In the third of our series of blogs celebrating Scottish productions to mark we turn to Comedy and the spoof Police documentary series , created, written and narrated by Joe Hullait.
I鈥檓 the writer of Scot Squad鈥ort of.
Scot Squad is improvised. So how does that make me a writer? The thing is, narrative television can鈥檛 be improvised out of thin air. There are editorial, logistical, and financial reasons for needing dialogue to take place within certain boundaries. When playing loveable nuisance Bobby Muir, actor Darren Connell needs to know his character鈥檚 objective in the scene and how Officer is going to help him reach a resolution.
Without structure Bobby might end up inviting Karen over to his Uncle Jeffy鈥檚 to investigate a鈥�. Potato burglary.
But if we鈥檝e not prepared for that invite then we鈥檝e got no house to go and no actor to play Uncle Jeffy. Dependent on how far away Darren wants to pretend Jeffy鈥檚 house is we might not even have enough memory available to film the whole scene. Meanwhile the actors are stressed. Darren doesn鈥檛 know what a 鈥減otato burglary鈥� is because he made it up. And Karen is panicking because her performance is dependent on portraying a competent cop. She can鈥檛 do that if she hasn鈥檛 had the chance to research police procedures for dealing with potato burglaries.
So no, Scot Squad isn鈥檛 written. But it isn鈥檛 not written either.
The simplest explanation of our process is to say that the story is written whilst the dialogue within that story is improvised. Our story scripts outline the main beats of a scene. Because we鈥檙e dealing with crime stories these beats will often help us establish what crime has taken place, who the victim is, how they are feeling, how the cops want to resolve that situation, and how they actually resolve it. The last two beats are similar but different. The gap between how a character perceives their ability to resolve a situation and the reality of how they actually resolve the situation is where the biggest laugh can come from. PC Jack McLaren may think he can knock a beehive out of a tree but the story鈥檚 ending proves otherwise.
Peppered throughout the script are little details that hopefully help the actors find more laughs. Sometimes there鈥檚 suggested dialogue written on the page to help capture the mindset of a character. In addition to this I will be on set every day watching the takes, monitoring whether we鈥檙e sticking to what鈥檚 in the story script, and being on hand to write any last minute changes that might be needed when a great line from an actor sparks an entirely new and unplanned tangent. It鈥檚 very hard to convey a sense of what the script looks like through description, so I recommend downloading it from the 大象传媒 Writersroom Script Library.
Once we know we鈥檙e going to make a series (the show鈥檚 other Story Producer) and I race to write as many stories as possible. We鈥檒l also meet with actors to discuss these ideas and to consider their thoughts. Many actors will contribute stories themselves. Chris leads when it comes to compiling the script itself, which allows me to be actively involved in the audition process. Sometimes a good actor will come up with something so good at a casting that rather than slot them into a story you鈥檝e already written, we will write up a new story centred on them. (It鈥檚 a long story for another day, but there was never supposed to be such a character as Bobby until Darren auditioned for the show.)
The series exec producer and the director are kept in the loop of the developing stories and will also contribute themselves. They will also relay to us the broader sense of what the channel like about the show and how we might accommodate that.
The director鈥檚 early opinion on the stories is essential because it helps us address any practical concerns he might have about the practical side of filming them. Remember the example of Uncle Jeffy鈥檚 potato burglary? Well, let鈥檚 say we鈥檝e written that out and decided that a potato burglary means having potatoes stolen from your house. The natural conclusion of that story is for Officer Karen to find the culprit. That means finding evidence, and that itself means finding lots of potatoes. An ungodly amount of a potatoes. So many potatoes, filling one house. We might think that sounds funny when we write it, but the director could raise shooting problems that we can address at this stage.
To be perfectly honest I can鈥檛 see any problem with Karen and Bobby visiting a house packed to the rafters with potatoes. But that鈥檚 why I鈥檓 not a director. I鈥檓 just a writer. Sort of.