If you had a pilot episode fully animated, and a bible of all the characters/scripts for the next few episodes all fully self financed. What's the next step?
I'm guessing you approach studios with this package and see who's interested? Can you play off studios against each other? Ie see who offers the most?
Before this are there any important steps? Ie should you take the whole lot and get it copyrighted or some such?
What then happens, do they just buy the thing off you and you no longer get to have any part of it? If interested will they pay to get more produced? How does it work in terms of living wage?
Sorry for all the questions, it's just an area with very little info about it, it would be nice to know of others experiences so I know money amounts and so fourth to expect rather than getting fully screwed over?
:)
ideally what you have is a pitch book which then goes to the various execs at the broadcasting and production houses.
the pilot comes later.
in case you do, have the pilot then again it goes to the production houses and broadcasters,where if they like it, they suggest changes or maybe not.
usually they fund the pilot etc if they like the product. many times they buy the project outright where you can retain a % or stay on in some form of exec body as a producer etc, depending on your skills.
other arrangements include you producing the content and they buy it off you or license it off you for X dollars.
the living wage can come through points of ownership, wages on the production team, merchandising etc.
All depends what you and your agent can negotiate.
As for playing studios off each other, considering how many pitches studios get, i think it all depends on how good your concept is and how many people want it.
Thanks for the input so far, much appreciated.
Could you elaborate on the "pitch book" or point me to any links/books related to the subject?
If the pitch book and a pilot episode is in place and the studio likes it, is it then fully down to negotiation which is different for different projects? We have a team together who have all self financed the pilot and worked on it. Would it be likely that a broadcaster would leave our team as is and just agree to give us x amount of money to continue producing more episodes obviously with their ideas implemented? With this x amount of money, would that include wages for each member of the team?
Velocamonkey,
Do a search for the terms pitch book/ pitch bible , show bible on this site, it should yield a few links because this has been discussed before.
ideally your pitch book will/should contain
show ideas, themes, character designs, concept art, sample script, further show ideas, why someone would want to watch this, demographics etc.
there is also an ideal formula which people follow to create books like this. look throug things, if you still arent sure msg me.
as for how things will go down with the show. see, if a network wants to pick it up it all depends on how they go about their production and acquisitions.
i am sure if they like the ideas, they WOULD want the creative staff involved etc.ditto for the animators.
at the same time if they feel the idea has potential but they dont like the execution it could be otherwise.
it all depends on how they react to your product and what kind of a negotiation you bring in.
i dont think there are any specific rules to the game. more like what you can negotiate.
Great, thanks for that, I've found loads of info on pitch bibles and what not thanks for the nod in the right direction. I've looked around for any books on this subject but seem to have come up quite empty handed. It seems it's quite a specialist thing.
it isnt. point is to get the info together in the most readable and flowing manner possible.
make it attractive and colorful but not excessively.
there are certain conventions like log line, the short pitch (you could describe it as say Die Hard on a Bus for Speed or Die Hard on a Cruise Ship for Speed 2) so get its essence out to them.
then the details.