At this point, you have crafted a basic pitch and developed it into a distinctive, compelling and engaging one-sheet.  Your show may have been inspired by a particular talent from the beginning, or you now have identified and attached appropriate talent to enhance your show’s impact and further tie yourself to the project.

Now is a great time to rewrite your one- to two-sentence pitch or logline.  Incorporate the uniqueness and excitement of your talent (if they are not famous enough to generate that with just the name), as well as the tone and energy from your one-sheet.  

Next, recruit a team to test your pitch!  Let them read your one-sheet, then run your logline past them.  Do their eyes light up…or do their brows furrow in confusion?  Keep testing until your team is excited by your one-sheet and even more excited by how perfectly you have expressed it with your logline.  Then you are ready to move on.  No, not to a pitch meeting!  Now it is time to find out if this skyscraper is "habitable."  It is time to write your initial treatment.

First, let me emphatically state that this treatment is not for submission to any potential buyer (that is what your one-sheet is for right now).  At this stage, your treatment is

to figure out three things:

1)    Can this show be produced in a compelling way–or at all?

2)    What are the budgeting, schedule, legal and production pros and cons?

3)    In what other ways can you expand this show that you have not yet explored?

Writing a treatment at this point not only will help you develop a stronger show, it will give you a chance to uncover and address any questions that might come up in the process of pitching it.

 

The Treatment

Your treatment is the five-plus-page document that outlines how to turn your brilliant concept into a producible show.  Once your pitch and one-sheet effectively present the Who, the What and the Wow, the treatment explains the How.  Remember that pretty high-rise sketch from Chapter One?  Your treatment is the equivalent of a blueprint to construct the building.

 

 

Like a one-sheet, there is no set template for how a treatment should be written.  Here are some guidelines, though, to help you construct your own:

•     Create a simple coversheet (just a title, name and contact information, plus a small image and short, "tag line" catch-phrase, if either helps sell the show)

•     Lead with the most potent portion of your one-sheet–the talent, appeal, impact, humor or uniqueness that makes the show exciting and distinct.

•     Separate the document into titled sections (sample sections follow), and keep each section succinct and to the point.

Does every show need a detailed treatment?  Yes!  Remember that reality TV is not documentary TV.  You are not just shooting whatever happens in someone’s natural setting.  You are structuring an experience within a given environment to see how your subjects react.  Control over that experience varies from the planned competitions and events of The Surreal Life to the seemingly fly-on-the-wall drama of Laguna Beach. 

No network is going to sign off on a show that is merely a "luck of the draw" multi-week shoot with pretty people and the hope that you can create something spectacular in the editing bay.  Even on a show like Laguna Beach, you will need to incorporate signpost moments like "Prom Night" and "Graduation Day" into your treatment so you can build story and cast people whose lives will collide with such events (think the "outsider," the "salutatorian," the "partier," etc.). 

From strictly regulated competitive formats to loosely controlled vérité docudramas, it is your goal with your treatment to craft a series experience that guarantees some level of conflict and change each show so you can assure the network of story every episode. 

Here are the basic sections you will want to include, at minimum, in your treatment (the order they appear in might vary, depending on your show’s strong points):

 

•     The Pitch

 

Open your treatment with a tight, compelling redux of what the show is about and who is driving what change.

 

•     The Show ‘Specs’ 

 

Briefly present the technical format of the show.  That will include:

 

Genre and Category: you know this from your pitch database!  Is your show a competitive or elimination format, like Dancing with the Stars, or a vérité format, like The Restaurant?

 

Episode Duration: Is each episode a half-hour, an hour-long or more?  This is not a random decision.  Does your extensive content matter necessitate a full hour to unfold, or would it be more effective to hit your homeruns and get out quickly each episode?

 

Frequency:  Does it air weekly, twice-a-week, daily (aka a "strip"), etc.?  Weeklies often are the easiest to sell because they fit most conveniently into network broadcast schedules.  Daily strips are the most brutal to produce or fit into network schedules.

