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 40 and in honor of Halloween, we’re talking five scary things about producing a TV show. What happens 35 minutes after you sell the show? Why the show you sell probably won’t be the show you make? What’s the kick-you-in-the-butt phone call we all go through? And does Joke really speak a crazy devil language?
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, welcome to episode 40 yet another landmark episode. And you know, with Halloween just around the corner we thought we’d do something with a little bit of a frightening theme. Right, Joke?
Joke: Sure. Let’s do it.
Biagio: So today’s episode is called Five Scary Things About Selling a Television Show. And I would say these definitely come from personal experience. And by personal experience, I mean late night terrors and wanting to pull our hair out while screaming about certain things that come along with selling TV shows.
Joke: Should we call this Five Scary Things About Producing a Television show? Because we really came up with five things after you’ve already sold it.
Biagio: That’s true. What did I say?
Joke: Selling.
Biagio: Okay, so this is actually going to be called Five Scary Things About Producing a TV Show. Yeah, it’s more on the nose, Joke. That’s why she’s such a good producer, she’s very specific.
Joke: Well, you know it’s all about clear communication.
Biagio: Of which today I am sorely lacking. So anyways, we thought we would make up a little list of things that most people don’t realize about producing a TV show that are actually very scary.
Joke: Yes, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns once you actually get the green light. There’s some very scary moments that happen after.
Biagio: It’s almost never rainbows and unicorns, but it is a lot of fun.
Joke: That it is.
Biagio: Kind of like going to a haunted house scary but fun. Alright, have I just wrung this…
Joke: Yes.
Biagio: Halloween thing for all it’s worth now? I’ve just totally just like, yeah, I’ve juiced it into the ground now, whatever that means. Alright so, let’s start out with scary thing number one.
Joke: This usually happens I would say, within 24 hours of getting the phone call that you were green lit, that your show’s been picked up to series. There are high-fives and screams down the hallway and very excited moments. And then it’s quickly followed by this first scary one which is, now you actually have to make the show.
Biagio: Yes, realizing oh crap, we have to make that TV show now? Because boy, it sure is fun when you realize you just sold a show. And then about, it’s like a half hour, right? Maybe 30-35 minutes of sheer joy?
Joke: Yeah, I mean it depends. Sometimes it’s longer, depending on how long you’ve been trying to get that show sold. And then you have the realization of like oh, all those promises you made now you actually have to deliver.
Biagio: It’s like, oh wow, we said we’re going to make the show for how much? Oh, right. When the network beat us down on the price we said okay, we’ll do it for that. Now we have to figure out how to do it. And that is usually frightening.
Joke: But you know we call those champagne problems.
Biagio: Yeah, champagne problems.
Joke: The champagne comes in and it lessens the edge of how scary that moment is.
Biagio: Yeah, you can celebrate and take the edge off the fear. Alright, so the second scary thing about producing a television show, your first legal call.
Joke: Yes, some networks call this the legal kick-off call. And this is usually the moment that you realize that the lawyers may not actually let you make the show that you just sold.
Biagio: Yeah, it’s less of a kick-off call and more of a hey-I-just-got-kicked-in-the-butt call.
Joke: Yeah, so this is where they rightfully so, try to protect you as producers and they come up with all these things and all these different releases and ways that you should shoot the show, which then you quickly realize well, that completely goes against the creative and there’s no way I’m actually going to be able to deliver on that. So that’s a scary moment where then you start the negotiation of what can we get away with and what can we not.
Biagio: And listen, a lawyer’s job, a legal team’s job is to manage risk. And the fact of the matter is, you as a production company have lawyers and the network has lawyers. And all they’re interested in doing at that point is covering their butts. And what that means for you as a producer is that you’re caught in the middle of the show that you sold and the show that the creatives at the network want you to make, and the show that the lawyers will let you make. And getting through that will give you a lot of nightmares.
Joke: Yeah, but thankfully at this point, your creative executives should still be on your side. And they usually can help you make headway on some of that stuff. But yeah, we’ve had some shows where it was like a hidden camera show but the lawyers wanted us to have everyone sign releases ahead of time, which kind of blows the whole idea of it being hidden camera. We had to have people sign releases. I mean, on Caged, for example, all of our fighters pretty much had to sign a release saying that they knew they could die in the cage and we weren’t responsible, which those guys probably already signed those releases with their promoter anyway, so that ended up being okay.
But there’s a lot of crazy conversations you have on that first legal call that really puts in perspective that producing a TV show can be scary.
Biagio: Yes, it can. And speaking of scary, the thrid scary thing about producing a television show: The first time your network executive visits set.
