Making TV In Quarantine

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First of all, we hope you’re doing okay – we know it’s a very strange, sometimes scary and confusing time. It has certainly scared us – especially because we were smack-dab in the middle of finishing a TV series when the shut down happened. We had to figure out how we and a smattering of team members could finish the show…from home. Not as easy as it sounds. Today we take you through the process of making cable TV from your spare bedroom, share how the day to day of the entertainment business is changing, and share what we’ve learned from TV network executives during this time. And, as you know…we always try to look on the bright side of life – even when it’s hard. So we came up with three good things that have come out of this whole mess, and how those might affect you, too. From our quarantine to yours, we hope you enjoy today’s ep. Even if you don’t get to listen, we wish you well and hope you stay safe out there.

making tv in quarantine with Joke and Biagio

Going Remote in an Emergency Situation…

Nobody in any business thinks they’ll be dealing with a world-wide pandemic. That doesn’t factor into budgets and day-to-day plans. We were in the middle of delivering season 2 of Deadly Recall (now airing on Investigation Discovery Wednesdays at 10pm) when California’s “Safer at Home” policy hit. While entertainment companies were deemed “essential businesses” we didn’t feel right staying open and asking our team to come in. So we had to figure out how to take hundreds of hours of footage, and transform our entire post process, to be based around working from home. It’s been an experience.

In Today’s Episode:

We share it all. Just some of what we cover:

  • What we’ve learned from TV networks during this time
  • How we moved our production from centralized office to the hodge-podge of working from home
  • What’s “quality control” and how is it impacted when you’re working remotely
  • The three things we’re looking at as positives
  • And, Biagio’s futile attempts to use Duolingo to sound French!

Press that giant “play” button on the top of this page and listen now!

Helpful and Related Links

Find us on Instagram and Twitter

This post on Hands-On Producing. This philosophy saved our bacon this time, and it can save yours, too!

All about Showbiz and your mental-well being – we hope it helps some of you right now.

Let’s Make Some TV Together

Well, when the world opens back up, anyway. As you can imagine, at the moment it’s taking a long time for us to review submissions due to the current Covid situation. But you can still learn how to pitch to us, and use this time in quarantine to really hone your concepts. We hope at some point you get to work with our company Joke Productions. Here’s everything you need to know:


How to Pitch to Us

Read our in-depth page about how to pitch us a show . It also talks about what it’s really like to work in our business, the unscripted TV and film industry.