3 Tips from RealScreen 2019

Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.

Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?

Unidentified Voice: Biagio.

Biagio: Who did this episode? It’s episode 112 and we’re coming to you from New Orleans and Real Screen 2019. Three of our biggest takeaways from this year’s summit. Tips will help keep you on top of your development game. A little emotional support for all you creatives, and Joe shares her controversial take on one of Nola’s most popular dishes.

Joke: Going to say something sacrilegious, which is music.

Biagio: Courtesy Dave Pelman music Dave Pelman.com. Hey everybody. She is joke.

Joke: He’s Biagio.

Biagio: We’re married. We make unscripted film and television. I want to help you do the same.

Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.

Biagio: Okay. Joe’s laughing at me because we’re doing this podcast live. Well, it’s live and we’re doing it. And then you’re hearing it from the airport. We’re in New Orleans for real screen, which is the big, you know, factual television event. We actually met up with some of you. I think we had seven meetings. Right, Joe?

Joke: Yeah, we had seven meetings with people from the podcast.

Biagio: Yeah. Which was really cool. It was exciting to hear from some of you and meet you in person. So what we’re going to talk about today, we have three little takeaways from real spring 2019 that we think you’ll find useful. Before we get started, I just want to make a couple super quick announcements. President’s day weekend. I don’t know what you got planned, but set your DVRs. HLN will be playing the final two episodes of our series, Unmasking a Killer on Sunday of Presidents Day. They’re going to play the first episode all the way through the new sixth episode, and then on the next day, Monday, they’re going to play the first episode all the way through our final episode seven, which was really exciting and not this podcast, but next podcast will be able to tell you about our new TV series that’s coming out in March, and I’m really excited to share that one. We can’t I can’t say what it is yet, but hopefully by the next, the next podcast, we’ll be able to. I did I ramble enough there joke.

Joke: Yeah. I also, for anyone who maybe doesn’t have kids and isn’t confronted with the no School President’s Day. It’s February 17th and 18th at 9 p.m., right?

Biagio: Yeah. Thank you.

Joke: You’re welcome. Not everybody knows what Presidents Day is. I didn’t know when I was like, you know, a kid. I mean, I knew it was somewhere in February, but in college, I wasn’t thinking about.

Biagio: They don’t have President’s Day in Belgium.

Joke: Well, I wasn’t in college in Belgium. That’s true. I met you here in college.

Biagio: I know all this.

Joke: For the record, it’s been a long couple of days, and we’re a bit slap happy.

Biagio: Tired a little bit, a little bit, yeah. So apologies if we sound a little whacked you, but that’s what real screen will do to you.

Joke: All right, let’s let’s let’s get professional.

Biagio: All right. Let’s get going. Here. We wanted to tell you a little bit about real screen in general. Now before we get into the real takeaways I asked Joe said how would we describe real screen. So what are the things that real screen is honey?

Joke: This year’s real screen is exhausting. Very fun for Biagio. He has had a blast, weirdly so, and I have very much enjoyed the beignets in New Orleans. Unfortunately, my beignet a day didn’t quite fully happen. I missed yesterday and only because they closed.

Biagio: We missed it by four minutes.

Joke: It was a little late. We realized we weren’t going to be able to walk there in time. And yes, yes, I know cafe du Monde is open 24 hours, but I’m going to say something sacrilegious, which is I actually don’t think those are the best venues in town. There, I said it.

Biagio: Cafe beignet is pretty good. All right, so that really has nothing to do with your career. But we thought we’d share a little bit about how our real screen was. Let’s get into the stuff that you might find useful. First of all, I thought we’d have we’d get going to share three takeaways. So let’s get into takeaway. Number one.

Joke: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Biagio: Now, you know, it would have been interesting to tell you about all the groundbreaking things we learned at Real Screen this year. But the fact.

Joke: Is this changing.

