Insert thick, dramatic American accent and say, in your best TV voiceover voice:
"Previously on City Homicide Writers' Blog"...

Okay, you can ditch the accent now.

Last week we looked at the scripting process for a City Homicide Episode and we got up to the Shooting Script stage.

Before we go on with the next stages in the process, we'd like to share some fun facts about episode 25, Oh Lucky Man. Firstly, it was written by another external writer ? Jeff Truman. Now Jeff had read Mia's script and knew it was pretty dang strong. Not wanting to be outdone, Jeff decided to audition for a role in his own episode. A seasoned actor as well as a writer, he nailed the audition and got the role. That was him, starring as none other than suspected hammer killer Maxwell Craven!

Being a Sydney-sider, Jeff was able to relate to Queensland Detective Laurie Murphy's being a stranger to Melbourne. We suspect some of the digs at the weather may have come from a place of truth.

Okay back to the post Shooting Script process known as Script Amendments!!! These come in an array of pretty pastel colours so you can tell which stage of change your script is at.

At City Homicide we like to go a shade of Blue before turning Pink, then Green, then Yellow, then Lilac, then Orange, before reaching the final 'there ain't no more colours' colour - buff. And ps, what is buff? Where along the way does Mr Colour-O-Matic look at a shade and say 'by George, I do believe we've created buff.'?

Every one of these amendment stages has an important purpose, from needing to add to a script that's too short, or delete from a script that's running too long. Too many words, not enough words, or not quite the right words! 'Would my character say this?' 'Does my character really feel this way?' Just some of the questions that require a script amendment for an answer.
Other departments also come to us when faced with production problems, the entire gamut from art dept to wardrobe, and with pencil at the ready, we try to rectify it with yet another tweak of the scripted word.

Ah life in a script dept; from the outside it looks like we just spend all day tap-tapping away at keyboards, drinking tea and giving the photocopier a hard workout. But barely a day goes by that we don't get an urgent call from Set and spring into a flurry of activity to speedily re-write a line or scene and get it out to the people that need it.
 
Now, perhaps you're thinking, 'okay, so the scripting process keeps going even while the ep's being shot. But surely it must be over with by the time it's all shot and being edited'. But, no. Once an episode has been edited there's what's called ADR. But that's a whole 'nother blog.

--

Fave Moments:

Writing lines for the hooker scrag fight at the start of the episode.

Jennifer telling Simon and Duncan that 'Matty is just gorgeous'.

Jennifer and Emma, both there for Matt when his dad has a stroke. Is Jen sure she just likes Matt as a friend???

Stanley, in the church, but not quite as alone as he feels.