How To Survive The Hollywood Notes Process with Troy DeVolld

Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.

Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?

Joke: Biagio.

Biagio: Who did this episode? It’s episode 87, and we’re discussing how to survive the Hollywood notes process. Kevi producer extraordinaire and acclaimed author Troy DeVolld that discusses his new book and Another thing which helps you decipher notes on both scripted and unscripted projects. Learn to use notes to make your project better and not worse. When to push back on notes you disagree with and when not to. Five questions anyone should ask themselves before writing a note. And what to do when you get a note like this.

Troy DeVolld: Thank you for so thoroughly addressing our notes. Show is now boring for some reason. What can we do about it?

Biagio: Music courtesy Dave Pelman. Music. Dave. Com. Hey everybody. She is joke.

Joke: He’s Biagio.

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

Joke: Hopefully by teaming up with us.

Biagio: All right, well, it’s episode 87 and we have Troy DeVolld, who wrote the book on reality TV as well as a new book on notes, is here with us today to answer questions that I know you have because many of you have emailed us about them. So. Hello, Troy.

Troy DeVolld: Hello. It’s very nice to finally be in front of you.

Biagio: I said, I don’t like our paths have been crossing for years, and then we sort of met virtually, and we were speaking in at a college event together that you invited us to. It’s the first time we’ve been in a room together and hopefully not the last.

Troy DeVolld: Well, I’ll certainly be around. I hope so.

Joke: Troy, today we’re going to talk about your other book and another thing which is specifically about notes, but both for the scripted and the unscripted world, it’s kind of notes, as you know, part of the business critiquing, receiving, critique, giving, critique, all of that stuff.

Troy DeVolld: And we get them on both sides. We get them unscripted and unscripted. So.

Biagio: Yeah, I mean, really anybody who’s doing anything creative, it doesn’t matter. You’re at some point someone’s going to critique your work. That critique is a note, and you have to deal with it in a way that makes your your project better and not worse. And that’s what Troy’s book can help you do.

Joke: Yes. Let’s talk about notes. We’ve gotten a few emails from people asking about the notes process and what that’s like, or advice of how to handle it for the people who are in it. So the book you wrote on it, which is short, concise and extremely helpful, inspiring and commiserating, I think.

Biagio: We felt commiserating is that that’s how we felt.

Troy DeVolld: That’s that’s a word.

Joke: Yeah. Someone someone heard us. So the book is called and Another thing which is always in the notes. Oh, one more thing. So, you know, kind of think of this podcast as coming after the one that we had done on notes a while ago, which I’m sure you’ll link to.

Biagio: Yeah.

Joke: Put that where we really talked about preparing. And I think that’s one of the things you say is really handling expectations ahead of time before you’re delivering cuts, frankly, before you go out and shoot, really know if everyone’s on the same page.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah, I think that if you start out on the same page, you’re always better off. Sometimes it’s a little difficult and, you know, there are a lot of people that sort of think I’m a bit of a network apologist because I’m like, well, you know, these guys at the network side, they’re dealing with things too. You know, they’re getting having to deal with their sponsors and their boss and some company that has nothing to do with television that’s over all of them that, you know, somebody calls in and says, I don’t like X, Y or Z. They’ve got focus groups that suddenly change directions and things. You know, those execs are going through some stuff too. It’s not just you getting beat in the head with the talk about, you know, when the when the changes need to come.

Joke: Yeah, exactly. And I do think that that a lot especially, you know, as a supervising producer or above talking to either editors or story producers who may not have had the experience yet, you know, to, to experience the other side and vice versa. There’s a lot of executives who’ve never experienced production. Yeah. So the notes reflect that frustration into.

Troy DeVolld: Well too. And, you know, I think you’ve probably been in the same situation that a lot of times when you get notes back on a show, the first round of notes will come back from somebody who’s a little lower down the chain like you might have. You might even get your first round of notes from someone who’s an assistant, because they’re in the process of learning on the job, their boss is helping them to do things. You make those changes, it gets to the boss, and they’re like, well, what happened here? It’s like, well, we addressed the necessary given to us by the person who works under you. And if there’s no communication there, we can’t fix it. Yep. But again, it’s just it’s kind of it’s kind of the nature of how things run. Like you learn in this business. You learn once you get in on a show. You learn by screwing up and having somebody above you say, no, no, no, we’re going to do this. It’s the same thing for execs on the other side.

