TV show creation

I just had one of my long, enjoyable cafe chats with an old friend, and something occured to me: I have no idea how TV shows get made! I don’t mean that they get a bag of money from someone who expects profits and then there are writers and camera people and so on, I mean “I do not know how someone with an idea for a TV show gets in touch with financers and distributors and convinces them to get the baby off the ground”. In school, we had all thesse weird roleplays of job interviews, and todays kids are AFAIK even learning to make business plans for self-employment, but nobody ever showed how a show goes from a good(?) idea to the beginning of the filming. How would a nobody (like me, or possibly many others in here) do it? Who would I go to, what would I have to say, what would I have to know?

Anybody know something about this?

uuuuh, that will be a long one, but lets start with the point if you live in europe or US, both systems differ a bit.

also what tv shows? what kind? talkshows are diametrically different to documentaries or News.

every kind has its own process, mostly started internally high up in the broadcasting channel. then it all goes different ways.

for documentaries you might want a famous documentary director and crew instead of your studio staff, also you need a script.

for talkshows you need a ppl and topics, for news you need anchors and a well working team of decision making professionals at the hardware (due to live broadcast).

you see it all depends on what kind of show and where.

Yeah, I didn’t even think THAT far, lol!

Okay, let’s say either a police drama like CSI, or a daytime drama like Days of our Lives (I’d love to be able to compare the two!). And while I am European, I would probably prefer knowing how those wild and crazy Americans run the thing.

now there are 2 ways to do this, either the channel requests a show or a director scriptwriter comes to the channel and says “hey i got this awesome script that would make a good show”.

from that way it goes pretty much the same, the producer and director choose on a team of ppl that will produce the show, the actors and the management staff (where the producer mainly chooses the menagement staff and the director the creative staff).

then the show goes into preproduction, mainly building scenes, choosing/making costumes, script rework/extension, storyboard creation etc.

then the production begins, the actors/production staff roll in and the film is shot

then postproduction, montage, audio, voiceover, post prod. SFX

this is most likely the first episode, then it goes like this every week and day over and over again.

for simplicity ill not go into details, if you need more, try googling

Well I guess it could go like but on VERY rare occasions.
More likely it happens like this:
1)A director/creator/Joe Schmoe has a great idea for a show.
2)He writes a pilot script and sends it to a million studios hoping that one of them will like it and hire him on for a single episode test pilot
3)Now the studios get hundreds of pitches for new shows every day, so they skim through them looking for something they like, if it doesn’t capture there attention immediatly they move on. If they find one they l;ike they call said director/creator/Joe Schmoe and asks for a test pilot episode
4)Now the director/creator/Joe Schmoe (Now with backing from the studio) goes to work creating a pilot episode. If the studio likes it they will get contracted for a season.
5)Now they set to work making the first season
6)Of course this is not an easy season, they will be under constant threat of being cancelled, they will have studio execs qyuestioning there every move on the show. And if starts going away from what the astudio likes they could get cancelled
7)If the first seaon goes good and it’s popular. They MIGHT get renewed for another season or two. Or the Studio might say naw we want to try something different and they’ll get cancelled anyway.
8)IF they get renewed they’ll go on for another season or two and at the end of everyyear there will be stress while waiting for the word if they’ve been renewed. And it pretty much goes on like this untill there cancelled or decide to call it quits.
From the massive amounts of commentaries and behind the scenes features I’ve watched this is what I’ve been able to gather the general process is like.

I believe an elevator is involved at the beginning. :wink:

There is also a whole lot of human factors involved too. This can range from initial idea of getting the show from ground, to the continuation of the show. One of New Zealand’s most popular locally made TV shows is “Shortland Street”. I have had the pleasure of meeting of the behind the scenes characters ie the lady in the background who just walked by, and ofcourse the prop’s man, the guy who has connections to get you into a jobs, the guy who got offered a minor part and turned it down. Well to tell the truth, I’ve never watched more that 30 sec’s of the show, but it has many people hooked.

When I see what shows do and don’t get picked up, I’m sometimes under the impression that T.V. studios are run by teams of monkeys. :confused:

I second that, and applaud their portrayal in the newest Futurama movie :smiley: Still, I am very interested in learning how said monkeys think. I have constant ideas for shows, and was thinking about trying to get some of them to go somewhere other than my overactive imagination…

So you ultimately intend to use the MAMBU feature onto a TV series. Very clever!