Show Starter, V1 - Pitch and Sell a Reality Show

creative process that may or may not yield a show that has anything to do with this initial idea.

The second thing I want you to do, and this will send shudders through the collective spine of all my former staff members, is database your ideas. For reasons you will understand when we advance to the sales process, having one idea for a reality show will pretty much get you nowhere. You are going to need many ideas to sell even one. So right now, please, open a new spreadsheet, create a new word-processing table, get all sexy with a new relational database program (like Access or Filemaker Pro), just somehow begin a list of your ideas and what type of shows they are. Here is an example of a starter Pitch Database (see if you can spot the real pitch on the list):

Date	Name	Description	Genre	Category
053104	The Dirty Truth	Workaholic dads compete in a laundromat to see who can make their whites the whitest.	Competitive	Lifestyle
090604	Club Darwin	Professional gamblers face off against a team of trained monkeys on the casino floor to prove if gambling is, indeed, about skill or just dumb, furry luck.	Competitive	Sports & Gaming
080205	Keeping Up with the Joneses	A team of charity workers help different families with the surname Jones raise funds for research for loved ones with rare illnesses.	Vérité	Health

Which one is the real pitch? Here is a little history to set it up. When my agent first sent me out to sell shows, I had built a database of over one hundred pitches, and I could not wait to meet network executives and wow them. Still, one net exec would not meet with me, telling my agent, "She’s not going to pitch me anything I haven’t heard before." I sent my pitch list to my agent and told him he could guarantee the exec at least one completely original pitch. And when I arrived at the network, I opened with Club Darwin! The network executive laughed, asked some logistical questions about executing such a crazy show (which I answered in detail), and he later announced a funnier title would be Champs & Chimps. Then he leaned forward and listened to the rest of my pitches with interest.

I did not sell a show that day, but I did build a relationship with an exec who now knew I respected his time–and understood his network’s brand. (Other initial pitch meetings have yielded more amazing results, including show runner job offers.) I am going to return to Club Darwin throughout the book to demonstrate how to develop even the most outrageous concept into a sellable show.

Now add at least one of your ideas to your database. (In case you are not in front of a computer, just draw a table that looks like this–but with more space to write):

Date

Name

Description

Genre

Category

Stop! Are you skipping past the grid, hoping to just read for now? Please take a moment to do the few simple exercises I present in the book before moving on. It is important to get used to doing creative work on demand to work in this industry–or even survive a pitch meeting–and you will need the results from above to do the next step in this book. Give it a shot. Come up with two new ideas.

Great! Now that you have three ideas to work with, it is possible your original idea may not even be your favorite version of the show. That is the power of letting your idea go. Now pull out a file folder, name it with your show title, and print out your Pitch Database (unless you already wrote it on paper). You have just begun your official "Show File"! That file will hold all of the research, legal documents and other paperwork you generate as you develop this concept. Your Show File needs to be "grab-and-go" if you get a last-minute call or meeting. It only has one piece of paper in it right now…but not for long.

From here, you need to expand at least one of your three ideas into the written documents you need to shop the show: a pitch, a one-sheet and a treatment. Again, your first step in developing your show is a simple "pitch," which is usually only a few sentences long and is the short-and-sweet sell of what your show is about. Second, you need a "one-sheet," a one- to two-page summary of the basic premise and sizzle of your show. Third, you need a "treatment" for the show, which is a five-page or longer, fully detailed breakdown of how the show will be executed.

In this chapter, we are going to review the core components of a pitch and of a one-sheet. The treatment comes later because we are still one major element short of a sellable show for first-timers! So first pick your favorite idea of the three, and let’s begin.

The Pitch

Yes, it can be confusing, but the word "pitch" in this industry is a verb meaning to present a project to potential buyers, and a noun that means both the brief presentation of your project and the meeting where that presentation takes place. To keep things simple, which is how I like them, I am going to use another term for your one- to two-sentence pitch. It also is sometimes called a "logline."

What is a logline? Let’s start with what a logline, or a reality show, is not. It is not a general statement about where a show takes place or who is on it. I cannot list all of the baffling chats I have had with people who say "I have a great idea for a show" and then say something quite generic like, "It takes place in a ski resort." Or "It’s models and wrestlers dating." No, no, no. You have just blown your shot at getting the ear of someone inside the industry who knows buyers for shows that actually are great.

