What Writers Need To Know About Breaking Into Television by John Truby Video Lecture | Screenwriting: From Beginner to a Pro - Career Development

John what is the question that you're
asked most often about breaking into
television and how is your answer
evolved over the years well a lot of
writers have an interest in television
but they see it as this you know this
castle that they have to get into that's
very difficult to to get through the
wall and so they're wondering how
specifically do you do that and what
they think is the answer is that you
come up with a spec idea for your own TV
show and unfortunately it doesn't work
that way you can have a great idea for a
TV show but it won't matter unless you
have a tremendous amount of experience
writing for television writing on a
television staff so the process that a
writer needs to go through is to first
of all write a spec script for show
that's already on the year and what that
means is you want to focus on a
particular show that first of all that
you like very much that you really know
top to bottom it's a show that should be
very popular so that it's going to be
running for a few years and it should be
a show that is highly regarded in other
words it it was constructed well its
critics really like it the reason for
that is that when you write a spec
script for a really good show it
improves your writing as well it shows
you off now what you do then is you
study that show very carefully you come
up with an idea for a script for that
show you write the script and then it's
important to realize that you're not
writing it because you think you're
going to sell that script you're writing
that script as a calling card which will
then be sent around to various TV shows
and this proves that you have the skills
to write the professional level for
television one other thing I would say
about this
is that the primary emphasis in
television is being able to crack
stories really fast in other words to
come up with a new story for that show
at a really high rate of speed because
TV has this timeout that is much more
intense than film so you've got to be
great at story and this is the primary
skill that writers need to emphasize so
once you realize that they need to pay
their dues they're not going to be just
plucked and unknown and their idea is
going to just change everything they
really have to start from the ground up
right the the with film it's a little
different keep in mind you can write a
spec this excuse me you can write a spec
script for film that is actually good
enough to be bought and might even be
made this is not the case in television
in television you've got to pay your
dues and the steps of paying the dues
are much more take a much longer period
of time but the payoff is tremendous and
the steps that you're looking for then
are you write the spec script it's a
good calling card somebody hires you to
be a staff writer on the show you then
get experience writing for a television
show then they might give you the
opportunity to create your own show
that's the ultimate payoff and why why
are there two different ways of doing
things it is the television is because
it's already established there's a show
there's a whole system in place whereas
each film's its own separate unit
exactly do with the film you can come up
with a great script with a great premise
that is a highly commercial idea and
even though you won't have a tremendous
say amount of experience as a
professional screenwriter because it's a
one-off because it's a single unit that
is going to be made you have a chance of
it being bought in may
whereas with television when when you're
creating a TV show
basically you
are creating a big business this is a
show that needs to run minimum five
years so with anywhere from 13 to 24
episodes per season so you're talking
about
in some cases for example in Seinfeld
almost 200 shows that they're doing over
the course of the history of that show
so you've got to be the amount of money
that is going into creating and
sustaining show is just immense and
going back to whether your answer answer
excuse me has evolved over the years was
there a time when you thought that a
virtual unknown could break into the
business and then you see that it just
doesn't happen that way
it's it's funny because people always
want there to be an evolution in terms
of how you break in but it's remarkably
the same over the years this this has
been the way you break into television
from the very beginning now where it has
changed is in the film area because in
the film area
the typical way was you write a spec
script you try to sell that spec script
and nice big spec sale now what's
happening now though is that with the
internet and the ability to make a short
film and post it so that anybody can see
it like that it's a huge change because
in the past when you wrote this spec
script you had to get it into the studio
and unless you're a writer with an agent
which most writers aren't do not have
that agent you can't even get into the
studio to have it read once it's in the
studio then it has to get through a
reader and readers say no 99.9% of the
time if it gets through the reader it
then has to go to a story executive and
the story executive has to say I really
like this so you got to get through all
these obstacles
and keep in mind the story executive
doesn't have time to read your spec
script because the only time they have
is on the weekends and they don't want
to spend their weekends reading your
specs rip all of a sudden you get this
huge game-changer with the internet
because you can post 5 10 minute short
film short video on the internet and
anybody including that story executive
can take 5 minutes 10 minutes to take a
look at that video and now that doesn't
guarantee that all of a sudden you know
you're going to get a deal with the
studio but it gets you entrance where
before it was so much more difficult to
get through that door even to be noticed
you