Typed by hand and revised by Biagio. It may differ slightly from the recording.
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 13. What is a pitch tape and should you do one? Different pitch tapes for docu soaps and formats. How long should your pitch tape be? What are the must-have ingredients for a successful pitch tape? And one popular cable television network…dies.
Announcer: Music courtesy of Dave Pelman Music, davepelman.com
Biagio: All right! She’s Joke.
Joke: He’s Biagio.
Biagio: We’re married; we make unscripted film and television and we want to help you do the same, hopefully, by teaming up with us.
And today Joke, lucky episode number thirteen! Well, lucky for us not so lucky for Style Network, huh?
Joke: Yes, no, there’s some big changes over at NBC Universal, ComCast. I guess they’re all now the ComCast Group. Bonnie Hammer has made the decision to turn Style Network into the new Esquire Network, Esquire, like the magazine. They we’re going to do that with G4 but she’s decided to do that with Style instead. Style is in more homes, so it already comes with more viewers that they have access to. So it’s a bigger launch for Esquire and I think also because ComCast and Universal merged, there was a lot overlap in terms of demographics between E! and Style which were coming from ComCast, and Oxygen and Bravo which are coming from Universal. Now that they’re all together I think by losing Style, they can focus more on what different demographics E!, Oxygen, and Bravo will target so that there’s less competition between the three sister networks.
Biagio: My God, Joke! You are so freaking smart.
Joke: What?
Biagio: She’s just so smarter than me. You just explain things so well. That’s why I married her people, way out of my league, I tell you, way out of my league.
Anyway, long story long, that means we’re not going to be able to sell shows to Style Network anymore. We can switch those thinking gears over to new Esquire and once we know a little bit more about what they’re buying, we’ll let you guys know.
But that brings us to the topic of this week’s episode and it’s one a lot of you have been asking for. So we’re going to do it which is, “What is a Pitch Tape?” And more importantly, should you do one? We’ve been getting a lot of pitches lately and hey! We forgot to mention we’re finally out of production on our top secret show!
Joke: I know! It doesn’t quite feel that way though because it’s just been like barely a week and we haven’t caught up on sleep yet. But yes, we are finally back in the office on a more regular basis and it’s quite refreshing.
Biagio: It is! Now, we’ve got to edit all these episodes. We’ve been editing them at the same time, thirteen episodes. But yes, we’re really excited to be back in the office which means a lot of you will finally be hearing from us. These past eight weeks has been really rough. Apologies for not getting back to some of you sooner on your submissions but a lot of you have been submitting ideas and asking about pitch tapes and I think I want to clear up a couple of misconceptions about pitch tapes by giving you some concrete answers, and then I want to talk about whether or not you should do a pitch tape and why. And we’re going to reference some other shows here.
And just listen; if you really want to pitch TV shows to us, you just go to producingunscripted.com and listen to every episode of this podcast. It would probably take you less than two hours. They’re all pretty short and you’ll get a lot of these answers but today’s podcast will give you some concrete advice on pitch tapes.
Let’s start about what is a pitch tape. A pitch tape is what we use to sell TV shows. When we go on to a network, we play them a tape. What is a pitch tape? Well you should think of a pitch tape as like a mini movie trailer for your TV show idea, it’s the easiest way to say it. I’m going to post on this episode’s show notes; you’re going to want to go to the website. I will post at producingunscripted.com/013, that’s episode thirteen, producingunscripted.com/013. I’m going to post some real world television promos that can serve as templates for your video pitches.
But let’s talk about this; a video pitch serves a mini movie trailer for your idea. There are two kinds of video pitches basically; there’s, essentially, docu-soaps and format shows. If you don’t remember what these means, go on back to producingunscripted.com/005 which is, “Pitch Reality TV Shows and Documentary Series with these Five Magic Words” and you will instantly know what we’re talking about. But basically you’re going to do a pitch tape that’s either doc-based or format-based.
For a docu-soap tape, you want to aim for three to six minutes and basically there’s four things you want to accomplish. Number one; give us a sense of the characters.
Joke: It’s just really important obviously, docu-soaps are about characters; they’re about people in the shows that we care about that we want to listen to and want to watch. We need to get a sense of who they are as people, what makes them tick, what makes their view of the world just different from ours which is why we want to watch them. And also what makes them relatable. But it all comes down to, for docu-series, you need to have characters that pop and we can’t decide whether or not those characters pop until we see them on tape.