 

Series/Season Duration:  Will your series last for one episode (a "special" or "one-off") or unfold in seasons of 4-6 episodes, 10-13 episodes, or longer?  This will be determined by the potential content to be mined from your show’s environment or principal cast.  Do not panic if you do not have years of material.  Reality show life spans are notoriously short; three seasons or more is longevity! 

 

Episodic Format: Does your show feature "arcing" episodes, where the same cast of people populates the entire series order (like Beauty and the Geek) or "stand-alone" episodes, where each episode is a separate, self-contained show (like Flip This House)?  For stand-alone formats, does each episode focus on a single story (like How Do I Look), or is it a "segment show," where several mini-stories make up a single show (like Cheaters or Punk’d)?

 

Hosted or Unhosted:  The terms "host" and "talent" often are used interchangeably in reality TV.  To split vocabulary hairs, though, in reality TV, a "host" exercises control over other participants’ experiences on the show, and those participants are the focus of the show.  Julie Chen is the host of Big Brother.  Makeover shows and prank shows all have hosts, as well. 

"Central talent" is a person whose personal experience is itself the foundation of the show.  Hogan Knows Best is an unhosted show with central talent.  To go all "high school geometry" on you, all hosts are talent, but not all talent act as hosts. 

 

Shooting Format: Will your show need to be shot single-cam vs. multi-cam, videotaped vs. filmed?  Only mention this if it specifically affects storytelling for the show; otherwise, it is an aesthetic and budgetary decision for the production company and network.

 

As an example of show specs, Club Darwin is a half-hour, weekly competitive gambling show, with stand-alone episodes.  Every episode, we change professional gamblers, and every season, we will feature a different, ludicrously pimped out casino and add new animals to the fray (trained parrots, cats, etc.).  It is an unhosted show, with Surfer Monkey Guy being the central talent. 

 

•     The Cast

 

Introduce who will be on the show, including name, picture and a brief bio.  Begin with your host if there is one, or introduce the central talent.  Then, if there are subjects/participants to be cast, give a short list of what kind of characters and story lines we might see on the show.

For Club Darwin, I would start by introducing my "ring master," Surfer Monkey Guy, what his background is, who his fellow handlers are, and how they will work the different tables at the casino.  Next up are the professional gamblers, not by name but by profile (circuit gamblers, online junkies, international title holders, etc.).  Then come the primates, by ridiculous name and trained talent.  There might be Camilla "Lazy Eye" Gorilla, who can play blackjack with either hand but pelts pea soup most effectively with her right.  I would wrap up with the casino staff, various monkeys, chimps and gorillas that will perform funny but functional roles.

 

•     The Target Location/Lifestyle

 

Almost every reality show includes its physical setting as a character in the show, from The Bachelor’s mansion to Nashville Star’s namesake city.  Where is your show set, and how does that setting serve the story?  And if your show will be set in your different participants’ personal environments (homes, offices, etc.), what types of homes and neighborhoods must you shoot in to advance your show’s mission? 

For example, Supernanny clearly is targeting middle and higher income suburban neighborhoods whose residents have lax-lifestyled, super-mommied and/or double-incomed their way into a tantrum-filled (naughty) corner.  In contrast, Wife Swap must cast two diametrically opposite households every week.  For that show, casting a beachfront modern loft and a log cabin on a lake in the same episode drives story just as much as the people themselves!

For Club Darwin, I definitely would get on the phone to lock down at least one casino that is looking for publicity and will sign a letter of cooperation through my attorney.  That would be one of the first questions a net exec would zing at me, and it will shift my pitch into warp speed if I can tell them that the Maloof Brothers already have signed on to do the show and are building a new wing with lower slots so even pygmy monkeys can reach the levers.

 

·         Episodic Breakdown

 

To make sure you have enough content for a show, you also want to present what is supposed to happen every episode.  Remember, you are not going to create a brand new viewing experience each week!  Your audience is returning to your show for the familiarity of the format.  They want their "group date" and "private night" and "rose ceremony."  Here is where you craft that structure. 

To make it simple, work out a sample "clock" for your show.  A "clock" is the combination of content and commercials that fills a show’s time slot.  The typical half-hour clock is approximately 20-23 minutes of programming, usually with three or four commercial breaks.  Hour-long shows have about 43-45 minutes of programming, with about six to eight commercial breaks.  The show content that airs between commercial breaks is called an "act."

