tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49401289904389516612024-03-06T04:52:57.908+00:00Animal ElectricityIt's time to GalvaniseRobin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-61283041017005959642019-11-26T02:32:00.001+00:002019-11-26T02:43:38.117+00:00Marketing is Story, and Story is Marketing<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">Okay, so s</span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">omehow this blog is nearly a decade old. Time for an end-of-decade round-up of readers' favourite posts. Let's start with </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">Pre-Greenlight Marketing (PGM) </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">which is my take on upstream marketing for the film industry. You can have all the story skills in the world, but if you're not combining them with a knowledge of the business (and your market niche within the business) you're almost certainly wasting valuable time and money.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">Some of these lessons also go back the other way, of course. Beyond the obvious areas of writing narrative-led advertising copy, or capturing audiences with compelling and relevant content, the notions of Fractals and Holding to the Edges to stand out, are just two of many examples of how storytelling can inform the larger picture of your campaign, and relationships with your customer. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/bear-with-me.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Bear With Me</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Who is your customer? Who is it really?</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/seth-godin-on-why-marketing-is-too.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Seth Godin on why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> The most important marketing seminar you'll ever watch?</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/fractals.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Fractals</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Consistency of message, whatever the medium.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.86px;"><a href="https://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-four-necessities-of-strong-logline.html" target="_blank">The Four Necessities of a Strong Logline</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"> </span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;">An incredibly powerful tool for creating the strongest possible story, and selling it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ive-just-posted-this-response-to.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Similar but Different</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Arguably the most important concept in script development.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/is-your-film-remarketable.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Is Your Film "Remarketable”?</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Advertising is no longer reliable. Why are people going to talk about your film?</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/legwork-10-step-checklist.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Legwork 10 Step Checklist</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> My company's proprietary checklist before we'll greenlight.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/there-is-no-more-room-in-middle.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">There is no more room in the middle</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> In a saturated market, you have to be at the edges to stand out.</span><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/legwork-films_25.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Legwork Films</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Introduction to my PGM consulting company.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><a href="https://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/2019/04/festival-marketing.html" style="color: #a10909; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">Festival Marketing</a><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><br style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;" /><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , "tahoma" , "helvetica" , "freesans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.86px;"> Why, after 23 Cannes Festivals, I might be able to help you land a buyer.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Enjoy, </span><br />
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-88653781488222220702019-11-07T11:32:00.001+00:002019-11-07T11:32:39.934+00:00The Four Necessities of a Strong Logline<br />
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A little while ago* I wrote about <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/2011/11/trubys-four-necessities.html">The Four Necessities</a>, which I still stand by as one of the greatest storytelling shortcuts there is. I mean shortcut in the responsible way of turning in great pages sooner, not half-assing your job. Starting with a protagonist, an antagonist, an inciting event, and a moral need, it's possible to weave an incredibly tight story... and without them it's extremely time-consuming, maybe even impossible in some cases.<br />
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With this stong kernel at the core of your story, John Truby identified (if there's an earlier source let me know) that you can be up and running extremely fast, and your story is resilient to a multitude of bombardments during development.<div>
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Since I wrote that blog post I've been meaning to get around to a follow-up covering how a powerful <b>logline</b> of 20-45 words could / should / would be made more powerful by integrating The Four Necessities. Today I'm waiting in for a delivery, so let's see if I can finally get through it. Shouldn't take too long.</div>
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Screenwriter William Martell wrote a very clear explanation of a good logline <a href="http://www.scriptsecrets.net/tips/tip120.htm">here</a> and I've no reason to go over well-trodden ground, so if you're not 100% sure what I'm on about you should read that first.</div>
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Putting it all together, then, shouldn't be hard. We're looking for one or two sentences which contain a protagonist (or group), a force of antagonism (or several), and an internal and external thing to overcome (moral need, and external challenge).</div>
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<li>When two <i>children go missing</i> in his sleepy rural home town a <i>hard-drinking metropolitan journalist </i>suspects <i>his own brother</i> may be connected.</li>
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<br />Protagonist: <i>a journalist</i><br />Antagonist: <i>his brother; small community</i><br />Inciting Incident: <i>children go missing</i><br />Moral need: <i>fish-out-of-water protagonist...<br />... likely has rough-edges; trust issues<br />... left this small town for a reason</i></blockquote>
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To really hammer home the point of my original post on the matter: it's not enough that each of the four necessities be merely connected to one of the others; each must be <i>as tightly and intimately connected to the others as possible</i>, so as to maximise conflict and drama.</div>
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So the better your antagonist knows your protagonist the more power s/he wields over them. How about the inciting incident? Okay, whose children? If you wanted to you could write it <i>even tighter</i> and make the children those of the journalist, his brother, or someone else very close.</div>
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There is however usually a trade-off with the number of intimate connections you can make while still encompassing everything within a reasonable logline length. In search of the optimal balance I've often crafted a few dozen loglines focusing on different aspects of the story for precisely this reason, but that's another great aspect of crafting and analysing your story at this level of granularity first; the time it would take to discover your optimal kernel with <i>screenplay-length iterations</i> would be onerous, not to mention tedious. At a few sentences long at most, you can roll through numerous permutations in a single afternoon.</div>
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Here you really do have an incredibly powerful tool not only for creating the strongest possible story, but also for selling it, and that's what we're all here for at Animal Electricity.</div>
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Happy writing!</div>
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Robin</div>
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* aaahh what's eight years between friends?</div>
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See also: <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/2011/10/fractals.html">Fractals</a>: Your Story at Various Scales</div>
