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. 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. Well, welcome to episode 78. And today’s kind of a serious episode. It’s something I really just want to thank you for tuning in and get right down to this information, because, we’ve gotten some questions lately. As a matter of fact, multiple questions from multiple people who are being asked by some companies out there to invest thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, like $30,000 or more to shoot pitch tapes for their TV show ideas. Okay, now I’m going to be honest, my my knee jerk reaction to this is to scream at the top of my lungs, no, don’t do that. But I but what I, what I thought would be more constructive and more helpful would be to talk through how you should be thinking about pitch tapes, how you should be thinking about budgeting for them, how much you should be spending, what you should be getting out of them, and honestly, what most, most legit production companies. And by that I mean companies like ours and companies we came up with who make television shows on the air now ask of aspiring producers when they’re thinking about teaming up on a TV show joke, did I miss anything in this? This very passionate intro I made?
Joke: No. It’s great. Keep going.
Biagio: All right, look, I want to start out by first saying, you know, there’s three things that you should consider on any pitch tape you make. So let’s start with number one. Always spend the minimum amount of money possible on a pitch tape. Why is that the case?
Joke: Well, it’s a numbers game out there. And you’re going to need to pitch many shows to sell one. One idea is not enough. You’ve all heard this now a million times. So, I think it’s it’s it’s still needs to be a good pitch tape. So, you know, when we say spend the minimum amount of money doesn’t mean just hodgepodge something together. But as we’ll get into it further, you just have to be smart with how you spend the money and and what you get in return for your money.
Biagio: Yeah. I mean, the thing is, the reason you can’t spend tons of money on on one idea on with pitch tape. And I know we have a lot of new listeners and some of you know this and some of you perhaps need a refresher, but TV is a moving target. What a TV executive says they want to buy today, they may not be looking for tomorrow. There’s just too many moving targets. There’s too many variables. Selling any TV show at any given time involves a lot of luck, and because of that, you have to play the lottery a lot. And so if you’re going to buy a lot of lottery tickets, which which are your pitch tapes, which your concepts, you got to be careful how you how you spend your money on them. And that’s why I get nervous when I hear about people spending $30,000 on one idea. So how much your own money should you put in during these early stages? Well, that brings us to point number two. What is it that you’re trying to achieve with your particular pitch tape?
Joke: Okay, so if you’re asking people what are they trying to achieve with your pitch tape, I think most people would say, I’m trying to sell the show. I think that’s that’s fair. But now knowing the odds of you actually selling the show or that great. The question is really like, what is the pitch tape supposed to do as a sales tool for this show? If you discovered a great character? And so your pitch tape is selling a show based around this person, then the pitch tape itself can be just a great Skype interview.
Biagio: To begin.
Joke: With, to begin with. I mean, to pitch it to other production companies, you know? But I think that’s that’s what’s happening to people is they’re pitching into these production companies and they’re saying, great, we’re very interested. Now, pay me $30,000 to make the pitch tape.
Biagio: Well, some company that’s not what most legit companies would do, right?
Joke: No. But the people who’ve been writing to us, that’s that’s what’s happening to them. So I think I think what is trying to get at is because the process of making a pitch tape is what it is, and it may cost money. Try to get something else out of it. Right? Yeah. So go ahead.