If anyone, including me, has ever stopped you in the middle of a pitch and said, "I don’t get it," or "Nothing really happens," here is the key to reality TV. Reality TV shows generally change people’s lives. Thanks to a new room, a battle for a job, a borrowed wife, etc., whoever participates will not be the same person at the end of the experience as they are in the beginning. Even if a central talent is the heart of a reality show, it is because they themselves live a life that guarantees conflict and change every episode.

To make it simple, your pitch or logline must immediately establish the mission of your show, who is on that mission, and how that mission will change their lives.

Your logline is an immediate indicator of your credibility as a show creator. If you do not present the most basic, industry-expected elements of a good logline, an exec cannot conceive that you know how to put together a sellable show. Plus, their time is valuable, and you have just showed them you did not think it even was worth learning how to discuss a show correctly. Therefore, they will not listen to anything else you have to say. As those of you who have attended my industry panels know, execs really do feel this way!

Your logline also is the strongest indicator of the sellability of your show itself. Why? Because the harder it is to narrow down the intent, execution and appeal of your show to a few sentences, the clearer it is that your idea has not yet taken full form. So you must learn how to concisely present the information that actually matters to a buyer when you get even a 30-second shot at a pitch. Here are a few examples of loglines for hit shows–watch how clean and simple the descriptions are, then we will break down the Five Key Elements of a great pitch:

• A mix of people from the modern world are abandoned on a desert island and forced to compete in "tribes" for food, tools and luxuries, with one person ruthlessly voted off every episode. The last one standing is the "survivor."

• Five wickedly witty gay men with diverse lifestyle expertise play Professor Higgins to a hapless straight male’s Eliza to make him and his house over for an important event.

• A team of home improvement do-gooders has only one week to construct an entirely new house that will help a deserving family facing an overwhelming personal challenge live a better life.

I cannot imagine you need me to tell you the names of these shows (if so, e-mail showstarter@tidalwavetv.com–and use an alias). A clean logline is that distinctive, and an original show is that original.

Now let’s use those loglines to dissect the critical components of even the most basic pitch:

1) The "Who": It is important to establish who exactly will be on your show. That includes any talent or hosts as well as any participants. Keep your "who" as narrow as possible! That leaves room for spin-offs and sequels. Don’t say "people" or "guys" or "kids." Say "spoiled kids" or "marriage-minded women." It will help buyers immediately understand the energy of the show and the values of the people who will be on it.

2) The "What": This is a simple statement of what relatable madness the subjects and hosts are going to engage in each episode, or over the course of the series.

3) The "Conflict": This is missing from virtually every pitch people run past me. Remember that reality TV is still story-telling, and story is based on conflict. The easiest conflicts you can create and control are between:

a. your subjects and a new environment (Survivor, Wife Swap);

b. your talent and the show’s subjects (Queer Eye, Super Nanny); or

c. your talent/subjects and external forces, like limited time or resources (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s one-week clock or Sensible Chic’s design-cloning challenge on a fraction of the high-end budget of an original inspiration room).

Another great by-product of conflict is comedy, or humor. Unless you want to cast stand-up comics on every show, if your show is not too dark in mission, structure a world that guarantees "the funny," like the misguided wannabes auditioning for American Idol.

4) The "Change": American audiences relate most to stories that cause people and their lives to change. Internal change is the most powerful (think of life swaps like Trading Spouses and Black. White.); external change is the most visual (think of any makeover show or, well, Black. White.). Make it a point to include both in your show. And be sure to make the change organic to the participant’s experience on the show. (It would make no sense to give people makeovers while living alone on an island or to give families a million bucks for switching kids for a week.)

The Change also establishes the stakes of the show. What are your participants risking (privacy, comfort, pride) to win something (money, a husband, sobriety, etc.)? On Wife Swap, for example, women are willing to stake their entire identities and self-worth as wives and moms for the chance to help another family and maybe learn how to make their own families better. On many other shows, the stakes are simpler: participants sacrifice something for a big fat cash prize.

5) The "Eye Grab": This is big. Since this is television, sell what the audience will see that will glue them to the screen. Do they need to see a giant scale with fat celebrity has-beens huddled in the balance? Well, yeah, just ask any Celebrity Fit Club fan. Ask yourself this: what visuals do you describe to your friends when you talk about your favorite reality shows? You will equally memorable and unique visuals in your own.

Take a moment to re-read the sample loglines and make sure you can identify the Who, the What, the Conflict, the Change and the Eye Grab in each of those shows. Pretty easy, right? Now let’s give it a try with Club Darwin, based only on this pitch:

‘Professional gamblers face off against a team of pea soup-flinging monkeys on a casino floor to prove if gambling is, indeed, about skill or just dumb, furry luck. The team that collects the most chips wins a grand prize."

1) The Who: Our cast includes professional gamblers and trained monkeys.

2) The What: The humans and monkeys are competing against each other in gambling events (slot machines, roulette, blackjack, etc.).

3) The Conflict: Professional gamblers will fight to the death not to be beaten by monkeys. Monkeys will want to destroy the casino and play with, rather than against, the gamblers. Neither has much control over the risk, luck and fate that defines gambling–but the humans believe they do.

4) The Change: At the end of the show, either the humans will have to accept that dumb luck can outperform their intellect and skill…or they will be one big fat cash prize richer. The monkeys will not change, but they might find out they enjoy pulling slots and flinging soup.

5) The Eye Grab: Um, monkeys…are gambling… against uptight humans…in a casino...and flinging pea soup.

Now give it a try with your own show! Write or type out the following list and complete it for one of your three pitches:

THE FIVE KEY PITCH ELEMENTS

SHOW NAME

1) The Who:

2) The What:

3) The Conflict:

4) The Change:

5) The Eye Grab:

Ready to turn it into a logline? Not yet! File your work so far. At this point, your Show File should have two items:

SHOW FILE

• Pitch Database

• Five Key Pitch Elements

Now it is time to delve into your Reality Research Lab from the opening chapter (page 6).

Watch the first episode of each of the three shows in your Lab. It had better be crystal clear exactly who will be involved, what they will be required to do, what internal and external conflicts they face, what potential internal and external change they will make for what stakes and what visuals really grab you in the show. If these elements are not clear, stock new shows in your Lab!

Now for the next Lab exercise. You know these shows well; you probably watched them every week when they aired. Can you easily reduce them to their essence? Better yet, when you describe one of the shows to others, can they identify it, or do they feel you have missed the very reason they watch it?

Try now to write clean loglines for your three Lab shows, with the Five Key Pitch Elements (feel free to write in the book):

Logline–Show #1:

Logline–Show #2:

Logline–Show #3:

Great. Now is it finally time to write your own logline? Actually, still not yet. A logline is a summary, a condensation or crystallization, of the core mission and strengths of your show. And you do not have a show yet. We need to develop the idea further, then at the end, we will reduce it back down to logline gold.

The One-Sheet

My favorite part of developing a show is working out the one-sheet, which is less challenging than writing an entire treatment or nutshelling that into a brief, effective logline. A one-sheet is the high-energy, entertaining and/or gripping reduction of your show’s essential components (the Five Key Pitch Elements expanded, attached talent, etc.). It is the written equivalent of what you will say in a pitch meeting if your simple logline makes an exec lean forward and say, "Tell me more."

To make it simple, a one-sheet is the one- to two-page summary of what your show is about. It demonstrates why a network should buy it and an audience will watch it.

Another name for a one-sheet is a "leave-behind" because this is the brief document executives often ask you to leave behind after your pitch. You are not going to do that, if you can avoid it, for reasons I am going to explain later. But you are going to create a one-sheet right now so you can further flesh out your idea and enthusiastically present its highlights, effectively and succinctly.

Because people so often ask me for a template for one-sheets, let me immediately clarify that this book is not going to give you fixed templates for anything. That is because different types of shows require specific information to be presented in a certain way. Top Model’s one-sheet surely could have opened by selling every girl’s dream of being a supermodel, hyping Tyra Banks’ involvement in the show then outlining the phases of the competition, all heightened by glitzy images of Tyra and her experts. But Survivor’s one-sheet might instead have led with the barren island backdrop for yuppies, presented tribal warfare possibilities then hyped the massive million dollar prize, showing only a picture of a bleak desert island. And your own one-sheet will unfold in whatever manner best sells the strong points of your show.