I share all of this so you can see why every act in your show should end with some kind of unanswered question or "cliffhanger" that will bring the audience back after the commercial break.  This is simple to do with controlled environments.  Makeover shows typically withhold the "reveal" of any change for the top of the next act.  Competitive reality shows withholding the final outcomes of games and challenges until after the break. 

However, more loosely structured "docudramas" like E!’s Girls Next Door are harder to predict.  For those, you still will use your initial treatment to generate hypothetical sample episodes to get an idea of what kind of people you will need to book for the show and how many events or locations you will need to plan for to create enough content for one episode.

Beyond outlining the structure of an episode, this section also is where you will list sample episodes to prove you can fill your series order.  For instance, for a segment-based prank show like Girls Behaving Badly, you would brainstorm at least 20-30 outrageous stunts to demonstrate the endless segment possibilities (or discover that there aren’t as many as you thought you’d have!)  For makeover shows, you would brainstorm the different subjects you would approach and how they would be uniquely changed by the show.  (Hair, grooming and style are pretty much the same procedure each week, which is why so many makeover shows build towards events rather than just a new look.  Those events–graduations, first dates, new jobs–are what differentiate one episode from each other.)

This section of your treatment is where you will discover what kind of emotion, humor, conflict and suspense you can build into a predictable structure for each episode, rather than hoping you will strike gold with outrageous cast behavior every week (you won’t.  No schedule has that much spare shooting time.)

Let’s give it a try with Club Darwin, shall we?  This is a very simple act breakdown for a sample show episode.

 

Act 1/Event #1–Men and Monkeys face off on the casino floor.  There is a coin toss, die roll or some other game of chance to determine who picks the first of the three events: blackjack, the roulette wheel or craps.  Then we start Event #1, which, like all of the events, will be timed.  Meanwhile, we introduce our slot pullers, the "Slotty Hunks and Hotties" for the Human Team and the lovely "Chimpettes" for the Primates.  They will drink and pull slots throughout the event, racking up final booster points for their teams.  As we watch all the players compete throughout Act 1, we also roll "background reels" on both the humans (deadpan serious) and the apes (completely ludicrous).  We end the Act just as the players complete their final round at the first table.  Time is up on the first event, and our monkey "muscle" collects the chips to see who won the round.

 

Act 2/Event #2/Monkey Love–While we enjoy "diary" interviews from the competitors, both human and monkey, the chips are counted and announced.  We get reaction from the winners and the losers, then it’s another face-off to determine Event #2.  For this round, the losers also will have to nominate their weakest link to kiss someone from the opposing team.  We alert the Slot Teams where their teammates stand and up the drink service.  We bite nails through the second timed competition, "Muscles" collects the chips, and we see the pained faces of the gamblers.  The Event #2 points are posted, and interviews follow.  Someone will have to kiss a monkey in a minute!  If the monkeys lose, they will spin a (brand-integrated!) bottle to determine which human they will kiss.  If the humans lose, they will nominate their weakest link for the monkey lip lock.  We choose our lucky human.  Reaction all around!

 

Act 3/Event #3 and Winners–We kiss and, of course, tell with post-kiss diary interviews.  Then it’s time for the final event.  Either one team is way ahead at this point, or both are neck-and-neck.  Event #3 could be the final determination.  No face-off this time, just straight to the remaining table for a final, timed round.  Chips are counted, points are posted…but it’s not time for celebration yet.  The Slotty Hotties and Chimpettes join the group with their buckets of shiny tokens.  We extract any particularly tempting tokens from the mouths and crevices of the chimps, then those are put into the giant coin machine, too.  Whichever team is ahead gets counted first.  Then the trailing team’s tokens get counted to see if they can bypass the leaders.  We find out who wins after the break.

 

Act 4/The Prize–If the humans win, they get their cash prize, and the loser monkeys will cheerily shred their consolation bag of peanuts.  But if the monkeys win…they get something better than cash or peanuts: cold, condensed pea soup.  Or refried beans, or something just gelatinous enough to clutch, throw and stick to stuff.  Like the humans who lost. (Humans who stick around for the monkey celebration will get consolation prizes that make it worth their horrified while.)

