12 Things A Producer Looks For In A Screenplay

Jay Silverman: it's either on the page or it's not on the page. Scott Kirkpatrick: This whole industry doesn't exist with people twiddling their thumbs waiting for the right script to drop into their hands. Stanley Brooks: Well I'm not sitting here for an hour waiting for you to tell me that. Rachel. K. Ofori: I need to know how I feel after I read it if I feel like what was I supposed to feel now there's you gotta go back to your drawing board. Mark Heidelberger: You say your main relationship is Character A and Character B but your antagonist is character C. Wendy Kram: That says so much more than anything that's on the nose and obvious.John Paul Rice: Script is your heart and soul, the spine of the whole thing that you're going to build off of the foundation of everything that you're going to lay on top of it. I try and read a script that's to me as an audience first so the first thing I'm looking at is it does it grab me do I care is it a story that I feel emotional about compelled by you know if it's a scary movie am I scared it's the comedy have I laughed if it's emotional have I you know gotten a lump in my throat I find that if I'm looking at it and dissecting it right from the start and I'm not doing myself any favors and I'm not doing the script any favors if I get to I don't know at some point it hasn't done any of those things I usually don't finish it but if I get to the end and I have felt those things then I'll go back and do a second read as with my producer had on for one like I said emotional response like I need to know how I feel after I read it if I feel like what was I supposed to feel now there's you got to go back to your drawing board so yes yeah the know the feeling the feeling needs to be there some something some type of feeling at the end of it the other thing is a true identity and what genre it is and if it's not it's okay cuz I can I can do that I can help with that but if the person doesn't know what genre they're in it's not that you have to play by the rules but you need to know the rules before you break them and they're telling me oh I just made this awesome horror film and I'm like this is hilarious like we just watch it and horror and comedy can intertwine but it's like you're gonna break a rule here let me make sure this is what you meant by this like so I need to have a really strong identity in its genre and I don't care what the story is in terms of genre or you know people ask me like you know do you care about a certain genre and they're yeah you seem to work in all different genres I said yeah because I mean to me a good story transcends genre it has nothing to do with genre genres just sort of a set of conventions that allow people to identify what kind of movie it is and therefore whether they want to see it or not but genre has nothing to do with whether you could tell good story in any genre and to me working in different genres part of the excitement of working in this business like that's why so many of us love being in this business right we don't go to the same office necessary every day and we can we're always pursuing something different sort of character some sort of protagonist can identify with his journey in some way I'm I'm gonna use the word likeable I'm just gonna say is it like a protagonist I can identify with in some way I want to follow him for some reason you know it does he have goals does he have flaws is there an antagonist that's creating conflict with this guy and you know a girl whatever the situation is but is there there something I can get behind another thing it needs to have is somebody that either I can't say rooting for but someone that a mass audience like most people can connect with we're in a time where you know people are a little bit more open to different things so I think that's that's something that we're kind of having to like test the the thermometer on like where are we as a culture like what is now accepted or whatever but you have a good idea just from living life and watching the news like what people accept or scroll through the social media you could get an idea of how they connect with things and how they they see things so if I have no one in that film that I see myself in there's a problem cuz I can see myself a lot of ways I'm very versatile I don't think I'm like this person that has to only see this and only see that so if I don't see something that I can connect with we're missing something so a connection to a character does not the main character but a connection to a character in a way that brings a person in we're like okay that could be my buddy yeah I would say that too or whatever if it's so far off in like overly avant-garde or artsy I just need to be told then this is what that's supposed to be and then alright great you want to make it here's a little teeny budget and I'll help you get into some weird festivals like you know if they're like no I want this to be on every you know like well we can't work together because that's not gonna work so yeah as long as as long as it has someone that can connect to I think screenwriters stand their best chance of really getting noticed by knowing what the business needs so it's not coming in talking about how passionate you are about the scripts it's talking and speaking in a way that answers to the needs of the production company the producer of the studio etc it's there are tried and tested genres that are just they they just nail what the business lives on and if you're if a young writer wants to come into the business and really just get their emails answered get the phone calls returned it's being able to speak about their project and have it answer to those things it's it's gonna be saying I'm writing a family film about this I'm writing a film about this and it's a very quick point it's not it's you know never coming-of-age stories it's never dramas it's it's happier films it's it's the kinds of films you see on a Redbox machine that's what Hollywood needs to stay in business and so if you're coming to the table bringing