Sam Brown, STX Films, Kevin Iwashina, Endeavor Content, Anjay Nagpal, Bron Studios, Gerren Crochet, The Gersh Agency
The American Film Market (AFM) is one of the stops on the film financing and distribution circuit along with the Sundance Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, Cannes and the Toronto Film Festival.
This year it attracted 7,415 participants hoping to get the attention of 1,476 buyers from 71 countries who had set up shop at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica. There were signs of real growth with 6% more participants and 35% more buyers.
In addition to providing the platform for robust deal making, the AFM offers a series of conferences and smaller sessions that I liken to a film academy.
These cover the ever popular subjects of film financing and distribution for feature films and series, getting a documentary to market and working the talent guilds but this year the AFM also delved into script writing.
This is an important step since nearly everyone agrees that the most important part of a film is the script. Without a great script nothing gets made. Of course, actors, directors, producers and financing are key, but a script is what sets everything else in motion. I’ll take a look at the takeaways from the scripting seminars in another article.
In this piece, I’d like to share some of thoughts from three of the conference sessions that deal specifically with selling a film in today’s marketplace.
We’ll be looking at pre-sales, what makes a studio want a film and how you can work with sales agent.
It used to be standard operating procedure for a filmmaker with a brilliant script to work with a sales agent in order to secure pre-sales, or commitments from foreign and domestic buyers, that you could take to a bank. The bank would give you a loan based on guarantees from distributors.
With those in hand you were well on your way. Things have changed but some things stay the same.
“It takes four things to make a movie,” said Gerren Crochett, packaging agent, at the Gersh Agency, “a script, a director, a producer and money.”
Sales agents are reevaluating their modus operandi in order to help filmmakers get those elements together.
“Sales agents have changed their responsibility,” said Clay Epstein, President, Film Mode Entertainment. “ They have become producing partners, co-financiers and their role has become so much more than just selling a movie.”
The good news: “The world has never been more thirsty for content,” said Crochet.
Of course, that content may be something you don’t want to produce, like a low budget horror film, disaster film, raunchy comedy or an action film with Nicolas Cage. According to the panelists any film with Nicolas Cage will sell.
If you’ve set your sights higher and long to produce a prestige drama, you’re not out of luck but that genre has been abandoned by the studios and it may require you to convince a big name actor to come on board to get it made.
Once again, there is good news. “Actors want good projects,” said Crochet.
Where do you find the stories that will attract the actors? Anjay Nagpal, the senior VP of Production and Distribution on at Bron Studios looks for real stories that can be found in “a magazine article about someone’s life” and in other sources.
The main thing is to find, “something that’s real,” said Nagpal.
One of the major challenges is figuring out whether the story is best suited as a one-off feature film or a series. If they’ve found an 1100 page book a “screenplay may leave out too much,” explained Nagpal.
You can squeeze it down or “make an eight hour movie,” he said. This is where the streaming services like Netflix and Amazon come into play. “If you can do it the right way and it’s going to be prestigious,” it’s a choice that’s increasingly attractive to actors who at one time wouldn’t be open to TV.
These digital platforms are delivering “high grade entertainment at an affordable price,” (to the consumer) said Nagpal. These streaming services also have deep pockets. Much more money is available for a series than a one-off feature.
But if you’re determined to make a dramatic feature “focus on one big event and use some flashbacks” (to tell the story) said Crochet.
The main thing is not to despair.
“We live in a world with a lot of no’s but all you need is one yes,” Cassian Elwes, Independent Producer and agent. “Go out and find it.”