Biagio: But it’s not. Now, there’s a lot of things happening, right? There’s more buyers than ever. There’s all kinds of platforms, digital platforms that are looking for content. There’s brand new business models about the way producers are working with these places, and it really seems overwhelming when you’re trying to figure out what it all means, all these big changes in the industry. I got good news for you. All it really means is that you still have to put forth the best possible content. It’s still about networking. It’s still about making yourself valuable. Your skill set is a storyteller. It doesn’t need to change just because the industry is growing and changing. Great storytelling will never go out of style. That’s right. What else would you say that has hasn’t really changed?

Joke: Well, the pitching process hasn’t really changed, right? It’s still about listening and responding, and it’s not really about talking at people. So I think it’s something that you observe. You know, people who are good pitchers kind of get the sense of the room and adjust and listen and think about how they could address the concerns that they’re being brought up by the people that they’re pitching to. Whereas I guess less good pitchers just kind of talk at someone. And when concerns are brought up. They’re like, no, no, no, no, you don’t understand. And so that doesn’t always work.

Biagio: It really never works.

Joke: I was trying to be nice.

Biagio: That’s all right. We’re being honest, honey. We’re being honest.

Joke: Yeah. I’ve gotten some dirty looks for being honest. So it’s a good tip for all of us. And by the way, again, this is not just for newcomers. It’s a good reminder for all of us. Because I think even when you’re super, super passionate about a project and you’re like, I see it, you have a tendency and sometimes I do too, to be like, no, no, no, no, no you’re not. No, no. Like, listen, listen, I’m trying to tell you. But when people don’t get it. It’s really about figuring out the different ways of communicating what you have in your mind, instead of just repeating the same thing. Because clearly they didn’t get that the first time you said it. So maybe find a way to say it differently than just saying the same thing. If that makes any sense.

Biagio: It does. Again, when you’re meeting people and you’re pitching in them, especially for the first time, and they’re just getting to know you, I would say almost without exception, we the people hearing the pitches, whether it’s us or a network or a studio, we’re sussing out the person in front of us. Is this a person I can work with? Is this a person that I’m going to be able to give notes to, and we’ll be able to have a great conversation about? Or is this a person who’s on a one way track to doing things their way? And the minute we realize something’s not going to work, they’re going to freak out. So by showing people that you are open, willing, ready to listen, hearing what they’re saying, repeating it back to them so they know you got it, those are all little things you can do to show. Hey. Yeah. I’m legit. I’m here. I’m here to work with you and make something together.

Joke: Yeah, and it’s not about throwing your vision out or changing the show. Like I said, it’s a communication skill set. It’s about listening, responding. Like I said, like the one track thing, it’s like, don’t be a horse with, like, blinders on. You, like, have that peripheral vision. Try to see the big picture. Try to understand where they’re coming from.

Biagio: Just remember everyone. They still want the same thing. They want great characters, solid storytelling, and in a way that’s comforting. You know what’s always worth continues to work. Your skills of a storyteller are never going to get devalued.

Joke: Oh, and another thing that hasn’t changed, and it’s something that came up in a lot of the panels from people asking questions in the audience. We got a sense that it feels frustrating because you come to real screening to meet with the networks, and you have these 30 minute pitch sessions or speed pitching or whatever. Were you you’re getting to hear straight from the network what they’re looking for, and then they pretty much tell you. Well, you got to team up with a production company. Trust me, when we were first told that when we started, we were like, well, that’s crazy, we could do this all ourselves. We were convinced of it, and yet they didn’t change the rules of the game for us either. So we ended up teaming up with production company. And the thing is, is that, you know, as we started doing that with different production companies, when we started working in the business, started working for different production companies, you understand why. And it’s not just that they don’t have any faith in you, it’s just that making a TV show is hard, and there’s lots of paperwork and legalities and indemnification and insurance and Eno and like all these other things that come with being the production company on a TV show, there’s a lot of legal things and business affairs things and all this stuff that for them, it’s just easier to do it with a company that knows how this business run than has done it before, has a track record. We don’t feel bad, you know, signing over a million bucks to them to make a couple of episodes because we know they can do it. So it’s not as an insult. It’s not because no one believes in your creativity, or even that you can pick up a camera and shoot and edit. It’s all the other stuff that comes with it.

