Hardwired for Story

Emmy-nominated screenwriter Sarah-Jane Murray helps us to think about why insanely great storytelling matters and why it’s the key to our future.

Fix the Problem Before It's the Client's Problem

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.

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.

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.

Hear, hear. I wish there were more producers (and writers) like that. It truly is the mark of a pro.

RK

Bear With Me

If you're a toy manufacturer, kids are your consumers, and parents are your customers. You agree that you need to sell your toy to both groups, right?

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.

Well the same can be said of the film industry: audiences are your consumers, and international distributors are your customers. You need to sell your film to both but — here's the problem, you guessed it — they're each looking for different things.

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. 

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.

Films are too expensive for anyone to make this mistake very often — and competition is growing rapaciously.*  What solutions exist to make your films competitive again? What can make it attractive to distributors and audiences? What tools are you employing to test your market or identify your niche?

These are questions I ask myself daily. Is someone on your team responsible for asking them?

RK

* Here’s British producer and statistician Stephen Follows with some sobering recent data.

Good Communication

"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

From Lecture 2 of How to Start a Start-up. Lecture 1 here.

Sam Altman is the president of start-up accelerator Y Combinator.

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.

Show investors that you're passionate, not crazy.