StephenM
Monday 19th September 2011 11:18am
London
862 posts
From the Twitter feed in case anyone was worrying unnecessarily:
"As a few people have been asking: don't worry if you don't get an autoreply from the Newsjack email address. We will have received it."
Although I have now triple-checked I typed their e-mail address correctly after not getting the auto-reply.
Finally got round to listening to last week's show after the podcast / Listen again hiccup on Thursday. Enjoyed both John's exam line about 80-85% and BurntOutHack's Katrina line.
Has anyone done a proper trawl of what else people on here got broadcast? Don't be shy now!
Quote: Lazarus Goldfinger @ September 17 2011, 10:27 AM BST
I'm new this whole newsjack palava, but I read that they prefer short, punchy sketches, so I wondering, how long is too long for a newsjack sketch?
From your experiences, what is the acceptable upper limit of a sketch length?
(I'm struggling to crop one of mine down at the moment)
You should bear in mid the fact I've only got 2 sketches on in 4 series and another 'in the mix' when taking my advice. But generally:
- Over 3 pages no. They even say that on the website
- Onto the third page is pushing it. I wrote two sketches they liked that went onto a third page and both times they asked me to re-write it and shorten it.
- I'd say for a nice sketch that builds on the original idea and devevlops it you'd be looking at 1.5 to 2 pages (minutes). Any longer than that it starts to drag
- For a short get in-get out sketch you're looking 0.5-1 page (minutes). That's more than enough set up for one big joke at the end.
There's clearly much more experienced people than me on here so take their advice on board ahead of mine but I used struggle with length and intros. My tips (if you want them) are:
- Intro. You don't need to explain the full story in the intro, just set things up. People listening will know about the big stories. If it's obscure how can you get it down to a line or two (e.g. two computers chatting last week)
- Joke in intro. They nearly always put a joke in the intro to break it up. Force yourself to do this. You don't want to go 20 seconds without something to laugh at
- Dialgoue. Short and punchy. Try speaking it out loud. Is it easy to say? What words could you get rid off? If you see a script from the show (must be one on here from Series 4 somewhere) you might be surprised how short the spoken lines are.
- Keep to one idea. I often get tempted to build in 2 or 3 ideas in a sketch. That's tricky to do in the time. Develop one idea well.
- Bemoan the fact that Morecambe & Wise used to get 12 minutes. Become the next Morecambe & Wise then you can write 12 minutes sketches.
As I say definitely don't treat this as a masterclass, just someone like you who struggled with this and that's what I noted / tried / worked on.
Look at the last post! No wonder I struggle with length.
And end on a knob gag.
Agreed, and then I feel relived my stuff didn't get on as it would have been embarrassing!
