As Crystal Holt (a producer and development executive) said, “The logline is the first thing I can say no to”. In fact, that single-sentence description of what your show is about can make or break your chances of a successful pitch. Writing loglines doesn't have to be a pain. While this isn’t gospel, it’s a great place to start if you’ve never written a TV bible before. Start the bible with a teaser, bridge the teaser into an explanation of the world of the show, then bring in the characters, followed by what those characters will do in the pilot, concluding by teasing what future seasons and arcs would look like. Crouch, one of the pros on the panel, shared a very useful way to structure a show bible.

If the bible, treatment, and lookbook are individual cards, the pitch-deck is your whole hand. Pitch- Deck: While often interchangeable with a bible, a pitch-deck usually is the culmination of the bible, treatment, and lookbook into a single long document. Usually, this involves using pictures from the internet or from other shows. Lookbook: A lookbook is a visual document that uses images to relay the feeling and tone of a show. This allows executives in a rush to recap their memory of your pilot script or to get a quick impression of the story. Treatment: A treatment is a prose document that retells the story of the pilot script. If an exec reads your show bible they should know exactly what kind of show you’re pitching. While every pro was careful to explain that each document’s definition can change with time and with different executives cycling through power in Hollywood, here are the general definitions.īible: A TV bible is a kind of guiding star that summarizes everything about the show as concisely as possible. If you’re not sure what the difference between these seemingly interchangeable documents are, now’s the time to learn. Learn the differences between a TV bible, treatment, pitch-deck, and lookbook

David Knoller - Executive Producer, TV Writer & Director ( HBO, Starz, FOX Television)īut if you didn’t catch the stream or don’t have time to watch the recording, here are eight key takeaways from the conversation.ġ.

Crouch - TV Writer, Creator, and Showrunner ( Amazon, FOX, CBS)

Crystal Holt - Director of Development & Scripted Programming at ( AMC Networks).

Hosted by 2019 ScreenCraft TV Pilot winner, Rachel Feldman, join these expert panelists for literally everything you ever wanted to know about how to write a TV bible: In preparation for ScreenCraft’s upcoming TV Pilot competition, we gathered four top TV industry pros together for a live stream jam-packed with vital information on how to write TV bibles, how to pitch your pilot on Zoom, what you need for a great lookbook, and all the other writing and peripheral documents you need for your pilot script.

Tv show script treatment example