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 is 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 I’m excited. I’m excited about a lot of things tonight. I’m excited because it looks like my Cleveland Cavaliers managed to hang in there for for another game. Looks like they’re going back to Cleveland for game six. For those of you who watch basketball I’m not much of a sports guy, honestly, but I would like to see Cleveland win something in my lifetime, and so I’m excited about that. I’m also excited. More to the point, those of you who read variety might have noticed that our new television show has been announced. It’s called Three Days to Live. It’s a new crime show coming out later this year on oxygen. Congratulations, honey.
Joke: Yeah. I’m excited. It’s going to be really cool. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but, you know, the bookings are going really well and we’ll start shooting the week in about a month. And it’s fun coming up with all the new creative things that will make the show special.
Biagio: Yes. So we’re excited to have a new series going. More things on the horizon we can’t tell you about yet, but I hope you all will tune in for that. And as you know, our current series, She Made Me Do It is running Saturday nights on oxygen and in repeats all week, so check that out if you get a chance. So all this creativity going on, honey, and I think that aptly speaks to this week’s topic that we wanted to cover, which is who gets creative control in Hollywood. And listen, let’s be honest, any any artist, anybody who comes up with an idea that’s going to be turned into a film or a television show or anything that people are going to see, they they kind of want creative control, right?
Joke: Of course. And that’s absolutely understandable. I think the thing though, to remember is film, television, these are all collaborative mediums. And so it’s it’s, you know, it’s hard for one individual to have creative control. I mean, maybe when you’re George Lucas or James Cameron, but sometimes people would argue that that’s not a good thing, that that one person has full creative control.
Biagio: That’s true. When you get surrounded by too many yes people, you can make some bad things and I won’t point anything out. I’m sure many of you have seen movies that have have run amok, but I think what really made us want to talk about this today is something that we see. I mean, we see it from a lot of a lot of newbies, but you see it from people who’ve been in the business in other areas as well as, you know, we’ll get pitched a show or our agents will get pitched a show or studios and get pitched a show. But I’m mentioning it because it happens to us quite a bit when someone will come in and be like, listen, I have this fantastic pitch, but here’s the thing I’m going to need complete, complete creative control over the final cut. Or, you know, I’m going to have to have veto power or I need I need the creative authority on the show, like I’m the one that has to spell out, you know, the creative direction of how the show is going to get made. And unfortunately, the fact of the matter is, especially in our business and television, that’s just not how it works. And, and so that’s something I really wanted to talk about today, because people will get really upset when they hear that an idea that they conceive there are constantly put together, show they created. You know, they’re not going to be the ones that have final say over how it looks.
Joke: I mean, there is a way to have final say, which is just to sell finance.
Biagio: Well, there is I mean, listen, this is this is not a big secret to those of us who’ve been around for a while. But, you know, Hollywood has a golden rule. And I think that I’ve mentioned this on another podcast in the past. And the golden rule is that the one with the gold rules. And so if you’re going to take money or you’re going to take financing, you’re going to take a budget from somebody else, it’s going to be very rare that the person paying is going to be like, yeah, do whatever you want. Go ahead. I mean, you know, in the old days, people would get patrons right in the Middle Ages, right? You’d get, you know, artists had patrons. And today there’s, there’s what is it, patriots or. I don’t know, there’s there’s some. No, that’s Harry Potter. If you come up with that. That’s pretty good. No Patreon. Right. Like where people can.
Joke: Not be too negative.
Biagio: No, no, no, I don’t want to be negative.
Joke: Yeah. I mean so so yes, the truth of the matter is that no one has full creative authority, not a single person. It doesn’t happen even if you’re the head of the network. You know, there’s other people involved in making those decisions from different departments, etc., etc. however, just as you are pitching your idea and pitching is just another form of saying you’re selling right, you’re pitching to sell. So as you sell the idea to somebody and they agree to finance your idea every step of the way, you get to sell your creative vision. And so if you are a good salesperson and if you can convince them that that that each thing what are its to look for interviews or a certain character or a certain storyline, or a certain music choice or a certain edit or whatever it is, if you can sell it, then then you will get your creative vision accomplished. But it’s very important for you to build that trust with the other people involved, especially your financiers, and so that maybe they’ll take a chance on you. And once you’ve sold them a creative idea, and then if it doesn’t pan out, it’s going to be harder for you to sell your next one. So it’s why, you know, teaming up with people who have built some of that credibility, who have who have shown that they can execute the ideas is important. And so you earn that. So you earn that credit over the course of your career to to then say, no, I believe in this idea. I believe in this creative vision. Please give it to me. Please let me do that. And that’s what happens with big film directors and, you know, the Shonda Rhimes of the world right now, that she is who she is. She can say, hey, I have proven to you, I know what I’m doing. So let me have this one. And then, you know, she still gets knows and she’s in a position where she can, you know, fight for some harder than for others. But the point is, is that it is a collaborative medium. Not one person has creative authority, but you can build the credit that gives you some creative input that is of greater value than, you know, when you’re just starting out.
