This was the summer of "meh."
I read about 125 screenplays total. They were of all varieties and genres, from the almost painfully mundane to the beyond fantastic. I read one or two gems, scripts that really blew my mind. However, the overwhelming majority this year were, for lack of a better way of putting it, just okay. It took me a long time to figure out why.
This year's contest introduced a new category: the original pilot. I was thrilled! This was a category that I not only knew about, but reading the pilots was one of my favorite pasttimes back on Zhura. I loved seeing what other people could think up for a series! What could possibly go wrong?
Here's what went wrong:
1. 30-60 PAGES IS JUST ENOUGH TO BE OKAY.
In 90-120 pages, you have to have done something. It's impossible for something that long to be not entirely good or bad. I've had a few I was split on, but more often than not, a story has either completed its journey by then or gone horribly wrong. It's a single package, and as such it's pretty easy to tell if a script in on the mark or not. Turns out that in an hour or less, you can go halfway and stop.
It really blew my mind. It took me almost fifty scripts to see the pattern. You can actually be just okay in that time. You can honestly hit half the marks and stop. You can have some great characters, but not explore them. You can have a great concept but weak story support. You can have fantastic style but lack in substance, and in that short amount of time it's easy to overlook the shortcomings. Wasting thirty minutes is forgivable, but wasting two hours is hard to look past.
2. YOU CAN FILL AN HOUR WITH NOTHING PRETTY EASILY.
Perhaps I've been desensitized by all the cooking shows I watch, but it was almost sad how easily I was entertained by a half hour of nothing. "Nothing" might be a strong word, but there were some pilots that were kind of amusing even though they didn't go anywhere. A few good lines, a halfway-decent concept, and I might not regret reading it as much as the erotic Pokemon fanfics that I accidentally picked up last year. They were okay. If I had a half hour or so to kill while I was flipping through channels, I might even watch through a commercial break or two.
But out of everything, the one thing I came away from all these pilots was this:
3. THE PILOT HAS BECOME THE LAZY WRITER'S FEATURE.
If I had a dollar for every pilot I read that was a just a short feature, I could have treated myself to several not-Outback steaks by now. A TV show needs to tell the part of a story, it needs to be a small window into the world. Most of the pilots I picked up were not windows. They were finite packages. There was no series. They told a story. A very small story that concluded with the close of the episode.
Look, writing is hard. I know that. Pumping out 120 pages is not only a very daunting task, it can feel like trying to build a pontoon bridge with no means of holding the boats together. Things start drifting and don't line up and go all kinds of haywire, but if you hammer through it you can make it across! I chose TV as a focus to write because I wanted to tell episodic stories, not just short ones.
"But... but..." I hear you stutter, "but if you can tell a good story in 30 minutes, isn't that what makes a good TV show?"
No. No it's not what makes a good TV show. That makes a good short film. That makes a good web video. A pilot needs to introduce a world we want to KEEP watching, not just peek into once. If there's no larger world, no greater story to tell, no development for the characters to go through, then there's nowhere to go. There was a beginning, middle and end to the entire concept when it should have have only applied to that episode.
One awesome frame does not make a comic book, and one solid story doesn't make a series. A pilot needs to establish the world as well as show what potential energy the world has to offer.
Don't get me wrong, it was another amazing year with a record number of entries. But for some reason the competition seemed far more tepid to me. Then again, I did read mostly pilots as one of the few judges who was qualified to do so, and as I listed above it's far easier to be mediocre in 30 pages than it is in 100. So in a sense, the deck was stacked against me. Still, it was another great year with some very creative writers showing their potential. I think there were a lot of very impressive entries, but they eliminated themselves by taking the easy way out and writing 60 pages when they could have probably had a fighting chance with 100.
Congrats to all the winners, and to all those who didn't make it, keep on writing!
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