Show Starter, V1 - Pitch and Sell a Reality Show

because they wanted to work with Jay Mohr. The same was true for the ridiculously long line of pitches everyone (including me!) was making to create a competitive fashion designer show. Suffice it to say that Heidi Klum’s attachment to her version of the show is what gave Project Runway the green light–and earned Bravo another runaway hit.

For newcomers, as far as "famous faces" go, if you can get Halle Berry or Lindsey Lohan to agree to do your show, you win, pretty much whatever that show might be. But people who build shows around distinctive, not-famous faces, can win, too (and not go broke trying). Ask the show creators of Dog, the Bounty Hunter and Monster Garage– your talent does not have to be famous already for you to sell them in a reality show. They just have to be very special diamonds in just the right setting that allows them to shine their brightest. Bling!

As you plan to incorporate talent into your reality TV show, keep an eye out for two potential danger zones:

First, do not attach unknown/untested talent just because you think they are famous and/or fascinating enough. Pitchable talent must have an audience, a brand and existing or easily ignited industry heat. Established production companies that the networks already know and trust can shop their friends and family members as stars of their shows (notice that they still do not). You need to come to the table with talent who is at the top of their field and has the credentials and following to prove it (like The Dog Whisperer’s Cesar Millan). Look, if you have nothing to bring to the deal, why on earth would you attach talent that brings nothing either? They are your ticket in!

Before you pursue any non-famous attachment, first find out who their clients, listeners, readers and/or fans already are and how vocal and loyal they are. You will need that information, at least via written or recorded testimonials, to strengthen your pitch.

As far as stars go, agents are great not just for connecting you to talent, but also for helping you pinpoint who’s hot and who’s not. Just because someone has been in a movie or on a television show does not mean you can sell a reality show around them, although it does help if at one point they had some kind of developed brand presence (that means Good Times’ "Dyn-o-mite" JJ might be easier to develop projects for than his straight-man brother Michael).

In the absence of an agent, read the trades and watch reality shows to pinpoint talent trends (visit my "Break into the Biz" blog at www.planetdma.tv for quick tips on reading the trades). For example, surely Flavor Flav’s break-out success on VH1’s The Surreal Life helped another early rap star’s show ascend soon after on MTV’s Run’s House.

Now for the second danger zone. Attached talent is only helpful when who they are and what they do is in perfect sync with the show you are pitching. That is considered an "organic" attachment. Do you know how many people have pitched reality shows to, for and about household names like Omarosa and Naomi Campbell–and have not been able to sell them? Just having a recognizable name is not enough. The name has got to be aligned with a complete brand experience, which is still true for Omarosa and Naomi. But the show also has to sell that same brand experience. For both Omarosa and Naomi, if the show does not address a "demanding diva" angle–even if the talent themselves resist it–the audience is not going to respond.

Here is a clear example of a show that did not organically match the talent’s brand with the show’s content. Several years ago, when Oprah-ordained spiritual guru Iyanla Vanzant’s own talk show did not succeed, it was not because she had lost her magic touch! It was because the show did not sell the spiritual awareness and authenticity her audience came to her for. You probably can think of other shows that have suffered a similar death-by-bad-branding.

Meanwhile, look what happened when the reality wizards who brought you The Real World resurrected Iyanla in full branded "Mother/Goddess" glory on Starting Over! Lesson: if you are pitching Extreme Makeover: Church Edition, this is not the time to call in your Janice Dickinson "solid" and sign her to the feel-good show of the millennium. You would be wasting a perfectly good brand–and showing your potential buyers that you do not understand the industry or your own audience.

To make it simple, to shop your first reality TV show, you not only need sellable attached talent, you also need a show that seamlessly showcases the talent’s brand.

Please believe me on this, as repeatedly confirmed by my seminar panelists. Pretty much everybody, even established producers and companies, needs a great talent attachment to sell a show right now. The difference between the old-timers and newcomers is that old-timers often have access to hotter talent and also have the resources and reputations to tie that talent to a show. Now let me state right now that not every new reality show you see next year is going to be helmed by central talent, so no, not every new show has to be talent-driven. But new shows being pitched by newcomers to the industry really should be, for the reasons I shared above. So how do you find talent and commit them to your reality TV project? Let’s tackle this one step at a time.

