cold-open-writer

Cold Open Writer

What This Skill Does

Writes a short, high-impact cold open or teaser script that hooks a broadcast audience before the title sequence or first act begins.

When To Use This Skill

• You are writing or editing a television documentary, news magazine programme, or factual series and need an opening sequence that grabs attention immediately
• A director wants a teaser that raises a question, creates tension, or drops the audience into a pivotal moment before context is provided
• You have strong material — a striking quote, a dramatic scene, a shocking statistic — but need help shaping it into an opening that works on screen
• You are repurposing footage or interview excerpts into a standalone cold open for a new episode

What You Need To Provide

Required:

• Programme type and subject (e.g., crime documentary series, news current affairs programme, environmental investigation)
• The central tension, question, or event that drives the piece
• Desired duration for the cold open (typically 60–120 seconds)

Optional:

• A striking quote, statistic, or scene description you want included
• The emotional tone — suspenseful, urgent, contemplative, provocative
• Whether narration is used, or whether the cold open relies on interview clips and actuality sound only
• How much the audience should already know by the end of the cold open (tease without giving away, or drop straight into the story)
• Target audience (e.g., primetime general audience, news documentary strand, streaming audience)

How the Assistant Approaches This

1. Identifies the single most arresting element of the story — a quote, a visual scene, a statistic, or an unanswered question — and builds the cold open around it, making the audience need to know what comes next
2. Structures the opening in three beats: a moment that drops the audience into the story mid-action or mid-revelation, a beat that raises the central question without answering it, and a closing line or image that makes the title sequence feel earned
3. Writes dialogue and narration at broadcast pace — short sentences, strong verbs, minimal explanation — using brackets to indicate picture direction, sync (interview) clips, and actuality sound so the script is production-ready

Output Format

A formatted broadcast script with two columns where relevant: [PICTURE] on the left, NARRATION or SYNC on the right. Direction notes (music, sound design cues) appear in square brackets. Total estimated screen time is noted at the top. The cold open runs to the specified duration. Language is punchy, present-tense where possible, and free of passive constructions.

Quality Criteria

• The opening line or image is strong enough to stop a viewer from reaching for the remote
• The cold open raises a clear question that the rest of the programme must answer
• No exposition or scene-setting backstory is included — that belongs in act one
• The script can be followed by a director without additional explanation
• Estimated duration is within 10 seconds of the requested length
• The closing beat — the moment just before the title card — lands with impact, not a fade to nothing

Example

Input

Programme type: Single-documentary, investigative journalism — a 60-minute film about the collapse of a regional pension fund and its impact on retirees Central tension: Thousands of people who worked their whole careers are now receiving a fraction of the pension they were promised, while the fund's administrators walked away with bonuses Duration: 90 seconds Tone: Urgent, controlled anger — the audience should feel the injustice immediately Narration: Yes, with one interview clip dropped in What the cold open should reveal: The scale of the loss and that real people are affected — do not reveal the culprits yet

Output

Estimated screen time: 1 min 30 sec

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[PICTURE: Slow push in on a kitchen table. A single envelope. Hands — elderly, unsteady — open it. A letter. The figure in the pension column: £340.17/month.]

NARRATION (V/O): This is not the amount Margaret Hollis saved for.

[PICTURE: Cut to Margaret, 71, sitting in the living room of a small terraced house. She has not been filmed before. She looks directly into the camera.]

MARGARET (SYNC): I worked thirty-one years. Thirty-one years. And they told me — they wrote to me and told me — it was fine. The money was safe.

[PICTURE: Cut to black. Then, fast — a sequence of similar envelopes. Different hands. Different kitchen tables. The same pension column, different amounts, all far below what was promised. The images come quickly, then stop.]

NARRATION (V/O): In a single letter, six thousand people learned that what they had been promised did not exist.

[PICTURE: Aerial shot of a regional town — recognisable but not identified. Ordinary streets. Ordinary houses.]

NARRATION (V/O): The money did not disappear. It was managed, authorised, and signed off — by people who are no longer answering questions.

[PICTURE: Hold on the aerial. The town looks peaceful. The contrast is deliberate.]

NARRATION (V/O): This is the story of what happened to it.

[TITLE CARD]

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Known Limitations

• A cold open depends heavily on the quality of material available — if the subject has no arresting moment, no strong quotes, and no dramatic revelation, this skill can construct a structure but cannot manufacture impact that the story itself does not contain
• The skill does not know what footage exists; visual directions are suggestions that assume the production has relevant material — the director and editor must adapt directions to what is actually in the can
• For court-restricted or legally sensitive subjects, the assistant will not include specific names, verdicts, or allegations without explicit instructions from the user — the user is responsible for legal review before broadcast
• Cold opens for formats with strict genre conventions (e.g., live news programmes with fixed rundowns) may require significant adaptation to fit editorial house style

Related Skills

• voice-over-writer
• scene-breakdown-writer
• commentary-writer