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I'm writing a virtual series and I was wondering if the pilot episode should be the same length as the series or if it should be twice as long as the series.
It's up to you, boss. My advice would depend on the length of the show. If it's an hour long show, then I saw go for the two hour pilot. But if it's a half-hour show, stick with the half-hour. You might tease the viewers too much or bore them to death with an hour long episode.
A lot of anime pilots are the same length all the way through, they just use "To Be Continued's" which I think work a lot better than one long episode. It keeps people wanting more.
It's all a matter of personal taste and your target audience. Generally speaking, pilots will run the length of a standard episode so they will fit into the episode's time slot and no adjustments have to be made. If it is double-length, ensure that it can be cut in half to still fit, since that might eventually happen. For a virtual series, there is no time slot, so the sky's the limit. Unless it will have a devoted audience though, it is a lot better to make it the length of the regular episode instead of double length.
For certain shows, you need a long exposition. For instance, in a fantasy series pilot I'm currently writing (if you can call it that, we're not past the teaser yet), we needed to make it double-length to introduce the fantastic setting and show the catacylism in the pilot (so we needed before and after scenes). In Alias, the pilot was absurdly long, because they needed to unravel the starting plot as well as the big change. In the West Wing, it was a 45 minute pilot, because it's an episodic show with a simple premise - the only exposition they really needed was of the characters.
That's about right. The acts are seperating by what are known as "Turning Points" - some inciting incident that leads the story into the next phase.
I guess I should warn you though, there are writers out there that don't believe in the 3-Act structure. But from what I've worked with and developed, the 3-Act structure works for me.
I personally don't think about the three act structure when I write my scripts. I tell the story. If the story includes the three act structure -- whateva, man.
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