Mock Pitch

[Darkwing]

Disclaimer: This is intended as a mock pitch to be crafted and fleshed out with the assistance of others on this forum. Once "complete," this can hopefully be used as a template or guidance for other people who may want to pitch ideas here someday. This will be using an actual concept that I've been thinking about and discussing with others.

 

Star Trek: The Next Legacy (Tentative)

Format

• 5-10 Episode Web Series
  
• 5-10 min/TBD per Episode
  
• 1 Year Production Time for Entire Series
  
• At least 3/4 of the Episodes are to be completed before public release
  
• Monthly Release Schedule
  

Contracts There are two types of contracts, full term and Episodic. Full term means that you sign on for the entire series and episodic means you sign up on an episode by episode basis. Despite the common connotations with the term contract, these will not be so binding that there's no wiggle room. At any time, a contract can be revised upon contacting the show-runners. Also, under each job description in the pitch, it will list full term or episodic. This simply means that is the preference and there is no reason that you can't sign up or drop out at any time throughout production. The only exception is that if you do sign up full-term, we will undoubtedly want a very good reason as to why you should drop out. The contracts overall though, are there more to help organize each task and so that each person knows what they're responsible for and not be hurting others on the team.

 

Concept Following Captain Henderson and his crew aboard the newly launched USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F, they continue in the traditional heart of Star Trek as they voyage across the cosmos exploring strange new worlds and ultimately discovering what it means to be human.

 

~~~

 

Occurring after the events of Star Trek Red Squad, Star Trek The Next Legacy will follow a new crew of intrepid heroes. The goal is to return Star Trek to its original intent/styling between The Original Series and The Next Generation. ST:TNL is intended as both an adventurous series and a series that will (hopefully)delve into modern day issues and observations, hopes and dreams of humankind. The hope is for a wide variety of talent to be involved, to not just assist with technical aspects of creation, but to also assist in producing plots, characters, creatures, planets, ships and to even have opportunities at positions such as directing episodes or producing them.

As Star Trek is a trademarked name, we cannot accept any sort of monetary contributions for our project, therefore everyone will be working on their own terms and volunteering whatever time they deem they wish to on this project. Everyone receives full credit for what role(s) they fulfill on an episode by episode basis.

Depending on how many people assist in the project, the term Created by may be used to encompass everyone on the project, or simply the show-runners/organizers (Chris K and myself and whoever helps in a major capacity to "invent" and organize the series). On the topic of credit, people who assist by putting in a significant amount of time (will be determined later) will be allowed to have their Production Companies name and logo at the end of the credits/with the other producer labels if they so wish.

For primarily organizational purposes, individual contracts will be written up to best associate the needs of the Producers of ST:TNL and everyone who assists on the project. Certain terms that will remain true in all instances is that anything you create for this project can be used for your own purposes (ie animations, portfolios etc) with exception to the primary characters of ST:TNL. Certain elements of those characters such as bodies will be available for public use though.

This is an opportunity for a wide variety of talent to be inventive and have a larger say in the overall creation aspect of the project. On top of that, this should be a massive learning experience for most and an interesting challenge for all.

 

Breakdown

The Writing Team

Contractual - Full Term

This is really where it all starts - with the story. Without the story, there is quite literally no show!

Description The writing team is a small group of dedicated story-tellers who's primary roles will be to assist in the fleshing out of ideas, scripts, stories etc. They will also be the primary spot for the formation of new episode ideas and will determine who is necessarily the best person on the team to write a particular script for a particular episode.

 

NOTE - This does not eliminate others who aren't a part of the writing team, to pitch an episode idea or to even potentially write a script. In this instance however, the writing team will review entries and then take it from there. If your idea or script is decided by the writing team to be used, you will be contacted on an individual basis regarding the idea and will be given credit for both creation of the idea and for writing (if you wrote a script.) This does not mean though that the writing team will re-write or edit your script, however, you will be involved in this process from start to finish and again given credit.

It is also to be noted that the writing team will be given at least partial credit in every episode of the series as they will at the very least be involved in the decision making process.

 

Directors

Contractual - Episodic

Description There is opportunity for individuals to direct episodes of ST:TNL. This is going to be a mixture of fairness and ability. If a lot of people sign up to direct, we may have to simply cycle through or even group people together instead of constantly having one person always direct. The goal for this is to not just allow "the obvious" choices for directing, but to allow people who haven't necessarily directed an animated piece before to do so. This will allow those people to get a feel of what it's like to work in that type of position on a project like this, without having to worry about doing all of the initial organization of setting up a series. Directors will most likely be decided upon by the writing team. Of course people who wish to direct can have their say as well by choosing which episode(s) they might like to direct.

Directing is what the title implies. You will be responsible for the "vision" of that particular episode. Not so much the organizational aspect of it, but choosing shots, angles, visual appearance etc. There is also the possibility that people will want to direct the episode that they have written which is also accepted.

All of this will be determined on an individual basis though the contract creation process.

 

Casting Directors

Contractual - Full Term

Description We are looking for a small group of people (1-3) who will be responsible for casting. These people will actively search for cast and review auditions and determine if they best suit the character's roles. A good place to start is Voice Acting Alliance.

 

Producers

Contractual - Episodic

Description People who sign up to be producers are responsible for the episode of their choice. Essentially they organize all aspects of the episode, make sure things are moving in a timely fashion etc. This does not supersede the roll of Show-Runner as the Show-Runners will essentially be producing the entire series and making sure everything as a whole is organized and running efficiently and to a degree, pleasantly as well. The goal is to not be slave drivers, but allow everyone in every position, be creative and to have a say in matters. Producers need to have good people skills and an extreme sense of organization.

 

Modelers

Description Self-explanatory really. If you're interested in building models, there will be a wide variety ranging from humans, to alien creatures to props to sets, you name it! There will even be plenty of opportunity for people to design all of the above as well, so you have the option of designing and building, or just building!

 

Animators

Description Again pretty self-explanatory. The primary elements to be animated of course are the characters, however it's quite possible that there will be mech animation as well and special effects shots and all of that.

 

Remember, one of the primary goals for all of this, is for those involved to be able to create and not just rehash. Naturally there will be a bit that has to be "rehashed" if you will, but this is about exploring strange new worlds, so with that entails a lot of creative exploration as well!

 

