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Vol. 4, Ed. 7 - Comic Con just ended and nealy 100,000 comic fans made it out to the San Diego event. With the return of Batman and a comic-to-film development slate a mile long, it looks like the studios aren't turning away from this consistent piece of business anytime soon. Similarly, looking at the big hits of the summer, it's evident that the studios have their eyes set on franchise material during the hot months. But should you be writing big, hook-driven pieces, or more intimate, fall-winter scripts? Check out some of our articles in this month's edition... and plug in.
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Telephone Notes With Real Producers |
| ScriptShark Pro Sessions is a telephone-based service designed to provide you professional-level advice from real, working producers with notable credits. Whether you choose to chat with them regarding an individual screenplay or receive a general overview of the industry, Pro Sessions is a great new learning system. |
Rhoades Rader & Tracey Becker |
| Producers on The Dodge Ball Movie and Finding Neverland ,one of these two will be on the phone to provide you insight on both your material and the industry in general. You can now live anywhere across the world and have direct access that was previously unavailable to writers! |
Receive a CD of The Notes Session |
| After you complete ScriptShark’s Pro Sessions, you will receive a CD with your one-hour discussion included. As with our written notes and analysis, we know it’s important that you actually gain something from the process that you can take with you. |
LEARN MORE
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Biography:
ROGER AVARY
This Canadian-born, Los Angeles-bred writer and director got his start making student films, winning the Los Angeles Student Film Expo at age 16. While studying film at the Art Center College for Design, he edited straight-to-video titles for Empire Entertainment and worked on TV shows including "Cops". Upon graduation from college, Avary wrote and directed TV commercials for the advertising agency D'arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. He met his future collaborator Quentin Tarantino while both were working as clerks at Video Archive in Manhattan Beach, California. Avary wrote background dialogue and designed a logo for Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" in 1992.
Avary made his feature directing debut with "Killing Zoe" (1994), a quirky and violent crime film dealing with a bank heist gone awry that several reviewers described as "nihilistic". An original script of his ("Pandemonium Reigns") served as the basis for the award-winning "Pulp Fiction" (1994). He and Tarantino co-authored the screenplay which also included excised scenes from other scripts including "True Romance", but the two had a falling-out over Avary's precise credits and contributions. Avary also wrote and directed the sci-fi film "Mr. Stitch" (1996), originally conceived as a pilot for a TV series to be syndicated internationally. Instead, the film, which starred Rutger Hauer in a tale about a being cobbled together from various body parts who takes on the personalities of his components, was released directly to video and premiered on US TV on the Sci-Fi Channel.
After an absence of nearly six years, Avary returned to the limelight as writer and director of "Rules of Attraction" (2002), an adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis' novel starring James Van Der Beek.
- Education: Art Center College of Design Los Angeles, California film 1987
- Fan Link: There is a website devoted to him at www.avary.com
- Notable Quote: "Killing Zoe" is "a movie about choice, and not choosing. About following and control through hysteria, and lies of omission. It's largely my mind-state at the time when I wrote it, and how I was viewing the world." --Avary quoted in Village Voice, September 6, 1994.
All data from Baseline-StudioSystems. For more information on writers, directors, actors, and producers, please visit BaselineFT. |
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Feeling Frustrated Because You
Can’t Get Your Script Read?
| Do you feel like you have a great script, but you’re finding it hard to get producers, agents and managers to read your script? Well, to break into Hollywood, it’s not who you know, but what you know. Learn all of the "Insider Secrets" of marketing your script by a produced screenwriter. For more info follow this link: |
http://www.paullawrenceproductions.com/script/index.shtml
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AGENTS - Breaking New Clients |
Selling your client is the agents' most important part of the job. After all it's how they earn their 10%.
"The most difficult part of my job is getting people to say yes and convincing buyers to buy our project or hire our writer for an assignment. Basically I have to be able to convey my belief and passion for that writer so that they can see what that writer can offer them. Yes is a very difficult word in this business."
