Thought I'd take a break from writing my pilot to ask your guys thoughts on TV show pilots. What are key things you look for when watching a shows pilot? Do you expect lots of character background and development or do you prefer jumping straight into the story then build characters later? Also what are the must haves for a "perfect" pilot episode in your opinion?
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Antonio, I'm not sure is my advice is going to answer your question but the pilot (50-60 pages) should give the audience some clue what's it all about, it would have to be something new and unusual, not some squashed old idea which was trashed 5, 10 or 15 years ago. I only have 1 pilot and I've only written one and some elements in this story are not even new, they were used before, not in the same story and I added 1 or 2 new elements, also not something new but the way these 2 elements are placed within the story is something new. Vernom is right. TV pilots are hard and he's right about the protagonist part and the rest of his post makes sense. Once you complete a pilot, you're looking at minimum of 600 pages which you will need for additional 12 episodes and if you think that's the hardest thing to do, wait until you meet studio executives.
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Antonio, I'm glad that you asked. Pilots are different. You want the series to last awhile. Therefore, you need to impact people when you introduce your characters. So, a couple of things you want to do. Check your conceits. What makes your pilot stand out? Use those moments consistently. Several of the answers will depend on your genre. Stephanie Palmer's Good in a Room blog can offer you information that you should use as well as Jen Grisanti. Remember that you will need two loglines. One for the series and one for the pilot. That is directly from Pilar Alessandra's On the Page tv class. As Vernon states you definitely want to avoid exposition, but that is also applicable to movies. The difference will be avoiding on the nose dialogue throughout. You will want to review Mad Men's pilot, as well as Breaking Bad. If you have a foothold on your conceit, focus on that as you develop each scene. You're going to edit so get it on paper first. Then trim the layers.
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This podcast examines the pilot episodes of BREAKING BAD, MAD MEN, THE WIRE and THE SHIELD to see what story rules they put in place that play out over the life of the show: http://draft-zero.com/2015/dz-24/