~~~

 

Right, well, I'm sure there's a lot more to it or better wording or better ideas, but I've been writing this for like three hours so this is what I have Feel free to criticize and help me articulate what I've provided or present new ideas and stuff that I've missed. One of the goals for this of course, is for others to be able to look at it and hopefully use it to their benefit as well

[Rodney]

Chris,

This is just to let you know I've seen your post and will read it as I find proper time to focus my attention fully on it.

 

At this point (without having yet read your mock pitch) the only thing I can say is that writing out a plan/pitch like this is always a good idea. There is something about getting it all into writing that prompts the intangibles to materialize.

[Darkwing]

No rush You'll be able to tell when I started getting tired of writing it as it starts to get less specific the further down you go

[Gerry]

Chris, I admire your enthusiasm and organizational aptitude, but to play devil's advocate for a moment, I just have to question your wanting to develop a property, and involve others in a long-term project, that you can never own, sell, monetize or protect, as it's based on the Star Trek franchise.

 

If you wanted to take this to "the next level" so to speak, how would you pitch this to an investor? How would you defend it? How do you get others enthused about something they can never hope to have any ownership of?

 

I know these are hard questions but others will be asking the same thing eventually.

[Rodney]

Great feedback Gerry.

This is exactly the kind of thoughts a pitch is designed to confront the pitcher with.

 

I agree with your assessment on the Star Trek franchise.

The tradeoff of course being that when the project moves away from the familiar iconic characters those who are locked into that mode of thinking lose interest.

 

There is no question in my mind that having a product that is not branded as Star Trek is 'the correct' way to proceed.

Now, how does Chris determine which is 'the best' way to proceed?

 

It seems to me that a project like this would be ideal in one specific case: Trying to get onto the radar of the producers of the real Star Trek.

If that is the case then targeting adjustments should be made to maximize the likelyhood of success because there are a lot of folks in competition for similar attention when it comes to Star Trek.

 

Another relevant question might: What would be the effect of changing the characters and props/ships to something unique?

The first concern would be that of losing the interest that you might have already achieved.

Would your collaborating other brother from another mother pick up his laptop and walk away?

Would those who have demonstrated their support for the project turn and leave?

 

The big draw in fanfic is the shared themes.

It is harder to develop unique themes.

 

More questioning and inbetweening.

What if you were to remove all but the remotest elements of Star Trek?

In other words it is Star Trek but only to those capable of extrapolating.

Or, what if the project appeared to be fully unrelated to Star Trek until the very last (climatic) scene and even then while specifically stated?

 

There are approaches that allow for just about everything.

I do think Gerry is correct but it's your decision on how to proceed.

 

What is that old poem my grandmother was so fond of repeating? (I only remember the beginning and the ending. )

"Two roads converged in the distance... I took the path less traveled by and that has made all the difference."

[Darkwing]

*Cracks knuckles* Typin time!

