What are Blue Pages? Inside Script Revision Colors for TV and Film

So, if there’s a TV or film project, there’s a script. Writer(s) worked on it for a long time. A lot of thought went into every decision, every detail, every letter of almost every word (admittedly, some are filler). Then you get sent a BRAND NEW new script for the SAME PROJECT – only these are being called BLUE REVISIONS?!

Or Blue pages. Or Blues. Prod Draft Blue… no matter the name, the idea is the same.

“Blue” refers to both the name of the script file – something in the area of “2nd Revision – Full Blue Draft” or a combo of those words in different orders (dealer/studio/assistant’s choice) – and the color of any hard copies going out. The colors you see associated with revised materials are to ensure crew members know the material has been updated from the previous version.

So now, we’re at Production Draft (Blue). After all that work on the Production Draft (White).

Welcome to the world of script revisions.

The answer is usually, “Well, because that’s the way they’ve always done it.” The nebulous ‘they’. Sometimes people say ‘we’, but it’s not like they were stapling scripts together outside a Warner Brother’s soundstage in the ’50s.

A longer answer begins with Sir Isaac Newton inventing the color wheel in 1666, when he was on deadline for his workplace comedy about nuns in a wacky convent and realized they needed a fast way to tell the crew which script had the latest, up-to-date material.

Okay, only some of that is true. Sir Isaac Newton DID invent the color wheel in 1666, and script revision pages do tell cast and crew what the latest version of the script is. But no, that wacky convent project never got shot, you see, because cameras didn’t exist.

The WGA implemented the color revision wheel to keep things sane for their members, and those working with their members. In true WGA fashion, someone forgot to write down what year it started. They must have been too busy fighting studios for Character Payments (we realize less than 1% of readers will get this joke, but it’s the type of joke that’s good enough to include for those people).

Yes, per usual with creative projects and innovations, it began with the writer. This amazing system was quickly adopted by Production, which began color-coding all of their various documents and forms with the same color revision scheme. One-Liners, Call Sheets, Prep schedules, if it can be e-mailed out by your Production Coordinator? It can follow the color revision template.

Any draft that exists before Blue pages is printed on white paper (or it’s digital facsimile). Those are your Writers Draft, Table Read Draft, Department Head Draft, Double-Secret Casting Draft for (Actor’s Name), Double-Secret Casting Draft for the Actor you go to after the first one passed, etc.

This all culminates in the by-God official PRODUCTION DRAFT (White). This is the first time the script is being sent wide-wide, meaning all crew, studio execs, and actors can read it (and yes, most likely won’t).

It is often the first script fully formatted for production, meaning it has locked Scene Numbers and pages. That’s more something for the Script Coordinators, ADs, and Script Supervisors to worry about, but basically it means everyone can get on the same page about tracking what happens in the script and where.

New pages! Blue revisions come quick, usually as a first wave of defense against the initial notes from everyone reading the script for the first time.

Did you make a bunch of notes in and on your White Draft, and now have a brand-new Blue Draft in your inbox (now without any of your notes!)?!

This is why the digital script world is so much better for active crew members – not just for the conservational aspect of not printing a new script every time there’s a new draft, not just for the speed of not needing to wait for a copier to spit out dozens of scripts to be run to different locations to be placed in the hands of said crew, but because you can SAVE YOUR NOTES between drafts when you use a script annotation app like Scriptation.

If you’re a Scriptation user, you don’t have to worry when a new draft kicks down the doors of your inbox– because you use, Scriptation Note Transfer!

With Scriptation Notes Transfer, your notes are automatically placed into the new draft, wherever is relevant. Scene 5 stay untouched from the Production Draft (White)? Your Sc. 5 notes will transfer to the Blue Draft, no matter what page Sc. 5 is on in the new script.

Did Scene 7 get deleted, but you still had notes you want to carry over to a different part of the script? You can view your deleted annotations to restore any genius you still want on the (digital) page.

This is all faster than re-writing or trying to move post-its. Leaving you more time to work on what matters.

New pages, again! These sometimes correct over-corrections from the Blue Pages, making clear what different departments were really concerned about (IE Moving a scene from an INT to an EXT, when really that wasn’t the problem – it was the $15K fur coat that had to be changed).

They can also grab any notes from outside sources that may not have had time to give notes or memos before the Blue pages were sent out. That would be for your Clearances, your Standards & Practices, and any other legal concerns or considerations that had to be addressed (IE a fictional character name not clearing, giving a name to the fictional coffee place, or landing that hard-to-finalize product integration with a soda company).

We’ll address the world of Script Clearances in a future blog, but for now, the best thing to know is “unless you have a sign off (or signed contract), don’t put it in the script”.