Joke: Right. And for me, notes are very valuable. Like, you know, we work in a collaborative medium. And I know, especially in reality television, you sometimes get overwhelmed by the amount of footage and you know, all the story, you know, all the back noise, you know the background noise. So sometimes I think it’s very helpful to have fresh eyes on it, which the network can provide and be like, oh, this actually is tracking, this is playing, or this isn’t like I’m bumping on something here. Can you further explain this or help me understand it or help me land it?

Troy DeVolld: Sure. And the thing too is, you know, on the story side of things, you’ve reviewed things so many times and made so many alterations. Put a scene in, taken a scene out, tried to shorten this and do this. You sort of know all of the history of what’s going on and that fresh set of eyes. They haven’t had the exposure necessarily to all the, you know, the work that you’ve done. So they don’t know that you’ve tried this six different ways and it doesn’t work. So if they ask you for something, don’t look at that note and go like, obviously that doesn’t work. You know, you’ve had the advantage of watching the 16 hours of footage that they didn’t get to see. So we just all need to sort of temper ourselves a little bit when we get those notes in and not not overreact and try to see what the useful part of the notes is.

Biagio: Well, and that’s a hard thing. I will say, having come up as a grocery bag or a pizza delivery guy, you know, basically working jobs where they teach you right off the bat, the customer is always first. I try to remember that when we get these notes in, but it’s the difference between bagging groceries and killing yourself to edit a television show that you put your heart and soul into. Not that I didn’t like bagging groceries, but they are the client, right? I mean, at the end of the day, they’re paying you.

Troy DeVolld: That’s true. There’s there’s also a small amount of self-preservation there, because you know that if you turn in something that isn’t great, if you address all of their notes. I don’t talk about a lot of personal situations because I’m crazy about NDAs for some reason. But I worked somewhere once where I got a note back and I actually had this note photographed and put onto a plaque that I have on my desk, and it says, thank you for so thoroughly addressing our notes. Show is now boring for some reason. What can we do about it? Things happen. You know, if there’s something where, you know, there needs to be a little pushback when you bounce back on a note, we call it we call that pushback. If you push back, have a reason and explain why. Because sometimes that helps them to understand those missing pieces. I don’t recommend doing it a lot. I don’t recommend sending half of your notes back with like, we’re not going to do that because XYZ, you know, I have I have this crazy delusion that everything is a conversation. So if I have.

Biagio: Something that doesn’t.

Troy DeVolld: That isn’t working, I might bounce back and say, hey, listen, you know that that scene that you don’t like, that’s two minutes long rather than take it out. Can I just do like a 45 second mini scene? So I at least still have the setup for the other thing that comes later? You know, I tend to treated this a discussion as opposed to say like, no, it has to stay in because of this. You dope. You know, you can’t, you can’t say that because people don’t. They don’t know what you’ve seen. They don’t have that same overview. They’re trying to run, you know, a dozen shows at once. They’ve got a lot of ground, a lot more ground to cover than you do.

Joke: Yeah. So. So let’s talk a little bit about the process for those that are not quite aware of it. So, you know, now you’ve shot everything you’re in post. You’ve put together your first cut. So you put out a rough cut to the network. You usually call the rough cut. And I think one of the things you mentioned, a book which we all talk for granted, but obviously you add timecode to that. Right. And the reason to add a burn in timecode is.

Troy DeVolld: So that the executive can say at one 4215. I hate that entrance. Did you reshoot that entrance? Do you have another angle that she and another dress, is she carrying a waffle in that one? Because my sister like waffles, whatever the reason is so that you know exactly where that note is coming from. If you get a batch of notes that come back with no timecode, it’s like, this sounds weird. And you’re like, what sounds weird? Where? Yes. I don’t know what to look for. So that’s why there’s always burn in timecode.

Joke: I think if things to know about timecode two is a lot of times people are watching, and by the time they realize they want to write a note, we might be 5 or 6 seconds further. So. So, you know, while the time codes are tremendously important, it’s also noting like, okay, well, what’s around there because sometimes the exact time code doesn’t actually line up.

Biagio: They get those numbers wrong. It happens.

Troy DeVolld: It’s what I call grenade accuracy.

Biagio: Yeah. That’s good.

Troy DeVolld: We’re gonna we’re gonna drop a note about something right here and it’ll be somewhere 10s before or after. It’s where the actual note.