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-13962094667339064822019-04-18T13:01:00.002+01:002019-09-11T00:07:50.167+01:00Festival Marketing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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'Festival' to most filmmakers means Cannes...</h3>
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... and with just three weeks to go many of you will be scrambling to get your projects market ready.<br />
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I've now been 23 consecutive times, so I know what works and what doesn't. This week I inked a deal with a man who produced six $50m movies this decade. Three weeks ago I signed a writing deal with an established UK-based producer. An Australian producer is flying in to Cannes to meet with me about a sci-fi we're developing together, director and finance are waiting patiently for the script.<br />
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Four-page documents are extremely powerful. For those patient enough to read them they present the story in sufficient detail to understand character, motives, and tone. For writers and producers they contain just enough granularity to maintain momentum throughout the development process; not too onerous to write or to read for fast-turnaround changes to complex story beats.<br />
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<i>Related</i>: <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/p/about-consulting.html">Script Consulting — What is it? Who does it? Who is it for?</a></blockquote>
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Story comes first</h3>
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I advocate for a one-page introduction, a two-page outline, and a four-page treatment. I'm also a huge fan of the logline, which should convey the <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.com/2011/11/trubys-four-necessities.html">Four Necessities</a> in fewer than thirty words if possible.<br />
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If you can go to festivals and markets with all of those presented nicely — professional poster artwork and a director's look book certainly help — then you're way ahead of the rest of the pack.<br />
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So let me know if I can help you with any of the above.<br />
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robin@animalelectricity.com<br />
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To your success!<br />
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Robin<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-57643839877693607662019-02-18T15:58:00.000+00:002019-02-18T15:59:23.585+00:00Make Your Film<br />
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Guest post by Dom Lenoir.<br />
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Two UK filmmakers, Dom Lenoir and Giles Alderson, have embarked upon a new venture to bridge the gap between independent and big-budget films and also to explore the mindset and approaches of how people really got there, which you don’t often see at other panel events.<br />
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It is called #MakeYourFilm<br />
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Both are filmmakers with provenance:<br />
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<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5078435/">Dom Lenoir</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1815188/">Giles Alderson</a><br />
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Here is an overview of the events and their contact information.<br />
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<i>Make Your Film</i> is a new London event that myself and Giles have created to present and run together. Giles already has a lot of amazing success stories from a wealth of independent and studio level filmmakers through his filmmaker's podcast and from my side I already ran a film course with Matt from Camelot Films about the stages of producing your film at a high level.<br />
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Running this new event came about because we wanted to help other people in the indie world get their films made. There is such a lot of negativity and barriers to getting features made, and the status quo is very limiting in telling people what they should aim for: - such as what genre you have to do, whether you have cast at a certain level, if it has to be minimal or “contained” etc. What we have found through our experiences that if you are willing to be resourceful, and are passionate about making films, that you can take the stories you want and get them made and we want to inspire people to see the ways people have done that. Our approach to show this is by showing the challenges our panellists have faced, their unique and different ways of approaching the producing of their films and at the same time building a positive framework of people who want to create great stories and films and can collaborate to do so.<br />
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The main focus of our first event was about making your first feature and our guests had all achieved amazing things: the panellists' films starred some amazing talent:: - Adam Morse’s film Lucid stars Billy Zane (Titanic), Jenna Suru’s film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9091118/">L'Âge d'Or</a>, which she stars in and produced herself and is impressively set in 1960s France/LA, Phin Glynn’s film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4928814/">You, Me and Him</a> stars David Tennant.<br />
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In terms of Giles he did his first studio film with Millennium called <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6270640">The Dare</a> and myself, I just completed <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5973658/">Winter Ridge</a> starring Alan Ford (Snatch) which we independently produced and got into 25 cinemas's entirely ourselves.<br />
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The atmosphere was incredible on the first event night, people were incredibly positive and saying how charged they now are to go off and get projects made and how different and insightful it was compared to a lot of panels that just look at success stories. It's surprising how many talented people just need a push, or to hear a different way of looking at things to renew their drive and get something moving after having had a setback or being told their project was not possible. Having had a challenging time ourselves on projects in the past we wanted to give something back and give something useful to the film community. Each event has a different theme; we will be tailoring them to hit some interesting areas as we move through each month.<br />
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We’re actively collaborating with other networks and sponsors as well so it isn’t just our own event but a collaborative venture. There are some amazing companies joining us and some really high level speakers, so it’s really exciting how quickly it’s expanding.<br />
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You can follow us on all the social media pages and keep up to date with our next event on March 5th as we announce new speakers on the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MakeYourFilm2019 and also the filmmakerspodcast https://twitter.com/filmmakerspod where you can also get your projects shouted out sometimes on Twitter to help get the word out there too.<br />
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You can also follow what we are up to on our projects with - Dom Lenoir and Giles Alderson respectively as well as our recent features on twitter, instagram and facebook: @winterridgefilm and @thedarefilm<br />
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Our first announced guests are <a href="https://www.fizzandgingerfilms.co.uk/">Fizz and Ginger Films</a> who are currently premiering their latest movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5075662/">The Isle</a> in L.A.<br />
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Tickets here for our March event:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/makeyourfilm-returns-tickets-5552928">https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/makeyourfilm-returns-tickets-5552928</a><br />
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ABOUT the <i>Make your Film</i> hosts:<br />
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Dom Lenoir - Directed & produced his 1st feature age 20 and achieved his goal of 3 features before 30 yrs old with Winter Ridge starring Alan Ford (Snatch, Lock Stock) and Oscar winning sound designer Glen Freemantle (Gravity) which had a 25 screen cinema release and 16 festival awards. Doms back catalogue includes international shooting in Sicily, Scotland, Austria, Spain and Germany, showing an ability to create high production values and focus on acting led drama. His work is very much story and character led, delivering heightened drama and thought provoking messages within his films. His next film in development We Called Him James is written by Daniel Graham whose last script attracted and featured Willem Dafoe.<br />
