Chad Gervich Interview, Part 3

Crafty: Are any production companies looking for reality series pitches? Or are all of them generated in-house or by people they already know?

Gervich: Absolutely! Production companies and networks are looking for unscripted programming just like they're looking for scripted ideas! Broadcast networks tend to develop fewer unscripted ideas than scripted, but they're still looking… and many cable networks--like TLC, Food Network, MTV, Bravo, etc.--program ONLY reality series.

Likewise, some production companies--like "Big Brother"-producer Endemol USA--dabble in both scripted and unscripted shows, while others--like "Project Runway"'s Magical Elves or "Don't Forget the Lyrics"'s RDF--focus only on reality shows. Either way, most production companies--like networks--are almost always taking pitches for alternative television.

Crafty: What would a reality show pitch look like? How many pages? What format? What questions do you have to answer in your pitch? How much could the newbie creator reasonably expect to stay involved with the show they pitched if it gets picked up?

Gervich: As a writer, I've pitched both scripted and reality ideas… as an exec, I've HEARD both reality and scripted pitches… and I have to say: there's not much of a difference. Aside from a few pieces, a reality pitch sounds very similar to a scripted pitch.

A friend of mine used to be the showrunner of "Friends," and he once gave me some great advice; he said (I'm paraphrasing): "In the old days of ancient Greece or Rome, people used to gather round a bard or poet, usually sitting in some kind of circle, and listen to him tell a story. A pitch works almost the same way. The execs or producers usually sit in some kind of circle and your job--as the writer--is to, quite simply, TELL THEM A STORY."

To me, this is the basic tenet of ANY PITCH, scripted or reality. Use your words and storytelling skills to create a world that MOVES YOUR AUDIENCE… that sucks them in, enthralling them till they want to hear more. And--if it's a TV pitch--help them understand how that one world or story can generate an endless supply of OTHER stories.

Now, if you're pitching a reality show, you're not so much telling a story as you are creating an emotional world. Even though it's not a scripted narrative, you want your audience of buyers to feel the emotional premise of your series. This could be done by articulating an anecdote or observation from your own life… or by setting up a universal emotional truth. In classes that I teach, I like to use "Survivor" as an example. If I were pitching "Survivor," I might begin with something like this…

"We live in a beautiful world… a world full of beautiful people building beautiful homes in beautiful cities… driving beautiful cars… wearing beautiful clothes… raising beautiful children. But the truth is: no matter how beautiful anyone is… or the world they live in is… one thing always holds true: EVERYBODY WANTS SOMETHING.

"Some people want true love; others want a new house. Some want a dream job; others want their kids to go to college. Some people want to cure their father's cancer; others want to reunite with a long-lost sweetheart. And when it comes to their life's dream, most people will do ANYTHING to make that dream come true. They'll lie, fight, backstab. Betray their friends. Befriend their enemies. Whatever it takes.

"So this is a reality show where we take fifteen beautiful people, each with a life's dream, and strand them in the world's most beautiful place… then give each of them a shot at a million dollars--enough to make their life's dream come true. Then we sit back and watch… as each of them fights, claws, lies, cheats, steals, forms alliances and backstabs their way to making their one dream a reality."

Now, I'm not saying that intro is perfect… or I wouldn't tweak it… or it's anything close to how Mark Burnett pitched that show… but I do think it sets up the series, both narratively and emotionally. You "get" how the show works on a macro level. And once your audience has this understanding, it's very easy for you to give them examples of individual episodes, or challenges, that bring the show to life. They'll understand how forcing people to compete in a bug-eating contest fits into the larger narrative and thematic whole. They'll understand the types of characters and relationships the show will build and play with. They'll understand how and why we'll relate to the show on a personal level.

Thus, I think there are four main things to spell out to potential reality buyers:

• The emotional/thematic premise
• The kinds of "characters" who will be on this show, including what drives them and what's at stake (i.e., "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" casts desperate, downtrodden families who need a warm, safe place to live; "What Not To Wear" casts loveable people in need of a self-esteem makeover… by way of making over their fashion sense; "The Bachelor" casts lonely women desperate to find a partner).
• How the pilot works… or, more specifically, how a typical episode (which is what a pilot is--a typical episode) will translate your emotional/thematic premise into a dramatic series
• Examples of future episodes and challenges

Ultimately, these are the same things that sell a scripted series. So the key, whether you're pitching a comedy, a drama, or reality series… is to be like those bards and poets hundreds of years ago: SIMPLY TELL YOUR STORY AND MOVE YOU AUDIENCE.

Here's a quick link to another blog post which (I hope) offers some helpful into about pitching a reality show.