--Garth Pappas, literary manager
The agent's first step to selling clients is through their contacts. For an agent, if there isn't a connection to buyers, it doesn't matter how good or talented the client is - sales are a dead end. This is why it's important for a "Rep" to build and update a strong rolodex in the production and studio world, return favors, lunch, wine and dine. It's the agent's job to get their client and their work in front of a buyer or decision maker. They should have clients they believe in or at worst believe others could believe in them. Additionally, they must be very passionate about what they're selling.
For the new, young agent it's even more important to pitch clients to as many people as possible. During the introductory phase, much of the selling is a numbers game - the more people they introduce a client to the better the odds that they'll find a fan of the material.
So what is the process for pitching a new client?
While each representative has their own method, there is a gold standard that is consistently used in the market place, depending on the "industry cycle" - how new material is being sold to the studios. For instance, the 90's used the spec market as a place to introduce clients. If you had a big idea, reps would shop it in a competetive manner, hoping to create a bidding situation. However, currently the studios are generally less interested in a direct purchase and looking more to break new writers in the old-fashioned way: team them with trusted producers and develop a blisteringly good screenplay. While this process takes longer, it usually puts the material that much closer to the screen.
For the agent or manager, this means harder work for commissions. However, it also means that more of their clients will consistently work. The high-traffic sales game of the last decade has turned into a system more closely reprsenting high-end headhunters in the business world. Strategic placement and fair dealmaking are the keys to building the careers of burgeoning writers.
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http://www.scriptshark.com/insider/Home.asp/nsc/contest/
The Nashville Screenwriters Conference is pleased to announce the second National Screenplay Showdown. The Screenplay Showdown was created to honor the work of the best new screenwriters from around the country, and to serve as a bridge between those writers and the Hollywood film industry. The Showdown evaluates screenplays solely on the basis of storytelling ability -- all story genres have the same chance of winning. Three winners will be chosen in each of two categories:
- All Genre scripts
- Music-themed scripts
Both first place winners will receive a trip to the 2006 Nashville Screenwriters Conference, two nights hotel accommodations and $250.00 spending money. The two winners will also enjoy the perks of the Conference’s Silver Screen Pass, which includes admittance to the VIP Party, a great opportunity to meet and mingle with top industry professionals. The total value of the first place prize in each category is over $1,400.00. |
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Presents:
A BREATH OF FRESH AIR
IN THE HORROR COMIC GENRE
By Ilana Young
From the intriguing mind of Joshua Hale Fialkov and the edgy hand of Noel Tuazon comes Elk’s Run, an unnerving tale of a mysterious town and its inhabitants. The story terrifies not with supernatural monsters but with realistic characters and situations; creepy but realistic. In this interview, Josh gives us a look behind the pages of Elk’s Run. Enjoy.
Q. Lets start out with the plot; can you give us (the readers) a quick overview?
Joshua Hale Fialkov (JHF): Elk’s Run is about a small town in the West Virginia mountains, where a murder leads the town into a war with itself and the outside world. It’s about a father and son on either side of that war, and what lengths they go to preserve what they think is right.
Q. This story is intriguing and goes very well with the comic book style, but what made you decide to ultimately turn it into a comic?
JHF: I think comics have an ability to execute that’s just not there in other mediums. Comics allow a creator to explore things in a less linear, ‘mainstream’ way. Comics have always been about character, rather than plot, so, you get the chance to really get in depth into what these people are thinking and doing. I think aside from hour-episodic TV, there’s very few options for telling a story like that.
Q. The comic has many different dynamics to it, are you planning on exploring different characters and sub-plots in the future?
JHF: Each issue actually revolves around a different character, so that we get to see the situation played out from eight very specifically different POV’s, even when characters repeat, it’s done in a way where each issue has it’s own voice and narrative focus. It’s sort of like Rashomon, only the events progress through each POV, instead of just being a re-statement of what’s come before.
To read more of this interview and other great articles, click here...
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