Question: What’s the deal with color coded index cards for script outlines?
Open forum question from Tom:
When you posted the piece on how author Don Chaon uses color coded index cards for his first draft it made me wonder how? When I use color coded cards, I use them to identify either a theme or a particular character. How do you (or would you) use color coded index cards in outlining your script? BTW, thanks for the link to the Step Sheet for Chinatown. What a great resource!
Remember how Stephen Bochco ruled the TV universe for a decade or more with series like “Hill Street Blues,” “L.A. Law,” and “NYPD Blue”? Years ago I read an interview with writer David Milch, who worked on “NYPD Blue” for many seasons, where he talked about the Bochco method: Each hour had several subplots. In the case of “NYPD Blue,” each episode almost always had three storylines. As the writers would work out the beats in each subplot, Bochco would have those beats put onto color-coded 3x5 inch index cards — one color per subplot — then stripped out onto a board, where he and the others would shuffle them around to intercut each subplot per each act.
So let’s say you have your main plot, what I call the Plotline. For now, designate that as blue, which means that all the beats and major plot points involving the Plotline are written out on blue index cards. Then let’s say the Protagonist has a subplot with an Attractor character. How about green for that? And a subplot with the Protagonist and the Mentor. How about orange for that? Then the P’s relationship with a Trickster. Let’s dub that yellow. And so on per each subplot.
Now let’s imagine that you’ve worked out all the beats per each subplot and all those beats have been summarized onto index cards. Like Bochco, you can play around with the best approach in cross-cutting this subplot with that one, then that one, weaving them together as you build the story around the Plotline.
That’s one use for color coded index cards. I’ll bet GITS readers have more ideas. Anyone?
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