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We're Ready to Roll,
but Where's the Script?
by Ray Richmond
It's the problem that won't go away and, in fact, appears only to be growing worse.
The late delivery of television series scripts — particularly for single-camera shows — has grown to become much more than a mere chronic annoyance. It's now a problem that threatens an already delicate financial balancing act for episodic TV. The tardiness negatively impacts every area of production, generating perpetual anxiety, budgetary overruns and occupational peril in equal measure.
Like the weather, everyone gripes about scripts that habitually arrive past deadline — and no one has been able to do much about it. But, finally, someone's trying.
A subcommittee of the DGA's Television Creative Rights Committee, comprised of directors of single-camera comedies and dramas, is busily developing and implementing a course of action to convince CEOs, studio management, writers and producers (as well as writer-producers) of the necessity for timely script delivery. It also emphasizes the need for genuine improvement in the culture and practices that permit late scripts to occur as an acceptable practice.
In other words, it's not simply that writers need to be reined in; a makeover in the mindset that tolerates such behavior is likewise in order.
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Subcommittee Co-chairs Mel Damski and Rod Holcomb acknowledge that, while there isn't necessarily any single answer with which to address the issue, the fact that the question is being asked at all represents a step in the right direction.
"What it comes down to is that we're not hired to be traffic cops; we're hired to be directors," says Damski, whose directing credits include episodes of Ally McBeal, Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, Lou Grant and Barnaby Jones. "We want to collaborate with writers and do the best work we can do, and you just can't do that if you don't have any prep time."
Adds Holcomb, who directed the pilots and additional episodes of The Education of Max Bickford, ER, China Beach, Wiseguy and The Equalizer: "When a script is late, a whole lot of things wind up being late in the process. One of the things we're suggesting is that studio heads move up the (production) dates a little bit. It may cost someone a little more money to put writers on a little earlier, but, in the long run, it will actually save money. And the product will wind up improving as well."
Of course, longer production lead times is only one of the suggestions on the table in searching for the late-script remedy. Another is public disclosure of those production companies and shows that seem to have habitual lateness issues or infringements, thereby using shame as a tool in the arsenal.
To get a more complete picture of just what directors deal with, a brief (and anonymous) questionnaire was sent out in April to DGA director members who work primarily in the single-camera genre. It asked such questions as whether directors ever received a script or scripts later than one day prior to the commencement of their prep period and, if so, how many days late.
A detailing of the consequences of such lateness on a given episode's production also was requested in the survey. It included possibilities such as the inability to get the desired cast, inability to obtain the best locations, losing necessary prep time for designing shots, added production time due to inadequate prep, inadequate rehearsal time with actors, cost overruns due to production inefficiency, negative impact on the quality of the production and, last but far from least, negative impact on a director's reputation.
Victoria Hochberg, whose directorial credits include segments of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman; Melrose Place; Touched By an Angel and Sex and the City recalls an instance where one of her jobs involved a script in which nearly the entire hour took place on a train and was extremely complicated.
"And the script was five days late out of a seven-day prep," Hochberg remembers. "Fortunately, they extended my prep time or it could have been disastrous. But that kind of thing happens on a lot of series.
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"Writers write and directors direct. And when writers don't write on time, why should the director be expected to direct on time? Directors have to control scores of people, an enormous amount of equipment, trucks, vans, casting and locations. It's a huge strategic undertaking. And if you have no script, you simply cannot operate. Sometimes, I think writers who are late don't fully grasp what the ramifications of that tardiness really are."
Those ramifications of late delivery are, indeed, typically significant, often forcing a show's entire creative team to work longer hours and in a much more compressed fashion.
"It ultimately impacts everyone in the process, from top to bottom," believes Charles Haid, whose credits span L.A. Law, NYPD Blue, Murder One (which he co-created) and Buddy Faro. "It impacts the network, which may not get the product on time; the studio, whose responsibility it is to deliver that product; the executive producer, whose job it is to give that product to the studio; to everyone responsible for making the product. It affects all of the production people who have to push that much harder."
Adds Damski: "How do you get a guest cast when you have no script? You don't. People won't commit without a script. When you only receive the script two days before you're supposed to begin shooting — and the actor you show it to says 'No' — now you're stuck without a cast. You have to cast it, so you wind up starting to compromise tremendously.
"Plus, when you get the script so late and you suddenly find out that you need a whole new set, you've got to put crews on all weekend working double-time to build it. That's a major cost factor."
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Indeed, the financial repercussions of late scripts can, by themselves, be huge. Holcomb recalls one series he worked on where the shooting scripts were notoriously late. By the seventh season, however, that began to change, and for the subsequent two years the scripts arrived on time.
"We calculated that over those last two years, the cost savings amounted to more than $3 million," Holcomb stresses.
Damski concurs. "We hear so much from the studios and networks about how difficult it is to make money on television. But we feel the script-promptness issue is one way where they can make shows more economically and efficiently.
