How to Write a TV Spec Script

Video Transcript

"Ok folks, in this clip, we're going to talk about how to write a TV spec script. Essentially what you're writing here, is the pilot, the inaugural episode of a television show,and it's not even a television show that's gotten green lit yet, from a studio or a network. It's just your own crazy idea, about what you think might be a good TV show, so if it's going to be that type of a script, if it's just script purely on the speculation of maybe just maybe this could get produced, if I get it into the right hands.You want to make that script as unbelievable as you possibly can. The screenplay needs to be perfect. It needs to move quickly. It needs to have compelling characters. It needs to have sharp, snappy dialog. It needs to be the cream of the crop,so first, when you're writing a television show, you want to not just write in terms of the first episode. You want to be able to like shoot this television show forward, and show people, wow, this could go any number of ways. You want to set the characters in the premise up in such a way, that it is a massive springboard for the development and the future productions of the show, in future episodes, because a good TV show, literally will establish it's characters very, very early on, and get you as an audience, to like them very, very early on, and if you don't have that likability, and you don't have that hook into your audience, you might as well just give up, because it's never, ever going to get picked up, and if it does get picked up, it's certainly isn't going to see more than four or five episodes on the air, because no one is going to want to watch it, so if you're writing a script, that has not been commissioned for you to write, by a network or by anyone, saying yes, once this is done, we're going to shoot this pilot. You're going to want to make it as brilliant as possible. It needs to go straight to the top of the pile, of all the other pilot scripts that are going to get submitted to these networks, because it's that good. In order for it to get the kind of attention that you're going to want it to get, it needs to be above and beyond everything else that's going to be submitted, so you my friend, need to knock this one out of the park. Sit down, develop a cast of very interesting characters, unique characters, characters that have a life, and just can literally leap off the page at people, and that these executives will then see as wow, this is a group of people that we want to build an entire series around. We can definitely see the potential here. Show them the potential, get a really tight, snappy, quickly paced script together, and that is the best way to write a spec script, for a television show."