Biagio: So like, for instance, you know, what are you trying to achieve with your pitch tape beyond just selling a show like like if you’re trying to show off a great character, I think a Skype interview that you recorded off your screen to get started in a character is great. Are you trying to learn the process of producing and finishing a project? Well, in that case, then making a pitch tape for you is a little bit like film school, right? Maybe you’ve never made anything before. And so for you, part of the money you’re spending is also seeing what the process is like and making your own project from beginning to end. Okay, that’s fine because you’re getting additional experience out of it. Or maybe what you’re trying to do is actually make the most polished pitch tape that you personally can, not just to sell an idea, because, again, selling any one idea is a long shot. But you’re like, no, I want to show that I’m capable of producing, shooting, editing, really high end work. And so because of that, maybe you spend a little bit more money and you spend a little bit more resources polishing that tape to a sheen, because you want to show not only that you have a show concept idea, but you can also deliver a really great looking tape. Okay, again, in all those cases, the reason to spend more money was not to increase your odds of selling the show, because the amount of money you spend on a pitch tape, for the most part, is not going to increase your odds of selling the show. The only thing it’s going to do is maybe give you more out of the experience of making a pitch tape, right? So that brings me to my next point. Point number three. What is it that you’re getting for your money? Step back for saying you’re getting ready to spend your own hard earned personal money to make some kind of tape, and maybe you’re spending money to travel to a location and shoot it yourself. Maybe you’re spending money to buy yourself a new camera that you’re going to make a lot of projects with. Maybe you’re spending money to hire an editor because you’re a great shooter, but you really think you want to have a better editor than yourself to finish a tape. Whatever it is, you have to know what are you getting for that money? It’s your hard earned money. It’s money that you might need to pay the rent. Why are you spending it on something else? You need to have a darn good reason. Again, I think learning from the process of making a pitch tape, it’s a great reason to invest some money creating assets. You can use another show pitches. Maybe you’re going to go on a big crazy trip to Fiji for a show idea, but while you’re there, you’re going to shoot all kinds of stock footage of of scenery and beautiful trees and gorgeous waters and stuff that maybe you could sell to a stock footage company or that you could use in other projects. Maybe you’re going to spend your money on gear that will allow you to shoot more projects in the future, but understand if all you’re doing is writing a big fat check to somebody who says, great, I love your idea, we’re going to take your 30 grand and make a really expensive pitch tape. You’re not getting a whole lot, lot out of that, right? I mean, unless unless you really have to disposable income and you’re going to go to set, you’re going to hang out with these people who are charging you all this money to make a pitch tape. What what are you really getting out of it? Other than proving that you can write a check, anybody can write a check. It doesn’t prove you have filmmaking abilities. It doesn’t leave you with filmmaking gear. It doesn’t leave you with anything other than, you know, a lot of money gone from your bank account. So that’s what you need to understand. If you’re just going to pay someone a lot of money to take your idea and turn it into, quote unquote, a pitch tape, okay, joke, please, please feel free to add on here.
Joke: Yeah, I think it’s is the difference, as Biagio said, between spending money on your own skills or gear or the process which you know, you’re learning as opposed to just, you know, wholesale writing someone, you know, a big check and then they come back with a tape for you, mainly also because there are not just us, there are other production companies out there who take pitches and who listen to ideas. And if none of us feel like that’s something that we want to put our money into, it probably should be a sign that, hey, now is not the right time to take this project to market, so it’s probably not the right time for you then to spend that money anyway, while other companies might do it because, well, they have people on staff and, you know, they need to keep them working. Or maybe that’s just their business model or whatever. You also have to then figure out what are they now doing. Right. So are you teaming up with them? They’re the production company. They’re making you pay for it. They are going out to pitch it as the production company. Then really, you’re not getting anything right. If you’re paying $30,000 as a, quote, work for hire, and you hire someone and you’re the boss and you say, here’s money, you do it the way I tell you to. Here are my notes. This is what the process is. And now you own that tape outright. And now you can go pitch it maybe. And then you have your pick of production companies, or the network might say, hey, I actually don’t like that production company that made that tape for you, but I want to team you up with another production company. Then you actually have more flexibility, right? But a lot of times these companies, you pay $30,000 and they’re like, we’re the production company. And now they might take it to a network, and a network might be like, maybe, but not with that company. So it’s just a no. So again, just be very careful with your hard earned money. It’s not something that, you know, is like a yes or no. Like Biagio said, if you won the lottery and you’re sitting on $40 million and you want to do this because, you know, you think it would be cool to show at Christmas to your family, then by all means, do it. It’s just, you know, just know what you’re getting into.
Biagio: Yeah. And I think that’s what if you look, if you’ve got tons of disposable income, this isn’t even a question. Do whatever makes you happy. I think the reason that I feel so concerned about this is because both me and Joe remember what it’s like to be broke. We were both broke. We were both living on ramen noodles. We were living in a crappy one bedroom apartment. We know what it’s like to not have to feel like maybe you don’t have a foot in the door.
Joke: But let’s be honest, what really concerns us is the amount of money people are asking.
Biagio: Yeah.
