086 – Automatic Pilot Author Bill Taub (VIDEO)

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Bill Taub has written and produced hundreds of hours of television over several decades, including many pilots that have gone to series. His new book on TV pilot writing, Automatic Pilot, is an indispensable tool for your arsenal!

Bill Taub is a native New Yorker who’s gone from Forest Hills to Beverly Hills. He has been obsessed with television since he was five, and considers himself a student as well as a participant in the medium. He came to television writing through advertising, as a writer-producer, Clio winner, and creative trouble shooter at several New York agencies.

His decades of experience in the industry have included both drama and comedies, including such hits as Barney Miller, Hill Street Blues, Newhart, and Cagney & Lacey. Pilots he has written that have gone to series have included Friday the 13th: The Series, The Odyssey, and Relic Hunter.

The more he studies the work of those he admires most, the one thing that becomes apparent is they either didn’t know all the rules, or they ignored them. It’s their originality, their uniqueness, that have made their work such a tremendous success. Whether it’s the work of David Shore, David Kelley, David Milch, or Larry David (the confederacy of “Davids” as he calls them), they didn’t know what they weren’t supposed to do — or didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Recently, Bill distilled the system he created and developed for his UCLA Extension Writers’ Program Workshop into the book Automatic Pilot.

Bill splits his time between Los Angeles and Toronto, where his wife’s family resides. He keeps himself busy with half a dozen other projects, pilots, web series, consulting, as well as occasionally teaching online thru the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and the Laugh Factory.

Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillyTaub

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First published September 1, 2014.