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Giles Alderson - Giles was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, UK. He has recently directed studio film with Millenium 'The Dare' and 'The World of Darkness feature films. He starred in the films, I Want Candy, The Torment, The Harsh Light of Day, The Damned United and is the founder of Gold Films & Figi Productions where he has produced and directed eight award winning films including, 'The Heart of the Forest', '47 Cleveland' 'Taken' 'Barry Brown' and the first 3D short drama to be filmed in the UK 'Sportsday 3D'. He is now in prep for his drama feature 'The Nobodies' and is in post for his writing and directing debut the psychological horror feature 'The Dare' starring Richard Brake, Alexandra Evans, Richard Short, Bart Edwards and Robert Maaser for Millennium Films and B2Y.<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-55637846913085672992017-09-27T10:51:00.001+01:002017-09-27T10:51:07.733+01:00The Dictionary is Wrong... Or Is It?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So... there's a common expression "to shoot yourself in the foot" and it's so self-explanatory that everyone can agree on its meaning... you might think.<br />
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A calamitous own-goal, yes? To be hoisted by one's own petard, surely?<br />
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Except they can't all agree, and maybe shouldn't, because once upon a time, about 100 years ago, it was a deliberate action — not even self-sabotage, utterly deliberate — following from the premise that it would cause a non-fatal wound which would very likely get you removed from the front lines of battle. (There was even a Blackadder bit about it).<br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(220, 220, 220, 0.1); color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; font-size: 17.64px;"><a href="https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/137187/what-does-it-mean-to-shoot-oneself-in-the-foot">English Language & Usage</a></span><br />
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So who's wrong and who's right? Well that's the interesting thing: everyone's right.<br />
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Whether you do a thing deliberately or not, a thing is done. Both interpretations have meaningful meanings. Whichever one you intend is probably easily inferred. Why not have two options?<br />
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Is this to imply that "I could care less" is also permissible? No. That is still plainly wrong.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-38565772355605578502017-08-04T10:13:00.000+01:002017-08-04T10:13:24.898+01:00Spatial Awareness<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Painting: Dive by Daniel Mullen — <a href="https://danielmullen.info/uintentional-space/" target="_blank">Website</a></div>
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Recently I asked some clients if there were any specific areas of interest they'd like me to post about on this blog — particularly as I haven't been very active on here for a while (having run out of steam a little while back after a good few years slogging at it).<br />
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One subject that came up was the notion of 'geographically blocking out' a scene for maximum drama and clarity. It's an interesting one. Certainly, it's a key aspect of the craft, and it's true that I don't see a lot written on this, particularly compared to character, story or dialogue.<br />
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Now that I think about it, this is one of the major parts of what defines a writer's <i>voice</i>. What could be more quintessential to screen-based drama than the writer's choices of how the reader or viewer is oriented in space relative to the scene? It surely then stands alongside character, story and dialogue in its importance. Let's take a look.<br />
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A key tenet of modern screenwriting technique is one-sentence-per-shot, and this convention is one of the main things which sets screenwriting apart from other literary forms. Quite apart from sheer practicality (avoiding unfilmable information) it's a writer's best tool to convey what they want on screen without committing the cardinal sin of over-directing or listing shots.<br />
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Well-thought-out geography with strong visuals can allow you to build tension without dialogue, ratchet up the dramatic power of a scene with dialogue, and can add suspense to the most high-octane action set-piece, or the quietest parlour.<br />
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At the very least it's the only way I know to keep every reader totally apprised of how all the characters and important dramatic elements are arranged on your proverbial chess board, and how that evolves over time. That also extends to the actors and the director, most of the crew, and onwards into the edit suite. Sure things will change once it's out of your hands and the realities of filming kick in, but you have the best shot of your script being what you see on screen if you're specific about the placement of the pieces.<br />
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<h3>
How Much is Too Much?</h3>
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The next question has to be how specific is too specific. I think the best answer to that is that it kinda depends how you want to convey pace and tone at any given moment.<br />
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If Darcy stands beside the fireplace in a stately home, then he presumably has at his disposal several possibly heavy ornaments on the mantlepiece, and a set of fire irons. Who else is in the room, and their whereabouts, is probably therefore also interesting. The tension deriving from other aspects of the drama should be your guide.<br />
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If Knuckles follows Arabella along a canal path in the fog, then the reader might make some assumptions about that, based on how far apart they are, and who can see whom (if she trips and breaks a high-heel how much time does she have left?) but not care about much else, as it would slow down the action for no good reason. (And if you tell me it's a Jimmy Choo that'd better be super-relevant).<br />
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How much you describe is always a trade-off, and a pro will often obsess about the right amount for pace, but that's one of the problems about quality writing: it takes a lot of time, particularly at first.<br />
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<h3>
One Sentence Per Shot</h3>
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So going on the basis of a page of script to a minute of screen, we can get a sense of pacing based on your action description, and this is a powerful tool in your armoury as well. You can choreograph incredible action and interpersonal interaction, but keep one eye on length. If that's the purpose of your scene or sequence, then go for it. The main thing is to ensure clarity at all times.<br />
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I find it useful to enter a very focused and utterly 'literal' state when reading or editing, in the sense of asking "how could a fool or a pedant interpret this wrong?" This again takes time, but you quickly internalise both fool and pedant, and invoke them as you go. This helps to ensure your scenes are rarely, if ever, unclear in important details, to a wide spectrum of readers, most of whom, we hope, will soon have to translate your instructions into sets, lighting, physical blocking, props, camera positions, rigging... you get the idea.<br />
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You also get to create a complete edited movie in your head, and what's not to love about that?<br />
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Any questions or suggestions based on your experiences, please share below.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-80713519562631575702017-05-08T15:31:00.000+01:002017-05-08T15:31:12.214+01:00Slated<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVTYw6HqdpFtBGaRq9zwWt0wlScrxs8BF33VSpQUpDIZoMAwHKxsXOwZJY6J3dJ3tq_LEWnHP1vTWv-BYZgxHHf-7lX8Pvc6oY9JxD48XBq8OZPMK7MzdnFf7nkZYQdqXUYbx9LR5AoqtD/s400/300x250-made%25402x.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://slated.grsm.io/e/752" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; color: #328cc3; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Proxima Nova", proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.4; text-align: start; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">Visit Slated</a></td></tr>
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The film investment introductions website Slated asked me to share a little information about them, and as a long-time member of the network, I'm happy to do so.<br />
