Study the Market and Ask Questions

Finally, in the late 1980s, in an effort to figure out how other people were doing it and I wasn’t, I started studying the international marketplace. I went to the Cannes Film Market, which coincides with the Cannes Film Festival, and I also started attending the American Film Market every year in Santa Monica, California. I realized that there was a tremendous global market for independent films outside of the studio system. Each year at the film markets, I bought a market pass and observed what pictures were being made and which pictures were clearly lower budget independent pictures versus studio pictures. I also noticed that some of the lower budgeted independent pictures emulated current studio releases both in content, ad campaigns, and sometimes similar titles, which might allude to a successful studio film. During my attendance at markets, I spoke to actors, writers, producers, and directors who had been involved with the lower budgeted independent films that were being greenlit and financed and I started to understand the budget ranges that were realistic for different genres of independent films. I also started to understand why my previous scripts and stories had not sold. They were not trends that were currently hot and marketable in the international and domestic marketplaces, and they were also too expensive to make for what was a realistic budget in the marketplace. Even if I thought the stories were terrific and compelling, no one else did.

Pay Attention to What Is Selling

At that time, Michael Douglas had appeared in a number of sexy thrillers, such as Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and Disclosure, which were enormously successful at the box office. I realized that films of that genre could be produced very cost effectively. Taking a page out of the Lawrence Kasdan classic, Body Heat, I developed a screenplay called Night Eyes, based on one of my true life experiences, paying attention to the story structure of other films in the thriller genre, and I wrote my story and co-wrote the script according to what I knew was desirable in the international market and also wrote with an independent budget in mind, so that it could be produced cost-effectively.

I was operating on basic instinct. I had never studied screenwriting, much less taken a writing class or read a book regarding screenwriting, but after having had many failed attempts trying to interest buyers and producers and distributors in random ideas and spec screenplays, I attempted to apply what I learned from studying the market in order to discern what the correct screenplay was to develop. I paid attention to a trend that was salable and makeable for a realistic independent budget and wrote the right script, and made sure it resonated with the desires of the buyers. I wrote the story and collaborated with a friend to co-write the screenplay, assuring him that I could get this picture made, since I was convinced it was the right trend for the right budget for the independent market.

Around that time, I was shooting a picture as an actor for an independent film producer and told him about my script. He rarely would read scripts, but based on my pitch and our personal relationship, I got him to read the first draft of my screenplay. He read it and was elated. He said to me, “I can’t believe it! You actually get it!” which meant that I understood several criteria: 1. I understood what was currently salable in the marketplace based on my completely instinctual due diligence. 2. I had only four major locations, making the production exceedingly production friendly. 3. I had a limited number of speaking roles, which made the picture cost-effective. 4. There were no costly action sequences with expensive stunts or vehicles. The scripted action was contained within the locations and involved only the major characters. 5. The structural beats of the script worked for the genre of the film and 6. There were a sufficient number of genre beats to satisfy the buyers.

Somehow without knowing it at the time, I managed to make sure that the script had the requisite number of genre beats, which in this case were love scenes, or scenes with some sort of sexual tension (like the interrogation scene with Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct). With an “I told you so” to my writing partner, I sold the screenplay to my producer acquaintance and also I was able to attach myself as the male star of the picture.

Success Breeds Success

The picture got financed and produced, was so successful that it spawned three additional sequels, and made a lot of people a lot of money. On the subsequent sequels I wrote the story for Night Eyes 2, I wrote the story and screenplay for Night Eyes 3, which I also directed, and I wrote the story for Night Eyes 4. My growth behind the camera was in incremental baby steps and I used each subsequent opportunity as a stepping-stone. Work begat more work and the success of Night Eyes also served as a springboard for me to be able to branch out and leverage my acting and now also writing services to get to direct my first film with the legendary Roger Corman for a sequel to a film I had previously acted in for him. Due to my now greater knowledge and understanding of the foreign market, I leveraged my collective writing, acting, directing, and producing services to entice Roger Corman into entering into a co-production deal with me, whereby we would co-finance four films that I would produce and in turn, I would retain foreign rights to the films, while Roger retained domestic rights and ownership. I then used those four films and made a deal to combine my films with a partner who also had a four-film commitment from a domestic company and retained foreign rights, to form a new production and foreign sales company.

However, it all started with a script: the right script, of the right genre, for a specifically identified desire in the global market, which could be produced for the right budget, which would ensure the producers and distributors a profit.

Apply What You Learn

From this point on in the early 1990s I abandoned acting except for the occasional cameo appearance and became a full-time producer. I also became a full-time foreign sales agent, selling and pre-selling films as a means to finance them, developing all of my company’s stories and screenplays, based on market trends, traveling and selling films at all of the international film markets, as well as the American Film Market in Santa Monica, California. I began doing constant due diligence with international buyers in order to discern which film trends and creative hybrid elements desired by the major territories were necessary to include in the films I was developing in order to pre-sell and finance them.

