This is the second session from the Zicrees and I am learning a fair bit from them. The first is here – but to recap, he has written over a hundred episodes of television, was a producer on Sliders… the man has been there, done that. They have a website called supermentors.com
Right off the bat, there are some ideas that would, deliver a value to people reading this site and help me make contacts in the industry while also building some recognition for brand Clint-Johnson. Foremost amongst those is conducting interviews for this website which would give me content other than my own drivel.
That ain’t to say that my own pearls of ignorance aren’t worthy readin’… just that the more worthwhile content there is on this site the better. I’d learn from this and hopefully it would be valuable to you the gentle reader as well. It should have that whole win-win thing goin’ for it.
Anyway, the Zicrees tell us that while it isn’t expected that a spec pilot will actually get made, it isn’t unheard of (wohoo!). While it is generally accepted that a spec pilot is a writing sample only, both Malcolm in the Middle and Veronica Mars were spec pilots – and he feels that the climate right now is better than it ever has been for original scripts and spec pilots.
Don’t get a spec pilot confused with spec episode; with a spec pilot you are creating something from scratch that will show your distinctive voice – the spec episode is written for an existing series and you are trying to show that you can write in a style that will fit in with someone else’s show.
Marc says that there are two kinds of series “bibles” – the pitching bible and the working bible. The pitching bible is what you use to get the show sold and the working bible is what you use to get new writers up to speed and keep track of show continuity.
The pitching bible should consist of ten to twelve pages of highlights and plot points that will catch the interest of a producer. The key things to note are; who is the audience and who are the characters? He felt that this should be what you are working your pitch off of and probably not something you would leave behind. He feels strongly that if you leave too much material behind, the executive you pitched to is not in turn pitching the show to their boss. They might not have the enthusiasm that they would otherwise bring. Plus, they know what their boss is looking for and what interests them, so they would know better how to slant the pitch to the final arbiter of the greenlight.
He then went into what sort of compensation you should be looking at as a writer for television. If I could afford it, I would actually pay to write for television. Not that I would turn down a paycheck – capitalist pig-dog remember? But I will go over his numbers here for those who would find them interesting.
A newly minted staff writer can look to start at about $200,000 a year while a story editor will start at $300,000. You progress through co-producer to producer to co-executive producer on up to executive producer/showrunner. By the time you make executive producer you can expect to be making about $1 million a year. Writing credit for an episodes will get you more money on top of that yearly salary with a pilot episode going for $60,000 to $100,000.
It is no surprise that there are people who get into the business just for the money… and I think we’ve all seen the shows that this results in.
What I would find more interesting than money is that once you hit the producer level, you can pitch series ideas to studios and networks… and be taken seriously. Looking at what I did on the Ragnarok pilot, I suppose that I can legitimately call myself an executive producer… the problem would be to get any “other” producer to take that seriously.
He also broke down the season for us so that we would know when most of the pitching, developing and pilot production periods fall.
March through early June is when the production companies are listening to pitches and it is June through September when they are in turn pitching those ideas to the networks. The networks deliberate over September and October and then give the go ahead to write pilots scripts through October and November. They look over the scripts in December and then in January they go into production on the pilots for those they like. They evaluate the pilots over the spring and this gives them a couple months to deliberate before the network upfronts where they tell the advertising world what will be in the fall schedule.
And then the cycle starts over again.
He didn’t talk about it but the pilot season is starting to diffuse out through the year with a spring or summer start for some shows in addition to the traditional fall and mid-season starts. I think that this will cause the whole thing to spread out over the year so that shows are pitched, piloted and picked up at any time throughout the year. But that’s just me so take it with a block of salt.
He feels that just up and calling the production companies isn’t a problem. Call and talk to the assistant – but keep in mind that they are usually very busy people and so don’t try and have a long chat with them. Courteously ask the question and then politely thank them for the answer you get.
My take is that you focus your question and be specific – “What is Mr. Producer looking for right now?” “Does she have a Sky Marshal drama in development?.. Would she be interested in one I’ve been developing?” Don’t bombard them with questions – sweet and short are the watchwords.
He feels that you should maximize the genre crossover right now… “Cross a cop show with a family drama.”
If you want to align yourself with an executive producer, keep track of the shows that are being canceled (or not picked up) and try to get hold of those people who produced the ones that mesh best with what you are trying to do. They often don’t have another project ready to go and are willing to jump into another if it looks like a solid bet. The Hollywood Creative Directory and IMDBpro give full credits for shows. He didn’t feel that agents or managers were necessary… but that they helped a lot.
He talked more about the series that he is trying to get made picked up- Magic Time. He originally created it as a series and only when it didn’t get picked up did he novelize it. It did well as a three novel series and was turned into a successful audio book as well. This success in turn allowed him to take it back to television where it had a much warmer reception as something that had been a moderate hit in another medium.
I’ve been wanting to tackle Ragnarok as a graphic novel and this might be the way to go. I could rough out one myself just to see how much work it is.
Even for other projects, producing a graphic novel would certainly be less expensive than a full pilot episode and might generate some income where a declined pilot will usually return zero on your investment. While I do dabble in the art side of things, I am too slow and I’d have to do more than dabble to make sure that my artwork is pretty enough –

Kerrim from my fantasy series The City

- so I’d have to find a real artist to render up the pictures. Even so, a graphic novel is a hell of a lot less time, money and work than it is for a full live action pilot.
If you are going to produce your own pilot or series, he was emphatic that you never stop asking for investors. Everyone and anyone you talk to is asked “Do you want to invest in a film? Do you know anyone who might be interested?” He has a standard finders fee of 5% for anyone who brings in an investor and that probably helps a lot. I think that would make me a little more comfortable with hitting people up for leads. I wouldn’t be asking for handouts, I’d be offering to pay for what they can do for me. I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next full length film or television project.
The “pattern budget” is the cost of the average episode with most of the big US networks running about $2 million and seeing anything under $1 million or over $3 million as dicey.
They feel that a rounded career is important and that you should have a few projects in development… I think I take that concept to its illogical conclusion.