by Voyage | Aug 21, 2014 | Entertainment Business, Producer Interviews, Screenwriting Tips
Learn what about a script will make producers sit up and take notice—from the advice of a talented Hollywood executive, Charlsey Adkins! As part of our ongoing series, which asks our producers about their work in the entertainment industry, I talked with the delightful Charlsey Adkins. Charlsey is a current Hollywood executive and Voyage producer, and here you can learn some of her insights on what makes scripts unique, fun to read, and interesting to producers—and what writers can do to make their script can stand out from the rest. With a bachelor’s degree in film and nearly a decade of experience in the industry, Adkins has a serious pedigree in production. Now the Vice President of Development and Production at Harbinger Pictures, Adkins was instrumental in bringing the acclaimed feature film THE HELP to screen. During her career, she has worked with many writers and learned a lot about what makes a script great and what makes it fall flat. I got to ask her about the kind of scripts that speak to her, and how writers can avoid common pitfalls that turn producers off their work. So, without further ado, here are… 5 Tips For Writing Your Best Script with Charlsey Adkins 1. VALUE YOUR WORK One aspect of a script that turns Adkins off particularly is when it is clear a writer hasn’t proofread their work before sending it off to a potential producer or financier. “I read lots of scripts,” says Adkins, “and I can tell when you care when you’re writing, and when you don’t care.” That care is most apparent in...
by Voyage | Aug 13, 2014 | Entertainment Business, Producer Interviews, Screenwriting Tips, The Expert Network
An expert producer’s look at the past, present, and future of serial programming Last week, I had the pleasure of talking with Kelly Hayes, a current Hollywood producer and Voyage team member, about what it’s like to work in all corners of the industry, and how the classic forms of development for network, cable, and film compare to the emerging market of digital streaming. This is the first of an ongoing series that asks our producers about their work in the entertainment industry so that YOU can learn from their wealth of experience! Hayes’ many credits have ranged from formats in scripted and reality television, film, and digital streaming series. Today, he has a lot of plates spinning in every market you can think of, with ongoing projects in half-hour comedy, hour-long drama, reality, and feature film. To say he’s got a bit of experience is an understatement. Although Hayes started his career in film, an economic downturn coupled with the WGA strike of 2008 served to destabilize the film industry, and prompted Hayes to look into other options. Television was his next best choice to keep following his passion—and it took some relearning to make it work. Looking Ahead The biggest change to the process of development in film and television was the notion of planning much further ahead into the future of the project. “It’s ’where do I see this show at episode 100?’” says Hayes of the development process for the life of a series, “versus, ‘I have 90 minutes to tell my story and then it’s done.’” The core of making a great...
by Voyage | Aug 7, 2014 | Audience, Entertainment Business
Last week, Voyage announced the latest film we’ve produced, Valley Uprising: Yosemite’s Rock Climbing Revolution–an in-depth documentary about the history of thrill-seekers climbing Yosemite’s treacherous granite cliff faces. Soon after the announcement, we received a pretty interesting email, which brought up some questions about Voyage’s project selection process–Why would we spend money on such a specific-interest documentary? How could we ensure we broke even on marketing a project with such a relatively small target audience? After all, rock climbers and adrenaline-junkies are such a small and specific part of the overall moviegoing audience…isn’t the goal to reach as many of the “4 Quadrants” as possible? As with any other film we’ve helped develop, we’re very excited for and confident in Valley Uprising’s success. But this email created an interesting opportunity for us to debunk several myths about the industry, financing, and what makes a marketable project. Plus some details about how smaller films get financed—and many of them can be applied to non-documentary film projects as well. So if you’ve been burning with some of the same questions, now’s as good a time as any to clear up a few misconceptions you might have about the niche filmmaking process! Misconception #1: Producing a niche film will put you into debt A financially successful film can be measured in not just its total sales, but rather more accurately in its percentage of return on investment, or “ROI”. Of the top three genres with the highest returns on investment, two may surprise you. The first on the list is horror—less surprising, since many low-budget horror flicks like The Blair Witch...
