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Ian’s LA Diary, Friday March 6th – Producers request our clients’ scripts!

Ian’s LA Diary, Friday March 6th – Producers request our clients’ scripts!

by | Apr 8, 2020 | Pitching

We guarantee to pitch ALL our winners’ scripts to industry, and with two new competitions now open – the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award 2020 and the Summer 2020 Screenwriting Contest – we already can’t wait to get more great scripts into the hands of top producers! To give you an idea of how we do that, we’ve been giving you an inside look at Ian’s LA Pitching Diary. Here’s the final instalment – featuring more conversations with key decision-makers and a request for scripts from our slate…

Late last night, as a result of other discussions and links made this week, Oscar-winning producers responded to the access we’d given them to the whole of our slate’s pitch documents, and asked to receive three of our winners’ scripts. Getting your script read by the people who really can, and know they might want to, make it happen: that’s the goal of nearly everything we do with our winners – so three requests in one is a great sign. Delighted to oblige: that’s why we’re here! We’ll enjoy hearing the producers’ thoughts and doing whatever we can to get a great deal and exposure for our clients for their excellent work.

So yes, that was definitely a good way to start the day.

Dolby Sign - Welcome to HollywoodNext up, after making new arrangements for the media assets of our film THE LIST which we’ve now inherited back from Warner Brothers after a decade of distribution there, this morning I met a key member of staff from one of the big feature film production companies, who have produced many successful, household name movies. We met because she had expressed an interest in working with us, and as we talked it over she asked to see all of our slate, potentially with a view to assembling funding and production packages like she has often done before, with notable success stories.

So naturally I was delighted to give her a look: these opportunities are what we’re here for!

Everything I’ve talked about this week is just the beginning of those conversations and the relationships and partnerships that can lead from all of our interactions throughout our decades working in the business. It’s a long game and you have to be committed to that in order to succeed. We’ve been playing that game for our clients for over 20 years: if we didn’t make that work, we wouldn’t still be here.

So yeah, things are shaping up really well for us and our winners at WriteMovies and TalentScout International Management right now. We’d love to make you a successful part of that journey too. Submit your script or book to WriteMovies to know that your project is being judged against the real needs, preferences and requests of the market, and that if we believe we can take you forward, we will get your pitch and script in front of people who are looking to make great things happen for projects like yours. Whatever level you’re at, whatever project you’ve got, we believe we can take you to the next level. And the next, and the next. That’s our calling as an organization. Let us help you to the top!

To submit to WriteMovies:

  • Enter one of our Screenwriting Contests, with entry from just $39
  • Buy one of our script report services to get expert, professional feedback on your work – and free entry to our current contest!
    • Studio Coverage will give you a page of comments similar to those producers and executives get
    • Development Notes offer a comprehensive analysis of your script, focusing on topics such as concept, structure, characters, and commercial viability
  • Get Elite Mentoring, either face-to-face or over the phone from industry professionals including writers, producers, and executives

Ian & Hollywood signAnd that’s a wrap for this first series of our L.A. diary! As you can imagine, behind the scenes there’s a lot more to our work than high-profile meetings and industry liaising – just this week of meetings alone occupied weeks of preparation for several of our team – and we can’t always make enough time to write a series of articles like this about those meetings either! But. As this week was so packed with interesting meetings to talk about, we wanted to share that with you to show you what we’re doing for all our winners and clients, and the value we can add for everyone who submits their work to us.

This is our daily work at WriteMovies. Taking you to the top, by whatever mix of means are the ones that will work. Keep us and our proven industry connections at the heart of your plans and goals for your work. Let’s make great things happen for you, together!

Good luck everybody. Looking forward to hearing from you.

See the rest of Ian’s diary here! Find out how he prepared for pitching on Monday HERE, and how he got on with meeting Shaun Redick (GET OUT, BLACKKKLANSMAN) and Yvette Yates of Impossible Dream Entertainment HERE! And find out about his trip to Warner Brothers and Digital Monarch Media HERE and to BAFTA Los Angeles HERE.

Ian’s L.A. Diary, Wednesday March 4th – Warner Bros. and groundbreaking VFX!

