Lazy Bee Scripts
Production Notes

What are Production Notes, and what are they for?

• Purpose: to make life easier for the production team by providing useful (and complete) information to go with a script.
  • It saves them from parsing every line of the text to look for information
  • Blocks of notes can be handed to specialists ("Find these props!")
• Location: production notes belong at the end of the script, after the final stage direction ("Curtain")
• The content of the production notes depends on the script
  • If there are no props, there's no need for a props list!
  • A sketch should not need a set description
  • "On" and "Off" is not enough to merit a lighting plot
• The most common requirement is a props list. Other options are (but are not limited to)
  • Character descriptions
  • Lighting plot
  • Sound effects plot
  • Song / music suggestions
  • Costume suggestions
  • Set descriptions
  • Set diagrams

Props List

• The Props List has two purposes
  • A procurement list.  ("Go get these!")
  • A deployment list.  (What goes where in each scene.)
  It needs to provide enough information for both purposes.
• The Properties list should include every item called for by the script, including
  • Portable items set on the stage
  • Items set off-stage and carried on by the actors
  • Personal props (such as handkerchiefs)
• It excludes
  • Major items of furniture which are part of the set
  • Costumes
  (Obviously there are grey areas.  Make your own mind up where the boundaries lie for your script!)
• The props list should be set out scene-by-scene
• Indicate (in brackets after the prop) the starting location
  • Set on stage
  • Set offstage
  • A named character

 
Props List Example
Act 1, Scene 1
Grecian Urn (set on stage)
Scroll (set inside the urn)
Wheelbarrow (set offstage)
Sword (Alexander)
Bow (Philip)
Quiver of arrows (Philip)

Lighting Plot & Sound Plot

• These are usually separate items (because usually different people operate the controls)
• All cross-references should be by scene and by a text cue.
  • Never cross reference to a page number!
    • The script will be repaginated multiple times during the editing process
    • Page numbering (and even automatic cross references) will not survive.

Song and Music Suggestions

• For original songs (both words and music written for the show)
  • The lyrics belong in the body of the text.
  • See the Formatting Speeches page for song layout
• For original lyrics to someone else's music
  • Put a placeholder ("Song 1") in the body of the text
  • In the Production Notes, list your title, the name of the original song and the name of the composer
  • Set out your lyrics in the Production Notes
  • See the Formatting Speeches page for song layout
  • Check that the song is available for this purpose:
    • You can't use a song from a show about a particular subject in your own show about the same subject
    • Disney will not license the use of their songs in other people's shows, so you should not suggest them
    • All the lyrics should be your own - use of part of someone else's lyrics without their permission infringes their copyright.
• If you are suggesting the use of someone else's songs
  • Put a placeholder ("Song 1") in the body of the text
  • In the production notes, for each numbered song,
    • List the Title, Composer and Lyricist
      • You want people to credit you for your script; the least you can do is credit songwriters!
      • The search ensures you get the correct title [lots of songs have similar titles]
      • It enables you to confirm the song's copyright status
    • Do not quote the lyrics unless you know the song to be out of copyright
  • Check that the song is available for this purpose:
    • You can't use a song from a show about a particular subject in your own show about the same subject
    • Disney will not license the use of their songs in other people's shows, so you should not suggest them