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January General Meeting
John J. Lee - The Internal Greenlight System
by James K. Shea
(January 2002) |
The Network's first meeting at our new location, The Beverly Garland Holiday Inn, was a smash success. The room was filled to capacity (21 non-members also attended) to hear John J. Lee discuss approaching your screenplay from the needs of the distribution side of the studio system.
Sometimes we have to do something that is startlingly different than what we've been (unsuccessfully) doing in the past.
From the marketing/distribution point of view, the most crucial factors are: "What are your target audience(s) for your script? [Hopefully you have more than one]" "How do the emotional beats of your 30-second TV spot reach that target audience and draw them into the theaters?" "How does your marketing campaign compare to successful campaigns of the past five years?"
How do you close the gap between good writing and the decision makers? By creating in your screenplay "campaign beats" designed to capture your target audience. It's a key element in reaching the ultimate decision maker, the marketing side of the studio or production company.
John created especially for our meeting a form called The Screenwriters' Sales Strategy. This form consists of 14 key things to do once you've written your screenplay:
- Break down your script by campaign elements (deciding which scenes target which audience).
- Write a 30-second television commercial for your story.
- Do an emotional beat analysis for your commercial.
- Run it through the Entertainment Consumption Matrix to discover your target audiences by weight (this is a formula created by film industry marketers to figure out what age groups go to see what movies - it can be found on John's website).
- Look for comparable pictures that have been released in the past 5 years.
- Research their global earnings, US and foreign distributors, the season they were theatrically released, director, cast, tag-lines and budgets.
- Pull their campaigns (posters, TV ads, print ads - these can be found on the Internet or at the AMPAS library, or on many new DVD releases).
- Do an emotional beat analysis for each of their commercials.
- Pass these through the Entertainment Consumption Matrix.
- Compare each picture's target audience by weight and campaign signature (emotional beat profile) with your script's campaign.
- Select the three to six pictures that closely mirror your picture.
- Use their average global earnings to discover your picture's global earnings capacity.
- Using the same above-the-line assumptions, have a production budget prepared for your picture.
- Prepare a Global Earnings Analysis for your picture (earnings vs. costs).
Now you have the muscle you need to pitch and be considered by the decision-makers.
This form and others used in the presentation can be found for free on Entertainment Business Group's Website at www.ebgroup.net. Also a CD-ROM with all these forms and more is included in John's book, The Producers Business Handbook.
His next seminar, The Internal Greenlight System (geared more for producers) is scheduled for the first weekend in March. Check his website for details.
- Previous Network Meetings:
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