Biagio: Yeah. And I mean, listen, obviously as a production company that accepts pitches, we love to get pitches from people, but whoever you’re pitching to, you want to make sure that you’re pitching to someone who does the kind of shows that you want to make. For instance, if you were trying to pitch a show like jeopardy! We would not be the company for you to pitch to because we don’t do those kind of game shows.

Joke: Yeah, and it’s not just that. It’s also like, who can you build a relationship with, right? Like, look, we’ll be the first to tell you that we’re not necessarily a match for everybody, right? I can be what. Harsh. I don’t.

Biagio: My wife is asking me to insult her. Are you kidding me? You think I’m crazy? I haven’t drunk that much.

Joke: I don’t think it’s an insult. I think it’s like, you know, like one of my very non-American traits is I usually just get to the point, and that doesn’t always work for everybody. And we also work hard. And that’s what we like in our partners and what we respond to. There’s other personality things. So sometimes, you know it’s a good match or not a good match. So it’s important that when you partner up with somebody that you have a say in that it’s a relationship, it’s a business relationship with a syllable relationship. And so as I think one of the networks pointed out on the panels is like, look, if you picture them directly and they like your show, they’re just going to marry you just to some production company, and you won’t have a say in it. Or if you team up with the production company ahead of time, like you could talk to different production companies and then decide who you want to go with, whether it’s someone that’s closer to where you live or someone that you have a better relationship. Whatever the reason is that you would pick one production company over another, like it gives you more, more power in that.

Biagio: The way we do it and the way any production company you might team up with should do it, is just to have an honest conversation with you about your skills, your goals, what you want to get out of the project, how involved you want to be, and you guys should have all of that hashed out before you ever get to the pitching part, right?

Joke: And also making sure that creatively, you’re on the same page for the show.

Biagio: 100%. Because if they want to completely change your show idea, you probably will be unhappy. So now that moves, decide to what what we’re calling takeaway. Number two beer in horses. Yes. Beer and horses. This is not about me galloping around drunk. What this about is a very funny moment we had with an executive the other day, and I think that it’s funny in its own right, but it also speaks to a larger thing we want to talk about. So we were pitching to somebody, one of our own shows. We were meeting with a network executive we knew, and we got into a conversation about something, and she’s like, man, you cannot pitch beer or horses. Anytime someone pitches anything with beer in it or anything with horses in it, I don’t even we don’t even consider it. It’s not going to work. And it was really funny. And it’s because a lot of times execs will get burned by a certain style of show or a certain type of show, and then like, I’m never making that show again. And in this case, her and some of her colleagues really feel like beer and horses. Are it for another network. Their trigger might be, you know, anything military? Nope. That’s it. I’m out. It’s a pass. It could be anything. But the reason that I bring it up is because we all really love our pitches, right? We develop a show. We’re so passionate about it. That’s why we’re doing it. We know it’s great. We know what it can be. And then you pitch it to somebody who dismisses it out of hand. It’s frustrating, right? Because maybe you have the greatest horse show in the history of the world ever, or your beer show is so darn good, you know, it makes everything out of Food Network wishes. It could be that right. But the truth of the matter is, you’re generally not going to change their mind. Listen. Always second effort. The first is say no. Take one more shot. What if I change it like this? What if we did this? But just know that if they have made up their mind that a certain world or a certain jara, or a certain type of show doesn’t work for them, they’re not going to buy it. And we run into this all the time. One of the greatest shows we never sold. And it’s something I love. It came in through the podcast. It’s amazing pitch tape. It’s incredible. A show that is absolutely nothing like it, except that it had a couple things in common, had failed miserably, and so nobody will even consider this show. It doesn’t matter that it’s better characters, doesn’t matter that it’s better storytelling. They just won’t consider it. That can get you down. So just know. That’s why you have to pitch a lot of projects. That’s why you have to develop a lot of things. You’re going to run into these situations where, for whatever reason, your world is going to be instantly dismissed by 90% of the executives in the industry. Don’t let it get you down.

