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. He’s 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. Welcome to episode 62. No crazy music this week. No opening voiceover because we are deep in development and we don’t have a lot of time. But we do have some really good advice to share today. Before we do, first, I want to thank everybody who’s been tuning in to our new TV show, A snap. She made me do it on oxygen. It turns out we’re continuing to do really well on the numbers.
Joke: Shows on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. nine central. Easiest way to find it is check your local listings. Oxygen replays it all week long so lots of opportunity to catch up.
Biagio: Yeah, no excuse to miss it. Definitely check it out. We’re very proud of it. Next up now as you know from listening to this podcast, we’ve been very, very busy on this show and we’re finally have a little bit of a breath for development again. And we’ve been catching up on the many, many submissions we received from all of you. And so, first of all, thank you right to everyone who’s pitched to us.
Joke: Yeah, thank you everyone who’s taking the time to submit, especially those of you who you know, have listened to the podcast, have done your homework, shape your pitches based on what you’ve learned. But again, anyone who it’s always hard to put yourself out there. So thank you. For those of you who are doing that, that’s really cool.
Biagio: Yeah, it’s listen, it makes us feel great that you trust us with your pitches. However, our job isn’t just to receive your pitches. Our job is to help you put together a pitch that you might actually have a chance of getting on television. And that’s what we want to talk about today, because in going through a slew of submissions over the past few days and I’m talking about hundreds, unfortunately, the great majority of them are making the same three mistakes over and over again. I would say 19 out of 20 pitches are making at least one, if not all three of these mistakes. And that’s what we want to talk about today. And by the way, it doesn’t matter if you’re pitching the US, right? I mean these go for anyone you’re pitching in Hollywood. Yeah.
Joke: These are our crazy rules that we’re making up that are, you know, specific to submissions to drug productions. I mean, this is really just about, you know, shaping your pitch and developing and creating that idea that is pitch to to anyone.
Biagio: Yeah. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today. These three mistakes, not only for us but for any place you’re pitching unscripted. So let’s dive right in. Mistake number one. The pitches are not based on a real person, place or thing. Look, the easiest way to break into the industry is to find something real to put on TV. Okay, I can’t say it any simpler than that. A reality show is about something that’s real. A documentary series is about something that’s real. Even if you think about shows like Duck Dynasty and Impractical Jokers, right? Those those shows could not exist without the real people who are in them, right?
Joke: Yeah. I mean, our shows cage don’t trust and remain commercial kings. These were all, you know, based around people and were like commercial Kings was definitely more of a format show. It wouldn’t have existed without Rhett and Link. So again, it’s not just a good way to break in. It’s even when we’re pitching ideas, it has a much better chance of going. If there is something or someone real attached, it’s it’s also more protectable, you know, for someone who’s just starting out, who doesn’t want their quote unquote idea, you know, taken, it’s like if you have it with something and someone that’s real, it makes it and you way more valuable.
Biagio: Yeah. You can’t just write an idea down on a piece of paper and call that a pitch. And so you might be thinking about, well, what about big competition shows? Look, in the case of one of our big shows, Scream Queens, the show was built on a real foundation, right? Lionsgate and the producers of saw were offering a role in a saw movie as a prize for an aspiring actress. That’s the reason that show got made, plain and simple. If we’d gone out and pitched hey, it’s a competition show where actresses compete for a movie and not had them. There was no movie attached or there was no prize attached, it would have just been an idea. It would have not been based on a real person, place or thing, and it would have been far less marketable. And yet, these are the kinds of shows so many of you are pitching. All right. But that’s the hardest show for an aspiring producer to pitch. You know, if you’re if you don’t have any connections and you’re just starting out, the war show to pitch is it’s a competition show for X, whatever it is. Insert insert career here. It’s been pitched and it’s really hard to sell if you don’t have a really big connection. The other one that we get all the time and I would say nearly, I would say almost 30 or 40% of the submissions have been music related. People pitching their own version of American Idol or The Voice. You are not going to sell that show if you’re just starting out. It’s not going to happen because you don’t have connections to record companies. You don’t have connections to J-Lo or big music stars, and you can’t just pitch an idea on a piece of paper and think that all the Hollywood mic it takes to put together that show is going to happen based on your idea. It’s not. It just takes too long to put those shows together. So that’s why you should always base your shows on a real person, place or thing when you’re just starting out.
Joke: But even if you can’t, even if you don’t necessarily know a person, like think of it also as like, what’s a unique business? Or, you know, a unique trend or something that that is, it has to be built on something real. You know, even if you’re trying to pitch a crime series, which is the hardest one to sell because, you know, they’ve all done, all been done a million times, you know, you have to base it on something real or a trend or real cases or, you know, again, like a quirky character, family, a business, something that you know is based in reality is going to get you much, much further in the pitching process.
Biagio: Yeah. And what about people who who want to pitch, pitch themselves? Joe.
