Pilot: Zero

Failure Is An Illusion

Hello and welcome to entry number one of my attempt at documenting my venture into creating, producing, and hopefully eventually selling my own animated, comedy series. I initially thought it might be a good idea to document the process via YouTube, but then I remembered I hate being on camera. Hence why I’m an animator and not an actor. We’ll talk more about that later.

The main points I would like to focus on with this blog (if you can call it that) is the process of taking a show all the way from conception to production, following every up and down along the way. I should note as a disclaimer, I will not be stating the title, plot, or be showing any artwork from my pitch. This may sound counter productive, but given how early on I am in the process, I have to keep these things under wraps for the time being. Hopefully this will change soon.

I love writing pitches, scripts, and loglines for new show ideas. It’s one of the many reasons I got into animation in the first place! What many people don’t realize, is that like most things in this world, it is a numbers game. It is a hard pill to swallow, but you can’t become too attached to the work you produce, especially if you plan on eventually selling your idea.

The idea I will be focusing on in these entries is one I cobbled together during the pandemic. I was living back home with my parents on Long Island at the time, and suddenly a new idea struck me while in the bathroom one day. It wasn’t anything I felt particularly passionate about, though that’s not to say I didn’t incorporate much of my own life experiences as I often do. I still felt it was worth putting something together, because ya never know! For a while, I would work on this pitch during my weekly, Zoom, Drink N’ Draw meetings with friends, which I still attend to this day. I saw it more as an idea for kids, which is a departure from the demographic I usually aim for, but at the same time, I felt it may be something good to send into Frederator Studios. So that’s exactly what I did! They passed. I wasn’t totally surprised, but what I truly appreciated was the time they took to critique my work and give me a whole slew of notes, which I made sure to incorporate.

Fast forward about a year or so, and I have moved back to Atlanta. Many things have happened in my life to bring me to the point of moving back as well as honing my writing skills and making more industry connections. I happened to come across a competition that Nickelodeon was holding at the time to submit pitches. In a very ‘throw caution to the wind’-type manner, I decided to submit my pitch, which had already been rejected once. The holidays roll around, my parents are in town visiting, and I receive an email while at an improv show. It was the results of the Nickelodeon competition! I was once again rejected, BUT I was also told I had made it into the top 15%! I was immediately ecstatic! This was the best rejection letter I had ever received! Imagine if I actually refined the pitch to something I was proud of?

Fast forward even more! I had mostly forgotten about this pitch entirely. The show I was working on (Archer) had ended, the entire industry was/is going through an overhaul, and things are looking bleak for many of us. One evening, right before I was supposed to go out to commiserate with former coworkers of mine (kidding, we were just going to watch a movie and play darts), I receive a text from an old friend who also happened to end up working in entertainment. In an essay of a text message, he states that he is friends with a voice actress and her producer fiance. They’re looking for another animated project for the voice actress to be a part of, and my friend had told them about me and my experience. With less than ten minutes to spare before I had to walk out the door, I call my friend immediately for more details.

I start racking my brain for any ideas that I could maybe send his way to be considered by this voice actress and producer. I had been working on a script at the time, which was super meta, autobiographical, and just plain bad. For some reason I felt quite passionate about it. Right before I was about to hit ‘send’ on the email, I remembered the pitch I had sent to Frederator and Nickelodeon. I throw it into the email along with the autobiographical script and send it off. I’ll let you guess which idea my friend decided to forward. Let the waiting game begin!

I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how to end something like this, or even how long these posts should be. Are you tired of reading? I still have more to this story before I make my way to present day, but I feel like you as the reader could probably use a break, right? Alright, anyway, like I said; “let the waiting game begin!”