Ian’s L.A. Diary, Wednesday March 4th – Warner Bros. and groundbreaking VFX!

by | Mar 20, 2020 | Highlights, Pitching, WriteMovies News

The coronavirus crisis is making life hard for everyone right now – today, all Californians were ordered today to stay home. Here at WriteMovies, though, it’s business as usual thanks to an established business model we developed several years ago, enabling us to continue our work around the world from our own homes where necessary! We’ve got big plans coming up to help support our followers and clients during this pandemic, too – we’ll be telling you more about that next week…

But before that, we promised to share a week of Ian’s L.A. Diary from the beginning of March – and here’s Part 3! We GUARANTEE to get our winners’ scripts in front of top producers with the power to say yes and make things happen, and this sneak peek gives you an idea how. Here’s what Ian got up to on Wednesday March 4th…

So today I had two long crosstown trips to make. First was to Warner Brothers, where I had to check and collect the movie assets they had distributed for a decade from the film WriteMovies produced in 2006 – THE LIST. It’ll be really exciting to open new doors for one of our greatest success stories – a charming New York rom-com written by our winner Marcus Folmar and starring Wayne Brady, Sydney Tamia Poitier and Jane Lynch among others – but at this moment the focus was purely on the nuts and bolts: cross-checking the inventory, ensuring all the assets are present and indexed and in good condition, packed and ready for shipping.

Warner Bros sign

Visiting the media archive at Warner Bros!

I took my time to check that all of the details were right, because you can’t expect to be able to go back after the fact, to argue that something should have been there but wasn’t. I videoed the contents of the pack and inventory too, in case we ever need that for reference. Some things you only ever get one chance to do right, and this was one. Thanks to WB staff for their help throughout the process! As you can imagine, their media archive is a vast and (as far as I could tell at this point!) meticulously indexed warehouse facility, and was a fascinating place to visit and spend time.

So, one big box heavier, I set off from Burbank to Marina Del Rey, an hour away, to meet double Oscar-nominated and double BAFTA-winning VFX expert Habib Zargarpour (THE JUNGLE BOOK, BLADE RUNNER 2049, and much much more including Tom Hanks’ imminent GREYHOUND). Habib is now Head of Film Development at Digital Monarch Media, a division of Unity Technologies, and welcomed me to meet his groundbreaking team managing film for a company within Unity Technologies. I spent time getting to know the team, and catching up about the latest filming for THE SQUADRON (directed by Habib and produced by our founder Alex Ross).

Ian (right) getting to grips with amazing real-time VFX capture equipment, with Habib Zargarpour (left) and his colleagues at Head of Film Development at Digital Monarch Media, a division of Unity Technologies.

Then they took me along as a visitor to a demo they were doing for a fascinating film school, who it was great to meet and get to know as well. Then we all came back to the company office where Habib and his team showed how their latest equipment enables directors to generate – and customize – their VFX in real time. This technique proved extremely effective when they produced the VFX for THE JUNGLE BOOK live-action/CGI remake and we look forward to sharing much more about their unique work and tools with you in future. In the meantime, massive thanks to Habib for his team’s hospitality and help with our media assets from Warner Bros!

Next, another lengthy cross-town trip later, I liaised with further candidates for the new role we’re looking to add to our team, and caught up on emails – with so many exciting meetings happening, it’s vital to follow up what’s been agreed and discussed thoroughly. Emails are important to confirm them and start to make things happen and take industry interest in us to the next level every time: vital details are easily missed or forgotten in the rush of other work if not, and could come back to bite you if you can’t show a trail of substantive evidencing for them. And meanwhile, not forget to check in for the next meetings and confirm any extra details.

The logistics of a week like this in LA are vital to its success, and agreeing the wrong number of meetings or times that don’t work with each other can undo all your good work getting this far.

NEXT TIME, IN THURSDAY’S L.A. DIARY… BAFTA LA, and Hollywood traditions with an iconic film role producer!

Want to see more of Ian’s diary? Check out how he prepared for pitching on Monday HERE and how his meeting went with Shaun Redick (GET OUT, BLACKKKLANSMAN) and Yvette Yates of Impossible Dream Entertainment HERE!