This is pretty much how you used to break into writing for TV:
* You’d move to LA.
* You’d write a spec script of a current popular TV show.
* You’d send that spec script to anyone and everyone you knew who was even tangentially involved in the entertainment business.
* Assuming you could representation, your agent or manager would send out your spec script to all the series currently staffing up or looking for freelance writers.
* You’d go on meeting after meeting, pitching episode ideas for each series.
* You’d get hired to write an episode.
* Eventually, if you were talented and lucky, you’d get hired on staff.
And so on.
There was also this: You would never spec an original pilot script if you were a newbie. That domain was reserved for show runners and writers who had worked in TV for several years.
But then things like this started happening:
In summer 2008, four college friends pooled $6,000 to shoot a 15-minute presentation for a Web series.A year later, the demo attracted Thomas Schlamme as executive producer and sparked interest from a couple of TV networks as a comedy series, landing at ABC with a script commitment plus penalty.
Titled “Boyfred,” the single-camera comedy from Alan Schmuckler, Michael Mahler, Blake Silver and Jarrod Zimmerman revolves around six twentysomething friends. It centers on Fred, a Web designer in Chicago whose girlfriend goes overseas, so he creates a Web site for their circle of friends to keep in touch.
This breaks just about every one of the traditional rules of TV writing. And it’s exciting. Because that means you – yes, you – can create an OP (Original Programming) format / concept, post it on YouTube, and hope that the right set of eyeballs (i.e., Thomas Schlamme or his ilk) watches and likes what you’ve produced.
The mother of Chicago-born CAA agent Elizabeth Newman saw a story about Schmuckler and Mahler in a local paper and told her about them. Newman contacted them via Facebook and soon signed them as clients.
The point is to create something and put it out there.
Carry on.
The day I got that same advice from both Terry Rossio and Josh Stolberg — independent of each other — is the day I began work on adapting BLIND 5POTS (the detective script I posted about the other day) into a serialized radio drama for online release. We're now a quarter of the way through recording, and I'm writing another script to shoot myself.
Especially now, never sit around and wait for permission. Make a name for yourself!