Television writing- saving your sanity from the movies
This opens up amazing possibilities for us writers. Most major cities have a public access channel, further, since our goal is profit and fame one can expand your role from writer, to director and onward to producer. Think of it your own broadcast show and in direct competition with the dying major studios and networks.
As a format if you choose to write for television my advice would be to select cable. Currently most cable stations, USA, Bravo, HBO etc., provide a larger audience and pay better for development of your own show. But according to "Wired: you also have IPTV, and HDTV as new formats. Wired has an excellent series on emerging television technology that will be implemented by the year 2007. Check it out.
WRITING FOR TELEVISION-
TV series, unlike feature films have a straight distribution chain from the provider to the viewer. Shot on video or High Definition tape, television shows can be edited and broadcast in a short turn around time. A television schedule for a pilot or a television episode is much shorter then the two years to nine months for a feature film. Trust me this yellow brick paved line has potential. Thus as a writer you may find that the path to gold starts with work as a fill in, leads to a staff writer job then a long jump to show runner. Perhaps if you jump high enough, you might become a producer. You may never want to write a feature length screen play again
Things are different in the world of television, advertising revenue has decreased, but cable has picked up the money. This has spurred creativity and often leads to new writing opportunities. So lean back drink a beer, maybe some bourbon, because this is television and we can do what we want without being disturbed at the cineplex.
For this series I intend to explore two shows from the 1980's and early 1990's. They were cutting edge, and on top of their game when broadcast television had a much bigger audience. The two series are, " Miami Vice" and the " X-Files." "Miami Vice" premiered in 1983 and blew the covers off your grandmas' twenty inch television. The series starred Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas. This series was beyond "Cosby, it made "Friends" look like a reality TV show. The X-Files created by Chris Carter will be explored next month in contrast to "Miami
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