Producing : Attaching a Director to Your Project by Martin Reese

Hey Martin. My rec: A friendly, professional, and succinct email to the director's manager. If no manager, their agent. If no agent, directly (if you can find their contact info). In the email, a short warm greeting, identify yourself and your role (briefly mention any awards you have but keep it super short; can link out to your website for a full bio/more info about you and/or your company), what you want, logline, brief statement about why this project is important/unique, VERY brief statement about why THIS director (1 or 2 sentences), notable attachments if any, anything notable about the script (awards, placements, excellent coverage, etc), budget, any financing in place, shooting location & dates. After the "why them" statement, keep the rest very short, like bullet points. A key to this is to make it very easy for the manager/agent/director to read it quickly, understand what you want and why, and then be inspired. Conclude with something like, "If it makes sense to talk, what's your schedule like this week?" Similar to a query letter. I recommend calling if they don't respond to your email. If you choose to call (either initially or later), have all this info ready and prepare yourself for anything. You'll get the assistant who may ask you anything or dismiss you completely (of course be friendly and do whatever they say). The goal isn't necessarily to have the assistant patch you through to the manager/agent, but to invite you to send an email with more details. That said, if you're lucky enough to talk your way to the manager/agent, be calm, collected, and ready to make your ask. Brevity is gold. I see that you're a director as well, so I recommend dropping that title completely when approaching these people. Use your title(s) for this specific project. If you wrote the script, then Screenwriter stays. If you're the one approaching the director, then you're a Producer. In this case, Producer is your primary title (they won't care that you wrote it, only that it's good). Side recommendation: if you're going solo and don't have any producing partners, I advise partnering with another producer before approaching a working director (has been paid to direct a feature or has multiple distributed credits). It just looks better.

All this is just one way that I've seen work, I'm sure there are infinite effective approaches. Good luck!

Thanks Doug Conant. That is very helpful.

I recommend checking out these courses that provide a ton of insight on how to get a director attached to your project:

https://www.stage32.com/webinars/The-Key-Elements-to-a-Commercial-Script...

https://www.stage32.com/classes/Stage-32-4-Part-Class-How-to-Attract-Fin...

https://www.stage32.com/webinars/How-To-Make-Your-Logline-Attractive-to-...

And please feel free to reach out to the Stage 32 education team directly at edu@stage32.com for guidance on our world-class entertainment education.

Hi Martin Reese - some great advice above. I also recommend watching this Stage 32 webinar on how to attach a director to your project - Aimee School has produced 35 features and is a wealth of knowledge on this topic. Here's a link so you can check it out: https://www.stage32.com/webinars/Attaching-a-Director-to-Your-Project-to...