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...It’s Still a Pretty Good Show

ABC’s award winning TV series Lost completed its fourth season in May and is expected to run for at least two more years. That’s good news for the show’s dedicated fans. Lost has retained its popularity in part because of its production design: nothing on the show looks fake or cheap, and there is a clear attention to detail, pleasing fans who are interested in the art of film and video. Aiming for this kind of quality can mean running up a big budget, and it has. Lost’s two-part pilot episode was the most expensive in the network's history when it aired in 2004, reportedly costing between US $10 and US $14 million. (The average cost of an hour-long pilot in 2005 was US $4 million.)

While the producers of Lost don’t cut corners on production quality, they do find ways to economize. The show is shot primarily on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The jungle and beach scenes are shot in the Hawaiian countryside, and the flashbacks, depicting action in cities all over the world, are shot mainly in different parts of Hawaii’s capital, Honolulu.

A career in the film and TV production industry can take you all over the world, or just to Hawaii—which is pretty nice too, but you have to start somewhere. To work on a top-notch show like Lost, you’ll have to prove yourself, and that means working in a lower budget bracket. Reality TV is still as popular as ever, and it’s a great place to start.

An aspiring film producer can easily create a reality series on a low budget. All you need is a great idea, video editing software like Power Director or Final Cut, and a place to show your product. Posting your pilot on YouTube is the easiest way to find your audience.

Look for trends, because timing is everything.

Oddly enough, back in 2001, there was another show called Lost. It was a short-lived reality series where contestants were basically abandoned and had to find their way home. But it didn’t make it past season one. The reality show Lost may have simply been a victim of bad timing. Certainly after the success of travel- and survival-oriented shows like The Amazing Race and Man Vs. Wild, and the popularity of exotic settings (like the one on that other Lost) it seems the show would have done well had it debuted a few years later.

Get expert advice.

Run your ideas through the right people. Find someone who knows your subject. If you are near a college or university, contact a professor in that field. Academic experts in the fields of psychology and sociology may also have valuable insights about the strategies of the shows and the success of reality TV.

Your show is just the beginning. With a lot of hard work and a little luck, you could get the call someday and be off to work for a big-budget show like Lost.