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They're a smart and well-resourced team who have built a very worthwhile platform, seen it populated with every rank of independent filmmaker imaginable, and over time have built out the service to include add-on services like script scoring, financial analysis, and more.<br />
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I myself have a project which I'm producing listed on there, and it ranks the elements using a proprietary algorithm based on the team and any company credits, lets you present the logline, synopsis and talent package in a visually pleasing format, and then search for and contact investors directly through the platform.<br />
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Have a look for yourself and sign-up at <a href="http://slated.grsm.io/e/752">www.slated.com</a><br />
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RK<br />
<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-31506221420067819502016-10-19T16:13:00.002+01:002016-10-28T22:38:25.142+01:00No More Excuses...<br />
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<br />
Well, this is nice: a free grammar checking plugin for my web browser now has a personalised referral link <a href="http://gram.ly/sQ9j">here</a> and, if you sign up and install their browser extension, we both get a week of their Premium service free. Win-win.<br />
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There are so many reasons to have a smart virtual assistant watching over your shoulder, it's really crazy not to install one. Sure I don't agree with everything it suggests, and sometimes I just wanna riff on the English language, but it's great to have issues flagged up before you proofread.<br />
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Now a word of caution: I'm not certain that I'd recommend installing it in your main writing app, where free-flowing thoughts are of paramount importance and editing should be left to later, but online and for writing blogs it's very handy indeed. It really speeds things up.<br />
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When you first sign up there is an option for American or British English and in my case it was initially set to American but easy to change. Then as far as I can recall that's it, you're ready to go. It pops a little green G in the lower right corner of the text box you're typing in, which turns red and shows a number corresponding to flagged potential errors. You can ignore the suggestions if you wish.<br />
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Lastly, one thing you might want to look out for: in certain web forms I've noticed it caused sporadic flickering of the text box while it refreshed its overlaid suggestions, but once I realised the cause it was simple to disable it temporarily by rolling over the circle and clicking the power button symbol.<br />
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Try it out, see if it fits your needs, and let me know below in the comments if it was helpful to you.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-76673573079188418542016-10-10T11:18:00.002+01:002016-10-10T11:21:19.855+01:00Do Better Movies Make More Money?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Rw7_16C9oX8pmu_kKn5HEmJ67jYI4VarLN3swjWRa4RgSGSWKOYavOGKK54a8sc3Bw9btzkZWi1gGvnLUoncBw1_WrtuYbx0pqd39RpiSlRmppQg50dm0uGoPVMphNMDvei4RPsS5bVt/s400/Good-movie-profitability-by-genre.png" width="400" /></div>
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The always interesting Stephen Follows has impressed again with a simple bit of statistical analysis this week, probing into the correlation (or lack thereof) between a film's quality — as measured by a film's <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/">Metascore</a> — and its profitability, where known.<br />
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There are some surprising results, especially when the numbers are broken down by genre.<br />
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Go <a href="https://stephenfollows.com/do-good-reviews-lead-to-financial-success/">here</a> to read the full article.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-8247422405550666062016-07-26T18:08:00.001+01:002016-07-26T18:10:45.636+01:00Robert McKee — Dialogue<br />
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The particularly sharp among you may have noticed that I haven't written a lot about Robert McKee on this blog. The only reason for that is that he hasn't done much lately (that I know of) but I like his book Story very much, and he is second on my recommended reading list, after Truby.<br />
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(That list is on the right hand side here somewhere... down... down... keep scrolling... that's it).<br />
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Today I saw <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-bob-mckee-second-book-profile-20160630-snap-story.html">this article</a> about, and interview with, him — because he has a new book out.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, "Droid Serif", serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px;">“Becoming a writer … it’s going to cost you time,” McKee said, looking out over the room of about 150 students, a diverse mix of ages and races. “It’s going to cost you money. It’s going to cost you people.”</span></blockquote>
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Enjoy.<br />
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And maybe at some point I'll review it.<br />
<br />
RK<br />
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-57475880624958132402016-03-02T08:21:00.001+00:002016-03-02T08:24:48.079+00:00Playwright<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfRWBgL4-8wFG8TkJAC5b0AnmEL_h6eyQK_MVyER1I4zDne8qWDmojxD1ko0Uz5glv2O4zeYJ3dkGMEPzugNiOgLhc3yMrm71fgsAdhbmK727Ev0rujPhGZ3zBnLQ-fZJcU_6eAYf2QaU/s1600/wheelwrightshopmay1881.2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpfRWBgL4-8wFG8TkJAC5b0AnmEL_h6eyQK_MVyER1I4zDne8qWDmojxD1ko0Uz5glv2O4zeYJ3dkGMEPzugNiOgLhc3yMrm71fgsAdhbmK727Ev0rujPhGZ3zBnLQ-fZJcU_6eAYf2QaU/s640/wheelwrightshopmay1881.2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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A very decent pub lunch with friends this weekend was made even more pleasant by my conversation with someone I hadn't met before – a sometimes writer himself, and long-time TV producer.<br />
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Somehow we got to talking about dramaturgy, and he reminded me that the origin of the word "playwright" is not what one might assume. From Wikipedia:<br />
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The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wright">wright</a> is an archaic English term for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan">craftsman</a> or builder (as in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelwright">wheelwright</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon">cartwright</a>).<br />
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Hence the prefix and the suffix combine to indicate someone who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form - someone who crafts plays. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophone">homophone</a> with "write" is in this case entirely coincidental.*<br />
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The term playwright appears to have been coined by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson">Ben Jonson</a> in his Epigram 49, "To Playwright",<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright#cite_note-1">[1]</a> as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term playwright later lost this negative connotation.</blockquote>
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* Actually I doubt that the homophone with "write" is coincidental at all. Both words come from Old English, and can be traced far earlier, so I suspect a bit of intentional wordplay. But isn't it interesting how it stuck? The connotations of physically grappling with the raw material, and hammering it into shape are so much more emotive than the plain descriptive act of scratching ink onto paper.</div>
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RK</div>
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-24100069494649833702016-01-20T00:26:00.004+00:002016-01-20T00:30:11.719+00:00UmmmmmOK wow. It's been a year since I posted, and while a part of me feels bad about that, many, many other parts of me think that we really left this blog place in a good way.<br />
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What can I say? Sorry. I have been effing busy.<br />
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I'll be back for sure, but for now probably everything you need to know about screenwriting and marketing is probably here somewhere. That was my goal.<br />
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Let's be honest: all that's missing henceforth are the war stories, and I'm sure they'll be along shortly.<br />
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Cool. See you all soon,<br />
<br />
Robin<br />
<br />
