Study Hall: Pilot Outlines--Comedy One

As a prose writer, I'm used to heavily employing language to build my visuals and create my experience. I think I'm a fairly visual writer, but I can definitely fall in love with a notion and write about it for paragraphs. Prose and screenwriting are simply different beasts. In order to transition into writing for the screen, I want to work on both becoming more succinct in my writing and learning the structure for television vision.

My goal for the foreseeable future is to balance my time between continuing to write as much as I can when I can and building a foundation for writing for the screen. Watching and analyzing television, reading scripts, absorbing knowledge from those willing to share. The words of a high school writing teacher have always stuck with me, "Say only what you mean," "The words are there, find them and make them count," and "Ask yourself, 'What's at stake here?'". These words have guided me throughout all of my writing, and I find myself revisiting them more and more as I dive into writing for the screen. 

As I watch and study television, pilots in particular for obvious reasons, I'll post my outlines and observations here to keep me accountable. I'm going to start by outlining 6 pilots. Three half-hour comedies, three one-hour dramas, then I'll dig a little deeper into at least one of each, likely exploring the arc of the full season, then regroup from there. By the end of this, I hope to be more succinct and compelling in quick description and develop a stronger sense for act breaks and structure in television. 

Alright, time to quit stalling and get on with the first outline. 

Comedy One: Brooklyn 99 written by Dan Goor and Michael Schur

Cold Open:

Two detectives investigate an electronics store after a robbery. One detective, Santiago,  is serious, all about the business. The other is goofy, playing around with the products in the store, but has already cracked the case, much to his partner’s chagrin: a nanny cam inside a teddy bear has footage of the robbers,

Act One

Scene 1:

Detectives Peralta and Santiago recount their case to the rest of the 99th precinct, Santiago adds another tally to Peralta’s case count: they’re in a heated competition. The go over the details of a murder case, stopping to playfully joke and speculate on nonessential details about a witness before being reigned in by their superior officer who then reveals that their new C.O., Captain Holt will be arriving sink to introduce himself.

Scene 2*:

Another member of the precinct, Charles, asks Gina for help finding date ideas so he can ask out another detective, Rosa.

Scene 3:

Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago speculate about the new captain while Jake reminisces about an old Captain who was particularly lenient and tolerant of his shenanigans. He goes on a brief, comedic rant about how the new Captain will be a straight-laced, washed up pencil pushing robot, complete with voice and theatrics right as the new captain entered the room. He swiftly scolds Jake, instructing him to come to work in a necktie, and introduces himself.

Scene 4:

Captain Holt pulls the Sergeant into his office for a private discussion of the Sargeant’s administrative leave and current mental health struggles. They shift the subject to the detective squad and the Sergeant gives a swift break down over a montage of all the detectives as he describes them

Sculpt, Hitchcock and Daniels: pretty much worthless but make good coffee

The good ones:

Rosa Díaz: tough, smart, really scary

Charles Boyle: not the most brilliant, but he works harder than everyone else

Amy Santiago: always trying to prove she’s tough

Jacob Peralta: best detective, he likes to solve puzzles but hasn’t grown up

The captain wants to make their precincts the best, and in order to do that, they must start with Jake Peralta.

End Act One (four scenes)

Scene 5:

The detective squad investigates a murder scene, Jake Peralta hands out neckties as ‘prizes’ and bemoans the captain’s insistence he wears one to work. They discuss evidence, including a $6000 ham the perpetrator stole.  Peralta mentions contacting the captain about what they found and the captain enters the room. He demands to know why Jake isn’t wearing a tie as he requested and assigns Jake and Amy ‘door duty’ which Jake describes as “a waste of time” and sends Rosa Diaz and Charles Boyle to the coroner’s office.

Scene 6:

Díaz heads to her car and Boyle asks her on a date to a movie. She says yes.

Scene 7:

Captain Holt asks Gina, his civilian administrator, for details about Jake and Amy’s bet/competition. If Amy wins, Jake needs to give her his car. If Jake wins, Amy must go on a date with him.

Scene 8:

On door duty, Jake and Amy ask the building tenants about the murder. Most of what they find doesn’t appear to help the case. They make another quick bet which Amy loses.

Scene 9:

Jake and Amy debrief the detective squad. Jake reveals he is wearing a necktie beneath his shirt, tied around his torso. Captain Holt is frustrated at the antics and asks the squad if they know why it is important to him that they all dress appropriately. No one has an answer.

Scene 10:

Jake asks Charles about the expensive ham and if there is a local place that sells them.

Scene 11:

At the deli, Jake and Charles interrogate the deli employee, Ratko, and accuse him of the murder. Ratko flees. Jake and Charles return to the 99 to break the bad news to a furious Captain Holt.

End Act Two (7 scenes)

Scene 12:

Captain Holt assigns Jake to the records room. We see a flashback of Captain Holt solving his biggest case. Amy teases Jake about letting the murderer go.

Scene 13:

Rosa asks Charles what movie he got them tickets to. He states he got tickets to all of them out of fear of angering her. Upset by this confession, Rosa cancels their date.

