From Kevin Segura comes this question…
This might be a question that could be answered on your blog, since I'm guessing more people than just me find the production process to be endlessly fascinating…
While rummaging around a second hand store up here in Portland (of all places!) I recently found an actual production copy of a script for a program that I remembered quite vividly watching during its original run, almost 40 years ago. On a whim, I bought it, since it was only $5.00, and to quote The Bullwinkle Show, "That's not something you see everyday, Chauncey." (at least not up here).
After I'd brought it home, I thought it might be fun to take the script (which was marked as being the "FINAL DRAFT", with a specific date), and read along with it, while the show was playing. Well, I'm sure you won't be at all surprised to hear this, but the "FINAL DRAFT" script that I purchased turned out to be considerably different than what ended up in the final program. So much so, that it took considerable page-flipping to keep up with the final show.
(I hasten to add that the cuts that were made were extremely well done, and admirably quickened the pace of the final product. There was the equivalent of about 20 or so pages (in this case, pretty much an entire sub-plot) that were cut from my 144 page version, before the final program was shot, with other small portions being somewhat re-arranged, to smooth the transitions.)
My (perhaps somewhat naive) question though, is this: By the time a script reaches FINAL DRAFT status, haven't just about all of the censors, note-givers & all of the other big dogs had a chance to lift their leg & make their mark on the script? Given the gauntlet of approvals that have to be secured, when can someone (a writer, actor, producer, director) rely on a "FINAL DRAFT" script actually being the final draft?
Just thought I'd ask a guy who's been on both sides of the production desk…
The answer to your question is that no script is really FINAL until the show or film made from it is being viewed by its intended audience…and even then, there may later be cuts or alterations. A lot of the later changes are for time. Suppose your show — not counting titles, credits or commercials — is supposed to be nineteen minutes and thirty seconds, and you film it and wind up with twenty-two, you have to trim it down, no matter what it says about finality on the cover page. And those cuts may involve rewriting some long speeches to say the same things in fewer words.
Or say someone comes up with a better joke. Or a better way to phrase things. Often as a writer, you say certain things in your script more than once to make sure the audience hears them or grasps certain concepts. Then when you see the scene played by skilled actors, you realize that the point is crystal-clear the first time and the repeats are unnecessary and boring….so out they go. If you're filming in front of a live audience, their reaction may tell you some joke ain't funny or maybe even that it's so funny, you want to end the scene there and cut the next three lines.
The point is that it's always a work in progress and it's generally understood that "final draft" means "Okay, this is the draft we're going to go with…further changes can and will be made." Because you never know what's going to suddenly need repair work. Neil Simon entitled one of his two autobiographies Rewrites because that's what his plays were. He was rewriting, rewriting, rewriting right until Opening Night and sometimes even after.
Some years ago when I was addressing a roomful of wanna-be writers, I mentioned Mr. Simon and how many different drafts he'd done of some of his most successful plays like The Odd Couple. One of those wanna-bes got up and announced that his scripts — none of which, obviously, had been produced — were perfect when he declared them done and would someday be treated as sacred. Not only would others not rewrite them but neither would he. The sounds of muffled giggles and rolling eyes filled the room.
On TV shows, I sometimes felt bad for the production assistants who had to keep issuing changed pages for that week's script. Each issuance was supposed to be on a different color of paper but the copy room often ran out of hues. They'd hand you the latest batch of changes and say, "Sorry, we had to go back to light green again."
And somewhere near the end of the process, one of those production assistants usually has to make up something called an "As Broadcast" script that incorporates every change and cut. And yes, I have seen "As Broadcast" scripts followed by "Revised As Broadcast" scripts.
