ATTN JMS: Rewriting on cue?

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: babylon at nauticom.net (Jeff Bauer)
Date: 24 Dec 1997 12:10:29 -0700
Lines: 18

	Reading your script for "The Coming of Shadows" in "The
Complete Book of Scriptwriting", one can see that lines were cut from
the original show.
	I was wondering...do you often changes lines and/or entire
scenes on the set?  Anyone who writes always wants to improve on what
they wrote AFTER they re-read it.
	I keep wondering if any of the more memorable lines from the
show were written on-the-fly during shooting.


Jeff Bauer

Keeper of Jeff's Babylon 5 Update Page
http://www.nauticom.net/www/babylon

And The Storekeeper at
"The Sci-Fi Bookstore" in association with Amazon.com:
http://www.nauticom.net/www/babylon/store/store.htm

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 26 Dec 1997 16:01:42 -0700
Lines: 31

>	Reading your script for "The Coming of Shadows" in "The
>Complete Book of Scriptwriting", one can see that lines were cut from
>the original show.
>	I was wondering...do you often changes lines and/or entire
>scenes on the set?  Anyone who writes always wants to improve on what
>they wrote AFTER they re-read it.
>	I keep wondering if any of the more memorable lines from the
>show were written on-the-fly during shooting.

No, never.  For starters, it's *vastly* unfair to the actors.  They have to
memorizes pages and pages of dialogue, and to hit them with new stuff on the
stage, when they haven't had a chance to digest the material and dig out the
subtext and themes, means the performance will not be as good regardless of the
material.

There is *no* improvising allowed on the set, either.  If an actor wants to
change even a word, the first AD has to come find me and get approval first.

Where you make the revisions are in the stages prior to when the actors get to
the stage.  A first draft is published, which goes to all the department heads.
 Between the first and the final drafts (we only do about 2 drafts here), you
have about a week to make any revisions you choose to make.  Bearing in mind
that I don't publish the first draft until I'm absolutely satisfied with it,
there ain't much that gets changed, usually bits of dialogue and production
related stuff.

The cuts you see were done in post-production, as the show is edited for time. 
We slice lines and bits to fit in the available time.


 jms
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