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 53 and we’re about to stop you from making a huge mistake. Learn to spot the difference between a profile piece and a TV show. Pitch. How to redevelop simple profile pieces into actual TV shows. A concrete example of how we turn to profile piece into a TV series, and a big, warm thank you to all the moms out there. 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: Well, it’s really quick. Before we get started, I just want to give a shout out to all the moms out there. I hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day joke. I hope you had a good Mother’s Day, and I just want to say thank you for being the mother to my children.
Joke: I had a great Mother’s Day, honey.
Biagio: Thank you. That makes me happy. I’m really lousy at planning, planning, surprises and those kinds of things. But we had a really nice. We had a really nice day as a as a family. We got two kids now. One is two and a half when it’s about seven months old. And, well, they’re both really lucky to have you as a mom. So I just want to start off by saying that. And so happy, happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. All right. Now that we’ve appropriately said hello and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there who listen to this podcast. I want to talk about something that we just saw a rash of, and I mean, 40 or 50 pitches we probably received in the last month or so. That all made the exact same mistake. It was almost startling. Right, Joe? Because you literally turned to me, I think after like 35 of these and said, this is our next podcast.
Joke: Yeah. And I think it’s a mistake that is very easy to make, but it’s also one that’s that’s easily caught. So we’re going to give a few tips today where you will be able to kind of catch this mistake early on. And by the way, those are tips that even to this day, we ask ourselves when we meet a piece of talent or something, we’re like, Is it.
Biagio: Is it just a profile piece? So that’s what we’re talking about today is your is your pitch for a television series? Is it truly a television series or is it just a profile piece? And if it is just a profile piece, how do you take that? Or can you take that and turn it into something that could potentially be a TV series? I’m going to give you some concrete examples. Now, first of all, what is a profile piece? Joe, do you want to talk about what a profile piece is?
Joke: Sure. I mean a profile piece. And I don’t know what the correct term is. We just internally call it a profile piece. It’s the it’s the shorter stories that you would see in like a 60 minutes or 2020 where someone, a character, a real life person is, is highlighted, is interviewed. You get to see you’re yet to hear a little bit about their history, but really kind of look at maybe some of the obstacles that are currently struggling with and and it’s part verité, part kind of, you know, historical archival footage type stuff. But but it really is kind of like a nice insight into a person, a person’s story. And that’s what we’re calling like profile pieces.
Biagio: Yeah. I mean, listen, here are some typical profile pieces that get pitched to us as TV shows. And unfortunately, there’s not much more than this to them. And I’m going to use some of the most generic ones we get, you know, hey, a story. This is a show about a homeless man who turned his life around. Okay, I could see that story told wonderfully in a 15 minute piece on 60 minutes. This is a story about an athlete who overcame a disability to win a gold medal. Fantastic. I’d love to see that story on Real Sports on HBO. And after about 20 minutes, I probably have heard all I’m going to have to hear about that particular story. Another one that we get pitched a lot. Hey, it’s an interesting annual competition. It’s just around the corner. Okay, so it’s a competition in your hometown that happens once a year, which means you can’t really do that many episodes around it. And if it’s perfectly as a local news piece, things like this, anything that you could sort of sum up in a short story, you know, on the local news, these these are what we call profile pieces. Now, that doesn’t mean a profile piece can never be turned into a TV series. Right? Joke.
Joke: Yeah. No. For example, I think that there are profile pieces that, if they speak to a larger phenomenon, can absolutely be turned into a series, as we did with our show Goes Inside my child, an Emmy Award winning local news producer, came across this phenomenon and did AA1 story profile piece for her local channel. But in doing the research for it, found that there were many more families out there and that this really did speak to the larger phenomenon of children remembering past lives. And so she brought us to one profile piece story she did, but with the research to show there was much more behind it. So it was an interesting enough hook for us to be able to turn it into a series of television shows, rather than its just being a one profile piece.
Biagio: Yeah, and that’s what’s important, is that you need to figure out how are you going to take something, the seed of an idea, something that maybe is just a profile piece and make it last for 22 or 44 minutes, you know, every week. And a lot of the things that we’ve been getting pitched lately would never be able to sustain 44 minutes week after week after week. And so so what do you do? What do you do if you discover something you’re like, well, I think in its current form it’s just a profile piece. And by the way, before we go forward, a few other flags that your story is just a profile piece. You know, you’re using words like, we take a look at this world. You know, we see these obstacles. We learn about this person’s story. These are all things that come across, like joke mentioned earlier in profile pieces. They’re really a facts and just the facts, ma’am type of story.
Joke: And one that we get pitched a lot is, you know, look at this amazing individual. They are dealing with this chronic illness and it’s really debilitating in some of, you know, what we take for granted as everyday life kind of activities or things and, and see them struggle and overcome these things. Look how inspiring it is. It is it’s 100% inspiring. And a lot of times I get really moved by these pieces. But but they are profile pieces in a sense that even if I can tell the story beautifully and stretch it for a half hour or an hour TV show, the question you have to ask yourself is, is the audience going to come back week after week after week to hear the exact same story told? You know, maybe it’s the the obstacle is slightly different, but it’s still the same thing. It’s still the same disease or same issue that causes the obstacle. And that’s that’s probably not going to go away anytime soon. So, so really think about that. You know, or another perfect example of a profile piece is something that’s actually more in the past. It’s like, look at this amazing, this amazing story this person has overcome. And and what, what, what what an inspiring individual that they’ve overcome X, Y and Z and now are at a better life. And it’s like, that’s fantastic. Not what you know. So so it’s really it’s very important to ask yourself, what are we seeing week to week? How are the characters the same? Or, you know, the heart of the show might be the same, but but how is the story that I’m following different from week to week?