 

Act 5/Final Interviews and Outtakes–We close the mock fest with bleeped final interviews from our players and outtakes from the day’s gambling.

 

•     The Series Arc

 

Recognizing that reality series do not always last more than two or three seasons, project how your series might evolve from Seasons 1-6.  This boosts your shot at making a sale by showing how it can come back season after season, with new twists if necessary, and hold an audience.  For example, Survivor changes location every year, which guarantees a new island with new challenges.  Also, in the 2006 season, CBS took a chance by introducing racially divided tribes at the top of the competition.  Keep ‘em talking! 

Explore how you can add a signature to each season of your show while still delivering the predictable punches that keep it popular year after year.  Club Darwin, for example, would switch casinos each year, add new types of animal stars or even go all-celebrity one episode or season (including the animal players).

 

•     New Media Possibilities

 

Every pitch has to present broadband and mobile possibilities, and that does not mean rerunning clips from the broadcast show.  Networks want original content for new media, e.g., Big Brother’s "House Calls," and your ability to suggest something innovative here might get you a new media deal for the show even if there is not a broadcast slot for you just yet.  Do not overlook new media possibilities!  Do a lot of online research for any network that might be a home for your project so you can see what their approach is…and where gaps exist in their online offerings. 

Club Darwin surely could have an online Animal-Cam to watch the show from the monkeys’ point-of-view, an interactive gambling area where you could pull slots or play roulettes against a live monkey, and perhaps a personal section where you could read profiles and get to know that special monkey from Episode Two.

 

•     Production Budget and Schedule

 

You will not actually develop a full budget for your initial treatment, but it is important to have a ballpark episodic cost.  To do that, you also will need to estimate a production schedule, including: any special pre-production needs (like nationwide talent searches); the number of shoot days per episode (this is extremely important for determining producibility and budget); if multiple episodes can and will be produced simultaneously and why; and how many days it will take to edit an episode. 

We will get into ballparking your show budget in the next chapter, but for now, know that this will be one of the first questions you are asked after you present your initial pitch in a meeting.  Suffice it to say for now that Club Darwin will not be an inexpensive production!

 

•     Brand Integration Possibilities

 

Keep this short and specific.  What you want to present here are opportunities for deep, organic integrations, not generic product placements.  The Coke cans in front of Simon and team on American Idol are product placements that do not drive story.  Leave those out of your treatment.  On the other hand, the Denali that QE’s Fab Five is racing all over the Tri-State Area in is a terrific deep integration.  You would not need to mention the Denali brand specifically, but you definitely would mention that the cast will need an SUV-sized vehicle to cram all of their stuff in and have private team time.  

For Club Darwin, a key brand buy-in would be from the casinos that hosts the gamblers each episode or season.  We will discuss brand integration and its proper scope and liabilities in the budgeting chapter.

 

•     Format Sales, Ancillary Products and Public Service Possibilities

 

Keep this section brief if you include it at all; it can detract from the original show as a focus.  Still, if your show cries out to be replicated internationally, twisted into entertaining off-shoots or maximized with distinctive ancillary items, go ahead and think those through here.  Again, Club Darwin surely should release the It’s a Club Darwin Christmas CD, and a movie could easily be made with its break-out stars (again, whatever worked for Jackass!). 

This would also be a good place to mention any banking connections to negotiate a special Club Darwin debit card that could be accepted at casinos nationwide.  And if there is a public service component that might enhance the network’s image and further build audience, address that, too.  For instance, the show’s monkey stars could do public appearances at animal charity fundraisers.

 

•     Anything else that matters

 

You perhaps consider this a vague statement.  You are correct.  That is why it is difficult and, in fact, a disservice, to give a hard template for treatments.  Different shows will mandate different additional information.  For example, the Club Darwin treatment would require an entire section devoted to all the research I have done with the ASPCA about the logistics of transporting, shooting and maintaining hygienic premises for that many animals on set.  And since this is a gambling show, how will federal and gaming industry regulations affect humans competing against animals?  That surely will be a new question for my lawyer.

