Let’s Get Visual: Getting Creative to Sell Your Script

If you are reading the “trades” or deadlinehollywood.com you will see that the recession isn’t quite over for studios.  Because yes, while movie attendance is up, studios are still taking the stance that they don’t have money and might never have money again.  In fact, Universal said today that the studio is out of money this year to fund development.

But there will always be money for great material - in fact, I just sold a script to a buyer -  you just have to get more creative with how you excite people about your project and help give them the motivation to buy it.

How did I sell the script in this climate? Here is my secret:

Get visual! Today is the age of immediate gratification and executives want to see exactly what it is they are buying. Help them! Be creative and give them something visual that will get them excited about your project.

I almost always provide a visual aid to go with whatever project I am selling. Sometimes it is simply a visual aid with pictures and graphs of movies that have done well in that genre. Sometimes it is a sample poster.
Sometimes it is a page depicting possible merchandising opportunities for the project. Sometimes it is character and scene sketches.  For an animation project, I will often have my clients put together a 30-second clip.

Whatever the project is, I always try to pair a visual presentation with it because this gives buyers something to look at.

For the script I just sold I put together a packet of graphs, posters and merchandising opportunities and this got everyone excited — enough so that they bought the project and are looking towards a spring shoot.

So get visual to help sell your project!