Finding Talent

Remember that "talent" is the correct term for the people who are the central focus of your show. That does not mean "famous people" or even "performing artists." As you research and watch more reality TV, track who the principal characters are in each series. Dr. 90210 is the perfect fit for the handsome and charismatic plastic surgeon Robert Rey, M.D. And the high-rated American Chopper is far less about building bikes than exploring the humorous battleground that is "Junior" and "Senior’s" relationship.

If you really think about it, these shows are hits not because of the subject matter, but because of the immense appeal of their main characters and their conflict-ridden, comedic, utterly relatable daily lives. So for your own show, it is your job to find a new cast of characters and/or place them in a new setting that the industry has not yet explored and, frankly, exploited for entertainment purposes. Now, how do you do that?

You find talent, first and foremost, by paying attention to the people in your life right now, all around you, all of the time. Stop trying to get Pam Anderson’s agent on the phone; if she wanted to do a reality show, she would just call Mark Burnett herself. She’s Pam Anderson. But if your reality show calls for a slightly ditzy caricature of a blonde pin-up girl…is there a real, non-celebrity, fun and funny woman out there with a new edge, who might be even better for your show? Is she, in fact, the over-the-top hair stylist doing your highlights right now as you spam Pam’s agent from your PDA?

Here is what so great about your outlandish hairdresser, or your best friend’s boxing partner or your neighbor’s baby mogul kid. They know you. They actually might want to work with you. They actually might appreciate your interest and do what they can to make developing a show for them easier! Again, your brother also might be thrilled to do a show with you, but does he have the professional cred, distinct brand and existing audience you can sell?

If you are in prison, a convent or are just too essentially asocial to have friends or basic personal contacts who can appear on TV, or you just want to explore other options, there are other ways to discover potential talent for your show (or to build a show around). Regional newspapers and local news shows are a huge resource for human interest stories. In big markets, yes, everyone is skimming them for potential finds, but that should not stop you from joining the fray and pursuing interesting people. One of my favorite pitches was perfected by optioning talent I read about in the Los Angeles Times.

If you originally come from a smaller town, get online (or on a plane) to check out their local stories, as well. As a native, you have an "in" that mainstream production companies may not be able to break through. And of course, regularly scour social networking Internet sites (like MySpace) and user-generated video sites (like YouTube) where thousands of potentially fascinating subjects join the ranks of the watchable every day.

What are you looking for, exactly? The right talent for your show will have these Five Key Talent Characteristics:

1) Charisma/appeal/"it." This is number one because without "it," no one will watch your talent or your show, regardless of how well-executed it is. Whatever made you stop your day and engage with this person (or read their interview), if it makes others do it, too, you are on to something. A great deal of what makes people irresistible is their passion for what they do (think Miami Ink). What passion is your talent pursuing–and how can that bolster the mission of your show…or become the basis of a new one?

2) Big picture. There are two types of talent in this business: Big Ego and Big Picture. You only want to work with the second! No deal is worth doing with someone who is over-the-top difficult to work with, has outrageous expectations of fame and fortune or cannot make simple decisions for himself or herself, even with the help of representatives. I am writing this generally, but like most other show runners in town, I certainly could name specific talent who have killed projects, shoots and entire business relationships by not seeing all of the possibility before them. When your talent can sit with you and think beyond their dressing room size, their credit, even their weekly episodic commitment, then you have a potential partner in the process.

One more caveat: If your talent is good-hearted but absent-minded, overbooked or not business- or detail-oriented, know that you will need a dedicated talent handler/producer in your budget to manage the talent’s contribution to the show. That requires access to their schedule and contacts (if they are supplying subjects for the show) and cooperation from their support staff. If your talent is willing to turn over some control of their own resources to your producer to keep you on schedule and budget, that is fine (and what I mean by "that is fine" is "get that in writing and that is fine"). If they are not, run.

3) A distinctive point of view. You do not need talent who is the only one in the world who does what they do. You just need talent who has put their own stamp on the way they do it. Reality TV has room for endless shows based on fashion designers, for example, because experiencing Isaac Mizrahi’s world is wildly different from trailing Vera Wang who approaches life in no way like Donatella Versace. Each would warrant wildly different show formats.

4) A fan base. Your talent must have some sort of existing clientele or fan base so the network knows they have a foundation on which to build an audience. If your talent truly is as special as you feel they are, then others will have discovered and confirmed this before you do. And those people also will be a great resource when you shoot your talent reel, as I will discuss shortly.