Biagio: I also, I have this thing about timecode, and I’m probably the only one, but it drives me Borchers because I’m also an editor. So where you put the time code for me, like I’ll have assistant editors who will output it and then it’ll be a big fat timecode right across the top or right over all the lower thirds. This is my opinion today, but most of the time they’re watching cuts. They’re watching them off the web or off a digital cut. So I like to put the timecode small and just outside of title safe, where it’s not over anyone’s head, face or lower thirds. I don’t know if you’ve ever run into that, but I think the.

Troy DeVolld: Upper left or dead center at the top, as small as as legible, I think is where you where you drop your timecode. Yeah. Of course, in this day and age, a lot of people are watching cuts on their phone, so it can’t be too small.

Biagio: Right now. I just have to be able to read it.

Joke: But in New York, executives who watch it on the train. Yeah. That’s right. So timecode also, though, has led us to this other thing, which sometimes you get executives who get really specific about the timecode. Yeah.

Troy DeVolld: Can we take three frames off the end of this? Yes, yes.

Joke: Specific time code. Yeah. I mean, usually they’re about second specific, but yeah, it can get very, very minute in the detail.

Biagio: Although they’re easy to address. It just cut off three frames.

Troy DeVolld: That’s true. And it’s on the topic of being easy to address. You know my my policy is just if if they ask for a note, do the note. The more notes you do, the more you put it in the bank for the one time you’re going to turn around and say, listen, I got that note. You know, we might not want to address it because of x, y, z.

Biagio: Do you find yourself making judgment calls on okay, is this not going to make the cut that much worse? Well, it kind of way I think.

Joke: Before we’re talking about addressing the notes. A lot of times I feel like it’s just understanding the notes. Yes. Because the different executives, right, different ways. And sometimes it’s just even trying to figure out what they’re saying because and again, this is in their defense. But a lot of times they’re typing really fast. And sometimes words are missing or commas are missing in sentences. And so you’re like, what exactly does this note even mean?

Troy DeVolld: Right. You also get the ones that are sort of the hang ons where you get a big note, and then two minutes later, something happens that explains what the other note was about. And they just put like, never mind with a different timecode. And you’re sort of like, what do you what do you mean? Yeah. So as far being articulate with your notes is a great skill. And the the executives who are very articulate and understand the process, I find a lot of them have a background in actual production. Yeah, that was a big fan of John Saadi when he was at ABC because, you know, John always gave very good, thoughtful notes. He’d been a producer on The Mole and some other things, and he knew, you know, what it was going to take to address that note.

Joke: He probably also reread the notes before sending them out, which doesn’t always happen.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah. Well, there’s and there’s also a sense of what’s realistic, right. You know, a good executive knows what you can accomplish in that two day turnaround that you’ve got. So there are people that automatically want to go to the pickup scene or the pickup interview, where you go back out in the field and reshoot a scene or reshoot, you know, dialog as the first solution, first solution, as opposed to let’s get creative and figure out how to make this other thing work. You know, you may have something else that works here.

Joke: So speaking in terms of how to address these notes now when you understand it, by the way, on understanding, there’s many times and I’m sure you do the same. Or if there’s five notes I don’t understand. I’ll literally just email or get on the phone and be like, I don’t understand these notes. Like, you know what exactly. So. So that is part of the conversation. I agree with you where it’s like.

Biagio: Okay, illusion of conversation. As you said earlier, if.

Joke: You don’t understand the note, it’s better to ask for an explanation than to, you know, assume and and possibly take it the wrong direction.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah, getting on the phone is great. I have, over the years come to prefer email just because I have a record of what’s been asked for. And I can add that to my notes and print it out and stick it to my notes folder.

Biagio: It’s this your reality TV book? Which is a really good point, which is like, even though it’s not like you’re trying to sell out the people above you, you want to have a record of what you were told to do and when you did it and why. Well it’s helpful.

Troy DeVolld: You know, there are a lot of different personalities in this business, just as there are with anything else. There are people, you know, I’ve worked I worked with a producer once who would not have a meeting with me, with anyone else present. We would leave the building and walk and have all of our take all of our meetings and conversations on the hoof, because he didn’t want to have any trace of what I’d been asked to do or what I hadn’t been asked to do. So it would be very easy to be like, well, what did.

Biagio: You do that for? You know.

Troy DeVolld: And turns, you know, it turns the bad days into real Lucy sketches. Yeah, but it’s nice to have the email too, so you can always refer back when you’re like, well, I think he meant this, right? You know, but maybe he meant this or she meant that.