Joke: Listen, we’ve had some great network executives in the past but it doesn’t matter if they’re great or not. When a network executive is on set the mood on set changes. And so as the EPs, the executive producer, there’s a lot of song and dance that you have to do. Not just sometimes keeping your network executive entertained, but also making sure that your crew stays on point and stays focused and does what they’re supposed to even with the network executive in town.
Sometimes, network executives are under the impression that maybe a piece of talent is better than they actually are. So, you kind of as I like to put it, the network executives don’t really want to see how the sausage is made. They just kind of want to tell their bosses that they were there when the sausage was made.
Biagio: And the sausage looks and tastes good.
Joke: And that the sausage is going to be fantastic. So there’s a little bit of a song and dance there I tell you, when a network executive leaves set, there’s usually a collective sigh of relief amongst everybody. Every department had this like, oh thank God.
Biagio: Yeah and again, nothing to do with the network executives. They’re great people, we love them to death, we wouldn’t have a career without them. But you know it’s kind of like when you’re parents show up at a party, right? You’re going to act different. You’re going to act different things are going to be a little bit different.
Alright, scary thing number four about producing a TV show: When you send out your first rough cut.
Joke: As we talked about last time, so much about notes is talking before you even send out this rough cut to really make sure everyone’s on the same page. And yet, you never know. Once you send out that first rough cut, you just don’t know if all the conversations you’ve had, if your execution of the idea that everyone signed off on is still what everybody’s excited about.
Because usually, from the time you sell a show to the time you send the first rough cut, months have passed. And by months, I mean sometimes it’s a year, sometimes it’s six months. But a significant portion of time has passed and this is kind of the first impression you leave with your network executives and those people at the network that they show it to.
So you’re always worried that no matter how much you feel like you’re on track and you delivered a great show, you just want to make sure that the people on the receiving end of that, your network executives feel the same way.
Biagio: Yeah, and because it takes so long to get a TV show on the air, a lot of times, what the network is doing at that particular time has changed. And so now they want you to tweak the show that you sold months ago to sort of fit their correct mandates, which is completely understandable but scary as heck to try and do.
And we’ve had shows changed a great deal. For instance our show, Ghost Inside My Child, the show that’s now airing that we end up making is pretty different from the show that was pitched. And that was a product of things changing over time, budgets changing over time, network mandates changing over time.
So when you deliver that first rough cut, you just hope that everybody is still on the same page. And then when you add in everything that’s changed and all the time that’s gone by, we’re all still excited about the show.
And finally, number five: Perhaps the scariest thing about producing a TV show, and the one you have no control over whatsoever, your first ratings.
Joke: Yeah. I actually wrote a blog post about that with Caged but it’s when you send that baby out that you’ve been raising and developing and making, and now it’s out into the world. Getting that audience feedback through ratings, which unfortunately is still the only way we get quantifiable feedback it’s a scary thing. You just, you never know. You could be trending on Twitter and it still cannot translate in ratings.
There’s so many different things that go into play in terms of programming. The audience has so many options to choose from that you just never know. So waiting on that first ratings feedback is usually a very scary moment.
Biagio: It really is. When we think about the fact that you’ve got these megastars, maybe you got someone like Ashton Kutcher who has millions and millions of followers on Twitter, and even his tweets don’t necessarily make a quantifiable change in the ratings and people showing up to watch a TV show or go see a movie.
When you as a producer, maybe you have a few thousand Twitter followers and a bunch of friends on Facebook. I mean, there’s nothing you can personally do to affect those ratings. There really isn’t. So you just kind of make the very best show you can, cross your fingers, and hope it all goes well. And that just might be the scariest thing of all.
Joke: It’s like sending your kid to college. You hope you’ve done your job.
Biagio: So there you go. Trick or treat, everybody. We hope you all have a good Halloween. We hope you enjoyed this list of five scary things that you probably don’t think about when you produce a television show. Again, for those of you who are maybe new to the podcast or are dropping in for the first time or don’t know about it, you can definitely check out our first eight episodes which we’ve converted to YouTube videos. They have a clickable table of contents. You can find those over at YouTube.com/JokeAndBiagio.
And of course, through the course of those episodes and all the articles at our site, ProducingUnscripted.com, you can learn how to pitch us your own TV shows and team up with us just like the aspiring producers from Caged and Ghost Inside My Child and Sister Witches have.
So until next time have a great Halloween, don’t have too many nightmares. And a parting word of wisdom from Joke. Did I just scare you, honey into thinking you had to say something that sounded smart?
Joke: I was like, I have nothing profound to say about Halloween other than I never even celebrated it until we moved here.
Biagio: Yeah, you’re from Belgium.
Joke: We don’t have Halloween.
Biagio: No, but you do speak that devil’s language.
Joke: I can’t, I can’t. Not doing it.
Biagio: I tried to get her to speak Dutch, it sounds really scary. Anyways, everybody have a happy Halloween and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye-bye.
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
