Seacrest, out!

Okay, time to buckle down and finish the first draft of a new 1 hour pilot I set aside last month.  In the spirit of writing pilots (or specs) I thought I’d take a moment to stress the importance of nailing your act outs.  Act outs (or act breaks) are the moments that come at the end of your teaser/cold open/acts that make your viewers want to stay tuned during the commercial breaks.  Having physical act breaks is one of the big differences between writing features and writing TV.  Network TV is made possible by sponsors, so if you’re flipping away at the commercial to another station/don’t care about what happens after the break, you’ve lost your audience (and your ratings, and your show).

Act outs are not to be taken lightly.  Most 1 hour dramas used to only have 4 acts, and maybe a teaser.  Now, networks are adding more commercial breaks which means most new 1 hour dramas have 5 or even 6 acts (and sometimes a teaser, too!).  That means...more act outs!  You can’t just gloss over/ignore these moments.  You MUST have them.  Don’t think you can just write a script where stuff happens whenever you want, cut it into 5 equal parts, and assume you have a show with 5 acts.  

A common act out is a cliffhanger (House’s patient just went into cardiac arrest, will he live or die?  Find out, after the break!).  Some shows have fewer life and death moments, so act outs are trickier/usually more about emotional beats.  But, even family dramas have cliffhangers.  I really enjoyed the show Everwood when it was on, and at the end of the teaser/prologue in the pilot we see Dr. Brown setting off with his family for the town of Everwood after his wife’s death (What’s in store for Dr. Brown and his family in this new town?  Find out, after the break!).

I think the popularity of certain cable shows (and popularity of spec'ing certain cable shows) makes learning to write act outs harder since many of those shows either don’t have commercial breaks, or are written without act breaks (like Mad Men).  That doesn't mean you don't need those moments in your script, but I think the omission of the visual cue (END OF ACT ONE) can mask when you're lacking such twists and turns.  If you’ve only spec’d cable shows, or shows without act breaks, I’d HIGHLY recommend doing a network show next so you can practice this skill (and I think it IS a skill...it's not exactly a piece of cake to come up with 7 unique and dynamic moments to place at the end of a teaser + 6 acts AND still write something great that's only about 50 pages long).  

So, how do you know if you have a good act out?  Well, I think one way to answer that question involves the #1 show on TV.  That's right...American Idol.  If you're ever working on a pilot or spec and find yourself feeling iffy about you act outs, think of that moment when Ryan Seacrest says something like: “The next person voted off the show is…going to find out, after the break!”  Ask yourself, "Could Seacrest take my act out and send us into commercial?"  If the answer is yes, then I think you're probably in good shape and can act out accordingly.