Joke: Or so part of addressing notes then is you get this notes document and sometimes there’s conflicting notes. Yes. Even within the same person like do this and then the never mind later or as more often than not, many people put eyes on it from the network side. And then you can literally get a time code. No, that’s like take this out. And then another time that’s like, let’s really flesh this out, right?

Troy DeVolld: When you get those conflicting notes, you don’t always have someone who who will respond. What I would say if you get those conflicting notes, do what you feel is the right version of the note. And when you do, do you do response documents on your notes?

Biagio: You talk about that.

Troy DeVolld: We should talk about those too. But usually when you get a notes past what I do when we all do is we do a response document where we take their notes and then we write after the note. Here’s how we addressed each note, just so that they can get that document and know that you’re paying attention. If you get conflicting notes and you have to choose somebody’s notes over someone else’s, just say we used so-and-so’s suggestion because we thought that it worked better overall. And that way there’s a written response. Basically, like people with conflicting notes, they’re not always reviewing each other’s material. Yeah. So if they know that you did something that someone else they worked with ask you to do, you know, unless there’s some big political thing going on between the two of them, usually that’s the end of, you know.

Joke: And sometimes I’ll, I will pick up the phone and be like, okay, who’s notice who’s? Because, you know, the assistant will get four batches of notes from people and just merge them, you know, and just take the time codes and just order them, which is very nice. And then so I have one document of notes, but like, I wouldn’t know which note came from who in the hierarchy. So sometimes it’s just easy just to ask to be like, okay, you know, I mean obviously if you have a preference to which one to do this, then we go with torture.

Biagio: No, no. It’s great.

Troy DeVolld: Believe me, it’s great when you have executives who make themselves available. But there are some people who are literally just not able to take, you know, several phone calls over the course of a week, about one show out of the.

Joke: Exactly.

Troy DeVolld: 12 or 15 they’re in charge of.

Joke: Exactly. So the response doc or the notes on notes doc as it’s been called. We deal with that a lot. You know, hopefully your executives do read it. Sometimes they don’t. We’ve had that before where you have kind of a big story issue and you explain in a no why we can’t address certain things or why it has to be certain way. And then the next cut, they give the same note and you’re like, I answered this.

Biagio: I’m sorry.

Troy DeVolld: That sounds like a knowing laugh.

Biagio: But yes.

Joke: Yeah. And but the notes on notes stock the response. They do take time. Yeah. So it is part of the process to be aware of. Let’s also quickly so you know you then go through this process for all the cuts. Right. So you have rough cut. You have fine cut. Usually there’s a rough cut.

Biagio: 1 or 2 find out.

Joke: Get two.

Biagio: One loss to lock.

Joke: Cut used to be the end. And then people started giving notes on lockout. So now we have pick lock. Now people are giving notes on pick lock. So it’s one of those things. One of the things we have found is we’re it’s like you can no longer give notes, send them the cut without timecode. At that point they’re like oh, oh, oh okay. Yeah. Maybe I should know.

Troy DeVolld: Just that’s the hint.

Biagio: When it’s 56 it’s yeah. No time code.

Troy DeVolld: But you know to it’s as a as a as a show progresses as you know you know it like the rolling the rolling Stone actually gathering moss, more people start going on to it. And then sort of the head of the network will get a chance to look at something. When it’s at it’s fine cutter lock cut stage. And they may have input at that stage. And there’s very little you can do just because that’s the way. Yeah that’s the way they’re structured. Yeah. You know and it makes it tough because I know what your resources are that are dedicated to the show. And if you have to spend another week and edit.

Joke: Yeah, I agree, I agree with you that if it were at all possible and I understand that it probably isn’t, but but to invert the process is to get the higher ups in there much sooner.

Biagio: That’s what I talk.

Troy DeVolld: That’s one of the things.

Biagio: I talk about.

Joke: In the book. Yeah, because it’s the same thing. It’s like, you know, it’s also not fair. I think, to the junior execs who are just like, oh my God, trying to figure this out. And then the boss wants something different and you’re like.

Biagio: Oh.

Troy DeVolld: It just seems like it would be easier for them to do maintenance on the cuts after they’ve had a clear direction from the.

Biagio: Top.