Joke: $30,000 for a pitch tape. I’m telling you right now, if you sell an idea to a network, they might barely give you $20,000 to go make a sizzle reel for them. So for a company who can’t pick this up to series, who has no control, and who might actually become a liability as an attachment on the project, $30,000 is insane. So again, it is different if someone’s like, hey! Okay, I’ll help you do this, but can you, you know, pay me $500 or $1000 here or there, you know, and we’ll do it together again. Also, be careful for all the same reasons we’ve said before, but the amount of money people are asking for this is what’s really frightening.
Biagio: It is. And that that number came up and we’ve heard some other really big numbers. And again, the reason it’s frightening is because it’s so hard to sell a TV show. I mean, honestly, if you’re going to spend that much money on something, go make an independent film. You got a better shot at turning it at theaters and, you know, turning it in film festivals. But anyways, that brings us to part two of today’s podcast episode, which is, you know, what do legit production companies usually ask from aspiring producers? Because remember, again, this was how me and Joe came up. This is how we suggest you come up, hopefully with us. But, you know, you might be working with another production company you have a relationship with. You know what? What is realistic? What should these production companies ask you for? And I can summon up in one sentence, they should ask you for your time, but never for your money. Okay. And let me let me be specific. You know, at our company, we never ask an aspiring producer to put in their own money to physically make a pitch tape. If they’ve already made some great tape and they send it to us. But we need we think it needs a reedit, or we think it needs a reshoot, or we think it needs A, B, C, and D, if it needs something that’s going to actually cost out of pocket money, we cover that expense. Period, period we cover, we pay for that. We’re the production company. Like this is what we this is the value that we offer. Like we, you know, we sell television shows to networks. You know, we’re doing a little bit better than most aspiring producers, the least that we can do if we think a show has potential, is to cover any out-of-pocket resources that need to be paid. Now, that said, we will ask you for your time. That’s what makes you valuable to a project. Are you a great editor? Are you a great shooter? Are you both? I’ll definitely ask you to come out and shoot some more footage, and definitely ask you to edit together a better tape, because presumably that’s what you want to do with your life. That’s why you’re reaching out to us. That’s why you’re trying to make TV shows just because it’s what you’re good at. So if you have those skills, absolutely any production company is going to ask you for your time. That goes without saying, but now, now, now, where might you be asked to put in some of your own money? It’s for us. It’s a rare exception. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re a great editor. You made a fantastic pitch reel that looks really cool. But to really finish the tape, you know, the production company feels like they need to do a big shoot someplace, you know, in the world or the country that you would have to fly to to get there. But, you know, you can’t run a camera. You know you’re not going to be helpful on set. You’re a great editor. You just don’t have any of the skills that are going to make you necessary at the actual shoot the production company wants to do that might not be willing to pay for you to be on set. And they might be like, look, if you really want to be there, fly yourself. But, you know, since I got to hire a shooter, I’m not also going to pay for you to be there. And that’s very different than asking you to put in your hard earned money. That’s saying, listen, we need to do something that you yourself had admitted you can’t really be helpful at. So if you want to be there, okay, you know, maybe maybe they ask you to drive somewhere, you know, maybe the shoot is three hours away from where it’s going to be, and they just expect you to drive over to the shoot. You can probably cover your gas money, but we’re talking about when people start asking you to put in big major boku dollars. So I hope that that helps clear it up for us. Someone pitches a concept that we like and we think it needs additional work. We provide the editing, we provide the shooting, or we provide the cash to get it done. That’s just how we work. That’s how most legit production companies work. It has come to our attention that there are some companies out there with legit credits, you know, with people that have worked in the industry that for whatever reason, their business model is asking aspiring producers to put in a lot of money. And that’s just something that you need to really think about before you do. I can’t speak for them, and I can’t. I can’t tell you what to do again. Like, I don’t like that. I don’t I don’t think it’s how our business should work. But that’s my opinion and that’s why I have that’s why we have our own company so we can run it our way. If you’re going to go the other route and you’re going to give someone a lot of money. The only thing I ask you is please don’t ever go into credit card debt. Don’t ever take out a loan. Don’t ever spend money that you should probably be spending on food and lodging. You know, because you’re buying a really expensive lottery ticket. It’s just it’s not worth it if you have the disposable income, do whatever makes you happy. So I hope that this wasn’t too depressing. A podcast I don’t want to. I don’t mean it to be depressing or scary, I just I feel concerned for people like us when we were young who are dreamers, you know, who are going to achieve their dream no matter what, but might be swayed into spending money they shouldn’t spend in a way they shouldn’t spend it.