Joke: I think only to make that bad news worse. Well, Biagio is getting at two is a is a lot of this is personal. And so that executive, you know, may have slaved really hard on. Let’s just go with the horse’s show and was really proud of it and put it out. And it didn’t do well for whatever reason. Right. Could could be it was a bad time. Could be went up against a Super Bowl. I don’t know, it could be a million reasons why the show didn’t do well. But for them, they think it’s the horses. The horses might have cursed it or, you know, testing came back and some guy or some woman in the group of 20 was like, oh, of course, I don’t know, whatever it is. So it’s a personal thing. They said no beer. And obviously there’s there’s been shows out there on beer and and some did okay and some not so good. And coming at them with stats at that point honestly doesn’t really do anything. Now on the good news is that someone has that personal experience and they’re like, no way, Jose. Never going to happen. You may end up six months from now with that executive no longer working at that network. And now all of a sudden there’s a new executive who has no previous experience with beer of Horses and is like, you know what I want? I want a drunk cowboy show. Let’s do this and double down on it. It could be very frustrating. And that’s why we always say, you know, project isn’t is it? To have a really dead right. You can revisit it as long as it’s not time sensitive based on a character like moment in time. But it’s frustrating. But we all experience it. People new to the business as well as veterans. It just it just happens.

Biagio: Hey, I came up with this example of what it’s like trying to sell a show, and it’s really clear in my head it might just sound crazy to everybody else, but let me just share it. Selling the show is like this. Imagine you have a target hundreds of feet away and it is moving around so fast you can barely even keep your eye on it. As a matter of fact, you can’t even aim. The only way to hit the target is to fire like 300 arrows. That’s what it’s like pitching a TV show, because there’s a million reasons why people might just say, no, you can’t predict it. And they might have said yes yesterday. They might say yes tomorrow. You just don’t know. So that’s why it’s so important to keep developing. I know we harp on it a lot, but we still need so many people who have their one big idea, and you got to have 20 big ideas. Actually, I was talking to a producer the other night and he was like, yeah, that’s my motto. I got 20 in development and I hope one hits 20 in development, and I hope one hits. And I think that’s that’s pretty par for the course.

Joke: All right. So now let’s really cheer them up with our last takeaway. Takeaway number three. Let’s talk about positive feedback. But since this is New Orleans this is the curse of positive feedback.

Biagio: Would that be like a voodoo curse or like a regular old curve? Okay.

Joke: I think it’s one of these things that we’ve observed. And it’s fascinating because it was talking to independent producers who were kind of new to the game, was talking to other production company producers, even talking to network executives, talking to independent producers who used to be network executives. And everyone kind of talked about this thing like the curse of positive feedback, in a sense, where you go to these pitch meetings or these feed pitches and everyone’s like, yeah, I’m interested. Yeah, that looks really nice. Yeah. Go ahead, send it to me. Yeah. That’s nice. And then you never hear from anybody. It happens to all of us. There’s something, you know, with real screens. So Biagio is always very excited. I’m somewhat more pragmatic.

Biagio: I love real screen, I love it, I love it.

Joke: Yeah. He really likes the validation, I think, because people are like, oh, these shows are great. And I was like, okay, is this like the real screen feedback?

Biagio: That’s not what I like about real screen.

Joke: But I know, but but I’m trying to keep on task here.

Biagio: Standpoint standpoint are you.

