Greenlit: Developing Factual/TV Ideas From Concept to Pitch – OUT NOW!

There are some simple principles to successfully developing and pitching your ideas, whether you are working for a global ‘super-indie’ production company, or are a documentary filmmaker pitching a passion project. The extraordinary thing is that no one will tell you what they are! Greenlit is the first book to reveal, step-by-step, how to originate, develop and pitch your factual/non-scripted TV ideas in a global market.

Get insider tips from: * 10 TV development producers – who have a combined 50+ years experience of developing and pitching ideas at all levels; * 20 senior executives who have sold some of the world’s most successful shows, to: * 16 channel executives, who between them have worked at: * 18 TV channels in: * 7 countries across 4 continents.

Greenlit is available now from Amazon and all good bookstores.

Redub Reader

Redub Reader bills itself as “an experiment in improving the way long texts are read on screen.” Just one edition old, it takes articles that Redub’s founders found difficult to read online and put them in a ‘reader’ that allows you to scroll sideways instead of down, to read text arranged in newspaper-like columns. Features [...]

Help a Reporter Out

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a free service for journalists who need to get information or sources. Since it launched in March 2008,  more than 30,000 journalists have used the resource and are now sending 3000+ requests for info to more than 100,000 sources.

Addict-o-matic

If you want a fast way to research a subject without having to trawl through lots of websites or, god forbid, actual real newspapers and magazines (all that dirty newsprint), visit Addictomatic, which is searchable and indexed into a number of themes, including business, TV, politics, parenting, fashion and gadget among others. Click on a [...]

New York Times Article Skimmer

Here’s a handy way to cut down your newspaper reading time without missing something vital: The New York Times Skimmer, which rather handily sorts the news into sections and displays the headlines in an easy to scan grid. You can skim your news according to newspaper section, topic or browse the blogs.

JournalistExpress – Research Resource

JournalistExpress is a useful site aimed at helping journos find and stay on top of breaking news. It doesn’t look fancy, but you’ll find links the broadcast media, online press and newwires as well as a range of research sources from databases, stats, maps and encyclopedias.

Foreign Newspapers

If you need to research stories in another country, Indekx is a quick way to find foreign newspapers that you can access online. Click on the flag of the country (helpfully placed on a world map, in case your knowledge of world flags is a little rusty), and you’ll be given a number of newspaper [...]

Experts and Interviewees – USA

Radio-TV Interview Report is a free magazine that is published every two weeks and lists  100-150 US-based experts and interviewees on a variety of subjects from business to parenting, pets, relationships and war. The experts credentials are listed such as published works or previous TV appearances, along with their email and phone numbers.  You can [...]

David Lynch on the Value of Keeping Random Ideas

David Lynch has just launched David Lynch TV which has short video tips on film-making and also explores transcendental meditation as a tool to help young people deal with stress and aggression. There is a really short clip in which he talks about developing ideas. Watch it here (and substitute ‘idea’ for ‘film’). The lesson [...]

Online mind mapping

Bubbl.us is an interactive online mind-mapping tool that you can use to create mind maps, collaborate with other people in your team, save as an image and email and print.
It’s really easy to get started, but you need to create an account if you want to save or share your work.