opportunities for Hollywood to continue staying in business they're gonna pay attention to you never at any point am I saying don't write dramas don't write comedies don't write the coming-of-age story if you have a fantastic idea for a movie I think a writer should hold on to just hold on to it wait like get the commercial scripts out first get a reputation of being our screenwriter who can deliver what the system needs who can write quickly who can write well who can write within budget and get a couple of actual paid gigs and you'll get them if you go in the opposite way saying I know what Hollywood wants they want this they want these very deep dramas coming-of-age dramas and forcing them to do that it's not you're not going to get noticed but if you come in giving them what they want which are like tween girl family films or Christmas movies with dogs women in peril thrillers these kinds of things Hollywood pays attention to you and once you are writing those and once you're getting noticed for that work then you have a collection of contacts and you can say I have an interesting idea could this work and then you can present those what's the genre is its studio or independent who's your protagonist what's their goal with their flaw who's the main relationship with what's driving this story who's your audience who's the antagonist what's their goal and their flaw you know what's the narrative question driving the film so like every story you should be able to sum it up in one main question like so like die if I was die hard would be like you know will you know a New York cop trapped you know will this New York cop free his wife and hostages from some European terrorists you have them trapped in skyscrapers like it's like one question right like so like what's your narrative question driving this story and what's your theme and what's your theme attic question like what's why are you telling us that the Ematic question is like the question you posed to the audience it could be a moral question it could be or something else but some question you want them to think about like it is family really just people you're related to or is it something more you know it could be your fee Matic question it's it's not overtly stated in the story but it's kind of like in the film subconscious it's like what you know the film is really kind of about and then your theme is how you answer that question by the end that's your theme ager your story so like what are those things and I might even be missing a couple ayat but off the top of my head those are like a lot of and if you can't answer those questions or if those questions don't make sense together a lot of times there's the problems with the story so for example if you say your protagonist goal is my protagonist goal is to grab the banana and what's your antagonist goal to grab the orange well they're in two different movies they're never going to intersect there's no conflict great your protagonist grabs the banana and your antagonist grabs you wants movies over and that's a very simplistic example but those are the kind of things but on a deeper level we look at my goal wall here there's a few things that aren't making sense you say your main relationship is character and character BB or antagonist character C they're not even and meet in your main relationship that's moving the story forward so why are they that why are they your antagonist so 12 questions from and this is from amateur writers who have never had anything sold what I you know call development cases people that you're you have a belief in because they're talented you're trying to get them there all the way up to you know experienced screenwriters who have had you know a half dozen pictures produce you know the the 12 questions is a great sort of reset okay let me square away I mean you know even if I've done this a hundred times every story is different in a lot of times you miss those those important details and once I think that twelve questions are are making sense now and things are tying together like oh now see how the protagonist goal ties into your theme okay now everything starts puzzle pieces start making sense then I say okay now now let's work out a synopsis three or four paragraphs you know first exit can I throw that or whatever just so we can say okay now let's make sure from just a broad story standpoint that all those questions are being addressed and then from there you can expand it to a full treatment scene outline and it's then you start writing your script cuz like I explained to them a lot easier to develop the story in a synopsis form or a treatment form than it is to keep rewriting the script when there's fundamental problems in it you don't start building the building it's slanted all right let's start taking out some bricks and try to get you you work all of that out on the design phase and the blueprint phase and so that's what I try to get them to do it and the twelve questions is to me is like okay that's that beginning that organic seed that we need to plant to make a healthy tree grow I said you you have any scripts I'm looking for something that features somebody with a disability that's simple to do small cast simple locations and that's when I read carol of the bells and it met that criteria I'm looking to do you know because like in Bakersfield the community works with us so locations you can get for free they just open their doors to you there so you're getting really good production value we made a great deal with the hotels and the the the way we did it was each facility like Bakersfield has mine I own and the other ones are like franchises so they sent two pros down and two students and then we used all our students that were ready to work to make this and so the criteria for that was limited locations getting as much production value as you can with no money and again its borrowing stealing whatever but it's going in and you know going into someone's house and saying hey you know we'd love to shoot here we don't have any money would you let us use your house and finding some beautiful