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Notes from a script doctor Writer David Freedman shares his remedies for reviving stalled storylines BY KATE CALDER UK -based comedy writer, show runner and voice director David Freedman makes a living fi xing what others have led astray. “They took a left, instead of a right. Or they simply lost their way and accidentally wrote 184 pages on a 90-minute fi lm—on that one I wasn’t a doctor, I was a surgeon removing giant lumps,” he recalls. Freedman has also worked on projects where he basically kept only one redeeming element from the script—its title. “It’s still considered a rewrite because the topic and subject matter remain, but at least I know I can’t go down that road again. Everywhere else is open to me.” he says. We interviewed Freedman as he was embarking on an intense page-one rewrite on a comedy/horror and got him to dish on his experiences in doctoring kids TV projects. What leads producers to his door is the stage between initial pitch and fi nal production where a script undergoes three drafts and a fi nal polish—a process that often makes a script get worse before it gets better. “You follow it and sometimes it takes you down the wrong road; it happens to everybody.” Writing to potential Groove High from Paris-based Planet Nemo (airing this fall on Disney Channel) is a sitcom based on two young rock stars who recall their time back in high school—Groove High—via animated fl ashback sequences. Penned by a top-notch team of live-action sitcom writers, the animated bits weren’t living up to their squash-and-stretch potential. “I thought, ‘Why are we going to animation if we’re not benefi tting from what animation can give you?’” says Freedman. So he went to work adding exaggerated ridiculousness to the toon segments. Retooled, the sequences show characters pausing in mid-air to quickly create a Freedman exploited animation’s full squash-and-stretch potential to amplify the comedy in Groove High’s fl ashback sequences July/August 2012 tv squiggly outline of the Mona Lisa while jumping rope, or a marching band appears out of nowhere to add some overthe-top profi le to a popular student, for example. Make funny funnier For animated comedy series Lucky Fred from Barcelona’s Imira Entertainment, Freedman was hired as a voice director. But his practice of leading the cast through improv sessions ended up having an impact on the scripting. The cast was able to further fl esh out the characters and make them more distinct from one another, which ultimately helped pump up the comedy in the fi nal product. For example, after putting Friday the shape-shifting robot through the improv process, his wise-guy attitude morphed into bravado underpinned by a neurotic energy, which gave him better chemistry with his boss, 13-year-old Fred. “With a cool robot who’s really neurotic and a neurotic kid who’s trying to be cool, the funny stuff just got funnier,” says Freedman. During production Freedman worked closely with lead writer Evan Gore and often sent back alternate recordings of the script that included a lot of improvised jokes. “Eventually we’d fi nd notes in the script that said, ‘We know you guys will improv something here, so go for it,’” he says. Make the most of your characters In Groove High, an anthropomorphic lizard named Scoot was cut from most of the original scripts, but Freedman brought him back into action. “Often the solution to a problem was to let Scoot back in,” says Freedman. “I stuck a Post-it note above my desk that said, ‘Where is Scoot?’” Introducing Scoot at the beginning of an episode added a reliable go-to comedic element. “For the purposes of animation, and for making this script a little less sitcomish and more cartoony, he was a nice device to have around,” notes Freedman. 13
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