Watch the entire presentation – Worry and Wonder | The Courier Thirteen Podcast | Episode # 29 here
Transcript:
Yeah. It doesn’t even — they don’t have to like your story. If they like you they can bring you and you know that’s the other thing that happens — if they like you but they don’t buy your story, your pitch, whether, it’s a tv show or a movie whatever it is but they have a book that they have bought their rights to and they want someone to come in with what is your idea and how this book will work. That’s when they’ll go oh I really like working with you. I really feel a connection to you. Go home and think about this and come back in a couple weeks and tell me how you would attack this and maybe you’ll get that gig. So that’s what you’re trying in a meeting if nothing else happens or you know I ended up doing that Picket Fences episode because I had temped on a show that Jeff Melvoin was an executive — that time he’s a supervising producer — and so we met for like two weeks and he read something of mine and he was impressed and we stayed in touch. It was four years before he got the job where he could hire me. One, two-week job gave me a story — a script — four years later. You gotta always think about the future of the relationships that you’re making.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
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