Monday, November 29, 2004

MEDIA

I've got the Unseen feature out to a trusted friend to read, so I'm working on the TV series pitch. It's intriguing what aspects of the story seem to want me to reconsider them as I go back to the series from the feature.

In the feature, Rebecca is new in town and feels out of place. Then a freak accident changes everything ... and she discovers that she really does belong in Montreal.

The movie is self-contained, so you can start your character arriving in town, then having a freak accident, and it's a precipitating incident.

But after the pilot episode of a series, you pretty much want it to be standing on its own, like a newborn calf. You're likely to get a big chunk of your audience after the pilot. So too much setup in the pilot is probably a Bad Thing, because you can't count on the audience to be there for it. So while, e.g. the Buffy pilot established that Buffy had transferred out of some big city school after some kind of catastrophe, you don't really know or need to know the details. She's new in school, she latches onto some goofy new friends, that's all you need to know.

Which would seem to argue that while you can use both Rebecca's being new in town and having a freak accident thereafter in the movie, in the series maybe both are too much.

1:57 PM

1 Comments:

You don't think the Buffy pilot provided a lot of set-up for what followed?

If nothing else, the pilot introduced the first season's big bad, the Master, who lasted til the season finale, as well as Darla, who was killed off about halfway through the season.

It's true though that there wasn't a lot of explaining as to why she moved to Sunnydale, other than that she'd burned down her old school's gym and her mother wanted a fresh start somewhere else.

By  Anonymous, at 9:23 PM  

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