2008: The Directors and Writers Thread

[Toups]

If we're going by credits, no it hasn't.

[Felix]

Here's a question: How do soap writers (and television writers in general) manage to write a script that is just long enough to take up an hour of television? Is it something that they just get through experience? I'm sure that for those of you who are writers it seems like no big deal, but I think it's pretty neat.

[MarkH]

Sara Bibel tried to answer that here.

I'm posting an excerpted quote here below. But note the text I bolded!!! It turns out Sara weighed in on this writer scandal back on 7/21!! She scooped Nelson!

[cct]

Toups,

Can you tell us if there are writers leaving on AMC? It seems an inordinate amount of scripts are being attributed to Beall and Walsh lately, the BDWs. WE've had some Hall and Cohen thrown in here and there with a Taylor or two. But I just think this is odd and don't recall this during the last transition from McT to B&E. You don't have to say who, when, or where. Just give me a

[R Sinclair]

Walsh and Beall definitely did write an incredible amount during the last transition.

[Felix]

Thanks, MarkH! Wow, it does seem like a very precise, difficult process. I'd still love to be a part of it, though! ;b

[Soapsuds]

- ATWT: Leslie Nipkow no longer listed in credits.

-

[Toups]

Thanks, Ron. Davis should be gone in a couple of weeks and Rayfield should be in soon.

[dm.]

Toups, I believe Ahern/Laughlin/Meals/Goldberg are also done. They haven't written in awhile.

[Toups]

I'll give it another week so it can be a full month since they last wrote before I do a "last listed" for them.

[LeClerc]

Pratt said this about the AMC writing team in a SOD online interview:

They've got it distilled down to a really fantastic group of writers — Addie's been here forever, some of the new young kids coming in and the ones that I'm going to bring in....

So he's keeping Addie Walsh. (But I disagree with his assessment that she's been there "forever"; she's been there for quite a while but anyone who joined AMC after 2000 like her is still a newbie in my books, and never experienced any of AMC's glory years).

Strange that he would single out Walsh as having been there forever and not Beldner. Might he be leaving?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Frankly, Beldner is a crappy script editor and should be writing breakdowns (oh wait, Julie won't allow that).

[Soapsuds]

Ok Alvin..tell me what the difference is between script editor and breakdown writer? I know what a breakdown writer does but not a script editor...well..nevermind I think I know now...lol....he edits the scripts written by the script writer...correct?...lol

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Yes, and can also check for certain continuity errors (though there's other people in production that also check for continuity and do legal and medical research).

[Khan]

I think that's part of it, Soapsuds. (Mind if I step in, Alvin, lol?) The script editor must, among other things, pay attention to continuity, history references, and whether what a character is saying is actually what he/she would say in that situation. Also, IIRC, the SE's on-hand, should they need to cut part or all of a scene, or whether they need a new scene entirely.