The Pilot...

[Jetfire]

Has anyone written a pilot...for fun or for serious consideration???

I wonder if it is easier to write something like this instead of a book...not just a script for a show but for movies also. Does anyone know good sources to help when writing a script??? I may write a pilot for my show idea and even though I have read a few scripts in the past...the thought gets overwhelming for me...but I really want my ideas out there...even if they totally suck.

 

[David cgc]

JMS's Complete Book of Scriptwriting is a good resource for nuts and bolts stuff, as well as some general storytelling advice. And you can't beat those prices...

 

[Pilot Ace]

I like The Screenwriter's Bible.

http://www.amazon.com/Screenwriters...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264879436&sr=1-1

Don't think scriptwriting is particularly easy in comparison to novel writing or the other way around. They're just different beasts.

 

[MetroKid]

I wrote a pilot with a friend about our experiences in college being urban raised gay men attending a rural university in Michigan. It essentially addressed how we saw the young gay community of a middle of nowhere college town imitate what it thought of as the gay culture of the city.

At the start of series, each of the characters would have been a freshman at the "University of Central Michigan" and dealing with their sexuality in some way, some better than others.

We devised an interesting way with which to abstractly show changes in character dynamics, especially between the two lead characters, Eli and Travis. During major plot point conversations the action would shift to a vignette featuring the characters dancing or interacting in a night club, and the characters actions in this scene would reflect the turn of events in the real world. for example. if Eli and Travis are having a nice conversation, the action would shift to them having a drink in the night club, and as the conversation evolved so to would the action in the vignette. So if Eli said something insulting the vignette Travis would throw his drink into vignette Eli’s lap.

We would have also used the show to highlight certain social problems inherent to college life, like alcoholism and drug abuse, but NEVER in a preachy way. We clearly wrote the show with adults in mind. We wanted to target the adult demographic with as realistic a portrayal of college life rather than the teen set with stupid idealized visions of life after high school.

The show was to be called Central MI

 

[bigdaddy]

NBC will pick up almost any show, the only rule is that it must have Jay Leno star in it and cost less than a cup of coffee.

 

[Jetfire]

^
I can see NBC turning all Jay Leno's bits in to new shows...Jaywalking, followed by Battle Of The Jaywalking All-Stars and then Headlines.

 

[Vendikarr]

I've written several pilots, and even have one making the rounds with producers, trying to catch my break.

I wouldn't say it's easier than writing a novel, just a different animal. Where novels are need to spell out as much detail as possible so ones mind can create the scene, screen writing isn't as detailed.

The average drama script for television runs 50 to 60 pages. A pilot can run another ten. The big thing to remember in a pilot is this is the first time anyone is meeting your characters, so you have to give a bit more detail about them. Also, you have to go into some detail about what will be your main sets and locations.

That is what pads out a pilot. Try and keep as close to 60 as possible, and if you go over 65 you may need to do big editing.

Also, in the past pilots were four acts, and an opening teaser. But these days, television has change, and you will find five or six acts instead. The first act will be the longest act, with your second act completing before the half hour mark. The other acts will be smaller.

Dramas give you more story in the first half hour to hook you, and back load the commercials into the second act. Count the commercial breaks on a few of the current hit shows, and time the amount of story between commercial breaks.

One of the best sites I have seen dealing with writing for television is tvwriter.com. It's run by TV writing great Larry Brody. He also offers writing classes thru his website.

One of the best ways to learn to write scripts is by reading other scripts. I find them invaluable in seeing how other writers handled certain situations. The best source I have found for scripts is TV Writing.

Let me know if I can be of assistance. I plan to break into TV one day.

 

[Pilot Ace]

Thanks for those links, Vendikarr. Great resources.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Has anyone written a pilot...for fun or for serious consideration???

Sort of. I wrote a short film which is open-ended. Those of us who're working on it have been discussing what a second installment might consist of.

 

[BrotherBenny]

I have several ideas for pilots but have never written one.

The story I came up with for a pilot is a human crashing on an alien world and learning to integrate with that society as he can never return home since the aliens are about a hundred years behind technologically. But all is not as it seems. The B plot is the people on Earth trying to find out what happened to the pilot and spacecraft and the lives of his friends and family as they come to terms with his loss.

A scifi character piece essentially

 

[Professor Zoom]

I have.

Besides the great links above, also get your hands on scripts. Read, read, read.

 

[tharpdevenport]

I wrote a pilot, and I'm finishing up the fifth episode of season 1 now. I've generally plotted out seven seasons. The the finale of this episode was written to John Williams' "Swing, Swing, Swing" -- it was fun.

Anyway, I want to have every episode put down and plotted for at least, I would say, five seasons, before I try to shop it around.


I find an hour-long format forces some creativity, 'cause you only got about 45 minutes to tell your story. It may seem like a lot, but it can get away from you quickly, and when you're trying to tell story arcs and characters drama that are connected over entire seasons, you find you have to plan out how long some scenes can last, even timing with a stop watch what you've written to see how much time you got left. Other time, like episode 5 I am on now, it dragged forever, but that got some very nice dialogue exchanges going.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Anyway, I want to have every episode put down and plotted for at least, I would say, five seasons, before I try to shop it around.

Maybe have it plotted out, but, I wouldn't really show or tell anyone that. Tell them the over all ideas, but, not that you have over 100 episodes plotted out.

 

[BrotherBenny]

^I agree. They'll want to have input and if you tell them "this is what's happening" they're just as likely to throw your script onto the rubbish heap.

When I do eventualy do mine, I'll just be doing the pilot episode and summarising the remainder of the season, and where I envision it going after that.

Remember that if it goes so far as to get made and the audience numbers aren't high enough you might be asked to retool the entire thing and every script you had written suddenly becomes useless. Television is one of the toughest markets to break into as there are only so many hours of primetime viewing, which is where we all want to end up, right?

The biggest issue with mine is how to make the aliens look since the make-up department is going to have mostly aliens to work on so it has to be minimal. I just don't want my aliens looking like forehead-of-the-week Trek aliens or Alien Nation or dyed-skin Farscape aliens, but CGI would be prohibitively expensive. All this I need to take into account before I even start writing.

You should also think of what you might need to take into account. Do you have set pieces which might be expensive to construct? A large cast of characters?

 

[tharpdevenport]

Anyway, I want to have every episode put down and plotted for at least, I would say, five seasons, before I try to shop it around.

Maybe have it plotted out, but, I wouldn't really show or tell anyone that. Tell them the over all ideas, but, not that you have over 100 episodes plotted out.

Oh, we have another thread (here in TV & Media?) where we talked about where are shows would go, and so far HBO seems to be the only outlet I can think of, and they'd allow the creative freedom. I wouldn't pitch my show to a network that will force me to change it to their idea of "good", or FOX (I don't feel like having crappy songs, dancing, girls in showy clothing parading around in my first few episodes, meddling, or being cancelled).