5) Talent. Finally, do not forget that your talent should actually have a talent and do it with passion, intensity, humor and a special spark that makes others want to do it, too, or at least watch them do it over and over again. If you have ever seen Supernanny’s Jo Frost, you will know why they brought her across the ocean to recreate her British hit rather than recast the show with an American expert.

Do you already have talent in mind–or even somehow attached–to your show idea? Before you proceed with them, hold them up against those Five Key Talent Characteristics. How do they measure up? If it is not a solid homerun in all aspects, get to work on developing them in their weak areas, but also keep your eye out for replacement talent.

Attaching Talent

Having found your show’s central talent, how do you now legally attach them to your project? The broad hint here is the word "legally." That means you need a lawyer.

I am not talking here about your college roommate who now practices patent law. Or your brother’s old divorce lawyer. You need an entertainment attorney who already has prepared multiple contracts to attach talent to reality shows that have aired.

To keep this section simple, I will just ask if you would even remotely consider reversing the situation. Let us say, heaven forbid, you are married, and heaven forbid even more, you file for divorce. Would you immediately seek out a skilled entertainment attorney to handle your half of the estate? No, that would be insane. Even if you and your spouse were only worth $5000, you would hire an expert divorce attorney to protect your rightful $2500.

Well, I am telling you again that selling even a mildly successful reality show is worth $5,000. So any deal you do for your project requires that you hire an entertainment attorney who specializes in reality TV. Not a sitcom or film lawyer. What does a fiction lawyer know about the rights and rewards talent can expect in the less-lucrative market of reality TV? What do they even know of what you yourself can expect in money or credits as a show creator who is bringing talent to the table?

There are several different types of contracts a skilled reality TV attorney can generate to attach talent to your show. I’m just not going to tell you what they are because

I want you to hire a lawyer.

I am not going to give you a template or form for a talent attachment either, and please do not go online and ask anyone else for one. If you are not ready to hire a lawyer and create solid contracts to protect your show, your estate and your talent, you are still thinking of selling a show as a fantasy or a dream. But television is a business, a high stakes business. And business people have lawyers. Therefore, so must you.

A good non-fiction TV attorney will negotiate a number of items for you in even the simplest attachment agreement, often generically called an "option." Here are some of the areas s/he will negotiate in your talent option:

• Who is being attached to the option?

• What is the project they are being attached to? (You will want to attach a copy of your written format to any contract so that future confusion cannot occur over other shows you or your talent might be involved in. Aren’t you glad you are preparing a one-sheet and treatment as part of the development process?)

• How long is the talent attached to the option?

• Is the talent exclusive to your show during the option period?

• How will talent be compensated, if at all, for the option period (it is perfectly common not to pay for the option)?

• Who will have final say over the format of the show?

• How will talent be compensated, if at all, if the show is sold and produced? (This point alone is worth every dime but one that you pay a real non-fiction attorney.)

• Who owns the show if it does not get sold and produced? (There’s that last dime, paying off.)

Please know I am not presenting this partial list to give you a blueprint for cobbling together your own talent option. I am giving you this partial list so you can speak intelligently to potential talent about the kind of issues you two will need to work through as talent considers an attachment to your show.

An industry lawyer will cost you about $150-$500/hour in Los Angeles or New York. Please do not ask them to accept 5% of your show on spec. They are doing tangible work for you and should be paid, and you might never be, even if you sell the show (as I indicated before and will expand on later). Meanwhile, to budget for these initial legal fees, realize that drafting the actual agreement will be nowhere near as expensive as potential protracted negotiations with your talent’s attorney. This is where "big picture" talent will serve your project and "big ego" talent could tank or at least jeopardize it.

Of course, I cannot be this firm about your needing an attorney without making it easier for you to actually find one. If you are a member of our Show Starter™ online group, we have provided a "Hot List" of reality TV attorney referrals at the group site to get you started.

Let me add here that if you are developing this show in partnership with another person, you also will need your attorney to draft a contract, or "deal memo," between the two or more of you. I know, you are thinking, "We already signed a piece of paper agreeing to split our millions 50/50!" But sharing intellectual property involves far more than determining how to divide the money I already explained you may never see. You will need to clarify many, many points, like who owns the idea if the partnership ends, how partners can exit a deal, how the partnership will be structured, paid, etc.

You do not need to form a production company, LLC, corporation or other legal entity to shop and sell a show. Still, you might want to. The best way to decide is: ask your attorney. Then double check with your accountant.

Once you have met with your attorney, add two more items to your Show File: your partnership deal memo (if you are a team) and your talent agreement. Make sure all parties involved and your attorney have originals of all the deals.

SHOW FILE

• Pitch Database

• Five Key Pitch Elements

• Reality TV Research

• Logline (draft)

• One-Sheet (draft)

• Partnership Deal Memo

• Talent Agreement

Prepping Your Talent

Once talent has signed your deal (never, ever before! If you cannot muster the courage to ask talent to sign a deal, you are going to get spanked in network negotiations, so just walk away from it all now until you build up the nerve), you will want to prepare them to potentially join you when you begin to pitch the project. At the very least, you will need "tape" on them, which means a talent reel that shows who they are and how they interact with their audience. If they are particularly charismatic and interesting, they also might accompany you to pitch meetings, which can dramatically help a sale (or utterly destroy it–see "Big Picture vs. Big Ego" comments earlier in this chapter).

When I pitched Club Darwin, I actually had terrific talent in mind for the project. The lead monkey’s trainer was a handsome, young, lethally funny surfer dude who worked with trained monkeys and chimps. If I were to have shopped that show seriously, certainly my trainer would have been in the room with me, charming my net execs. Here is what I would have done to prepare him for presentation:

• Practice pitching. Get a sense of where your talent really lights up, and where s/he shuts down or gets defensive. Structure your pitch, to include talent only at the moments when talent will sell the show. (More on this in the "Practicing Your Pitch" chapter.)

• Hire a stylist. I am not suggesting all talent should be sporting new Manolos or Patek Philippes, just that their hair, grooming and clothes should further emphasize who they are and what that brings to your show. That means something very different if you are pitching talent for Blow Out versus Nanny 911. A stylist will cost you a few hundred dollars, but the investment could save your show.

• Fix their teeth. I am not kidding here. Whether it is $30 worth of teeth bleaching strips or a $400 crown, if it makes all the difference in your talent’s look, fix that grill!

• Explain the process. Remember that even by reading this book, you are way ahead of your talent in understanding what lies ahead. It is always helpful to manage your talent’s expectations of what will happen if the show is sold so they can shift from fantasy-mode to business mentality along with you.

The Talent Reel

To finish up with our Club Darwin example, I probably would not have been able to slip a quartet of nattily dressed primates past security at the network for a pitch meeting. But watching Surfer Monkey Guy maneuver those chimps clearly is the heart of the sale. That means I need to produce a brief (5 minutes or less) talent reel to shop the show. (Reality vets please do not skip this section; there is a specific approach I am suggesting.)

To make it simple, a talent reel showcases your talent in his or her main environment, interacting with his or her main clientele, achieving the results you are saying s/he will achieve on your show.

For Supernanny, an ideal talent reel would show Jo and her magic "naughty stool" taming a wild beast of a child. Surely for The Dog Whisperer, the talent reel would feature Cesar performing one of his five-minute behavioral miracles on an out-of-control pet dog. And on Club Darwin, Surfer Monkey Guy would have had his monkeys pulling slots, spinning roulette wheels and playing blackjack, screeching wildly on cue every time they won…and gleefully plastering each other with pea soup out of a trophy cup. At least, it looked like that in my dreams.

Another great addition to a talent reel might be testimonials from professionals and clients who have worked with your talent, but only if their industry stature or amazing tales of transformation elevate your talent even further than the personal footage already does.

Beyond content, "production value," or the look, lighting, sound and overall professional feel of your reel, also matters to some extent. Certainly, if you cut a professional-looking reel, it will help buyers understand that you are bringing some skill to the table. But a slick package is nowhere near as important as your talent being able to deliver the goods on tape, those goods, again, being: charisma, a passion, a distinct point-of-view, a motivated fan base and the actual ability to change people with what they do.

Talent reels do not need narration or even sit-down interviews with the talent, though if your talent is particularly appealing, interviews cannot hurt. At minimum, here is how your talent reel should be produced:

• Use talent’s natural habitat if possible. This not only showcases talent in their prime performance environment, it also keeps them more at ease as they face the cameras. Otherwise, present them in the show’s proposed setting, if it is practical (as in, it is not a rented 30-room mansion in Malibu).

