You’ve Finished Your Screenplay - Now What?

Today we got the final draft of a new spec script that we are planning on taking out next week. It’s a very high concept story that we are really excited about.

However, here’s the first thing I said to the writer after I corrected the last few typos and got the final, final version: This is great but what’s next?

Because the second you finish your script you must have several other ideas that are fleshed out and ready to go.

This is for two reasons:

1) If the script is good (which I am assuming it is because you have been revising and working on it and hearing all my tips on showmethescreenplay.com), then no matter if it sells or not,  you will get a lot of meetings from it.  And the first thing people will ask you is what are you working on next.

And you definitely want to have an answer because nobody wants to meet with writers who don’t have their next idea that they are working on.  But, also, by having ideas that are ready to go, you can “soft pitch” them and see what people respond to.

By getting a sense of what people respond to you can get a feel for if the story is working.  If it’s not working, you might want to think of some other ideas.

2) If your script should have the good fortune of selling, then the best time to sell your next work is right after this script sale. You will be hot and the “the buzz on the street” will be at its highest.

This is why we tell our clients that they must be working on several ideas at once. That way, once your script is done and you’ve turned it into your agents or managers or producers, you already have your next idea fleshed out and you can dive right into it.

ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT IN ONE DAY

There is a truism in the entertainment industry that states “an assistant one day, a president the next.”

I just heard a great story that emphasizes this point: John Palermo was Bryan Singer’s assistant on the first X-Men film. John made such a good impression that Hugh Jackman hired him as Hugh’s assistant.

From there John was promoted on each subsequent film of Hugh’s: John became the executive producer on X-Men the Last Stand and full producer on X-Men: Origins. John is now running Hugh Jackman’s production company — Seed Productions.

This just goes to show you that you always have to be nice to everyone — from the assistant all the way up to the president. (In fact, when I launched Tom Sawyer Entertainment I promoted myself from assistant to CEO.)

And in the last six months alone, one of my friends went from assistant to director of development at a studio (skipping several steps along the way) and another friend went from the right-hand person of the head of a studio to becoming the president of Sony Pictures Animation.

On the same principle as meeting ANYONE – you should meet EVERYONE in the business, regardless of what company these people are at.

Because everyone switches jobs all the time, someone can be at a company one day (a company with which you might not have the same sensibilities) but could move to a different company the next day (a company for which you are perfect).

And again, if those executives/producers/agents like you, they will remember you and will reach back out to you and try to find a project to work with you on at their new company.

True story: An agent told me about how her client refused to meet with an executive at Lifetime. Now that same executive is running drama at NBC, and her client doesn’t have a relationship with that executive because the client wouldn’t take the meeting at Lifetime and start building a foundation for a successful future relationship.

Another true story: My client took a general meeting at Hugh Jackman’s company Seed Productions. The client is a young comedy writer/actor and, while he was never going to write something for Hugh, our friend who is the executive over there wanted to meet him.

We set up the meeting and told our client that nothing would probably happen but the exec is a good person to know.

It turns out that the company was looking for a writer for the Oscars and the executive fell in love with him.  Three days later he was on a plane to New York to write Hugh’s opening number for the Oscars.

In short, meet with anyone and everyone because you never know who or where these people will end up.

A LETTER TO ACTORS FROM AN AGENT

I usually try to write separate posts for each of the blogs that I write for but I thought this is so important I would post it in both places:

This email was supposedly sent from a talent agent to his clients and is making its way around Hollywood. And while I can’t confirm that it was indeed sent from an agent to his clients, I think it is a very honest breakdown of what is going on in the business (for my comments, go to the end of the email).

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A LETTER TO ACTORS FROM AN AGENT
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I know a lot of you are getting antsy to get out more, and frankly many of you are in a tight financial pinch; as such, I wanted to describe to you all the current climate in LA and the factors influencing the current environment.

SAG STALEMATE: Since the SAG contract expired last year, there have been few to no studio feature films (this does not
include companies such as Lionsgate and the Weinstein Company who are not in AMPTP and as such have completion agreements).

Some analysts say there are up to 200 feature films on hold. Around September, we started to see a mass movement of film actors to TV projects. Many of my ‘name’ actors have done one-day guest stars (this is very typical right now), and we
are seeing a number of Guest Star level actors doing co-star roles.

Remember from November of 2007 to March of 2008, due to the Writer’s Strike, again there were no feature films shot.
So for the film actor, there has only been 4 months of work in the last 17 months.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Due to the lack of feature film production, both film and TV actors are now competing for a limited number of jobs in the episodic and pilot environments.

PILOT SEASON: During the Writer’s Strike of 2007-2008, studios adapted and used the void to eliminate pilot season as we know it. Gone are the days of hundreds of pilots. In fact, this year, there are only 67 pilots to have registered for production -of which only about 35 have been greenlit for production.

And this year, due again to a sagging economy, studios and networks believe that by committing name stars to their projects, they will receive more money from this year’s up-fronts from ad agencies. They are banking on star power
to leverage better buys at the all important up-fronts.

So, stars and pop-stars like Richard Dreyfuss, Chevy Chase, Brittany Snow, Elle McPherson, Rebecca Romijn, Ashley Simpson, Scott Caan, Skeet Ulrich, and proven TV talents like Kelsey Grammar, Eric McCormick, John McGinley, Joel McHale, Jenna Elfman, Donald Faison, Maura Tierney, Peter Krauss, Craig T. Nelson, Dax Shepherd, etc.

You do the math, 37 pilots… top stars being sought…

TV: While TV has been steady, again due to the conflagration of film and named actors doing guest starring roles, we have
seen a horrible trickle down. Many guest stars are now doing co-stars and co-stars/developmental actors (those with less
than 5 primetime credits) frankly are not getting seen much. One CD recently told me that she had over 25 women who would be considered ‘working actors’ going for a co-star role.

BOTTOM LINE: Again, due to the abundance of name and working actors, many less-developed actors are not even being seennright now.

ECONOMIC IMPACT I - THE EROSION OF QUOTES/RATES: There are really three major impacts to actors during this economic crunch. First, we are seeing the erosion of quotes. Due to the availability of so many talented actors, casting folks and producers are in the driver’s seat in negotiations.

When they say, “well, we’ve got someone else who will do it for less” — they ain’t kiddin’.

I have spoken to a number of my peers who have confirmed this erosion of pay for their actors. In short, right now, quotes
are eroding and for many, the minimum has become the maximum.

ECONOMIC IMPACT II - THE CONCLUSION OF SAG STALEMATE: Many are hoping that with the end of this stalemate, Hollywood will get back to normal.

I have to say that I am not one who necessarily believes this. First off, due to the economic conditions, most studios have
lost millions of dollars from hedge funds … and European, Asian and Middle Eastern money has dried up.

Even Steven Spielberg has had to beg, borrow and steal to get his company financed. And it wasn’t anywhere near what
he originally asked for. I believe that, even after the SAG stalemate is over, there is probably not enough money for 50 studio feature films to be done - right out of the gate.

BOTTOM LINE: While this will help us move towards normalcy, it will not be the cash cow some people think it will be. One side note is that I expect that more formulaic projects will come out the gate, as studios will be less likely to take any
significant risks - since most of these projects will be financed by both the studio and their investors. In short,
you will see more Iron Mans, Animation, and SAWs… they are money in the bank when you factor in ratios, etc.

ECONOMIC IMPACT III - OVERALL STATEMENT OF ENVIRONMENT: It is important that everyone follow the economy closely. I know it is easy to be skeptical over the studios, networks, cablers, production houses, show runners, etc., losing money, but it is a cold-hard fact right now. These entities are truly in a difficult spot. If you have read much lately, there have been dramatic cut backs at every studio and network - from firings to asking show runners to cut between 2-7% of their budgets (not to mention the 25% cutback shows like the Sarah Silverman were asked to swallow recently). Furthermore, these networks and studios are largely owned by conglomerates who have lost billions over the last 6 months.

When I attended NATPE in January, all the talk was how to get ‘thinner.’ Everything is getting tight. Budgets, marketing, staffing, etc. - and this will undoubtedly impact the actor.

Also, the foreign sales market (where much of the TV and film money is made) is being hit hard by the erosion of the dollar. So these entities are not able to recoup the costs they were in better days by the one-time explosion of the foreign
markets.

BOTTOM LINE: The economic conditions are forcing the industry to be as ‘thin’ as possible.

COMMERCIALS - INDUSTRY AND ECONOMIC IMPACTS: One analyst said last year that 2008 was the worst commercial market since maybe 1974. I would not argue with this. Think about it: three of the top products/services for ad agencies are banks, cars and other financial services - all of which were struck down in 2008 and early 2009 by this recession. This was confirmed when news struck that even the Super Bowl did not sell out advertising this year.

The good news is that the advertising industry tends to be one of the first ones to be negatively impacted by a recession, but one of the first to grow as the recession moves to an end as advertisers of products want to start accumulating market share before the turn of the economy. Another impact relates to the overall conditions of the TV/FILM/PILOT situation. Many strong actors have made enough money on TV/FILM, etc. so that they have not had to do commercials in years. Due to the last few years and the lack of work, many top actors are now back in the commercial market; thus again causing a logjam in casting.

BOTTOM LINE: The economic slowdown has caused a dramatic decrease in ad sales and the lack of work has caused more actors to re-enter the commercial market.

THE GOOD NEWS!!

Okay, so that is where we are today. You know me, I try to always call it straight as I see it. So, I am not going to sugar-coat this either.