 

Chris, I admire your enthusiasm and organizational aptitude, but to play devil's advocate for a moment, I just have to question your wanting to develop a property, and involve others in a long-term project, that you can never own, sell, monetize or protect, as it's based on the Star Trek franchise.

 

If you wanted to take this to "the next level" so to speak, how would you pitch this to an investor? How would you defend it? How do you get others enthused about something they can never hope to have any ownership of?

 

I know these are hard questions but others will be asking the same thing eventually.

 

 

Well, I think for one the investor would make a difference. If it was someone from CBS, then it would have to be pitched as an actual idea for a new Star Trek TV series. In that regards, this will touch on some things Rodney asked, the fans, they are important. For one, the fans are gobbling up new Trek left right and center. They're almost pleading for a new TV series for Trek and Abrams has really boosted the monetary value and popularity of Trek. So we have the old fans who want to see more Star Trek on TV and want it to get back to its roots some and there's a whole new market who's become intrigued because of Abrams' film in 2009.

 

Now to pitch it to an investor I imagine would be next to impossible. I mean it's simply bad business to invest money in something that's guaranteed 0% return. On that note though, if one were trying to pursue a career in the field or something, it could potentially be argued along the lines of being able to use this project to spark interest in higher corporations such as CBS, who then decides they want you to be involved in some way on a project. Perhaps (let's think big here for a sec) they say "Chris, we saw your Trek series, you captured it well, please come make a TV series for us. In that instance you go "OK, hey, previous investor, you can be involved in this to some capacity due to your sponsoring me before. All in all, that's a super hypothetical situation and I think there's more chances of the world ending in December than that happening. So being realistic, an investor is going to turn it down or go "you've done a very good organization here and I like concepts, please make it original so that I can make money."

 

For getting people enthused, I imagine it would rely a lot on whether people like Trek a lot (perhaps have attempted their own Trek things but perhaps didn't get very far due to lack of finding other enthused Trek animators). Of course pulling some from that motivation video, there's a lot of room for personal creativity. There's room for people to create their own stories and designs within the Trek universe and have it all worked on by a group of people. So that might appeal to some I would hope. I would also hope that being able to keep the majority of their assets for personal use would be a bonus as well and then of course having a completed product within a relatively short time-frame is nice as well.

 

I'm not doing a fantastic job of advocating this I know because the conclusion I draw is you either have to be stubborn and crazy like me, or want money for it to work on a project of this magnitude. Without the money aspect being a contender, that leaves relying on a lot of crazy stubborn people. Obviously filling this in with an original story frame would make it sellable and as long as the overall story was very well crafted with intriguing concepts and the potential of some form of reimbursement, people *might* be a little more inclined to help.

 

So for sake of argument, filling in my previous pitch template with a hypothetical original plot, say it follows a mouse with super-heroic powers who fights the animal underworld crime. Now it can be pitched as an original idea and I imagine one could do surveys and pull out statistics on how large a viewership there is for this. Say it'll be a kids show or something. We can then use perhaps the pixar appeal of being able to market to kids (who in turn need their parents usually, so doubling the attendance which means doubling the profit). To add to the Pixar appeal, you make the stories fun enough for kids, but meaningful enough to parents. So perhaps they see the moral implications involved with our crime fighting mouse and the kids get basic ideas of some form of good vs evil and pretty colours and animals or something. So now it can be pitched as an idea that'll make money because the market share for crime fighting animals is huge or something (mind you I'm making this up as I go).

 

 

The short version of this is that ST:TNL can't be pitched to anybody with a shred of sanity and capitalism in their being.

 

 

 

Great feedback Gerry.

This is exactly the kind of thoughts a pitch is designed to confront the pitcher with.

 

I agree with your assessment on the Star Trek franchise.

The tradeoff of course being that when the project moves away from the familiar iconic characters those who are locked into that mode of thinking lose interest.

 

There is no question in my mind that having a product that is not branded as Star Trek is 'the correct' way to proceed.

Now, how does Chris determine which is 'the best' way to proceed?

 

It seems to me that a project like this would be ideal in one specific case: Trying to get onto the radar of the producers of the real Star Trek.

If that is the case then targeting adjustments should be made to maximize the likelyhood of success because there are a lot of folks in competition for similar attention when it comes to Star Trek.

 

Another relevant question might: What would be the effect of changing the characters and props/ships to something unique?

The first concern would be that of losing the interest that you might have already achieved.

Would your collaborating other brother from another mother pick up his laptop and walk away?

Would those who have demonstrated their support for the project turn and leave?

 

The big draw in fanfic is the shared themes.

It is harder to develop unique themes.

 

More questioning and inbetweening.

What if you were to remove all but the remotest elements of Star Trek?