Biagio: You’d be amazed how many real life characters are awesome in real life and suck the minute you turn the camera on them. We’ve seen that again and again, haven’t we?
Joke: Yeah and this is nothing bad to them, it’s just some people are meant to have a TV show and some are not.
Biagio: Exactly! The only way to really find out put a camera on them.
Number two: pitch for docu-soap tape should give us a sense of the world the show takes place in.
Joke: Again, what is the world? What does it mean? If it’s a world we’ve never seen before, whether that’s some high octane male driven world on the next frontier wherever that is, or it’s a female world of high-end something, kind of let us in on what are the transactions in that world, how are people living in that world, what are things we do in everyday life that they do slightly different.
Biagio: Number three: hint at possible story lines. Where are the stories going to come from every week? Are the two characters that show centers on, is it a father and son battling over a family business? Well, great I can already name probably 15 episodes that come out of that alone. Are we going to get stories of women designing a new dress every week? Are we going to get stories of people striving for their dream? Are we going to get interpersonal stories between a husband and wife? What kind of stories are you going to tell if this show lasts five, six or seven seasons?
Joke: So important. A lot of times we talk about the “why now?” Why are we following this family now? Coming up with the first episode story line is usually pretty easy because you’re like, “Look at this! This is amazing!” But the question for the network is, “If we’re going to try and build a series around this, I need to look three, five seasons into the future and what am I going to see every week?” That’s where a little bit of the hybrid things come, in that, if you can add a little format to your docu series, it’ll go a long, long way.
Biagio: And number four; smack us in the face with the tone of your show. I should know from the second I start playing your video pitch is this show serious or is it funny? Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Are you pitching Duck Dynasty, which by the way happens to be one the successful TV sitcoms anywhere these days, or is it a very serious tone show, like an Intervention? By the way, as of October 2013, please don’t pitch any serious intervention type shows, nobody wants them right now. But the point is we should know just by popping in your tape, right off the bat, by the music you choose, by the way you set it up, by what happens in the first 15-20 seconds of the tape what the tone of your show should feel like if it was on an actual TV network.
Joke: What he said.
Biagio: There you go! Now, I want to talk about, for a brief second, about pitch tapes for format tapes. Again, if you do not know what I’m talking about, go back to producingunscripted.com/005. But basically, if you’re going to do a pitch tape for a format show—and an example of a format show is Survivor—these tapes should really be between one and three minutes long. So, docu-soap tapes – three to six; format shows – one to three. Rule of thumb. It’s different for every tape but that’s a good rule of thumb.
And a pitch tape for a format show should explain how the show works in the most entertaining way possible. Maybe you’re pitching the next Survivor, your like, “How the heck do I show what that’s going to look like? I can’t go out and shoot that.” Well, you got to put together a tape using everything from photographs, computer graphics, found footage, a combination of all these things, title cards. You just got to get creative, people! You’ve basically find a way to create a visual montage that explains how this show will work. There’s no rules other than make it as entertaining and as clear as possible.
That said; a lot of you are pitching us format shows. And I really urge you to go on back and listen again to some of our past podcasts where we talk about making yourself valuable and the idea. It’s kind of hard to sell a format show. Any idea that you might come up with has been pitched at some point. We talked in great detail in an earlier episode about, “Apprentice” and shows like, “Wife Swap” and “Trading Spouses” existing on the air at the same time. An idea is not enough to sell a show and unfortunately a lot of first time producers decide they’re going to do a pitch tape for a format show. Your odds of selling that one just starting out are really slim. For that reason, I urge you, if you’re starting out and want to break out in the business, to concentrate more on docu-soap pitch tape or hybrid pitch tapes that have a real-life character or real-life person attached as opposed to doing more format tapes. You’re odds are going to go up exponentially.
But I wanted you to have the information. Again for a pitch tape for a format show - short, entertaining, explain how the show is going to work and find some way to include visuals since you’re not going to go out and shoot “Survivor” or “Big Brother” or whatever the big idea your pitching is.
Now, all of that said, this brings us to the real question of this episode: Should you do a pitch tape? And the reason I bring this up, we get a lot of e-mails from many of you, by a lot I mean probably more than a hundred right now in my inbox which I need to get back to. From people who’ve never picked up a camera in their life, they don’t know what Final Cut Pro, or Adobe Premiere, or even iMovie is. In other words, they’ve never shot, edited, or even thought about editing before. I think I know why this is, because a lot people want to be on a reality show more than they want to make a reality show.
