User:A Texas Historian/sandbox 3

Planning area for "Production" section of Psych.

Conception and early development
Steve Franks originally conceived the concept for Psych while working as the lead writer for the 1999 film Big Daddy. After he successfully pitched the film to producers with Columbia Pictures, Franks was requested to come up with ideas for five new TV programs. He presented the shows to Columbia, who rejected all proposals. Among the outlines he presented was the source for Psych. After the programs were rejected, he shelved the ideas. Franks would not reopen the idea for Psych until several years later, when he met with producer Kelly Kulchak about creating a one-hour long TV program. After discussion, Franks presented the idea for Psych, which Kulchak deemed to be "brilliant".

After finalizing an episode draft for Psych, Franks and Kulchak pitched the show to all major TV networks, including the Fox Broadcasting Company, NBC, ABC, and CBS. The show was rejected by each network they presented the idea to. Kulchak stated that "it was a great pitch and that everybody laughed, but no one wanted to buy it". She attributed its rejection to the show's unique comedy–drama format, which was virtually unused by a TV show at the time. They then pitched the show to several cable networks, where it was again rejected. The final network Franks and Kulchak pitched the show to was USA Network. The network "loved the concept", and decided to produce the show.

Franks has cited multiple sources as inspiration for the show. His father, as well as multiple uncles, are former Los Angeles Police Department officers; Franks has given real-life experiences as direct inspiration for numerous events which occurred in the first season. Franks later explained that his comedic inspiration for the program was that he always "thought it would be fun to apply my comic sensibility to a cop show". He has since explained that the inspiration for the fake-psychic concept in the show was due to a longtime wish to write a show about a man with "no psychic abilities but just had a great grasp of details". The program's unique comedy-drama format has been explained by producers to have been inspired by several 1980s detective shows. A prominent source cited by executives and actors was the TV show Moonligting. Other sources include programs Remington Steele and Simon & Simon.

USA Network first announced their potential broadcasting of Psych on June 17, 2005. The network stated that they had requested a pilot episode of the series, to be managed by Tagline Productions. The original working name for the series was "Psyche". It was announced on August 30 that the production for the show's pilot episode would begin shortly, and the episode would likely air in 2006. On January 5, 2006, USA announced the Psyche would be competing against In Plain Sight, written by David Maples, and Underfunded, written by David Breckman, for air time and broadcasting slots. Later in January, the network confirmed that the pilot episode for the show would air later that year. They also announced that the show's name had changed to Psych. On February 21, 2006, USA Network announced that it had ordered eleven one-hour episode scripts for Psych. They confirmed that the show would take Monk's Friday night time slot, and that the pilot episode, planned to be two hours in length, would be broadcast on July 7.

Filming
Franks wanted to set Psych in a city that reflected the show's personality. Franks knew that he did not want the show to be set in a big city atmosphere. While developing Psych, Franks visited Santa Barbara while on his honeymoon. He felt that Santa Barbara was the perfect place to set the show, but that they would be unable to film the show there. Executive producer Mel Damski commented the filming of the show, that “We wanted to set and film it in Santa Barbara, but the area doesn’t really have enough crewmembers”. After the show was approved, Franks began looking for places to film, settling for Vancouver, British Columbia. He felt that Vancouver was "the next best location" to Santa Barbara. Although he chose to film the show in Vancouver, most of the show is actually filmed in the surrounding communities. About half of each episode is filmed in the Vancouver suburb of White Rock, including most scenes focusing on coastal areas. Portions of the episodes are also filmed in the mountain ranges surrounding Vancouver, and occasionally in the Pacific Ocean around the city.

The entire episode was filmed in real-life locations, instead of the sets used for every episode since. The show had to use real locations due to uncertainty on whether the show would succeed. Not being able to use a stage for filming created several issues in the episode.