Not to worry! I have never heard anyone say their brilliant pitch was bounced because the network just could not accept their written template. Knowing proper content is a different matter, though, as is knowing how not to present information, both of which execs are sticklers for!

To start with the look of your one-sheet, keep as clean a written format as possible. That means no colored paper or text, a single, easy-to-read font in black type, simple headings for any sections and only a few images (and only if those convincingly sell the talent and visual hooks of the show). The written (or spoken) word is what ultimately sells a show. Do not clutter the page with word processing bells and whistles, or execs will be suspicious that your show does not have enough substance to stand on its own.

Now for content. Your one-sheet is your chance to say exactly what this show is and why the network’s audience will love it. Unlike a verbal pitch, there is no one to ask unexpected questions, offer a "better idea" for how the show could work before you are done presenting, or just be confused by the opening sentence and tell you to "move on" before you are done fully explaining your amazing concept.

If you thought it was tough to wedge all of your show’s essential information into a streamlined logline, the good news is your one-sheet is a chance to expand. You still need the Five Key Pitch Elements. But now you can explain them in great and entertaining detail:

1) The Who: You can get far more specific about the personalities and demographics that make your show compelling, comedic and/or unique.

2) The What: You can present concrete examples of the types of activities that will take place.

3) The Conflict: You can get into psychological detail about why the mix of people, activities and environment is sure to trigger conflict and story.

4) The Change: You can pull dramatic, emotional and/or comic strings by presenting the potential change in the subjects who appear on the show and what any prizes might mean to them.

5) The Eye Grab: You can describe the various visuals the audience will be treated to and show some of them (don’t get carried away with giant, distracting images).

Your one-sheet also gives you the chance to express the tone of the show with your language and writing style. Dramatic, compelling reality TV (like Intervention) warrants a more intense presentation; "feel-good" TV (like The Contender) should be more uplifting and upbeat in tone; flat-out funny shows can and must have a humorous, edgy feel on the one-sheet.

Remember, there is no correct format for a reality TV one-sheet. Content is king and tone is queen. Here is an example of a one-sheet for Club Darwin to give you a sense of one approach. (NOTE: if this were being sent to that network exec I pitched it to years ago, the working title would certainly be changed to his suggestion of Champs & Chimps–more on adapting to exec feedback in a later chapter):

CLUB DARWIN

An original reality show

by DMA

We now know there’s only a 4% difference between the gene sequences of humans and chimps. What if that 4%...is the poker gene?

TV is drowning in celebrity blackjack, world poker championships, snooker tournaments–get real! Gambling is merely a highly entertaining game of chance. And to prove it…welcome to Club Darwin.

Every week, Club Darwin pits a team of monkeys, chimps, and orangutans against a team of uptight professional gamblers to see who beats who on the Vegas floor. We’re talking hits at the blackjack table, tossing the dice for craps, laying down chips at roulette, and of course, our lovely "Chimpettes," fervently pulling the one-armed bandit in a team slots competition against their hottie human opponents.

Did you know you can train a monkey to scream and clap when coins come out of a machine?

In every weekly half-hour episode of Club Darwin, a new team of humans tries to beat the odds–and evolution–in a chimp-stacked casino. Whichever team collects the largest pot at the end of each episode wins. The human winners get money and gifts. The chimps might get pea soup to throw at each other–or the big baby human losers. Whichever way, we’ll all get to know monkey and man a little better…and we’ll live for the expressions on the human players’ faces every time those *&^%$^* screeching knuckle draggers win.

THE CLUB DARWIN PLAYERS & STAFF

The Humans–real gamblers, amateur to pro, who take gambling seriously.

The House Team–trained primates who have been cue-captured to respond to the signs of winning or losing (clinking coins, chips being taken away, etc.). No need to dress them; naked chimps up the mock-factor.

The Dealers–led by our main dealer, monkey trainer extraordinaire Surfer Monkey Guy, these are the animal handlers who monitor, protect and cue the monkeys.

The Cocktail Waitresses–drinks are served by more monkeys. Hot ones, of course.

The Muscle–let’s consider a trained gorilla. Losers are "bounced" from the floor.

