Sharon Waxman of TheWrap.com provides this analysis on the buyers' attitudes thus far at this year's Sundance Film Festival:
Any of you who have followed GITS for even a few months will recognize in these words a point I've made again and again about the importance of a strong story concept. And for those folks who were questioning why I chose to have a 5-part feature on movie marketing, listen up: These are buyers of independent movies; and if they are obsessed with movies that have a "hook," a "marketing notion on which to hang a release" [i.e., build a marketing strategy), then how much more important do you think this concern might be for major movie studios? Answer: A lot!At the screening of “Blue Valentine” on Sunday night in Park City, it went like this: a mad rush for tickets as journalists and distributors tried to get in to the still-unseen title starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams.
Then, after the screening: a meander out to the lobby and unenthusiastic huddling by executives from Fox Searchlight, Summit, Focus Features and others.
It’s been this way at Sundance, which once upon a time could guarantee at least one brass knuckles bidding war per festival (usually involving Harvey Weinstein). Now the trend is to bid late and bid low – a buyer’s market where the buyers, few as they are, seem unenthused.
“I’m not seeing any films that are commercial,” said Rob Friedman, the CEO of Summit, grabbing a slice of pizza between screenings.
He’s looking, he said, for “another ‘Hurt Locker,’” the film that is winning the indie studio critical acclaim this season.
All the buyers want something with a hook – humor, preferably, or horror or a pedigree – that has a marketing notion on which to hang a release. A “Thank You for Smoking,” or a “Napoleon Dynamite,” or a “Brokeback Mountain" [emphasis added].
Once again: The single most important choice you make about writing a spec screenplay may very well be its story concept. If you have a strong one, you elevate exponentially the chances of selling the script and getting the movie made.
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All too true: if the indie buyers aren't intrigued by your story hook, God knows Hollywood isn't going to be either. I've always been just slightly critical of Blake Snyder's (otherwise wonderful) screenwriting book Save The Cat, simply because he's so very much into the "Title, Logline, and Pitch are everything" school of thinking, but then, what with the way the industry's going these days, if people can't clock your story (indie or not) from the title and the poster alone, it's going to be a very long, tough, uphill battle to get your piece made, let alone screened, attended, bought, and ultimately distributed...
This doesn't mean everything you write has to start with (deep, gravelly voice) "In a world where..." etc, but it does mean that, just as in explaining your new business start-up (for example), if you can't get your story idea across (to the person you're pitching to) in several seconds (or less) and hook them as a result, quite likely then it's time to go back and rethink your premise... Test, get feedback, test again, get feedback again, all until you DO have that killer hook that pulls them in instantly. (Then, of course, all you need do is write the thing, after that...)
