nickelodeon writing fellowship – month 2

merry christmas eve! i’ve already been at nickelodeon 2 months!  i feel much more comfortable, but i’m still getting used to being there, and it still kind of blows my mind that i somehow made it in. month 2 has been a continuation of everything we were doing in month 1: meetings, classes, writing, and rewriting. here are the scripts i’ve been working on:

30 ROCK
the rewrite of my 30 rock script was approved! it took several drafts, but the script is much better now than when i originally submitted it. the biggest change was originally the B and C story were too close in weight, so i ended up flipping the B and C story, and then giving the new B story more scenes than the C story.

the rest of the changes were rather small, but they made a big difference in the story. one of the last changes i made was a line of dialogue where liz leaves the writers’ room and tells frank and the writers she’s going to see jack. without adding or changing anything else, i came up with a new line that has her going to a different location that makes more sense plot wise, and doing something that shows her character, reflects the theme of the episode, and is also a joke. all that from one line that started out as a lazy line of exposition!

COUGAR TOWN
my cougar town script is almost done. i handed in the 3rd draft before the holiday break, and i’ll be finishing it up in january. when i first started this project, i was really worried at having to write for a show that i had never seen and had no interest in seeing. then i got more worried after having my first few premise lines rejected. the solution was for me to go back and spend more time doing research. i watched all of the episodes again and took a lot of notes, found things that i liked about the show, then came up with better premises, one of which was approved. then i wrote a pretty solid outline that had the A and B story figured out, but i didn’t think of a C story in the outline. i thought i could just come up with one later while writing the 1st draft, but that was a mistake i won’t be making in the future.

COMMUNITY
i’m working on the rewrite of my community script. for my 30 rock i just had to start rewriting, but for community, i had to go back to the outline because there were bigger structural issues. i have to write my outline over the holiday break. i like my original premise, but i might have to come up with a brand new idea.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2011
we’ll be taking an improv class at UCB, attending the robert mckee story seminar, and most exciting of all, we’ll be getting assigned to nickelodeon shows!