by Voyage | Dec 8, 2015 | Audience, Blog post, Entertainment Business, Pitching, Presentations
Deliver Your Best Producer Pitch You already know how important it is for newcomers who want to break into the Hollywood market to get their story in front of the right executives. But we haven’t really touched on what happens when you finally do land a meeting with that big-shot producer at that high-powered studio or network? You only have a few minutes, at most, to capture their attention… So what do you say and do to get that producer interested in your book or script? Here are 5 tips to help you craft your perfect pitch and blow that Hollywood exec out of the water with your movie or television show idea: 1. Be The Expert Of Your Story Prove that YOU are the perfect writer to tackle your concept. In order to do this, you must have confidence in yourself, your project and where it’s headed. You should also establish your specific connection to this story. What inspired you to write this specific story in this particular way? Insert your personality, voice and/or experience into your pitch. 2. Keep It Simple Don’t try to do too much with your pitch. You need to boil your story down to the most important elements by highlighting the big picture concept of your story. Include your hook, main concept, and a couple of sentences about your main character so it’s clear whom the story will follow. Establish why the producer should care to connect to that specific character. 3. Your Characters Are The Key Conflict drives a story and keeps people interested. So keep your characters at the forefront...
by Voyage | Oct 8, 2015 | Audience, Blog post, Entertainment Business, Font Page, Pitching, Presentations, Producer Interviews, Screenwriting Tips, The Expert Network
Inside The Comic Book Industry’s Latest Cool Thing… Let’s transport ourselves to a simpler time for just a moment… Imagine you’re back in middle school and your favorite limited edition comic book has just been released… You and your friends race to the local comic book shop after school to get your hands on the newest edition of “Captain America” or “Wonder Woman.” You wait patiently in line, with 25 cents burning a hole in your pocket… Finally, you get up to the counter and hand your pocket change to the clerk who slides over the goods. At last you get your hands on your coveted new comic book… And as you begin to flip the pages, a whole other world emerges… While this may or may not have been a reality for you, we can all agree that comic books and graphic novels have played an important role in pop culture and media. What you may or may not know is that there’s a thriving digital marketplace for NEW comics and NEW graphic novels with distribution and sales portals populating various corners of the Internet with readers of all ages scrambling to get their hands on the latest thing. And while we all know many of the blockbusters films we’ve come to know and love are based on comics from Marvel and DC, you may not know that comics and graphic novels have paid a very significant role in the development and sale of numerous other movies and TV series, some of which might surprise you… -30 DAYS OF NIGHT -CONSTANTINE -MYSTERY MEN – 300 -HELL BOY -THE...
by Voyage | Aug 10, 2015 | Audience, Book to Film, Entertainment Business, Pitching
The Key to Getting Your Project into Production For creators like us, generating content comes pretty naturally (excluding the occasional writers block of course). That’s why we do what we do. But as you probably have experienced first hand, writing and conceptualizing isn’t always the hard part; it’s money. Finding investors who are interested in funding your project can be incredibly difficult. It’s the ultimate catch 22 in a creator’s life—investors want to give money to projects that are well known and bound for success, but a project can’t become well known and successful without money from investors. If you don’t have a very generous great uncle waiting in the wings to donate to your creative project, I have the perfect solution to help you out with this age-old dilemma… ***Crowdfunding*** Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet (google.com). Whether or not you’ve heard of crowdfunding before, I’m here to tell you that it should absolutely be on your radar as a tool to finance part (or all) of your project. Websites like Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com give you the chance to get your project or ideas off the ground without having to go out and solicit investors the traditional way. These crowdfunding platforms by nature create a reciprocal relationship between investors (who pledge money) and creators (who offer various perks to backers who donate). And it works because everyone is benefiting from the partnership, and the momentum that comes with having so many supporters is exactly what you...
by Voyage | Aug 5, 2015 | Audience, Entertainment Business, Screenwriting Tips
How to untangle the web “Googling yourself” has sort of become the punchline of the digital era—it’s degraded as a vain and silly pastime of the erstwhile millennial. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Far from just an ego trip, Googling yourself can be crucial to building your online presence as a writer. I’d like to encourage you to Google yourself right now. Take a moment, I’ll wait. What are some of the first pages that pop up. Your social media sites—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your personal blog? Or is Google drawing a big blank? There is a time and a place for the reclusive, mysterious, off-the-grid writer—but falling into that description can be dangerous for the up and coming. The Internet makes it easier than ever for producers, directors, and financiers to find out what you’re all about. And social media searching has become more and more commonplace as a tool for weeding out the unprofessional or unmotivated writers from the writers with serious passion and marketability. Make no mistake: the question on the forefront of a producer’s mind is going to be “how can I market this?” If your website or blog has any sort of following, it means your Internet presence comes with a built-in audience AND that you’ve already got a huge advantage over the throngs of other writers trying to get noticed! It gives the producer a sort of “cheat” into your market—they’ll thank you for having less work to do to create a finished product that people will watch. With so much riding on the kind of persona you exhibit online, there’s...
by Voyage | Jun 25, 2015 | Audience, Entertainment Business
One of the worst things that a screenwriter or an author or any content creator can do in their career is operate in a vacuum or think that they’ve got to figure everything out on their own and learn everything by themselves. For some reason, content creators take it upon themselves to think of their pursuit as a lonely one – like this romantic image of a writer stuck in a hotel room in a foreign country writing by himself. If you’re a content creator looking to achieve a result in Hollywood, then you’re going to be really well served to not just learn on your own, but learn from other people’s mistakes and successes and then leverage that learning into your own career. What Makes a Good Mentor There’s a world-renowned success psychologist named Martin Seligman and one of the things that he modeled or created was a framework for identifying who’s a mentor. In other words, who’s worth listening to and who’s not? He said a mentor, a quality mentor who can help you achieve a significant result or a significant outcome, has to satisfy one or more of the following three things. 1) They have to have done successfully what it is you’re trying to do. 2) They have to have helped others achieve success – helped other successfully do exactly what it is you’re trying to do. 3) They are world renowned experts in the field. Anyone who does not satisfy one or more of those equations is not a mentor worth listening to. If they’re not meeting one or more of those equations, they’re...
by Voyage | Dec 12, 2014 | Audience, Entertainment Business
One of the most frequent requests that we get here at Voyage Media is, can you give me some names and contact information? Or, how do I get contact information for producers so I can send them my material? Getting contact information is actually quite easy. I can tell you right now exactly how to do it. You get an IMDB Pro account and research contacts yourself. You can find their production company contact info, their representation info, and info for their agents, lawyers, managers, and so forth. Pay a small subscription fee and you can have it all right there at your fingertips. But there’s nothing special about getting that information. Why “Contacts” Are a Dead End The problem is that it’s not the contact information that matters. Even if you have some incredible pitch prepared, that contact is not going to take your call in the first place. And even if they did take your call, odds are, they’re not going to accept your script or whatever it is you’re trying to send them. There are simply too many people out there with books or screenplays or projects in development, trying to get something to happen for their project. There are so many people out there doing this that if you don’t have some form of credibility and you haven’t been vetted by someone trustworthy, there’s no reason why they would spend any time with you. These agents, managers, and producers have 30 other projects on their desk that have been vetted by the industry in some way and have proven their credibility…. How Do You Gain...
