by Voyage | May 28, 2014 | Book to Film
Keys to Turning Your Book Into A Film Or Original Series – Part 3 Why Do I Need Short Form Materials? In Parts 1 and 2 of this series — The Keys to Turning Your Book Into A Film Or Original Series– we discussed how to solve the time (and money) problem for a producer, how to make a producer’s life easy and really attract them to your book, and how to view this entire process as the business that it is – the “Adaptation Business”. Today in Part 3, we are going to start discussing exactly how to do this. To start, one of the best ways of beginning this process is by creating short form materials. Let’s take a look at what short form materials look like, why they’re important, and how you can create them… What Are Short Form Materials? There are a variety of valuable short form materials, but the most effective for promoting your book to producers are: Logline
– Loglines are quick, one-sentence summaries of your book written in exciting and visual entertainment speak, can be really great sales tools, and serve a bit like your ‘elevator pitch’. Synopsis (or Book Summary)
– This is probably self-explanatory, but a synopsis is a short summary that provides a clear and concise outline of the story. Although longer than a logline, this should be relatively short. Treatments – In most cases, a treatment is a 7 to 10 page breakdown of the story outlining the beginning, middle, and end. This document is a great sales tool because it solves a big part of the producer’s time problem, and can even be adapted into a screenplay. Screenplay – This...
by Voyage | May 25, 2014 | Book to Film
The Keys to Turning Your Book Into A Film Or Original Series – Part 2 How Your Adaptation Can Make the Producer’s Life Easier The first part of this is determining which market you should be targeting for your book. This is different than knowing your audience, because you must also understand the in’s and out’s of the various genres, media outlets, and niches that Hollywood partitions itself into. You need to identify which market you’re dealing with. These market distinctions go much deeper than just television and film – genre, tone, style, etc. filter down to create much smaller sub-markets. By knowing all of this information, you will be able to target the right producers that will be passionate about your project and give it the fighting chance it needs. (Remember, most producers have a very targeted niche that they work in – if you have a book that should be turned into a horror movie, you don’t want to send it to a producer who works in TV comedy). The very worst thing you could do is to waste a producer’s time. This is a sure fire way of ensuring that nobody will ever take the time to consider your book. So get your ducks in a row so you’re not wasting valuable time. Make a Producer Love You and Your Book The next element of being in the “Adaptation Business” is solving the money problem for potential producers. Adapting your own book or hiring a screenwriter to have your book adapted into a treatment or, even better, a screenplay (FYI – having the book adapted is probably...
by Voyage | May 21, 2014 | Book to Film
The Keys to Turning your Book Into A Film – Part 1 Have you always dreamed of seeing your book (or concept for a book) on the big screen? Bestsellers are being made into movies at a growing rate these days, but what if you haven’t written a bestseller? Producers and filmmakers are always looking for intellectual property to adapt for the big screen (or for television), but getting your work considered by producers is a much different process when you don’t have a bestseller. Keep in mind that many bestsellers only become so AFTER they are made into movies. While top selling authors have big time producers knocking on their doors, most authors have to do the knocking themselves. The point is — you need to have a solid strategy, and you need to be in the Adaptation Business. Lets explore why bestsellers are so attractive to producers (and how you can add a similar appeal to your book). A bestseller usually comes with an audience. It has a lot of “Pre-Awareness” and a known story that audiences have already resonated with, which in a producer’s business-centric mind equates to an established market and predictable revenue. In many cases, it’s easy to envision how these stories would transform on the big screen. A producer is acutely aware that they are the one responsible for bringing a project to the finish line. They are the ones that must push the figurative stone up the hill for two or three years in order to get a movie developed, financed, and made. So, when a bestseller shows up on a producer’s...
by Voyage | May 7, 2014 | Entertainment Business
The entertainment industry is a strange, complex, and absolutely unique sector of business. As such, the people who participate in it on the ground level are prone to misconceptions about how things actually get done behind closed doors. The primary assumption that gets made is that the industry is first and foremost interested in artistic form and expression. While that’s not entirely false, the truth is that the entertainment business is, well, a business. Whenever you’re asking for other people’s money or other institutions money to help you make something, you’re participating in a market, not just artistic expression. At first glance, the role of a writer looks similar to that of a painter: the screen is a blank canvas, and your ideas are the paint that you use to communicate to others a fully-formed artistic expression. If your form of expression resonates with somebody, great! You can sell or show your painting and attract the attention that your artwork deserves. In the world of the average painter, the sort of distance between themselves and a customer is very short. But this doesn’t quite hold true for the film world. In film, the distance between the writer and the audience is much larger. Even in an independent film, the writer must understand the larger context of satisfying the needs of actors, directors, and collaborators–all of which require money. You’re in the business of satisfying the needs of all the organizations that finance the realization of your work. The point is, you’re really entering a significant marketplace world in which there are a lot of people making efforts to express...
by Voyage | May 2, 2014 | Audience, Entertainment Business
Know Your Market We always recommend starting at the end of the game. The end of the game is when you have audiences watching your content. Ultimately they are the buyers of the material and everyone else between you and them is basically trying to interpret and predict their needs, so you too will be well served to understand who your audience is and then develop the right product that they will want to “consume”. If you don’t know who your audience is, then you really don’t know what market you’re operating within. When I say market, I mean like are you operating as a studio, like a studio project. Is this a cable television project? Is it a network television project? Is it a meaning maker project? Is it an indie film? Is it a digital web series? What is the market that you’re operating within? In turn if you don’t know what market you’re in, then you won’t know how to potentially do two things: 1. Budget: You won’t know how to write the right material, meaning you won’t be creating the type of material that’s needed for that kind of market at the right price, meaning you can’t make $150 million web series, but you can make $150 million studio movie. That’s just a broad example of how the market’s going to dictate the budget. 2. Tone: You won’t know how to write your screenplay to hit a specific budget or you won’t know what budget you need to target and then you won’t know the correct tone. For example, a made for TV movie has...