No, not those Yellow Pages. Wait, do people (dare I say ‘kids today’) even know those were a thing? They had all the addresses and phone numbers of businesses and people for a designated area, arranged in alpha– know what, that’s a different blog entry.

For this entry, “Yellow Pages” mean: even more new script pages! These can be from a brand new set of notes, or a combination of all of the above. Sometimes there are only a few Yellow Pages – revising something from a Department Meeting, maybe adding an actor who has been cast to the Cast List. Other times, this is the fourth crack at trying to nail down a version of something that will please all parties.

It’s a great rule of thumb for those new to production that “Pages” = few, little changes and “Full Draft” or “Full (Color)” = a lot of changes. Traditionally in TV production, if more than half the pages of a script are revised a full draft is released. There are, of course, many, many, many (did we say many?) caveats and exceptions to this rule, that we will not delve into at this point because we can already hear Script Supervisors yelling at us.

There are still pages coming! Everything we said for yellow pages (the script ones), we can also say for green pages. It’s easier to get to a round of green pages in film, since the scripts are bigger and thus, there’s more to address (and more writers taking cracks at things – which is another piece of cheese entirely).

Not sure what changed, or where, for any of these revisions? Scriptation’s Compare Scripts feature is your gift from the ‘I don’t have enough time to read all these changes’ Gods.

While nothing replaces, you know, actually reading the revisions, Compare Scripts is great for any crew member needing to assess the script for their job — prop, art, and costume departments just to name a few. When you’re about to run to a prop warehouse to get materials for a scene shooting the next day? It’s helpful to instantly know Scene 13 has been cut (meaning you no longer need to procure a maroon scarf).

“We’re still shooting that?” is usually the call from production when Goldenrod, or “G-Rod” if you want to follow the script lingo in these streets (or any studio lot).

Goldenrod pages are a necessary evil, a page you get to when a location falls through (so the beach bonfire becomes a backyard barbecue), an actor loses availability (Cousin Lenny is now only in scenes 2 and 4, not 2, 4, 8, and 9), or the network S&P decided they don’t want you to call the new quirky best friend “El Gooch” (and thus he becomes “El Smooch” or “Cousin Lenny”).

Goldenrod pages most often clear up outstanding production issues, usually for scenes shooting later in the production schedule (since you’re usually filming the episode or feature by the time Goldenrod pages drop).

Goldenrod pages are also where most productions end their color wheel. What comes after that? Choose your own adventure…

Buff. Cherry. Tan. Salmon.

This is not an order from the new poke bowl spot, or call signs for hot shot young pilots in the next TOP GUN movie. No, these are the colors of misfit script island. In the days of hard copies, a production office might buy one box of these colors and not get through a single ream.

It’s Scriptation’s official policy to not endorse any of these colors. Bold statement, we know. Apologies to those investing in Cherry Paper futures.

Just remember this joke from many a Script Coordinator chat session:

“What’s the difference between Yellow and Buff?”

“A well-run production.”

Okay, back to one. Literally. This is what (sane) productions cycle back through if any pages have to be released after G-Rod (or whatever mutant shade your production follows).

Then 2nd Blue, 2nd Pink, 2nd Yellow, etc.

Typically you see these colors on shows that are behind schedule. The writers and producers can only tackle so much at once, so they focus on what’s being shot first – then revise the rest of the script along the way. Each color revision would be the next day’s shooting schedule – with sometimes another revision coming mid-day; based on anything from an actor request, a Network note, or just plain forgetting to update a detail from a scene you swore you changed.

But 2nd color revisions aren’t always the writers fault; they can be the result of execs who keep changing their mind on notes, actor requests that didn’t work out (turns out Cousin Lenny wasn’t that much fun to be around), or yes, a Script Coordinator missing a note from Production that they then have to release another set of pages to cover.

Yes, and you’d be well advised to not work on productions that get to them.

If interviewing to work in a production or writers office for a position that will be heavily script-focused (Script Coordinator, Writers’ Assistant, Writers’ PA, Production PA, etc.), it doesn’t hurt to ask what the average script revision is for each episode.

If it’s green? So is the light on whether you should work there.

If it’s triple green? That’s moldy.

But maybe they cover lunches, and then, what’s a few reams of paper (or attached PDFs) between friends?

That depends. In shows shooting in England, the order flips slightly, with White, Pink, then Blue Revisions, before going on with Yellow, Green, and Goldenrod as the industry standard. After the American Revolution, this seems like a fair way to settle things on the British side.

Other countries have their own eccentricities, but shows covered by the WGA will almost always follow the traditional order we’ve outlined here. So now you know, productions aren’t simply trying to bring some flare to the latest set of documents —

Have you encountered other interesting, non-traditional script revision practices? If so, comment and share your experiences with script revision colors, names, and everything in between on our social media: @Scriptation!