by Linda Venis
You quit your job?! What are you, flipping crazy?!
DOMINICK TURNS TO HIS ONE-YEAR-OLD, BABY ZOEY, WHO SITS IN A CHAIR ATTACHED TO THE KITCHEN TABLE.
DOMINICK
Daddy isn’t flipping crazy. Daddy needs to spend more time with the family. Like Mommy has been nagging him to do!
RACHEL
Omigod! I meant come home for dinner once in a while. Not quit your job!
DOMINICK
Honestly, it was quit my job or lose my mind, sweetheart.
BABY ZOEY THROWS CEREAL AT HIM.
RACHEL
If you were working at the agency and lost your mind at least we would have health insurance. You could have gotten on heavy meds or taken shock treatment, or something.
DOMINICK
Well, I thought I could try something else, before going the lobotomy route!
CHAPTER 7
Writing the Half-Hour Comedy Pilot
by Phil Kellard
The most important question you need to ask yourself when thinking about writing a pilot is…why should a network put this show on the air, and is there an endless number of stories to tell? By endless, I mean one hundred episodes’ worth of stories—stories that can captivate a bunch of strangers out there in TV land for at least five seasons.
Successful sitcoms can make the network, studio, and creators more money than anything else on television. It’s wine-and-art-collection money. Buying-castles-in-France money. Owning-private-jet money. Mrs. Tiger Woods money. FU money. Yes, Law and Order and all its one-hour drama cousins are on television every minute of the day in every country on the planet and maybe in outer space. But that’s an anomaly. Half-hour comedy syndicates better than all other genres. At its height, Seinfeld made the network $200 million profit every year, and then sold into syndication for $1.7 billion. It made its cocreators, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, about $250 million each over and above their eight years’ worth of series salaries. Warner Bros. sold The Big Bang Theory for a record $2 million per episode to Time Warner’s TBS and Fox. We’re talking billions of dollars. In the words of writer-director Garry Marshall, “Funny is money.”
I can’t promise to give you the secret to coming up with the next Seinfeld or The Big Bang Theory, but I can share tips and strategies for creating an original half-hour comedy pilot script that shows your talent and originality. In my thirty-plus years in this business, I’ve pitched and written pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC, the WB (when that was still around), Showtime, Syfy, the Disney Channel, Spike, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and more. I’ve also taught students in dozens of UCLA Extension Writers’ Program courses on sitcom writing, and I can tell you what you need to know to create a solid script that can last a hundred episodes and beyond.
Specifically, you need to know what a pilot is, why it’s important to have in your portfolio, and how to generate its Big Idea—the innovative premise that can spawn a wealth of original and entertaining stories. You need to know how to create fresh and interesting characters that viewers will remember, relate to, and want to watch each week. You need to develop these characters’ relationships and mine the humor in them. You need to know the difference between premise-based and typical-episode pilots and what kind of pilot fits your material. And finally, you need to know how to pitch your pilot.
“Hold on!” you might say. “How about giving me a step-by-step guide to outlining and writing my pilot?” That’s a fair question, and the answer is that the process for writing the beat sheet, outline, and script of a pilot is exactly the same as for an on-air show, whether it’s a single-camera or a multicamera script. The big difference is the subject matter. When you write a spec of a current show, you have the distinct advantage of working with an established world and characters; you are following a template. This is where aspiring sitcom writers need to start their education—you’re Picasso copying the great masters of figurative art; after that, you can invent Cubism or write a sitcom pilot.
Once you have a couple of spec scripts under your belt, you will know exactly how to outline and write your pilot and be prepared for the creative challenge of conjuring up a brand-new world and its inhabitants. If you need to learn the basics of building a spec story, outline, and script, work your way through chapters 5 and 6 of this book. If you’re ready to tackle pilot writing, here we go.
Daunting? Yes. Can this chapter help you do it? Until somebody changes the rules…definitely.
Know the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of a Pilot
A pilot script is the intended first episode of a potential television series. It’s the “who, what, when, where, and why” of the series and one of the earliest stages of the development process. It’s kind of like a concept car for the automobile industry. It tells the network and you as a writer whether it’s going to be an Edsel (The Paul Reiser Show) or a Mustang (2 Broke Girls). The pilot script has some very specific functions. It establishes the premise, characters, tone and look, setting, style of dialogue, and pacing, and tells where the series is headed, all the while making the story interesting and funny. And remember, these characters are new, unfamiliar, never seen before—or for our purposes, never read before. The pilot must achieve all of this in twenty-eight to thirty-three pages.
That’s the “who, what, when, and where” of a pilot. What’s the “why”?
Agents and producers (people who read material who can actually do something with it) want both new and established TV writers to have original material ready to show. Of course, you must have a couple of writing samples of on-air shows to demonstrate that you can replicate a series. But in addition, you have to have something different and unique to sell your writing talent. As a new writer, think of an original comedy pilot as your calling card. It shows your voice, your brand of humor, and your sensibility. It demonstrates that you can create characters and generate ideas for series, and can go from being “just a writer” to being a “writer-creator.”
In addition to being a must-have writing sample, your pilot might even have a chance of getting sold, because today’s TV comedy marketplace is huge. Along with the big five networks, buyers for half-hour sitcoms have expanded to FX, USA, ABC Family, TV Land, Hulu, the Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, E!, Comedy Central, TBS, Logo, BET, IFC, and yes, Country Music Television. There are also many nonwriting producers (producers who don’t write but find and develop television shows) with deals at studios who need material to sell to the networks. Add to the mix online series, satellite, even cell phones that need to buy content. There’s far less money here but more opportunities. Becoming a creator gives you ownership of your intellectual property.
Okay, for now, put selling your pilot out of your mind. We’ll come back to that topic at the end of the chapter. Relax and get ready to tackle the hardest part of the process: creating a new, fresh half-hour comedy that’s worth reading and grabs the attention of your readers.
Learn from the Best
Watch, read, and study as many pilot episodes of great shows as you can get your eyes and hands on—the classics as well as the current hit shows. You can find them on numerous Internet script sites, on Hulu and Netflix, or you can buy the box sets in book and video stores. Watch iconic pilots for series like Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, and Seinfeld. They still hold up as pilots and as series, and every serious student of television should know them and learn from them.
Watch pilots for current shows like Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, and The Big Bang Theory. Study how they introduce characters, what makes these characters tick, and what kind of stories they tell in their subsequent episodes. By watching and reading pilot episodes by good writers, writers you admire, you absorb their styles and their storytelling techniques, just as you did when you wrote your spec 30 Rock or How I Met Your Mother. This is how your talent will grow.
Create “the Big Idea” (aka a Strong Premise)
When my writing partner Tom Moore and I first went onto the writing staf
f of Doogie Howser, M.D., we loved working with Steven Bochco (having just finished two seasons on Hooperman with him and John Ritter), but we didn’t know if a series about a sixteen-year-old licensed physician had “legs.” By that I mean we weren’t sure this idea could generate an endless amount of emotional stories with a strong beginning, middle, and end. The network didn’t much like the pilot and really didn’t like the casting of Neil Patrick Harris as the teenage wunderkind.
It turned out the network, Tom, and I were all wrong. Doogie Howser, M.D. was based on a powerful Big Idea: a sixteen-year-old doctor in a major hospital who is also dealing with the everyday problems of growing up. This concept generated tons of stories in both worlds, from AIDS and racism to adolescent friendship and loss of virginity. The show lasted for four seasons and launched the unstoppable career of Neil Patrick Harris.
Give Your Big Idea Legs
The first thing you need to do is come up with a strong premise—to figure out what your show is going to be about and make sure your concept is rich enough to hook the audience and keep them watching.
Think about The Office. Based on the British series The Office (2001–2003), the American version premiered in 2005 and, for nine seasons, chronicled the everyday lives of a bunch of going-nowhere, idiosyncratic office workers set in a midsize company selling paper, a dying industry, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a dying industrial town. On the other hand, Up All Night is a show about a couple trying to adjust to life with their newborn baby. Okay, I know what episodes one, two, three, and maybe four would be, but what happens when the baby finally starts sleeping through the night? I think the producers also realized this shortly into the first season, and the show became more about the workplace, and from that came more stories.
Make Your Big Idea as Unique as Possible
While I’ve known all through my television career that characters are what sell television shows, I also know that your pilot must be built on a strong premise. Even though every premise has been done or pitched in one form or another, it’s your job as a pilot’s creator to try to come up with a unique take. Do some diligent research. Is there something like your concept already on the air? Is your approach to a familiar idea fresh and innovative enough to distinguish it from the pack of current shows? If the answer is no, then—you guessed it—dump that idea and move on.
Next, and this is very important, is your concept something you would like to watch, something you’ve been dying to see on television? If the answer to that question is yes, then congratulations, you’ve got, as far as you know, a breakthrough project, which you’re passionate about and can’t wait to write.
Put Your Own Interests and Passions into Your Big Idea
Write what interests you. It doesn’t have to be your life story, but I happen to think the best stories and concepts come from personal experience. Once again, it’s your voice, your vision. Come from your sensibilities. How do you see the world? What individual voice can you bring to a show? Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady weren’t science nerds, but they brought their sensibilities, point of view, and sense of humor to The Big Bang Theory.
Open your senses as a writer. This is where you let the right side of your brain take over and let it flow. Observe and absorb everything that goes on around you. Stories and ideas often come out of everyday life. While sitting at a Starbucks and observing a bickering couple, I noticed a small article on the last page of a discarded newspaper. It was about a husband and wife who were both police officers and had recently received a commendation from their chief.
I took that piece of information, combined it with the bickering couple, and turned them into married, decorated police chiefs who worked in two cities divided by a main highway. One oversaw the public welfare in an affluent, clean suburb, the other in a crime-ridden, badass town. The couple faced the same kind of division in home and family that they did at work. I called it Divided We Stand and pitched it to a network the following week. You never know what you can come up with while goofing on people over a nonfat grande latte.
