Fox Takes Aim at Pilot Productions
It’s another potential slam to the pilot season income of Hollywood actors. A note in the Los Angeles Times says the new head of Fox’s production wing wants to eliminate the expensive concept of producing a full pilot before committing to 13 episodes. Here’s a snippet:
Rather than make an expensive pilot for a network and hope it orders the show, he is partnering with international broadcasters for the bulk of production money and trying to get the networks to commit to 13 episodes right from the start. That way, he skips the pricey pilot competition and the networks don’t pay as much because much of the money has been supplied abroad.
This sounds like ‘financially, challenged, thinking’ in the exteme.
After all, hasn’t FOX had a long history of “parthnered” relationships, internationally, in re both films and television?
Also, if Networks want to see pilots, producers will produce pilots.
His ‘vision’ sounds really ‘iffy’ to me, business-wise… like he’s hoping to market a package of 13 without offering a sample of the product to his potential ‘backers’. Something doesn’t sound right.
Heck, even See’s Candy offers a sample to its customers before buying!
I’d like to see a breakdown on where the money gets spent on a pilot. How much is on set design and construction, camermen, editing, etc. Obviously a big consideration is if you make an actual pilot you have something you can show –you didn’t “waste” the money.
But I tend to wonder if a filmed table read of a finished script wouldn’t really tell you enough to know what you need to see about characters and interactions, quality of writing, premise, etc.
But how much that saves versus a full pilot is probably a major factor there.
We all know that pilots are more expensive to make then an episode of a series.
Contract actors make more for the pilot and the other unions, wardrobe, make-up etc usually don’t give any consesions for the pilot but will when it goes to series.
Some stars can get a committment up front. I belive Michael Fox had a two year committment for Spin City before the cameras roled. Pilot done in LA series in New York.
If your coming in with a staged reading, or anything less, it’s gonna be stuff.
But in this economic times maybe the networks would take a shot and go right to series. Probably more like six then 13.
Also they could back to the practice of running specials or movies of the week in the summertime to see how things work. This way they are at least getting something on the air for their bucks.
But
Pilots used to be used, among other things, to market new shows to potential advertisers — who want to see the product rather than just hearing about it.
VG
On the shows I do, table reads are heavily attended.
But, a lot can, and does, happen after the cast are in the sets. I’ve seen scripts that read rather flat spring to life at that point…
This is to say nothing of the rewrites done between takes when shooting with an audience.
To make a long story short, I think actually shooting a pilot is well worth it, and I’m pretty confident I could sell the concept to just about anyone.
Voiceguy that is one of the reasons to do pilots. An important one I think. But the whole idea of buying a pilotless season of shows is a little scary. Back when they used to do pilots and screen them for potential viewers, I remember going to a CBS location to see three pilots to give them feedback. Two of them were so bad, I couldn’t figure how they had gotten that far. The one that was okay, was only okay by comparison and it didn’t get a life until about five years later when the whole thing had been reworked, including casting. The other two never made it anywhere near a tv set. I left that viewing session wondering how anything of quality ever got on when they were willing to show us such schlock to see if they had a chance.
Greg;
Were either of those ‘schlock’ shows as bad as the current crop of ‘reality’ and ‘competition’ shows?
Even back then they were preparing the masses for garbage. And here we are!
Wendell
Does seem to be their point doesn’t it.
It seems like the problem is less identifying “hey this is good”, than eliminating more of the “wow this sucks” shows earlier in the process. Of course a pilot is worth it if the show ends up on the air.
I had the same experience, Greg.
It was jaw-dropping.
This isn’t innovative. NBC tried this two years ago. “Kings” and “Robinson Crusoe.” Both failed miserably.
Kings was almost-good. But then NBC can’t seem to keep actual good on the air either (see “Life”).
Don’t remind me of “Life.” I’m still heartbroken over that one. The other day at lunch I chose to watch an old episode online instead of one of the newer shows.
And I’ll grant you “Kings.” Lead guy just wasn’t compelling though, not that the writing they gave him was very good.