 

•     The Final Sell

 

However many sections you develop to crystallize your show, always close with a final sell that wraps up what makes your show entertaining, gripping and unique. 

 

Down the road, after you get a "yes" on your pitch, you will want to polish this initial treatment more for actual presentation.  For instance, you might want to add images (again, small and tone-setting), a brief bio on yourself (if something compelling about you helps to sell the show) and some reference material (again, only if it sells the show–like a New York Times front page story on your main talent). 

But remember that right now you are not preparing a treatment for submission.  It is strictly for illumination.  Yours.  And for protection.  Yours.  Leave images and text you do not have all of the rights to out of this version, the one you now are going to register ownership of.

Your Show File now should have up to nine items:

 

SHOW FILE

•  Pitch Database

•  Five Key Pitch Elements

•  Reality TV Research

•  Logline (draft)

•  One-Sheet (draft)

•  Partnership Deal Memo

•  Talent Agreement

•  Talent Reel

•  Treatment

 

Protecting Your Work

Listen.  I truly want you to create fantastic stuff and enjoy the fruits of all of the labor required to do so.  But this is Hollywood.  Everyone else in the network reception areas, production offices and development meetings around you has been on a creative bender, too, and trust that some of them have and will, in fact, come up with similar show ideas to yours.  So you can and must protect your work.  But you can and must also be prepared for someone else to beat you to a sale.  And you can and might be ripped off, too, and you will have to come up with quite a lot of cash to accuse a production company or network of stealing your idea and weigh the risk of any possible consequences.  That is not to dissuade you in any way from establishing and fighting to the end over your ownership in a show.  It is to stay brutally honest about this business.

That being said, whip out your checkbook or credit card!  It is registration time.

You have now developed your project to the stage that it legally can be protected.  It is no longer "just an idea"!  It is a treatment, and you can protect it in two recognized ways.  You can register a copyright, and/or you can register it at the Writers Guild of America. 

A copyright gives you, the show’s creator, the exclusive right to publish or sell your work.  It is good for "the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death."  Technically, as soon as you put your work into tangible form (like a written treatment), you legally own the copyright.  But to give notice to the world that you own it, it is necessary to register your copyright.  To do so, just complete a two-page Form TX (or one-page Short Form TX, if your circumstances qualify), attach your original treatment with the fee (currently $45) and mail it off to the Library of Congress.  It will take several months for them to mail back your date-stamped copyright registration, but it is effective upon receipt of your completed application at the Copyright Office.  Simple instructions, more detailed information and all forms are available at www.copyright.gov. 

The advantage of obtaining a copyright is that it is the only way to legally offer public notice that you are the owner of your work.  Anyone doing a simple title search can find that you, indeed, already have created this format and own the rights.  Should they proceed to copy your show, you are in an excellent legal position, with legal standing only a registered copyright affords.  However, since it is a public record, anyone can access your copyright submission.  Of course, most people do not have the time or funds or online access to descend on Washington, D.C. and pore over millions of records, but it is their legal right to do so.

Your second option is to register, or more precisely, "archive" your work at the Writers Guild of America.  Registration is valid for five years.  To archive a work at the WGA, you complete their form and submit your treatment together with the fee (currently $20 for non-members and $10 for members in good standing).  You can easily do this online by visiting www.wgawregistry.org. 

The advantage to Writers Guild registration, apart from the lower price, is that they actually will register even a concept for you, and your submitted materials are not public record.  That means no one can access what you submitted in order to steal it, but it also means no one can access what you submitted to verify you created and own it.  Per the WGA’s site, "The Registry does not make comparisons of registration deposits, bestow any statutory protections, or give legal advice."  If you ultimately end up in a lawsuit, the WGA is not required to represent you, but your record of deposit will help establish your creation timeline.

