Pitching the Pilot

[Brian_Rice]

I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience or knows of any good materials to read up on approaching networks with a pilot promo.

I'm filming something as a web series that, once completed, I'd like to approach a couple networks with. The finished series will be about 60 minutes with a couple of marketing videos that are set to air prior to the web series out front as an intro as well as a trailer for the second season set at the end of the presentation.

I didn't want to shoot an actual 30 minute or 45 minute *episode* to show as the pilot seeing as how if it doesn't get picked up I want to be able to take it directly to web distribution.

Also I felt that seeing the web series as a complete piece would be akin to giving them lots of little mini episodes, each of which could be stretched out to fill a 22 minute slot.

From what little I've read about pitching networks, the strategy would probably be to approach an agent with the pilot who has ties to the networks I'd want to work with. From there the agent gets your pilot in front of execs who then decide whether or not to set up a meeting with you personally.

Is this the way you'd go about it? Any further suggestions?

It won't break my heart or anything to air the series online, but obviously I'd be remiss if I didn't at least attempt to present it to a couple (cable) networks.

 

[vcassel]

From my observations, either your web series serendipitously impresses a studio, or you pitch through an agent. I've been following Mike Diva's YouTube skits for a few months now and I know he has recently been contacted and flown out to NY by MTV in the hopes that he can develop a show for them. It strikes me that these sort of surface level talks happen all the time, though, so who knows what will happen.

 

[Brian_Rice]

From my observations, either your web series serendipitously impresses a studio, or you pitch through an agent. I've been following Mike Diva's YouTube skits for a few months now and I know he has recently been contacted and flown out to NY by MTV in the hopes that he can develop a show for them. It strikes me that these sort of surface level talks happen all the time, though, so who knows what will happen.

Yeah, there's only really two networks I want to speak with about the project. Kholi actually had mentioned that a lot of non-content-based companies (Pepsi, Toyota, whatever) are actually getting more and more invested in the web-series format and its economic viability.

Personally, if I do a web series I wouldn't have much interest in someone funding the web series unless it was something ridiculous like Felicia Day's deal with The Guild wherein she retains all creative rights and has complete creative control. I'm not sure original Toyota content is going to allow a *development* deal like that to exist. I could see, though, of course, making a web series and then someone coming along and wanting to produce it as a network show (Sanctuary/Sci Fi Channel) or wanting to use it for commercial purposes (The Guild/Sprint/Microsoft).

My biggest concern at this stage is that if I move forward as a webseries *first* without any attempt at soliciting the networks, I might end up screwing myself out of a more lucrative deal. While what Felicia Day has done with The Guild is great, it's nothing compared to what The Guild would have been as a network show, financially and otherwise.

And whether or not it's just a part of their marketing strategy (I don't think it is), Felicia Day has mentioned previously that they did in fact "shop" The Guild around to several networks and were denied before deciding to do the show as a webseries. (Ironically there's now a network show called The League that's a group of guys playing online fantasy football which, I think, absolutely is a result of the success of The Guild online. But we all know how that goes.

Even as a *marketing strategy* alone I think it's worth doing to be able to tell people watching the show that it was *denied* by the networks. I think it's one of the reasons fans of The Guild really got behind the show agressively -- because it was something that represented their lives and their perspectives and the networks refused to represent them.