ABSTRACT
Development is the process of originating and improving scripted material to serve as a blueprint for a TV pilot, series or feature film. It’s also the process of identifying commercial ideas and assembling the creative elements that turn those ideas into finished filmed entertainment. This chapter discusses the creative elements that Hollywood development professionals “package” into new development projects: an idea – either an original idea or one adapted from existing intellectual property – a screenwriter, a producer and potentially a director and/or a star. The chapter also looks at two fundamental, structural facts of Hollywood that are essential to understand Hollywood TV development. First, the distinction between what TV networks and TV studios do. Second, the pecking order of creative roles in the TV business versus the feature film business (it’s the opposite in TV from what it is in feature films).
