Hiring the right crew!

If you are producing a reality series in Los Angeles or Toronto, you won’t have an issue finding a great crew, but if you are working in an atypical television market like Dallas it might be a challenge. Fortunately, Robert knew the crew that worked on another reality series based in Dallas called Cheaters. I didn’t know much about the show, other than they seemed to hold their cameras steady and tended to stay in focus more often than not.

Robert arranged a meeting and we met the crew at Robert’s offices in Deep Ellum. To be frank, I wasn’t impressed with their youth, unprofessional dress or off color remarks. Of course, I have never really talked to a ‘crew’ before so I am not certain what to expect. Robert was running the meeting and decided they were a good fit. He asked them if they would take the job (i.e. production of the pilot episode) and they accepted. I stayed quiet.

Two weeks later Robert called me and suggested that he didn’t think the crew we hired were a good fit for the pilot. I never really got the scoop on what happened, but it didn’t seem to matter so I simply asked what his backup plan was. Robert’s landlord, a television production company called Mad River, was interested in producing the pilot and Robert told me he engaged their services for the pilot. We scheduled a test shoot and to our surprise they backed out of the project, indicating they were not confident that they could produce a reality program (their experience was with commercial work).

I began to ask myself, “is the problem them or is it us?”

We shifted our focus from finding the ‘right’ crew, to finding the right director. After interviewing several local directors with extensive experience directing commercials, I started to get worried again. How were we going to producing a reality pilot in Dallas? It turns out that very few Dallas directors had experience in reality television and the ones who did weren’t available. We could take a risk on a director without experience, but given our budget, timeframe and experience we really needed to find someone who as ‘been there, done that’ on a reality television set.

Robert was working with an agent in Los Angeles who represented a reality television director named Joe Dea. Joe was just finishing a directing engagement with NBC/Bravo for the hit reality series, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Joe is an Emmy-winning director who works primarily in the reality television genre including prime-time network specials for NBC, FOX as well as the TLC his series A Wedding Story. Joe’s reality experience includes:

Knight School with Bobby Knight - ESPN - Director
Disney Lunchtime - Disney Channel - Segment Director
Fool for Love (pilot for Fake-A-Date) - GSN / Montana Prod / Carsey Warner – Pilot Director
Rock & Roll Hotel (pilot) - VH1/Film Garden – Pilot Director
The 5th Wheel - Universal – Field Director
Mostly True Stories - TLC / Burrud Productions – Field Director / Field Producer
Weekend Flash/Man on the Street - Playboy TV – Field Director / Field Producer
Worst Case Scenario - Sony Tri Star / TBS - Field Director
Audio File - Tech TV - Host Wrap Director
Planet TV - Plant Hollywood Ent. - Chuck Cirino Productions – Director
Movies for Guys Who Like Movies - TBS /Norsemen Prod. – Host Wrap Director
Brain Attack (with Stefanie Powers) - A Doctor in Your House.Com - Director
Drive On (pilot) - Warner Bros. - Director
AXN TV - Columbia Tri Star - Studio Host Wrap Director
Extreme World Records - UPN / The Gurin Company - Host Wrap Director
The World’s Funniest Kids - Fox / Brad Lachman Prod. - Field Director
Extreme Weekend - ABC / InterSport - Field Director
Sightings - Fox / Berkley Group - Field Director
Final Vision - NBC / Greystone - Field Director
New Visions of the Future - NBC / Greystone - Field Director
Secrets Revealed - NBC / Dave Bell & Associates - Field Director
Masters of Illusion - NBC / GRB Ent. - Director
Movie Magic - Discovery / GRB - Field Director
World’s Greatest Stunts - Fox / GRB Ent. - Field & Host Wrap Director (4 specials)
MTV Music News - MTV- Field Director / Field Producer
Playboy 360 - Playboy - Field Director
Playboy Behind The Scenes - Playboy - Director / Producer
A Tribute to Ian Fleming - Robert Halmi Jr. / GRB Ent. - Director
Roller Games - Quintex - Field Director

Joe seemed like the real deal and the fact that he was available and interested was even more important. We knew we wanted to hire Joe, but we had two problems: a) he was expensive and b) he lived in LA. Robert negotiated a VERY reasonable fixed price for directing the pilot with an agreement that Joe would get first “dibs” on direction of he series should the program get picked up by a network. Almost 20% of our budget was committed to pay for Joe’s work and his travel expenses.