Joke: And then to make sure that those notes are being addressed, that it’s you know what I mean? Their job then is to make sure the boss’s notes are making its way through the cuts, and that those cuts are actually living up to what they’ve set out, and especially on a new show. You know, obviously, if you’re a season two, season 3 to 4 minutes established, we all know I think then it works. But if first season or a pilot, it’s always fascinating to me. And it it it’s almost always the case where a junior exec will give notes on a rough cut, and by the time it gets to the higher up, it’s undoing some of those notes or it’s taking it a different direction. And it’s just like we’ve internally we’re like, can we can we just get to that person sooner and then and then fine, then we can back off. But it’s just especially when you’re setting up a new show, it’s extremely important.

Troy DeVolld: But you know, it’s great for me because I’m always, you know, I’m always the number two on the series. I’m a coexist or I’m a supervising producer. That just means I get to work another three weeks.

Biagio: Yes. Yeah. So. Well, for.

Joke: Those who are carrying. The load, let me tell you something.

Biagio: If you’re writing.

Troy DeVolld: The checks, it’s not as much.

Biagio: Fun to deal.

Joke: With this. Let’s also, in terms of some of the glossary stuff, we mentioned it briefly, but the idea between like a global note and a time code note.

Biagio: Yes.

Troy DeVolld: A global note is when you get something that just says, I feel like Karen should be more x, y, z. Look for moments when she’s like this, like this, like this. A global note is incredibly time consuming, because you’re going back into the material and trying to figure out how to give 5 or 10 on screen examples that bolster that and completely change the tone of something. A time coded note is, you know, this entrance looks a little weird. Can we find another entrance? It’s something that you can fix in, you know, 10 or 15 minutes in the bay at the most. Getting a lot of global notes is always very distressing because it kind of means you shot the arrow, it went completely over the target. You know, you being blindfolded, of course, and not knowing where the target was in.

Biagio: The first place.

Joke: Or the target’s moving or.

Troy DeVolld: Exactly. So that’s the difference between the global note and and a time coded note.

Joke: I think also a lot of time coded notes. Most of the time the editors can address them on their own. And then the global nodes really take the producer to, to really kind of dig in and look at the big picture and figure all that stuff out. So yeah, they are way more time consuming.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah. And usually if we’re if we’re in any kind of a time crunch, most of the shows that I work on, I’ll just have them put the show up on a server that I can watch it at 4:00 in the morning the next day, and just have all the time coded notes and the solutions there for the editors when they get in, so they can work from a list instead of all of us having to watch everything down together.

Joke: Oh, you do that.

Troy DeVolld: Too,

Biagio: I do.

Joke: Yeah. And sometimes I feel like for executives. And again, please be the network apologist for a second. But. But it seems easier to give global notes than it is for specific notes.

Troy DeVolld: It is. And I think that a lot of people that are less experienced will tend to give global notes. I feel I think maybe we should once something’s been shot and it’s in the can. I always feel like that maybe we should period is has passed us by. But you know, there are the hard conversations are about breakage and having to go back in and do things. And once people start realizing that those global notes introduced too late in the process equal people spending a lot more money and the network actually having to spend that money. People learn over time. You know, how to give better, more, more focused notes.

Joke: And well, to wrap up the process part, I think you say another thing in your book that is very valuable is the idea of postmortems. Yes, which we do here as well. You know, we try to debrief most of the the senior level people the last week or so. But, but in the postmortem really meaning like, okay, well, why don’t you explain it.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah. Just a postmortem is at the end of a show. You sort of take inventory of what went wrong, what went very well, what turned your executive on and what turned them off so that, you know, for future seasons that these are the talking points that you need to have with new staff because everyone’s so frustrated they’ve quit. No, that’s not true. That doesn’t happen very often. Not in this market. You don’t quit a show in this market. You ride that like Slim Pickens to the ground at the end of Doctor Strangelove. You just stay there until it blows up. Yeah, but a postmortem is always very helpful in helping the next round of of the show to succeed the next season. You know, any conversations you have as you’re putting things together, as you’re trying to develop the next season, you know exactly what targets to try to hit because you know what you’ve missed in the previous. Yeah, go.

Joke: And I feel like as producers were really puzzlers anyway. So like puzzling the the train or the, you know, the, the behind the scenes is just as important as puzzling the story on screen. So one of the other things you talk about in your book, which I found fascinating, now that we’re kind. Of process.

Biagio: Yeah, this is a great it’s.

Joke: The kinds of execs you run into and you have a broken down in three. Give me your three kinds of execs.