Scene 14:

Wearing a necktie, Jake tells Captain Holt what relevant information he found in the file room. Captain Holt is impressed, but when Jake stands up and reveals he is wearing a speedo, Captain Holt calls the rest of the precinct into the file room to humiliate him.

Scene 15:

Jake, Amy, and Holt are in a car staking out a location. Jake gloats about the lack of official dress code for stakeouts, before asking Holt why it took him so long to get his own command. Holt reveals he’s gay and we see a flashback montage of all the subtle clues to Holt’s orientation throughout the precinct.

Scene 16:

In a separate car on the stakeout, Rosa reimburses Charles for all the money he spent on movie tickets. Charles attempts to ask her out again. She refuses but confesses to enjoying his company.

Scene 17:

Holt tells Amy and Jake about his journey through the NYPD as a black, gay officer. Jake apologizes for giving him a hard time, but the moment is stopped short by Ratko entering the building they’ve been watching.

Scene 18:

Inside the storage facility, Holt, Jake and Amy search for Ratko. Jake noticed a storage unit with a broken lock. He opens the door and reveals Rotko. Jake tells him the team has him surrounded and has an epiphany about the ties being a uniform. They arrest Rotko and call it a day.

End Act Three (seven scenes)



*blue text denotes B plot

Day One

FADE IN:

INT. APARTMENT — DAY

A modest yet beautiful apartment is filled with partially unpacked boxes. Despite the decent dimensions, there is barely space to move about the room. What should be rapid clicking of a keyboard sounds more like minute hand ticks of a clock.

V, with unkempt hair and three-day-old eyeliner she forgot she was even wearing until she rubbed it onto her hand after a yawn, sits at her desk (read: dining room table) attempting to write. She's 27.

V

You didn’t think this was the screenplay, did you? Jesus fucking Christ, guys. I know exactly one (1) thing about script writing and that will not a screenplay make.

Her brow furrows and she takes a generous sip of wine. Noticing the margins in this post editor, she takes a second, larger sip. 

V (CONT'D)

(willing herself to continue) 

Whatever. Point being, I'm definitely new here in screentown.

She groans, wincing, keenly aware of how stupid she looks talking to her laptop and subconscious of how dumb "screentown" was. She shakes her head and restarts her performance for her imaginary audience.

V (CONT'D)

Storytelling and I go way back. Practically flew out the womb together. I'm no stranger to dreaming up worlds or expanding upon the worlds I fall in love with. As a kid, I would get lost in television for just as many hours as I would spend with my nose in books. Unlike my peers, I didn't feel a need to separate the two. Literature wasn't superior to me, just a different way to tell the story. I always wanted to be a creator of worlds and a guide through the imaginable.

She nods to herself, proud of that one. She reaches for more wine, taking another generous 'sip', when it hits her. Holy shit! I should be writing this down! She slams the glass down, hard enough that she checks it over for cracks. Returning to her keyboard, the metronomic drone of sporadic clicks quickens to an underwhelming second-hand pace.

V (V.O.)

Fast forward to my late twenties. I'm burnt out and not getting any younger. Stuck in a bullshit job that is running me into the ground. I would say 'I don't know where I went wrong', but it was probably somewhere between my Big Meltdown and dropping out of university after the accident. I'm sick to death of just floating through my life and I'm ready to start taking calculated risks.

The click of the keyboard builds almost exponentially with each new word.

V (CONT'D)

For the first time since my starry-eyed childhood, I'm looking forward and setting goals. I'm writing every moment I get and pushing myself to do and be more. My little stint as a poet really brought out a deep love of form and the challenge it presents. There is something to be said about being presented with a strict structure and working out when and how to adhere to it, and when you're ready to bend and twist it to your will. I love the journey of beginning as a student of form and growing to something more competent.

A smile spreads across her face that she fails to notice until it starts to hurt. The clicking of the keys is feverishly loud as she types as fast as her fingers will take her. Fat fingered false starts trip her up every few moments, resulting in heavy thumps as she quickly backspaces through her mistakes before beginning again.

V (CONT'D)

More importantly, I'm tired of hiding in my little fanfiction safety net. My prose is the strongest it has ever been and I'm serious about writing for the first time since the accident to put everything on hold. I want to make a choice, one that ultimately may not end how I hope it will, but I want to make a choice and get proper serious. I want to blend my love of language, form, television, and storytelling into one and take a stab at writing screenplays. This is the beginning of some sort of journey. One of uncertainty, fueled by tenacity and wine. It could be life changing, or it could be a total bust, but I know that is ultimately dependent upon me and the drive and work I put behind it. I'm not saying I'm going to whisk myself off to Hollywood or Vancouver just yet, or at all, but I am going to get serious about learning to apply my writing chops in a new form. I'm going to build up skills and create a portfolio, and take it from there.

Reminded of the wine, she reaches for the glass and attempts to throw back the contents, only to find she emptied it on her last sip. She sets the glass down with a sigh and returns to her keyboard.

V (CONT'D)

For now, the journey is as follows: Study television shows and their screenplays, keep fucking writing, learn as much as I can about the craft (beat) of writing television, not witchcraft, but I guess that couldn't hurt either. I hope you'll join me on finding out exactly where the fuck I'm about to go.

FADE OUT.

END OF ACT ONE