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Fan production ideas....

In the early years of television, half-hour dramas were normal. At some point, somebody decided that a full hour should be the standard.

Kor
Then they played around with 90-minute shows for a while before scaling it back to an hour. Columbo was one example.
 
In the early years of television, half-hour dramas were normal. At some point, somebody decided that a full hour should be the standard.

Kor
As I mentioned upthread it was partly a matter of economics. At the time the found that filming an hour episode didn't cost them much more than a half hour episode and you could get in more advertising.
 
A lot of radio shows (I think mainly adventures aimed at kids), as well as Saturday afternoon movie serials, had fifteen-minute time slots. That doesn't seem to have survived into the television era. Could good, dramatic and grown-up stories be developed in fifteen minutes? :vulcan:

Kor
 
A lot of radio shows (I think mainly adventures aimed at kids), as well as Saturday afternoon movie serials, had fifteen-minute time slots. That doesn't seem to have survived into the television era. Could good, dramatic and grown-up stories be developed in fifteen minutes? :vulcan:

Kor
Yeah, the Buck Rogers radio show comes to mind, which was pretty juvenile stuff. Superman less so, but still aimed at kids. But I know some comedy shows also were 15 minutes in their early years (e.g. Amos 'n' Andy, Lum 'n' Abner), as well as soap operas.

All shows that length, I think, were serial in nature, so they didn't have to develop a complete story in that time.
 
IMHO,
The 30 minute episode eroded into the 20 minute format to make way for more ad revenue, the hour format is little more than a beefed up half hour format. Possibly the 1/2 hour format hasn't gone anywhere.
 
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It's all archaic notions of trying to match what was done. I prefer a story Keep It Short and Sweet (or Sad). The length of a script doesn't matter as much as avoiding contriving ridiculous "end of acts" with their false drama. Tell me a story. Entertain me. Don't bore me. YMMV, of course. Some fans seem to want 52 min episodes with a teaser, acts 1-4 and an epilogue for every production. If that's what they want, power to them. But it's not what I want, and it's not what I generally produce.
 
It's all archaic notions of trying to match what was done. I prefer a story Keep It Short and Sweet (or Sad). The length of a script doesn't matter as much as avoiding contriving ridiculous "end of acts" with their false drama. Tell me a story. Entertain me. Don't bore me. YMMV, of course. Some fans seem to want 52 min episodes with a teaser, acts 1-4 and an epilogue for every production. If that's what they want, power to them. But it's not what I want, and it's not what I generally produce.
For the 1st 20 mins, I plead guilty and through myself on the mercy of the court.
 
as well as soap operas.

Ah, yes. I believe Perry Mason was a fifteen-minute soap opera on radio. What a difference, if you're used to the TV show, or even the novels. :lol:

It's all archaic notions of trying to match what was done. I prefer a story Keep It Short and Sweet (or Sad). The length of a script doesn't matter as much as avoiding contriving ridiculous "end of acts" with their false drama. Tell me a story. Entertain me. Don't bore me. YMMV, of course. Some fans seem to want 52 min episodes with a teaser, acts 1-4 and an epilogue for every production. If that's what they want, power to them. But it's not what I want, and it's not what I generally produce.

Well, it depends... Some try to tell a more natural story, while others consciously choose to be bound by the limits of a certain format, warts and all, in order to replicate the whole viewing experience as closely as possible.

Kor
 
Ah, yes. I believe Perry Mason was a fifteen-minute soap opera on radio. What a difference, if you're used to the TV show, or even the novels. :lol:



Well, it depends... Some try to tell a more natural story, while others consciously choose to be bound by the limits of a certain format, warts and all, in order to replicate the whole viewing experience as closely as possible.

Kor
Yep. But it helps to have enough story to fill an hour long slot with those simulated commercials. Most fanfilms are rather thin on the story side, filled with the empty calories of pointless or drawn-out dialog.
 
I would like to see depictions of Klingon and Romulan society that extrapolate purely from what we saw in TOS, and completely ignore everything from the Trek spinoffs.

Kor
I'd like to do a follow-on to TOS/TAS as a whole that totally ignores anything produced after 1974 - no references to anything TMP or forward of there. Maybe compromise just a bit and include the stuff that was written for Phase II but never produced, but that would be at most.
 
One network even experimented once with a 45 minute drama, following a 45 minute variety show. Only lasted one season.
 
Back in the day when I first started watching TOS I was initially confused by WNMHGB. Because it looked so different I thought it was part of an earlier season that I had yet to see.

Maybe that would be interesting. A limited run of episodes (6-10?) showing us the first year of Kirk's command of the Enterprise before the refit and 5-year mission. The events of WNMHGB could be referenced somewhere in there.
 
Well actually im new here but i'll already talk about a project of me and a friend.

A series based on Ds9 well in fact its a sequel to Ds9 but filmed on Minecraft and we have an idea for the space battles which are impossible to do in Minecraft. The problem for you who speak english only is we are doing the series in French but the we are going to put some subs for you :)

For now we only need a name and actually we search some suggestions so if you can post an idea for a name here it would be nice.

So thanks for reading and thanks for suggestions
 
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