Pilots and Prototypes

I love to watch old TV shows, I've said this probably a million times.  Whenever I watch them I usually find some structure or an order to watch them in.  For example, watching the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons back to back at Halloween, or watching every Christmas special of a series around Christmas time.  For some series however I like to watch them start to finish.  Whenever I've finished the show in its entirety I will leave it for weeks or months or even in some cases for years before I watch them again, to give the memory time to fade just a little and allow the content to remain engaging.

Whenever you go back and watch a series from start to finish however, you often get to see the progression and the evolution of the production value change over time in a condensed period that brings up new levels of scrutiny.  In particular for shows which made their pilot episodes public, you get to see how the concept was reworked, and in some cases that is quite drastic.  Sex And The City is one of my favourite old TV shows, but every time I go back to the beginning to rewatch it all, the first season always throws me initially.  For those that have never watched it, in the first series there are soliloquies made by Carrie played by Sarah Jessica Parker which are played out on screen with the character herself looking directly at the camera and speaking to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall.  This was abandoned after the first series, relying from then on upon the disembodied voice of the narrator, still voiced by Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie but not directly to the viewer.  These narratives are framed as her writing for her column in a newspaper so even with narration it's incorporated into the plot, not directed at you in a way that breaks the fourth wall.

Pilots are usually one episode in a series, they are a proof of concept, a prototype if you will, and like most prototypes they are only intended to show the concept works, they're not intended to be the final product.  Indeed the final product often ends up looking nothing like the prototype and the final production often ends up looking almost nothing like the pilot.  Sex And The City is an example of what I would call a pilot series, where the first series, or season if you prefer, is in itself the pilot.

It's always interesting to see the origins of the things we like, but in a way that acknowledges the evolution rather than trying to create prologues and prequels to shoe horn in later to explain away that which was eventually accepted as cannon.  As pilots have evolved as a concept over the years however, there is less tolerance for a lack of polish when it comes to the first production.  If you want a series to be picked up now, the first episode must be representative of the series as a whole, that puts a lot of pressure on those making it to create a final product without the resources they would have if it were already picked up.  It also makes it difficult to continue producing it at the same level as the pilot even after it is picked up, without compromising the integrity and continuity by the greater abundance of resources that become available.  In other words you need to be consistent from the jump.  There's no understanding or tolerance from the viewer or the studio, or anyone else of the fact it's only a pilot.

The same idea has been gathering traction outside of the entertainment industry.  We live in a time where venture capital has never been more accessible both through traditional avenues and through innovative means such as crowd funding.  Nevertheless that same expectation of gloss and polish persists, no-one wants to see a prototype, they want a final product from the start.  The trouble with this mentality, just as with the entertainment industry is that often the bulk of the budget is spent on the first production, and the existing resources and techniques and research that was compiled for it is reused for the mass production phase.  Meaning if there's a 95% / 5% split in first versus mass, then if you can actually produce the first product then arguably you don't need the mass production funds.  This is why despite the prevalence of venture capital and its accessibility, approval still remains low.  There is still a barrier to entry.

The only solution to this problem which people end up pursuing most often is to use marketing, and specifically sales teams, to try and pitch the idea in a convincing way without having a prototype or pilot at all.  As you can imagine, this is incredibly difficult and that is why this isn't as widespread despite the cost being much lower, it relies entirely on psychology, and persuasion.  So the question becomes, how capable are you at selling your idea?