It’s awards season. The red carpets, glamorous gowns and acceptance speeches. It’s also that time of year that if you’re like many screenwriters you feel that yearn to get your ideas off the page and onto the big screen. Whether it’s a dramatic piece that you hope will be an awards’ favorite or a light-hearted popcorn flick, you know in your heart, that you want a produced film in your future. Here are 7 strategies to make that dream come true.
Write a Studio-Style Commercial Spec. The commercial spec script market isn’t what it used to be in terms of actual sales, but the infrastructure still exists between reps, studio producers and studio executives. It’s the fastest way to get representation and for them to do their job of getting you read and known by top-shelf production companies and studio executives quickly and competitively. Your best bet is finding a fresh idea in a familiar genre with exceptional execution. Generally speaking you want to write a contemporary story that is a horror, thriller, action, action-comedy, romantic comedy or broad comedy. The key is not to just guess at what could be a good idea, but to get real feedback on it’s viability before you start writing, based on a number of factors including your style, voice and skill in relationship to recent sales and box office successes and failures. Then get that script covered by a coverage service and use their feedback to shine it into a sparkling gem. With a “recommended” script, they can be a great ally in helping you get to the right representative or producer.
Write a Script with a Big Idea That Can Be Produced under $5 Million. Although the studios are making fewer original scripts you’ll also see that cable channels, international co-productions and guerilla filmmakers are all quite actively producing films for under $5 million. This is basically stories that can be shot with a few locations, a limited amount of actors and avoid expensive period recreation, action scenes or effects. Lifetime Movie Network, Disney Channel, Showtime, FX, HBO and MTV among others make movies for television premiere that often also end up on DVD. Producers typically follow the money, and these days they are finding tax incentives, investment funds and crew in various states and countries, and look for scripts that they like that can shoot in those locations within certain budget parameters. Actors also look for interesting roles that showcase their talents and since the attachments of name talent are key to financing, the more attractive your characters the easier this makes the process. Today’s “Black Swan” started as yesterday’s “Pi”.
Write & Produce Shorts/New Media Projects. Many a career was started with a short film. Whether it was produced in film school such as George Lucas’ “THX1138″ or my own USC classmates Luke Greenfield’s post-college shorts “The Right Hook” (“The Girl Next Door”) or Joe Nussbaum’s “George Lucas in Love” (“Sydney White”) these get attention. “South Park” was initially a short produced as a holiday greeting tape and the “The Simpsons” were interstitials on the “Tracy Ullman Show”. Nowadays, there are lots of categories being recognized for new media festivals that are open for competition such as webseries, produced for mobile, shot on mobile and Apps. Writing and producing short content is a great way to gain practical experience and find new fans. Chris Milk’s 2010 music video for Arcade Fire “We Used To Wait/The Wilderness Downtown” (www.thewildernessdowntown.com) is a example of new media, mixing video content with technology that generated significant buzz for its innovation and gained him representation at WME for feature films. Many of the industry guilds have new media departments and there are a lot of film, television, gaming, publishing and technology companies and organizations that are invested in tapping this new area of content and innovation.
Write a Book, Play, Graphic Novel or Comic Book. These days more and more projects are crossing media platforms. We’ve produced, represented and advised several projects in this space including ones that started as a feature script, became a graphic novel and sold to a network as a series; started as a feature pitch based on life rights, sold as a book and then sold book rights to a studio, and took published books to sold them for network TV series. Publishing and Hollywood are different industries, but they need each other. Certain ideas are more saleable if they’ve been vetted and proven by another market. As marketing has become more expensive for the studios they are increasingly interested in material, stories, mythology and characters that already exist in public consciousness. Plus your passion projects, especially if they are dramatic features have a much better chance as a film if they are based on a book. Bonus is if you create underlying rights and your idea has sequel, spin-off or merchandising potential, you’ll get a much better deal if you own the underlying rights before it becomes a screenplay – whether you are the one who pens it or not.
Secure Life Rights. Cable television in particular is interested in true stories. They often look for an ordinary story about an extraordinary person (famous or infamous), or an extraordinary story (participation in historic or timely event, tragedy, courage or cure) about an ordinary person. Some examples of our work in this area include a client secured life rights based on article and we facilitated as cable movie and we advised one of our course participants for her life rights to be written as articles in major magazines and then her story was acquired and produced as a cable movie. There is a lot to be said to keeping your ear to the ground for a great true story. Sometime that story may be your own, but working with a good coach to help you get the perspective and the angle can be invaluable. In some cases, you may acquire or present the rights and be in the mix of the deal, but be bought out, get a shared credit, or assigned a mid or lower level producer credit such as co-producer or associate producer. It other cases you may write the script and get full credit for it. The trick here is to be open and listen to what makes the most sense to get the deal together.
Attend Conferences & Film Festivals. The best way to get into the business is to participate in the business. The more you can get on the ground to meet people and engage in meaningful conversations about the craft, business, trends, people and opportunities the easier it will be to move farther faster. If you are in TV, I recommend LATVFest, for Screenwriting there are a number of conferences from Screenwriting Expo to Great American Pitchfest as well as Sundance Film Festival, Austin Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, AFM, BanffMedia, among hundreds of others that get you face-to-face with industry professionals, teachers, mentors and peers. In addition to live events, there are many virtual events and resources such as teleseminars, podcasts and online membersites and discussion boards. Some of theses resources include Scriptshark, Done Deal, OpenFilm, ScriptShadow, ScriptChat, OnthePage, SellYourTVConceptNow, TrackingB, Trigger Street, MillionDollarScreenwriting, ScreenwritingU and Zeotrope, just to name a few.
Sign Up for Screenwriting Career Intensive. This 8 Session teleseminar program that I facilitate was designed to share everything a writer, content creator or emerging producer needs to know. It’s based on what we’ve learned about the business from working in it over the last 15 years starting at ICM. The course is easy to participate in and can be accessed on the phone, via MP3 and in the online discussion group. We cover film, TV, new media; working with executives, producers, talent & agents, managers & attorneys, plus marketing yourself & your script and dealmaking standards, practices and pitfalls. It’s presented in a concise, informative and interactive format. If you want to plug into LA and industry consciousness and learn the etiquette and mindset this is a great place to do it. We’re regularly in communication with buyers, so we have a good grasp of where the opportunities are now. As this is an educational resource we’re here to help facilitate success and lead our participants to finding the right ideas, resources and representatives. Once you’ve been through this program you’ll have a whole new perspective on this business and how to make things happen. Next session February 15 – March 16. Register at: http://bit.ly/scriptcareer – Use discount code: career 50 for $50 off.
By implementing one or more of these 7 strategies, you’ll be on your way to taking your screenwriting career and Hollywood dream, to the next level.
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Philippa Burgess is an entertainment professional and partner at Creative Convergence Inc. Company client credits include projects for Disney Channel, Lifetime, Sci-Fi, Starz, MTV, Cartoon Network, CBS/Paramount, ABC, New Line Cinema, Fox, Sony and Paramount. She teaches the 8 session teleseminar course Screenwriting Career Intensive (www.screenwritingcareer.com) which includes 5 bonus calls with Agents & Managers.
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