DZ-24: Forging story rules in TV pilots

Listen if you wanna know great television pilots establish the dramatic, literary, and cinematic rules that sustain their entire run.

Stu and Chas move away from the world of features and dive into the Pilot Episodes of some (New) Golden Age Television: THE SHIELD, THE WIRE, BREAKING BAD, and MAD MEN. And we sneak in some discussion about ANGEL, THE SOPRANOS and GAME OF THRONES.

Our spiritual guide on this tele-vision quest is Wallflower (aka Grant Nebel), writer at The Solute and formerly of The Dissolve and the AV Club.

Together, they examine how the final acts of these pilot episodes - and the Dramatic, Literary and Cinematic rules established therein - will set the scene for the entire life of these seminal shows, right up to their end. Obviously, abound.

This was one of our favourite episodes to record and - given that both Chas and Stu are casting seductive glances at writing television - hopefully one of our most useful too.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

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SHOWS

• THE SHIELD 1x1 "Pilot" — Clark Johnson (d), Shawn Ryan (w)
• THE WIRE 1x1 "The Target" — Clark Johnson (d), David Simon, David Simon, Ed Burns (w)
• BREAKING BAD 1x1 "Pilot" — Vince Gilligan (d), Vince Gilligan (w)
• MAD MEN 1x1 "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" — Alan Taylor (d), Matthew Weiner (w)

LINKS

• Read: The-Solute.com: Wallflower (Grant Nebel)
• Read: Grant Nebel: Collected writing on THE SHIELD
• Read:
• Read: Vulture.com: Man Men Pilot Predicts the Final Episodes
• Read: StyleCaster: 'Breaking Bad' and Colors: A Comprehensive Guide to the Theories, Costumes
• Read: The Disenchanted Costumier: Breaking Bad Costumes
• Read: ActionCutPrint: Elia Kazan - On What Makes a Director (excerpted)
• Watch: Every Frame A Painting: David Fincher - And the Other Way is Wrong
• Read: Bob Saenz: The Mean Old Writer
• Read: Genre Hacks: What is the Most Important Screenwriting Tool: The Rewriting Cycle
• Read: Wired: Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops
• Read: GoodReader - PDF Reader (PDF Annotation)
• Read: Readdle: Documents & PDF Expert (PDF Annotation)
• Read: Readdle: Documents & PDF Expert (PDF Annotation)
• Read: Mind Mapping Software & Tool For Mac & Windows

RELATED EPISODES

• DZ-04: Catharsis and the Post-Coital Cigarette
• DZ-06: Key Scenes and Unlocking the Story
• DZ-09: Characterising Introductions

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We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-24/