The essential element to ‘Drop The Pilot’ was to develop the pilot for a TV show in the setting of a prototypical writers’ room. As a class, we learnt about the industry-standards (including formatting and vocabulary) and the overall writing process, from building a world/hub form the ground up to differentiating character voice. During this time, we were often placed into smaller groups which would eventually bring each element together, producing the hypothetic show, Behind Bars.

For one of our assignments in which we were split into smaller groups, we each focused on one element of a pitch deck. Particularly the group that focused on ‘Tone and Style’ had a very thought-out and clear presentation. Within their presentation, they gave real life comparisons, such as BeDevil (1993) and The Castle (1997), illustrating the atmosphere of our show. Similarly, as our show happens to have a large barrel, they gave examples of Australia’s iconic big things, such as ‘The Big Strawberry’. Stand-out in their presentation was their creation of a Spotify playlist, including songs from David Bowie to Coldplay, to Talking Heads. I think this really brought together the tone of Behind Bars in an in incredibly unique way.

Another stand-out presentation, was that of the ‘Characters’ group. In their presentation they wrote character profiles, traits, and arcs, and even gave real life comparisons to each character. For example, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh were used visuals for Shaz and Paddy, our main pair of hooligans.

Much like many other studios (couldn’t pick one), I think ‘Drop The Pilot’ focused mostly on the importance working in collaborative groups and will ultimately help myself and others in the big open world that is ‘media’. And, initially, the group-work in this studio was daunting and did seem like ‘the ultimate group-work nightmare’, but as our show developed and we started bouncing-off each others’ ideas, wasn’t quite so nightmarish. As afore mentioned, I think this studio really shows the importance and ability of teamwork and collaboration, because even in doubts that we wouldn’t end up with a finished pilot, everyone (I think) chipped in to produce a clever, comedic, and unique TV show pilot. Moreover, I think this studio was successful in answering its question(s): How do teams of ‘staff writers’ develop episodic screen stories from concept to pilot script? And what can these processes teach us about narrative structure, collaboration and series worth bingeing?