How to Use World Building In Your Sci-Fi TV Pitch Document to Sell Your Series

Along with characters, story and structure, one of the most important elements of any television series is world building. Certainly this applies to fantasy and science fiction shows like GAME OF THRONES and THE MANDALORIAN, but it’s just as important for any realistic and grounded series as well. Giving the viewers the ability to fully immerse themselves in the world your characters live in—the setting, the rules, the culture, the counter-culture, the history and more—will make them more invested in continuing to watch. Yet it’s not just the viewer you’ll be enticing with a well-defined world; it’s also the executives that might choose to pick up your show because of the world you’re able to present to them as part of your pitch and pitch deck.

With so much content being pitched and with so many creatives trying to get their work in front of creatives and ultimately picked up, it is hard for anyone’s show to stand out above the noise. To do so, you need more than a great show and a great script; you also need a great pitch and pitch document. It truly can be what stands between you and that green light. So what does a great pitch document look like, and more specifically, how does that great pitch document get execs invested and interested in your show’s world?

Boman Modine is an Emmy-nominated producer for his show DARK/WEB on Amazon, and an award-winning producer with a long history of film and franchise development. Boman's production company, Strangeway Productions, is currently developing several animated, horror, science fiction television properties with partners that include Sanctum Studios (THE NEW MUTANTS, STAR TREK: DISCOVERY). He is also the former head of acquisitions and development for Mt. Hollywood where he also produced the BAFTA-nominated "THE PARTY's JUST BEGINNING" with Karen Gillan. He has also consulted and produced with BRAIN ACADEMY, known for the Keanu Reeves/Peter Stormare show "SWEDISH DICKS", where he packaged both features and television shows. Boman has an impressive history of packaging and selling TV series, especially science fiction and other genre series, to notable networks and streamers and understand what it takes to get an exec on your side and interested in your project.

Exclusively for Stage 32, Boman will delve into the art of world-building, both for science fiction and fantasy series, and for all other genres as well, and show you how best to incorporate your original world into an effective pitch document to get networks and streamers interested. He will explain the elements of any effective TV pitch document before exploring what good world-building actually looks like and how you can “build your own sandbox” to establish your series’ genre and tone. Boman will also walk you through filling your sandbox with sand by defining your who, what, when, where, why, and how, as well as your world’s culture, counter-culture, and history. He’ll also teach you how to use what came before as a way to better help execs understand your series.

Throughout, Boman will provide case studies of professional TV series pitch documents to illustrate how other creators have made their own world leap off the page.