On October 27-28, “Skill Bill Pro practical course on developing ideas for the series. Treatment and pitching” took place. The experts of the course were Natalia Stribuk, head producer of film and TV production at Ukraina TV channel, and Olesya Lukyanenko, creative producer at FILM.UA Group.
The course was divided into several parts. In the first part, the experts provided a brief overview of series production in Ukraine and all over the world and also told about the requirements for treatments and further pitching of the projects. The experts prepared a dedicated analysis of audience and broadcasting grid for each leading Ukrainian TV channel as well as provided the data about their target audience (gender, age) and actual viewers. Then, the authors of seven pre-selected treatments had an opportunity to present their projects to the audience and experts, receive their first feedback and home task to improve the project and the pitch. On the second day, the participants presented their projects again, with regard to the comments they had received before.
In this summary, we are not going to dwell on the participants’ pitches. The work was mainly about developing characters – their motivations and goals; the structure of the story was also reviewed; the experts pointed out what should and should not be included in the pitch. One of the most important tasks of the pitching is to win a second meeting with the producer.
Below, the main points of the experts’ presentations and comments are briefly presented.
The course was started by Olesya Lukyanenko who reviewed European trends in the making of series, based on the materials from this year’s Series Mania. Olesya emphasized that now series production is of great interest to the whole world, and the most prestigious film festivals already integrated into their programs separate sections dedicated to the series. Very often these sections include not only premieres of the most expected series but also pitchings for those who only plan to launch production. High-end drama series are now associated with the most expensive, provocative and interesting products. They are usually made by cable TV channels involving the best directors and investing significant funds.
After Drama Series Days under the aegis of Berlinale, Odessa International Film Festival launched its own program, “SERIES!”. This year the program was launched for the first time and included the screenings of six series.
Then, Olesya provided a brief overview of the 7th Series Mania festival held in Paris. This year, the following projects were the most sought-after among the European jury and the audience:
Olesya noted that the film community started speaking about a new trend, “Belgian noir”, which can set the tone for series production after “Scandinavian noir” dominating in the field for the last few years.
The jury’s special mention was given to The Kettering Incident.
In the framework of Series Mania, a separate section is dedicated to the series pitching. The main genre this year was predictable; it was dramas in different forms – whodunits, crime stories, mysterious disappearances, psychological thrillers, dramas with mystic elements, etc. Olesya stopped on several projects in a bit more detail:
Then we discussed how pitching at Series Mania takes place. It is necessary to note that the audience consists of a “champion’s league” of European producers and showrunners – about 400 people who are the decision-makers for launching or developing content worth millions of euros. Each participant has 10 minutes for a presentation, including video demonstration. Another thing to note is that though every project has a video, it is not necessarily a teaser or a pilot; most often it is a video to portray the ambience of the future series. This can be a highlights reel from other films, a slide show of photos, etc. The time frame for the presentation is strictly limited, and there is no Q&A session afterwards. Instead, the participants have individual meetings with producers arranged.
The presenting team mostly consists of the idea’s author/screenwriter, one of the producers and the director, if possible.
What is important during the presentation: to provide the necessary information, to emotionally involve the audience, to captivate it with your story. During the presentation, you cannot tell everything about your project, but you have to present in such a way so that the audience feels you know absolutely everything about it.
Normally the projects pitched don’t have a finished script. The reason for it is to have a possibility to agree all plot lines with co-producers and only then to finalize the script.
On the screen, we showed an example of project presentation in the festival catalogue, and Olesya briefly noted the main elements of project description to be included into an application for the festival pitching.
Before pitchings, many prestigious festivals additionally work with project authors to improve their presentations. This may require separate payment or serve as an obligatory condition for participation in the contest.
From general trends we moved to looking at the trends in Eastern European series production. The main idea during presentations, screenings and roundtable discussions was the statement from Bron/Bridge creators: “More local means more global.”
Last year, The Last Panthers was a noticeable phenomenon in the series world (it was also shown at OIFF). Though this series is a British-French co-production, the shooting was mostly done in Belgrade and around it (Serbia). This year, Pipeline project was produced at the pitching session (co-produced by Poland, Finland and Ukraine) – about a gas pipeline running along the bottom of the sea. However, we stopped in even more detail on the adaptation of Mammon, a Norwegian series produced by HBO European office in two countries in parallel, the Czech Republic and Poland. Two totally different versions were made as a result: a more political Czech series and a more religious Polish product. This is how you can create unique content, knowing the specifics of the audience in your country.
Then the floor was given to Natalia Stribuk. Natalia stressed that for efficient work on the script and its future sale one has to clearly understand which TV channel you are going to sell your project to and what the channel’s target audience is.
