And Now For Something Completely (Legally) Different

Recycling is good for the planet.  That can be true for your ideas too.  Not to be confused with “tired old retreads,” recycled ideas should be rejuvenated to gain a new life of their own.  If you’ve been working for a while, professionally or not, go back through your old stuff every once in awhile to see if there’s anything that would give you a kick-start in a new direction.  Sometimes the creative mind needs something other than a blank page to stare at.

Then there’s the practical side of recycling.  I put a decent amount of thought into my new pitch of THE HERCULOIDS, way more than is evident in the pitch.  I did lots of world building, some sample dialog, springboards for episodes – all stuff to convince myself I had a decent show to pitch.  And I really liked the show.  If Warner Brothers changed their minds about developing it, I’d dive in with 210% because I’m sure it could be a series that kids would enjoy.  But for now, it ain’t happenin’.  So all that work sits gathering cobwebs, right?

Wrong.  As I reviewed it, I realized that 98% of it was original to me.  Outside of the names and the powers of the Herculoids, everything else is new.  The idea of a family “lost in space” and crash landing on a planet isn’t unique to THE HERCULOIDS nor is the idea of a kid working with powerful monster friends.  So I decided to create my own show to pitch around town.

Every development executive in the TV animation industry knows that they’re not always getting the first pitch of an idea.  As you make the rounds you hope they’re open minded enough to consider any idea on its own merits (not that you advertise that you’re selling “recycled goods” but word gets around).  But the smart writer or artist doesn’t try to sell the same show to each network.  You modify it to the needs of that network (which by the way, are always changing).  Filmmaker  Don Glut loves dinosaurs and used to write lots of action adventure cartoon scripts.  He knew that, at that time, almost every show did a dinosaur story somewhere along the line.  He never pitched the same story but he always tried to be the guy to get the dino script.  Once you get to execute an idea, move on.  NEVER redress the design or script for a different series.  But there’s nothing wrong with taking the same concept and creating a brand new character or story.

So here’s how I took all my stuff out and created a new show.  Bear in mind, lots of it will seem similar to my previous pitch but not to the original series.  The whole point was to reuse my ideas.  Of course, the more I worked with it, the more original the characters became.  Just changing the types of monsters isn't different enough, at least to my way of thinking.  There should be a reason why we're dealing with these particular monsters.  I played with the idea of elemental beings, earth, air, fire, water but ended up with the first question of the old 20 questions game: Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?  Suddenly I had my three monster types and only one of them was close to a Herculoids character and when you look at the way he uses his powers and his personality, he's absolutely unique.  

You'll notice there are no beautiful Ben Caldwell drawings this time around. 
 Without the development money from Film Roman, I couldn’t hire Ben for more design work but you’ll see I took a lot from his designs.  This is just a pitch document.  If it was picked for development, Ben would’ve gotten the call for the job.  If for some reason the network insisted on hiring someone else then the Caldwell influence would have to be excised or some sort of payment would need to be arranged.  Meanwhile, I kept my own drawings rough for two reasons.  I lose too much life in my drawing when I clean them up and secondly, I wanted to send the message that I'm open to new ideas, that this is just the start of the development process. Download PlanetSaversPitch 

 Okay, last thing about this pitch.  This is way more material than need be in a face to face pitch.  You should be able to pitch a series idea in about eight minutes.   The executive doesn’t need to hear all the details.  He needs to hear enough to interest him.  If he’s interested, he’ll have more questions.  You should know enough about your show to have the answers but not come off as being inflexible.

BTW, clicking on the illustrations of this blog will give you larger versions.  If you didn’t get that, go back and click on Ben’s posters.

Comments

[James Madison]

I have been reading/looking at all your pitches Tad. They are really good.

There seems to be a lot that goes into pitching/developing a cartoon series.

My question is, why does it seem so hard/difficult to get something green-lit?

If you present the executives all this information, and it is good why the hesitancy? The saying is the proof is in the pudding. Well how much proof do you have to present?

I guess it could be something about their market, but I'm a believer that if you put something out there, especially if it is good someone will come to it. It is all about "appeal". And that is something that your pitches have in abundance!

[James Madison]

P.S. -

Thanks for sharing the creative and business process!

[Tad]

In a good season you have to think that network and studio executives get a lot of good pitches, pitches with entertaining characters, clear relationships and fertile story possibilities. They don't have the money to develop all of them so it comes down to a matter of taste or the needs of the network. Any given pitch may be too close to something already in development. Or it may be similar to a show that a higher up shot down. It's like checking out a movie marquee without knowing anything about the movies except the name and the poster. They may all be great films but you can only make your best guess and buy a ticket.