Chad Gervich Interview, Part 2

Crafty: Are production companies interested in new media? Should writers worry about multiplatform spin-offs? Or should they pitch their mobisode/webisode series to people who do just those? (Does anyone just do those?)

Gervich: Yes, production companies are interested in new media… but only SOME production companies. And, unfortunately, not enough.

Personally, I think most TV production companies are CRAZY for not dipping their toes further into the Internet pond. Sure, it's tough to make money with Internet fare… RIGHT NOW. But soon--very soon--the Internet and TV will converge, and production companies that aren't experimenting with web shows will find themselves uncomfortably far behind the eight ball.

Producing Internet shows is valuable for three main reasons…

One: it's a chance to try fun, inventive entertainment that can't be done on TV. The Internet is a different creative sandbox than television, with different strengths and weaknesses, and--just like movies or novels--it has the ability to tell very different kinds of stories.

Two: Internet shows can make great calling cards for TV. Rarely does an online show jump wholly from cyberspace to television, like "In the Motherhood" or "Sanctuary." But creative, well-produced web shows can certainly attract execs and producers. Luke Barats and Joe Bereta, for example, scored a development deal at NBC after producing a popular series of comedic YouTube sketches.

Three: it IS possible to do things on the Internet that can make a huge splash… like "Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog" or "Lonelygirl15." While creating a hit is never easy in any medium, whether it's TV or Broadway or the Internet, hit Internet shows have gone on to become pop cultural phenomena that develop a life of their own. And while "Dr. Horrible" was independently produced by Joss Whedon, part of what allowed it to succeed was the fact that it was developed and produced by people with great creative chops and top-notch production resources. So it saddens me that many producers and production companies are so short-sighted, refusing to see past the Internet's current financial restraints to recognize it as the amazing creative canvas it's poised to become.

Having said all this, two quick answers to your question:

One: Yes, there are production companies--like Disney's Stage 9 and Michael Eisner's Vuguru--producing Internet-specific content, and a wannabe Internet producer's best hope of selling something is to target those companies. I'd suggest watching your favorite Internet shows, or shows similar to your idea, then tracking down the production companies behind them.

Two: if you're pitching a TV show, I wouldn't bother elaborating on how it could foster an Internet spinoff. Not only do Internet spinoffs generate little money, but TV buyers want to know the TV show they're about to invest in can work--first and foremost--as a TV show. The TV idea itself is the "cake;" if it works, there are plenty of people (and time) to figure out how to develop the "icing" (spinoffs, merchandising opportunities, etc.) later. Your job is to sell a television show… so go sell a television show.

Crafty: Do producers and development execs care about Internet script competitions? Or are they a waste of money?

Gervich: I think winning ANYTHING is a feather in your cap. I mean, at the very least, it feels great to win something, and it's validation that you're a good writer!

Having said that… I don't think many producers, agents, or execs are trolling the Internet for the next Marc Cherry, Simon Beaufoy, or Damon Lindelof.

So if you're entering an online contest in hopes of breaking into Hollywood… I'd adjust your expectations. If you're entering the contest because it's fun to win… or you're looking for feedback… or you want some validation… or you just figure, "hey--it can't hurt to have people read my script"… then by all means--BREAK A LEG!

[Ed. note: To me, this is a very nice way of saying "save your money."]

Crafty: Is it a plus if a script is by an international writer (English, Canadian, Australian)? Is it a minus?

Gervich: I don't think it matters. Producers and execs are looking for talented storytellers with unique voices… no matter where those writers and voices come from. In fact, most showrunners want to hire writers who can bring interesting stories and life experiences into the writers room… so a talented writer who hails from a foreign country may have an advantage over someone who's lived in L.A. all their life.

Also--many networks and studios are now implementing "diversity programs" to help find and hire diverse writers for their TV shows. Here's a quick list of some of TV's diversity programs…

• CBS Diversity Institute Writers Mentoring Program
  
• Fox Diversity Writers Initiative Program
  
• NBC: Writers on the Verge.

Thelonious Monk's Advice

You Should Play Poker

According to this blogger, you can learn a lot about business from poker. Pretty much all these lessons apply to show business.

Since lessons don't really sink in until you're in the mix, I recommend you all find a poker game to join. Then you'll know what he's talking about.

SMALL SCREEN, BIG PICTURE

Chad Gervich is a TV producer with a blog and now a book, SMALL SCREEN, BIG PICTURE, on how to break into TV. He's on a virtual author's tour of the blogosphere, so I threw him my dozen questions. He'll be answering them over the next few days here.

Crafty: What do development execs know that they wish aspiring screenwriters knew?

