Reading my usual dose of magazines, books, etc, to keep in touch with the “what’s happening” in the film Industry, talking (live or through web chat) with some friends in the Industry as also with some that are trying to be inside it, I found something:
We’re living in an instant gratification world.
Some people could say “Duh, of course we are, do you just realize that?”
Well, in a sort of twist of “Matrix” I was felling it, I even was seen it, touching it… but looks like I was in a sort of denial of it.
Maybe because it’s an uncomfortable truth: we have made that world.
Reality -yours, mine-, is what we do, as individuals and as part of that big wired or wireless tribe called modern society.
This reality is not something that has been imposed to us. Slowly sometimes, pretty fast most of the times, we have helped to build it: could you live now (and I basically mean, work) without your cell phone, without your email account, without your TV’s remote, and so and so?
Of course, nothing of that is imperative to survive, but its part of what we’re now if we’re part of the production/consuming machine, and we are.
In some not pleasant way, its part of what defines us.
So, what these have to do with Screenwriting?
Well, a lot.
Let’s divide in two parts what a regular, or newbie, or not so screenwriter do:
-He/she is somebody who comes with an idea, spend a lot of time putting in words the idea as a story and finally (hope so) finish with a decent screenplay, spec, or whatever you’ll like to call it... let’s call it a “product.”
-He/she is somebody who tries to sell that product; alone, through an agent, manager, a friend…
Now, there was this sort of “established scheme” for the process of selling the product:
In one or more of many ways -if you’re lucky or have a good timing or have good contacts, etc-, the product reaches the hands of one or more producers/agents, usually the readers of the producers/agents, and then they usually invest part of their busy time reading your product to come with a “pass” (most of the times) or, if the planets are in their correct alignment and you don’t suck, with a “recommended.”
That was the scheme maybe ‘till a few months ago, and yes, there are some people who still use it.
However, that scheme of product-selling has changed.
The five minutes pitch is now the one minute pitch.
The two brads-100+ pages script, the synopses… humm, keep that for you.
Today all that, and more (including the treatment), goes in one page; sometimes even including the log line in that one page.
Actually, your log line and your ability to make it alive (the one minute WOW pitch) is what now can make a sell. Not the full script; even if it rocks, even if compared with
Why?
First: because in an instant gratification world readers don’t read.
OK, maybe some people (readers) will say “that’s not true”, so let say, today’s readers read LESS than in a not so distant past.
They want it all and they want it now. (Select that entire phrase and apply bold type)
Readers, because of their bosses, want to have all the idea, concept, marketing campaign, talents to be attached, even the movie poster concept in the spot... and you have to deliver that entire picture in one minute or one page.
You must be a whole concept-maker for them now.
Second: In an instant gratification world the producers-studios-distributors (the players) want, and need, to make the money now.
You must be a sure money maker for them.
(Of course, there's the Indy path, but we're not talking about that now)
So, what we can do, as writers who want our products to be read (and make sales)?
My advice: to focus more than ever in our writing and leave the selling part even more, way more, in the agents or managers or that-good-friend-inside-the-industry-who-loves-your-writing.
If you don’t have one, well, keep writing, keep learning how to write better, make your writing not only good but outstanding (and it must have original ideas), and then, only then, invest your precious writer’s time in searching for an agent, in doing networking.
However, you can make networking all the time if you keep learning, as learning, the good one, is not a lonely investment of time.
Are you the kind of writer that spends a lot of time writing and reading about writing alone? Stop it, go to the writer's outdoors (and the Web is in some way an outdoors space too now, but don’t get hooked): Festivals, Seminars, Courses. Learn with others, you learn more and also (this is very important) YOU’RE TRAINING YOUR “PITCHING” SKILLS.
You need to have them, now more than ever, for the “one minute pitch.”
Make this quick exercise: Think and take note of how much of your writer’s time you invest in trying to sell your products or searching ways to sell your product.
If it’s more that 50%, you have a big problem. If it’s 50-50 you still have a problem.
Still investing your precious writer’s time and scarce resources in writing/sending lots of Query letters (90% of them are never read), making calls to agents (without referral, no thanks) or (please, don’t do it) producers to get from them a shot to read your product? Stop.
Writing must be at least 80% of your writer’s time…
…Even more if now we’re living in an instant gratification world.
P.S: The good side, or not downer end… in this new world, the players need a lot of products in stock to sale.
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