As producers, it's mine and Katie's job to write the dialogue part of the studio script. This then gets passed on to the directors and they add in the cuts and camera shots and movements.
We split the studio script into our chosen halves - Katie on the first half (introduction, Steals of the Season & Fashion Fails) and I had the second half (Old to New, Independent Sellers, Drag and the outro). We wrote the mock script as an audio / visual script to start with to get the content and words down and then I formatted it into a proper studio script for the first version of the real script. We had one from a couple of years ago to compare and learn from. This script method was very different to what we've done before. I started writing the dialogue down in the right column and I needed to add directions such as PTC and links to VT, as well as all the dialogue.
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| Studio script example |
Helen brought up the fact that the words don't flow very well from different topics / sections in my first attempt at the studio script. She also said it needed to be more personal, e.g. one of the models might be a nurse and then we can say something like "so [MODEL 1] you're a nurse, how different is it wearing this instead of your uniform" etc. This made a lot of sense to me and would help the conversations flow better between presenters and models.
I had a look into other chat shows on television now, such as The One show, Strictly Come Dancing and This Morning to watch how they change gears and into the next topic.
The One Show
The relation between Alex Jones and Matt Baker is very natural. They have actual conversations around the scripted dialogue making their relationship more real.
They change gears and into the next segment by relating it to the previous topic. Here is an example of an episode (20/02/18) in which they are having a discussion with Stephen Graham and Lennie James about their new show and how they change into the next topic:
"We're going to keep you relaxed tonight, which is the idea...but just how relaxed would you feel if you opened up your cupboards, had a good rummage through them and we said to you that you had to stop using all the plastic in your life?"
By using the words relaxed they have linked an interview with two actors to a family who are planning to go 'plastic free' in their household to reduce the amount of plastic they throw away.
They do it again to transfer from the plastic free segment to football:
"Well, the congratulations are going to continue now... because we would like to congratulate League One's Wigan who knocked Manchester City out of the FA Cup..."
They congratulate the family on attempting to go plastic free, and then link the congratulations to a winning football team. This is my job as producer and scriptwriter to link our different segments together so the show flows better.
This Morning
I looked into a few different shows to see how they link different segments together. On this specific This Morning episode (20/02/18), they start by talking about KFC and eating chicken in front of the television while watching Coronation Street, which then led them onto the two actresses from Coronation Street who they are speaking to next. This interview then leads onto the phone-in which is always related to something in the show, they bring it up at the end of the interview by saying:
"So, if you find yourself in a similar situation to Rana and you're struggling with your sexuality then why don't you get involved in today's phone-in..."
This isn't the usual way of linking segments because the phone-in is a coming up segment but it is still put in that part of the show so it can link to the previous segment.
This Morning don't link all of their segments, sometimes they just say and "now, next is... / our next guest is..." and go onto a completely different topic.
More recently, I was watching This Morning and noticed another link from one segment to another. It was in the half term so the hosts were Eamonn and Ruth, and they were talking about Jamelia who sung Superstar, who was going to be on the show later.
"I remember getting a preview of Superstar for the national lottery on a saturday night, ahead of everybody else, and it was the thing from the national lottery jet set."
"Well there we are, you can reminisce when she’s here."
"I will do - talking of saturday night, we’ll be joined by the Voice runner up, Donel and his dancing nan, Nita, at 11:20"
Here, Eamonn talks about his own experience involving Jamelia, and then links it with, "talking of Saturday night..." to which they then go on to talk about the runner up of The Voice, who will also be joining them later on in the show.
The One Show
The relation between Alex Jones and Matt Baker is very natural. They have actual conversations around the scripted dialogue making their relationship more real.
They change gears and into the next segment by relating it to the previous topic. Here is an example of an episode (20/02/18) in which they are having a discussion with Stephen Graham and Lennie James about their new show and how they change into the next topic:
"We're going to keep you relaxed tonight, which is the idea...but just how relaxed would you feel if you opened up your cupboards, had a good rummage through them and we said to you that you had to stop using all the plastic in your life?"
By using the words relaxed they have linked an interview with two actors to a family who are planning to go 'plastic free' in their household to reduce the amount of plastic they throw away.
They do it again to transfer from the plastic free segment to football:
"Well, the congratulations are going to continue now... because we would like to congratulate League One's Wigan who knocked Manchester City out of the FA Cup..."
They congratulate the family on attempting to go plastic free, and then link the congratulations to a winning football team. This is my job as producer and scriptwriter to link our different segments together so the show flows better.