Troy DeVolld: Hardliner is my way or the highway. You will do 100% of my notes the way that I give them to you. I am not interested in your input, your experience, anything you have to say in the hard liner, you just have to generally suffer through and try to humor.

Joke: The collaborator.

Troy DeVolld: The collaborator is a different sort in that you can pick up the phone and have those conversations. They really want to make a good show. They’re willing to have a conversation about things. They have a list of things that they’re going to want to have checked off, so that they feel like they’ve done their job and represented their network, but they’re listening to you.

Joke: And then the absentee.

Troy DeVolld: And then the absentee. The absentee is usually in Aspen. The absentee is a person who is a lot of a lot of what you do, you know, as people who who own a company that produces is you’re doing lots and lots of shows. And your goal, as much as getting the shows out, is getting the next shows lined up. So there are executives that just aren’t available for long periods of time where it’s like, I’m going to be out until next Thursday because I’m going to be in Banff having coffee with so-and-so. And those people are very difficult to work with if they do not pass on the authority to people underneath them to execute things, that it’s impossible to be a combo of an absentee hardliner, although I have seen people attempt it. Yeah, it’s always a recipe for disaster, because if you go away for two weeks and come back and you’ve had no input, but you want to sign off on everything, everyone’s just spinning because they’re trying to guess and you know, they’re going to miss and you’re going to be mad. And it’s just not a great personality type. But again, you know, absentees can work very well. There are a lot of people that are producing in signature only. Yeah. You know and they do just fine.

Biagio: Well really any one of these three types, although some are easier to work with, another can work well at the end of the day. It depends. Yeah. If they’re in line with the actual vision of the show, you all talk about the beginning.

Troy DeVolld: That and if their staff has the chemistry to to work with them.

Biagio: Well for, for.

Joke: Addition number two of in another thing I think you should add the.

Biagio: Yeah.

Joke: The scared executive.

Biagio: Yeah a number four. The scared number four. The scary talk about it.

Joke: And I guess you could be a scared hardliner or scared collaborator or a scared absentee, but but I feel like there is this, this executive out there now, and some of it has to do with the hierarchy. We talked about where it’s like, you know, they’re covering their as they need to please their boss, but they’re so afraid and they’re either over noting or not even really even trying to understand, but just being hard lined about. My boss said this, this thing. So it has to be this thing, and you try to have conversations and you’re like, but that’s not gonna work. I don’t care.

Troy DeVolld: The scared. The scared executive is largely responsible for the homogenization of content over the last.

Biagio: Couple of years.

Troy DeVolld: Why? Everything looks the same. Why everything on a network has the same feel as something else that’s there. There are no shows that are really special. Like, there are a lot of places where just nothing is special. The reason why the executives are scared is because the period of time that they have to produce a result has grown shorter and shorter and shorter. I think it was The Hollywood Reporter, and I could be wrong, but I think there was an article in The Hollywood Reporter where they said that the average life of an alternative executive is about 18 months from any one place. Can you imagine trying to ensure that from start to finish, you have something amazing to show for your efforts every 18 months? And you know what happens every 18 months? They get a new executive and you’re halfway through a show, or you’re in development and you’ve spent a bunch of money trying to put it together. And the new executive comes in and says, I don’t want any shows about baby elephants on this network while you’re in the middle of doing like The Baby Elephant Chronicles, you know, and suddenly, you know, your show dries up, you take a financial hit, you take the kill fee if there is one, and you just kind of look your wounds and try to move on to the next thing. Scared? Exactly. There’s not much to be done about it except that, you know, there’s it’s a different it’s a different generation. Yeah, it’s a different generation. As I get older, I start to see a lot of people that I think were brave and were very creative. You know, they’ve run their course and they’re gone. You know, we lost Grant Tinker, who was a guy that was an executive, presided over a lot of big comedies like Mary Tyler Moore back in the day. And the things that he always said was like he was always very supportive. He was always on set. He wanted you to do what you wanted to do, and it was just a different universe 20 and 30 years ago. And I’m getting scripted as an example. But there are plenty of examples in, you know, where I was at, like, I’m surprised, you know, that the guys over at Wow world, over at World of Wonder have been able to do these great, unusual shows. It’s they’re very brave. And whoever the executives that they’re dealing with, you know at Logo and Bravo and all these other networks are willing to stick their necks out a little bit. I think Bravo and Logo have some of the, the, the punchy new things I’ve seen on TV in years because they’re taking some chances over there. Yeah. You know.

