B&B: Story Bible Excerpts

I haven't updated the blog in awhile so I thought I'd give you a look at my recent work. Here are a few excerpts from an unsolicited story bible I wrote and submitted to The Bold and the Beautiful for the last quarter of 2011. I hope to share the full bible with readers of the blog in the very near future. But right now, I'm going to give you a look at an outline and the script I wrote based on it.

B&B BIBLE OUTLINE #0001

B&B BIBLE SCRIPT #0001 IN FINAL DRAFT

PLEASE NOTE: The Bold and the Beautiful and its characters and stories are the ownership of Bell-Phillip Television Productions, Inc. This spec work was not performed or used in the production of the series. This Spec Script has been added to my blog as part of my efforts to build a web portfolio. If any copyrights or trademarks are being violated by the posting of this unedited script, please e-mail raymond.burks@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to remove it.

B&B: Daytime Drama Spec From Outlines

I haven't updated the blog in awhile, but I have an entry that you might find interesting: it's a spec I wrote for the CBS serial, The Bold and the Beautiful, based on an outline I was able to obtain prior to the show's actual air date. I decided that although my original spec script was solid, I had to prove that I could follow a head writer's outlines and standards.

While I don't feel that I am at liberty to legally show you the outline(because it is ownership of the show and not my own work), I will show you the unsolicited script I wrote based from it. I was 23, it was fun work, and it was a way to put my talent in the hands of those in charge. The specs I sent to them were likely placed on file, which lead to being recruited for the trial opportunity with B&B when they were seeking a new scriptwriter. I wrote two of them in the matter of a week. And this is one of them: #5346.

Those who are unfamiliar with B&B or the way daytime dramas are run, you will notice several things about this "unedited" script:

1.) This is not in traditional script form. This is the first draft of what a Head Writer/Additional Staff Writer/Producer/Production Coordinator/Network Executive will typically read when (s)he looks over what will be taped for the following week. The Head/Associate Writers will use the extra line space below to make additional line changes, make notes, etc. That is then given to the production coordinators to type/cut/paste into the full length script that is given to all departments.

2.) The "Gunnar" character was the working name for the character we now know as Owen(played by Brandon Beemer). In addition, you'll notice the dialogue for Gunnar/Owen is souped up with lots of "dawg" and "man." Those were suggestions from the outline and I think they were supposed to illustrate Owen's cool/street factor.

3.) I think there is a long, carefully explained greeting or exit with Marcus and Rick that involves the fistbump without using the actual term. I laugh looking back at how I tried to make that sound more technical than what it was.

So here you go: Spec Script for Show #5346

PLEASE NOTE: The Bold and the Beautiful and its characters and stories are the ownership of Bell-Phillip Television Productions, Inc. Spec #5346 was not performed or used in the production of the series. This Spec Script has been added to my blog as part of my efforts to build a web portfolio. If any copyrights or trademarks are being violated by the posting of this unedited script, please e-mail raymond.burks@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to remove it.

Biohazardous Materials: Writer Uninhibited

My final semester of undergraduate studies, I made a vow to write more edgy, real, human interest stories in my Fiction Workshop course. That semester, I had a wonderful instructor in Ellen Gilchrist. She's a successful literary fiction writer, having published multiple novels, short story collections, and even collections of poetry.

One of the stories I worked on(The Visitor, which is not featured in this entry) featured a son who survives a mother murdering her entire family and one of the son's survive. The son confronts the mother in prison years later where she's spending the rest of her life. The first draft featured these letters of correspondence between the mother and son placed between the narrative. Shortly before the story was featured, Ellen informed the class that we were not going to workshop my story until I wrote another draft that took all of these letters out. She flatly told me, "Well, it didn't work."

Needless to say, the next draft went over much better. But there was still something earnest and real that I felt was missing from my work. Here I was, this guy who was older than most of the people in this class, this self-proclaimed Simon Cowell of the group that semester after years of Paula Abdul-esque "This is a great start, but-." I'll never forget the one story I spent ten minutes ripping apart, begging my fellow student to tell me how her protagonist's kiss was with the boyfriend, how the date went, what were they doing during the date, etc. Ellen pretty much concluded the rest of her workshop because she felt that everything was covered through my long, frustrated rant about it.

But at the same time, here I sat: a writer who took criticism well, dished it better than anyone, and I felt like I was being dishonest as a writer. A fraud. Until my last submission as an University of Arkansas undergrad.

The piece that I always consider the best I've submitted to any undergraduate workshop was the story I wrote titled Biohazardous Materials. Without telling Ellen what I wanted to tackle, I shared my concerns with her about people's reactions to the characters I wanted to share and she delightfully told me, "Fuck 'em." And that's exactly what I did.

