Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas from Concept to Pitch

by Nicola Lees

Blows the lid on so many TV secrets Tom Archer, Controller Factual, BBC If every first-time producer read this before pitching a program, I guarantee a greater success rate Gary Lico, President/CEO, CABLEready, USA In recent years there has been an explosion of broadcast and cable channels with a desperate need for original factual/reality programming to fill their schedules: -documentaries, observational series, makeover formats, reality competitions. Yet television executives receive a daily avalanche of inappropriate pitches from pushy, badly prepared producers. Only 1 in 100 proposals are considered worth a second look, and most commissioners never read past the first paragraph. Greenlit explains how to develop, research, pitch and sell your idea for any type of factual or reality television show. It gives the inside track on: * What channel executives are really looking for in a pitch, * The life stories of hit factual shows such as The Apprentice, Deadliest Catch and Strictly Come Dancing * Advice from channel commissioners, development producers and on-screen talent on both sides of the Atlantic. * Eleven steps that will increase your chance of winning a commission In a rapidly expanding TV market, Greenlit is packed with resource lists, sample proposals, case studies and exercises designed to boost your skills and develop commission-winning proposals.

515 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2010

About the author

Nicola has worked in the television industry – in London and New York - for more than 15 years. She has developed documentaries, docudramas, multiplatform and reality programmes for network and cable channels, including the BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and Channel 5 in the UK and Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, National Geographic and TLC in the USA.

Nicola originally worked as an operating room and ER nurse and spent ten years dealing with drunks and DIY victims. On the spur of the moment she accepted a job as an expedition medic in Chile and Zimbabwe where she dug latrines and almost drowned in the Zambezi River during a rafting trip that went wrong (which was awkward, as she was the only qualified medic).

Back home she spent time answering the phones for a radio gardening where her progress was hampered by her complete lack of horticultural experience and even less knowledge of Latin plant names. Later, she worked briefly as a Holiday Rep in Lanzarote, where she found herself dancing the can-can in a cabaret act and putting her medical knowledge to good use when her guests became ill (the two weren't related).

After signing on with a temping agency Nicola was sent to answer the phones at the BBC in London for one day. Ten years later, she was still working at the BBC had established herself in the newly emerging, and much misunderstood, discipline of programme development.

Nicola's first commission, The Guinea Pig Club, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kct2bJ..., was a documentary about a group of WWII airmen who were badly burnt and became the guinea pigs for a maverick plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe. Knowing from her time as a scrub nurse that McIndoe forceps and McIndoe scissors are standard surgical instruments, her interest was piqued when she saw a book called McIndoe's Army, and she discovered a remarkable story of resilience and camaraderie. The documentary went on to win a Royal Television Society History Award (2005). Since then, Nicola has been directly involved in researching, writing or pitching more than 80 commissioned programmes, many of which have won industry awards.

Nicola left the BBC after ten years and continued to write; her first effort was a rom-com, which a reader said reminded him of A Clockwork Orange. Sensing that rom-com perhaps wasn't her forte she turned to non-fiction and has published Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas From Concept to Pitch (Methuen, 2010) and Give Me the Money and I'll Shoot! Finance Your Factual TV/Film Project (Methuen, 2012).

Nicola is the founder and editor of http://www.tvmole.com a website aimed at inspiring, informing and improving factual TV development, which attracts an international readership for its blend of commissioning news, how-to articles, funding and pitching opportunities and development tips.

Nicola is currently researching the final book of her non-fiction TV trilogy. She is also having another attempt at fiction and has three different projects on the go (including an unromantic comedy).