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!
Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke.
Confused Woman: Biagio-WHO???
Biagio: This episode. It’s episode 81 and we’re sharing how to develop your television ideas wisely. Four questions you should ask yourself about every TV concept you consider. What two iPhone app developers can teach you about making smart, creative choices. Why? Easy development can mean difficult sales. And I manage to impress my wife.
Joke: I think I see where you’re going with this boy.
Biagio: We are on a roll today. Music courtesy Dave Pelman. Music Dave Pelman. Com. Hey, everybody. She’s joke.
Joke: He’s Biagio.
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: All right, well, welcome to episode 81. And today’s episode is called Develop Ideas Wisely.
Joke: That’s always a good suggestion.
Biagio: Always a good suggestion. Listen, those of you who listening to the podcast for a while know our opinion of ideas, you know, in and of themselves, which is that ideas alone aren’t worth a whole lot, especially in our industry. You can’t walk into a television network and be like, I’ve got a great idea, and just give them a one liner and think that anything that you pitch is going to excite them. That said, you know, obviously all TV concepts start with some kind of idea. So it’s not like ideas have no place in our business. And I was listening to actually a really interesting podcast the other day. You know, as a company owner, one thing I like to try to do is expose myself to people in other industries, just to see how they sort of look at their own day to day working life. And there’s a podcast I discovered called Under the Radar that’s run by a couple of independent app developers, David Smith and Marco are meant, and one of the one of their episodes was called ideas. Of course, I was immediately intrigued because I wanted to sort of see, you know, they’re taking ideas, and while they sort of come from the same place at an idea in and of itself, like a one liner isn’t worth a whole lot. They had a really interesting way of breaking down an idea into like these sort of four segments, and they thought that looking at your ideas through these four different lenses could sort of help you decide where to spend your time. Because as we all remember from a few episodes ago, Mr. Bush, go, my high school teacher most valuable resource was what?
Joke: Joke? Time,
Biagio: Time our time. So so I wanted to give props to Under the Radar. And I’m going to kind of touch a little bit on on what their four lenses were. But then more importantly for all of you, I kind of want to put this into perspective as to what this means in our industry. So sort of from a big picture point of view, they said for them, all ideas kind of break down into four lenses. Is it an easy idea to prototype or a hard idea to prototype, and does the idea have a small potential upside or a big potential upside? Look at your ideas through those four lenses. So for instance, if something is really easy to develop and has a really big potential upside, you might want to spend more time on that than something that’s really hard to develop. It has a small potential upside.
Joke: Totally makes sense.
Biagio: Okay.
Joke: I think I see where you’re going with this.
Biagio: Yes. So but we are on a roll today.
Joke: That was a compliment.
Biagio: I appreciate it. So what I wanted to first of all point out is obviously, you know, David and Marco, they they develop independent apps, mostly iPhone apps, and they are basically selling direct to consumer. They have a potential customer base of millions. It’s a little bit different about the TV industry, especially the unscripted TV industry is we have a customer base of probably about 50 or so, right? I mean, our customer base.
Joke: Is lucky.
Biagio: If we’re lucky. I mean, that’s really, you know, and really in reality, for us, it’s really about like 10 to 12, right? Because our customers, our TV networks, that’s where we go to sell our TV shows.
Joke: Right? And even though there might be 100 TV networks, they all are looking for very different things, right? So while most all of us could use total paper, not all of us want an outdoor grill, right? So if you’re if you’re making toilet paper, everyone’s your customer. If you’re making outdoor grills, you have a limited customers. So while there’s hundreds of networks, not every network is right for every idea.
Biagio: Right. And if, like us, you’re selling big competition reality shows or, you know, really intense crime reenactment shows, well, the number of customers goes way down. And this kind of goes for all of you as well, who are whether you’re thinking about pitching directly to networks or teaming up with a production company like ours, you have to think that at the end of the day, you know, you need to look at whether an idea is easy, hard, small upside or big upside through the lens of how many customers there are. And there’s not that many. So what that means from a practical perspective is that if you think you have something that’s really easy to develop and has huge potential upside, you’re probably not gonna be able to sell that show. Because because most people who think that something is easy to develop to them, it’s like, oh, hey, I can just write down this idea on a piece of paper. And the idea is a new spin on American Idol. And I mean, the potential upside on that would be huge, right? Because if I got that on the air. Wow. I’d be like, it’d be like one of the most successful shows on TV. Except that because it’s so easy to develop and because there’s such a potential big upside, everybody in the world is writing out those really easy pitches, right?
