Personality and Opinion in Stage Directions

My all time favorite script line of Buffy is from "Innocence" when Joss... writes something to the effect of "The bastard actually winks at her." [...] Do you recommend this level of spunky personality in writing our spec pilots to help our work stand out? Or is this an indulgence extended to established writers?"

This one has an easy answer. Yes! I recommend this kind of writing. Absolutely. Feel free to put personality and opinion in your stage directions. It makes you sound confident and it helps the reader keep track of what you're intending them to take away from the script at any given point.

However, as long as we're in the neighborhood, there is one thing that you will find in the stage directions of produced episodes that you shouldn't adopt. I'm talking about hyper-specific instructions on set design or visual effects or props. I'm talking about stage directions like: "I'm seeing the room as having a claustrophobic feel, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a small room. Let's just make sure that it's laid out to have a cramped feeling." You'll see things like this all the time, but it's not appropriate for a spec, for the obvious reason that material with this level of specificity is intended to provide guidance to actual production people, which you don't have.

But jokes? Personality? Attitude? Yes... do that, please!

Literal Thinking

Jon from Minneapolis writes in to propose my favorite type of discussion -- a little exploration of joke-types. Ooh! Fun! Thank you, Jon!

Here are two jokes that he suggests form a category. In the first one, from the movie Hot Fuzz, the small town's chief of police is talking to the newly transplanted Nick Angel:

Chief (serious): Well, there's one thing your predecessor had that you'll never have.
Nick: Oh? What's that?
Chief: A great bushy beard.

The second one comes from Victor/Victoria, in which a nightclub owner is giving instructions to a private investigator:

Owner: Now, I need you to be extremely careful.
Investigator: I always am.
Owner: That stool is very unstable.
Investigator: What? (The stool collapses and he falls.)

It wouldn't have immediately occurred to me that these are examples of the same joke structure, but I think Jon is right. I'd also add this exchange from Ghostbusters which I think is a gem of economically-applied funny:

Dr Ray Stantz: Where do these stairs go?
Dr. Peter Venkman: They go up.

These all involve a specific and extreme kind of undercutting of expectation by suddenly going very literal. They are, in fact, the same kind of joke as the horrible classic children's jokes about why firemen wear red suspenders and why chickens transverse-navigate motorways. In these jokes, you're misled into thinking that you're going to be given actual information on some topic, when in fact you're going to be told something very literal and irrelevant to the larger matter.

This kind of joke naturally has a childish feeling to it, but that doesn't mean it can't be used in sophisticated comedies. For example, a character who specifically employs this type of humor in an attempt to cheer up his colleagues in a fraught moment could be endearing and even heart-breaking. And, as Gentle Reader Jon points out in his letter, it is a powerful way to give a jolt to an otherwise gravely cliched exchange. We know that undercutting is important for keeping a script light; this kind of extreme undercutting, when used carefully, can help.

Human Resources

Always a great title.

Tagline: No One is Irreplacable.

Roger Wilco

Cool title. Maybe character name?

Literal Thinking

Here are two jokes that he suggests form a category. In the first one, from the movie Hot Fuzz, the small town's chief of police is talking to the newly transplanted Nick Angel:

Chief (serious): Well, there's one thing your predecessor had that you'll never have.
Nick: Oh? What's that?
Chief: A great bushy beard.

The second one comes from Victor/Victoria, in which a nightclub owner is giving instructions to a private investigator:

Owner: Now, I need you to be extremely careful.
Investigator: I always am.
Owner: That stool is very unstable.
Investigator: What? (The stool collapses and he falls.)

It wouldn't have immediately occurred to me that these are examples of the same joke structure, but I think Jon is right. I'd also add this exchange from Ghostbusters which I think is a gem of economically-applied funny:

Dr Ray Stantz: Where do these stairs go?
Dr. Peter Venkman: They go up.

These all involve a specific and extreme kind of undercutting of expectation by suddenly going very literal. They are, in fact, the same kind of joke as the horrible classic children's jokes about why firemen wear red suspenders and why chickens transverse-navigate motorways. In these jokes, you're misled into thinking that you're going to be given actual information on some topic, when in fact you're going to be told something very literal and irrelevant to the larger matter.

This kind of joke naturally has a childish feeling to it, but that doesn't mean it can't be used in sophisticated comedies. For example, a character who specifically employs this type of humor in an attempt to cheer up his colleagues in a fraught moment could be endearing and even heart-breaking. And, as Gentle Reader Jon points out in his letter, it is a powerful way to give a jolt to an otherwise gravely cliched exchange. We know that undercutting is important for keeping a script light; this kind of extreme undercutting, when used carefully, can help.