My story for workshop was submitted a little too late for submission and Ellen told me that she would read over it and call me with any revision that I should make. At 7AM on Monday Morning, I was about to leave work and she called me and told me that my story was "powerful" and one of the best she's read all semester. She made one line suggestion(which I forgot what it was, but I'm sure I made the change) and the story was featured in the workshop.

A lot of people were put off by the story, which featured gay themes and suggestive sexual content, but Ellen allowed me to read my story with no notes, no interruptions. And at the end of the student critiques, she smiled at me and said, "Great work." I felt like what I had been working to achieve as a writer in this program finally paid off. And a lot of it had to do with me becoming uninhibited by what society wants and even by what I want.

I wrote short stories in college with my own wish and desires as to what would happen instead of letting the characters speak to me. Obviously, writing for television is different because you're working with someone else's ideas to make something seem real and organic. But there's a lot to be learned about characterization in scriptwriting from writing and studying narrative fiction.

The subject matter isn't particularly groundbreaking, so don't read this and think, "What the fuck is this kid thinking? There are plenty of stories like this out there." This story, albeit very short, marked personal and professional growth. It allowed me the opportunity to let characters speak for themselves while resisting urges or beliefs that this character should have a different fate than the one intended. It also allowed me to tell a story without someone wondering if all I could do was queer fiction. I just wanted to tell a story that respected the conventions of literature.

I've been lucky to have so many awesome writing instructors that taught me so much about characterization, plot development, and structure. And this story is a tribute to them and to my hard work.

So the next entry in my evolving portfolio: Biohazardous Materials.

Biohazardous Materials

Bring Down The Moon: Public Access Daytime Drama

One of my more ambitious projects involved my work on a soap for Public Access Television. Bring Down The Moon was a six episode series that followed four college kids whose friendships and lives were all fractured by cheating, lies, and broken promises. It aired Mondays at 6:30PM with the repeats Mondays at 10:30PM and Wednesday at 1:00AM. It premiered October 2nd, 2007.

It was a project I created originally for the SOAPnet contest, SOAP-U. It sought out aspiring soap writers, producers, and actors to create a ten minute pilot video. I rented a camera from campus, got a group of friends together and we shot multiple items over the course of three separate tape dates. I'm more the writer than the film guy, so it was fun to do this project and submit it. No budget, no boom mic, just four players, a script, and me directing them. It was a fun project and a learning experience from someone who just wanted to tell some interesting, soapy stories.

When we weren't picked for the semifinals, I knew I had to continue this project somehow. I went to everyone I knew(our campus TV station, etc.) to try and rent a camera with no such luck. And someone told me about Community Access Television in Fayetteville, Arkansas and their classes on camerawork and production. After completing the field camera courses, I spent my entire Spring Break holiday working on the scripts, creating a shooting schedule, etc. We recast a few roles and in late March 2007, we began taping at my friend, Dave's apartment. Shooting concluded early May 2007, although we taped an additional scene during the summer, and did a reshoot during the fall.

What I feel differentiates this from most independent soap projects is that the basic elements of genre are there. This wasn't supposed to be an art film and I feel that most student "soap operas" pass their failed projects off with that title. True soap isn't supposed to be a shitty art film. The joy of soap is in elements of human emotion that we see with these characters in situations of heightened reality. It can be serious, funny, endearing. And I feel that soap operas essentially play by their own rules.

I feel that my work as a writer has much improved since this initial project, but I'll always think back to how this project came to me at the right place and the right time. And it was a way for me to prove that, yes, I could complete something. This project will always have my heart.

Here are the links to the pilot and the first act of episode 101. Again, I have to tell you the project was pretty low budget. But then again, after seeing Guiding Light's last few years on the air, I'd say I did a pretty decent job with a handheld field camera and no boom microphone.

The Evolving Portfolio

It all began the hot summer of 1995 in my hometown of Buckner, Arkansas. My oldest sister, Vanessa, wanted my sisters and I to tape Days of our Lives for her while she was at work. I was enthralled by the story of Marlena being possessed by the Devil and in the small town grocery store, I saw Deidre Hall on the cover of Soap Opera Digest and read the magazine in the checkout line and noticed "Head Writer James E. Reilly" credited for his quotes and thoughts previewing the latest beats of the story. It then dawned on me that people "write" this stuff and I also thought it would be fun to write.

What was a casual, fun summer show turned into years of taping and viewing various soap operas, reading and doing research on the past and present, and writing my own fun, soapy scripts and stories. Something I had done since I was 11 years old.

Part of that dream came true in March, when I was contacted by Bell-Phillip Television Productions to write a sample script for the Emmy-Winning CBS drama, The Bold and the Beautiful. That work lead to being accepted into The Writers Guild of America, West as an Associate Member.

This blog was created with the full intention of developing an evolving portfolio for those in and out of the industry who are interested. I'll add past and present spec scripts, original material, and update readers on my progress.

Thank you for reading. If you'd like to contact me, please e-mail me at raymond.burks@gmail.com.