Discusión de los resultados de la actividad biológica del suelo

With the incredible leaps that network and cable television have made in the downloadable content arena, it is more important than ever to step outside of the feature filmmaking box. You may be surprised to see that the short film you have already made is your television pilot. Think about it—if you walk into a pitch meeting with the pilot already done, the executives can not only see your talent, they also have the blueprint for the show you want to make. This would be especially helpful to your career, since networks are less and less able to finance pilots and are sussing out shorts in lieu of taking a risk on your talents by forking out thousands of dollars. Expand your definition of what distribution is, because if you can get your short made into a profitable series, that is distribution!

There is definitely a difference between shooting a scene from your feature script and shooting a longer short that you hope to sell as a television series. A great example of this is the short film

The Ten Rules, written by Michelle Paradise (www .michellepara

dise .com) and directed by Lee Friedlander. It was “too long” by most standards (over 20 minutes); however, it was a solid story that created solid characters one could envision seeing on television week after week, and had audiences laughing world- wide. It took them a few years, but Paradise and Friedlander

never gave up on it, eventually selling it to MTV Network’s Logo, where it premiered in 2008 with the new title, Exes & Ohs. Michelle reveals her process:

“At the time, I didn’t think of The Ten Rules as having the potential to be a television pilot simply because when I wrote and shot it—and this is only back in 2000 and 2001—there was nothing out there in the world to suggest that a lesbian television show was even possible, let alone desirable. Logo and here! tv didn’t exist; The L Word didn’t exist. Looking back at it now, though, I can absolutely see why the short got Logo’s attention as a possible series. It wasn’t a pitch they had to try and envision or a script they had to read, it was a finished product that they could actu- ally watch. They could see the story, the point of view, the characters, and whether or not all of those elements had the potential to expand into six episodes, or eight, or eighty. That’s one of the keys, I’d say, if your goal is to do a short that could be a pilot: Make sure all the elements of your project have that potential to expand. If your story isn’t about something universal, at its core; if there isn’t a clear point of view; if the characters lack the depth to take them through possibly as many as eighty episodes, then it won’t work as a series. Keep in mind, too, that this is not an easy journey—nor is it a fast one. So no matter what hap- pens, no matter how long it takes, just keep working. And never, ever wait for someone else to give you permission to be creative. Exes & Ohs wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t sat down in front of my computer in San Francisco and dared to stare at a blank screen and just start typing. That typing became

The Ten Rules and The Ten Rules became Exes & Ohs. I am

now the executive producer, writer, and one of the stars of my own television series. I am proof that it can happen. So don’t wait. Don’t make excuses. Just do it.”

Lee Friedlander, producer, executive producer, and filmmaker

(The Ten Rules, Girl Play, Out at the Wedding, Exes & Ohs), adds:

“When Michelle Paradise showed me her short script, we decided to raise the money and make it ourselves on a shoe- string budget. I believe it was a 32-page short, and at the time everyone told us to shorten it, that film festivals only wanted 15 minutes or under—I believe [Roberta] was one of those people [laughs]. But I really wanted to shoot it like a half-hour single-camera comedy so I could have some work to show in that arena for television jobs. It was important to me that it looked as good, sounded as good, and was the same quality as a mainstream show. We shot on a Panavi- sion HD 24p, pulled in every favor, and spent a lot of time in post getting the pacing, style, music, and effects right. I went on to direct Girl Play and when MTV launched Logo I brought it to them to try to sell it for distribution. Initially, I met with Eileen Opatat and John Sechrist and The Ten

Rules was on the reel that I gave them—and they loved it!

We all started to develop the show, Logo grew, and Dave Mace and Pam Post came on board. We spent a couple years molding, growing, adding veteran writer and producer Billy Grundfest (We the Jury, Mad About You, Academy Awards

Show) to the mix and as they say—the rest is history. A

script, a pilot, a first-season order, and now Season 2 on its way! I truly believe that if we did not have this as a finished ‘Pilot Presentation’ the show would not have sold. If you are not a Greer Shepherd or David Kelley, networks have no idea if you can deliver. I don’t think they would have let me direct the first episode of the series if I had not shown, through directing the short, that I could do it.”

Because they showed the network that they could write and direct and act (Michelle Paradise is the lead actor in both the

short and the show), Logo didn’t need to go on blind faith. Dave Mace, Vice President, Head of Original Programming, notes:

“Since Logo is a very new cable network and because we don’t have the same budgets of broadcast and other cable networks, we often rely on short films to serve as our pilot or ‘mini-pilot’ for the series. By eliminating the pilot step in the development process, we put all of that money back into the series and up on the screen—where it belongs. What short filmmakers who aspire to work in television need to know is they should be thinking in terms of television BE- FORE they create the short film and not AFTER. Not all short films translate to a television series, especially if they weren’t conceived as such. We look for concept, storylines, and character arcs that will have longevity. In other words, the short film has to set up a series that will last for five, six, or seven seasons in succession.”