<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-56013643567196460022014-11-20T17:16:00.000+00:002014-11-20T17:50:15.785+00:00List of Marketing Posts 2010 to 2014<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3xacimXeHPBc8mmm7b5UBHP5_DfeLkcr9Xi9-9yl5_WNjQvl6gz1zDhULM79Hr1KybfEPAPT9sNBGe1OKZUoNS12H7pWwVmAWRov1-BwIQIHz5CN5xIpLEMDtlsunE_CRqOi7iVLEN3p/s1600/GolfSale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3xacimXeHPBc8mmm7b5UBHP5_DfeLkcr9Xi9-9yl5_WNjQvl6gz1zDhULM79Hr1KybfEPAPT9sNBGe1OKZUoNS12H7pWwVmAWRov1-BwIQIHz5CN5xIpLEMDtlsunE_CRqOi7iVLEN3p/s1600/GolfSale.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This picture is ironic. Keep reading.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I've several new posts coming up in the new year (maybe sooner) which specifically discuss the field of <i>Pre-Greenlight Marketing (PGM)</i> so I thought I'd round-up all my marketing related posts to date.<br />
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<br />
<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/bear-with-me.html" target="_blank">Bear With Me</a><br />
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Who is your customer? Who is it really?<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/seth-godin-on-why-marketing-is-too.html" target="_blank">Seth Godin on why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department</a><br />
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The most important marketing seminar you will ever see.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/fractals.html" target="_blank">Fractals</a><br />
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Consistency of message, whatever the medium.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ive-just-posted-this-response-to.html" target="_blank">Similar but Different</a><br />
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Arguably the most important concept in script development.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/is-your-film-remarketable.html" target="_blank">Is Your Film "Remarketable”?</a><br />
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Advertising is no longer reliable. Why are people going to talk about your film?<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/legwork-10-step-checklist.html" target="_blank">Legwork 10 Step Checklist</a><br />
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My company's proprietary checklist before we'll greenlight.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/there-is-no-more-room-in-middle.html" target="_blank">There is no more room in the middle</a><br />
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In a saturated market you have to be at the edges to stand out.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/legwork-films_25.html" target="_blank">Legwork Films</a><br />
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Introduction to my PGM consulting company.<br />
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<a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/film-policy-review-thoughts.html" target="_blank">Film Policy Review… thoughts</a><br />
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Why a 58% customer expectation of "being entertained" isn't good enough.<br />
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Enjoy, and I'll be back to talk about PGM soon.<br />
<br />
RK<br />
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-38203574656238513792014-11-16T18:19:00.000+00:002015-12-30T01:27:19.276+00:00DIY Script Doctor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavBg43GqpRp6T4b5H6FuqjZZHeiGhJcdTToS4H3R2xXKSUl3a99Fu6dYaW0bdMnwb_XuKC3h-GmAOzm_KADIF93q5McUHY-cqZrCzebr7f_O6loFbrKh7s9yo5-F5oTyZ1Pv68UwoYnO_/s1600/DALI+sq.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiavBg43GqpRp6T4b5H6FuqjZZHeiGhJcdTToS4H3R2xXKSUl3a99Fu6dYaW0bdMnwb_XuKC3h-GmAOzm_KADIF93q5McUHY-cqZrCzebr7f_O6loFbrKh7s9yo5-F5oTyZ1Pv68UwoYnO_/s1600/DALI+sq.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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This may sound silly at first, but it's just a little shift in perception that could make all the difference to your work, make you a better writer, and shave years off your time spent breaking into the biz.<br />
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If you've been writing fairly consistently for several years, reading scripts and blogs and how-to books, learning dramaturgy and honing your craft, then it's probably safe to say that you're a far more knowledgeable and experienced writer than when you started out.<br />
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Wow what would that younger self give to have the knowledge of wordsmithing and the industry that you have now? What if there was some way you could time travel and brush up those early scripts?<br />
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Well there is. Just dig them out of the drawer.<br />
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There's presumably something in the concept that drew you to those themes, to that subject matter.<br />
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Maybe it's worth having a fresh look from the POV of the older, wiser, more experienced (more jaded) person you've become. It might seem like an extremely time-consuming endeavour, but in comparison to the several extremely expensive days a script consultant might spend poring over your story and word-choices, maybe it doesn't seem such an outrageous endeavour after all.<br />
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Wait, but why is a script consultant telling you this? Because making money isn't my primary goal. I'm far more interested in simply helping my clients and readers <i>get to where you want to go</i>.<br />
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When I achieve that I'm happy, you're happy, and my marketing becomes word-of-mouth, which is much better, way cheaper, and far less time-consuming.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-31930441436197907022014-11-15T14:55:00.001+00:002014-11-15T15:03:45.404+00:00Hardwired for Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/BrtTyEmDLKQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;"> </span></span></span> <span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17px;">Emmy-nominated screenwriter Sarah-Jane </span><span style="line-height: 17px;">Murray </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;">helps us to think about why insanely great storytelling matters and why it’s the key to our future.</span></span> <span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"> </span></span> <span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"> </span></span> <span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"> </span></span> <br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span>Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-53547203070893712322014-11-13T14:39:00.001+00:002014-11-13T15:10:51.561+00:00Fix the Problem Before It's the Client's Problem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMdLDGlahphiR82QUCPtiN6wP5vu-frUmJajxWPnd5Bea4kQsePsKF2ZyrpZEXINTRImIr_b9ceHi8h3Z89VYsi3nR4grB4b1W2xPnaZJmBi5LDSGjmCb6LVDtvdp1wX2VaeYHQ67RsiZW/s1600/engineering-pictures-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMdLDGlahphiR82QUCPtiN6wP5vu-frUmJajxWPnd5Bea4kQsePsKF2ZyrpZEXINTRImIr_b9ceHi8h3Z89VYsi3nR4grB4b1W2xPnaZJmBi5LDSGjmCb6LVDtvdp1wX2VaeYHQ67RsiZW/s400/engineering-pictures-8.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A producer friend of mine is a former engineer. The quote "Fix the problem before it's the client's problem" came up in a discussion about a script she has in development.<br />
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I'd given her some straight-talking script feedback (she's an Aussie, that's how she likes it) but I warned her not to pass the feedback on to the writer in that form.<br />
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She responded by saying that both her and her writer very clearly understand that "criticism is about the project, not the person". Her engineering background taught her to simply strip away ego even when discussing personal creative expression. She's focused on the client, not protecting herself.<br />
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Hear, hear. I wish there were more producers (and writers) like that. It truly is the mark of a pro.<br />
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RK<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-84630495398398829322014-11-10T12:45:00.002+00:002014-11-25T23:19:49.999+00:00Bear With Me<div class="p1">
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If you're a toy manufacturer, kids are your <i>consumers</i>, and parents are your <i>customers</i>. You agree that you need to sell your toy to both groups, right?</div>
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A kid might want all loud and destructive and expensive toys, while parents might want quiet, less expensive and more educational toys. Unless there's an unhealthy power imbalance, they'll probably come to a compromise.</div>
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Well the same can be said of the film industry: audiences are your <i>consumers</i>, and international distributors are your <i>customers</i>. You need to sell your film to both but — here's the problem, you guessed it — they're each looking for different things.</div>