"I did a show last year where we built an $85,000 apartment for one of the characters. But they wound up changing the story line and never used it. So we just threw away $85,000. Meanwhile, the apartment was just sitting there, so they decided to use it for an insurance office set. The week after that, they needed it for a guest star whom it made sense to use it for. But they'd already made it into an insurance office, so they couldn't use it. That's the kind of lack of proper planning that results from not having scripts in on time. You're looking at a tremendous waste of money."
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To some directors, like Haid, the issue is a simple one. As he says, "The solution is to have scripts come in on time. If we are in a business set up to deliver a certain amount of material at a certain time, then everyone has to do his part to make sure it happens. In this case, that begins and ends with the writer-producer. All of us — from writer to director to producer to actor — are forced to make certain compromises to keep the engine running."
However, others view the problem as somewhat more complex. The increasingly visual ambition and sophistication of single-camera dramatic scripts in particular has attached an extra layer of creative execution into the mix, for one thing.
"The audience demands are so great today that the complexity and density of current scripts and shows are that much tougher to prepare by the writing staff," believes Bob Butler, who has directed the pilots and episodes of Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele, Moonlighting and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. "You have more characters and more scenes packed in today than you did a decade ago."
Perhaps that's one reason why, as Paris Barclay (The West Wing, Diagnosis Murder, NYPD Blue) notes, some 75% to 80% of episodic scripts (primarily dramas) are now delivered habitually late.
"Some think that the writers are the sole culprit, but the problem is really much bigger than that," agrees Bob Berlinger, whose credits span half-hours (Veronica's Closet, Dharma & Greg, Sports Night) as well as hours (Gilmore Girls, Ed, Chicago Hope).
"As TV gets more visually sophisticated, the expectations grow higher among network executives. But solely pointing one's finger at the writer and complaining about the script being late seems somewhat shortsighted."
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Mark Tinker tends to agree. But the man who has directed episodes of everything from The Bob Newhart Show to The White Shadow to L.A. Law also recalls that he never had to deal with a late script on St. Elsewhere.
"Not even once," Tinker emphasizes. "But I agree that as movies have grown more sophisticated — with multilayered stories — TV has needed to try to compete with that. Shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The X-Files require a lot of complicated process."
That said, Tinker points out that script lateness seems to happen most chronically on shows that are "enmeshed with their own process" and that involve "people with a singular vision like (writer-producers) David E. Kelley, Aaron Sorkin and David Milch.
"Sometimes a guy's process is a guy's process, and you can't change that. It's just that it makes it more difficult for everybody, from the director to the actors, to try to prep and get things ready to be shot. Everything winds up getting rushed. It's like trying to run a marathon with a 50-lb pack on your back. You end up with a helluva set of leg muscles, but you're really, really tired."
So is Tinker implying that certain writer-producers operate above the law?
"Well, maybe a little bit," he admits. "These guys do such a tremendous job creatively. And in the interest of keeping the production wheels turning, we sort of live with (the lateness). Either you make the show with late scripts or you don't make it at all. Or maybe part of the answer is for the networks to give us earlier pickups, especially when they know a show will be returning the following year. That way, they can generate more material in advance."
Certainly, the cost to the directors who must bear the burden of the literary snafus can be immense. For starters, as Barclay stresses, "It invariably winds up affecting who gets hired to do the job in the first place. If there's a problem on scripts, you're less inclined to try new directors because only the old-timers are perceived to be able to deal with having only three or four days of prep.
Jonathan Kaplan, who has directed 25 ER hours to date, agrees that the problem of late script delivery has a direct impact on women and minorities being hired for directing jobs. "Producers are less inclined to want to throw a first-timer or second-timer into a situation where you get a script in pieces. It makes you think twice before hiring diverse prospects because you know they'll be judged solely on this show and may not get another shot."
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Were he as the director be late turning in a show, Kaplan adds, "My employment would seriously come into question. But there doesn't seem to be any consequences for late delivery of material. At a certain point, the definition of a professional should be someone who is able to walk that high wire and deliver the show on time — and deliver a good show on time."
Victoria Hochberg knows too well what happens to directors who can't turn around an episode of quality, no matter how short the prep.
"We're freelancers, we're not members of the family," she says. "We're not given a pass when things go wrong. I'm the visitor, the outsider. I'm not in the room when people start blaming people. And when there's a late script, I work at a complete disadvantage. It starts bad and never gets better. As the director, I'm responsible for taking that prairie schooner from Missouri to Sacramento. And when I don't have the proper supplies, I wind up as one of the Donner Party. The director is the first on the menu to be eaten — alive if necessary."
So what's the ultimate solution? There may not necessarily be a single one. However, Damski believes, "We're looking to do everything possible to make sure that the script winds up on the director's desk for the first day of prep. Whatever it takes to accomplish that, we should all be willing to try."
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