Developing Factual Ideas

Copyblogger Articles You Need to Read Before You Write Your TV Proposal: Part II

By Nicola Lees ⋅ January 30, 2010 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ ⋅Post a comment

(Photo by AuthenticEccentric CC BY- SA 2.0)

Copyblogger named by The Guardian as one of the World’s 50 Most Powerful Blogs is a site all about marketing online content, but you can adapt the principles to help you write your TV proposal. In the second of this three-part series on turbocharging your development skills we look at some article that will help your proposal grab a buyer’s attention (click on the titles to read the full article):

1. How to Be Interesting - In order for your proposal to stand out, your idea must be outstanding. When developing your idea ensure you are offering something new and not just adding to the noise. Here are 21 ways to make your idea (and your proposal) different from those that have gone before, such as: tell a good story; break news; solve a problem or add irreverence.
2. Five Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post With a Bang – Commissioning executives receive dozens of proposals for new TV shows every week. Most spend only about 30 seconds reading each one before deciding whether they are interested or not; that means you have to grab their attention in the first paragraph. This article describes five techniques you can use to draw them in and make them want to read more, including the use of a question, statisitics and analogies.
3. The Flashing Christmas Light Technique for Writing Irresistible Bullet Points – After reading your first paragraph, it’s likely your potential buyer will scan the rest of your proposal for interesting information. One way  you can make the key information stand out is to embolden certain words; another way is to use bullet points, which have the advantage of breaking up the page with white space, which is easier on the eye than blocks of text. In this article you’ll learn how to write effective, eye-catching bullet points.

Don’t forget to read Part I and Part III in this series.

Get more proposal writing tips in Greenlit: Developing Factual/Reality TV Ideas From Concept to Pitch

Nicola Lees (6814 Posts)

I have worked in the media - radio & TV, production and post-production - for more than fifteen years. I have extensive experience as a TV development producer, and have originated, developed, written and pitched proposals for award-winning documentaries, docu-dramas and interactive TV events for a range of UK and US channels, including BBC, Discovery, TLC, Travel Channel and Science Channel. I'm the founder of TVMole.com, a website that provides industry intelligence to help TV professionals and aspiring filmmakers get their programme ideas commissioned. I've written two books for Methuen Drama/Bloomsbury: Give Me the Money and I'll Shoot! Finance Your Factual TV/Film Project (2012) Greenlit: Developing Factual / Reality TV Ideas From Concept to Pitch (2010) I've produced industry panels for Televisual's Intelligent Factual Festival (2010) and am a regular speaker at universities and film festivals (e.g. Sheffield Doc/Fest, Open City Docs Fest, Northern Nights Film Festival, Televisual Intelligent Factual Festival, Broadcast Video Expo). I've served on several film festival juries, including: FD4W International Film Festival, WFTV Awards, Northern Nights Film Festival and TV Collective Film Night at Portobello Film Festival.