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Audiences are looking for something that's interesting and novel and remarkable and niche. Distributors for the most part are looking for mass-market, meat-and-potatoes, broad appeal to the masses kind of stuff. This disparity is the reason we have the current independent film industry we do. </div>
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So how do you sell your film to both groups? There has to be a lot of crossover, or else either group could reject you. Anyone with experience of film sales will agree that many good films fail to find a distributor in every territory, and mediocre films seriously struggle in the marketplace. If you don't sell to German, Japanese or US distributors, then it's unlikely that 'pester power' will see audiences there changing their distributors’ minds.</div>
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Films are too expensive for anyone to make this mistake very often — and competition is growing rapaciously.<span style="color: #cc0000;">*</span> What solutions exist to make your films competitive again? What can make it attractive to distributors <i>and</i> audiences? What tools are you employing to test your market or identify your niche?</div>
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These are questions I ask myself daily. Is someone on your team responsible for asking them?</div>
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RK</div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="color: #cc0000;">*</span> </span>Here’s British producer and statistician <a href="http://stephenfollows.com/" target="_blank">Stephen Follows</a> with some sobering recent <a href="http://stephenfollows.com/what-are-the-highest-grossing-low-budget-british-films/" target="_blank">data</a>.</div>
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-75759851117443232922014-10-09T11:59:00.002+01:002014-10-09T12:05:28.902+01:00Good Communication<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"You can't be focused without good communication. Even if you have only four or five people at a company, a small communication breakdown is enough for people to be working on slightly different things. And then you lose focus and the company just scrambles." — Sam Altman</blockquote>
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From <a href="http://tech.genius.com/Sam-altman-lecture-2-ideas-products-teams-and-execution-part-ii-annotated">Lecture 2</a> of How to Start a Start-up. Lecture 1 <a href="http://tech.genius.com/Sam-altman-lecture-1-how-to-start-a-startup-annotated">here</a>.<br />
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Sam Altman is the president of start-up accelerator Y Combinator.<br />
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Why do I post about tech start-ups? Because they have a lot in common with getting a new film off the ground, building a strong and focused team, and impressing investors that you're dealing in reality not just fantasy.<br />
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Show investors that you're passionate, not crazy.<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-40434973616814047452014-04-12T17:13:00.000+01:002014-04-12T17:16:16.488+01:00Is Your Film "Remarketable"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Regular" readers of this blog (I'm sure there would be some if I posted regularly) will know that I'm essentially convinced that marketing is now an intrinsic part of the craft of creating a feature film, and in all cases — whether you're a haughty auteur or a consummate hack — marketing shouldn't even be thought of as separate from the process of storytelling.<br />
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To those who might accuse me of trying to dumb down, or cause projects to appeal to the lowest common denominator, I'm not. What I'm saying actually runs totally counter to that; because in fact giving people the same homogenised mush they can get elsewhere is completely the opposite of being remarkable.<br />
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What I'm talking about is treating "finding an audience" as simply another creative parameter; an essential requirement of using someone else's money to practise your craft.<br />
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Lots of filmmakers want this to be someone else's problem, and try to shirk the responsibility of even thinking about it, hoping that a producer, sales agent, financier or distributor's marketing department will let them do as they please, and take care of the pesky audience question.<br />
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Others, I know of many, actively want to reach bigger audiences, but simply lack the knowledge of how they can do so. There are no guaranteed results, but there are lots of things you can do.<br />
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So I'm a huge fan of Seth Godin's stuff, and <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/seth-godin-on-why-marketing-is-too.html">I've posted about him here in the past</a>, but I still don't think enough people are getting it. Maybe people are still confusing marketing with advertising, in which case they should stop, because this stuff is too important to not know and, as Seth says:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Marketing is too important to leave to the marketing department."</span></blockquote>
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This is truer now than it has ever been. With an <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/there-is-no-more-room-in-middle.html">ever-growing glut</a> of content out there to distract us (and dilute our potential audience base) we have no choice but to somehow make our work <i>remarkable</i>, in the sense that people feel compelled to remark upon it.<br />
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This is just one concept among many that Seth talks about. Hopefully at some point I'll blog about Tribes and Getting Permission (and any conversation with me about marketing will inevitably feature me paraphrasing Seth with "Marketing isn't what you're saying, it's what other people are saying <i>about</i> you...<span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">* </span>"<span style="color: #990000;"> </span>) but it'll be much faster if you just look them up yourself.<br />
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Those are all really important concepts for filmmakers too, but today I just want to talk about how to ensure (and communicate that) your projects are <i>remarketable</i>.<br />
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I've also posted about the concept of "<i><a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/ive-just-posted-this-response-to.html">similar but different</a></i>" in the past, but my thoughts on it have evolved over the years, specifically with regard to finding a sizeable worldwide audience for a feature film. The short version goes something like this: Imagine seeing a TV commercial for a film and feeling genuinely excited to see it. That took maybe 20 or 30 seconds to get you energised to go see it, rent it, download it or whatever you do these days.<br />
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Why so fast? Was it because it was radically different from anything you've ever seen before? Unlikely. It's far more likely to be because it is a genre you're comfortable with, updated with a clever tweak.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Genre provides the "similar",</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">the original tweak provides the "different".</span></blockquote>
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Can your project do that at <a href="http://animalelectricity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/fractals.html">every scale of its existence</a>, from Title to Logline to Outline etc?<br />
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Can you get the concept in a sentence that you reckon is worth a text message to someone who loves the genre? How about firing off an email link to someone you don't know well, but who likes the genre? What about bringing it up in passing to a vague acquaintance who you're not even sure likes films? How about a complete stranger? The removal man? The barista?<br />
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Now can you get it so everyone else would be texting each other too? What tools are at your disposal to achieve more of this? Playing with genre, combining genres, combining mundane ideas from your life with an unexpected genre twist. Even playing with bizarre casting ideas (because that could subvert our expectations) could be just the thing you need.<br />
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Being like everything else is now banned.<br />
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(And so is not being like <i>anything </i>else... but that can wait for another post.)<br />
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Now I'm not saying that it's easy to build the marketing into the project at every step from the concept to final cut and beyond, but I firmly believe these questions will help get you there.<br />
