May 2012 Newsletter

Conference Details and Discounts:
May 30 & 31
Santa Monica, CA

Pitch reality and all other non-fiction shows (Agent not required.)
Fee: $725
($625 when you use the Sell Your TV Concept Now exclusive discount code: SYTCNWEST)

The registration fee includes:

Hosted by NATPE (National Association of Television Programming Executives)
Pitch any kind of show at Pitchcon (Agent not required.)

Fee: Early bird $295 (until May 13 when the rate goes up to $345)
($275 when you use the Sell Your TV Concept Now exclusive discount code: PCSELL.
No expiration date on our code.)

The registration fee includes:

Iron Clad Money-Back Guarantee
If you’re not more informed, more confident and more inspired to pitch your TV show after the second training session on May 17, then we will give you the full registration fee that you paid back for the Hit Maker Tour. No fine print here. We earned a certificate for “Exceptional Business Practices” because we stand by our promises.

We also do not share or sell our email list with any one. We value your privacy as much as we value our own.

IN PRODUCTION with MARK & JEANNE

Mark just got back from a highly productive visit to the NAB convention in Las Vegas and several days of high-level pitch meetings in Los Angeles, including Nickelodeon, Disney XD and Dreamworks (in the pic below).

He was pitching an animation story called, The Dream Factory, among other projects.

“I’m often asked if I still get nervous when I pitch,” Mark says. “No, I don’t. I’m excited. I can’t wait to share my latest stories. After a while you realize the executives you are pitching to are people, too. People who love the industry. People who are looking for great ideas.” &n bsp;

Mark has edited a few videos of each day of his pitch trip in Hollywood. Check them out:
Hollywood Pitch Trip, Day 1: CLICK HERE to see the video
Hollywood Pitch Trip, Day 2: CLICK HERE to see the video

Watch our Facebook page for more coming soon, http://www.facebook.com/pitchtv

Jeanne has been working intensively on a massive project that we will have a very exciting announcement about soon, and which will hold enormous interest and value to anyone with a dream of pitching and selling their show for television. More details soon, we promise.

Wayne is wrapping up the first draft collaboration of a one hour medical drama TV pilot script with Dr. Jesse Cole. His last collaboration on a one hour TV pilot, Sunset Fire, with L.A. firefighter captain Rick Brandelli, won awards in more than 14 film festivals (including First Place at the Las Vegas Film Festival).

MIND YOUR BUSINESS

Here’s an excerpt from Mark’s recent article on the Animation World Network website.

Mind Your Business: Animating a Tooth Fairy

Larry the Cable Guy has always been an animated character, now more than ever. I produced an animated version of Larry for his latest movie Tooth Fairy 2.

Remember The Rock as the Tooth Fairy? Drop that large chest down a foot and add a huge helping of blue collar humor and you’ve got the new Tooth Fairy. This project became one of my favorites to work on. Director Alex Zamm is very creative and great to work with, the crew all got along and we had a lot of fun during production.

Simon and Alex Zamm working on a sequence for Tooth Fairy 2.

In addition to producing the 2D character animation in the movie, I also drew all the live-action storyboards and animatics. In fact, I started as the story artist and landed the animation producing gig near the end of production.

“This portion of the script gives us the entire mythology of Tooth Fairy’s universe” says Zamm. “It was originally written as a live-action talking head sequence but it had too much exposition. I thought it would be funny if we did this sequence like an old educational film and Larry had to sit there and watch an educational film about how to be a Tooth Fairy. Then we realized Larry had this pamphlet. Why not make it a pamphlet so when you open it each picture inside becomes like frames of a storyboard which turns into animated sequences, with the starting key frame being each illustration.”

Originally Alex had planned to shoot some of the Tooth Fairy backstory on a green screen, and we did board and did shoot some of the elements. But he felt the live action element didn’t move the story along fast enough.

We then planned a one minute animated sequence which would be comped onto a pamphlet that Larry is holding. We had the cover image and each picture on the inside animate in time to the Tooth Fairy narrator, voiced by Mindy Sterling (Frau Farbissina in the Austin Powers movies). The inside of the folding pamphlet has four images. Each image comes to life as the camera moves from one frame to the next.

Animation frame from Tooth Fairy 2.

Alex is thrilled with the finished product in his movie. “I love how vivid and colorful it is. It came out incredibly well. It’s an amazing little complex and dense bit of animation that I’m thrilled we were able to pull off on the schedule and budget and you guys pulled out all the stops to make it an A-Plus sequence in the movie.”

Tooth Fairy 2 is now available on DVD.

***

See the entire article, including a more detailed and technical account at… http://www.awn.com/articles/films/mind-your-business-animating-tooth-fairy

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING

Mark and Jeanne have joined the Smash brigade (Mondays on NBC at 10), catching up with the series and enjoying the production values and the quality of the songs. “One of the reasons we enjoy it so much is that it’s about the process of creativity,” Mark explains. “Everyone likes a behind-the-scenes version of how something is put together.” Plus, most of the actors are terrific, especially Debra Messing as the lyricist partner to the composer on the creation of the Marilyn Monroe-based musical. Mark’s not so hot on the “Horseface and the Bartender,” subplot, but Wayne thinks he remembers a hit series with the same name back from the 70s. Or at least there should have been one.

Jeanne’s aboard the motor car to sophisticated soap opera crack known as Downton Abbey, having imbibed almost two seasons faster than master butler Carson can say, “Will that be all, Sir?” It’s not nearly enough. We can’t wait until Season 3 when Shirley MacLaine comes aboard to go quip to quip with Maggie Smith. Season 3 airs in England in the fall and not until next January on PBS in America. The Brits … always one step ahead (whether in war or recession).

Wayne and Danette stuck around for Season Two of The Killing (Sundays on AMC at 9) despite the fact that almost half the audience abandoned it in frustration for not revealing the killer in the first season. Hey, everybody, it’s not always the destination, but the journey. And this one’s been through 24 suspects already, nineteen straight days of rain (hello, Seattle), 300 cigarettes for detective Holder, and 49 violations of good motherhood for detective Linden, who abandons her teenage son in a motel room while she chases false suspects 24 hours a day.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

Jeanne remembers her first television gig

Let’s set the wayback machine for … well, we know better than to tell, but it was when Jeanne was a recent graduate out of the Broadcast Center in St. Louis, Missouri (after previously graduating from Tulane University in Louisiana) and UHF was the fourth and last channel available on your television set besides three VHF channels.

Jeanne applied for the News Director job at KBSI, a UHF station in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which is about halfway between the jumping jive blues clubs of St. Louis and the cross-burning headquarters of the KKK. We’re not saying this is a totally rural market, but one of the most popular features on the 5- minu te KBSI news reports playing between old TV series reruns and old movies was the “Hog Report.” And you might not be too far off in thinking that was the target audience and not just a report on pork futures.

“Can you run a camera?” the station manager asked the eager young applicant.

“Sure,” Jeanne replied.

“You’re hired.”

Sigh. Those were the days. Today, a college graduate has about a 50% chance of getting hired anywhere. There are a lot of waiters out there with Master’s Degrees.

Jeanne not only ran camera, but served as news director, stage manager, editor and even on-the-air personality. But what better way to learn the business? She even produced a live one-hour special on drunk driving. The audience went … hog wild over that one.

She put in about a year at the station and, besides learning how to wear every hat possible when putting broadcast content together, she learned something else: “I loved working in television, but I hated the news,” Jeanne explains. “Digging into other people’s grief is not my thing.”

Neither were hogs. She took her experience to Los Angeles the very next year and never looked back.

Until now. Soo-eeey.