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. Yo. 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: So joke your your voice is rather is rather deep today. You’ve got that. You’ve got like that that Betty Davis thing going on.
Joke: At least I have kind of a voice today. It’s been gone for the last five.
Biagio: In fact, it has. And so. Thus this will be a short podcast and I will do a lot of the talking. We we’re, we’re we’ve had a really, really crazy couple of weeks. We’re in the happy position of, of delivering a, a two hour special, the first episode of a brand new series and a full pilot for a major cable network, all within about a week and a half of each other, which has been it’s been pretty awesome, but been pretty a little bit hectic, right, honey? And has led to my wife losing her voice from you screaming at me so much. Trying to whip me in the shape, honey. Or something else.
Joke: I think our kids, aka our very personal petri dishes gave this to me.
Biagio: That is true. Petri dish is a great, great pseudonym for child. Yeah, when you have kids, they pretty much just make you sick all the time. Anyways, I thought we would give you a quick tip today, something that I have found over the years to be very, very true now. And I want to talk a little bit about whether you’re editing a pilot, whether you’re editing a short film, whether you’re editing a presentation, anything that you’re cutting with the hopes of getting somebody’s attention to do more, whether you’re trying to raise money or you’re trying to sell a show or trying to sell a film project, one thing that I have found to be true is it about the first 10 to 15 seconds of whatever you show people is probably the most crucial, and it’s not a lot of time, but that 10 to 15 seconds can win or lose you everything you’re trying to achieve with the tape you’re making.
Joke: I probably extend that to about the first minute and a half to three minutes.
Biagio: Well, what if it takes only three minutes?
Joke: Exactly.
Biagio: The point being is.
Joke: An excuse to tape something. Three minutes.
Biagio: You don’t have an excuse to tape three minutes. But what? Let me let me go a little deeper with my reasoning here. We see so many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many tapes. And as you know from listening to the podcast, most, most of the ones we see unfortunately are not very good. I for me, I have a shorter attention span than joke, but I will tell you this most tapes lose me within the first 10 to 15 seconds, and I think the reason is that people now joke is rolling her eyes at me. In all fairness.
Joke: He’s exaggerating. He lasts longer than 15 seconds.
Biagio: True, I always I always watch the whole tape. I always watch the whole tape. But my point is, is that by putting by putting the majority of your resources into an awesome beginning, you can sometimes let the rest of your tape play at a slightly lower level, but that beginning elevates it. Now listen, we’re always shooting to make a tape awesome all the way through, right? But the point is, if you don’t grab people with the very, very, very beginning of the tape, if those first 15 to 20s don’t hook you and make you go, oh my gosh, I totally get what this tape is, you’ve lost me. For instance, if we’re doing a pitch for a reality show, I make sure that within that first 10 to 15 seconds, you understand the tone of the show, what kind of music you would hear on a show like this, whether or not there’s voice over what kind of graphics would support a show like this, who are main characters are? That’s a lot to do in 15 seconds, but you have to get it done. Look at shows on television. If you go watch any, any good unscripted television show and you tune in for the very first time, that first 10 or 15 seconds is going to tell you everything you need to know about a show. Now, again, as joke pointed out, that doesn’t mean that the rest of your tape can be bad. But I believe. I believe firmly in my heart that if you that you can spend sometimes and I’ve done this personally, I’ve spent maybe nine, ten, 11, 12 hours and 20s and maybe ten hours on the rest of the tape. I did that with. As a matter of fact, the show we’re going to series with right now, we did a pitch tape pretty much the day before we sold the show, and I easily spent probably, I would say the same amount of time, if not slightly more, on the first 20s of the tape as it did on the back two minutes. And that’s because I know that when that first 20s is awesome, people are going to pay attention to the rest of the tape. And again, as I mean, the rest of it can suck. But for me, I tend to put an abundance of time into that first 20 or 30s because I know once I have them, it’s going to be a lot harder to it’s going to be a lot easier to keep their attention than if I wait a long time to ramp up.
Joke: So as with everything in life, I agree with my husband on the principle of the thing and bicker with him about the details.
Biagio: Yes he does.
Joke: So everything he says is right. Except I just argued with the ten second portion because that’s really short and I don’t want to have a very hectic ten second centimeter tape. And then the rest of it being like, so, you know, your story will take the time it needs, but just spend the time on the beginning because like with any sales pitch, if you have your your subject hooked, you can get away with a lot more later on in the pitch. You know, that’s that’s from everything from infomercials to, you know, your your 32nd commercials to movies to everything. It’s like once you have them already invested time, it’s harder for someone to disconnect. Once they’re already invested. It’s very easy for someone to disconnect in the first minute. So. So yeah, that’s that.
Biagio: That’s that. No quick podcast this week, especially since my wife can barely talk. Thanks, honey, for having out and doing this one with me. And I hope you guys find this tip useful. We’ll be back in two weeks, hopefully more rested. Having just delivered all these projects, not to mention a slew of others that were just beginning. But as always, we appreciate you tuning in. Thanks for taking the time and catch you in two weeks.
Joke: Bye bye.