Joke: Yeah. I mean, way to go crush some dreams there, babe. Like, I mean, that’s the dream, right? Is that the easy Show makes you the most amount of money. It doesn’t mean it never happens, but the chances of it happening are slim.
Biagio: Right? But also, by easy, I mean, I think that a lot of people think, oh, it’s easy to develop because all I need to do is write it down. So I’m also talking about your approach to development, because you could also say, well, you know, you know what would be really hard? You know, it would be hard to develop, but have a big potential upside would be if I went and got P Diddy on board to do a TV show, or I went and got Adele on board to do the next American Idol. And I walked through the door on a TV network, and I’ve got Adele and I’ve got PD, and I have the, you know, the owner of a huge record company all saying, we want to make this TV show. Guess what? That was really hard to develop. You probably just spent about five years of your life putting that together. And the upside is huge. But it’s not, you know, again, how much time are you putting into. That’s why a show like that can be hard to develop, because you can’t walk in with an idea alone. You need to walk in with the entire package.
Joke: Yep.
Biagio: Joke. I’m just running away with today’s episode. I know you’re running off.
Joke: Listen.
Biagio: I think that the the real pocket for new television producers, aspiring television producers, especially in unscripted, is actually sort of hard to develop and kind of small potential upside. So what do I mean by that? No, no. But listen okay. I mean, let’s be honest, most television producers, aspiring TV producers, the upside is getting your show on the air, right? Like, you come up with a concept and you’re like, oh, well, my upside, my upside is actually getting that show on television. We’re going to talk more about this in the second half of this, of today’s episode. But for instance, you know, it’s much harder to develop a show around a real person, place or thing. And, and I think when you’re doing that, then to go and say, this is a show that might work, for instance, at History and Nat Geo and that’s it, you know. So now you’ve basically said, I’ve got two potential customers who may buy the show, and I’m going to spend a really long time trying to find the right people to build the show around and make a great piece of tape that’s going to show off why these people would be a terrific TV show, knowing that my upside is maybe only two TV networks are going to buy this show. However, that tends to be the pocket where new aspiring TV producers are able to get a show on the air. Would you agree? Joke.
Joke: Yeah. I mean, I think that it’s like, you know why we always say watch television, really see what’s out there is that the networks have developed these niches. And so if you can really hit within that pocket, if you come across something or develop something that fits there well, you have a good chance of getting that on the air.
Biagio: Exactly. Now, again, I think that this can, you know, this can make it sound like, oh, it’s difficult to succeed in this business. Well, it is. The two of us have never, hopefully never allowed you to believe that making it in this business is as simple as going out, shooting a tape. And the next thing you know, you’re a TV producer. It took us many, many, many years to get to the point where we’re at now, where we’ve made, you know, hundreds of hours of TV, but it’s not like something we just woke up one day, we shot one tape, and the next thing you knew, we were TV producers. But that kind of brings me to the second half of Phase podcast episode, because again, when you kind of look at with something easy or hard, small upside or big upside. I think what you really have to realize is these are sort of guides you’re giving yourself. These are tools you can use to help you decide whether or not to spend a lot of time developing any one particular idea. But for us, I think it’s also important to to to realize that upside doesn’t always have to be your project ends up on the air. You know, upside can mean different things for different people at different projects. For instance, maybe the upside you’re aiming for is to tour the film festival circuit, or maybe the upside you’re aiming for is to win awards, or the upside you’re aiming for is just to finish a pitch tape, to finish your very first pitch tape to know what it’s like. Well, that’s very different than shooting for the little lottery we all play every day when you’re trying to actually get a show on TV. So now all of a sudden it’s something easy to develop, hard to develop. Small potential upside, big potential upside that all gets turned on its ear because it’s about doing what makes you happy, you know, for a particular project. So, for instance, if you’ve never made a pitch tape in your life and you really just want the experience of trying to go out and shoot a promo tape and taking something, you know, through beginning to end, then maybe it’s a good idea to go for something that’s easier. You know, you happen to know a couple of friends that you think are kind of funny and you’d think, boy, wouldn’t it be hilarious if they had their own TV show. Now, in reality, you know, probably no TV network is going to ever buy that show. But your friends are there. They’re available to you. You know, the upside here is not getting a TV show on the air. It’s actually taking a project through from beginning to end, seeing what that process is like and ending up with hopefully, a great piece of tape that helps you sharpen your skills and sort of taught you what the process is like to go through making a pitch tape. Again, very different upside than trying to shoot for the moon and get a TV show on the air.
