November 26-27, Iryna Kostyuk and Anna Eliseeva, producers at FILM.UA Group, held a two-day course within Skill Bill Pro "Think like a showrunner: idea, development, pitching - first stages of project realization".
The course was divided into several thematic parts. In the first part of the course, Iryna and Anna talked about global trends of modern production of TV content, as well as the realities of Ukrainian audio-visual content market and what kind of projects might interest TV channels today.
Applications (scripts), that author offers to producers, should always be written in the context of today market realias. Television is primarily a business, and in contrast to the literature, is expensive one. For business to be successful, the costs have to pay off. For example, today Ukraine will not shoot sci-fi or fantasy series, even if it's a very good idea, because these genres are very expensive.
Speaking about world trends, the experts stressed the importance of the following formats:
- Challenge reality,
- Reality on the edge,
- Skripted reality,
- Mashup,
- Web-series.
Experts also reminded that the legal protection of the idea is practically impossible. You can protect only the form of realization of the idea: the script, the Bible, the pilot or the completed program.
The practical part of the course was devoted to the analysis of applications. In total organizers received more than 40 applications. Experts considered 8 projects in detail and gave their comments.
Applicants were given 5 minutes to present their idea - essence of the project, plot, potential for further implementation, etc. So, the participants worked as showrunners, not only as authors. After each pitch, experts evaluated strong and weak points of the project, as well as gave recommendations on improvement. The main corrections concerned the motivation of the main characters, structure, combination of horizontal and vertical storylines, major conflicts, driving force of the series or sitcom.
Participants had 24 hours to transform their idea and present it to experts and audience once again. On the second day of the course audience was aslo allowed to give comments on each project. Some participants managed to make significant changes that made the project easier to understand and produce. Other participants received detailed feedback for further development of their ideas.
