Posted by Bryan Heit on 09/12/06 14:15

nobody special wrote:
> I had a friend try to pitch a show to them. Discovery has a small
> number of "favorite son" production companies that feed product into
> them. Your only real hope is to go thru one of them, and once you do,
> they basically make you sign over the idea and most of the control over
> the idea to them (as well as most of the profits). You get a small
> piece of it unless you can retain some producer credits on it.

This is probably the only route to go, but I don't think it is the
"death sentence" you make it out to be.

Firstly, if you look at what is needed to make a documentary of the type
which appears on Discovery, National Geographic, etc, its pretty obvious
you need a full production team. For the "average" documentary of this
quality you'll need:

Film crew(s) + audio crew
Researchers
Audio technicians/editors
Video technicians/editors
Host(s) and/or narrator(s)
Script writers
Animators
Lawyers (for licensing, releases, and so forth)
Music composition (or licensing)
Someone to keep everything on track (Producer)
Plus directors to keep all of the sub-groups organized

Although one person can do all of these jobs (I've done all of this for
some of my own work) it is doubtful one person could do all of these
jobs well enough for Discovery-level production. Not to mention the
vast amount of time it would take to make a single episode.

But this doesn't mean that you'd have to give up control, or make very
little $$$ from it. For example, if your documentary involves a
technical field you could easily work not only as a creator, but as a
researcher/consultant. If you're decent at writing you may also be able
to do work as a writer. Any stock footage you may have may also be used
- either for the planning of the footage they shoot, or used directly in
the production. All of these would give you additional input into the
work, and probably get you a little more $$$.

Another option to consider is approaching a smaller (i.e. local)
broadcaster first. This would give you the opportunity to develop the
show, be it with fewer resources, but this would give you greater
control over the project. This way you have the opportunity to develop
the show, work out the bugs, develop a small team, etc, before you
approach discovery or a larger production studio. You're far more
likely to be taken seriously if you come to them not with an idea, but
with a project that has some history - even if its just a small show
which runs on a local station.

Bryan

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