Firing Up The Imagination

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Imagine (which is in partnership with Disney's Touchstone Television) is also nurturing unknown talent. After seeing The Script Doctor, a short film made for just $150 by the Fields brothers, a Cleveland, Ohio, threesome who worked in their father's wedding-video business, the company hired them to develop Student Affairs. And New York independent filmmaker Noah Baumbach, 29, got a telephone call from Imagine inviting him to pitch TV ideas similar to his chatty, cerebral film comedies (one, Kicking and Screaming, was about a group of guys who graduate from college but won't leave). Baumbach came up with Thirty, based in part on his own life and the lives of his friends.

Since Baumbach had no TV experience, Imagine had to give him a crash course in writing outlines, developing characters and thinking through a season of story "arcs," or plot lines. But his style hasn't been homogenized. Unlike most sitcoms that use three-wall sets, Thirty will shoot on four-wall sets to convey a sense of reality and depth. Eccentric camerawork will swirl around characters and focus on them from odd angles. The network agreed to Baumbach's request to film the show without an audience. But while Baumbach would like to do without a laugh track, the show--like Sports Night--will have one. In any case, innovations don't come cheap. The Thirty pilot cost about $1.9 million, compared with $1.2 million for an average sitcom.

The networks aren't persuaded that such unconventional shows will snare viewers. Sports Night, after all, has been the darling of critics but ranks No. 64 for the season. As for Felicity, despite the appearance of its star, Keri Russell, on at least 10 magazine covers, the show has performed only modestly in the ratings. But Imagine's executives remain confident and argue that given a chance, their shows will build slowly and steadily, much as Seinfeld and Cheers did. If they do, Imagine will get the last laugh--track or no.