Joke: Well, okay. So I appreciate anyone who is willing to put themselves out there on television and be like, hey, I’m a TV show. Follow my life and follow my journey. You know, it takes a lot of guts to do that. And I do applaud all of you who’ve submitted that way. But but we have to be fair and look at it and be like, you know, is that really a great story that maybe makes, you know, a one off episode or a profile piece on the local news channel, or is that an actual series? And, you know, we all want to travel the world, but, you know, if you’re going to pitch a travel show that involves you guys or you or you know, you and your best bud, like, you know, listen, I, I’d love for the network to pay for me to travel around the world and see great places to. It’s just, you know, what is the show? What is the unique point of view, you know, show me the character. Why is it entertaining? Why is it enlightening? Why is it, you know, it has to be fun for an audience to go along that on that journey with you?
Biagio: Yeah. I mean, essentially, why should a network invest millions of dollars to put a television on the air starring you or anyone you pitch, for that matter? And luckily for you. We’ve gone into In Depth on This on two other podcasts that you should definitely listen to. One is about finding amazing characters that work for reality TV, and one is about finding great worlds that work for reality TV. I’ll put links to both of those in the show notes for today’s podcast, which you’ll be able to find at Producing unscripted 062. One other thing about pitching a real person, place, or thing. You need to send some photos at least, and hopefully a little bit of inexpensive video that show us who you’re pitching. There’s been a rash of pitches where people are pitching follow docs, but they’re just writing paragraphs that don’t even have photos of the people they’re pitching. They’re like, and this person is funny because of this, and this person is great because of that. It doesn’t work that way. And unscripted. We’re shooting TV shows about real people and real places, so you at least have to send photos and some inexpensive video that you shoot on your cell phone or Skype or whatever. You don’t have to spend tons of money at this point, but you need to show us who you’re pitching, so keep that in mind. So anything else you want to say on this topic joke before we move on?
Joke: We’re ready to the second mistake. We’ve seen a lot.
Biagio: Okay, mistake number two pitching shows about people, places or things you’ve never talked to.
Joke: Yeah, I mean, I know we’ve talked about this before in the past. And for those of you who are semi or professional or semiprofessional or have heard this 100 times and have actually, you know, grasped it, I’m sorry, we’re repeating it is just we’re getting a lot of pictures of people who say, hey, we have so-and-so. And and then it turns out they don’t never even talk to them. And it doesn’t even have to be famous people. I think everyone got the point that you can’t say you have Madonna attached, but, you know, sometimes, you know, and maybe this is on us because we talked about soft pitches, but, you know, we get links sent to random people of YouTube and like, oh, look at this YouTube video I found. Wouldn’t these people make a great show? And it’s like, well, I don’t know. Have you talked to them? Would they make a great show? Are they already signed up for a show somewhere else? Do they not want a TV show? So I think it’s important that, you know, if you are pitching something, someone, some business, something that you know is a person, is a is a business, is an entity, you have to let us know right off the bat if you’ve talked to these people and where you are in that process. So even if you haven’t necessarily gone out and shot a whole sizzle reel with them, that’s fine. You can soft pitch them to us. But but you have to have at least talked to them. You have to at least kind of be you have to be able to answer, you know, the simple questions about, well, what does their life look like? And if it’s a family business, what is the day to day like? What’s the process of what they do? It can’t just be something you’re either making up or, you know, just roughly you’ve read an article and that’s it. Like, you know, at least call them and see if they’re interested, if there’s something there. Was it a good phone conversation? Maybe. Maybe they’re actually not great television. But that’s something that you have to find that out before you pitch it to us. One of one of her friends, literally, who works at another production company, got pitched a show and was like, it has this executive producer and this talent hosting and this person judging, and they’re like, oh my God, that’s fantastic. You have all these people signed up and like, no, I haven’t talked to any of them. It’s like, okay, well that you know that then you’re not selling anything. You know what I mean? So you you can’t pitch us something that, that you actually don’t have.
Biagio: Yeah. And I mean, listen, and that might sound ridiculous to some of you with the big star and the executive producer and this and that. But it works just as well if you discover some hilarious kid on YouTube and you’ve never reached out to them. And that’s that’s what we’re getting a lot of. So you can’t do that now. We do. We’ve got an entire podcast again. I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode called The Soft Pitch Blueprint, because we talk about soft pitching. Soft pitching is when you’re sort of along the way of on an idea, and you want to know if you should invest more time, more effort into that idea, but you have to have done some work on it. Not know worth, right?
Joke: Yeah. I mean, the soft pitch is not like, hey, I woke up, I have this idea, I think I’ll put it to joke and it’s like, please do a little bit of research. Like, has that show been done before, you know, or those people that you just got linked to or, you know, are they open to doing a show? I mean, you have to talk to people. You have to have done some stuff like we’re fine, you know, not having done an entire sizzle reel. But but we need we need to understand, you know, that that there’s been some progress made some vetting of the concept.
Biagio: So check that out in the soft pitch blueprint, which again, I’ll link to in the show notes for this episode, which you’ll be able to find at Producing Unscripted 062. And that brings us to mistake number three, not thinking about where your TV show might sell to.
