Writing a pilot episode.
A post-mortem on pilot-episode writing, science fiction adventures, and why your brain will always talk shit behind your gut’s back.
Once upon a time there was space adventurer, a hero, a hired gun named Ostro. Every day, he would accept dangerous and exciting missions from KRONIN, an ancient, sentient computer who rules the galaxy. KRONIN is committed to making the universe a calmer, simpler, generally comfier place. Ostro is his weapon of choice in accomplishing that goal. One day KRONIN tells Ostro they have found the location of a legendary rebel leader. Now, Ostro has to arrest the one person he never thought he would have to; his own mother. He accepts the mission, and completes it.
Because of his decision to side with KRONIN, the adventurer Ostro soon after has a crisis of faith. This is where our story starts; with Ostro breaking into his comrade and mentor KRONIN’s complex, to rescue his mother Evelyn, the same mother he himself recently kidnapped. She’s pissed.
This was the original concept for a pilot episode of “The Exhibition,” a series that will be launching shortly on Telus Storyhive. You’ll be able to watch it in about a week from the time this goes up, and in the interim I’ve got a few thoughts on the process of writing it — a post-mortem, which usually begin with relentlessly crapping on oneself before putting on rose-coloured glasses in the last moments. This will be no exception.
The project was to produce a pilot for a web series produced for Telus Storyhive with one of fifteen 10k grants they gave content creators around the province. Our pitch was to produce an animated anthology sci-fi series. We decided to make the first one look like an episode from a fictional Flash Gordon-esque space adventure. I’m going to talk about what worked in the development, story and writing phases of the project, and rail on some things I did wrong, but I promise the final product is a fun ride and you should all check it out. The team who made — actors, animators and producers, are stupidly talented and made something that’s a lot of fun to watch. I’m very proud of what we did.
Now, commence the crapping.
The original draft of the Pilot episode of the Exhibition was long. Notably long when you consider the eight minute run time we had to stay under. I wish I could say I knew intellectually that this first draft was just that — a draft. That I was acutely tuned into a “creation is subtraction” kind of mindset and planned on finding the story in the script.
Nope, totally thought we could fit 20-some pages into eight minutes. This is because I talk fast, a fatal flaw when you can make lengthy dialogue sound kind of natural coming out of your face. I was convinced actors could fit all this dialogue because I could fit the dialogue. This was not true. An actors goal is not to get the words to fit in the time you need to make them fit; it’s to deliver a performance.
In the end, my two collaborators helped whittle away every stray bit of fat on this thing. They did awesomely, and put up with my hesitation to murder my darlings. The results worked — though it’s what I would call an unforgivingly concise story. There are very few lines out of place, which dials up the risk of the audience missing something. I’m happy with the final product, in general and with the story as a whole, but I think this thought brings me to the single biggest lesson I learned in writing this:
I don’t like the idea that you can miss the meaning of the story by missing a single line of dialogue.
And this flaw, I would argue, is a byproduct of a writing approach that is A. endemic, and B. Something I’ve been guilty of. For the last several projects I’ve been writing taking an approach that story can just be illuminated through what the characters say, despite the fact that every writing instructor worth their salt as been saying not to do this for… forever. I learn by experience I guess (re. stubborn). I think in general, we could have tried telling a story purely with visuals, and used dialogue when absolutely necessary to bolster what was going on. Does that maybe mean we would have had to revise what made the story tick? Probably, and I think it’s important to be okay with that. I was watching too many sitcoms when writing this and became complacent with dialogue as a crutch for forward momentum.
It’s an easy cycle to fall into. You find a story you like, and you know you can tell it via dialogue. I mean, it’s exposition — what can’t you expose that way? I think the trick is committing not to the story, but how you want to tell the story.
That story is the one at the start of this post. I liked the weighting of it — a cocky space adventurer put in his place by his no-bullshit mother. And I think it worked. I think that relationship is there, even if so much of what gave that relationship life was locked in dialogue we had to cut. The result has some things I love and some things I don’t. I love that relationship. I really do. I still think it’s interesting and unconventional. I like how goofy grown men act around their mothers — all the insecurities that emerge, all the comfort they take in the stability of the relationship. And taking an archetype like the Flash Gordon/Han solo badass and placing it in that context? Fun.
I also like the idea of a person being too obtuse to realize they’re propaganda. It’s all there, in the episode we made, and I’m really proud of that. The actors killed it. The animator brought it to life. The music gives it space to play out.
In short, I like the episode. Everyone involved did amazing, often thankless work that really shows on screen. This extends to the script; I think it’s solid and concise. What I would have done differently is weird and amorphous and tough to put into words, but I would have tried to write a silent film, and when the characters had to talk, I would have tried harder to write characters, rather than performances. This is a scary thought, because in order to do so you have to be constantly coming up with ideas for things that happen. Not things people have to say to illuminate stuff that’s already happen; actual in-the-moment action.
When I reread that plot summary at the start of this post, I notice that a lot of the story of Ostro and Evelyn starts before the plot of the episode starts. I wanted to tell a story of reconciliation, pathos, all that junk, and knew I could squeak past the backstory with dialogue. I knew this intellectually, and argued it, but my gut agreed with collaborators who were pushing in a less dialogue hinged direction. Then, my brain disagreed with my gut, which is never ideal.
I’m really glad my gut wasn’t confident enough to convince my head of what was best, because if I had we wouldn’t have gotten this specific version of this specific story in this specific episode — which I’m very proud of, even if I want to be better moving forward. I like what works, and I kind of like what doesn’t work. I like that even with everything cut, it’s still a 90 minute movie’s worth of plot in like, six minutes. It’s big and ambitious and if you’re really paying attention, a lot happens, and it’s all right there for you to pick up if you want it.
It’s an episode that rewards the attentive.
In the future however, I’ll be following these two new rules; when you’re working in a visual medium, try to tell a story you could understand with your ears plugged.
Also trust your gut when your gut trusts the smart people around you.
PS. “Trust your gut when your gut trusts the smart people around you,” sound like it could be shortened to “trust smart people,” which you should obviously never do. We’ve all seen House of Cards. Trust no one. Satch.