Joke: And it’s hard also for them because it’s like you’re an executive and you take a chance, but because there’s so much product out there right now, it’s hard for those chances to to break through and to get the eyeballs. And so sometimes I feel like the chances if they don’t rate right away, people get scared and they’re like, oh, it must be because of the content as opposed to, well, you haven’t given it time to grow, right?

Troy DeVolld: There’s a there’s a wonderful rant in the outtakes of Arrested Development, not a reality show, but it’s David Cross is yelling at somebody and that’s working for the marketing department. He’s like, yeah, you know, I would think that if you had a show that’s won five Emmys and this many People’s Choice Awards and all this other stuff that maybe it’s your marketing guys you should be talking to, as opposed to talking to the people who are producing the show when it gets canceled. You know, maybe it’s your marketing guys. And I think a lot of the time with reality television, it does fall on the marketing departments for the networks, not getting behind shows that are a little iffy or, you know, they’re not they’re not pushing things. You look at, you know, I always it’s funny because I keep having it going back to scripted examples because it’s awful. But you just hear about those more often. Like The Nanny didn’t do very well when it first came on, and Jeff just ran it and ran it and ran it until people started watching it. Yeah, you know, they did the same thing with cheers. Cheers was not a breakout hit when it first fell.

Biagio: They got four episodes.

Joke: On the first season.

Biagio: Yeah. You get.

Troy DeVolld: You give something time to move forward. And I think we.

Biagio: All should.

Joke: Be the same. He’s a great example. You know, Project Runway, the first season was okay, but it wasn’t until season two that it really started picking up pop culture mainstream kind of, you know, eyeballs. And right now, you know, you’re not you’re not even going to get a season two.

Troy DeVolld: Yeah. There’s two there’s too many channels now for things to just accidentally find traction in a short period of time. It’s going to take a while and it’s going to take a lot of marketing.

Joke: Okay, let’s move on to advice. You wrote something in the book which I thought was great, which is five questions executives or anyone writing notes should ask themselves about what makes a good note. What are those five things?

Troy DeVolld: Sure. I think the first thing you need to think about is is it necessary? Like, what is this note buying for you? Like, are you actually making an improvement? Are you making something different? Are you going to sleep that much better once you’ve, you know, you’ve you’ve put that note out there. The second thing you should ask is is it in service of the story? Like how is it actually making the story better? You know, is it? Have you really improved anything. Or again it falls under that. Is it just different. Is it worth the financial cost. You know, you put you put a full reality crew of two, 2 or 3 cameras in the field for a week. It’s 75 grand. So like, do you really need that many pickups at the end of the show? You know, over and above what’s been budgeted for? Is it worth your relationship with the team? There are certain executives when you get when you get a note back, whether the note is good or bad, the note starts with really question mark, or.

Biagio: It’s.

Troy DeVolld: Like vaguely accusatory or like we talked about this. And when you give a note that is just going to disappoint and anger everybody, including your cast. Like there are things like the cast is like, the one thing I will not do is eat a potato on television because, you know, I had an argument with the potato lobby or something, something. And they come back and they wouldn’t it be great if she had a potato just go out and shoot her eating a potato? I make the worst hypotheticals ever.

Biagio: No, no.

Troy DeVolld: But that’s what I mean is it’s.

Biagio: Like it feels like if.

Troy DeVolld: It’s kind of like, yeah, if it’s going to cost you the trust of your cast and they’re going to be back in season, and you’re trying to negotiate to have them back for a season, it’s going to hurt you.

Joke: Yeah. Those are great questions.

Biagio: Well.

Troy DeVolld: It sounds it sounds stupid. But tell your let your executive know once in a while when they’ve had a really amazing idea that’s blown something open for you. Yeah. Not because it invites them to over meddle in the future, but it’s I feel like they probably aren’t getting a lot of that reassurance somewhere else, right? Yeah. You know, if you’re if you’re a storyteller, you know, there’s the business end of something and then there’s the story end of something. And both of them need to learn to appreciate each other. If you want to complain about how the executives are doing X, Y, and Z to you, let them know they’re doing a good job when they’re doing a good job.