Biagio: Right now, I want to tell you two things that you can do immediately to sort of figure out if your profile piece your story has legs, or if you can give it legs and and and also to figure out whether or not it can really sustain itself week to week to week over a series. I think I just said the same thing twice. So basically what I’m saying is I’m going to give you two giant tips right now to turn your profile pieces into actual TV pitches. And there are actually two other episodes that we’ve done. Long time listeners may remember these episodes. New listeners, this will be gold for you, because any idea you have for a TV show that follows real people should should adhere to these two things. Number one, you need to ask yourself, what is the second hook of my show? And number two, you need to ask yourself, what is the story engine of my show? And if you can’t come up with a second hook and you can’t come up with a story engine, you probably do not have a TV series. You just have a profile piece. So what is a second hook and what is a story engine? Well, great news everybody. We have two podcast episode episodes dedicated to just that, so you can learn all about second hooks in episode 27, which you can find at Producing Unscripted 27. And you can learn all about Story Engines and our 31st podcast episode, which you can find at Producing Unscripted three one. And just by figuring out a second hook and a story engine for your show and understanding the concepts in those two podcast episodes, you can already give yourself a giant leap on your your profile piece pitch as far as turning it into an actual TV series, because we got pitched so many ideas that were just profile pieces, it hurt our heads. That’s why we want to do today’s episode, right?
Joke: And just a quick reminder for those who have listened to them. You know, the second hook is exactly what it sounds like. You know, you need that extra, that extra angle on your story, that extra point of view. So the example we always say is, Armageddon is not just a story about an asteroid hitting the planet, and how are we going to save the human race? It’s also the secondary hook of these blue collar oil rig people who no one would ever think could save the planet, or the ones that humankind is resting its hopes and dreams on. So. So you really have to think about what is your second hook. So with cage or show, it was, you know, life in small town and also, you know, the fighting of the MMA in the cage and trying to get out of that small town. So again, the second hook is really important. And most profile pieces don’t have a second hook. So so it’s a good it’s a good barometer. And in terms of the story engine, you know really do listen to that podcast. But but it’s kind of what we call the the the story of the week that could be different but give some kind of format to a show that is kind of guaranteed to bring story and entertainment to a show. So, you know, really think about those things in terms of when you meet a character. I have one more thing to add to this, which I don’t know if it’s on an entire podcast on, but it’s also really important to think about character based shows when you when you when you think about the ones that are really working and that networks are buying are always centered on more than one person. Very rarely do you have, you know, the Joe the Plumber show. You know, it’s it’s Joe the Plumber with his wife and his son who happens to work in the business, and the crazy guy down the street who’s also his best bud and works for him but never shows up on time, blah, blah, blah, right? So when you when you have this great character and you’re like, oh, this is it, you know, ask the profile questions. But part of that is also is there a cast around this person? Because if there isn’t, you’re back to it being a profile piece.
Biagio: Yeah. Like any great TV show that you’ve watched over your script, think of scripted TV, right? Friends isn’t about one person. Friends is about a group of friends. Even Seinfeld, which has Jerry Seinfeld’s name in the title. Right? That was an ensemble cast. It’s ensembles that help you sell shows, and joke is absolutely right. A profile piece is usually about one person, you know, TV shows live and die based on the characters and the ensemble in that show and their relationships to one another. So once again, to wrap up, have a listen to what we’ll first ask yourself is my idea? Is it is it really a TV series or is it just a profile piece? If you’re not sure, figure out your second hook and your story engine. Learn about second hooks at producing unscripted 27. Learn about story engines at producing on 031, and whatever you do, if you want to pitch us a show, make sure it’s more than a profile piece. Because I guarantee you, when we get your pitch, if we see that you’ve thought about these things, it’s going to rise to the top of the pack. Believe me, people, we get a lot of pitches from aspiring producers who’ve never listened to this podcast or never read our free guide, How to Pitch a Reality Show, which is on the front page of Producing Unscripted. Com and so, you know, 30s of the pitch where we’re, we’re automatically disregarding it. We’re throwing it away because people haven’t taken the time to think about how to pitch the show or looked at all the free advice available on our site that would give them a leg up, and we just don’t have the time to to completely develop your ideas for you. That’s what this podcast is for. Its to help you get your ideas in a place where they can truly be pitched as a TV series. Not just to us, to to anybody. Maybe you have connections at another production company. Maybe you want to pitch the studios. Of course, we hope you want to pitch directly to us and team up with us. That’s why we’re doing this podcast. But the point is, this advice works no matter who you’re pitching to. So by all means, read our free guide How to Pitch a Reality Show. Check out the other podcast episodes that we have available here at Producing Unscripted. Com and then pitch us some shows. And I guarantee you, if you take our advice and you pitch and you play the numbers game, as we talk about oftentimes on this podcast and you pitch enough times, we’re gonna find something to do together. And just like the guys who pitched us Cabe, just like Susan Stratford who pitched us, goes inside my child, just like the guys from Cleveland who pitched us what became our MTV True Life special, will team up with you, and we’ll make some TV together. That’s it. Anything else you want to say? Joke.
Joke: No, no, I think that about does it on this subject.
Announcer: All right. Well, thanks for that short, pithy comment. And until next time, we’ll see you guys in a couple weeks. Thanks so much and hope we get to work together soon. Bye. By Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
