Jad Adams, author of the classic Tony Benn: A Biography, has written for The Society of Authors' journal, The Author, on the dos and don'ts of approaching commissioning editors. Here we present a selection of the best bits:
Do: Flatter
Better than film-making skills, a brilliant proposal or hitherto unimagined access to a subject is a simple quality: a personal relationship with the commissioning editor. As in the Mogul court, the best practitioners are those who have learned the art of flattery and subtle pulling at the threads of influence. Learn something about your commissioning editor that you can remark on e.g. ‘a superwoman like you with a child and a high flying career…’ Actually she had the child only because she had her eye on the head of children’s TV job and it looked better to have a mum in the post, but let that pass.
Do: Be nice
Always be especially kind to the little people, the work experience folk and the production secretaries, taking care particularly over those annoying ones who act as if they already know it all and who make helpful suggestions when they have been in the office all of a week. The chance is that in an alarmingly short period you will see them again, as commissioning editors, and they will be rather better dressed than you are.
Do: Be positive
Learn to greet every new appointment in the commissioning departments with a joyous exclamation, thus: Splendid! Just what we needed, another level of management in the commissioning process! Congratulations, if anyone is right for the job you are!
Don’t: Innovate
The adored commissions are those that imitate successful programmes from another channel. You must learn to watch television with the eye of a magpie: take what glitters and fashion it into a pretty thing, almost identical to a programme already, made that the commissioning editor has coveted, but with a minute difference that you can play up. Usually this is the same thing as before, but with added celebrities. Remember Viz magazine’s take on Through the Keyhole, where they put a hidden camera in famous people’s toilets and asked members of the public to guess the celebrity arsehole? Coming soon to a television set near you.
Good luck, you will need it.
You can read the full article by subscribing to The Author.