In general, television is mostly watched by women over 45 years of age. However, to be more specific you have to follow the channels’ programming more closely and note which content of which quality is broadcast by this or that channel at a certain time. It is also important to analyze project promos, titles and slogans. This will help with correct “packaging” of your product for the TV channel.
Then Natalia provided a detailed review of target audience and main programming sots of seven Ukrainian national TV channels: Inter, 1+1, Ukraina, STB, ICTV, Novy, and TET.
Afterwards, the experts briefly described what is interesting for their companies and how they search for new ideas.
Olesya told the audience that FILM.UA studio deals with production in different genres, including such unusual for Ukraine formats as films-concerts and docudramas with a significant amount of 3D graphics. One of the biggest company successes is The Sniffer series, which is now having its third season filmed. The series format was acquired by Japan and France, and just recently the premiere of Japanese Sniffer took place.
In general, there are two ways for the studio to work on a project:
Sometimes a pilot episode is the only thing that can convince the TV channel that a specific project is possible. A good example would be Step Dan series now prepared for broadcasting. The series discusses the topics tabooed in Ukrainian society, but the format of their presentation allows to discuss even the most acute issues.
Now the studio is looking for:
As for working with the authors, the studio accepts treatments via its website. The treatment goes to the editors. They discuss the most interesting treatments with the creative producer. If the treatment passes this selection, work with the authors starts.
If an interesting treatment arrives from an author the studio hasn’t cooperated with before, normally a meeting is arranged with the author for him/her to present this treatment and do a mini-pitch. If the studio is still interested, it either buys the idea or continues working with the author.
It often happens that the studio already knows what it wants to film about and in which format. Then the creative producer draws up a concept and invites authors to write a script. Normally these are the authors the studio has cooperated with before and knows their skills well.
The studio rarely works with scriptwriting agencies. Now FILM.UA is trying out a concept of scriptwriters’ room, i.e. developing an idea with a group of authors. There is the main author who leads the common vision. It is a new work method for the studio and, according to Olesya, there are many aspects they should still improve.
As for Ukraina TV channel, Natalia is not interested in treatments for series for young people, sitcoms as well as crime/gangster series with a lot of blood and violence. The channel’s audience simply won’t understand such products.
Using analytical data and many years of experience in programming grid management, the TV channel knows its goals and uses professional hunches. That is why very often the scripts are judged not from an artistic but from an analytical point of view. There is mathematical precision in distributing action during the episode, which allows to produce the biggest possible effect.
The expert reminded the participants that the world and television do not stand still, so new and original ideas always have potential.
Now 16-episode comedy films are the most sought after.
Don’t hurry when drawing up a treatment – first think who you are writing it for and what is going to be important for this person/TV channel. Make a treatment so that it is obvious there is a lot of work put into it.
Natalia also told about the work on House On a Cold Spring series which is made by FILM.UA and commissioned by Ukraina TV channel. Starting from the treatment through the first draft of the script and up to production, the project underwent a huge amount of corrections. In each complicated and seemingly dead-end situation, the parties sat down to the negotiation table. Sometimes such discussions lasted for 6-8-10 hours. Such personal negotiations are extremely important. In correspondence, it is not always possible to argue and explain your point of view, but you can always achieve some mutually beneficial compromise.
Ukraina TV channel works directly with authors as well, but still, in the expert’s opinion, it is more interesting for the authors to talk to independent production companies which are not limited by a target audience of one TV channel and will be able to sell the project to an interested broadcaster.
Another cooperation option: creative board chooses a topic and commissions a script from the author.
When working with a group of authors, the biggest difficulty is not to make the style homogeneous but to have the same tempo, rhythm and structure so that the “necessary emotions” work at the right time. The TV channel became convinced of this when working on the Life Line project with 9 authors who created 32 episodes within six months.
The experts summed up the elements to be included in a treatment submitted to the TV channel and the studio. Here goes the list of basic elements:
1. Author
2. Title
3. Format: feature film, TV series (horizontal, vertical), Internet series, etc.
4. Genre
5. Number of episodes
6. Timing
7. Target audience
8. Logline (25 to 30 words, must contain information about the protagonist, his/her goal and the antagonist)
9. Annotation or synopsis (not more than 1 page) must contain the following:
10. Description of main characters (1-2 pages in total):
11. Brief synopsis of one or two pilot episodes (for series) – not more than half a page per each episode.
12. Brief information about the author
13. Contact information
During the pitching, the experts noted the following important aspects:
We are grateful to all participants of the course and especially to the active audience which provided additional feedback about the projects on the second day.
Just as a reminder: on December 2-4, a special course for screenwriters and producers from FILM.UA Faculty and New York Film Academy is to take place.