In other words it is Star Trek but only to those capable of extrapolating.

Or, what if the project appeared to be fully unrelated to Star Trek until the very last (climatic) scene and even then while specifically stated?

 

There are approaches that allow for just about everything.

I do think Gerry is correct but it's your decision on how to proceed.

 

What is that old poem my grandmother was so fond of repeating? (I only remember the beginning and the ending. )

"Two roads converged in the distance... I took the path less traveled by and that has made all the difference."

 

I guess my first point to all of this is that sometime it just comes down to what you want to do. I like Star Trek, I like making Star Trek, I always have since I was a kid. I'm the type of person that drew the Enterprise on transparent pieces of plastic and tried to shine a flashlight through it to project it onto the wall. It never usually worked mind you I know that Trek is also popular amongst others and offers a lot of places in the imagination to explore and that there's already a guaranteed fan base out there for you. I mean yes, there's an element of lethargy to it as by jumping onto the coattails of a mega franchise like Trek, there's a lot of legwork you simply don't have to do because popping Star Trek into your Youtube vid title pretty much always gets you hits. So there's no need to establish a fan base or worry if anybody's ever going to see your series because it's already there. As I said, fan films are basically keeping Trek alive with the help of Abrams' film in 2009. On that note, the fans seem 100% OK with there not being original Star Trek characters in fan films. I mean what was it called, hidden Frontier or something produced 7 full seasons of fan based Star Trek web-seriesness. And by going back to the roots of Trek will only make the fans happier. Look at Red Squad even. Those are original characters and plots that drastically deviate from traditional Trek yet people are keeping up with us, we have a mini-fanbase even. Plus Red Squad even got the attention of TrekUnited about a year or so ago and they've been a tremendous help in having a promotional front for Red Squad. So I can't really see people turning away because we made our own version of Trek cause so far, that hasn't been the case.

 

As for the option of basically it being 99% original simply begs the question of why you would even bother with any sort of remote Trek-ism in the first place.

 

Now to counter your Robert Frost poem, there's a saying along the lines of "nothing new under the sun." There's the very distinct possibility that all truly original ideas were exhausted centuries ago and that all that remains now are simply variations. Just food for thought. I'll tell you this, I've had rare luck with original content and the viewership is next to non-existent, besides, I haven't any really good burning original ideas anyways.

 

So to conclude, we have to remember that this is a mock pitch, so ultimately there's no decision as to what's best that needs to be made. The template could just as easily be filled by Super Mouse there or any other idea anyone had. However it's definitely good to be fleshing out what kinds of things need to be in it to inspire other people to help, whether it be for money or for fun, because even those who use money as their carrot will undoubtedly want to be enticing people with more than just the dollars, at least I would hope. I mean that is the ultimate goal of this, to have a crafted pitch that *could* work if one actually wanted to and for it to at least have the appropriate information in it. Granted, there's always that little bit in me that would love for this to be a real call to make ST:TNL but I'm much more logical and objective than that

[Rodney]

As for the option of basically it being 99% original simply begs the question of why you would even bother with any sort of remote Trek-ism in the first place.

 

Well, given the job, I would to it for the same reason that the various Star Trek spinoffs were created and met with success; to take the original premise and exapand upon it. To extend it's relevance. To boldly go where no one could go. (Ask me about my Space Shuttle movie in the same vein as Star Trek some day and I'll relate why that while it had great potential is was fatally flawed in one significant way).

 

Now to counter your Robert Frost poem,

 

Ah, but you interpret this poem as being read from a particular perspective whereas it is open ended. Only you can supply the perspective. I believe that might have been the whole point to the poem to begin with.

 

Who is to say that pursuing the road less traveled won't keep you on the path to making Star Trek?

I certainly don't think many other people in the world would take that trek.

Should you chose to go that route, that gives you the edge.

 

Keeping in mind this is a mock pitch...

Just because Gerry is right (which he is) does not mean that fact should deter you from your quest.

There is no right or wrong decision* but making that decision will allow you (and others) to defer or commit.

That is the nature of the pitch.

 

There is only so far one can go with a mock pitch.

Why not pitch a real pitch?

 

 

*With obvious exceptions of law and intellectual property to consider. The creators of Star Trek appear to be quite open to their fan base in the making of these derivatives.

[Darkwing]

Well, time is the obvious reason not to pitch it as a real pitch. Between university and Red Squad, I have very little time on my hands. In fact I spend more time on Red Squad than I should cause I need to be studying more...but that's another story

 

So on the topic of the actual formatting an content of the pitch, how well does it work? Because this really isn't about choosing or not choosing to do it. How does this work for organization, details etc?