Joke: So we were talking to a network executive who was about to go receive 30 pitches or whatever it was, and I mean no uncertain terms. He was like, look, I don’t want to just have the next half hour of my life just be like crushing people’s dreams. So, you know, he never says no. He’s always like, yeah, that’s nice. Yeah, sure. Send it to me. No one wants to be the A-hole who just crushes people’s dreams. And so a lot of times, instead of just being honest, you get that kind of like, you know, semi positive response. And we were talking to a seller, a producer who used to be a buyer, a network executive, and she said the same thing where she made a pitch and she got like a positive response and she was like, all right, I think I sold this thing and then quickly realized, oh, wait, I just I just experienced the stuff that I used to dish out. I don’t have no idea if I sold this thing. So look, it’s different if people are like, all right, I love this. On Tuesday, you know, let’s set a call at 10 a.m. I want to talk more about, you know, when you have like specific action. It’s not saying positive feedback can’t ever really, truly be positive. It’s just I what I don’t want to happen is people go to these conventions and like pitch and pitch and pitch and get all this like, you know, positive feedback and then like, like, oh my God. And everything died. And no one ever responded to me, what did I do wrong? You didn’t do anything wrong. Like it’s just part of the game. We pitched to a friend of ours at the network and in the room he was like, this is amazing, I want this now turn it around. I want it by tomorrow. I want you to make these changes. This is send it back. We’re like, yay, did it. And then like, you’re like totally ghosted. And it’s like, dude, what happened? And it’s like, you know, he was super excited. His boss completely wasn’t. And that was the end of it. And, you know, yes, it’d be nice if he’d call back. It was like, sorry, I got excited too quickly. But stuff happens and you get busy and whatever. The point being is, it’s not. It just happens to everybody.

Biagio: Yeah. And I think, Joe, you said that you actually said this earlier. You might have touched on it a little bit here, but you need to kind of look at it like this. Positive feedback without specific action for you isn’t usually really positive feedback. I mean, if you’re getting the whole, yeah, maybe send it to me still send it absolutely follow up very graciously. But that’s very different than like we met with somebody today and we’re like, okay, listen, we really like this part of your pitch. What we would like you to do is A, B and C connect with our assistant and let’s talk next week. So that’s very specific action we’re giving these people. And they know so that they know we’re interested. But we also try not to do the whole oh that’s nice I’ll think about it. If, if, if we really can’t be helpful because I hate when people do that to us, but in general, just know that’s what you’re going to be walking into if you’re pitching to somebody. That’s right, that’s right. All right. Well those are our big three takeaways from Real Screen this year. I hope you are some useful nuggets in there. We sure had fun recording it. We’re a little slap happy I think we mentioned that.

Joke: Yeah I also you know I don’t want to get to negative. It’s fun. It was nice to see everybody. It was nice to meet some new people. A lot of times what we do can feel lonely because you’re by yourself out there looking for stories, by yourself in the edit bay, trying to put it together. There’s a lot of quote unquote lonely time where you feel like you’re alone in the desert just trying to get something going. So it’s nice to, like, see the industry and meet your peers and hang out and have a drink and a social setting. Not talking about work. And I understand why Biagio get super excited going. I’m not usually great in crowds, so there’s a certain anxiety with, you know, traveling and all of that stuff. But it’s fun. It’s fun to see everybody, lots of creative people, has a great vision for what our business can be and the beautiful content coming out. And I think that’s what’s so exciting is you sit there and you’re like, I’m in a room and people are pitching shows that a year from now I’m going to see on television, and maybe one of them will be the next pop culture hit. You know, it’s just really exciting.

Biagio: You guys all know part of the reason we do this podcast is we love to meet new producers. We love to make it possible to pitch to us. Many of you have taken advantage of that, and we’ve met a lot of really cool people because of it. If this is an interest you want to be in and maybe the, you know, the $1,700 to go to real screen is too much. You can always shoot us a pitch or investigate other production companies to pitch to without spending a dime. I don’t ever want anybody to feel like I need to spend crazy amounts of money to pitch a few ideas, when chances are you won’t earn that money back. But that’s it again. Like, hey, if you’re around Presidents Day weekend, which is apparently February 17th and 18th.

Joke: Well, the 17th is Sunday and then the 18th is on Monday. So Monday is President’s Day, right? So it’s like a federal holiday. So banks are closed. Schools are closed.

Biagio: Right. So they’ll be marathoning our show that Sunday all the way up through episode six. And then that Monday all the way through up through episode seven, six and seven. Are the new episodes wrapping up? The first five we did and in our new show is coming in March.

Unidentified Voice: Yay!

Biagio: All right, thanks so much for listening. Hopefully we’ll get to meet you at Real Screen or our offices or wherever you are at some point. We really appreciate you listening.

Joke: High talk soon.

Unidentified Voice: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.