Typed by hand. It may still contain mistakes; the recording is the original.
Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?
Confused Woman: Biagio-WHO???
Announcer: This episode…
Biagio: It’s episode 43 and we’re discussing how to reverse engineer your pitches. The right and wrong way to approach your unscripted TV show idea, how to let what’s actually real guide the format of your show, and where to swing by and say hi to the two of us. Warning: It’ll be freaking freezing.
Announcer: Music courtesy of Dave Pelman Music, davepelman.com
Biagio: 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 everybody, happy December. Looks like we got through Thanksgiving okay and the rest of the holidays are just around the corner.
Joke: 2015 is around the corner.
Biagio: 2015. And like most holiday seasons, me and Joke will be working through most of this one. Although we’ll be doing it from the comforts of her parent’s house, probably.
Joke: That’ll be nice.
Biagio: Yeah, it’s good that we’re living in an age where you can have mobile edit base, which basically means a laptop and a Thunderbolt drive. Anyways, we’re excited to let you know we’ve teamed up with five more of you recently on projects that have come in through the podcast. And the pitches are getting better and better and better.
So first of all, thank you so much to everybody who’s pitched to us, especially those of you who have taken the time to listen to the past podcasts, to not make the total obvious rookie newbie mistakes that so many people make when pitching reality. And if you have pitched to us and you haven’t heard back, it just means that we’re considering your pitch and either haven’t gotten to it yet or haven’t decided. One way or the other, we do work hard to get back to every single one of you who pitches to us.
And if you’ve heard back and it’s a no, by all means, don’t give up. We pitched a lot of shows to networks all the time and get a lot of no’s. When we were starting out, we got a lot of no’s before we had projects that were right time, right quality level, right kind of characters. I mean, it really is a numbers game. That’s why we always say, one idea is never enough and just keep on pitching.
But for the five of you that we’re now working with and you know who you are, we couldn’t be more thrilled. Now, that brings us actually to today which I think is going to be a quick podcast but a really cool, quick tip that I think is going to help a lot of you. We were in a meeting last week.
Joke: Yup..
Biagio: Way to pipe in there, Joke. Thank you.
Joke: I’m not sure where you’re going with this, so you know, we were in lots of meetings last week.
Biagio: That’s true. There were a lot of meetings last week. These podcasts are sometimes a little impromptu. Today is definitely one of those. We were in a meeting last week and a conversation point came up that happens again and again and again. I’m not going to use the exact topic, although it really wouldn’t matter because a million shows get pitched in the same area.
But let’s use for example, let’s say the world of chefs because that’s one of the hardest things to sell right now, is a food show. But let’s just say the world of chefs.
And so, we’ll be having a conversation with someone and they’ll say something like, “Listen, I’m really interested in the world of high-end chefs. What do you think a show like that should be? Should it be like a competition show between high-end chefs? Should we find a high-end chef and follow them around in their daily work? Should we pick one chef and build a format around them, sort of like a Supernanny for cooks? What do you think the show should be?”
And honestly, it’s a very, very simple answer but it’s one that most people don’t get because they keep asking us the question over and over again. And the answer is: Don’t start with the idea. Start with what’s real and in the world.
Okay, so let’s say you are interested in doing a world, a show built around top chefs. Top anything, you’re interested in doing a world set in a police department or you’re interested in doing a show about alligator hunters, whatever.
The first thing you need to do is go out and spend some serious time researching that world, because that’s going to draw you into what’s real about it. So what we always tell people is, you don’t want to build a show around an idea because it’s going to feel empty, it’s going to feel flat. It’s going to feel like there’s just basically like you started from nothing and there’s nothing there. You want to start with what’s real.
And once you go out and you start researching the world, you might find a couple of things. For instance, you might find that you’ve discovered all these great top chefs that you believe would work great in a competition reality show. And that tips you off to the idea that maybe the best way to steer this show would be to pitch a competition reality show.
And say for example, here’s nine or ten incredible chefs I’ve found that I think would work great. On the other hand, while researching this world that you’re interested in, you might discover one single solitary chef who runs an amazing business whether it’s a catering business, or a cooking for the elite business, or runs this awesome high-end restaurant in the middle of nowhere that you would never expect to find and he’s surrounded by quirky characters.
Would it go, hey you know what? This might make a great occusoap. This might make a great docusoap where you follow an occupation. We’ve got one guy at the center.