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And you know what? The people who ultimately have to sell your film will thank you, because they will say "I know how to sell this!" and the sales agents who have to sell to those distributors in every country around the world will thank you, because they will say "I know how to sell this!" and once you're giving people something they know they can sell to their guy... you'll have everyone on board, pulling in the same direction, and the money will flow.<br />
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As a producer myself, I've just launched a new project into the marketplace to test all these theories. I will update you with how I get on. See you in Cannes.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">*</span> That sentence was getting too long so I'll finish it here: The full quote is something like "Marketing isn't what you're saying, it's what other people are saying <i>about</i> you... so never send spam or try to manipulate anyone."<br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-39781251730597207242013-12-08T13:31:00.000+00:002017-10-25T09:16:24.777+01:00Legwork 10 Step Checklist<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif60ujlE6zJ0X_chiQlP2aWr9SEuCRNC8dxa2u14FzHg2jz1omg5wKE9GmQlBgiCnpoGEPYGvkxYFuNXabg0Xnd9vhk07TOp3_p718nRjiMUiVz5DxJLloDaPKwHJSURQCySscjgZLyP_5/s1600/LEGWORKlogo2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="700" height="114" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif60ujlE6zJ0X_chiQlP2aWr9SEuCRNC8dxa2u14FzHg2jz1omg5wKE9GmQlBgiCnpoGEPYGvkxYFuNXabg0Xnd9vhk07TOp3_p718nRjiMUiVz5DxJLloDaPKwHJSURQCySscjgZLyP_5/s320/LEGWORKlogo2017.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the back of the BFI's <a href="http://www.screendaily.com/news/only-7-of-uk-films-make-profit/5064187.article">shocking stats</a> last week, many investors and producers must be wondering what the point is of even trying to make money in the film industry at all. Granted; for some investors it is just a bit of fun, a way to be involved in the glamour of the film industry, but as one commentator shrewdly observed "there must be cheaper ways to meet </span>Scarlett Johansson".<br />
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It is worth pointing out that the figures released in David Steele's speech include those for certain Film Council supported films which were never actually <i>intended</i> to make a profit. They exist for cultural purposes, or box-ticking purposes, and so really I'd like to see another set of stats for just the films that did actually intend to return their investors money.<br />
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Nevertheless it is no secret that film investment is inherently risky. What can producers do to maximise the chances of being among the top-performing film releases that do see profit?<br />
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One of the best ways is to make a film that appeals to audiences in multiple territories. More sales equals more income. Get a good home video and / or TV deal in multiple countries as well, and you're well on your way to recouping a lower budgeted film. (It's partly for this reason that high-concept horror is widely seen as a safer bet than most, but I digress).<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When an investor asks (my consulting company) Legwork to appraise a project we're essentially being asked to perform due diligence in advance of a very pricey business transaction. When a producer hires Legwork it's because they're </span>cognisant of the importance of adding value to their investment offering, and making the investors pick them instead of all the other tasty investment opportunities out there.<br />
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For both cases we've developed the proprietary checklist below in order to formalise the process of building marketing into the project from concept to logline to script to trailer and beyond.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a series of questions intended to ensure the producer is making the best film possible, as measured against every important metric, and is not leaving any value on the table unnecessarily. All these conditions must be satisfied before we will sign off on a project.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">1/ Are story, characters & dialogue at a stage where the script will attract a high enough calibre of film star to ensure international sales?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">2/ Are the above-the-line talent (stars, director, etc) sufficiently attractive to international sales agents and distributors that they can envisage the film doubling its investors money? </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">3/ Does everyone creatively involved in the making of this film have the same vision? Is everyone trying to make the same film? Are the huskies all pulling the sled in the same direction?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">4/ Is the budget right for the genre, the film’s elements and its likely income? Do sales estimates from reputable sales agents or pre-sales agreements confirm that this budget level is justified? </span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">5/ Is the genre one which is sought after by a large enough global market to garner sales capable of doubling the investors’ money?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">6/ Within an established set of genre expectations, is this story remarkable in its individuality in some way that will get significant numbers of people talking about it? Does the story or its elements innovate in a way that will differentiate it in a crowded marketplace and increase the number of territories sold, prices per sale and ancillaries within each of those territories?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">7/ Given the nature of modern, fragmented audiences, have we done all that we can to identify and allow for the engagement of possible “tribes” in the Seth Godin marketing use of the word; niches of communal interest, sizeable groups of people who can get behind the film and spread word-of-mouth?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">8/ Have we done all we can to explore additional revenue streams, such as sequels, spin-offs and merchandising (books, games, art, fan sites, fan art, apps) — within reasonable and tasteful bounds and with respect to the story and the filmmakers? Are there ways these might contribute to the depth of the central dramatic work to a consumer, rather than just as added revenue or mind-share?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">9/ Have we done all we can to identify all possible PR angles, in as many territories as possible, that will garner this film media attention in print, television and online, thus offering significant added value, and revenue, to that distributor?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">10/ How could we collect emails or social media follows for permission-based marketing or otherwise maximise our customers’ awareness of this and similar future films?</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Robin TJ Kershaw & Laia Enrich, 2013</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Check out the Legwork 10 Step Checklist and download a pdf to share with colleagues at </span><a href="http://www.legworkfilms.com/10steps.html">www.legworkfilms.com/10steps.html</a><br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-33734364060179160632013-08-18T16:05:00.000+01:002013-10-06T11:28:36.165+01:00There is no more room in the middle<div class="p1">
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Most producers don’t submit their scripts to rigorous analysis... but then most producers don’t make successful films either. Every year thousands of naive newcomers think they can beat the system with nothing but their own intuition, and every year thousands of films worldwide end up unsold, undistributed and unprofitable. [Here's Stephen Follows with some UK <a href="http://stephenfollows.com/how-many-uk-films-get-a-cinema-release/">stats</a>].</div>
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The serious, well-balanced, producer knows that betting on a hunch will simply result in misery, and that the only real way to carve a lasting career and run a long-lasting production company is to exercise due diligence on behalf of the investor — and to give buyers something they actually want.</div>
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There are many tactics to maximise the value of a film investment and mitigate against a possible downside, but let’s be clear: the only serious ways for a producer to influence a film’s income are marketplace-aware script development and talent packaging. </div>
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Quite simply the added value that your film derives from focusing on development and packaging is at least an order of magnitude greater than its cost to production, and very likely far more. The path to success is littered with the corpses of producers who thought they couldn’t afford development — whereas real producers know you can’t afford to skip it.</div>