Whichever method you ultimately select, please be sure to register your work and indicate registration on the top page of your work.  For a copyright notice, you will type:

© "Copyright Year" "Your Name," like © 2006 Donna Michelle Anderson.  And here’s a great tip: in Word, just type "(c)" to create the symbol.  For WGA registration, you can simply indicate: "WGAw Registered" (for Writers Guild of America West).  Then you can pitch away knowing you have protected your property.  That may or may not prevent someone from stealing it, but you know the saying.  If you never put your show out there, no one can steal it…but no one can buy it either.  Let me add a new saying to that, courtesy of a wise old fiction TV writer, who essentially says if someone steals your idea, you don’t need a lawyer.  You need more than one idea.

Your Show File now should have up to 10 items:

 

SHOW FILE

•  Pitch Database

•  Five Key Pitch Elements

•  Reality TV Research

•  Logline (draft)

•  One-Sheet (draft)

•  Partnership Deal Memo

•  Talent Agreement

•  Talent Reel

•  Treatment

•  Registration applications (and final forms)

 

Shooting a "Sizzle Reel"

Once you finish your treatment, you are going to be very excited about making your show!  (If you are not, rework your treatment.)  That prompts many people to decide to shoot the show themselves.  It gives them a sense of accomplishment, and they often hope to sell the actual finished product.  It might surprise you, therefore, that this is not one of the ten steps in the Show Starter™ system.  That is because I do not believe the most effective way for you to sell a show is to divert your energy from development to trying to produce a "sizzle reel."

A "sizzle reel" is the common industry term for a short (five minutes or less), produced presentation of your show.  Often these are produced for advertisers, particularly during upfronts, and the network pays for them because they already have put the show into development.  And certainly producers and production companies will sometimes produce a sizzle reel to convey a hard-to-visualize-or-explain element of a show.  Here is why you, on a first sale, may not benefit from doing the same:

•     Sizzle reels cannot conform to the expectations of multiple networks.  You cannot possibly shoot a sizzle reel that adapts itself to the different development specs and audience demos of all of the networks you want to approach.  So in many of the rooms, your sizzle reel will limit your show’s sales potential since it does not match the network’s unique brand.

•     Sizzle reels can harm your credibility and divert development seed money.  It takes an enormous amount of money and talent to produce a sizzle reel with the excellent production value a network expects.  A less-than-professional sizzle reel will hurt your credibility and divert funds you could be expending on fully developing more sellable shows and paying your lawyer.

•     Sizzle reels narrow a network exec’s vision in a meeting.  When you pitch to someone, if they connect to the pitch, they will want to spin it, and expand on it and conform it to their network’s particular sensibilities.  Pop in a sizzle reel that violates that emerging vision, and that net exec’s bubble may burst!  The reaction might now be, "Well, that’s not what we’re looking for."  You have to leave room for the network’s imagination when you pitch.

If some element of your show requires physical presentation that you cannot effectively demonstrate with excellent writing and core images in your treatment, that is a good reason to consider a production company partnership.  Then, at least, you are assuring yourself adequate production funds, infrastructure and experience so your sizzle reel can help sell, rather than sink, your show.  I believe, though, that a great show format is truly sellable on the page, in a meeting, and with a strong talent reel.  Then let the network finance a sizzle reel if they still need one to fund the show!  For instance, I do not need to roll tape of joyous monkeys throwing pea soup at pissed off humans because that description is more than enough to convey my point. 

If you absolutely cannot convey the impact of your show verbally, first try hiring a stronger writer for your one-sheet and treatment.  Then, if active visuals and/or a complex process are the real sell of your show, and the written word is not doing them justice, develop a budget, hire professionals (including a reality TV producer to conform to norms and avoid copycatting existing formats), and keep the reel short with the powerful punches right at the top.  Then make it the eleventh item 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

•  Treatment

•  Registration applications (and final forms)

•  Sizzle Reel (only if absolutely necessary!)

 

All right, now you have a well-crafted pitch, a catchy one-sheet, a compelling talent reel and a well-drafted and protected initial treatment for your show.  You are almost ready to pitch!  If only…you knew…how much it would cost to make your show.  For that, let’s move on to Chapter Seven.

 

"REALITY CHECK"

 

P	I will devote real time and research to crafting a solid treatment for the execution of my show then protect it with formal registration.