The half-hour pilot script is below.
Caution: Welcome to Hell contains scenes with vulgar language and violence.
Producer / Writer / Assistant Director / Editor / Boom Operator
Industry
Media
Scope of Work
Audience Analysis
Competitive Analysis
Narrative Development
Brand Archetype
The Jester
Vibe
A comedy developed out of modern-day “yuppie” angst. General sentiment among Americans in their 20s is varied, but the last decade has brought an uptick in negative sentiment regarding the state of the world and the conditions of life. This show was developed to poke fun at what makes life a living Hell.
Pain Point
I tasked myself with developing a series targeting young urban professionals in the United States, leveraging the rise of general angst and exhaustion from that market segment over the course of the late 2010s.
Solution
Development began simultaneously with the collection of first-party and analysis of third-party data regarding television viewing behavior among my target audience. I settled on a web series, but wound up with a half-hour sitcom pilot about the afterlife in Hell.
Resolution
Production was delayed multiple times and eventually halted after two “mini episodes” due to COVID-19. However, the half-hour pilot script became a finalist for the Sundance Screenwriting Lab Fellowship.
Project Overview
This series started out as a web series, then turned into a movie, and finally resulted in a pilot that reached the final round of judgment at the Sundance Screenwriting Lab!
The story centers on two men who have found themselves in Hell for reasons not fully shared with the audience. The dramatic irony driving much of the series plot, which is started to be constructed within the pilot, is that one killed the other’s family in life. Welcome to Hell is a comedy that blends dark humor with dreadful undertones that feel oddly familiar to viewers, ranging from finding out you need to help an ex-girlfriend win her new boyfriend back even after she killed you to keeping a face-stealing demon from being accosted by their crazy neighbor.
Our heroes take on the melodrama and outrageousness of an afterworld modeled after Northern Virginia’s suburban landscape in a broken-down car, drinking coffee that gets cold far too quickly.
Additional Information About The Work
We ran into scheduling issues time and time again as we neared production. The worst moment was the day before our first planned filming day in April 2020 when our Director and Director of Photography both came down with COVID.
We had to prioritize health and were concerned about what might happen to our team and friends. At that time, we didn’t know what we know now about the virus. Fear, dread, and uncertainty quickly crept in as our team had to protect their own safety and that of those around them throughout the year.
Finally, we had a healthy cast, crew, and a sanitized set in Q4 2020. I long believed I was a patient creative, but this project capitalized on that and finally brought out the problem solver in me once things calmed down a bit.
The amount of effort, rewrites, and ancillary content developed to keep the project alive during what would become an incredibly difficult time was overwhelming in many ways. Nearly two and a half years went into the process before COVID-19 was even a factor.
We started with a web series of five short episodes before I reconstructed the entire narrative into a 90-minute feature film. After surveying target audience members, we discovered the plot resonated best in its original form as a series; however, data collected suggested the half-hour pilot format would be more endearing to the audience than the initial 5-minute web series format we had already diverted from.
Several interviews with professional and accomplished screenwriters, script consultants, and screenwriting festival judges led to the development of a fully scripted, pitch-ready pilot that anchored the main plot points and alluded to hooks and cliffhangers for audience retention. The idea to submit the script and pitch to Sundance came out of the COVID-19 delays.
Additional Information About the Results
Despite delaying production incessantly throughout 2020, COVID-19 actually created the opportunity for different success. When Sundance accepted the script into judgment, I shared the news with the entire cast and crew. We were buzzing and shared information with everyone who had touched the project up until that point.
A few months later, I received word that we passed the first round of judgment. Shortly thereafter, I received two conflicting emails. The first was a denial message stating we hadn’t made it through the second round with another panel of judges. The second email negating that statement arrived the next day. Two months after that, I received word that while Welcome to Hell had become a finalist and was well received for its storytelling, narrative direction, character development, and wit, it had failed to win the fellowship.
Personal Statement
This series was a passion project of mine. It was developed from 2018 to 2020, then off and on several years after that.
I’m very honored to have worked with the team that helped me see this project through and take great pride in its reception at Sundance.
The full pilot has yet to be produced. After the COVID-19 pandemic, my cast and crew, including myself, moved to different parts of the country. I went on to attend grad school, earning my MS in Television and Media Management and an MBA concentrated in Corporate Sustainability and Social Impact, graduating in 2023. Shortly before graduation, I proposed to – and planned a wedding for 2025 with – my now-wife. I still have plans to produce the pilot in the 2020s and will submit the final cut to Sundance, among other festivals.
Scott Duvall 