read [Syd Field’s book](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=johnaugustcom-20&path=tg%2Fdetail%2F-%2F0440576474%2Fqid%3D1098308154%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dpd_csp_1%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Dbooks%26n%3D507846), and I worried that if I wasn’t hitting my act breaks at exactly the right page number, I was a dismal failure. Then at USC I was introduced to a “clothesline” template, which was baffling. People smarter than me would talk about eight sequences, or eleven sequences, and I would nod as if I understood.

And now I do: It’s all bunk.

At the risk of introducing another screenwriting metaphor, I’ll say that structure is like your skeleton. It’s the framework on which you hang the meat of your story. If someone’s bones are in the wrong place, odds are he’ll have a hard time moving, and it won’t be comfortable. It’s the same with a screenplay. If the pieces aren’t put together right, the story won’t work as well as it could.

But here’s the thing: not every skeleton is the same.

Think about it in real-world terms.
Human skeletons are pretty consistent, but you also have gazelles and giraffes, cockroaches and hummingbirds, each with a different structure, but all equally valid designs. The standard dogma about screenplay structure focuses on hitting certain moments at certain page numbers. But in my experience, these measurements hold true for [Chinatown](http://imdb.com/title/tt0071315/) and nothing I’ve actually written.

My advice? Stop thinking about structure as something you impose upon your story. It’s an inherent part of it, like the setup to a joke. As you’re figuring out the story you want to tell, ask yourself a few questions:

1. What’s the next thing this character would realistically do?
2. What’s the most interesting thing this character could do?
3. Where do I want the story to go next?
4. Where do I want the story to end up eventually?
5. Does this scene stand up on its own merit, or is it just setting stuff up for later?
6. What are the later repercussions of this scene? How could I maximize them?

If you answer these questions at every turn, I guarantee you’ll have a terrifically structured screenplay. It might not hit predefined act breaks, but it will be consistently engaging, something that can’t be said for many “properly structured” scripts.

New CSS template for screenplay formatting

Formatting, Geek Alert

UPDATE (2/26/09): This is an early draft of what would later become [Scrippets](http://scrippets.org). Check out that site for more up-to-date information. And you’ll notice that I ultimately did go back to using paragraph tags, rather than list items.

One frustrating part of discussing scripts on the internet is that the formatting is always wrong. Changing the typeface to monospace (such as Courier or Monaco) helps a little, but the indentations are still wonky.

Beginning with [yesterday’s post](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2004/avoid-cut-tos-in-a-busy-sequence), I’m using a new CSS style template I created to handle screenplay markup on the site. If you know know about CSS, it’s the way modern web pages are built, separating content from formatting. The rest of this post gets kind of technical, so you may want to bail out now.

Okay, geeks who are still with me:

Doing screenplay in CSS seems pretty straightforward. The base class (Screenplay) would handle the width of the virtual page, and make everything 12pt Courier. The individual elements would be .sceneheader, .action, .character, .dialogue, .parenthetical, and .transition.

My first instinct was to handle the elements with paragraph styles, like this:

<p class="sceneheader">INT. BOB'S DINER – NIGHT</p>

Unfortunately, paragraphs carry with them a bunch of problems. First, they’re the bread-and-butter of blogging programs like [WordPress](http://wordpress.org), so odds of choking the interpreter seem pretty high. And in order to use them, I would have to wrap them in <div> tags, which is another potential boondoggle.

So instead, I decided to define a new class of unordered list for the container class, and define each of the elements as list items. One issue that quickly comes up is line spacing. For screenplays, you need one blank line after a line of action or dialogue, but none after a character name.

EXT. FOREST / ELSEWHERE - DAY

Susan is on a cell-phone call. She smiles at Melissa, who walks by with two cups of coffee.

SUSAN (V.O.)

Right now, this is probably our top pilot. But things change.

In markup, this looks like this:

<code>
<ul class="screenbox">
<li class="sceneheader">EXT. FOREST / ELSEWHERE – DAY</li>
<li class="action">Susan is on a cell-phone call. She smiles at Melissa, who walks by with two cups of coffee.</li>
<li class="character">SUSAN (V.O.)</li>
<li class="dialogue">Right now, this is probably our top pilot. But things change.</li>
</ul>
</code>

Here’s the CSS code that does the job:

.screenbox {
	list-style: none;
	width: 420px;
	background: #eee;
	border: 1px solid #333;
	padding: 5px 14px;
	
}

.screenbox li {
	font:  12px/14px Courier, fixed;
}

.sceneheader,
.action,
.character {
	padding-top: 1.5ex;
}

.action {
	padding-right: 5%;
}

.character {
	margin-left: 40%;
}

.dialogue {
	margin-left: 25%;
	padding-right: 25%;
}

.parenthetical {
	margin-left: 32%;
	padding-right: 30%;
}

/* special case: dialogue followed by
a parenthetical; the extra line needs 
to be suppressed */

.dialogue + .parenthetical {
	padding-bottom: 0;
}

.transition {
	padding-top: 3ex;
	margin-left: 65%;
	padding-bottom: 1.5ex;
}

I used a fixed width for the .screenbox (420 px), but the formatting looks okay for anywhere between 300 and 700 pixels. Everything else is handled by percentages for horizontal spacing, and ex heights for vertical spacing.

You’ll notice that .sceneheader is really no different than .action. I defined it so that if at some later date I decided to tweak it (for instance, adding scene numbers), the markup would already be there.

As always, anyone is welcome to use and modify this template as they see fit.