locations and people working with you so it's a good way to learn filmmaking you know to do without when you produce something because then later when you have money it's like oh a filmmaker typically doesn't have just one project that he's interested in doing in my case I have a pretty important mandate I'm only looking to do projects that are personally beneficial to the world and I'm not talking about pollution or something like that I'm talking about a meaningful project that that would help people engage and and and see things filmmaking is so brilliant that's the kind of films that I want to make films that viscerally help you understand the world more and maybe make you more tolerant may make you more perceptive and you know certainly filmmaking is one of the best vehicles other than speech and to me our book filmmaker you know really has an opportunity to tell story and with the the belief not in purposeful preaching but the belief is you'll walk out and you'll have a perspective you might never have had if I feel like the projects lacking but I can but I feel like I can find my passion as we work on it sometimes I look at and I say you know but this guy really liked working with them I see how we can make this project better and I know this person who's hiring me is open to the creative development process they're open to hearing out my ideas and letting me whether it's an executive producer whether it's a lot of times get hired by the writer director and they have financing from somewhere but they don't want to do that day to day producing and so I'll come on is the main producer or I'll come on as a producer with them as long as I believe that they're open to the creative process and that I can read that script and go I can I can get passionate about this I can find my passion as we work on it I don't need to be passionate from the second I read it once I sign on the dotted line you hire me and I'm involved in producing this picture I'm a hundred and ten percent into the picture it's not you know I'm not so sure you're not you're not passionate about it at first once I put my name on the dotted line that picture has my undivided attention I'm gonna make it as great as I can be as long as I see the potential for it to be great and a potential for me to be able to put my finger prints on it and be able to find my passion as we work on it yeah I'll you know I'll sign on to that I'll sign on to that project as long as I see that potential so my level discernments a little bit different than someone's having to put up their own money and go out and chase me chase but it allows me to work on a whole lot of other projects that I might not have otherwise even known about and then and also make a living doing it which is nice when you can make a living doing what you love if there's dialogue on the page that takes up half a page or almost the whole page that's a telltale sign of with exception of course there are always exceptions but that would be a sign that it's an amateur if there's pages in a script that are so dense that it looks like a novel that would be another sign if there's like page after page of in very dense descriptions that will wind up in and the recycle bin or trash and uh your computer she's got 56 characters and he knew right away bingo that that was going to translate into a portion of the budget that was disproportionate with what we had and what does that mean in English only affordable amount of characters we could have in his opinion was between 20 and 25 characters and I know that sounds crazy but any independent filmmakers gonna come in front of the same moment that I came in front of when you go do you really need that character to walk in the door go hey you got a phone call that character is a SAG talking actor and that's gonna cost you X amount of dollars and you put 40 more of those in the movie and you've made a movie that you're not going to be able to afford and it's crazy and you know I know that you're interviewing me about creativity but if you can get this stuff off the table before you start talking creativity you'll have you know in my opinion a more controllable project if in the script there are there's a plot aspects or character behavior that's not clear to me or confusing or inconsistent I'll just ask the question and I always tell the writer that they never to feel compelled to agree with me it's not a dictatorial thing but it is for the purpose of I feel I'm a pretty good barometer of what other how other executives are are going to respond to material and if it's not clear to me then there's a good chance that it might not be clear to someone else so they don't have to I never feel like I want to impose something to be done a certain way but I will raise a question or I'll say I feel that this dialogue it doesn't feel authentic to me it feels like there's an agenda the writer has an agenda that you want the character to say this but I think if we're really looking in the scene and a daughter is responding to her mother how much she really respond and I'll ask the writer to go back and kind of try and find the truth rather than the written agenda if that makes sense so well you can immediately tell when a script has not been written by a professional and obviously that well that's a big red flag so if the script has like art on the title page or colored paper or is not in final draft form you know too much too much of a header or too much on the size you know with okay those person is either trying to get something to be shorter or longer by using the margins which that's not playing fair so so those would say red flags are things like you know not introducing your protagonist and the first ten page is not you know announcing what your film is you know in the first 15 pages you know don't don't wait until halfway through to tell me oh this movies about this guy who wants to kill his mom okay well well I'm not sitting here for an hour waiting for you to tell me that so so I'm looking for the kind of structural and character problems that are pretty easy to spot you know I'm not