On the other hand, you might discover this amazing online personality who does the greatest YouTube cooking videos in the world and you’re like, “You know what? I love this person. Let’s build a format show around them. I mean, they’ve already got an audience, they’re already really good at teaching people how to cook, maybe it’s the Supernanny of cooking. Let’s do that show.”
So really, the point, and it’s a simple one, is if you’re interested in a world and you think that a world would make an interesting show, don’t pitch the world. Don’t walk in and be like, “I really think we should do a show set in X or set in Y.” You need to take the extra step to go out, do some research, and find out what real people exist or what real organizations. What is out there that would make great TV? And then tailor your show concept to the people and the organizations and the businesses that you find.
If you do that, you really can’t go wrong. Because number one, you’re building a show around something that’s real, you’re automatically making yourself valuable. And number two, you’re not creating this pre-existing notion of a framework that you’re going to try and shove somebody into so that it fulfills what you thought would be a good show before you ever found the right talent for it.
So, don’t pitch worlds. Pitch real people and organizations. And when you’re trying to decide what that show should be, build the show around the real people or the real businesses that you found out in the real world.
Joke: I think you said that beautifully, darling.
Biagio: The reason that we really wanted to talk about this is because a lot of people do pitch us worlds or especially through the podcast, we’ll just get a email that’s like, “What do you think about this world?” And I always respond less well to those emails than I do to an email that’s like, “Hey, I discovered this great person or this great business. Do you think we can build a show around them?”
I’m always going to respond better to those kind of soft pitches, if you will. There’s nothing wrong with soft pitches, there’s also nothing wrong with pitching us a fully-fleshed out show with real people attached. But I do think you’re shooting yourself in the foot if you just walk in somewhere and you go, “You know, I really want to do a show set around X.” It’s the wrong place to start.
So as always, if you’re going to pitch unscripted TV, reality TV, start with what’s real. If you’re interested in the world, go out and research that world before you ever start thinking about what the show should be. Don’t decide if it should be a format, don’t decide if it should be a follow doc, don’t decide if it should be a hybrid until you’ve already met the people you want to build the show around.
Now, if any of those words don’t make sense to you—format, docu, hybrid, arc, self-contained definitely check out our first eight episodes on YouTube. You can find them at YouTube.com/JokeAndBiagio. We’ve converted those podcast episodes to videos with a clickable table of contents. And of course, go back and listen to early episodes of this podcast.
If you’re interested in pitching us a show, we’ve got your cheat sheet over at ProducingUnscripted.com/030. And if you really do listen to the podcast, watch those first episodes, do what we tell you, take our advice, and pitch to us in a way that we can warp our heads around. I guarantee you, we will find something to team up on. The vast majority of pitches we receive do not take these steps and that’s why ultimately we don’t team up.
But as we said, we just teamed up with five more of you and I hope that we team up with a hundred more of you. So please, keep your pitches coming. Listen to the podcast, play the numbers game, remember that one idea is not enough. And instead of pitching worlds, pitch us real things that you’ve already found in the real world.
Joke: That was great. Now, is it too early to talk about Real Screen?
Biagio: No, we can talk about Real Screen.
Joke: Yeah, so if any of you will be at Real Screen this year, let us know and maybe we can meet up.
Biagio: Yeah. Real Screen for those of you who might not know, is like the largest unscripted documentary reality TV sort of conference that exists right now. It takes place in Washington, DC in the middle of winter.
Joke: End of January.
Biagio: If it were up to me, it would be in Miami in the middle of winter, but whatever. And basically, every big production company is there, there’s lots of seminars, it’s really, really expensive. Don’t go expecting to walk in and sell your one show idea. But if you do go, attend a lot of the conferences, there’s plenty to learn, there’s interesting people to meet.
And if you’re there and you reach out to us either through Twitter or our Facebook page or you send an email through the Producing Unscripted website, there’s a contact page there, let us know that you’ll be there and we’ll see if we can get together for a few minutes.
Joke: Yeah. And also, for all New Yorkers, I think we’re scheduling our New York trip for January as well. So, let us know.
Biagio: Yeah, we’re going to be in, when are we going to be in New York, do we know yet?
Joke: I think it’s the third week? I think from the 22nd or something. It’s before Real Screen.
Biagio: Yeah. So just let us know, and if we can make some time to hang out and say hello, we’d love to. So that’s it. We’ll see you guys in a couple of weeks. And as always, good luck with all your pitches, with everything you’re doing. And we hope that this podcast has been helpful.
Joke: Happy holidays.
Biagio: Happy holidays. Take care, everybody.
Joke: Bye-bye.
Biagio: Bye-bye.
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
