The Pitch

At the beginning of each of the past few years, I have been focused on trying to get writing projects ready to pitch. Two years ago, I had several projects that I was preparing to pitch before concerns for a family member took precedence and I shelved them for much of the year as I focused on doing what I could to help. Last year, I had three projects that I was preparing before the WGA strike took the wind out of my sails. 

The past few years have been frustrating as far as writing. That said, I have streamlined my approach this year. While I can always fall back and talk about several projects, my main focus has been on one TV series. It is a project a few years in the making. That extra time has actually helped mold this project into something quite unique. 

While I have not used AI to write this story, the continuous advancements of AI helped me think beyond the conventional norms of a TV series to create something I was definitely not thinking about when I first envisioned what this series could be several years ago. I, of course, cannot go into much detail here about the story or explain exactly how it is different from most TV series, but I will do my best to tell you as much as possible. 

What I can say is that if this thing gets green-lit it will change how we view TV shows. I'm not saying that because I'm some arrogant jackass who thinks too much of himself. I say that because of all the technological advancements over the past few years and the way I have shaped the story to work with those advancements. In some way, it was a total fluke the way things worked out with this story. 

First, I created a fictional location where several different stories could take place. Those who have been reading my blog for a while will know that I love to blend stories together to tell an even larger tale. Initially, I was focused just on the one story in the possible anthology. Wrote the pilot script, the series bible, and the pitch deck and even began to pitch it as this one-off story. Then I had someone take a protracted interest in another story that I wrote pre-pandemic. Did a bunch of rewrites on that before things ultimately fell through.

When I returned to this anthology series, I began work on another story inside the same universe. Wrote the pilot, the series bible, and the pitch deck. At this point, I had two separate stories set inside the same universe. The way I was describing it was in comparison to American Horror Story. 

Then came 2022, and I was preparing to pitch both of these stories separately and as a package. This was when I affectionately started to call it the Super Series because of how big the world had become. Little did I know that was only the beginning. 2022 was also the same year I had to help out someone in the family with going through their massive trading card collection and put things on hold for several months. While it was tedious work I came to understand a lot about the hobby and learned about interactive media, which would help shape the way I would go on to think about the Super Series. It was also the time I started to think about a third story in the anthology series. 

Remember, originally, these were all meant to be standalone stories, each with its own season or seasons, but all set in the same location. Then 2023 and the WGA strike threw another year to pitch into disarray. It did however give me a chance to think. One of the things I thought about during last year was a true Super Series where all three of these stories are combined into one season. 

Now I had created a bible for two of the three stories by that point and had begun work on the third when the strike hit. So, I had plotted out a season plus for each of the three stories. My challenge was to whittle it all down to the bare essentials for all three of the stories to be told in a handful of episodes instead of a full season for each. 

Here is where I had several formatting ideas. I won't go into the specifics here but I will say that I have a fondness for movies and am often frustrated when shows don't take the opportunity to do a one-hour-plus episode at times. Game of Thrones was one such show. There were times during that series when we would get a 59-minute episode or even a hair over one hour and we would all be so excited and beg for even longer episodes. And then the following week we would get a 42-minute episode and feel cheated. 

Let's just say that I took that into consideration when creating the Super Series with three stories intertwined during one season. The TV series Lost was one of my favorites. It had a pilot episode that was so long that they had to break it up into two episodes. That was on ABC so you can understand why they did not want to air a movie-length pilot episode. If it had been on a streaming service, they may still have tried to make it two episodes but they may have released them on the same day. I would have preferred a single two-hour movie event.

As last year and the WGA strike rolled on I became more and more aware of AI and the rapid advancement in technology. A writing friend of mine asked during the strike if I had any ideas for a podcast. Seeing as he had helped me write the pilot for the first story in the series, I mentioned that in the second story of the season, there were these two secondary characters who had a radio show that the main character listened to. Needless to say, there is now a fourth story in this universe and the radio show has become a podcast.  

While writing that fourth story in the series, and as the strike waged on and as the AI updates continued to flow last year, I could not help but see how a fictional podcast separate from the main televised series could be part of a transmedia experience that adds more depth and potential fan interest in the entire series universe. Again, so much of this had not been planned when I first imagined this series, but it has been wonderful to see how it has developed into something that truly is greater than the sum of its parts. 

With all four of those stories in place, I had to create a new series bible and pitch deck to reflect the scope of the Super Series I had created. So, after finishing the January re-release of Michaelmas with illustrations, I put my energy towards the pitch documents. That was when the most game-changing idea struck me. While I cannot go into too much detail, let's just say that if people want to find a series with more content that they can interact with then this series will be geared for them. 

Ever since last Spring, I have been keeping up with all of the changes in AI. Not only were the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America wanting to protect themselves from AI taking their jobs but they were preparing the world for how much things were going to change in every industry. AI is not just good at predicting the next token it can digitally clone people's voices and images. But it does not stop there, not even close. So when Apple released the Vision Pro and I saw how people were using it I started to think of other ways to augment the Super Series. 

While AI would be needed to help make some of the interactive aspects possible in this series it could not have come up with this story. No way. Could it create the plot for the next CSI spinoff? Maybe. But not a series like this. I know a lot of people are afraid of AI and some hate it with a passion. A lot of those people work in the film and TV industry and are worried AI will take their jobs. How I would incorporate AI into this series would be implemented once filming was done. With an interactive experience that would not cost any jobs, which is key for me at this point. 

This project is super ambitious, but if it clicks it will click in a way that could not only entertain the hell out of people but also bring us into a new era of storytelling. I cannot wait to share more with you. Wish me luck.