The Rise & Rise of ‘Pawn Stars’ and Leftfield Pictures (1/4)

The light bulb that became Pawn Stars was first switched on in the back of a Vegas van in 2008

Pawn Stars is now History Channel’s breakout hit show

• It ranked #2 in 2010 amongst all U.S. cable non-fiction series, led only by Jersey Shore
• And averaged nearly 5 million viewers

That Las Vegas van was driven by emerging New York-based producer, Leftfield Pictures

• In 2007, before Pawn Stars, Leftfield produced 1 television hour
• This year: as many as 120 hours!!
• And two of the Top 10 unscripted hits on U.S. cable

We met several times with Leftfield’s co-owner Brent Montgomery. We talked a lot about Leftfield’s expertise in finding and managing talent – those huge characters who are dominating U.S. network schedules

• For the next few weeks: the Rise and Rise of Pawn Stars and Leftfield Pictures
• This week: Brent climbs up the prodco ladder. And then falls hard when he pitches his own series

First, here’s a cut-down of the 7 minute sizzle reel that sold History Channel and switched on the Pawn Stars phenom:

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ABOUT LEFTFIELD PICTURES

• Hours produced:
  • 2007: 1
  • 2011: 96 and counting (September ’11)
• 2011 staff
  • 100 current staff
  • 55 independent contractors
• Offices: New York (HQ)
  • Staff in Las Vegas and Chicago
  • Currently 16,000 square feet on 5 floors
  • “We’re on elevators all day, and looking to consolidate”
• 2010 Hits – Cable Factual Series
  • Pawn Stars: #2 /4.9 million viewers
  • American Restoration: #10 /3.3 million viewers

Owner

• Brent Montgomery manages Leftfield Pictures

Key staff

• Chris Valentini, General Manager
• Rob Shaftel, Director of Development
• David George, Head of Current Programming
• Jessica Winton, Head of Casting

Current Production Pipeline

• Series: 13
• Pilots: 4

BEFORE PAWN STARS

• Brent Montgomery worked as a freelance local news producer in Texas during his college years
• He graduated in 1998, and started as a PA on Fox Files, a network news magazine show
• “I slowly climbed up the ladder, working for established production companies for ten years or so

Wise Crackers Strikes Out

• “I first pitched a series in 2000
• “It was called Wise Crackers. It was a hidden camera prank show, and it went nowhere
• “It was a sobering process. I worked on Wise Crackers for nine months, and earned about $9,000 in that time.
• “I was naïve: I produced a complete pilot instead of a pitch reel
• “But despite striking out, there was a positive outcome. Through the pitching process, I met Rob Miller from Peleton Entertainment, who later became our agent, and who pushed us to take Pawn Stars to History first. He has remained with us since, and has been a big part of our success.”

Parallel Paths: Production & Networking

After Wise Crackers, Brent followed a dual strategy to prepare for his next pitching opportunity:

• He produced/shot or edited episodes for more than 30 Reality shows, all the time building his management experience, expertise and reputation
  • These shows included Bachelor (Next Entertainment for ABC), Wife Swap (RDF for ABC) and Blind Date (Syndicated) and Growing Up Gotti (GRB for A&E
  • By the time he pitched Pawn Stars, Brent had worked on 150-200 hours of casting-driven Reality shows
• And he committed heavily to social networking
  • “I realized that it’s not the best strategy to launch a new series with a completely new team that you assembled after a few weeks of interviews
  • “You need to build relationships over years, and this allows us to assemble a team for a show within days.”
  • “And as a byproduct, we can move quickly for networks that sometimes find themselves with unexpected programming holes that need to be filled ASAP.”
• “I saw that many production companies suffered from a revolving door, and where the senior managers spend 40% of their time training people
  • “Many prodco’s do this because they fear paying people off budget for a week or two. But sometimes it’s more cost effective to keep them on than to train new people from scratch
  • “I wanted to make a better product, and not waste time training people.”
• “We held regular parties and after-work socials to expand our network of great people who we wanted to work with as soon as the opportunities came our way
  • “We even invited our competition, as we believe that the more New York production, the better for all of us.”

‘Marrying Up’

• Brent turned over original ideas, and pitched them to commissioners from time to time, but he realized that he needed to partner with an established producer
• In 2006, he partnered with Killer Bunny and Shorn Entertainment to create a branded web series called Cube Fabulous that had a 3-season run

Leftfield Gets on First

• Brent and and a colleague each put up $10,000 to launch Leftfield
• In early 2007, CBS reached out to Leftfield and green lit a web series called In Turn – which was a competition show for actors working on As the World Turns
• In Turn ran for 3 seasons and was the first produced-for-web series to be re-purposed for network air running as a special on CBS

Principal’s Office

• In 2008, truTV “offered us a few bucks to see if we could lock down some high schools that would let us in to show their students behaving badly.”
• “When we delivered over a dozen schools, Tru green lit a pilot followed by a series. We produced 21 episodes.”

Next: The Rise and Rise of Pawn Stars

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More About Preferred Producers

• Our popular multi-parter: A Preferred Producer: Hoff Productions Between the Basement and Buyout
• Wall to Wall’s Alex Graham at Sheffield Doc / Fest: What Do US Broadcasters Want? How Much Do They Pay? Who?
• And on the topic of ‘hooking up’: Why Marry Up with Pilgrim? A ‘Super-Preferred Producer’ at WestDoc
• And there’s much, much more in the DocumentaryTelevision.com index (Producers’ Toolkit)

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Speaking Engagement

 

 

Documentary Campus
ONE WORLD, MANY WAYS
New Directions in Human Rights Documentaries
Sunday, 13 March 2011, Prague, Czech Republic
‘The Business of the Documentary Business’