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The distribution paradigm has changed radically and continues to do so as the competition for eyeball-hours heats up. Every minute of the day, 100 hours of new video is uploaded to YouTube<span style="color: #cc0000;">*</span>. This, and virtually the entire filmic output of the past 100 years of cinema coming online, is now your competition. There is no more room in the middle. High quality storytelling with high-calibre, internationally known actors is now the only market still available.</div>
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Not coincidentally, those are precisely the two areas where my consultancy firm Legwork has been actively developing its expertise — and continues to do so in an Executive Producer capacity on three very different upcoming projects. Also, since both our producer and investor clients need to keep costs down, our deferment model finally makes that expertise affordable to all. Just in time for the coming democratisation of content creation.</div>
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Will this change the way producers approach the marketplace? It already has for some. The people with the best end-to-end understanding of the value chain of the independent film industry really get this stuff. Those who know that the best way to sell to a sales agent is to give <i>them</i> something <i>they</i> can sell onwards to their guys. It’s astonishing how many producers still don’t think this way, but I honestly don’t think they’ll be able to get a foothold in the film industry of the future. They will flounder from failure to failure losing their investors’ money on unsold product no one wants to watch. They will not last long.</div>
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Sales agents that I speak to tell me that everything is about quality now. Without a world-class script you’re unlikely to attract the director and cast needed to sell your film, and you’ll be relegated to competing with skateboarding dogs on YouTube for audience share. If you’re serious about producing in the coming decade, you’ll be forced sooner or later to get serious about development, it really is as simple as that.</div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">* </span>Source <a href="http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/">http://www.youtube.com/yt/press/</a><br />
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-78949109034729836332013-07-25T20:26:00.002+01:002013-07-25T20:28:06.877+01:0049 Interesting Facts About the UK Film Industry<br />
Producer Stephen Follows has been digging into some very interesting stats about the UK film industry...<br />
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<a href="http://stephenfollows.com/49-interesting-facts-about-uk-film-industry/">http://stephenfollows.com/49-interesting-facts-about-uk-film-industry/</a><br />
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-17689707874603904812013-07-20T11:01:00.000+01:002013-07-20T11:45:19.925+01:0016 Fancy Literary Techniques Explained By Disney<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/moerder/fancy-literary-techniques-explained-by-disney" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipaLy90kxvpE74pPXiFhhZkZh5OeyIoEpJHTzYeCuGebz9rmYmZROMilnwz0YpBg90R4f6A19kQaw00Eg3hnMuYEj_KX5HrFB-KI85iu4T-hVhPrzg6W1jTORs5AIvD1EZEvggZk0OJeAC/s1600/jafar.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: start;">Source: </span><a class="" href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/moerder/Disney" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;">Disney</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; text-align: start;"> / via: </span><a class="" href="http://disneyvillains.wikia.com/wiki/File:Genie_Jafar_-_Part_5.png" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #777777; font-family: ProximaNovaRegular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;">disneyvillains.wikia.com</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tweeted recently by Writer.ly (@WriterlyTweets) this post by Adam Moerder on BuzzFeed is entertaining and enlightening in equal measure...</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/moerder/fancy-literary-techniques-explained-by-disney"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://www.buzzfeed.com/moerder/fancy-literary-techniques-explained-by-disney</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">An </span>excerpt<span style="font-family: inherit;">:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: ProximaNovaSemibold, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-size: 26px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px;">14. Poetic Justice</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: ProximaNovaSemibold, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px;">Definition: A device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character’s own conduct.</span></span> </blockquote>
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<span style="color: #121212; font-family: ProximaNovaSemibold, Helvetica, Arial;"><span style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 28px;">Example: Jafar is so power hungry he fails to realize that becoming a genie will cost him his freedom.</span></span></blockquote>
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<br />Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-9134563966685655532013-06-25T17:32:00.000+01:002015-06-19T13:04:12.317+01:00Legwork Films<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The biggest issue facing producers and therefore the film industry in general has hitherto been the costs associated with development. Putting together a world-class package that’s attractive to international buyers is usually incredibly time consuming. Finding a way to break the impasse is essential for us all.</div>
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Film producer Laia Enrich and I have spent the last six months devising a business model that we think offers the maximum bang for the buck to everyone — individuals and multi-million dollar companies alike. </div>
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We realised that by combining under one roof a market-focused approach to script development and a fearless, straightforward attitude with talent agents and sales agents we could gain terrific leverage, and that providing these skills as a service to others could actually be a game-changer for the industry.</div>
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By helping multiple companies concurrently, and by deferring the most if not all of our fees to greenlight, we're able to keep those up-front development costs down, all the while adding significant value to the project's lifetime in the marketplace... and to financiers’ investments.</div>
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After a successful launch at this year's Cannes, our new company Legwork Films has already attracted an impressive roster of producers and the attention of some very big corporate investors... and Animal Electricity is now the official blog of <a href="http://legworkfilms.com/"><span class="s1">Legwork Films</span></a>.</div>
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The business model of Legwork is new, but very simple: I provide market-focused project feedback to your creative team, and Laia consults with genre-appropriate sales agents and buyers (your customers) and then we liaise with talent agents on your behalf to package-up your film with the highest-calibre international director and above-the-line cast possible.</div>
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Bringing these two roles under one roof means we work with writers to tailor material for the talent <i>and</i> for the marketplace simultaneously, thereby ensuring you have an attractive project to take to industry — and that means you can have numerous buyers lined up <i>before</i> you seek investment.</div>
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We'll also help you devise your marketing, distribution, and finance plans, and suggest suitable investors to speak with when the time is right and we're confident there'll be interest.</div>
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Pricing is negotiated on a per-project basis.<br />
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Development finance may be available for exceptional projects and teams.<br />
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Email me robin@legworkfilms.com to get a conversation started about your particular needs.<br />
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Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4940128990438951661.post-73859752679867387972013-06-24T12:22:00.000+01:002013-06-24T12:22:52.617+01:00The Hero's Journey<br />
Enough has been written elsewhere about the Hero's Journey, and I've touched on it here before, but Laia just passed me this and I think it's very well done.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Hhk4N9A0oCA" width="640"></iframe>Robin TJ Kershawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483905852551779096noreply@blogger.com