Teasers & Cold Opens (PT61)

Alex and Nick discuss the importance of teasers in television writing and key elements that make cold opens effective. What is the point of opening scenes? What makes a good teaser? How do you reveal character, story and theme in those first few pages? Are there teaser differences between comedy and drama? Plus, we talk 2017 Emmy winners and the revamped Fox Writers Lab. The Paper Team opens up... SHOWNOTES Content Paper Scraps: Emmys 2017 & Fox Writers Lab (00:28) 1 - Why are teasers and opening scenes important? (11:00) 2 - What makes a good opener: tone, character, expectations, story, and world (14:55) 3 - Specificities of teasers: comedy vs. drama, length, pilot vs. normal episode (32:01) Takeaways and Next Week On (38:19) Links 69th Primetime Emmy Awards (2017) The Handmaid's Tale (TV Show) Lena Waithe Donald Glover Sterling K. Brown Frank Pembleton Fox Writers Lab "Six Feet Under" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) "Riverdale" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) Glee Election "Scandal" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) Firefly Psycho "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) In medias res "Rick and Morty" Lighthouse Scene (Video) "Breaking Bad" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) "Lost" Pilot Opening Sequence (Video) "Breaking Bad" Crawling Scene (Video) Stargate SG-1 Goa'uld Futurama Cheers "Lost" Season 2 Opening Sequence (Video) "Lost" Season 3 Opening Sequence (Video) Special thanks to Alex Switzky for helping us edit this episode. If you enjoyed this episode (and others), please consider leaving us an iTunes review at paperteam.co/itunes! :) You can find Paper Team on Twitter: Alex - @TVCalling Nick - @_njwatson If you have any questions, comments or feedback, you can e-mail us: [email protected]