5Feb/12Off
Camera Magazine
TV SITCOM WRITING: HOW MANY PAGES IN A SCRIPT?
You've grown up watching situation comedies on television. You've always been enamored with TV "sitcoms." Maybe you saw Rob and Sally and Buddy on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and said to yourself, "Writing TV comedy looks like it would be a fun job. And sitcom writing looks pretty easy!"
Plus, you know that you're funny. Maybe your humorous essays have been published in magazines. Perhaps you regularly contribute a humor column to a magazine. You write a blog that lots of people think is funny. Or you've become famous for your funny tweets on Twitter.
But if you want to get a job as a TV sitcom writer, you can't email a hit comedy show's producers and say, "Hey, look at my funny tweets!"
You can't ask them to check out your funny blog.
No, as a beginning sitcom writer your calling card needs to be a spec script. You also need to be able to show prospective employers a sitcom pilot.
Probably you already know that. Perhaps you've already said to yourself, "I should be writing a sitcom script. "But you're also stymied by the question,"How many pages should my sitcom be?"
The length of your script really depends upon whether it's a single camera show or a multi-camera show.
A single camera show is shot like a movie. An example of a single camera show is M*A*S*H. TV sitcom scripts for single camera shows should be roughly 32 - 33 pages.
A multi-camera show is a television comedy that is filmed in front of a studio audience. "Seinfeld" is an example of a multi-camera show. "Friends" was shot multi-camera style. "Cheers" was a multi-camera show. The script for a multi-camera show should run roughly 40 pages.
Before you begin writing your spec script, you absolutely need to know the whether that show is single camera or multi-camera. That will determine the ultimate number of pages in your spec script.
If your multi-camera sitcom script is 42 or 43 pages long, that's okay. If your single camera script is 34 or 35 pages, that's okay. But don't submit a script that runs 60 pages.
Submitting a spec script that is much too long marks you as an amateur. It also indicates that you didn't know enough to conduct even a minimal amount of professional research.
To recap....
Single Camera Shows: Aim for 32 pages.
Multi-Camera Shows: Your target is 40 pages.
Nikon D5000 review by What Digital Camera
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