Of course, we still didn’t have a crew…

Entrepreneur Magazine

Entrepreneur Magazine covered our efforts to sell the MotorSport Ranch series which ultimately resulted in the sale of the pilot to INHD and the series to Dish Network (Rush HD Channel).

The article, titled “Working the Net” described how social networking sites offer entrepreneurs a chance to connect with investors, potential partners and customers. Read the full story by C.J. Prince:

Paul Allen, managing partner of business incubator Infobase Venturesin Provo, Utah, likes to help entrepreneurs with advice on business plans and raising capital. But as a frequent lecturer at business schools and conferences, he recently found himself inundated with requests. So he made a new rule: If you’re not a member of the LinkedIn network with a minimum of 10 connections and two endorsements on the site, don’t even bother calling him. “The most important thing for an entrepreneur is not necessarily what they know, but who they know,” says Allen.

Allen’s prerequisite underscores the growing popularity–and scope–of online business networking tools such as Palo Alto, California-based LinkedIn Corp. These sites allow members to build networks of friends and associates, as well as gain warm introductions to investors and potential clients. “It’s really automating and streamlining the historic word-of-mouth introduction process, which tends to be the best source of investment opportunities,” says LinkedIn member Chip Hazard, managing general partner at Boston-based VC firm IDG Ventures.

More Than Money
Beyond just bringing entrepreneurs and investors together in a trusted context, these virtual communities are helping small businesses find potential customers, board members and other strategic business partners. Spoke.com, run by Palo Alto, California-based Spoke Software, helps small companies with sales prospecting and lead generation. Tim Connors, a general partner at U.S. Venture Partners who helped found Spoke Software, realized that the speed with which a small venture could get to a decision-maker at a prospective company had a direct impact on the company’s success. “We needed to get to companies quickly and understand quickly whether there was opportunity there,” says Connors, 38. The software developed by Spoke analyzes members’ e-mail traffic to assess the strength of relationships with contacts and bring people closer through those connections.

In addition to hastening introductions, virtual networks are leveling the field by replacing costly middlemen small businesses can ill afford. Alexander Muse, co-founder of Dallas-based Hive.media, a production company developing programming for the nascent high-definition TV market, realized this benefit when he was shopping his pilot to the networks. He found that reps wanted anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 upfront, plus 50 percent of the profits from the sale. “And all they’d really be doing is making introductions,” says the 33-year-old executive producer.

Instead, Muse and his partner, Scott Ryan, 35, joined LinkedIn for free and found program directors at major cable networks and marketing folks at advertisers like BMW who have expressed interest in buying into the reality show, which follows three amateur car enthusiasts racing at 300-acre MotorSport Ranch. “It looks like those contacts will result in the sale of the program,” Muse says.

Clearly, the value of online networks has grown along with their memberships. LinkedIn, for one, has been adding 60,000 new members a week, according to vice president of marketing and co-founder Konstantin Guericke.

Muse observes, however, that the growing pool could hurt entrepreneurs. “I think, over time, it’s going to get less useful because there will be too many people connecting to too many people, so eventually, we’re all connected,” he says. Discriminating users, he adds, could help maintain the value.

Muse also points out, as do VCs, that virtual cocktail parties are not a replacement for face-to-face contact. “It’s a neat tool you can use in conjunction with your networking,” Muse says. “But if you never go to networking events and just sit in your house and play on LinkedIn, you’re not going to get anywhere. You have to know people for it to have value.”

Black Enterprise Magazine

My first conversation with the reporter from Black Enterprise Magazine was a bit awkward as I tried to explain that I wasn’t black. Of course, the reporter didn’t really care about the color of my skin, instead he was more interested in the quality of my story. Karen Jones’ story was titled, “Rubbing Elbows in Cyberspace: More professionals are connecting through online networking.” Read the full story here:

As executive producer of hive.media, an independent television production company based in Dallas, Alexander Muse knows that while creating a television series is one thing, selling it to a network is quite another. After completing the pilot for Motorsport Ranch, a high-octane series about a country club for people who love to race cars, Muse received numerous offers from “third-party consultants” asking for hefty sums, plus a percentage, to introduce him to the right people at various broadcast and cable networks.

Instead, Muse tapped into his online database of trusted contacts at LinkedIn.com, a business-oriented networking site with more than 2 million registered users. “I searched [LinkedIn] for program directors and program managers for every television network I could think of and it netted conversations with several of them,” says Muse. Though he is awaiting finalization, Motorsport Ranch is as good as sold.

