I watched the series premiere of On The Lot last night on Fox. It’s similar to the American Idol or The Apprentice but instead of trying to discover the next great singing star or business tycoon, they’re trying to discover the next great film director. In most ways it’s just a carbon copy of every other post-Survivor, elimination-style reality television competition. But despite its formula-driven structure, I was looking forward to it because of my interest in the subject. Yes, my background is television and not film but it’s all the same. Creative concepts, compelling scriptwriting, field and studio production that never goes exactly as planned, and then piecing it all together in post with editing and effects.
I’m not going to give a full review of the show but I liked it. They started with the basic task of devising and delivering an origininal story pitch from an assigned one-sentence log line. It was immediately evident that many of the 50 contestants were way over there head. They may be great directors but some of them evidently couldn’t come up with a creative story concept on their own to save their life. Sixteen hopefuls were sent home in the first round. Their next task is to write, produce, and edit a two-minute short within 24 hours.
The last television-oriented tv show I liked was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It started off great but soon fell completely apart when they strayed far away from their main subject of producing a SNL-type show. Instead of behind the scenes, we got ridiculous character reversals, sappy soap opera love triangles, and subplots that nobody cared about but continued week after week. I didn’t mean to get off subject but I just hope On The Lot fairs better than Studio 60, which was canceled in mid-season.
