So you want to write a TV movie?
The humble TV movie is at the cusp of a big change. It's time we screenwriters gave these films their well-deserved moment in the limelight.
I just got commissioned to write my fourth made-for-TV thriller feature. Yup, I’m a bonafide working screenwriter. The “working” part is an important distinction. I was just a screenwriter for over a decade before that, no qualifier. On this unpredictable, sometimes-frustrating, enriching, and fascinating rollercoaster of a career, I’ve learned a lot. Not nearly everything. But enough to start sharing with you, if becoming a working screenwriter is something you’re interested in too.
So, as I write this fourth TV thriller, I’ll take you along for the process of writing a TV movie, and give you my insights along the way. I’ll also be sharing what I’ve learned about writing and making short films, writing/directing/producing plays and screenwriting in general.
Let’s start with a lil’ primer on the genre: Made-for-TV films, MOWs (movies of the week), TV movies, whatever you want to call them, first came about in the 1960s in an effort to get cinema-goers to stay home and be advertised at. So, the first assault on cinema happened long before today’s Streaming Wars!
It made good financial sense for TV channels to give their primetime spots to films that they produced cheaply themselves. It’s also the reason that, unlike theatrical films with their more traditional three act structure, TV films have their very own 9 act structure, which is catered to the commercial breaks. What better way to keep audiences glued to their seats through the ads than a juicy cliffhanger! (Don’t worry if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I’ll break down the 9 act structure fully in a future post).
There are several sub-genres in the TV movie world: The most joked about is, of course, the Christmas or holiday movie. But there’s also rom-com, thriller, and, more recently for the streamers, horror. Regardless of the genre, these movies all have one thing in common: Low budgets.
Some of the TV films of the past were higher budget, glossier productions. 1971’s TV Movie Duel (Steven Spielberg’s second feature length film) had an estimated budget of $450,000USD, which is about $3.5m in today’s dollars. That doesn’t sound like a lot, when film budgets can reach the hundreds of millions, but compared to the budgets of today’s TV movies, that’s actually quite generous. Most TV movies now are produced relatively cheaply for under a million dollars.
Cheap, fast, good. Pick two.
TV movies are definitely cheap and fast. “Fast” for TV movies actually just helps to keep them “cheap”. Each extra hour at the end of the day or each extra day at the end of the shoot can get wildly expensive. That’s why speed is essential to keep a TV movie profitable. Preproduction for these films is around three weeks compared to the three to six months of preproduction on theatrical features. The shoots themselves are also very swift at 12-15 days, opposed to the 30 to 120 days of a theatrical film.
Booking up-and-coming actors and keeping extras to a minimum means less cost for cast. Minimizing or doubling up on locations means less expensive logistics. Eliminating the bells and whistles and explosions and car chases of theatrical features keeps production and post-production costs low. The consequence of lower budgets is, of course, lower production value… which is just a fancy way of saying “not that good”.
We had to pick two, after all, and “good” didn’t make the cut.
“It was OK, nothing special. If you have nothing better to do to pass the time, it's not a totally boring movie. [...] Oh well it wasnt [sic] a complete waste of time to watch. Just could have been a lot more authentic, but I guess that's too much to ask of so many movies these days.”
- Glowing review of my first TV movie Murder Runs in the Family
Because they are cheap and fast, TV movies have long been brushed aside as disposable fluff, created to generate revenue for networks and fill gaps in their programming. These stories have historically relied on tired old tropes and cookie cutter storylines.
Everyone knows the classic holiday movie plot of the busy city cakepop baker/overworked lawyer/beauty entrepreneur who goes to her snow-dusted hometown for the holidays and falls in love with a local carpenter/used bookstore owner/Christmas tree farmer. TV thrillers feel a lot like that, except instead of a meet-cute over cocoa, the protagonist is almost run over by a pickup truck.
So why, if these TV films are infamous for not being that good, am I so damn proud of the films I’ve written for TV?
It’s because I’m part of the wave of change that is just percolating in this genre. In today’s landscape of Prestige Television and the stiff competition from streamers oversaturated with high-quality films, even the predictable ol’ TV movie is getting a serious overhaul.
At least in the thriller space that I work in, the quality is improving year over year as these channels realize they need to go beyond the expected tropes to compete.
The themes these films address are becoming more hot-button and less “safe”. My second TV movie, Locked in My House, begins with our protagonist being sexually assaulted by her fertility doctor. From there, she decides to take justice into her own hands, by, well, locking him in her house. At the time it was made, this concept was a huge departure from the kinds of thrillers this network had been commissioning in the past.
In addition to covering new, sometimes darker and more sensitive themes, more and more, the stories the networks want to see are centering character over plot. We need to believe every character’s motivations and character needs to drive plot, not the other way around.
This is fantastic for “serious” screenwriters like me, because creating fascinating characters is why I got into this mess in the first place.
Even the formerly blameless female protagonists who are thrust into danger in these films are starting to lose their perfect sheen and are becoming a bit more human. The villains, too, aren’t just caricatures, but have layers to them that blur the line between good and evil. Being part of this shift is why I’m proud to say I write TV movies.
Hey, if Steven Spielberg could get his start in TV movies and go on to win two Oscars, why can’t I?
What’s the best TV movie you’ve seen recently? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll analyze it in a future post!
Nice post. I’ve directed a few TV movies so know where you’re coming from!!