Proponents of online social networking say person-to-person networking cannot compare to having access to a massive digital database of business professionals. “I have 418 of my contacts on LinkedIn.com. These 418 connect me to 1.2 million professionals. It is wild to think you can reach that many people,” says Konstantin Guericke, co-founder and vice president of marketing at LinkedIn.

An initial network of 10 people, each adding 10 more, could quickly grow to a web of 10,000 professionals. Users can search their network for jobs, services, referrals, and more. “Most people prefer to hire people from a trusted contact,” says Guericke.

Lee Green, director of the National Black Business Trade Association (www.nbbta .org), has between 400 and 500 direct contacts on the association’s online network (www.nbbta-network.ryze.com), which he moderates on Ryze.com, another business-oriented networking site. He estimates that networking on the Internet gives him access to 20,000 to 30,000 contacts. Green, a big believer in the benefits of networking, emphasizes that online networking provides “the tools to extend ourselves out to the larger marketplace.”

Meanwhile, Darren Smith, co-owner of Global Ad Marketing, a commercial printing and advertising firm, moderates the Black Business Network on Ryze.com. He says online networks like Ryze and others are excellent sites to advertise business services because “they allow you to reach a massive audience at one time.

“Networking is a key element in building relationships that enable you to gain support from friends, relatives, associates, and acquaintances to help you reach a goal or objective.”

First Sale = Break-Even

Once we gave up on selling MotorSport Ranch to a major network (ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX) we quickly realized that selling the HD rights in the United States would be a break-even affair. Our goal was to attempt to recoup production costs by selling the U.S. HD rights for 2-3 years. The deal with VOOM would just cover the ‘budgeted cost’ of 13, 60-minute episodes. The only catch was that VOOM would only pay once we delivered all 13 episodes. It took almost ten months after general photography wrap to get VOOM to accept delivery and another two months to get paid. Of course, we exceeded the budget by around 15%, which at the end of the day, isn’t that bad. So how do you make money? The real money is in international sales.

In the case of MotorSport Ranch we still own the standard definition (SD) rights worldwide and the HD rights for everywhere by North America. Your first step will be to find a distributor. I wrote about how to pick a distributor in my blog back in February here:

My partner in the project, Robert Bennett, gave me some interesting insight that I thought might be worthwhile for any of you looking to sell your a television show (i.e. one that you already have in the can).

Robert likes John Mclean Media, a solid and reliable distributor with a deep library and a set of established clients. He also suggested that we could talk to Defianace Distribution (they sell to HDNET) or Behr Entertainment. Robert explained that two of the most important factors are a) the length of time they have been in business and b) whether or not they exhibit at MIP and MIPCOM (i.e. both conferences are expensive).

Robert also explained that our existing distributor, Rainbow Media, is a real player not to be discounted. Specifically, he suggested that they can get in networks that most distributors can’t touch including top tier cable, DBS or television outlets in most of Europe. Based on my own research it would there are three tiers of distributors:

• Tier One: Giants like Sony Pictures
• Tier Two: Rainbow, Discovery and various cable outlets
• Tier Three: Mclean, Behr and Defiance

One last bit of advice from Robert was to ask a potential distributor what current titles they are representing. If they are focused on Three’s Company or I Love Lucy you might be in trouble.

Ultimately we selected John Mclean Media who presented MotorSport Ranch at MIPS in Paris this Spring. Assuming he is successful, each incremental dollar of revenue is pure profit!

Aerial Photography

In the pilot episode of MotorSport Ranch we didn’t have the budget for aerial photography and at the time HD cameras were too heavy to mount to remote controlled helicopters. One of the members of MotorSport Ranch owned a helicopter he chartered for various news organizations and offered to take our camera man up for a few aerial shots of the track and our race. While this was a great opportunity, we hadn’t planned for an aerial shoot and didn’t have the appropriate mounting equipment to fix our camera in the helicopter. We decided to go hand held and as a result very few of the shots were usable. Here are a few pictures:

The guys at VOOM insisted we have aerial shots in the series so we began looking for inexpensive solutions for aerial shots throughout the shooting schedule. It would have been cost prohibative to keep a real helicopter on the set for the entire week so we opted for a remote control option. By the time we began shooting the series, Sony had released a very small 3-chip HD camera that could film in 1080i and were we able to mount it on a remote controlled helicopter. It took two people to control the remote control helicopter; one to fly the helicopter and another to control the camera. It was interesting listening to the two operators bicker. The camera controller watched the footage via a wireless 2.4 ghz feed to his monitor. Here are a few photos of the rig: