News From The Web - Marketing Archive
Plan Your Journey - You Can't Make the Trip if You Don't Know How to Get There
Original Thinking In Selling Your Screenplay
David Silverman
Hollywood Therapy
Screenwriter Michael Elliot built a career on sending his screenplays — not to Executives at the studios or producers, but to Hollywood professionals on their way up. This proved to be smart and radical play, but also quite a brilliant play. He made a list of all the most talented, up and coming lower-level players in Hollywood. These were ambitious people, slightly over-the-hill actors, crew members, commercial and music video directors and producers – generally the professionals who were most likely to make it as filmmakers themselves.
How to hire Bill Murray: Ted Melfi's 12-step plan for 'St. Vincent'
Glen Whipp
Los Angeles Times
You're Ted Melfi, a first-time filmmaker, and you've written a movie about a cantankerous old guy who comes to realize the meaning of his life through the help of a lonely 12-year-old neighbor kid. It's called "St. Vincent," and you think Bill Murray would be a great fit in the lead role. One problem: Murray doesn't have an agent or manager.
How to Attach a Movie Star to Your Indie Film
Alex Ferrari
Indie Film Hustle
So you have a screenplay or film idea that could definitely be financed and produced only if I could get a movie star attached and there’s the rub! Attaching a movie star at any level to a un-produced screenplay or indie film is the dream of many filmmakers, but how do you do it? Paul Castro (writer of August Rush starring the late Robin Williams) goes over the many ways he has found to attach major talent to your projects. Nothing green lights a film faster than attaching a movie star to it.
10 TIPS FOR WRITING LOGLINES
James Burbidge
Raindance.org
Loglines are tricky things – distilling 120 pages of script into one sentence and imbuing it with the power to summarise, titillate and intrigue is a surprisingly difficult task. As a writer it can be hard to develop a good logline because you are invested equally in each part of your work – identifying the crucial story elements and leaving everything else out feels like you aren’t doing your script justice.
Perfecting Your Pitch
Tony Folden
The Dialogue Architect
Your script is complete. You’ve done rewrite after rewrite and you’ve finally gotten it to where you feel comfortable with shopping it around. Now you need to work on your pitch. You should have a couple different variations of your pitch ready to fire off at any given moment. You should have an “elevator pitch” and your standard pitch.
The Logline; Or, Contortions of the Modern Screenwriter
Max Adams
TheAFW.com
In every pitch, the short pitch, the medium pitch, the long pitch, the phone pitch, the lunch pitch, the elevator pitch, the wow nice to see you in line at the store pitch – in every pitch – you have to be able to —drop the premise statement on the person you are talking to. That is the fast one liner that tells someone, in about one sentence, what the story is about.
Why Producers Won't Buy Your Script
Dinah Perez
Indie Dais
Ever wonder why producers won’t buy your script? I mean, you have, after all, spent years developing your screenplay. It’s perfect; every character is well thought-out, every scene pushes the story forward and every piece of dialogue is exquisitely written. So…. then…. why can’t you sell it? What’s causing readers to pass on your beloved masterpiece? Why won’t producers buy your script?
Screenwriter’s Guide to Finding a Hollywood Manager or Agent
Matt Prater
Film Slate
Many hours over many days, weeks, and likely many months have been invested in the creative process of bringing carefully crafted words on each and every page of a sparkling new story to life, while you (the writer) have undoubtedly sacrificed sleep, sanity, a social life (a show of hands for the writers reading this who are actually social butterflies?), relationships, and even basic hygiene; all in an effort to make sure that each and every word, action, and emotion contained within the pages of your dynamic new story jumps clear off the print and grabs anyone who may find themselves lucky enough to get hands on such a brilliant piece of literature by the proverbial throat. What comes next?
What Screenwriters Really Make
Ken Miyamoto
Screencraft.org
We’ve all read the stories of Shane Black selling The Long Kiss Goodnight for $4 million, Joe Eszterhas selling Basic Instinct for $3 million, Tom Shulman and Sally Robinson selling Medicine Man for $3 million, etc. Those are lottery type numbers to behold. Even the more “run-of-the-mill” deals that are featured in the trades on a more regular basis are awe-inspiring to most screenwriters. $400,000 against $200,000 (meaning that the writer gets $200,000 first and another $200,000 if the film gets greenlit) or any variant as far as six figure deals go.
Writing an Elevator Pitch
B. O'Malley
Screenplay Readers
Many of the scripts that come into Screenplay Readers have a lot going for ’em: great dialogue, solid pacing, characters that leap off the page… But sometimes a screenplay can have all those things firing on all those cylinders and still come up a bit short in the RECOMMEND department.
SUBMISSIONS INSANITY: 4 Things To Check Before You Make Your Submissions
Lucy V. Hay
Script Magazine
Ready to make submissions? Great! But stop right there peeps, ‘cos there’s four things you MUST do before you send your screenplays anywhere.
How to Sell a Movie Script
Videomaker
Most of us have watched a major stinker, even one with a decent cast, but if you’re an aspiring screenwriter, that had to give you some hope because in your drawer there’s a screenplay that you know is better than what you just sat through. Maybe a lot better.
Selling Your Screenplay
Ashley Scott Meyers
Script Magazine
In this episode of the podcast I talk with Lee Jessup, screenwriting career coach to both professional and emerging screenwriters. We walk about her recent book, Getting It Write, and we talk through some of the common problems she sees for screenwriters at various stages of their careers. - See more at:
Podcast: Screenwriting for Studios with Corey Mandell
Corey Mandell
Indie Film Academy
IFA talks with screenwriter Corey Mandell. Corey got his start when he was still in school and ended up pitching the script for Metropolis to Ridley Scott. IFA aska Corey what it’s like to write at the studio level and how other screenwriters can break in.
Should You Pay to Pitch
Biaggio
Producing Unscripted
You already know you can pitch to us for free. But what about attending pitch fests or pitch pits — places that charge you a small (or large) fee for access to industry professionals who will consider your pitch? Are they worth it? Can you use them to your advantage?
The Martian: How a self-published e-book became a Hollywood blockbuster
Sheryl Garratt
Script
In 2009, Andy Weir, a computer geek with a chronic fear of flying, turned his musings about a human mission to Mars into an online book that became a phenomenon. Sheryl Garratt travels to Northern San Francisco to find out how it changed his life.
Are All Screenplay Services Bullshit? The Black List Might Not Be
Beejoli Shah
Defamer
Obvious statement of the day: screenwriting is not an easy profession to break into. Because of this truism, a cottage industry of screenplay services has popped up to help Hollywood hopefuls get notes, learn how to market themselves, and—most lucrative of all—have their material exposed to someone who might actually get their passion project made.
PRIMETIME: Why You Shouldn’t Use a Script Coverage Service
Chad Gervich
Script
Stop using professional coverage services. They’re a waste of your time, your hopes, your creative energies.
Not because they’re no good; their “readers” and “consultants” may be literary geniuses—it doesn’t matter.
They’re a waste of time because, by design, they can almost never give you what you actually need to succeed.
The New Spec Market -- and 13 Genres NOT to Write
Jim Cirile
Coverage Ink
The Aug 31 2015 Scoggins Report just streeted, and to no one's surprise, things pretty much suck out there.
So far, 2015 is the worst year for spec sales in the past seven years-- a full 30% lower than average.
Now that's pretty ghastly, but when I say to no one's surprise, what I mean is: as writers, we all need to be aware that the old model just doesn't work as well as it used to.