Pre-Determined Profit

At the time there were three trends or genres that were desirable internationally, each with different creative criteria and each with a different price point or budget level that the pictures needed to adhere to in order to make a profit, the demonstration of which allowed me to obtain the financing for the pictures. They were action films, thrillers, and family films. I now had overhead of a company, travel and marketing expenses, and payroll for my staff, which made turning a profit on each film essential. There were too many people counting on me, so I had to be ever-more cautious not to make a mistake. I knew that if I developed stories and scripts with the right bells and whistles for each genre I could pre-sell and finance the pictures, and the right films also made money for my buyers and distributors, which meant that they would continue buying from me. During this period, I was conceiving and writing the stories for all genres of films, developing the screenplays with a number of writers; some years I was producing twenty films a year as well as still directing one film a year until that became untenable with the scope of all of my other duties. The weight of responsibility to my buyers and distributors to deliver quality scripts and films that resonated with current audience desires, which helped them sustain their companies and respective employees, and also allowed me to sustain my staff, film crews, actors, directors, and writers, was tremendous. These years of real-world experiences with so many people’s livelihoods at stake, including screenwriters, is the basis of my paradigm outlined in this book.

Without any formal training as a writer, development executive, or story editor, I knew from observing, assimilating, and putting into practice what was important to develop and deliver to my buyers. The right genre and the right story equaled territorial sales, which in turn equaled getting a picture financed. The right script equaled making the right movie. I understood the multiple story elements, as well as any specific second level of sell elements that were essential to organically implement into each screenplay in order to deliver and collect on the sales to my buyers who were the underlying collateral of the financing for every picture. I also understood the importance of sustaining the trust and relationships with my buyers for the future by fulfilling their expectations and delivering the stories, scripts, and finished films that I was promising them and that they were in turn promising consumers in their respective territorial markets.

The Market Often Dictates Story Structure

Organic Integration and Running Time

The constant creative challenge for my writers was to organically incorporate a sufficient number of genre beats into each category of film. Also it was important for my writers to keep in mind that independent films generally did not and do not adhere to a two-hour running time. In those days film running times were anywhere from eighty-five to ninety-five minutes, and today, the desired running time for independent films is between ninety and ninety-six minutes. The old 120-page three-act structure with a thirty-page first act, a sixty-page second act, and a thirty-page third act did not and does not exist in the independent world. From a production standpoint, think of it this way: With running time being approximately one page per minute, no independent film could afford to spend the production dollars on shooting 120 minutes of film and leaving thirty minutes on the cutting room floor (old school vernacular for the footage not being in the film). The new screenplay act structure was and is approximately a thirty-page first act, a thirty- to forty-page second act, and a twenty-five- to thirty-page third act, depending on the length of the second act. Truncating the second act actually helped with the second act doldrums, where films tended to bog down and get boring, slow, and repetitive, because there was less screen time to fill between the first and the third acts.

Studio films’ running times vary depending on genre, subject matter, and the director. Of the thirteen studio releases at my local Cineplex, the running times, in minutes, are 89,122, 88, 102, 103, 101, 114, 89, 134, 123, 96, 107, and 91. As you can see, at approximately one minute per script page, the old 120-page script structure only applies to a handful of studio films. Horror, comedy, and animated films tend to have the shortest running times and thus the shortest screenplay page counts, generally in the eight-eight- to ninety-six-minute range. Thrillers and dramas can vary depending on the subject matter. Some directors indulge and fight for languorous running times while other directors feel that crisp running times better serve their work. By example, Oliver Stone’s Snowden runs 134 minutes, while Clint Eastwood’s Sully runs ninety-six minutes.

Importance of the Second Level of Sell in Multiple Genres

In all three genres that we’ve illustrated above, the second level of sell was unique to the distinctly different genres, but still essential for all to fulfill the desires of the buyers and consumers. We’ve discussed the importance of the second level of sell for the action films in the specific context of the military hardware to be featured on the key art, poster, and flyer. For the specific thrillers, the poster needed to evoke an element of sexy danger, which was the (less tangible) second level of sell. For the family films, it was important to incorporate whatever whimsical fantasy element that was featured in the film into the key art, whether it was an angel, a talking dog, invisibility, x-ray vision, an elf, or a gorilla. Clearly defining the second level of sell from the inception of the idea, through the development of the story, and keeping it in mind and consistent throughout the development of the screenplay was critical for the ultimate success of the film and for the buyers. Remember: buyers have long memories and if a screenwriter and script, and in turn the film, deliver what they promise to the buyers, and they in turn deliver on their promise that they have advertised to their consumer audience with success, then the writer, director, and producer will become desired commodities in those territories in the future. Conversely, scripts and films that do not deliver on their promise to buyers and cause them to lose money, can become an anathema to those buyers, and I have seen instances where certain buyers have refused to buy a film if a certain writer or director is involved, based on past negative experience.

As we covered earlier, flyers, which are an 8.5″ × 11″-inch reduction of the movie’s key art, are the sales agent’s first calling card, both with physical flyers at film markets, and with digital versions between markets. For non-theatrical films, key art is usually only blown up to poster size for display at film markets; otherwise physical flyers and digitally transmitted flyers are the mainstay of the film sales business. The key art is featured on the front and a synopsis and credit block are on the back. At markets, I have seen buyers pick up a flyer, fold the edges over, and hold it out to see if it would make a good DVD box because internationally, buyers rarely spend money creating their own campaigns and rely on the seller’s textless key art for their respective territorial campaigns, on which they overlay their indigenous language for their DVD boxes and digital platforms. Consequently, in my experience, good flyers need to overtly spell out the genre and feature the second level of sell of each and every picture.