Thursday, August 17, 2006

Read is Fun and Mental

Tomorrow (Friday) I'm going to try something different.

My friend Joel and I have written a sit-com pilot (Middle of Nower). Pilots are usually sold by getting the script to an agent, hoping they like it, and then they try to get an interview at a production company.

Then the writers go in and "pitch" the project, trying to convince the production company people that the sit-com is funny and will sell. The pc-ers, if they like it, go to the studios and pitch it to see if they can convince the studio people that it is funny and will sell.

If they all agree that it might be funny and it might sell, then they read the script.

Well, we aren't going to do it quite that way.

On Friday, we are having a cast of actors do a reading of the script (just like we do in the theatre world). We are inviting production companies to come, hear the script being done the way it was meant to be, and see how funny it really is. (We're taking the guess work out of the process).

Our cast includes Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Fred Willard, Sally Struthers, Leigh Allyn Baker, Kevin Brief, Catherine Gaffney, Robert G. Lee, Toby Meuli, Clare Sera, Jodi Shilling, Peter Allen Vogt and Paul Willson. (All doing it for free.)

Karen Lund is coming down from Seattle to direct.

I'll blog next week on how we got to this point, and whether this experiment seemed to work or not.

Just my thoughts,

Sean

5 comments:

Chris Hansen said...

Great cast, Sean. That's going to be a blast, I'm sure.

aliceb said...

You got Clare Sera & Peter Allen Vogt for free? WOW, you do rock! How funny is this that our circles have permanently collided? My life is now your life. I will spend all day friday in prayer for you since if G-d isn' sick of hearing me whine about my life, at least I am. Can't wait.
Thanks for the shout out on Men Rule! I just added you to my links so I can drop by daily.

Anonymous said...

The Firefly fanboy in my is jealous you and Karen get to hang out with Nathan Fillion.

I hope it goes well and I'll be eager to read about how it all happened.

~Ben

aliceb said...

It's noon EST! How'd it go?!!!!!!
So excited for you & for Jobbie Joel -- I see a big growth ahead.

Anonymous said...

I rmemeber seeing an official Hollywood pitch sheet once. All I can say is those pitch session scenes on South Park don't even come close to the reality.

I would like to see a game show called "High Concept" where they pitch actual pitches to contestants and/or a studio audience. Contestants guess whether said pitch is real or fake (made up for the game), and audience votes on Best and Worst of the session, with a special "HAVE YOU GONE STUPID?" award at the end.