The contracts for minis could be structured such that if a mini did very well, the talent would be obligated to continue into a regular 22 episode/season series.
I think that makes scheduling too complicated -- by the time it airs, everyone's already gone off to other things. And if you're going to pay them to sit around, you might as well go ahead and film 22 episodes from the start. But I think that shorter runs would alleviate a lot of the contract issues. Right now you're trying to guarantee your cast will be available for 5 years, just in case the show is a success, because you don't want someone to hold the show hostage. You've also got to pay them more from the start because their availability for any other work is pretty severely limited.
If you're doing 10-13 episodes instead of 22, and most/all of it is written before production, the actors are there for 3 or 4 months, not 9 or 10. So if six months later you want to do another dozen episodes, you aren't making the same demands on their time.
At least, that's how it works in my head.
In order for a show to create a profit on DVD (the fat pipe model of the present), it needs one million consumers.
I wish he'd been more specific about that. In that scenario I want to know how much the show cost to make, and how much the DVDs sell for. I don't think people will pay $100 for a 30 minute recording of Strega's sock-puppet theater. The miserly jerks.
I wish he'd been more specific about that.
Go ask! He's pretty good about responding to comments.
The escape of the Global Frequency pilot seems to really have shaken his world, despite him being up on things like save our show campaigns, and Joss's ability to make
Serenity
despite the Firefly cancellation.
In discussions like these, I always go back to tomatoes.
I loathe tomatoes. Can't stand their smell, let alone their flavor. If I have to slice them, for some poor lost soul who likes them, I have to scrub my hands later until no trace of the scent is left. If by accident a piece finds its way to my mouth, I may go as far as throwing up. I really hate tomatoes.
Which is why I can never realize how anybody would like them. And yet, plenty of people can't imagine their salads without them. People with good taste, people with whom I share lots of tastes myself. I can't wrap my brain around this, but, well, there it is. Some people like tomatoes, no matter how disgusting they may be to me.
So whenever I face some feature of human taste I can't understand, I just have to remind myself that, well, it's impossible to actually understand taste - some people like tomatoes.
[Edit: this post made much more sense in my head before I actually wrote it. Oops. Sorry.]
Ah, Nilly, my tomato hating sister.
Makes perfect sense to me
(TOMATO HATER!!!)
..for group therapy
sits next to Topic!Cindy, with clipboard
mmmmm, tomatoes
fresh, ripe tomatoes
That's fine. More for the rest of us!