Joke: And I think also the scary part for us is, you know, the big the big money cases I think we’ve seen over in the last month.
Biagio: Yeah, like in the last month and a half, we’ve seen like four emails from people who are like, hey, is this legit?
Joke: So so that worries me in the sense of like, maybe, listen, maybe those are the only four cases in this country where.
Biagio: They all happen at once.
Joke: And they all happen to call us or email us, and we were able to tell them exactly what we just told you. But if there are other people who who are experiencing this or who’ve run into this, you know, or maybe you haven’t yet, but in your pitching journey and you start pitching to companies and someone says this to you like it should raise a red flag. Like, you know, again, it’s not
Biagio: And again, I also want to caveat one other thing. I’m assuming that when we’re talking about aspiring producers who don’t have any or very, very few television credits, we’re not talking about established production companies who do odd deals or different kinds of deals to get things done, because it’s a passion project, you know, people who are very experienced in Hollywood. I’m talking about people who are just starting out, you know.
Joke: Well, you know, you just have like, hey, I have an idea for a TV show, pitch it to a production company. Production company is like, great, we’re really interested. It’s going to cost $30,000. Will you pay for it? What, like it’s just not a a business transaction that we have seen amongst our peers.
Biagio: Our peers.
Joke: Yeah. Who you know. So again, and just because the production company might be located in Los Angeles doesn’t mean that all of a sudden they won’t ask you for that. We’re just saying if somebody asks you for that, just think about it twice. You know, just go and see if you can get some other people to look at your project. And if everybody’s like, well, I wouldn’t put my own money into it, then maybe it’s not the right time for that project. You know? And I know we all like to think that, you know, we see it and this is the project that will change, you know, television. But truthfully, it probably won’t. And the only reason I say that is because there’s too many people involved in putting a show on television, and you’re asking a whole ton of people then to get behind that one project that may or may not change the landscape of television. And that’s really hard. And those come around, you know, once every so often. But again, if you spend this money on your own and are learning from it before you even take it to a production company, that’s different and that’s a whole other podcast. We’re saying if you’re out pitching to a production company and they are asking you to foot that kind of bill, that’s when you should stop and think about it.
Biagio: Yeah, exactly. So to sum up, always spend as little as possible on any pitch tape while still making it good enough that you’re not embarrassed by it. Know what you’re trying to achieve with that pitch tape, because that will also direct how much of your own resources you put into it, and know what you’re getting for your money. If you’re going to spend major money on something, and you better feel like you’re getting more for your money than just a shot to pitch one single idea I think, long and hard before forking over a ton of money to anybody, but especially to someone who says they’ll make a pitch tape for you. And if you don’t have the disposable income, you really shouldn’t do it. Most legit production companies, the ones that we grew up around, you know, the Mark Burnett’s of the world, the companies that are sort of our peers, both bigger and smaller. We’ll never ask you to put in your own hard earned money. They will ask you to put in a lot of your time. And that is totally legit. All right. So for those of you who maybe you’re just hearing this podcast for the first time or don’t know what we’re all about, joke and I own joke productions. We make a lot of television shows. We’ve had over 100 hours of television, and we like to work with new aspiring producers. So if you would like to learn how to pitch a show to us, one that we will not ask you to put a lot of your own money into, I just go head on over to our website producing unscripted. Sign up for the newsletter and follow the directions and you can learn how to pitch to us. We don’t team up with a lot of people, but we do respond to all inquiries and and we try to give constructive advice where possible. And we actually have met some really good people and, you know, some some TV projects have come out of people we’ve met through the, the podcast and our blog. So that’s it. Joe, anything you want to add?
Joke: Today is July 11th, which is the Flemish national holiday.
Biagio: Hey, my wife’s from Belgium. So the Flemish part.
Joke: Go Flemings.
Biagio: Go Flemings. All right, go Flemings and go aspiring producers. I hope that this was helpful and useful for you. And that’s it. I’ll always be careful when somebody asks you for money. I think that’s good advice across the board. Yes. All right. Take care everyone. See you in a couple of weeks by.
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
