Welcome to Producing Unscripted! This is the blog and podcast built by Joke Productions owners Joke and Biagio (that’s the two of us.)
We make unscripted entertainment, and want to help you do the same. In fact, we’d love for you to become one of our success stories.
In fact, check out this article in Realscreen Magazine. The story includes how Producing Unscripted and Joke Productions work together. And why we love working with new people.
Unscripted Entertainment?
In it’s simplest sense, unscripted entertainment is any project that is not script-dependent. The term covers documentary, true crime, reality TV, and docu-series, just to name a few.
Big Brother. The Amazing Race. The First 48. Intervention. The Kardashians.
Everything from pure verité documentary to huge competition shows like Survivor.
Create. Pitch. Work.
Ever wanted to learn how to create, pitch, and set up unscripted TV shows or films? Or work in the unscripted industry? This site has everything you need.
We’ve written two free ebooks about producing unscripted entertainment.
The first is called How to Pitch a Reality Show. It’s the most in-depth guide on pitching reality TV you’ll find anywhere.
The second is Unscripted Television: 100 Tips for Breaking In and Career Success. This pulls tips, tricks, and secrets from our first 100 podcast episodes. Great to check out if you’re new or need a refresher.
Of course, don’t miss our over 100 podcast episodes spanning every aspect of the unscripted business.
We wanted to really help you learn the industry from the ground up. So we did something special with our first eight Producing Unscripted episodes. We created video slideshows:
Want a clickable table of contents? Watch on our YouTube channel. Then you can jump to whatever section you need to learn or refresh.
Why Producing Unscripted?
Years ago, we started the Joke and Biagio blog. It was meant to discuss all things filmmaking. Given our background, it had a special emphasis on producing unscripted projects.
But then something happened. We received lots of outreach from people who wanted to pitch us their projects.
We weren’t really set up for that. So we created a page at that blog. It announced that if you wanted to pitch to us, you could get a submission agreement, sign it, and send in your pitch.
Response was terrific. Unfortunately, most of the projects pitched were not. That’s when we realized most people had no real understanding of the unscripted world. And, more importantly, no idea how to pitch packages instead of ideas.
We decided to build a site to teach people about producing unscripted entertainment. The hope was to give anybody, anywhere, everything they needed to know to break in the business.
It was also to have a more streamlined way for people to pitch to us. So we created the Producing Unscripted pitch portal.
Everything You Need to Know
If you spend time on this site, you’ll learn everything about how the world of unscripted works. We cover things like:
- Why ideas aren’t enough
- How to truly protect yourself when pitching
- Different ways to break into the industry
- The best genres for new producers and filmmakers to pitch
- Secrets from seasoned professionals.
- Determining what networks want
- Developing your projects for as little money as possible (like $0)
Start Producing Unscripted
Have a look around. Check out our free ebooks. Listen to a few podcasts. If you want a career in the unscripted entertainment industry, this is the site for you.
We’re not on Twitter nearly as much as we used to be, but a few times a year we stop by. Feel free to follow us there – sorry if we don’t reply, but sometimes we’re around.
Best of luck with your producing unscripted journey!
Joke and Biagio