• Shoot on DV or higher. Do not use home video cameras for the reel because you cannot achieve a professional enough lighting or audio experience. If you can afford it, hire a camera operator to actually shoot it so the tape will look great and you can concentrate on managing the shoot itself.

• Wire for sound. Do not rely on a camera microphone for the reel. Your talent’s voice is a big part of the package. Get a real mic, preferably a lavalier clipped to your talent, so you have clean audio.

• Light the set. Wherever you are shooting, take the time to light it professionally. This is where a good camera operator/director of photography (DP) will pay off. Yes, shooting outdoors will help cost here, but bring along a bounce!

• Overshoot the experience. Apart from your talent, the people s/he’s working with might be nervous due to the cameras. Shoot long enough that people relax and ignore the cameras. For a reality project, it is critical to see natural-feeling footage of the talent. Extra footage also might help you rework the reel to suit the specific needs of certain networks.

• Get signed releases from everybody. Even though this is just a promotional reel, you will want to have all rights to any footage for possible future use. That means your talent and every other person on camera signs an "Appearance" release, any personally owned items that appear in any shots are cleared with signed "Materials" releases, and the location(s) where you shoot are cleared by "Location" releases authorizing you to film them. Finally, the camera operator has to sign a "Work for Hire" agreement, stating that s/he has no rights to the footage. You can get all of these documents from your lawyer. Do not roll a single minute of tape until you have paperwork signed by everybody. Preferably, you have gotten it before the day of the shoot.

• Edit a clean presentation. Do not get carried away with wedding video spins and dissolves. Open the tape with a "slate" showing you or your company’s name, your talent’s name and professional title (if that is helpful), the date, the running time of the tape, and the working title of the show (if that is necessary). You have five minutes for the piece. Shoot for three, and lead with your strongest material. Definitely add music to sell the energy of the show, but do not let it drown out or distract from your talent. Finally, end the reel with a title card with your name and contact information.

• Keep the final editing project on disk. I buy and assign a 250-500GB hard drive for each talent reel I create. That easily holds a couple of hours of digitized footage as well as the final project files so I can easily update and edit my reel for customized pitches.

• Dub multiple formats. Regardless of the format of your final master reel, make sure you lay off both VHS and DVD copies, and if your editor can do it, save a digital file, as well (Windows Media Player, QuickTime, Flash, etc.).

• Label the actual reel clearly and completely. While it is terrific to have a great VHS or DVD jacket with graphics and contact information, it is far more critical to label the tape or disc itself with your show name, talent name and contact details. Yes, that information is on the reel if it is played; just make it as easy as possible for an exec to quickly track down your gem in their ever-growing office pile. Once you see the desk of a typical net exec or assistant, you will understand.

And now…congrats on finishing your talent reel! Be sure to add a DVD copy as item eight in your Show File:

SHOW FILE

• Pitch Database

• Five Key Pitch Elements

• Reality TV Research

• Logline (draft)

• One-Sheet (draft)

• Partnership Deal Memo

• Talent Agreement

• Talent Reel

Your talent also may want a copy of the reel to file (or to show friends and clients, post on a Web site, add to an existing reel, etc.). That may not be in the best interest of your show, so you may want to wait until after the pitch process to share the talent reel, if at all. Why? You don’t want the world to know what you are shopping and with whom, and if your talent is unhappy with any aspect of the reel, they may be less cooperative just when you need them to be the most engaged.

That leads to one last thought on talent. Establish early on what boundaries they have in relationship to the project. Get those boundaries, as gently as you can, in writing with the talent option. For example, talent may or may not have the right to join you in the editing process or even see the final talent reel. They may not be a part of developing the show at all, or they might be an integral part of the creative process. Just establish what they are contributing to the project and keep that line clear. Crazy things can happen when people get a distant whiff of fame. Make sure your talent understands and appreciates that this is a business proposition, and if the show does not sell, that is a business result.

Keep that in mind for yourself, too, if you start feeling a bit anxious or just plain nutty in the pitch process.

Okay, fire up the computer. It is time to create your show.

"REALITY CHECK"

P	Pledge #3: I will retain an attorney with a reality TV track record to prepare a deal memo for my partners and me and contractually attach charismatic, credentialed talent to my show.

Chapter

5

Steps #4 and #5:

Retaining an Attorney and Attaching Talent