Joke: Yeah. And I think this comes into play especially like with passion projects. Right? So when we made our documentary dying to do Letterman, you know, we weren’t doing it for the upside of making a ton of money or, you know, it’s just that’s not what happens with documentaries. You know, we did it because we wanted to show people that we could do it. We did it for our friend and make sure that his story was told. You know, there were other reasons to do things than just, you know, money or the next thing on television. So but I think the biggest thing, I’m not sure if there’s another point coming, but what I’m getting from this and this is kind of putting into words what Biagio and I naturally do is even when we get a pitch sent to us, that’s not necessarily a bad pitch, but it just it is going to require a lot of work for a potential upside. You know, if there’s only 1 or 2 networks that this can go to, but it’s going to require a lot of work and energy. We might be like, you know what? This project isn’t right for us right now. Like we don’t have the time to devote to it. And so we would pass on it. But then there’s also other ideas that we might have ourselves or like, oh, we should do this. And you’re like, you know, listen, we could probably cut that together really quick. It’s kind of a format idea, you know, and it’s worth it. It’s worth going out there because we could maybe take it to 4 or 5 different places, and it’s not going to take us that much time. So I think more than anything, this is a great time management tool when it comes to ideas and really looking at your ideas as work product, right, and and saying, okay, how much time do I invest in this product? And you know, what’s the most I can get out of it?
Biagio: Yeah. And listen, a lot of times something is intended to be a work product or a career builder. And like joke says, sometimes something is just a passion project that’s good for your soul. You know, to do Letterman, we never knew that we were going to win as many awards. We definitely didn’t know that we would invite us to qualify for Academy Award consideration. And all that stuff was wonderful and certainly helped our career. But that was all sort of like a side effect of, you know, making a project we just really cared about that was good for our souls. It kept us, you know, it kept us inspired. It kept us working on other projects because we’d always come back to it. A project that we felt really good about and passionate about. Even though it was a documentary and we knew it probably wouldn’t have the biggest audience. So that upside for us was worth it. So that’s it. You know, I was really impressed by the way these app developers sort of look at their business, and it sort of got me thinking about how it would apply to ours. As always, time is your most valuable resource and you have to know why you’re spending it. So I think this idea of will prototyping this idea while developing this idea. Will it be easy or hard? And will the potential upside be small or big is a great way to consider whether or not you want to develop your next idea for a potential TV show, a career builder, or a passion project. Just really define for you. What does that? What does upside mean? You know, big or small? And what is easy or hard mean for you? You kind of have to decide that for you. And once you do, everything else is relative. And I think we’ll fall into place as you look at all your, your potential concepts. So I think that’s it for today, Joe, because you have anything you want to add?
Joke: No, I think this is a good thing. I mean, it’s Labor Day today. So maybe this week in our next development meeting, we can actually like call it these things instead of just going like, I don’t know, we have time for this.
Unidentified Voice: We’ll just be like, well, the upside.
Joke: Does not quite match the, the.
Unidentified Voice: The, the difficulty level that it’s going to take to pay.
Joke: You know what we’re saying?
Biagio: You know what we’re saying? I want to give a shout out and a thanks to, you know, Mark, our man to David Smith, who have absolutely no idea who we are, I’m sure. But I did enjoy their podcast and it did inspire this one. And, you know, as always, as you know, if you’re interested in pitching as television concept to us and potentially teaming up, you can learn how to do that by signing up for a newsletter at any one of our websites. Producing unscripted com is probably the easiest and then just follow the directions. Regardless if we ever work together, we hope that our advice helps you. This is advice that we’ve learned ourselves the hard way making television over the years. And you know, we just we just hope that these podcasts make your journey a little bit easier than what we had when we were first starting out. So I think that’s it for today. We’ll see everybody in a couple of weeks.
Unidentified Voice: See you in two weeks.
Biagio: Thanks everyone.
Announcer: By Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