Now, first, let’s say you’re someone who doesn’t want to be on a reality show, you actually want to be a producer but you don’t have filmmaking skills, whatsoever. Number one I would suggest, you go and get some filmmaking skills. There’s plenty of websites online where you can learn how to shoot and edit and do a competent enough job to create a video pitch, I would say, in six months to a year you’d be really good.
If that’s the route you want to go, I suggest earning some filmmaking skills. If it’s not, at the very least, go back and listen to episode three; producingunscripted.com/003 and listen to some other ways you can make yourself valuable without making a pitch tape, because if you can’t make a good pitch tape, there’s no reason to try. Don’t be like, “Oh I have to pitch this idea tomorrow so I better go make a pitch tape even though I haven’t picked up a camera in my life.”
Now, I do think most of you who want to produce can shoot and edit, that’s the impression I get. I think most of you who’ve never made a pitch tape before and are desperately trying now and stressing yourself out about it are people who want to be on a reality show as opposed to making a reality show.
Joke: I would say, also, I forgot what the episode was about pitch tapes we’ve done before, and kind of the process of which we work. I don’t want people to stress out so much about pitch tapes. Whether or not you’re a producer or want to be on a reality show, there’s a process we have put in place so that you are not spending your money when you don’t need to yet by sending us, obviously, the submission agreement first but pictures or simple Skype interviews and things like that. Again, this is what we do for a living so when we see these things we go, “Okay, that person pops. Hey, I have a million other questions.” Let us help you and be very specific with you with what it is we’re looking for so that when you do go out and you either as a novice or as a film maker, try to capture what the show could be, that you know what you’re going out and capturing.
And to be honest, I don’t consider myself a tech whiz or any of that but reading a simple photography book or going online and looking at some simple photography lessons and then just making sure you press record, you’re pretty much half way there.
Biagio: It’s true, by the way, just head on over to producingunscripted.com, at an episode, it’s either called, “Three Steps to Pitch Shows without Going Broke” or “Five Steps to Pitch Shows without Going Broke” I guess it depends on how many tips we have on that week. Just go to producingunscripted.com, you’ll find it. And that gives you the whole process before you invest a lot of money and go broke. Like, do these steps with us, we’ll help you get there.
But that said, if you’re someone who just wants to be on a reality show and now you’re stressing out trying to make a tape, fill out the submission agreement just like you would with a normal show, e-mail us and tell us about yourself and just put yourself on camera talking about yourself and send it. Don’t freak out about editing a great pitch tape if what you’re saying is, “I’m a great reality TV character. I think I could be sitting alongside the guys in Duck Dynasty or I could be like Patty Stranger on Millionaire Matchmaker. Like, I just know that I’m a show.” Okay, great! Don’t worry about making a pitch tape, if you’re a show we’ll make the pitch tape. You just put yourself on tape send it over to us or just send us an e-mail and tell us about yourself and stop stressing out. This is going to go for, literally, more than a hundred of you in my inbox.
So, to wrap things up; what is a pitch tape? It’s a mini movie trailer for your TV show idea. There’s pitch tapes for docu-soaps, there’s pitch tapes for format tapes. Docu-soaps, three to six minutes; format tapes, one to three minutes. If you’re just starting out, focus on docu-soap tapes; wait until you’re a successful company to start worrying about format tapes. And if you want to be on a show as opposed to making a show, don’t stress out about making a pitch tape; just send us an e-mail after you fill out your submission agreement and if you have a camera, you got a phone, you got something that records, tape yourself telling us about yourself, put it on YouTube or a private link on Vimeo, send it our way and we’ll continue the discussion.
All right, what do you say Joke?
Joke: That was pretty intense.
Biagio: It was pretty intense but so many people are asking the same question about pitch tapes. I really think they’re going to find this helpful.
Joke: Awesome!
Biagio: All right, that’s it people! We’ll be back in another two weeks with some words of wisdom and for all of those you who have sent submissions and it is in the hundreds right now, I’m excited to say we’re back in the office and you should be hearing from us soon.
That’s it! We love you guys. Thank you so much for listening and coming back again and again. Thank you for all the kind tweets, all the nice e-mails that we’ve received. We’ve got so many great comments on this show and honestly it’s what keeps us going.
Joke: It is really exciting and I can’t wait to go through all these e-mails and see what fun shows we can find.
Biagio: Yes indeed. We’ll see you in two weeks, keep those ideas coming. Don’t go broke making a pitch tape now you know what a pitch is about, so I’m expecting great things people!
All right, see you next time!
Joke: See you next time!
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
