Wanna' read along? Here’s a machine-generated transcript you can use. Yes...expect a few mistakes, especially with funky industry terms, interesting names and tagging whoever's talking. If something sounds weird, trust your ears. But...sometimes that really is what we said!
Biagio: Hey, everybody. She’s joke. He’s Biagio. We’re married. We make unscripted film and television and want to help you do the same.
Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.
Biagio: Well, welcome to episode 65. Does that make us senior citizens now? Oh, gosh. Or is that 66? They’re going to raise the age anyway. I don’t know. Anyways, the 65 episodes in and as always, we’re thankful to so many of you who listen to the podcast and go ahead and submit shows to us. And I have to say, the number of submissions we’ve been getting has really gone up. So first of all, thank you. Second of all, that also means sometimes it takes us a little bit longer to get back because we really do try and look at every single submission. However, today we have a little piece of advice we want to give to those of you who are putting together shows based on real people, which, by the way, is the very best thing you can do. So what we’ve been getting is some great casting tapes where, you know, we’re seeing some some casts and people are wondering, you know, should I spend more time with these people? There is, however, one creative red flag we see in these tapes. And it kind of comes down to a rule that spans all film and TV, which is show, don’t tell. And I’m going to let joke expand a little bit on that.
Joke: Yeah, I mean, we’ve we’ve seen some great stuff and some great people. And I think what happens is what are it’s because of Skype or even just in filming it. And sometimes it’s also because these characters have watched a lot of reality TV, so they think they know what we want. And so what we’re finding is in a lot of these sizzles, there’s people describing themselves as I’m awesome, I create a lot of drama. I can get crazy around here. And those are all red flags, right? You do not want your cast selling themselves. You want your cast just to be themselves and how they behave and how they act. That is what’s going to sell them. Don’t have your cast be their own salespeople. It’s just a huge red flag for the networks. It reeks of manufactured storytelling as opposed to authenticity. We’ve always said the best characters are those that don’t even think that they might be good characters. They just are. And they just act and they just think and they just speak and they don’t do it in context of would this make for a good show? But so even if the characters are savvy and they they do know those things, it’s important that you work with them or cut those parts out of your sizzle where it’s they can’t be their own salespeople. We’ve talked about this a lot here, and it’s one of those things that, you know, as a writer, I remember getting those notes, you know, back in college where it was like, you know, don’t explain too much. Just let the action unfold. Let the action do the talking, not your description. And a little bit of that is the same here, you know, and I know we’ve said, you know, just do some Skype interviews and we don’t necessarily need to see verité. And the way around that is I don’t have any problem with characters describing other people in the tape, just not themselves. Right. So if there’s, you know, I don’t know, a secretary and she’s like, the boss is nuts. And this is how she comes in, and this is what she demands from her coffee, and this is what she, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so you have somebody else describing that person that feels still real and authentic, because that’s how we describe other people in our lives. Right? Or she’s the sweetest girl. And, you know, we can always get her for a laugh because she’s so naive and innocent or whatever. That’s fine. It’s just really watch out on how they talk about themselves or how they position themselves. So yeah, that’s kind of it’s a one note thing, but it’s it’s a really big one when you end up watching it because it’s you, you have to have that filter on it when you’re, when you’re seeing it, because that’s the filter to network puts on it. And sometimes things slip by where you’re like, something about this doesn’t feel authentic. And then you realize, oh, it’s because, you know, they were talking about themselves in a way that just people wouldn’t talk about themselves.
Biagio: Yeah. I mean, like, for instance, let’s say you were doing a casting tape with the with the boat captains of Deadliest Catch. You wouldn’t sit them down and have them go. I’m a mean tough guy, and I really boss my people around, and I’m hard nosed. Those guys, they just kind of open their mouth and talk and you know that they’re tough and hardcore. Like, you don’t need to have them describe themselves again, as jokes said. And I, and I do think this is good is another way of showing that they’re tough or showing that someone is crazy. You can either shoot a little verité where you just see them being that way, which of course means, you know, some extra shoot days early on when you’re putting together a tape or you have the other people in their lives describe them. You have everybody describe everybody else. It just goes down so much easier. And again, I know I’m just kind of repeating what jokes said, but it is a really important point.
Joke: I think another question that you can ask someone is, is you could ask someone, what is your pet peeve? You know, what do you just hate? And then that their answer to that question will most likely show insight into their character and whatever. But if they are a very kind of high strung person and they’re like, I hate it when someone is done on time and my assistant is never on time, and it drives me up the wall and I want to, you know, I want to fire her every day. Like, that’s fine, but that’s much better than someone being like, I go nuts every day on my assistant because she never shows up on time and I let her have it. Does that make sense?
Biagio: Yeah, I think it does. And so that’s why I think when it comes down to illustrating why your character is a great character, you know, you basically have two ways. You either shoot verité, showing them being the way they are or you have someone else talk about it. Again, to illustrate, let’s pick let’s pick one more time, you know, because this is something we see all the time. You know, the young 20 something who’s like, I’m so wild and crazy everywhere. You know, I just say everybody thinks I’m the life of the party and that’s what I am. That’s the last thing I want to hear. Come out of someone’s mouth. So you can just show them being exuberant in their interview about other things, and then either cut to them at a party being wild and crazy, or have them be exuberant in their interview and have their best friend be like, oh my gosh, she is the life of the party. And sometimes she does get out of control because it just gives it. It gives it more weight if it’s coming from somebody else and it doesn’t feel like the person you’re interviewing is just a needy person that wants to be on TV. Which, by the way, there’s plenty of those. There’s plenty of needy people out there that just want to be on TV, and just wanting to be on TV does not make you a good TV show. Again, I think jokes said it best and we’ve said it in other podcasts. Usually the best TV characters are the ones who don’t even want to be on TV. They don’t even think they’re a TV show. They’re clueless about just what a great character they are. So I hope that tip helps. For those of you who are putting together casting tapes, it’s just another way to think about what it is you’re showing to us or anybody. You know. It’s not so much about someone describing themselves and why there’s such a great TV character. It’s about seeing it or hearing it from somebody else.
Joke: Show, not tell. You said that, right?
Biagio: Show not tell, show not tell. But in this case, showing can actually be telling as long as the telling is happening from somebody else. Exactly. So that’s it for episode 65. I want to wish everybody happy holiday. Coming up, those of you that that are celebrating the holidays, we will be back. Thanksgiving.
Joke: I hope everyone has something to give thanks for.
Biagio: I hope everyone has. You know, it’s gotten so confusing these days. I hate to be that person that doesn’t want to offend anybody, but I feel like, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But we’re going to be we’re going to be giving thanks for a lot this holiday season, not the least of which is thanks to all of you who’ve been tuning in and listening to our podcast, submitting shows and just, you know, reaching out and saying hi to us on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to all of you, as always, for those who are new to this podcast, you can learn how to submit a show to us by heading over to Producing Unscripted. Com by reading our free e-book that’s on the front page of the site, How to Pitch a Reality Show, and by checking out the quick cheat sheet or sheets to pitching to us at Producing unscripted 030. So that’s it everybody. Happy Thanksgiving. I’ll just go ahead and say it. And thanks again for listening. And we’ll see you all in a couple of weeks.
Joke: See you in a couple of weeks.
