tv Indie TV Show / Documentary instead of Feature Films

R

rickr84

Hi all,

Please work with me a bit as I'm very new to all this, but I've been a closet enthusiast for years.

I admire most people's dream here of making a full length feature film, but I personally would enjoy the process just the same in shorter length made for TV shows like "Dirty Jobs" or "Top Gear" or "Build it Bigger".

I figure if some people are funding entire indie full length films, maybe I could fund a 24 or ~48 minute pilot of a show.

My idea comes from the fact that a few years ago I was working on a small time NASCAR race team and the owner paid $30k to made an hour long mini movie about the team. They ended up shopping it around and sold it for around $40k to a major channel. So now the guy has his passion and team documented, and $10k in the bank. I surprised they pulled it off. But this was also in 2005 when money was flowing freely I think, and those kinds of shows were even more in demand. I'm obviously not in this for the money, as $10k for all the work and risk is just a random gift. But experiencing $30k of excitement and energy while doing what you love, if you have the time somehow, has to be worth getting up for in the morning. Don't quit your day job huh. (I sell cars actually, although I have an engineering degree. Yes, my parents hate me.)


What are your guys' opinions and thoughts about this kind of process instead of going all out in a 90 minute film?
 
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I think the web is the future and that a web series in place of a feature documentary is a good way to go these days. Personally, my last project was a feature length doc, but my next project will probably be done in web series format.

I even divided my 70 minute doc into 7 small parts and posted it on the web and found a big difference with the weight of each part and how it resonated when it was divided into parts. Of course the film was already divided in my head and that's how editing was accomplished, but it definitely makes those distinctions and the movement of the film and themes more evident to the viewer. Basically, I like the web series format, I'm interested in starting a film with that intention from the start in the future.
 
rickr84 said:
What are your guys' opinions and thoughts about this kind of process instead of going all out in a 90 minute film?
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Doesn't it depend on what you want to do?

Making a pilot for a TV show would lead to a TV series.
That's a different goal than making a 90 minute movie.
If your goal is to create a TV series then shooting a
pilot is the way you should go.
 
True.

On a side note, if you do put everything you have into making a pilot, and somebody likes it, would they really hire YOU to make it? If they REALLY believed in the idea, seems like they would say "hmm, thats interesting.. what do you want for the rights?" and then just have some pros do it.

Could an inexperienced person really get hired/contracted full time just because they pulled off something once? What if that one thing took them a year and they have no real skills to pull it off on a real scale.
 
It is highly unlikely that any prodCo would hire an
inexperienced person to run a TV series based on a pilot.
I don't know of a single example of this ever happening.
 
Do it. You'll find the out of pocket expenses to be very little and you can't pitch this kind of content without having content in the can. The gamble of investing in an unknown prodyction company is too great to venture into without at least one full season all ready to go. They'll then tweak to their liking and you'll say ok.
You'd probably enjoy a show/on-going documentary I started about 20 years ago:
http://ModdinArt.com/show.html
 
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