Film Courage: Should new TV writers focus on pitching their shows to studios and networks?
Niceole R. Levy, Screenwriter/Author: What's happening now I would say the trend in this
business is if you are a writer who's actively staffing there there is a limit to your ability
to pitch most studios contractually will not allow you to start pitching projects until you
reach like co-producer level so unless you already had something that another studio was interested
in and you can do what's called a carve out where it's protected from your contract. You really are
not developing if you're staffing constantly. If you staffed once and then you're having trouble
finding another job, your reps are going to be like well what do you have that we can take out
and pitch? Because it's a way to keep you in the game. It's a way to get you out there meeting
people and sometimes it happens. Sometimes newer writers sell shows and they get made and that's
amazing. The biggest obstacle when you are a newer lower level writer and you sell a show
is that you do not have the skill set to be a showrunner so what will generally happen unless
you are some wunderkind that they're going to just decide you have all it takes to be a showrunner
is that an experienced showrunner is going to be attached to your show and hopefully you will have
some input and how that choice is made hopefully you can bring some names to the table if there's
producers you really admire executive producers and show runners that you really like or who's who
you a friend of a friend told you this person's like the greatest human being and they might be
available to run it bring their name in a lot of times the studios or the networks will already
have a list of people they want you to consider you should be able to talk to those people and
give your input on who you think is best and like this is the person I think should run it with me
usually it's fine because most of the people who get brought in to run a show for a different
creator are on overall deals and they're looking to help you get your show off the
ground so they can go make their stuff they're really not invested in taking your show over
there are however times that that happens to pre to people and and this town is full of those
stories of brilliant writer made the show and then big dog producer basically pushed them out
the door and it happens and I think you shouldn't let fear of that stop you if someone's interested
in making your show and you're an inexperienced writer you just need to educate yourself on how
to best protect yourself and don't try to protect yourself by being like it's my show like you can't
tell me anything about it you have to build that partnership because TV is a team sport and anyone
who's not supporting the team is a problem so you don't want to be a problem and then lose any say
in what happens to your show that you created so it's a tricky thing but it does happen and reps
will encourage young writers to be writing pilots and trying to get interest and even have them out
pitching but it's always with the understanding that you will probably not be running that show
and is that the scenario where someone would say I don't take notes is if it's actually their their
idea they're the ones that came up with the show idea the I don't take notes people are
just certain showrunners of a certain personality there was a pretty widely
publicized article where like Taylor Sheridan says he doesn't take notes okay like I guess he doesn't
there have been some other writers that have sort of expressed that again I think
that's a if that's your personality and that's how you move through the world
then I understand that that's you're not going to be different right in this process you're going to
try and do exactly the thing you always do which is like I know best so I'm going to do it my way
I think most writers are not that person most writers are understand that someone else might
have an idea that's additive to what they've written and it's very rarely even scripts
that I think are brilliant very rarely that I'm not like oh this could be better though
like sometimes there's just little things that sometimes you're so close to it you can't see
it and so having other writers around you or having a good executive say hey this script is
brilliant the one thing I would say to you is these transitions are a little confusing and a
director is not going to understand how you want it done and the audience may not track it so let's
think about how to rethink that that's a good note like you need to look at that because they're
concerned about your show succeeding as opposed to I just don't understand magic why is there magic
in this show that's not helpful if they've bought a magic show but sometimes it happens
should there be a time limit let's say for a newer writer should expect to work five to ten years in
a writer's room before they actually think they can go and Pitch their own show or that's just
there's no real hard and fast rule there's no real hard and fast rule there used to be definitely
I interviewed with some showrunners who had come up in the era before I really came in to the
business and it really used to be very like you just don't run a show till you become a co-ep on
other people's shows and co-ep being the top level of writer before you're an executive producer
nowadays it's it's much more free-flowing it's I know people who have been
soldiers as staff writers who have sold shows as producers which is pretty right solid in the
middle and then also as co-eps so it's kind of all over the place now I think
what I would say is really think about if if all you're focused on is that you want to sell
your own show staff as much as you can and just know what you need to learn which is you need to
go to set and produce an episode that's probably going to happen working in broadcast television
more than it's ever going to happen in a streaming situation so take a broadcast job
and you need to know how post works and you need to read as much as you can to help educate you
about how this all works I Carole Kirschner has a great book that's called Hollywood Game
Plan [How to Land a Job in Film, TV, or Digital Entertainment] that really sort of talks about
the the business side of the business. Bethany Rooney wrote this amazing book on directing for
television [Directors Tell the Story: Master the Craft of Television and Film Directing] that I
recommend to writers because it talks about what everyone on set does so you can really take in
what all the jobs are and because you get all these words thrown at you like someone's like
a grip and someone said this and someone's of that and you're like what does all that mean I
don't know like because a lot of us didn't go to film school so we don't know so you get the
book and you read what people do and that'll help prepare you because what you don't want to do is
just assume because you're a brilliant writer how to do it all and then suddenly you're a
showrunner even today actually John Wells just launched this thing on his website where it's
like the Showrunner's Corner where he's giving out advice to people about how to do the job because
we have seen thanks to streaming this gap open up in skill sets for writers because those of us who
have worked in broadcast television have produced episodes have gone to post have that experience
but people who've like their whole career's been on streaming shows never been to set never allowed
to see cuts they haven't been to post and so there's this gap in the skills you need to run
a show happening for a whole generation of writers and so there's a lot of concern about how to fix
that so I was so pleased today to see that John was like well here's a step here's this foreign.