a big believer in the Robert McKee world of inciting incident and all that but there's value in what he has to say sort of philosophically which is that there are some kind of foundational things you need to do in a screenplay that you don't you know unless you're doing experimental movies which I'm not in that business if you have a story to tell there are certain you know parts of the roadmap you got a hit and so you know you hold back your protagonist until page 30 and that's just not going to happen there's no you're not acting has SK a movie star to show up a half hour into the movie so those are the kinds of things I look for and I just say in terms of marketability what gets agents attention producers studio networks is that you'll hear a strong voice that there's something really fresh about a person has a point of view and that the character writing the Quentin Tarantino is such a strong voice and I would say that Greta Gerwig you know as a strong voice the truthfulness of that mother-daughter relationship which wasn't pretty you know how they got in each other spaces and talked to each other but it's was truthful and we know that they they did love each other and you know so touching towards latter part of the movie when the mother who was really kind of you know really tough with her daughter and the daughter didn't feel like she really loved her even liked her and then we saw that she was trying to write a letter to her and crumbled it up like 30 times that's a that's another form of love versus this would be the boring way of doing it and not so truthful to the human experience would be well you know I love you maybe I'm hard on you but maybe I'm doing it for your own good or maybe have my own issues so I'm not really able to love that well versus the simple beautiful act that she was crumpling up letters because she want to find the right words and couldn't that says so much more than anything that's on the nose and obvious if I could say that there was a mistake that writers make is it's not giving themselves the time or space to listen to how they add to a story or a situation that they write what they think that the market wants that they think that will sell without actually finding something that is that makes them excited about the telling and that has a personal resonance with them so especially younger writers they have to learn it's cliche but they have to learn how to find their voice and they have to value the fact that no matter what their age or experience level they've got something of value to bring out and so the key thing is not to develop what other people have done but to work on developing your voice and I've never met a writer who isn't a reader the most significant writers I've ever worked with are very well-read individuals and I love that because you have to get you have to feed the well somehow you have to get ideas and you understand so much more about that internal space you want to live through when you're diving into it regularly with good books it has to be relevant to the immediate culture that doesn't mean it needs to be happening but just relevant for instance I think some movies that were so good that didn't do well it was like if they just waited a couple more years it would have worked because we were moving to that but this guy has a very strong opinion on it this director or this writer or whatever so if he's gonna come with this opinion it's gonna kind of disconnect and people are not gonna spread it or find answers you're not gonna get down with it or you know the distributor won't readily just open the door they'll probably throw it on Netflix somewhere and bury it or whatever it's because they just it was such a good project such a good story but it just wasn't time for it yet and I think for producers they have to be very mindful of that it's not just keeping up with current events it's kind of just talking to people and making sure that you're in a very diverse group of people I think every producer if you're only talking to your buddies from school it's a problem need to talk to people from different backgrounds different financial backgrounds different races different ethnicity everything you need to expand your horizons travel when you go to even if you just travel a state over go to like don't go to Applebee's I mean but like Applebee's when you're home but if you're in another place go to like the little mom-and-pop and just kind of sit at a diner and talk to some people because I'm thinking wow this is such a great idea I go to Montana these people will never watch this so it's okay that's not it's but I gotta keep that in mind so if I'm not I have no idea what's going on I think like even with the political culture right now people I didn't know people it's not like this I'm like I did it I toured all the country doing merchandise events like I believe me this is nothing new but it's like that's necessary when you're the person a producer that is is in a position to choose what stories are made or choose which stories you're going to push through or find financing for choose the right ones for the time until the person is not ready they might fight you on it you might lose a project and they might do it anyway and then you'll see that they you were right but if you communicate in a way a person can get down with it and then for writers just know like while you're writing let yourself run free but also be aware of what's happening around you and that doesn't mean your idea can't happen you just might just it so it's like the little you know like sugar with the medicine type of thing like a little bit of sugar just a low sugar in it so it's a little bit more palatable for where we're at that way we can spread it to the world and everyone can see your art but if you're staying in this space and you're futuristic and you have this whole idea where we're going like okay let's now we got an atom or budget make a futuristic then it can't be now because we're not there yet or whatever so yeah being very mindful of what's happening what the culture is and seeing when I'm reading