Joke: Yeah, this is a tough one because it’s not like, you know, we walk into a network and we’re like, this is right for you because of X, Y, and Z show you already have on the air. But but we do walk into a network kind of knowing, like, okay, our show speaks to these things that you’re looking for, right? And I understand that people out there don’t necessarily know what networks are looking for, but you at least know what’s currently working for them on the air just by turning on the television or, you know, reading simple TV by the numbers and seeing what’s rating and, and all of that stuff. So, so it’s really the problem is, is that we’re getting shows pitched to us that are a 60 minute segment or, you know, a local news segment. They’re not actual TV shows with story engines that keep going back and interesting characters that you want to follow, you know, from episode to episode. And so this is really more almost like an exercise is before you pitch to us, to anyone is to really think about, you know, what network does this belong on, what other shows do they have that speak to similar themes or ideas so that, you know, you actually have a TV show, as opposed to just a singular story, if that makes any sense.
Biagio: Yeah, and that might sound a little bit amorphous, but keep in mind we’ve talked in past podcasts about your story engine, which again, I’ll link to in today’s show notes ways of figuring out whether a show is an actual pitch or just a profile piece. I’ll put a link to that one in today’s notes. And I think that the reason we’re really hitting this home is, again, we so appreciate when people take the time to pitch a shows. And we’re sort of a safe place, right? I mean, we know you’re pitching to us because you’re fans of the podcast, and none of us here are going to are going to think less of you if you make a mistake in your in your pitch to us if you’re trying. But if you go out in the real world and you walk into a network and you make some of these mistakes, these network executives, they’re not going to invite you back. They’re going to be like, this person is clueless and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. So our goal is, look, whether you pitch to us or you never pitch to us, and you’re just fans of the podcast, and you go out and you pitch in the real world somewhere else, that you don’t make these mistakes so that you can advance your career. And I think that these are the three mistakes that we just saw over and over and over and over and over in the pitches that we’re going through right now. And we have a lot more to get through. So many of you who’ve not heard a response from us on something you’ve pitched even in the last few months, you’ll be hearing shortly. But I just want to recap. So just just remember. Okay. The big three mistakes that we’re seeing. Number one, the pitches are not based on a real person, place or thing. Don’t pitch us a, you know, a competition show for whatever, you know, whatever the interesting career you come up with and think that that’s going to work. It’s not base your pitches on a real person. Place your thing. Number two, if you’re going to if you’re going to pitch a show about someone or something. Make sure you’ve talked to them and done some work already. Already have connected with them. You can’t just send us a bunch of YouTube links and say, hey, what about this show? That’s not a show, that’s not a pitch, and we won’t have the time to to consider it or talk to you about it, that it’s just a waste of time at that point, you know. And number three, you at least need to consider whether or not you’re pitching a TV show that could work on a network. And again, check out our past podcast on making sure your story, your show has a story engine and what kinds of shows the networks by, and the difference between a pitch and a profile piece. Those things will help you. And last but not least, go and read our free guide How to Pitch a Reality Show. It’s a 10,000 word free ebook. It’s free. It costs you nothing. Just go and check it out. You can find it on the front page of Producing Unscripted. Com you can just Google how to pitch a reality show where the number one result in all of Google right now for how to pitch a reality show. And just reading that document top to bottom and understanding it will help you avoid all of these mistakes, plus a slew of others that new producers make again when they’re pitching to us or anyone else. So I hope we didn’t sound too today, too crazy to over the top. We just we just really was thankful for those of you who take the time to pitch, but we want to help you picture shows in the best way possible, even if you never pitch to us. We’d like to thank the people who are fans of this podcast and end up pitching somewhere in the real world can do so better. Because you’ve listened to our you’ve listened to us. I mean, you’ve spent the time listening, so might as well get your pitches to be the most marketable they can possibly be. And that’s it. We just want the best for you. So again, I hope this wasn’t too over the top. I hope it was useful. I hope it’s a reminder for those of you who are getting ready to pitch, or maybe who’ve already pitched and made some mistakes and can now go back and correct these mistakes, we hope this podcast set you on the right path.
Joke: What he said.
Biagio: All right, so that’s it. We’ll be back in two weeks with a new podcast. As always, remember if you would like to pitch to us, especially now that you’re not going to make these three common mistakes. Just head over to Producing Unscripted. Com. Sign up for the newsletter. Follow the directions. It’s that simple. We do respond to everybody. It does take a long time. Sometimes it can take several months because me and joke both lay our eyes personally on every pitch, which a lot of people think is crazy for cohorts think it’s nuts that we do that because it’s a lot of pitches, and that’s why it takes a while, because we really do want to at least consider every single pitch personally. But that’s it. We’ll see you all in a couple of weeks. Thanks so much for tuning in. And now me and joke are going to get back to work actually reviewing some submissions. So thanks everybody. Bye bye. Bye bye.
