My closet is full of dead babies…….

I am always in the process of development and producing numerous ideas, all of which are in different states of existence, anywhere from idle entertaiment while sitting on the toilette or walking the dog, to full blown fully, financed productions.

The first time I pitched to Canadian Children’s Broadcasters was at the Banff Television Festival in 2001. I was able to get a meeting with TELETOON, and I pitched a show I was working on called “The Legends Of Wesakechak”. No Luck.

The second time I pitched was also at the Banff Television Festival in 2002. I pitched “Legends of Wesakechak” again as well as a series called “Althea”, and another series called “Mrs. Periwinkles Fun Files”. No dice. They were all gunned down and I personally got quite beat up by the experience. There was one broadcaster in particular who just about made me cry. I have come to the belief that “You know it is a good market when you can leave and not feel like you just got stood up at the High School Dance!!!!”

Since then I pitched numerous other shows before I got my first development deal with TELETOON.

Each one of those projects is a dead baby that is littering the floor of my imagination.

My personal feeling is that broadcasters want to see you stick it out in the industry for quite a while before they will even consider giving you a deal. Even if you had the goodest idea on earth there is a good chance it will tank if it is your first experience with a broadcaster who has never heard of you before. Television is expensive to make and time consuming. I honestly get the feeling that a lot of broadcasters want to get to know you before they will spend any money or time working with you on an idea.

Consequentially, It is important that as a creator of Television you have the ability to walk away from an idea and move on to something new, no matter how much you love it.

Every failed pitch provides another layer of compost for your imagination.

You must take that experience of pitching and use it as an opportunity to develop market intelligence so that you are better able to understand what they are looking for in an idea so that 6 months or 1 year later when you pitch the same broadcaster a new concept, they can see that not only have you developed professionally, you can create good ideas, AND most importantly, you can listen and respond to what they need from an idea to work for their network. I am not saying that you will succeed with that pitch either, but what you will have done is to start building a key relationship with both the network and broadcaster.

So, when you are holding on to that baby and every conceivable broadcaster has said no (except that one eccentric foreign broadcaster who does not have any development money for Canadians, and unfortunately can not trigger anything within the Canadian system, but loves it), there comes a time when you have to decide put it away in the closet and move on to the next pitch.

At the BBQ wrap up to the 2002 Banff Television Festival, I was feeling kind of dejected, and had the opportunity to speak with Chris Bartleman of Studio B, whom I had to pitched earlier that day.

His advise was to just keep pitching.

He was right.

 

Banff World Television Festival 2007 – Review

BWTVF – The best place to sex up your tv projects with a Canadian Broadcaster (and some internation ones too!)

Well, after a long dark deer dodging drive home with Anand Ramayya, a fellow Saskatoon Producer / Director, I am back at home, processing all that I saw and heard at the 2007 Banff World Television Festival.

Some of the highlights for the festival for me included having the whole shebang paid for through a CTV Western Canada Fellowship – (Thanks again CTV – you guys rock) – If you have some professional level producer / director experience and live somewhere to the west of Ontario, I highly recommend applying for this – just make sure that you have solid letters of recommendation from respected sources in the industry.

Also had the good fortune to room with Antonio (Tony) Hrynchuck and Anand Ramayya at the Fox’s Den on Beaver Street. This B&B was awesome. We were within staggering, perhaps even crawling distance of the St. James Gate and the Opening Night Party hosted by SaskFilm and SCN at the Rose and Crown. Plus it was a great place for us to hang together and de-stress from the rigors of the festival.

Personally my projects were very well received this year. In the past I have often left Banff feeling somewhat like I just got jilted at the High School dance. I am not quite ready to share my personal developments, however I am sure they will come out over the next couple of months as I get into formal agreements around them, however what I will do is share some insights to what the animation broadcasters in Canada are looking for.

Teletoon: I met with Michael Goldsmith, the new director of Original Content. He is great. They are really looking for original Canadian 1/2 hour dramady and 6-9 boys action / comedy that can play in their 4-6 pm after school block. They have expressed a willingness to look beyond pure animation and develop projects that are a hybrid of live action and animation.

Interestingly, Teletoon is also going to be starting a Pilot project for adult animation that targets those 18-25 year olds guys who watch the detour. They are looking for Satyrical, Edgy, Off The Wall shows. If you think you have the next Robot Chicken or Family Guy, they want to talk to you…….. but make sure to talk to me first so we can see if we can work on it together

CBC Kids: I met with Kim Wilson, Creative Head, Children’s Programming. It was nice, she remembered me from the Ottawa Television Animation Conference – going to these things really does pay off over time. The big change at the CBC these days is that Children’s has their own pot of money from which they can develop projects. Our children’s projects used to compete with other projects in the TV Arts & Entertainment area which resulted in not many projects moving forward last year.

CBC is primarily looking for quality Canadian Pre-school programming that can play weekday mornings. Example of the shows that are working and they would like more of are Poko, Lunar Jim, and Pinky Dinky Do (That wacky story spinning rodent), however they are also interested in a clever comedy that also targets older children for the 7-8 am block. Also of interest big batches of short interstitials 40* 3-5 minute.

YTV / Corus: I met with Jamie Piekarz from YTV and Corus, and also had the chance to go to a YTV broadcaster briefing session. YTV is primarily looking for animated sit-coms (ala Being Ian) that can play during the Zone. Also of interest Action / Comedy / Adventure that can play during Crunch on Saturday Morning. Additionally they are looking for children’s reality programs like Prank Patrol. YTV has also expressed a great deal of interest in 1 minute animated shorts that can play on their web site YTV.com.

Some things to keep in mind when you are developing your shows for YTV. They are really interested in programming where children are the protagonists and drive the episodes. YTV wants to work with writers and producers who are willing to mine their characters and really find out who they are, and how they drive the stories before you pitch to them. They want you to do your homework before you come to them,
From the experience I had with my pitch, I can tell you that they are very much interested in internal Character descriptions that are speak to who there kids really are. What drives them, what motivates them.

That’s all I have to say for now, if you have questions about these channels watch them and try to think about where your idea can fit in to their schedule.

Next up on my travel agenda for meeting with broadcasters is the Ottawa Television Animation Conference.