Biagio: Yeah. And honestly, I think it’s really important point and bears repeating though. Joe just said it, which is that you you do earn you earn the trust of people. The more work you’ve done. So when you’re out pitching your very first show, you know, and someone’s interested in that show, don’t be surprised if a lot of your creative ideas are honestly are shot down over the course of it. As you make more television over the years, people are going to trust you more and more. You know, me and joke are at a position in our careers where not only do a lot of execs trust our creative instincts, they come to us to solve creative problems, you know, and that’s it’s taken us a long time to get there. But we’re at a point now where you know, what networks bring us shows or bring us ideas and say, hey, we want you to turn this into a series. So that’s earned. You know, you can’t expect that in your first time out. And I guess the reason that I brought this up is I’ve had a few experiences lately with new young producers, you know, who are well-meaning and creatively charged and excited, but and, and there’s been more than a handful of them. So I’m sure if some of them are listening, they’re like, oh, he’s talking about me. It’s a common thing and I don’t I don’t hold it against you. But we’ll hear from people who are like, listen, I’m going to need total creative control on this. And it’s like, okay, I understand. Then you need to go make it and pay for it yourself and put it on YouTube, or raise funds from people that are going to tell you they don’t care how you spend their money, because that’s the only way that you get creative control over your finished project. And by the way, it’s a very viable way. You know, when we made our movie dying to do Letterman, we didn’t really get any notes on that. Not from a scope, not from anybody. We paid for the movie. The only thing oscilloscope weighed in on when we were going out to theaters was the trailer, and they had some notes on the trailer, which we totally wanted and agreed with for like, please help us make a trailer that’s going to help you sell our movie, you know? But we paid for that movie. And so we didn’t really get notes from anybody. On the other hand, for these television shows we’re doing right now for, you know, oxygen and A&E and MTV and VH1, believe me, they’re giving us notes. And some of them we agree with, and some of them we don’t, and we pick our battles. But at the end of the day. Make no mistake about it, the network is paying for the show. The network is going to get what they want. Fortunately, we’re at a place in our career where the network, more times than not, seems to want what we want because we’ve shown them what we’re all about over the years. So. So there you go. I think for any of you that are really clinging to the idea of having 100% total complete creative control over your projects, my suggestion is to go the independent route to do a documentary or an independent film that you can make however you want, and just know that the more money, the more the bigger budget you need from other people, the less final creative control you’re going to have. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, because sometimes you need help to finish those big projects. Right.
Joke: Joke I agree.
Biagio: Well there you go buddy. So anyways, as always, thanks so much for tuning in. We hope this helps clear up for those of you who kind of wonder, you know, if you’re out pitching shows, you know how much your creative input will be considered. I can tell you that when you pitch a show to us, which of course you can do by heading out over to our website producing unscripted. Signing up for the newsletter and follow the directions. But when you pitch to us, we want you to pitch us all your creative ideas. We do care about your creative input. We absolutely want to hear your vision for whatever it is you’re pitching. But we’re also going to bring our many, many, many years of experience to bear and be honest with you about whether or not we think we can be helpful executing that vision, or whether that vision will have to change if you want to sell that show. And then ultimately it’s up to you what you want to do. But that’s it. As always, thanks so much for tuning in. We’re going to be back in two more weeks with another podcast, and we just want to thank you all for for all the kind words and kind tweets. And as always, you can find us on Twitter as at Joke and Biagio, Facebook is at Joke and Biagio or Joe Gambia. There’s no ad at Facebook. You guys know you’re all social media savvy. You know what I’m talking about. All right, any final word jokes?
Joke: Love you all, and we’ll talk again in two weeks.
Biagio: All right. See you that everybody by.
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
