A Report from the Head Writers (Long!)

[Steve-O]

I think you guys did a fine job on the script, considering the time constraints and the pressures of the task.  It would have been nice to have had enough time to go back through the individual scripts and find stuff good enough to fill the gaps, but that simply wasn't the case this time out.  It's not like you two get paid to do this stuff eight hours a day.

Based on the comments I'm reading around the Internet, the gaps didn't detract majorly from folks' enjoyment of the track, unless A) they wrote a line they perceive as funny where there is instead silence, or B) they had already made up their minds to hate the track, and are looking for any excuse they can find to trash it.  Overall, considering that this project was more or less a proof-of-concept, I think it came out terrific.

The two-phased approach is a good idea.  Sure, some writers will already have burnt themselves out on the first go-round of the script, but others who may have glossed over the gaps due to their difficulty level might welcome the opportunity to revisit them with the heightened possibility of getting a line in.  There may also be some who tremble at the thought of submitting a full-length script, but are willing to attempt a script for the shorter gap areas.

My only suggestion -- which you may take or chuck as you see fit -- would be to perhaps get another set of eyes on the scripts during either the first phase, or to go over the original scripts to fill gaps.  I trust your judgment, James, but nowhere is "One man's trash is another man's treasure" so pertinent as in comedy writing.

[Chaos]

Your comment about another set of eyes is well taken. Especially when the number of full scripts starts to climb. Generally speaking, I only cut lines that I really don't see as funny, either because they aren't really what we would consider a "joke" for a RiffTrax (i.e. observations along the lines of "that was dumb!" - you really would be surprised how many of those I end up with), or because they are exceedingly obvious and I know I'm going to get 10-20 of them. I'm pretty forgiving during the first round, especially if I feel like I need to see the line in context to decide whether or not it works... I usually pass these straight through the first round and consider them again while I am watching the movie.

I think the main reason that I handle the first round of cuts pretty much solo (my wife usually helps, since I work on the scripts in the evening after my bill-paying job) is that I'm the one who does the magical Excel stuff that splits the pieces and combines it all into one master script. I truly loathe doing things by hand that can be done automagically with coding, because the coding saves time in the long run, and prevents human error. So since I'm doing all of the work on the script files anyway, I make the first round of cuts before handing the "master script" over to Chris, and he and his performance group take over from there (including additional writing sessions, if necessary). Doing it this way lets Chris and his gang hit the ground running from the first moment with a rough draft script. It's working well for us so far (polishing up the bits and pieces as we go).

[bettertomorrowamy]

I would also like to throw in that when jokes are being considered during both phases, the amount of jokes you send in are immaterial, and we have no promise to anyone to use at least one of their lines. If someone sends in ten jokes and they are all bad, I don't just say, "Well, which one is the best?" and try and find a place for it. If all ten lines aren't funny, then none of them are going in.

Meanwhile, if someone sends in 200 lines and all 200 are funny, all 200 go in. Our job is not to make anyone feel good by giving them a 'charity placement'. Our job is to make everyone feel good by making the best script possible.

What?!  No participation ribbons??  No best hustler awards???

[Chaos]

What?!  No participation ribbons??  No best hustler awards???

Just because I live in Canada doesn't mean I do business like the Juno awards. Not everybody gets a trophy.

[Jinto]

With the next release, we'll be releasing an updated template with a few changes, mostly in terms of the instructions and guidelines, hopefully to make it easier for people to write in the format that we need to work with the material, and to cut down on some of the flotsam and repeat jokes.

I would again suggest a version number be included within the template somewhere. The template is predictably going through changes as you figure things out, and you want to make sure you have an official version to be used for each movie you get scripts for. It's a small matter, and perhaps the version wouldn't change for a while after the 2nd or 3rd release, but it can be useful down the road if another change comes along.

Anyway, I also agree that a multi-phase review process for the script will be useful. Having a dedicated group of editors, or perhaps it would better to term them 'judges', could be good too, especially if you know that all of them have different tastes in comedy. Once all the "this is dumb" remarks are weeded out, having a 'Draft A' script that included, say, a checklist column for each judge that, without deleting riffs, would simply checkmark the ones you think are best and then compare with the opinions of the other judges. Anyway, a minimum of 3, but no more than 5 (odd numbers prefered to prevent ties except in the circumstance of a unanimous vote), I'd say would be a good "committee" of judges. So any joke that gets a unanimous thumbs up is a definite win, and a unanimous thumbs down is a definite 'out', and then you can go back and discuss the debated jokes. where 2/3 or 3/5 think a joke is funny or not funny.

Just a thought tossed out there for consideration.

[anais.jude]

I have a question:
Would it be possible to write a joke that could be placed anywhere? For example, the "Things the fans want to hear Bill say" or "The fans really wanted to see this?" Could have gone anywhere.
What do you guys (Chris and James) think?

