Re: NeoRutty's drunk and pitching TV/Movie ideas... which he will then try to sell.
@NeoRutty, I don't know about everyone else but as someone who has written stories and synopsis for many years I would be really interested in finding out exactly HOW you pitch an idea to a tv channel.
What form does a 'pitch' take; written synopsis?, story-boarded?, live-presentation?
And who do you submit ideas to; production company execs? broadcasters? financiers? theatrical agents?
I'm a talker (typer) so I'll answer your question in excruciating detail! Cuz I really really wish when I was starting out people were telling how they did it.
And I'll say right now, love him or hate him, MAX LANDIS has a LOT of good advice. search "Up to my knees" on youtube... he does tons of vids on writing... wish I had something like that years ago.
Part 1 - How I'VE sold shows....(not necessarily the best way)
I find the number one thing that helped me was being shameless... and it helped I was already an assistant animator in the industry. It's a low position, but it got me in the same place as people who I could talk to. This can be accomplished by being any starting position (PA for example). It's not necessary, but it doesn't hurt.
I'll also work on ANYTHING. I figured pretty early on that any credit is better than no credit.
So when I was in this small studio called "Bardel Animation", I would find out who was in development and chat them up. Like a lot of people on this site, I have opinions on movies that I'm perfectly happy to share, heh.
The first thing I got on was a really crappy internet short show called "Mr Dink". It was terrible, but I wanted to work on ANYTHING... so I told them I'd write on spec, and they only had to pay me if they liked it. This is also the first time I got screwed.
this was a show they were trying to sell at the time, so there was no budget... They paid me a penny, saying if I wrote a script they used for the pitch, they would put me in the team and pay me for any script after. I had no choice, so I did it.
I joined a team of seven writers where we all had to pitch 6 stories. Mine and another guy got chosen... and one each of our scripts went out with the pitch (never saw the pitch package)... The show was sold, and then when I met with the development girl again, she said the owner of the studio didn't want an assistant with no experience on the show, and so they hired someone else from the team.
I was pissed then, but more pissed later when they screened the shorts at the Christmas party and my jokes were all over the other episodes.
But I put "Development writer for the Web Series Mr. Dink" on my resume... and went after the next thing.
https://bardelculture.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/mr-dink/
Pretty much anytime someone I knew wanted to make something, I said I'd write it... eventually all those young animators became old animators or ran studios... and I started getting a rep.
So to sum that up...
I'll work on ANYTHING...
The other thing to do is contests. I did a few early on, and while I would get in the top 10, I wouldn't win... but then one time I entered and lost but got contacted by the head of the competition. He wanted to meet in person because while my short came runner up in voting, he thought it should have won and wanted to talk.
I thought THIS was my break. I figured he was going to offer me work... but instead he just wanted to find out where I learned to write dialogue.
"I watch way too many movies"
I was bummed out for a month... but then later he would offer me a job as his assistant on a series he was show running. I had to pass because I didn't want to move to Toronto and had an animation contract I didn't want to break (NEVER BURN BRIDGES)... Don't know if I would be in a better or worse position... but then I feel my careers okay right now, so I don't think much about it. But all that came from a single contest I paid 20 bucks to enter.
So how I actually got into a position to pitch shows currently (though on a small scale) is because a few years back Spike TV was looking for shorts and asked my friend who was running a small studio if he had any ideas. He contacted me and said he wanted to make a film noir short like "Sin City" but funny. So we came up with "The Wrong Block".
Spike bought it, but then gave us the option to wait a year for a bigger budget... I said no... to do it now. My friend who arranged the deal wanted to wait.
We waited and lost it.... by the time the year was up they lost interest. (sin city hype was gone)
So then a few years back me and my buddy came up with a series we could shoot cheap and live action. It was just a show to give another friend of mine something to write on... he was just finishing Vancouver Film School's writing program and was feeling down cuz he couldn't get the big job he was expecting to have waiting for him.
So I came up with a simple parody - I thought it was funny that everyone did Batman parody's where Batman's a dork and the Commissioner is the straight man. I thought it would be funnier if Batman gave the signal to a cop who was basically louis CK who would call Batman to complain about his life. It was also a nice way for me to "work out some personal demons"...
We called it "City in Crisis" and made the Batman character a guy dressed as a shark...
So I ended up writing all of them, and never let my friend be a part of it! (I gave him a shot... he didn't "get it")
Anyway, just as we were about to shoot the live action version, my "Wrong Block" friend sold Wrong Block to a program called "Bite on Mondo" - A program by Mondo Media to hire Canadians to pitch shows for their web channel. He excitedly told me to write 5 new eps.
Once I got in the room with the producer of Bite on Mondo, I pitched them City in Crisis as an animated series as well. "It would be cheap! It's basically talking heads!"
They said we could do one episode... I told them I needed five. They said no.
So I wrote all five and sent them anyway. They gave us all five. They later gave us another five because it was better reviewed than most of the Bite on Mondo shows.
Wrong Block was also made, but me and the director didn't work well on it, and so it kind of crashed and burned. He cut most of the humor out... it was weird and uneven.
But City in Crisis did well, and because of that, Mondo in LA called and asked me to pitch, which is the show we're doing now.
Here are a couple other examples of pretty much whoring myself out for work!
- I worked as an editor on Thomas the Tank Engine... I found out who was doing story and bugged the FACK out of them til they let me write a script (I don't even LIKE Thomas)... I sold a couple and became known as "The idea guy"... My friend who's never gotten work gave me crap - "I can't believe you wrote a Thomas script... you will work on anything. Lame" (yeah... and I get work because of it!)
- The studio I was at wanted to make a movie... I asked for a meeting and told them I'd write it on spec as long as I get paid scale if it's bought. They agreed - not much choice, really... who else would do it for "free". While working on it, the studio got bought out by a bigger company making big movies. I finished the script and sent it to my new overlord - their head of development. He loved it and wants to meet about it and their other scripts.
- This new company has me editing a movie of theirs that's in trouble... it's not simply working. I shamelessly started re-writing the dialogue - killing the original dialogue track and writing new dialogue on screen in subtitles. They went for it and preferred the new dialogue - HUGE GAMBLE. I wouldn't recommend unless you know the directors well... cuz that could've gone really badly. It's really not cool.
But that's the thing... Fortune favors the bold.
And I have one REALLY BOLD MOVE coming up... I'll fill ya in later depending how it goes. I can only do it ONCE, so I'll be working on that script for a while making it perfect.
So the short of it is, send your stuff to anyone who'll read it... if you're not in the industry, enter contests. I've won a few and lost A TON... but it just takes one guy there to say "hey, this guy may work for that project we're thinking about".
Cuz good story/dialogue writers are hard to find.
And get a version of Final Draft if you're doing scripts.... it's horrible to hand anything in not properly formatted. It screams you don't know what you're doing.
TOMORROW PART 2 - What MY pitches look like! - not necessarily the best way to do it, but works for me
