There are a couple of key components to creating a successful show. First of all you need to have a good idea. That part usually goes without saying. Second, you need the right cast & crew. You want people who breathe life into an idea. Sure we’ve all played the game where we’ve tried to imagine the original casting choice of Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, but would Magnum PI have existed without him? Lastly, there is timing. The show has to meet the audience and their needs at the right time. In essence, a certain kind of magic needs to be present for all these elements to co-mingle and create great entertainment. With any one of them missing, what you’re left with is something that is at best just watchable and at worst just plain painful.
So, even with the best idea or the biggest star power, creation of a show is still a veritable crap shoot –a roll of the dice as to whether all the other elements will fall into place. Enter the idea of the television pilot.
In the old media world of television, traditionally writer/creators would be given a development deal. They’d generally be paid some (often large) sum of money to sit and come up with a certain number of show ideas and of those ideas a certain number of pilots would be produced. Networks would look to test audiences for feedback then, based on their research, a pilot would get rejected, shelved, or a “pick up” –sometimes for a full season, sometimes for just a few episodes. The studio or production company would foot the bill for writers fees and production costs, and in turn they owned the show. The investment in these pilots allowed the studios to hedge their bet as to whether they had created magic in 22 or 44 minutes.
Now, of course, as we all know, times, they are a changin’. Studios are looking to cut costs and this year’s party line is how pilot season does not need to cost nearly as much as it has in recent years. This begs the question as to how the studios plan to cut costs. How do you still hedge your bet and develop a show?
One answer is shorter less elaborate pilots known as “presentations” ie: stock sets are used as opposed to original designs; one or two scenes are filmed as opposed to a whole script.
Another answer is to renew, reuse, and recycle. A number of networks are bringing out old bankable ideas and giving them another shot. Shows like American Gladiators and The Mole are reality based examples, but revamped versions of network failures (re-dubbed “cult followed”) like ABC’s 1998-99 dramedy, Cupid, is a fascinating development.
In addition to searching their own vaults, the networks are looking to foreign produced hits for show fodder. A recent article in Hollywood Reporter breaks down the various shows from various countries being revamped for American TV screens. Hoping to repeat the success of shows like Ugly Betty and The Office, networks are using a show’s international success as a sort of make-shift test audience.
Not surprisingly networks are also looking to New Media. Despite it’s well documented failure on NBC, Quarterlife is a notable example of old media’s new tendencies. This show was an old media pilot, revamped for the internet, then re-aired on traditional TV.
So, it was over dinner with an old media friend that I began forming my theory behind this new evolution of television. She was explaining how fewer and fewer companies were accepting pitches for shows. Instead, they preferred to see a fully produced 7-10 minute pilot presentation. I was still digesting this information when I happened upon a blog post Kent Nichols wrote enumerating his new media Ninja business expenses. My theory crystalized. Hollywood, like a lot of corporate America, has begun outsourcing. They are happily passing along the cost of show development in various degrees from pitch to pilot to the show creators.
Where it is true that this world and web-wide search for the next best show offers a lot of opportunity to the independent producer, it also transfers the financial burden of production. As Kent pointed out, the mere cost of doing business, never mind any hard production costs, can quickly reach into the thousands and thousands of dollars.
Like a lot of indie filmmakers and new media producers know, raising the money to create your one big masterpiece can be a hell of an endeavor. Then, on top of whatever strength you bring to the production, you are still called upon to wear many other less fitting hats to finish the project –in new media, it’s often web designer, social networker, and blogger to name a few –all things that distract from creating that one good show.
So, what happens when that elusive magic doesn’t bring everything exactly together or the indie producer doesn’t manage to create a cult following on the increasingly noisy interwebs? In this Web 2.0 world where we mistrust everything traditional, value the individual perspective, and herald the amateur as the next unsung talent, are we undervaluing the cost of development and as a result undervaluing ourselves?