THE POSSIBILITIES

We’ll start with the very funny pre-produced "bio packages" that introduce the teams…and finish with "loser interviews" of the monkeys on real entertainment news programs the morning after each show. Add new media blitzes (who wouldn’t watch monkeys play slots and celebrate online–or want to play against them?), celebrity competition specials and the requisite "It’s a Club Darwin Christmas" album (monkeys can’t sing…and that’s the idea), and Club Darwin is a niche and ancillary goldmine.

Do you instantly understand both the premise and tone of Club Darwin as a show? Perfect. Now you are going to craft a one-sheet. Not for your show yet! Write a one-sheet to sell one of your Research Lab shows. Be sure to convey the Five Key Pitch Elements plus the show’s tone in two pages or less. As always, feel free to write in this book:

Research Lab One-Sheet

Once you are done with the one-sheet, ask yourself, "Would I buy this? Why?" When you complete your own one-sheet, you will need to hold it accountable to equally strong standards.

But before you can develop your own show further, you absolutely must research what shows like yours already are out there. Hundreds of reality shows have aired on dozens of networks since the boom began, so please do not trust your memory or pop culture awareness to know if your exact idea has been produced or not. Go online and enter key phrases into your favorite search engine (I use Google and quotation marks for speedy searches like, "The Apprentice with chefs"). Check reality round-up sites (Show Starter™ group members, there are links to these on the online group site) and sites for the networks you might pitch to. Talk to friends and co-workers about what shows they loved and hated in your category. Read the trades. Watch reality TV. In particular, watch reality TV shows in the same genre and category as you are pitching.

Now you are saying, hold on a minute… I do not want to be influenced by other people’s work! I want to keep things fresh! But you cannot possibly know what is fresh if you do not first learn what has been done or is in the works. And in any pitch meeting, your network exec absolutely will open with: "How is this show different from [ show you are afraid to watch ]?" If you have watched the show, you will have a short and sweet answer for that. If you have not watched the show, you will have a short and not-so-sweet pitch meeting instead.

You simply cannot walk into a meeting and pitch a show that already has: 1) aired; 2) worse, aired and bombed; 3) even worse, already aired on that network; or 4) run for the hills, aired and bombed on that network, or on the network the exec you are pitching to used to work at before being fired for that particular failed show. Your credibility will be destroyed, and credibility is pretty much all you have in a first pitch.

People also resist studying existing shows because they do not want to be overly influenced and copy another show’s format. That is a justifiable concern. If you pitch a show that is too close to an existing one, you will hear the kiss-of-death phrase, "Too derivative." In fact, a few years back, execs would actually say, "If you start any pitch with, ‘It’s The Apprentice but with [ different industry here ],’ I am going to stop you." So how do you find a balance between addressing current trends and avoiding derivative pitches? You need to get original as only the reality industry understands originality to be.

Despite the industry’s resistance to derivative programming, people often complain about the lack of "originality" in reality TV. And indeed, it is incredibly hard, and probably pointless, to try to create a show completely unlike anything else in the history of reality TV. You are up against hundreds of hits, flops and staples that cover the gamut of human experience.

In this industry, originality is not about inventing an entirely new genre or category of reality TV! Those are established, with real, trusted production processes behind them. As you develop your first show, instead be sure to highlight at least one of the following Four Original Show Elements in your format:

1) An original setting. Move American Idol from Hollywood to Nashville and you have Nashville Star, a whole new musical, cultural and lifestyle experience for the show. How might a different environment set your show apart from others? Watch out, these can smell very derivative to an exec!

2) An original cast or talent. In the endless list of "life swap" programs, reality shows have swapped wives, hairdressers, races, you name it. The lock-em’-in-a-house together fishbowl experiment has been tried with twentysomethings, college kids, sci-fi fanatics, and more. What new subset of people can participate in your show? Or what new conflict-, humor- and emotion-filled life can you explore thanks to your show’s central talent?

3) An original goal or change. This is where you can have the most fun! For example, home improvement show goals have ranged from duplicating designer rooms (Sensible Chic) to decorating your neighbor’s house (Trading Spaces) to adding style to teeny-tiny studios (Small Space, Big Style).

4) An original reward. The industry has offered millions of dollars, new houses, new faces and bodies, (fake) millionaire husbands, million-dollar prizes… What do people in the world want for themselves that reality shows have not yet offered them?

