fandomhigh | So You Want to Make a TV Show- 2nd Period- Class #3

As soon as everyone was seated, Dana started with, "Anyone who cops to calling me yesterday gets detention. Don't be that stupid. Now that we have that out of the way, this week we're going to be discussing what kind of show you want to do.

"I'll spoil it for you: you're going to be putting together a sports show. Sometimes when you get into this business, you have to take the job that comes to you. Maybe you wanted to work on some cable news show and have to cut your teeth at MTV. It'll happen. Take the experience, learn what you can, and when another opportunity comes, you can move on. Now, you might be saying 'I don't know anything about sports,'" Dana went on. "You're missing out, but that's beside the point. You will pick up things in the course of the job. If you don't, you're not really listening. Lingo will get to you, you'll start recognizing names, and after a while you might actually be able to sound like you know what you're talking about when you're watching a game with your friends, even if you only know it from a technical aspect.

"What we're going to do today is go around the room, and you're going to tell us what you know about sports right now. What's your favorite? Why? Do you play? Why not? And then you're going to get together- or work singly, I don't care- and come up with reasons why you think why working on a sports show might be harder or easier than working at CNN or a Comedy Central news show. Anything you can come up with. Once you know the problems- and believe me, you will run into them- you can start to tackle them. No pun intended."

As Dana took a seat at her desk, she said, "Oh, and don't get too used to this sort of class. Next week I start giving you assignments. Oh, wait, I lied. For homework this week, I want each of you to catch a game. I don't care what kind. Football, curling, whatever you saw, just see something to get some more experience than you do this week."

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"Keeps you on your toes, though," Turtle pointed out. "Makes you able to think on your feet. I've gotten a better education here than I could anywhere in the world, probably, and it has nothing to do with the classes. And, while things like phones or washers or even floors haven't been very dependable, the people always are."

"Yeah?" That was heartening. Maybe hers and Merlin's and Tony's suspicions about the people here were way off-base. "The teachers seem cool." She shot Ms. Whitaker a look, and smiled. "Intense, but cool. And Mr. Deadpool is..." Wow. How *would* you describe him? "Really unique." She frowned in curiosity. "Does he really beat up ninjas?"

Turtle drew in a little bit of a breath, but she nodded. "Yeah," she said, wishing Dinah'd chosen some other teacher to mention. "He does. Unique is good; gives different perspectives and all that..."

"Wow." Dinah couldn't help but be impressed. "Cool. Do you have a favorite?"

She was writing as she thought, kind of circling around the problem: real life mess-ups, lots of material, weather....

"Favorite what? Teacher?"

"Yeah. Or class too, now that I think of it. I don't really have a good idea of what's best to take." Jamie had talked about a lot of stuff, but not really the academic side of things.

"Petrelli," Turtle said, without even a second to spare. "You've got to take Petrelli."

It was all said with very firm conviction until the very end, where she couldn't help the smallest of sighs.

Dinah didn't know how to take that sigh, beyond a blink, so she just asked, "Cool. What does Mr. - or Ms. - Petrelli teach?"

"Mister," Turtle supplied. Very, very definitely Mister. "And he teaches leadership at the moment, but he's done a variety of different courses on politics and lawyering and things like that. He's also the head of the Student Council and I've taken almost every course he's ever taught while I've been here. He's really, really great!"

Why, yes, that was fangirling, how could you tell?

"Oooo." That actually sounded like the kind of class Barbara would approve of and Dinah would enjoy. Crimefighters needed leadership skills, right? "You said you were on Student Council, I remember that now." Maybe she could stay through the summer, and take a course from him? Dinah smiled a little bit more. "Really really great?"

Turtle's head bobbed some more. "Really, really. It would really be a wise investment taking a class taught by Mister Petrelli."

"All right then! Hopefully I can talk my sister into letting me have another semester here, so I can take a class with him." Dinah wasn't even thinking much about cuteness factor, although she kinda wondered if Mr. Petrelli was in the Mr.-Dex-mode of teacher too. "You got any ideas on the assignment already?"

"I was thinking," Turtle offered, "that a sports show seems pretty easy. I mean, you know your demographic, you know your topic. You just need to fill in the details."

"That's true, the whole marketing side of it has to be pretty standard by now," Dinah said, thinking aloud. "The stuff that occurred to me as difficult is the same as the stuff on a news show-- real life accidents, or weather messing things up. Not things specific to sports, really."

"See, but that stuff's actually good for a show," Turtle pointed out. "Accidents, weather mishaps, things screwing up. It gives you an angle for something interesting to present, you know? If it was all boring scores and stats, only fanatics would be watching it. But if you were covering exciting sports news, you're more likely to bring in more viewers."

"Hunh! Good point. It makes it harder to produce, but a better story, which is the whole point," Dinah said, thinking of Olympic stories about drugging scandals and bomb threats. "Soooo, the human interest side. But you'd have to be really, really prepared for the unexpected. Extra cameras? Extra... I don't know. Reporters?"

"What kind of unexpected are you talking about that would mean having to go beyond the usual amount of reporters or cameras?"

"Stuff like the drugging scandal at the Olympics, ooor, the bomb threats." Dinah thought. "Although maybe that's more straight news? Or investigative reporting versus sports reporting. Maybe only for things like the Olympics would you pull out extra reporters."

"Why couldn't you just use the reporters you already had and just make them do a little extra? It's a special news event. I think they should be expected to know that it's crunch time. And bringing in new, extra reports won't mesh well with the fans of the show, because they'll be all, 'who's this doofus? I like the reporters I've known to grow and love.' Plus, it's cheaper and easier on the books."

"Okay, I hadn't thought of the familiarity factor, but you're right," Dinah admitted. "People always react to that. Hmmm. Not as many scripts as a comedy show, simpler format than a multiple-types-of-news-show... I'm not thinking of any other problems here."

Well, unless someone wanted to fix the fight with meta-powers. Or kidnap people to participate. Or... yeah, cutting off that line of thought.

"So, yeah," Turtle nodded. "Not many problems to a sports show at all. Even if you don't know anything about sports, you just have to hire some writers who do. Problem solved. Everything tends to be easier once you know exactly what it is you're doing, and then you just go right in for the jugular."

So You Want to Make a TV Show- 2nd Period- Class #3

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