I wrote a crossover spec episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Westworld!
A Brooklyn Nine-Nine/Westworld Crossover Spec
based on Brooklyn Nine-Nine by Dan Goor & Michael Schur and Westworld by Jonathan Nolan & Lisa Joy
For prep, I broke down five Brooklyn Nine-Nine episodes. I wanted to get scene counts and page counts so I could try to maintain a sense of the rhythm from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. And while I knew I would depart from it a bit as I was mixing it up with an hour long drama with very different rhythms, I would at least be able to get some numbers to go by. I also wanted to see how many flashbacks were used in each episode, so I could try and match it. And since I was analyzing stuff anyway, I used the Gender Analysis tool in Highland 2 to check out the line distribution in Brooklyn Nine.
I was able to find the official scripts for five episodes online. These five episodes were:
1.1 Pilot
1.2 The Tagger
1.4 M.E. Time
1.11 Christmas
1.13 The Bet
Check out the results below, as well as the results for my spec.
Page and Scene Breakdowns
Before you take a look at the charts, be aware that the act breaks are clearly marked in the scripts, as these are where the commercials would be. I’m not picking the act breaks myself based on story assumptions.
B99 Page Breakdown by Act
B99 Scene Breakdown by Act
My fancy tool for counting pages, scenes, and flashbacks. Thanks Gotham Writers!
A few things worth mentioning here.
Act 1 of both The Tagger and M.E. Time have the same page count, but check out the difference in scene counts of that same act in each episode. Now look at their Act 4’s. Read/watch the episodes and you’ll see how the pacing feels different for each one, but both hit their marks for time. Great work by the writers.
M.E. Time and The Bet seem to have the closest ratios between their page counts and scene counts. I didn’t notice anything particularly different about those two while reading, so I’m not sure if that’s a meaningful data point, but I thought I’d point it out as interesting.
Of all of them, the structure of the pilot seems to be the most different. I’ve noticed this to be the case almost all the pilots I’ve read when compared to their typical episodes.
In general, the page counts don’t vary as much as the scene count. This is because the commercial breaks need to be coming at relatively similar intervals each episode. Also, because a scene can be short or long, but a page is a page.
Line Breakdown by Gender
Highland 2’s Gender Analysis tool in action, on Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode M.E. Time.
Highland 2 has a wonderful tool that allows you to identify the gender of a character, and then analyzes the script and breaks down the number of lines by each gender. (There’s a third option for unspecified, so I used that one for any characters that weren’t the leads, even if their genders were identified.)
Also, even though the marketing material occasionally doesn’t include them, I included Hitchcock and Scully in the breakdown, so this is reflective of six male parts and three female parts here.
B99 Line Breakdown
Even if you don’t write in Highland 2, it’s honestly worth it for this tool. You’d be amazed at how much or how little certain characters of yours are speaking.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine Flashbacks
Brooklyn Nine-Nine gets a lot of mileage out of their quick flashbacks. I knew I wanted to use this a lot in my crossover for two reasons. The first was that I saw a thematic parallel between flashbacks in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the timeline jumping in Westworld. The second was that they are a great setup for jokes. I didn’t want to overuse (or underuse) them, so I counted them in the episodes.
Flashbacks
The Nine-Nine Goes West Analysis Results
Alright, let’s see the breakdown for my crossover spec.
Number of Flashbacks: 5
I wanted to be right on, and I had fun playing with how far in the past the flashbacks were. Also, the first one was a flashback to an actual episode.
Lines Spoken by Gender
Gender Analysis
I obviously had a number Westworld characters in there, but it’s surprising how similar the ratios actually are.
Something I didn’t notice until I ran this tool was that I have no guest speaking parts. In juggling two main casts I knew I had to be economical, but I didn’t realize I hadn’t used anyone else.
Breakdowns By Act
My biggest difference (besides longer scenes) is that my second act is significantly short and my act four is long. Overall though, I think I hit my goals for pace of the script.
Scene Count per Act
Page Count per Act
My biggest difference (besides longer scenes) is that my second act is significantly short and my act four is long. Overall though, I think I hit my goals for pace of the script.
Thanks for taking a look at the breakdowns. Feel free to leave a comment, or find me on Twitter @davidwappel if you wanna chat about this stuff more!
Also, if you haven’t seen this yet, a few friends helped me make this, and it’s great. (And when I say “helped me” I mean they did everything while I said things like, “Can we make a Corgi run in slow motion?”)
Thanks to Chris, Don, and Caitlin for all contributing their talents and special thanks to Chad for doing the bulk of the animation and producing. Separate blog post on it's creation coming soon!