To help you analyze the sellable and original elements of your show, let us examine some of the reasons a network might buy and broadcast Club Darwin:

• It brings an original cast, monkey gamblers, to a popular category, Sports & Gaming shows;

• It is visually arresting (by pea soup time, it’s "train wreck TV"–for God’s sake, it’s Jackass for monkeys);

• It is funny and unpredictable;

• Monkeys appeal to and/or freak out a broad audience;

• It has endless new media possibilities to connect the audience further to the experience;

• It has unique branding potential;

• The format can be replicated internationally;

• The format can be "spun-off" into other non-gambling areas where humans compete against monkeys (think Olympic Darwin, Darwin on Ice, etc.)

With a list like that, I can head into a network office and pitch my original show with pride. But if your research uncovers other shows that are strikingly similar to your pitch, all is not yet lost. Go back to the list of Four Original Show Elements, and rework your show to focus on different original elements than any existing shows already capitalize on.

Now that you have incorporated truly original elements into your show, be clear on why someone should be eager to buy or watch it. This requires more research, too. Want to know the easiest way to know what makes people watch reality shows? Head straight to reality TV fan sites (group members, those links are on our online site, too)! Most networks have forums on their own sites for reality junkies to mingle; those are your greatest tools. If your show is in the vein of Big Brother, for instance, read the boards from any season to get a sense of what kept fans hooked. What elements of your show might motivate someone to get up from the couch, turn on their computer and spend hours rehashing an episode with strangers? You now are going to craft a one-sheet around hammering home those strong points in your show.

Open a new document, or grab another piece of paper (your one-sheet will have to be typed at some point, but not everyone can be creative as they type), write the working title of your show across the top, and draft your first one-sheet. I like to talk things through out loud during a first draft because I instinctively will choose elements and language that excite people. Make sure you address all of the Five Key Pitch Elements and at least one of the Four Original Show Elements, and do not edit or censor anything as you write the first pass. If it goes longer than two pages, that is fine, too. Just get your ideas out.

When you are done with the first pass, save it. Now save it as a new file, and re-read it. How can you tighten up the message, reorder elements to sell the gold nearer to the top, or reword language to better convey the tone of your show? Does the one-sheet deliver the same information and feeling as the show inside your head? Remember, you have only one or two pages to wow your reader. If that is too hard to do right now, you may need writing assistance–or you may need to further develop your show idea.

When you are done with your second draft, it is time to take your first pass at your logline (at last!). Try to fully reduce the one-sheet’s message and tone into one or two sentences of solid sell!

File both your draft logline and draft one-sheet in your Show File, which now will have five items:

SHOW FILE

• Pitch Database

• Five Key Pitch Elements

• Reality TV Research

• Logline (draft)

• One-Sheet (draft)

You are not yet ready to finalize these documents because you need far more information still. Take another look at all of the elements presented earlier this chapter in Club Darwin’s one-sheet. Don’t you have a lot of questions yourself about how on earth a show like that could actually be made? And if you do, imagine what a network exec is going to ask me in the room! I would have to be able to answer challenges and roll with suggestions as if I had thought of all of those possibilities myself before I ever took the meeting. That means I actually would need to have thought of those challenges and possibilities before I ever took the meeting. And the easiest way for me to do this is create a treatment for the show.

A treatment will help me figure out how to get a show like Club Darwin on air, including what it will cost to produce–which absolutely is going to come up in the meeting! (It is going to come up in this book, too, but not right now.) But before you can even begin a treatment, you need to confirm and contractually lock down Key Pitch Element #1: the "Who."

To transform your idea into a sellable show, you must accept and embrace the core reality of reality TV: this is a cast-driven medium. That means a reality TV show is only as good as the people who appear on it. And now, more often than not, those people need a charismatic leader who is the heart of the show! And if that charismatic leader is a celebrity comeback kid from the ‘80s, all the better. Not joking. Can you say "VH1’s Celebreality"?

If you do not incorporate strong central talent, it is going to be nearly impossible for you to sell a show as a first-timer. So let us now take a closer look at the "Who" of your show so you can see why it is the first of the Five Key Elements of an effective pitch.

"REALITY CHECK"

P	Pledge #2: I will prepare a pitch and one-sheet for at least one successful reality show I have watched and then do the same for my own idea.

Chapter

4

Steps #2 and #3:

Crafting Your Pitch and One-Sheet