Gervich: I can only speak for writers and execs in the world of television, but I’m guessing there’s a film version of this answer as well, so movie folks—infer as you will.

I think many TV development execs wish more newbie writers had an understanding and appreciation of the medium. This is not at all to say that MOST writers don’t have an understanding or appreciation of the medium, but I can’t tell you how many wannabe TV writers I meet who haven’t the first clue about the industry they want to work in. This inexcusable a lack of understanding or appreciation often manifests itself in two ways.

ONE: Writers who don’t understand how television works differently from film. I don’t mean business-wise; I mean creatively. TV series tell their stories much differently than movies, novels, short stories, or plays… but I somehow still find myself meeting writers who don’t understand this.

For example: I once met with a writer who said, “I have a great idea for a TV show, but it’s only 30 episodes. It can’t be longer and it can’t be shorter… it’s exactly 30 episodes.” Well, unfortunately, this writer may have had a brilliant idea… but TV series (at least in America) don’t work on a finite number of episodes. Sure, other countries have produced successful telenovelas, but the form hasn’t taken off in the U.S., and here, successful TV series are designed to run into perpetuity.

There’s nothing wrong, creatively, with dreaming up telenovelas and limited series—and I am NOT saying this to discourage people from thinking outside the box—but I often hear young writers pitch ideas that don’t seem to illustrate a competent understanding of how TV stories work. The ideas themselves may be perfectly fine—outstanding, even—but they’re not TV ideas. They’re novel ideas or short stories or web ideas or SOMETHING… but not TV.

TWO: This is actually the bigger—and more common—offense, but you wouldn’t believe the number of writers I meet who simply don’t seem to respect the medium of television itself. I’ll ask writers what their favorite shows are, and they’ll say: “I don’t really watch TV. So much of it is bad. That’s why I want to do this show: to do something smart for once…”

Well, first of all—why would a writer expect a producer or exec to do business with someone who just spat upon the very industry they love and make their living in?! And second of all—why would that producer/exec want to work with a TV writer who has actually said they don’t watch or like television?! A law firm would never hire a wannabe lawyer who claims to have no respect for the law—or even an interest in studying it… so why is television any different?! (And again—this isn’t to say there’s not a lot of bad television… or that execs and producers aren’t hungry for writers who want to break rules… it’s just saying that producers and execs want people who are excited and passionate about the medium of TV.)

I’ve also met with writers—and to be fair, as a writer, I know I’ve been guilty of this—who are pitching, say, a cop drama, and I’ll ask: “Is it kind of like ‘NCIS?’” Or, “So, it’s like ‘CSI: Miami’ meets ‘Leverage?’” And they’ll say, “Huh—I’ve never seen those shows.” Or they’ll be pitching a reality dating show and I’ll say, “I like it—it’s like ‘Parental Control.’” And they’ll say—“Hm. I’ll have to check that out.” This is maddening… as a writer/producer, especially one trying to work in a particular genre, it’s your responsibility to know the landscape and the marketplace. You wouldn’t try selling a new kind of vacuum cleaner or baking pan without knowing what vacuums or baking pans are already out there… and TV is no different.

So to sum up: what execs know that they wish more writers knew… is how to articulate and verbalize an understanding or appreciation of TV itself.

Crafty: Do development execs expect queries by internet, or still by snail mail? Do people send in physical scripts, or will a PDF do?

Gervich: To be honest, I don’t know many development execs that accept unsolicited submissions at all. Most submissions come through agents, managers, lawyers, other executives, or friends. Having said this—submissions themselves come in all forms, regardless of who they come from. Some agents email PDF’s; others send hard copies. I’m not sure it really matters which… and in fact, different execs probably have different preferences. My old showrunner used to read all his scripts on email. Others like the feel of paper. Still others don’t want the hassle of having to print from an email.

If you’re submitting to someone, I think the smartest route is to simply ask which they prefer.

Crafty: Do queries ever work? If not, how do you get someone to read a script? Hang around the bar at the Ivy in tight pants? Get a job as a pool boy in Laurel Canyon? Work as a TSA inspector at LAX and slip a script into every bag as it goes past?

Gervich: I don’t think, in today’s world of television, that queries are effective. Most execs only read or accept scripts from people they know… usually agents, managers, lawyers, execs, or friends. This is why, if you don’t have representation, the best way to get your script into hands of producers or execs is to get out there and meet them yourself. Expand your network of industry friends and contacts! And the best way to do this?...

GET A JOB IN THE INDUSTRY.

If you want to be a TV writer, the job you’re aiming for is to be a writers’ assistant on a TV show, where you’re interacting closely with writers and showrunners, forging relationships that will not only help you get a bona fide writing job, but will get your material read by the appropriate people.

