The Pilot

Thanks to those of you who have said nice things to me regarding my acting. Shooting it wasnt actually as much fun as I expected it to be - the people who do this sort of thing for real certainly have a unique talent, its really hard work. For our parody, the director Paul would give me a word, e.g. holistic, or a direction, like telling the director/vision mixer (I dont know how they crew these things) that were going to change camera, and then I would just have to make up the words as we went along. I think Ill try and stay off screen in the future, and leave the idea of a web series based on the character in a locked drawer. Speaking of web series, the internet is now being used to pilot ideas cheaply, and its worth looking into if youve got ideas that you can shoot yourself. Before many television drama and comedy series are commissioned, a pilot will be shot and often broadcast in order to gauge if the series will work, and if it has an audience. Its quite a different process in the UK compared with the USA, where Pilot Season is an annual event - this article is old, but it explains how it works over there. Now though, shooting digitally and broadcasting online, a low-budget web series is a great way to pilot an idea off your own back. An example is Svengali, written by Dean Cavanagh and starring Welsh actor Jonathan Lewis Owen. Have a look at the episodes - the format is very simple and easily shot on a microbudget. The writing and the perfomances have to sell the idea - theres no production value (aside from celebrity cameos) to hide behind here. If youre interested in what makes a good pilot, its worth starting by looking at the script. Thanks to a link found on John Augusts blog (coincidentally, check out Johns web series pilot The Remants), you can find a huge library of scripts for US pilots (some successful, and some not) by clicking here. Theres pilots for The Wire, Alias, and also the Heroes pilot, directed by David Semel. Derek is definitely not going to end up in a pilot. Honest.