that script can someone accept this as truth right now and you do there'll always be a couple knows and you got to know who those noes are but if it's mostly yeses all right we can now move forward portable can we do this will there be a part in it for a star which as you know thinks that things that are too ensemble are difficult to get made because you need a star role to get things ordered usually so you know I'm looking I have the night deployment Hamelin and then the producer hat goes ok what where would I shoot this how much is it gonna cost is there a star role where is there network or studio that would buy this because you don't obviously chase something that there's no place to sell and so then that's the second read it is a budget range that's reasonable so a lot of people they come to me and I get a lot of how much would it cost to do this script and I'm like well I'll tell you what I'll answer that question if you can answer a question for me how long is a piece of string that's what I like to ask them you can't just give me a script how much does it cost to make that was Matt Damon in your movie right well your budget just went up by 10 million dollars I mean I can make an argument to do this movie for a million bucks or 10 million bucks so really it's more like how much can you raise and then you know or or how much do you have or you know if they if they really don't have a good idea of this who do you see in it how why do you see it being distributed but I have to get an idea of sort of what range and how big they're seeing this in their head and a lot of times I might read the not a lot of times but sometimes a migrator script yeah well that's not gonna that's not gonna happen on this you know you're not gonna do avatar on a $500,000 budget or whatever the first thing I asked a person before we even read the script is where do you see this going and that kind of tells me and it's funny someone's always like oh I never thought of that and I'm like well yeah you have to know where you're going to know how to do it you have to know where you're going to know where to move in where to focus on and we're two-faced so if they don't know where this if they wanted to go that's gonna make my job a little harder now I can read it and be like oh this can do this but at least let me know where you see it and then when I'm reading it I can kind of say yeah you got it or you don't and are you fine with not having that you would have this outcome are you good with that yeah you know I yeah great or no I'm not well you're gonna have to go back to this rewrite it have much less location so we can get you a bigger star because this thing is not going to sell you know like something like that so yes a good I guess that would be direction a good focus point of where they wanted to go that helps me when I look at a script I'm thinking about a lot of different thing about all those things specifically how how they relate budget wise and fiscally but also you know how that hmm you know the creative and the fiscal will work together so you know when I read the script I'm thinking about story and I'm thinking about the arc of the characters and I'm thinking about if conflict I don't think about why are we telling this story but I'm also thinking okay who would I get to play these could I get to play these roles on this budget level like what are some decent names who am i picturing in this you know I'm thinking about and if I mean I'm presuming in this situation that the movie's real that's not just a script I'm not just reading it for fun but it's like okay we're making this picture like this pictures funded mark read the script so I'm reading and I'm like okay how we gonna pull off that we need that this kind of grandiose house production design in the house I'm looking at some of these things and I'm saying you know okay we need this and we need we need to dress the kid's room like this okay you know there's a very specific style do I know somebody who might be able to execute that style it's very postmodern I've worked with it at the production designer that did this and Wow sound is such a big deal you know some thinking about all these all of these things as I'm reading it as opposed to and actors reading it yes they're considering story I think everybody with some sort of creative you know position is thinking about story to some degree but actor is gonna be much more focused on their role in the arc of their role and the Scimitar there's gonna be much more focus they're gonna be reading and seeing something totally different they're gonna say oh wow okay so we got a bunch of exterior night out here by the pool we're gonna light the pool how we gonna light I'm gonna light the water how we gonna they're gonna be looking at it that way I see you got the shot that follows them through the house and so they're gonna want to talk to the director about how that I'm thinking about all that stuff but I'm thinking about like okay do we're gonna have the budget for those kind of lights and creatively if we can't pull something off how are we gonna be able to you know to make that we can't pull that off with the budget or or there's some other logistical circumstance that's gonna make that unreasonable what are we gonna have to change in the script to do that and I'm also a line producer in a upm so I am I'm breaking down the script I am thinking about all of these things okay we need Steadicam to pull that off and we need that so I really do get down to that level of detail but it to some degree but I I'm thinking about everything you know in one form or fashion as it rates to creative and fiscal and how those two things work together and I think I think probably a lot of other I think writers are probably focused more on story and not a lot of not necessarily on the logistics so when I talk to them I'm like but how are we gonna pull this off you know yeah well so from a producer producers perspective we're talking we're thinking more about execution well I think a lot of writers just they just tell the story they want to tell and they