This Morning
I looked into a few different shows to see how they link different segments together. On this specific This Morning episode (20/02/18), they start by talking about KFC and eating chicken in front of the television while watching Coronation Street, which then led them onto the two actresses from Coronation Street who they are speaking to next. This interview then leads onto the phone-in which is always related to something in the show, they bring it up at the end of the interview by saying:
"So, if you find yourself in a similar situation to Rana and you're struggling with your sexuality then why don't you get involved in today's phone-in..."
This isn't the usual way of linking segments because the phone-in is a coming up segment but it is still put in that part of the show so it can link to the previous segment.
This Morning don't link all of their segments, sometimes they just say and "now, next is... / our next guest is..." and go onto a completely different topic.
More recently, I was watching This Morning and noticed another link from one segment to another. It was in the half term so the hosts were Eamonn and Ruth, and they were talking about Jamelia who sung Superstar, who was going to be on the show later.
"I remember getting a preview of Superstar for the national lottery on a saturday night, ahead of everybody else, and it was the thing from the national lottery jet set."
"Well there we are, you can reminisce when she’s here."
"I will do - talking of saturday night, we’ll be joined by the Voice runner up, Donel and his dancing nan, Nita, at 11:20"
Here, Eamonn talks about his own experience involving Jamelia, and then links it with, "talking of Saturday night..." to which they then go on to talk about the runner up of The Voice, who will also be joining them later on in the show.
Loose Women
Loose Women also link their segments well, for example this episode (16/02/18) Stacey Solomon, explains how the press thought she was engaged when she was just being silly and saying 'I said yes' when she was out to dinner, the panel were all laughing at her story and Andrea McLean says:
"But, you know, staying on the subject of marriage, and this genuinely made us sad today - this is the news about the end of a marriage coming out today..."
So, with this method, they actually say 'well we're staying on that same subject because...'. This flowed well and was appropriate because they were staying on the same subject, just the sad side to it. We wouldn't be able to do this on our show because all our segments are so different. We could possibly say it when we introduce a VT because they all link in with their specific segments. We would have to try it out and see if it flows well with our content first.
Another way they introduce another topic, is:
"Now this is completely different..."
Here, they have actually said that this is completely different but it's still a relevant story which they want to talk about. If our show was real and was a weekly thing then maybe we could use links like these but as we're only creating the first half an hour, I think we can link the segments to previous content making the whole show flow well.
This episode of Loose Women included a weekly 'fun facts' segment where one woman had to dig around in a ball pit to find a number - the number then corresponded to a number of a fun fact which another woman read out. The woman didn't find all the numbers so she said she would go back at the end of the show:
"At the end of the show I will go back and find it"
"Oh no we can't wait that long, so shall i tell you what the fun fact was?...Did you know - birds don't fart. Who knew?...but do robots fart? There's a thought, they're making them more and more realistic, who knows? And they say robots will one day take over the world..."
They manage to link the 'fun facts' segment to the next segment, about robots, in a fun and interesting way, which has got the viewer interested in the next topic about the robots.
Evaluation of research
All three shows have featured current issues and there's been a reason why it's been spoken about. For example, The One Show had the plastic segment which is very current as selected supermarkets are going plastic free on their shelves to prevent plastic waste, and on This Morning they start with introducing the cooking segment and how to create your own KFC because some of the KFC stores are closing around the country. We need to get across why we've chosen to speak about our segments and the reasoning behind it / why we're talking about it now. We know the reasons why but we need this to come across in the actual script.
After researching into different ways chat shows change into different topics, I have started applying this into my second half of the script by linking Fashion Fails to Old to New by saying:
"I had one of those [dresses] back in the day! I think it’s at the bottom of my wardrobe now and it’s never seeing the light of day again!...
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| Section of Steal the Style studio script - Version 1 |
References:
- BBC iPlayer. (n/d). The One Show. Available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09rblws/the-one-show-20022018. Last accessed 21st Feb 2018.
- ITV Hub (n/d). This Morning. Available: https://www.itv.com/hub/this-morning/1a1960a5733. Last accessed 21st Feb 2018.
- ITV Hub. (n/d). Loose Women. Available: https://www.itv.com/hub/loose-women/1a3173a2967. Last accessed 21st Feb 2018.
- ITV Hub (n/d). This Morning. Available: https://www.itv.com/hub/this-morning/1a1960a5733. Last accessed 21st Feb 2018.
- ITV Hub. (n/d). Loose Women. Available: https://www.itv.com/hub/loose-women/1a3173a2967. Last accessed 21st Feb 2018.
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