Screenwriting : November Write Club - week four challenge (Blog Response) by Geoff Hall

Well, a professional has revealed the truth to you. no one sells scripts and no one buys them. The project is a startup for which an investor is being sought. and besides the author, no one will look for investors.

All this Hollywood stuff is beyond most individual's experience or net worth.

Make cheap movies, whatever you can afford with your own ppl. Whether $10K, $100K, $500K. Corporate Suits will find you 'cause they see a benefit of partnering with you. That is same for any occupation- making movies, fixing cars, selling hotdogs. Be better than average.

But this aint a sexy lifestyle pitch to dreamers

You don't have to know how the money is going to be raised. You don't need a twenty page treatment either, or a professional script editor.

CJ Walley so what do you need, other than a good script, CJ?

Arthur Charpentier couldn’t agree less. If that truly was the case, then no one would ever make a film. Your words just sound a little too dripping of cynicism.

Hi, Dan Guardino. Email writersroom@stage32.com to cancel it.

If an author wants to write, he should write a book. If the author wants to be a screenwriter, he needs to seek financing for the project, of course there are exceptions, but then you need to know the rules of the film business and follow them.

If an author is writing for a feature film, it must be unique. If the author is writing a series, it should be as cheap as possible and match the format of the TV channel.

Geoff Hall, script, logline, synopsis, personal bio. That's it for most. I'm not sure who the blog is aimed at but it borders on bizarre to me. Feels more like a guide for producers pitching to investors.

Passion and professionalism are what's critical, and how that manifests in the art world is very different to the corporate world. Ang Lee walked into Ted Hope's office one day with a plastic bag containing his lunch and said he needed to make movies or he'd die. Tarantino was infamous for smelling bad and his manager having to drag him out of bed. Dennis Hopper would get mad and pull a gun out at parties. Joe Eszterhas was so belligerent Michael Ovitz (head of CAA) put an open letter out to Hollywood telling everyone to black list him. These aren't the kind of people who fuss about their handshake and posture.

Thanks CJ Walley agreed, it seems to slip from screenwriter mode to producer mode, but I think there’s also some good advice in there, like how to represent ourselves at meetings. It was the ‘find the money’ line that threw me! Surely, that’s the Producer’s job.

You're welcome, Dan Guardino.

I agree. There are very good tips in this blog.

Geoff Hall the key message about how competitive things actually are is the important one. That's something a think a lot of aspiring screenwriters fail to see. It's a very corporate sounding article and nothing like the part of the industry I've been exposed to, but then I haven't worked in the studio system (and wouldn't ever want to, if this is what it's like).

That said, I have been in meetings with former studio heads, worked with someone who ran a big production company, and spent a few days with an Oscar nominated actor we were attaching. All that was very casual. Not much different to just hanging around with friends.

If you have the funding, then really it's other people who should be pitching to you. At that point, your relationship with any studio would be securing an MG. You certainly shouldn't be worrying about what you room looks like in a Zoom call.

CJ Walley “If you have the funding, then really it's other people who should be pitching to you. At that point, your relationship with any studio would be securing an MG.” Love it.

For myself, I want to be working in the indie film sector and not the studio sector.

Better practice drinking beer straight out of the pitcher then, because that what I watched an indie producer do in September.

Thanks everyone for chiming in on the blog. I sincerely hope it has been helpful. Geoff, let me expand on the point about "how you plan to raise money or secure distribution." This may come a shock to some writers but you will often be asked about where you think a "home" for your project will be. I want to know that you're thinking about more than just your story. Anyone can write with no budget in mind - and more writers do - and then they are shocked to find out very few have the means to finance their $300M space epic. So it gets passes all over town.

You don't need to have all the answers necessarily for a plan to raise money or secure distribution - that isn't your job. But you should know the important players and companies that could be the right home for your project - at any budget.

Jason Mirch thanks Jason, that makes more sense. Finding a home will be an easier concept for writers to grasp than finding the finance.

I've definitely had the "oh so it's fantasy, so it's expensive" (near verbatim) during pitches before. While it did give me an opportunity to ease their worries about a potential budget, I've definitely come to realize that knowing the answer to "where do you see this project living?" or "what network are you aiming for?" is another sort of sneaky way for folk to ask what sort of budget you have in mind, no matter the genre you're working in. It took me a while to figure that one out, but once I did, I found it really was a great way to do as Jason said and show you're thinking about your project past the writing of it.

Dawn Prato hi Dawn, I’m definitely keeping my more expensive projects, for further down the line.