I anticipate that 2009 will be a tough year overall for actors (and agencies). First off, the economy will not likely get
straightened out until at least the 3rd to 4th quarter of this year and so all the factors above will remain in place through
most, if not all, of 2009. Secondly, until the labor situation gets straightened out, we will not be seeing dramatic amount of film production, and this seems to be dragging along as well (as we enter the 8th month of the stalemate - it was announced today that SAG is thinking now about taking AMPTP to court for anti-trust violations). But again, even if it was finalized, there is not enough investor money to see the film production level normalize and increase for most, if not all, of 2009.

Also, since movies cost around $40 for two (tickets, popcorn, etc.) - this is not a recession-proof field anymore. During our
last significant recession, there were few choices for guilty pleasures to get away from the stress of our times - so many
people flocked to the theatres. NOT SO THESE DAYS; one can go to the web, TV, cable (not around in 1974, 1982, 1988 much), video games, Netflix, RedBox (movie for a $1). So studios are probably not in any big rush to make films - as people cannot afford this once cheap diversion - better to divert for a few bucks to all the many other sources of guilty pleasures.

OKAY, so that didn’t sound like good news …

The good news is that there are paradigm shifts occurring that make 2010 -2012 look like it might be one of the most
prolific times in Hollywood history. Due to technological developments, there are more platforms being developed than
ever. The internet is driving millions of new viewers each year.

Zillion is going to transform the way we view advertising. For those who don’t know, it has recently been unveiled by
the maker of Real Player and the ‘mouse.’ It is a system that makes you watch ads before downloading movies (they already have 14,000 titles ready for download), TV, other forms of entertainment to your TV screen. However, the consumer can choose the products they want to see (let’s say you go retail clothing and watch a Macy’s ad and love the jacket; you can immediately click on the ad/jacket and go directly to their website where you can buy it). Also, you earn points by watching the commercials that you can use towards purchases. Furthermore, Sony and others are now selling TVs that wirelessly connect to your computer, so you can download TV/FILMS at anytime from your computer (websites like Hulu, Netflix, etc.) directly to your TV.

In short, technology is making more platforms which will require more content than ever. Cablers are all embracing doing scripted shows, some have up to 5 shows this year … again, more content is needed and thus, MORE ACTORS!

BOTTOM LINE: More platforms = more content = more actors! So as long as SAG and/or AFTRA can protect your rates and solve jurisdictional issues, there will be more good compensated work than ever in Hollywood by 2010-2012.

My comments:

Whether you are an actor or a writer I think there are four things to take away from this email:

1. As less and less movies are being made the traditional way through studios, it’s getting harder and harder for a new writer to break in.
2. As less and less movies are being made by studios, the studios are going to be more risk averse than ever before.
3. Thus, you as the writer must do everything in your power to have the best script possible before you take it out, because it is too easy for people to say no.
4. Write a commercial movie. If you want to make an independent movie, write and then go make an independent movie. But if you want to play in the studio world, do yourself a favor and write a commercial movie. Again, you want to give people the least amount of ammunition for reasons to pass on your script.

For more insider advice on writing great screenplays that sell, check out my Special Reports at
http://www.showmethescreenplay.com/special-reports-entertainment-industry-insiders/

Hiring an Actor to Pitch for You or Becoming a Good Pitcher Yourself?

I just saw an email announcing you can hire an actor for your pitch. Which is kind-of a brilliant idea (because being a great pitcher is quite a skill on its own) but having an actor pitch for you also kind-of defeats the purpose.

Because while the most important part of pitching is convincing someone to buy your project, the other important part of pitching is for the executive or producer to meet you and get to know you. A pitch is a great way for an executive to see how you are in a room, with stories and being creative on the spot (for example, if they are pitching you an idea in the middle of your pitch and you have to run with it).

So if you are hiring an actor to pitch your project you lose out on getting to meet and be in the room with the executive or producer.

And this brings me to a good point.  Being a great pitcher is a really important skill to develop and it is a totally separate skill than writing. Being a writer is about having the discipline to sit in an empty room and learn how to get your voice on the page.  Being a good pitcher is about being social, being adaptable, and, to be honest, smiling and nodding to every crazy idea the executive throws out to you.

So if you want to be a good pitcher — go out and practice.  If you have friends who are great pitchers and you are not, see if they can work on this with you.

That being said, you don’t have to be a great pitcher — as long as you understand the consequences of that decision.  For example, we have a client who hates to pitch and won’t do it (which is fine because he really just wants to write his own material).  But the flip side of that, he knows that he can’t go up for writing assignments (because pitches have to be done for writing assignments) and thus he will always have to write his own scripts on spec.

No matter what - I would always advocate against hiring an actor to take your place in a pitch because — even if he is a better pitcher than you — you never want someone else pitching your own words and ideas!