Friday, March 16, 2012

Learning About Writing for Television

By John de Vries


People feel that writing for television and film is identical but on the contrary both the industries are different. The main elements of the television industry are networks, studios and production companies. Writers are basically hired by a studio to write for a particular network or channel. They even can have the rights to sell the information elsewhere. This material is then utilized by the production companies to bring the script into action.

The writers face two kinds of deals, a development deal and overall deal. Development deal necessitates the writer to write for only an individual project. Only a single story has been developed for which the writer gets their pay cheque from $30,000 - $50,000. Overall deal requires the writer to write on a long term basis and the income is a lot more than development deal. After the initial filtering, about 4-10 writers are selected and they're placed in hierarchy. Show-runner is at the most notable and is the program creator. Those are the ones which have maximum experience in writing and receive an Executive Producer status and earn up to and including million. Later in the hierarchy of writing team are co-executive producers, supervising producer, producer, co-producer, and executive story editor and also at the end is the staff writer, also known as baby writers as they are the starters.

Aspirant writers should start with joining classes which are taught by experienced TV writers. The classes help to get the basics right as well as the same time helps increase the friend circle, which is of help at some point of your time. Beginners can get a break by hiring an agent which has contacts as most of the shows don't hire baby writers also it would take about three years to obtain the break. But at this level originality at work is what matters. Original material relating to screenplays or even a sketch material will be of good help. One can receive treatment on spec. Specs are trailers which provide the outline of the story. This shows the grasping power with the writer. Plays should be carefully chosen when writing a Spec. Usually do not choose a series just because it is hot or is based on fiction. While picking a play the writer should keep in mind what he finds intriguing, notable and what he wants to work on in future. After preparing the spec, send it to the show-runner of the same show, because the show-runner will be under the assumption that nobody knows his show a lot better than himself. It is advised to transmit the spec to show-runner of a similar show. Specs reflect the writing ability, the grasping ability, the scene structure sense, story narration style of the writer.

With these entire qualities it's possible to land up as a writer's assistant and when a show-runner hires the starter, it might be a good boost to him. An assistant also can witness the actual proceedings of the show and the basics get brushed up .You must never quit writing. Even when a writer doesn't get anywhere for a short moment of time at least he will improve his writing skills which will be of great use within the long run. The writer should meet the deadlines when on job. Sometimes the deadlines can be short too. So constant writing can train in that aspect too.

The writers possess the greatest power. He can play with the mind of the viewer. He is responsible for the shaping of desires millions of viewers and all this could be achieved by constant practice.




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