It’s Always Pilot Season
If you’re a guy like me pilot season never ends. It is year round. I’m always on the lookout for what could be the next greatest story of all time. My hope and goal is to cultivate and develop said story into its proper form of media, i.e. a feature film or TV show. If the project is done properly, huge success and happiness comes your way. You earn fame, awards, Box Office success, go into syndication on superstations like WGN and TBS etc., etc., etc…
Recently I came across a great idea for a TV show. I mean, we’re talking at least 200 episodes and more syndication than Full House. Everything you look for in a storyline was there. The character development was as solid as I’ve seen in this county in the 3 weeks I’ve lived back here ;)
Now, you can’t always work alone and this was a project I wanted to tackle as a team. I started collaborating with another writer on what quickly became known as The Untitled: The Joe Moran Project. After a couple of meetings and a few conference calls we decided to produce a pilot episode.
Now just relax - I know what you’re thinking. Calm down, people. The answer to your question is yes, it has been an exciting time at the production office! This whole process has been so fun and amazing. It can be a roller coaster. The ride can be wild.
OK. Let’s get back to it. We settled on a storyline and wrote the script. We shot the episode in one night on location. The shoot went great. Now, its been a long time since I was on location and I forgot how much fun it can be. (I can say with complete honesty that I really look forward to future location shoots)
The final cut had strong production values. Aside from that whole 3 point lighting controversy thingy, everything went smooth. Even the laugh track worked. There was only one thing left to do. Go to the network.
The network agreed to view the pilot episode without us in the room. They liked it enough to show it to a focus group. This happens a lot and is a normal part of the business.
Unfortunately not every pilot get’s off the ground. This is one of those shows. The Q-Rating was lower than the Charles In Charge spin-off, Buddy’s Babysitting. There are no hard feelings. Ya know, not many pilots make it this far into the season. It has been a fun time and a great learning experience. I was grateful for the opportunity. And now it’s time to write something else.