Joke: Exactly. And I think that leads us to the positive thing that can hopefully wrap up this little portion of it, which is it’s knowing when to let go, right when is something different versus better. And I think that’s both, you know, from a network perspective and giving notes. Am I just giving a note to make a difference or am I actually making better? But I think it’s also in receiving a note and the instinct to like, you know, fight for what your idea was versus their idea. It’s like, well, okay, is it better? Is it just different? Can you just let go and just do it like, you know, some of that, you know, we’re not.

Biagio: We’re.

Troy DeVolld: Not Cubist painters fighting the gallery unders at the turn of the century.

Joke: Exactly, exactly. Like if it’s as long as it doesn’t make it worse. You know what I mean? And there’s there’s a reason why you’re just like, okay, sometimes you just do it. I think a thing to wrap up would be, what’s your SOS kit of how to get through the notes process?

Troy DeVolld: The real thing is, you know, take care of yourself. Don’t get stressed out. Don’t let yourself get into that weird rage loop that we get in. Sometimes when you get a note that you think is a bad note and you’re like, why am I doing this? And I can’t go to lunch because this is going to be, I can’t do this. And you get mad, you lose more time getting angry. Yeah, because your brain just shuts down when you’re mad, you know?

Joke: How do you not take notes? Personal.

Troy DeVolld: The only notes I personally the ones that start with phrases. Really?

Biagio: Question mark.

Joke: Well, thank you so much.

Biagio: I want to say what’s great about your book. It’s not just for unscripted, it’s for scripted as well. So many people can benefit from this and the ideas behind it, because dealing with notes is really dealing with people. So I mean, I think that anybody who and by the way, anybody who undertakes any creative endeavor in any genre, you’re going to deal with somebody critiquing your work. And at the end of the day, that critique is essentially a note. I think your book will help people get through it in a sane way, stay out of the anger loop, and hopefully handle things in a way that makes the project better. Because at the end of the day, what notes can hopefully do is make you improve your project beyond what you could have done by yourself.

Joke: I think notes are a valuable part of the process. It’s just, you know, like we said, it’s a communication, it’s a conversation, and it’s how to to get the most out of it. Yeah.

Biagio: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here with us today. What do you want to tell our listeners? Where can they find you? How can they give you money? What can they do?

Troy DeVolld: If you see me on the street, I won’t take anything larger than 100 unless it’s in an envelope. The book. And another thing is only available as an e-book. And it’s. It’s a very short read and it’s cheap. It’s less than five bucks. You can find.

Biagio: A black she’ll spend this year.

Troy DeVolld: You can find it at Amazon.com. You can find me at reality-TV book, my original book, reality-TV and Insider’s Guide to TV’s Hottest Market. You can find it Amazon or at the publisher’s website. Any place that sells books, I’ve put my face on it so I’m easier to find.

Biagio: And a great jacket.

Troy DeVolld: And a great jacket. God bless those crazy jackets. I’m hard to lose at the mall.

Biagio: As always, you’ll be able to find today’s show notes with links to Troy and everything that he’s talking about at producing unscripted slash eight seven because it’s episode 87. See how that works? And thank you, Troy, so much for being here with us today. I wish everybody who takes the time to pitch shows through our portal would read both Atreides books, especially his reality TV book. He does such a great job of explaining how the business works, how to tell stories. He talks about interviews. He has great little tips about the types of questions you can ask to help you get better story, and deal with people who aren’t necessarily great at interview. The whole book is amazing, and I think, Troy, you have a great sort of theory, which is that before you try to sell TV shows, you should understand how to make them.

Troy DeVolld: I think that’s my entire philosophy in one sentence.

Biagio: Yes. Well, and it’s and your book is a beautiful, beautiful step towards helping people get to a place where at least they understand how it works so they don’t pitch, absolutely unmake ridiculous concepts. Which, by the way, we all did when we were starting out. And if we had had Troy’s book, we could have skipped that whole process.

Troy DeVolld: So I can I can save the future, but I can’t save the past.

Biagio: All right. Well, this is our final podcast of 2016, so thank you for helping us make it an epic one and a super sized podcast. Episode eight. We will be back sometime in January 2017. We haven’t set the official return date yet, but we’ll see everybody then. Until then, happy holidays and I’ll let my wife say something nice to wrap out 2016. Honey, what do you want to say?

Joke: I’ve got nothing. Happy holidays, you know. Have a successful, happy, healthy 2017. May all your dreams come true.

Troy DeVolld: Not the one about the dinosaur stealing your cheeseburgers.

Joke: Yes, exactly.

Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.