[bratpop]

The "all related jokes on one line" thing is being changed, because we then have to rewrite the whole joke into individual lines and figure out the timecodes, which is time consuming. With the next release, we're going to be asking people to break them out and at least estimate how long it would take to say each line on its own

So now we have to base our cues on when an imaginary riffers stops talking? Just so you don't have to figure out how long the conversation is on your first readthrough? And how will you prevent lines from slipping in between parts of the muti-riffs? You blamed this on the master script idea, but it will still happen in phase 2 anyway. Sounds like this is less efficient, not more.

[FBX]

What if you did it as a wiki. It could go like this:

3:51 - Something funny*************
4:11 - Something unfunny**
4:11 - something dumb*
4:12 - something retarded
4:13 - something hilarious******************************

Sometimes you can build on someone else's joke and turn it into something funnier, or help build a running gag out of someone else's joke. The * indicates an individual signing that they think something is funny. What would be even better if there was a way to mouse-over the star and check that nobody is spamming them.

This would obviously ruin some of the surprise of figuring out if any of your stuff made it. However, it sounds to me the most dis-satisified individuals were the ones who watched the movie ahead of time and thought out all the possible jokes.

Maybe you could alternatively sign up, get formed with a team of 5 - 15 individuals, and work together with your own team wiki, then submit that. Best one gets a free rifftrax and their names (or alias, if you will) read at the end of the rifftrax?

[Steve-O]

There is not going to be a separate submission process for running gags.

I was just thinking about the running gag issue, and I think the easiest way to deal with them would be to put an additional field in the template.  Most of the time you would leave it blank, but if a line is part of a running gag, you would instead stick in a number.  All lines that are part of the same running gag would have the same number.

This approach accomplishes a couple of things.  First, it immediately alerts those going through the scripts that a given line is part of a running gag.  The reader can then skim through and quickly locate the other lines that go with it.  This way, a single line that might seem kind of dumb in isolation -- and that would therefore be summarily tossed out -- can be viewed in the context of the bigger gag.

Second, by tying the running gag lines to a unique integer, you can easily script up something to transfer all the lines that make up a gag into the master script at once.  Or, if it's simpler just to do things manually, you can just sort by the running gag column and copy all of the lines in bulk.

[Raven]

There is not going to be a separate submission process for running gags.

I was just thinking about the running gag issue, and I think the easiest way to deal with them would be to put an additional field in the template.  Most of the time you would leave it blank, but if a line is part of a running gag, you would instead stick in a number.  All lines that are part of the same running gag would have the same number.

This approach accomplishes a couple of things.  First, it immediately alerts those going through the scripts that a given line is part of a running gag.  The reader can then skim through and quickly locate the other lines that go with it.  This way, a single line that might seem kind of dumb in isolation -- and that would therefore be summarily tossed out -- can be viewed in the context of the bigger gag.

Second, by tying the running gag lines to a unique integer, you can easily script up something to transfer all the lines that make up a gag into the master script at once.  Or, if it's simpler just to do things manually, you can just sort by the running gag column and copy all of the lines in bulk.

I hope they seriously consider doing something like this.  I realize the volume of jokes made this impossible in the short time for B&R but I bet some pretty funny stuff got left out for that very reason.  To me the one of the funniest jokes in the movie was a 2 parter,  the Kevin's Coconut head bit.  And the Batman Jokes, while watching Batman was pretty funny too.

[Chaos]

I would consider putting in a column for someone to mark a joke they consider to be a "running gag" if everyone really feels it is necessary...  but I really don't think it is, because I read each script one at a time (another reason why putting them all together before I even start reading them is a bad idea)... I assure you, I am capable of recognizing that 10 lines with a similar theme spread throughout the entire script are intended to be put together as a running gag without the writer having to put a little "1" next to it to tell me it's a connected joke.

Either way, adding a column to the writing template wouldn't require any changes to my master script compiler... I already pull all the selected lines out of a file automatically through code, and it's quite easy to tell a running gag going into the script because they're all written by the same person. I'm sure that Chris also reads over the whole script before he starts cutting out any of the lines I feed to him in the first draft, but if we were concerned about losing parts of a running joke that I thought was really funny but he didn't feel was justified based on other jokes it conflicts with, it would be an easy enough matter to add a column to identify them on our end.

I was quite happy with the 2 or 3 running jokes that made it into the final script for B&R, and I don't think either of us had a problem noticing them initially or keeping them intact in the final script. Actually, Chris and I had a very lengthy discussion about the "coconut head" bit, because we both thought it was so great... which is why it made it into the script even though it meant we missed out on an opportunity to bash the bat-skates at the time of their appearance. That's why I went back and worked them into a joke a couple of minutes later when they were in the rocket ("Bat skates, bat bomb... what's next, shark repellant?") There is method to our madness!