Writers’ assistant jobs, unfortunately, are few and far between… and usually go only to showrunners’ friends or co-workers. So your job is to get your foot in the door however you can… as an intern, a runner, a P.A., an assistant.

Most people in Hollywood will say the best starting place for a newbie is at an agency, working as an agent’s assistant… even if you don’t want to be an agent. (In fact, many executives and producers won’t even hire assistants who don’t already have agency experience.) Working at an agency is like grad school for Hollywood… you’ll learn the ins and outs of the business, the players, the players’ assistants and phone numbers, who’s buying, who’s selling, who’s hot and who’s not… and you’ll learn it all faster than you’ve learned anything before. You’ll also meet everyone in town… execs, agents, writers, and—most importantly—assistants, the gatekeepers to Hollywood’s bigwigs. Once you have your network up and running, you’ll have access to huge amounts of valuable information… not only important industry updates, but jobs and job openings… so you can keep your eye—and your friends’ eyes—peeled for that next step, whether it’s a job as a PA or an assistant to a studio exec.

And—of course—you’ll be bolstering your network of people who can read or pass along your material. Maybe not today, but next week, or next month, or next year. Each person you meet is a potential reader and ally… and agencies are a great place to begin meeting them.

For a great blog post about working at an agency, check out this recent post from Amanda the Aspiring TV Writer. (She also has some great info in her “Inside the Agency” section.)

Here’s another post, from “Script Notes,” my blog at “Writer’s Digest” magazine, that lists some wonderful job-hunting websites and resources.

To be continued...

Bringing the Darkness

I'm watching the pilot to ZOS, about which I'll blog more in a bit. But there's a scene in it which is so effective, and so dark, I had to stop the DVD and go help my daughter play with her new dollhouse for a bit.

A lot of the best shows on cable seem drawn to the darkness. SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, THE WIRE, even MAD MEN seem disinclined to give us too much to be hopeful for in life. Even BATTLESTAR GALACTICA treats hope and faith and redemption as a French chef might treat sugar: it has its place, sure, but it's hardly artful to use it in more than a couple of dishes.

I appreciate the attraction to the darkness. But as a writer, you risk losing a big chunk of the audience. You may be able to stomach scenes in which children are killed, but Lisa won't watch shows that do that. A lot of people, including me, put the script down or turn off the television, when we see animals being hurt onscreen.

I guess darkness is like sex or bad language. All are undeniably effective, and attractive to many. But go too far, and they run the risk of throwing some of the audience out of the picture, or the series. I think you have to ask yourself if the darkness is a necessary part of your story, or if you're just doing it because you can. I think Ron Moore felt that he couldn't do justice to a series about humanity being chased by genocidal robots without bringing the darkness; how do you bring the comedy after most of humanity has been A-bombed to death? He was willing for BSG to pay that price.

And, obviously, David Milch felt he couldn't do justice to DEADWOOD without his particular style of poetically obscene dialogue.

But in other shows, the darkness seems to go farther than the story requires. Did DURHAM COUNTY need to be quite so bleak? Was that crucial to the truth of the story Laurie Finstad is telling? I don't know, because I couldn't watch the otherwise excellent series through. Too dark.

ZOS is a show about peacekeepers in former Yugoslavia. It's a tough show about convincing characters in an atrocious situation, and it goes deeper into the darkness than, say, OVER THERE, another strong show which wasn't easy to watch.

When you're trying to do that, it's a tough call. There were atrocities there -- kids getting blown up by mines, rape used as a policy of terrorism, genocide. So how do you avoid showing that? On the other hand, how do you sit and watch that? I find ZOS to be both effective drama, and hard to watch.

Is there a point at which showing the whole truth makes for a less effective drama, because the audience starts tuning it out? I heard the opinion of one concentration camp survivor of SCHINDLER'S LIST: "It was good, but he only showed the nice parts." Spielberg didn't go as dark as he could have. But would the audience have followed him further into the darkness -- both literally, into the movie theater, and also emotionally, once they were sitting in the darkness?

I feel that there's a point at which darkness becomes spectacle, not storytelling. That's the point at which you're showing more darkness than you need to show us the story. There are ways of conveying the truth that are more effective for showing less. Quint's story of the sharks eating the survivors of the USS Indianapolis arguably conveys more of the horror than actually seeing a historical flashback on the screen -- because it doesn't throw you out of the picture.

My personal favorite in both the darkness and sex departments is ROME. ROME was a seriously cruel show, with lots of sex and shocking language. But it was not a bleak show. Almost all of the violent characters were trying their best to do the right thing; I can't think of any violence that didn't have a point to it. And the sex scenes were pretty much all character scenes. Clausewitz called war "a continuation of diplomacy by other means." In ROME, sex is a continuation of dialogue by other means.

