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C.O.N.F.L.I.C.T.: An Insider's Guide to Storytelling in Reality TV & Film
Based on his popular international C.O.N.F.L.I.C.T. seminars, television producer Robert Thirkell provides a professional toolkit for creating compelling storylines for factual or reality-based film and television.
The book features program examples from the UK and U.S. and includes well-known series such as Kitchen Nightmares, Wife Swap, The Apprentice, Undercover Boss and Oprah’s Big Give, plus advice from leading filmmakers and TV producers on the process of finding stories and characters, structuring scripts, filming, editing, delivery, and attracting an audience.
As anyone who has watched a video on YouTube knows, amateur video usually focuses on subject areas rather than storyline construction. To make the jump to professional reality programming and engage your audience, video producers must know how to identify the components of story and organize them, employing narrative construction while not interfering with the events of the documentary. This book will become the professional handbook for this popular genre.
Excerpt from the text:
"The Hundred Rules of Television:
To create winners, get different genres banging into each other.
Pick a mythic story, and stick to it.
Films do not need introductions, they need to get going, so get rid of the next ten minutes.
Your subject and story should seem big, while being small enough to film."
The book features program examples from the UK and U.S. and includes well-known series such as Kitchen Nightmares, Wife Swap, The Apprentice, Undercover Boss and Oprah’s Big Give, plus advice from leading filmmakers and TV producers on the process of finding stories and characters, structuring scripts, filming, editing, delivery, and attracting an audience.
As anyone who has watched a video on YouTube knows, amateur video usually focuses on subject areas rather than storyline construction. To make the jump to professional reality programming and engage your audience, video producers must know how to identify the components of story and organize them, employing narrative construction while not interfering with the events of the documentary. This book will become the professional handbook for this popular genre.
Excerpt from the text:
"The Hundred Rules of Television:
To create winners, get different genres banging into each other.
Pick a mythic story, and stick to it.
Films do not need introductions, they need to get going, so get rid of the next ten minutes.
Your subject and story should seem big, while being small enough to film."
352 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2010
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17 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 5, 2024
I know nothing about the TV industry. This was a very interesting book with some tips that can be transferrable to other types of storytelling (such as other scripts, narrative non-fiction and fiction on paper, presentations in person etc). Its focus is on telling a real story on TV.
The author does repeat several stories as examples - One is Jamie Oliver's School Dinners. I haven't watched this. I didn't find it a bad example though. I have read some books where the examples feel little more than an attempt at namedropping or were so sparse and varied that they were hard to follow, but the more narrow focus seemed to work here even though I honestly hadn't watched the TV shows referred to.
It was harder for me to relate to this book as I am not as hungry to be a TV director as the author clearly is (which is probably why I wouldn't be his dream hire - see one of the points in his book!). I also found some of the book might be extremely helpful to some people in Britain at a particular point in time because of the point-in-time information about the people in the industry but that it would date soon and it also made the book not as interesting to people outside Britain.
Let's just say I thought some of the information about creating a story and working to create a TV product very interesting - including setting up an interview and making people care and creating a front and so on. I thought about how I could adapt that to writing a book.
However I was less keen on the tips such as how to get into the industry and a payrise. I realise they're relevant to many people but I also thought they were scattered around in a weird way and I wasn't completely convinced that they were that effective (things like don't resign, start a rumour you are going to leave ... OK maybe that just grates with me especially when it wasn't given as one of several options but as the only strategy suggested for getting more pay. It didn't really talk about things like negotiation, good communication).
Some of the book I felt was quite an interesting look at someone's view of how to make a TV show. I cannot say how actually useful it would be as I would probably not be doing this in practice. It gave me some insight into TV and made me look at some points of TV in a different way. I took away a few points (though not a huge amount) that might help with storytelling generally though many things were things that I think are pretty basic concepts in stories like finding a character and concept and trying to make someone care about them.
The author does repeat several stories as examples - One is Jamie Oliver's School Dinners. I haven't watched this. I didn't find it a bad example though. I have read some books where the examples feel little more than an attempt at namedropping or were so sparse and varied that they were hard to follow, but the more narrow focus seemed to work here even though I honestly hadn't watched the TV shows referred to.
It was harder for me to relate to this book as I am not as hungry to be a TV director as the author clearly is (which is probably why I wouldn't be his dream hire - see one of the points in his book!). I also found some of the book might be extremely helpful to some people in Britain at a particular point in time because of the point-in-time information about the people in the industry but that it would date soon and it also made the book not as interesting to people outside Britain.
Let's just say I thought some of the information about creating a story and working to create a TV product very interesting - including setting up an interview and making people care and creating a front and so on. I thought about how I could adapt that to writing a book.
However I was less keen on the tips such as how to get into the industry and a payrise. I realise they're relevant to many people but I also thought they were scattered around in a weird way and I wasn't completely convinced that they were that effective (things like don't resign, start a rumour you are going to leave ... OK maybe that just grates with me especially when it wasn't given as one of several options but as the only strategy suggested for getting more pay. It didn't really talk about things like negotiation, good communication).
Some of the book I felt was quite an interesting look at someone's view of how to make a TV show. I cannot say how actually useful it would be as I would probably not be doing this in practice. It gave me some insight into TV and made me look at some points of TV in a different way. I took away a few points (though not a huge amount) that might help with storytelling generally though many things were things that I think are pretty basic concepts in stories like finding a character and concept and trying to make someone care about them.
February 1, 2026
A very informative guide to producing reality / documentary television. Based on first hand experience on the BBC, the author describes how to create story with heroes, managing a team/contributors, etc.
I was surprised about the amount honesty of with how he deals with (and also manipulates) contributors who may look bad in a film, or be difficult to pull in. Overall, really interesting industry insights.
I was surprised about the amount honesty of with how he deals with (and also manipulates) contributors who may look bad in a film, or be difficult to pull in. Overall, really interesting industry insights.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews