Tue, 2020-Oct-13 21:11 (BST)
Hi all!
I just finished writing up my first story bible, and the thought came to me- how important is this, and how is this often used? I've seen various writers (mostly for TV) discussing how essential it is in the pitching process to have a tight, smart series bible- sometimes it can be more important than the spec pilot script. Regardless, I wanted to know if any of you have had experience working on story bibles, what you found beneficial about it, and how practical you think a story bible would be overall? Any advice is, of course, appreciated.
It is indeed more important than a pilot script itself. In fact, I know of well established showrunners who advise NOT sending a pilot at all as it can look amateurish. If you check my IMDb, you'll see the kind of showrunners I'm connected with.
If you think about it terms of a feature, a pilot is like submitting the first ten pages of the script and the bible is like submitting a treatment. Imagine only sending the former and how pointless that would be. Now think about which of those two you'd rather send, which of them really sells the story itself.
I'm very happy with the bible I put together for my State Reserves concept which I based on bibles sent to me be a producer and can be viewed here.
But how can I send the script to the actual producer or director to be viewed so it gets it wings and legs to run to the theater?
Well, you could start by actually listing your scripts on your profile since that's what Script Revolution is to here to help make happen.
C.J - It is indeed more important than a pilot script itself. In fact, I know of well established showrunners who advise NOT sending a pilot at all. Yes, the Bible is more important than the pilot. A series show of 18 episodes per season of 3 = the plot been at a ratio of 1 to 54. For me, I think its important for the writer to write the pilot. I believe it'll give for a better written Bible. When writing the Bible, write the pilot into the Bible as if you did not write the pilot. And at least if they ask you if you have a written pilot? You can send it to them.
Absolutely. It's never a bad thing to have a pilot on file. The mistake people make is they put 80% of their energy into the pilot and 20% into the bible when it should be the other way around. Major network TV is just brutal. They're looking for ideas that can just keep going and going and will be prepared to not only completely change your material but likely not even include you in the process.