My feeling is, show only as much of the darkness as you need to tell the story. Beyond that, you're indulging yourself.

At least, if my pay cable series goes, that's the standard I hope to apply.

UPDATE: To be clear, calling ZoS "hard to watch" isn't to say they've crossed the line into spectacle. I don't think they do. And if you don't find this stuff hard to watch, you're probably not watching with your heart.

The Director's Intuition

Very few books about screenwriting or directing make a serious effort to crystallize the knowledge that most screenwriters or directors know. In the CRAFTY books, I tried to crystallize what I know about screenwriting. What I find in Judith Weston's DIRECTOR'S INTUITION is a serious attempt to crystallize what film directors know. Specifically the book is about how to develop your director's intuition: what you know at a subliminal level, how you tell when an actor is bringing truth versus indicating, how you get an actor to bring his truth rather than just pretending.

The book is dense and kind of scattered. It's not a method and it's not a how-to. Possibly this is because Ms. Weston is an accomplished actress and acting teacher, not, in fact, a director. But she busts out legitimate insights -- hers and others -- at a furious rate. I would read this for the many nuggets of truth, each of which is worth a think. It's much like spending a week chatting with an accomplished actor and teacher in a country house. Every few minutes she says something that took a lifetime to learn.

The important caveat to reading any book about the arts is there is little point to reading passively. I try to make my own books as transparent as possible. You ought to be able to read it and get what I'm talking about. But to really have an idea what I'm talking about, you have to be writing. The best books crystallize what you are seeing -- they allow you to see a pattern in what you've already observed at some level. You can't learn to dance from reading a book. You can learn to dance by dancing, and improve your technique by dipping into a book.

In Ms. Weston's book, she says a lot of things I know already. Those are lessons I've already crystallized. She probably says a lot of deep things I didn't even notice, because I don't have the knowledge to crystallize. What jump out at me are the occasional insights that connect things I've seen but haven't paid enough attention to yet.

In other words, the book rewards rereading as you are directing or acting.

I would still like to read a book I call, in my head, CRAFTY FILM DIRECTING. That would be a soup-to-nuts method for directing, with chapters on finding material, analyzing material, casting, prepping, directing actors, directing camera, managing a crew, directing the editing, directing the sound and directing the soundtrack. John Badham has a fine book about directing actors (I'LL BE IN MY TRAILER). I've seen books on directing on a budget (REBEL WITHOUT A CREW). But I've never seen anything on how to approach reading a script, or how to talk to a composer, or where to let the soundtrack go silent. You're just supposed to know these things. Since I'm not a film director, I don't feel qualified to write the book myself.

Oh, and there'd be a chapter or two on managing your film career, along the lines of the career chapters in CRAFTY SCREENWRITING and CRAFTY TV WRITING.

What's the most influential book on screenwriting or filmmaking that you've read?

Showing the Spec of a Show to That Show

A friend of the blog is in a bind because he's done several specs of a show -- let's call it TELEPORTERS, a show about interstellar luggage -- and the producer of the show just asked to read his stuff.

It is generally maintained that you can't show a TELEPORTERS script to TELEPORTERS. They will hate it, because, while it may appear to be a perfect TELEPORTERS show to viewers, the writers have all sorts of attitude about what they're trying to do on the show, and you don't know what that is.

I can verify that the few times I've looked at a spec NAKED JOSH, I found it irritating. And in the paid world, I have rarely read a free-lance script for a show I was staffing -- a free-lance script, not a spec, a script based on conversations with the writer and often even an outline that we wrote for the writer -- without the urge to fling it across the room.

On the other hand, Lisa pointed out just now that in every screenwriting book she's read, the author repeats the rule -- and then says "that's how I got my first job, but don't do what I did."

It's showbiz, Punky. The rules aren't really rules, they're just how things are typically done. They're the path of least resistance, and you don't want to create more resistance if you don't have to. But if you find yourself in a situation where the rules aren't helping you, and you can do it convincingly another way, go for it. You'll stand out from the crowd. And if you can't do something convincingly, it won't help that you're doing it the same as everyone else, will it?

I know one writing team that got their first break by snarking on an X-FILES website that Chris Carter happened to be reading. He asked them how they'd have fixed the episode. They answered. He asked if they had a spec. They said they did. And wrote one over the weekend.

That's definitely not how you get a break in showbiz. Except for them, it was.

What's been your experience? Have you ever got a break by showing a spec of a show to that show? Do you know anyone who did?