• by Paul Gough , July 2, 2003

Think of it as a pilot of pilots. That's the pitch for a half-hour pilot called TV Lab that will air by the end of the year on Sundance Channel.

TV Lab, developed jointly by Sundance Channel and Viacom Productions, will offer both the known but not famous and unknown producers the chance to create short-filmed pieces that could end up as a television series. Each segment will be introduced by the creators who will pitch the audience (and the industry) in an effort to get the green light.

Larry Aidem, president and chief executive officer of Sundance Channel, said TV Lab won't be a showcase for short films, a genre that is familiar to the 17 million subscribers of the premium, digital-tier channel.

"These are distinctly mini-pilots," Aidem said. "The presumption is that there is a series idea, a kernel of something that would allow itself to go beyond the three- to six-minutes of the mini-pilot itself."

In other words, the ideas have to have legs.

The pilot business is a serious one in the TV industry. It's the preferred method of sifting through a myriad of ideas, with each broadcast network, for example, giving as many as 20 or more pilots the chance to compete for a half-hour or one-hour slot on the fall or midseason schedule. But it's a tough business, with a high failure rate, and a pilot is where a lot of ideas for TV shows go to die.

Sundance Channel wants to put a different, creative spin on the concept, befitting its standing as a seven-year-old network with a brand that showcases the best in independent filmmaking. The Sundance Institute, the Robert Redford-founded organization where the channel gets its name, has been conducting filmmaking labs for two decades. The labs combine creativity and an atmosphere of risk taking - where failure is taken as part of the price of admission. Aidem wants to bring that experience to Sundance Channel, "to the TV environment that we live and breathe every day."

Perry Simon, president of Viacom Productions, said that his company works day-to-day to find fresh ideas that develop into good TV. "We're always asking ourselves, how do we try to branch out, to be more resourceful and think outside the box," he said. Simon turned to Aidem, a college roommate, and this partnership between Sundance and Viacom Productions was struck. The parent company, Viacom, is managing partner of the Sundance Channel.

"Our goal specifically is to work with them to identify new talents who might have unique, fresh voices to create and produce and write new television series," said Simon. He said television had, in recent years, become more open to new voices.

"TV Lab is taking that to the next level," he said.

Sundance Channel extended the invitation to submit pilot ideas to the general public, and it's getting a good response through its Website. It's also soliciting ideas from independent filmmakers who might not have worked in television before but could see the possibilities of bringing that creative sensibility to the small screen. TV Lab producer Jim Czarnecki, who produced Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine among other projects, is running the show.

"He's got quite a Rolodex of people he's worked with in the past," said Aidem.

TV Lab, beyond an avenue for creativity for people who might not have a chance to do any kind of pilot, has an end in itself. Viacom Productions, one of Sundance Channel's partners, has the right of first refusal on any ideas they deem worthy of developing. Sundance Channel has the next chance to develop something with series potential and then there's always the open market. Viacom Productions' current series include Ed (which will enter its fourth season on NBC in the fall), The Division (one of Lifetime's top-rated dramas) and two new shows, Jake 2.0 on UPN and The Handler on CBS.

The trial nature of the pilot extends to TV Lab itself. The half-hour pilot, in production now, may become a regular series on Sundance Channel or it may not. While Aidem didn't commit to going beyond TV Lab's one planned show, he also said that any pilot development at all means a lot at a network with a limited budget like Sundance Channel. Success will be judged on its creative merits and not on ratings, a luxury of non-ad supported cable channels.

"We wouldn't be doing the [TV Lab] pilot if we didn't think this was a pretty rich avenue for the channel. Unlike commercial networks, we don't develop 20 things in the hopes that one of them will work," Aidem said.