The Director

We knew we wanted to hire Joe, but we had two problems:  1.  He was expensive and 2. He lived in LA (with all of the other reality TV directors - I now understand why everyone goes to LA to shoot television shows). 

Bob was able to negotiate a VERY low, fixed price, for the pilot with an agreement that Joe would get first “dibs” on direction of a series if we were able to sell it.  20% of our budget was committed to pay for Joe and his travel expenses.

I was really surprised how much Joe did - I am still not sure ALL directors do as much - but he was inolved with the creative process - creating a storyline - complete shot lists - direction of the actors (i.e. non-actors) and the rough cut of the show.  Joe’s experience with reality television was a key factor in our program.

Now we still had to select a crew - since Joe was from LA he did not have a preference on the team we would ultimately select.