Comparing the script to the video, while they're both awesome I'm interested in the places where Biff emotes in a way that I might not've anticipated from just reading the script. I don't know to what degree this is "I trust the actors to make good choices to make this funnier" over "I know this actor, I know how they'll play this", but either way the end result is great.
I’m pretty sure Will and Neil wrote this knowing they would be performing it, in which case there wouldn’t have been much need to specify every reaction. Even still, it’s a good example of how you, as a writer, can choose exactly how much to specify and how much to let an actor interpret the script
Great breakdown, and also a joy to read before watching the sketch (as I prefer to do in this post) with my mental image of Casey and Hines in the opposite roles. Pleasantly surprised when I finally watched it.
This was brilliant. I did not know Will and Neil before, I am going on a binge at lunchtime :)
I really like the fact this could be filmed or performed live. Which leads me to ponder on the limmitations you need to impose on yourself for live scetches.
I think that’s also a good line to look at because I think other writers might have been tempted to turn that “How?” into a big angry monologue. It’s late in the sketch. Biff is pretty angry. It would have been a valid choice. But there’s a lot of power to compressing all that emotion into a single “How?” and it also fits the overall tone of the sketch which is pretty fast and clipped. Earlier like Jeff’s “Didn’t need one. Grew up in New York” omit the subject (“I”) and make this whole piece super snappy. These are word and tone choices that make this sketch feel a little extra special to me
Comparing the script to the video, while they're both awesome I'm interested in the places where Biff emotes in a way that I might not've anticipated from just reading the script. I don't know to what degree this is "I trust the actors to make good choices to make this funnier" over "I know this actor, I know how they'll play this", but either way the end result is great.
I’m pretty sure Will and Neil wrote this knowing they would be performing it, in which case there wouldn’t have been much need to specify every reaction. Even still, it’s a good example of how you, as a writer, can choose exactly how much to specify and how much to let an actor interpret the script
Great breakdown, and also a joy to read before watching the sketch (as I prefer to do in this post) with my mental image of Casey and Hines in the opposite roles. Pleasantly surprised when I finally watched it.
This was brilliant. I did not know Will and Neil before, I am going on a binge at lunchtime :)
I really like the fact this could be filmed or performed live. Which leads me to ponder on the limmitations you need to impose on yourself for live scetches.
The MVP line in the script, hands down, is when Jeff claims he's never seen a movie and the response is just an exasperated, one-word "how?"
I think that’s also a good line to look at because I think other writers might have been tempted to turn that “How?” into a big angry monologue. It’s late in the sketch. Biff is pretty angry. It would have been a valid choice. But there’s a lot of power to compressing all that emotion into a single “How?” and it also fits the overall tone of the sketch which is pretty fast and clipped. Earlier like Jeff’s “Didn’t need one. Grew up in New York” omit the subject (“I”) and make this whole piece super snappy. These are word and tone choices that make this sketch feel a little extra special to me