Figure out what kind of show works for your sensibilities. In network meetings, a common question is, “What is your passion project?” What is the show you really want to write? Who are you as a writer? You may be an edgy, cable-network kind of writer. You may be an eight o’clock, family kind of writer. Play to your strengths. What is the tone of your show? Warm and fuzzy or dark and cynical? Californication funny or Mike & Molly funny?
Put Your Big Idea into a Logline
Don’t confuse a Big Idea with a Complex Idea. In fact, try to keep your premise simple. You should be able to reduce your series concept to a few sentences, something that you or an agent or producer could rattle off in a “short pitch.” Put it into a clear and concise logline (one or two sentences that crystallize the concept) that exhibits the show’s potential and elicits interest.
Pilot Logline #1:
“It’s about a large Chinese/Irish/Italian family that runs a small restaurant. We see the series through the eyes of the eldest daughter, who helps out as a waitress during the day and is a pro bono street lawyer at night, where she meets and falls for an ex-convict graffiti artist that she’s defending. Her life is further complicated by her four adopted children and…she’s a witch.” WRONG!
Pilot Logline #2:
“Two men, estranged from their wives, become roommates and end up undergoing the same domestic trials and quarrels each had with his former spouse.” RIGHT!
The second is the logline for the classic series The Odd Couple. Clear and concise—you get it all right away. It describes a show that is much easier to get a handle on, and much easier to write, than the first. You’ve got enough to deal with in your pilot’s first five pages—setting up the premise, establishing your characters and their attitudes, capturing the tone and pacing, plus trying to be hilarious right out of the gate. Don’t make the process more difficult than it already is by introducing too many characters and a concept that you need a flow chart to understand.
Give Your Big Idea a Twist
There are different things that you can incorporate into your show’s template that can tell stories in a fresh way. Play with the narrative. The confessional or interview (talking directly to the camera) has become a popular device. Flashbacks and voice-overs help set a show apart and enhance the way scenes transition. How I Met Your Mother is a mystery played in reverse. Weeds and United States of Tara deal with darkly comic drama. Glee mixes it all up with a generous dose of awesome music. The sitcom has opened up over time. It’s linear, nonlinear, dark, musical, time traveling, and you had better be aware of all the possible options when trying to come up with your Big Idea.
Test Your Big Idea
A good way to test your idea for legs is to think of one episode. Make up a funny story line. Nothing elaborate, not a lot of detail, just broad strokes. Beginning, middle, and end. It should be just enough to grasp how the problem starts, escalates, and resolves. Think of another one. Now think of two more. Don’t stop until you come up with ten stories. Good. Write them down; we’ll use them later.
While it’s not necessary to have all the episodes for a season prepared, it is valuable to have designed the big beats for at least ten episodes. The details can be filled out if the pilot gets picked up for series, but it’s the best way to demonstrate that the concept can sustain itself beyond the first episodes and that there is plenty of growth and surprises ahead for the characters.
It’s essential to know the arc of at least the first two seasons before a writer goes to a buyer. For example, if the concept is about a young couple who got married in a fever after a very short courtship, the first season is probably about the husband and wife getting to know each other—something they skipped over during their passionate, impulsive, monthlong relationship. The second season might be about whether to have a baby or not…or trying to have a baby. For now, you should just start getting a sense of where the series is going as you move forward in cre
ating the pilot.
Create Relatable and Funny Characters
More Character, Less Plot
With an original concept, your most intense work, the “heavy lifting,” is going to be done on your characters. In my UCLA Extension course “Master Class in Half-Hour Comedy Pilot Writing,” I spend the first four weeks just dealing with character. You only have to turn on the television and look at any show, especially the savior of the sitcom, Modern Family, to see how crucially important character is. The viewing audience wants to identify with characters they feel good about, who are more outrageous and funnier than they are but identifiable nonetheless. These are the kind of characters that we want to visit with every week. Modern Family is a hit because Phil, Claire, Jay, Gloria, Cam, and Mitchell all have a little bit of us in them.
So before you write a word of the script, generate reams of information on each main character. Your secondary characters won’t require as much. Then hone it all down to a paragraph or two on each character. Use adjectives.
Know Your Characters Inside and Out
I spend weeks building out my characters and start seeing them as living, breathing human beings before I go into the networks with a show. My goal is to know my characters so completely that if there’s a sale, I’ll have an endless resource to rely on as I, hopefully, spend years writing them.
My brother, Rick Kellard; Tom Moore; and I sold a pilot entitled Big Weekend to Fox a few years back. We created a character by the name of Julian. When we first meet him in the script he walks into the men’s room at a popular Chicago bar. Julian notices someone in the stall. From his jacket pocket he takes out a clip-on tie and puts it on. From his other pockets he produces a small dish with candies, gum, small hotel bottles of cologne, face cream, mouthwash, and a comb. He places all these items near the sink and puts some change and a dollar bill in the dish. When he hears the flush he turns the water on and takes a paper towel from the dispenser. The man exits the stall and washes his hands. Julian hands him the paper towel and watches the man put on some cologne, then place a few bills in the dish before he leaves.
