THE REALITY OF WORKING IN NON-FICTION TV: Five Truths You Need to Know
When asked about life in television production, I’m always cautious about how honest I should be. There is a certain mystique about being in television. Travel! Your name is in the credits! Celebrities!
People make a lot of assumptions….. and as a nonfiction producer, it’s hard not to correct them. After 25 years in this world, it’s time to set the record straight.
Five truths:
YOU SEE THE WORLD, BUT YOU ARE NOT A TOURIST. I’ve been to many places across this great planet. Sometimes for shoots. Many times for meetings. London, Cannes, Los Angeles, Beijing, NYC, Edinburgh, Cairo, Austin, New Orleans…the list goes on. Except for Edinburgh and one morning in Los Angeles, I have rarely experienced these places as a tourist. No tours. No museums. Nothing. The goal is meetings or filming. This isn’t to say that I didn’t see amazing sights. My work has given me access to some great experiences. But almost all trips are exhausting: marathon days with few breaks, crushing deadlines, and a diet of coffee & adrenaline.
TALENT ABOUNDS….AT ALL LEVELS. I have worked with talented directors, producers, DPs, editors, and executives. They deserve all the kudos in the world. But I have also worked with many shockingly good line producers, researchers, archivists, audio mixers, production assistants…. You name it. It takes a whole army to get a production off the ground, and while the spotlight lands on the executives, the support team also deserves a lot of credit.
THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL IDEAS in two parts.
Part one: I can hear the guffaws through the internet. But hear me out. Almost all narratives follow familiar themes. STAR WARS: an adventure of good versus evil. DUNE: messiah tale. POOR THINGS: coming of age story. Much of the same framework exists in non-fiction as well. You have unique access, a personal soap opera, a mystery to be solved, expeditions/ adventure, and competition. This isn’t to say rules aren’t broken. They are, but the audience is also subconsciously comfortable with these frameworks. So, what is unique? The individual, the singular story, the revelation. Little ways you uniquely tell the narrative in a likely familiar format.
Part two: I must have heard 500+ ideas during my time in program development. Each idea was prefaced with you’ve never heard this before. I wish that were the case. Some ideas I heard over and over again. And it hit me: inspiration hits many people at the same time. We all absorb the latest hit show or internet fad, and we have a spark of an idea. We’re inspired at the same time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read about a new show in the trades and go, “Wait…I had that idea!” Seriously. There have been three in the past six months, including one yesterday. So, how do you make your story original when there are no original ideas? See Point 3—variations on a theme.
IT’S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD. I once brought a friend to a cocktail meeting with a producer/client. My pal is not in the biz. As the drinks were finished and we were wrapping up, she made an observation. You work in a very small world. My client and I both nodded. You would think the world would get much bigger with the television boom from 2010 to 2022. Not really. Most executives and producers are two degrees from each other. If we don’t know each other directly, we know someone who knows someone, and so on. Am I bragging that I’m well-connected? Not at all. I’m stressing that you must be cool to everyone in such a small world. That junior person who you were "forced" to pitch to? If they’re good, they won’t always be junior. They’ll be running a network or their own company before you know. A former PA of mine is now running a top company. Two AP colleagues are EVPs of networks. Another colleague runs a top distribution company. Be cool….to everyone.
WE’RE NOT RICH. This business is hard and pays well. But trust me when I say that most folks are not buying yachts or stashing money in a Caribbean bank. We rarely get to own our ideas. I have not worked with someone who has kept points or merchandising shares. We don’t get residuals if the show is on its 30th airing. We worked hard and, once upon a time, were paid well. Now, with budgets being slashed and programming slates retracting, many positions are paying less and less. You could roll the dice and produce a show on your own. That could allow you to own everything and potentially strike it big. But most of us cannot afford to—especially when the marketplace is contracting. So, most non-fiction professionals are not trying to get rich; they’re just trying to survive.
These truths won't shock many as old and crusty as me. But this may be a revelation for those new or even a few years in.
Nothing here is set in stone. We all know that non-fiction isn’t 100% true. Reality bends, twists, and morphs into a story that works for us. Make these truths work for you. To quote the brilliant Linda Hunt from the movie classic Silverado: “Life is what you make of it. If it doesn’t fit, make alterations.”
