Making a TV pilot - we take a look at Gradulthood

by Startacus Admin

Plenty of people in the UK and Ireland have aspirations of making it as a writer for television. It’s a difficult business with a lot of competition and even more setbacks. It would then, be understandable that multitudes of people eventually have to give up when their lack of progress results in them not earning any money in a city where fairly important things like food and accommodation cost lots.

That isn’t though, what Will-Hall Smith did.

Rather, when he wasn’t able to secure funding for the pilot episode of his new sitcom ‘Gradulthood’ he went right on ahead and made it. It’s available to watch at the bottom of this article (contains nuts, adult themes and language)

But how did he do it?
Of course, that’s the question that directors with next to no budget are screaming at their computer right now. The answer, according to Smith, was by calling in a lot of favours. He kept it to an absolute micro-budget (which you wouldn’t be able to tell at all from the quality of the filming), found the best deals possible for the equipment he needed, used free locations to film at and filmed the majority of it in his own flat. He also had the help of his flatmate who provided the catering.

The sacrifice and determination this shows is nothing short of inspirational. How can you fail to be inspired at the raw “I’m not going to give up” attitude this evokes. It won’t be the same for everybody; if we all started making TV shows, the majority would be relegated to the back alley drudgery of channel 91 (I’ve actually no idea what is on channel 91, so take no offence if you happen to work there) on the Freeview box. But even that though, is a start – in the same way that Gradulthood’s upload to Youtube was a start. Starts are the beginning bits of the middle, and currently Smith’s video has received over 6,000 views.

He is now looking for funding to help make an entire series of the show; if you’re interested in doing so you can find more information on his website.

Written by Ethan Loughrey

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Published on: 27th March 2013