don't necessarily think about how it'll be done which is fine you're the writer that's your job just get the story out but when it starts to become real and then we have to start approaching how we're gonna do it sometimes some things for logistical reasons have to have to shift script dictates the budget script is your heart and soul the spine of the whole thing that you're gonna build off of the foundation of everything that you're gonna lay on top of it and if you have money first and you're writing to the budget of that I think your creativity is is paramount and then dealing with in the realities of you know what's what resources are available to you right and then you start talking about money and how you're gonna fulfill that vision but if the vision is coming from a monetary at me personally I I've had more money on some of my other films didn't mean I did a better job producing in fact my third film mother's red dress I had more money than any of the other ones and it was my worst job producing why because I because I thought that by having more money to pay more money to each position and person that was working on it I was just gonna get better talent and therefore I took my my my better part of myself out of the equation just that it was gonna be solved by money and I learned a very valuable lesson on that we got the film done and everything was great and it worked out fine but I I saw dollars and that I could get this kind of DP and it didn't translate into success for the project in fact the person that I brought on once that DP left the project for another project in the middle of shooting yeah I brought in somebody else that had less equipment less experience and he did a fantastic job because his motivation was correct so so if you if you look at it from this standpoint if you have money and you're gonna pay people right I mean we all want to get paid and we got to work to live and all that but but if that is the focus first then I think that the you're doing the opposite it's like okay we've got a marketing campaign we can do now let's find a script if it's you know the the kind of content that we want to sell as opposed to what comes from within working with this person do I you know do I get a good good sense because you're gonna spend a year or more dealing with this person depending on the scope of my duties so you know sometimes I'm just literally brought on to there's no development I'm like okay the scripts decent you know and I think I can influence it enough through the production process to make it a good a good picture and then at post when I deliver the master drive or the DCP or whatever the final deliverable is I'm done I'm not involved in marketing or distribution there are projects like that and just depends on the term of the contract so but I would say at the least I'm spending at least a year with this person so so yeah well-written script reasonable budget and logistics and and I like the person those are really my main criteria it's important to remember that movies and TV shows cost an incredible amount of money to produce and if there's nobody to watch it on the backside or to transact upon it on iTunes or at a movie theater then there's not much of a point in doing that and there's there's an even more expensive aspect of producing something which is marketing it and getting it out in front of people so they know it exists so that when they're interested in seeing it and ready to buy tickets or download it behind a paywall and pay money for it they have the ability to do it and they're ready to do it right away so that's the financial end so people in my position Paul I mean from where I'm working all the way up to top executives at studios what those people the end users want to see is really really important and that's kind of where we're thinking because if the end users are interested in seeing it then international countries would be interested in also having access to it and they would be willing to invest money to have access to it early which is where the whole presale game kind of comes into play or you know a TV channel here in the US if they know their audience wants something very specific they will kind of work to have that produced on their network and they'll kind of work backwards you know first finding out what kind of project it's got to be the types of people who have to be in it and then working their way backwards to get to the point of actually drafting writing and creating and all that so on the big scale for these major major productions at the studio level or the major network level that's why they go for things like major franchises or very well-known books or very well-known media properties are doing remakes there's already an audience there they already kind of have an estimate of how it's gonna be you know get from point A to point B and that's where the business side of it really plays it's what is it how is it going to work where the money coming from and who's going to get paid what to make this whole process happen that's got to all be figured out before you really hone in on the right script most screenwriting books approach it as you write a story and it evolves into a movie and this whole industry doesn't exist with people twiddling their thumbs waiting for the right script to drop into their hands it works the opposite direction which is we know we need this type of content to be successful we have certain channels or certain just you know platforms that we have to cater to with content so that's the stuff we're going to be looking for as finished content or we'll go make it ourselves

Channel: Film Courage

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Keywords: screenwriting tips, screenwriting 101, screenwriting techniques, how to write a screenplay, screenwriting for beginners, screenwriting advice, writing a screenplay, how to write a movie, find a producer, producer read screenplay, filmcourage, film courage, interview, sell movie idea

Id: Mrx7JWEuRkc

Length: 36min 14sec (2174 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 17 2020