#screen writer

It Starts On The Page (Drama): Read ‘The Pitt’ Episode 1 Script “7:00 A.M.” With Foreword By R. Scott Gemmill

Check out R. Scott Gemmill’s 81-page script draft of The Pitt’s premiere episode, as part of Deadline's “It Starts on the Page” series.

Gemmill shares the 81-page writer’s draft of the premiere, “warts and all.” In his intro to the script, he talks about the challenges of doing a show set in real time for the first time and reveals the elaborate setup he used to keep track of the action during the writing process that involved a floor plan of the ER, Post-It notes and plastic markers.

[link to script]

Playing with “the negative space” is something I’m really intrigued (and slightly worried) about. So much story is going to be happening in those gaps.

But season 1 already did this so well, providing a huge amount of backstory simply by showing the present situation and a few key flashbacks. It’s just that in season 2 this filling in of the gaps will be happening every three episodes. I’m really hoping that because it’s already been done so well, season 2 won’t feel rushed. These a-few-days-in-a-year arcs have been described also as “needle-drops” in the old sense. We’ll start each in media res and will really have to pay attention. Because this is a series that repays you in spades for doing exactly that.