How taking a script to market works these days?

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  • How taking a script to market works these days?

    Hi everyone,

    New around here so I hope this hasn't been covered before. I just had a question regarding the notion of "taking a script to market". Several years ago I had a management team that actually took a spec of mine to market, it was read by more than 40 producers, no one bit, and I got one lousy meeting out of the deal. Not here to complain, merely setting the stage for the question.

    Okay, at the time I was close with my manager and they explain to me that they post the logline on one of these tracking boards, and then anyone interested contacts them, and they send the script out. The whole process was over and done in two days. Here is my question --

    What is this tracking board (I don't believe trackingb.com was around then, and it seems like that site is merely a status update type anyway) where the logline was listed, and does that still exist? I guess the root of my question has to do with --

    How do agents/manager get the material to those that are interested? Is it merely from an internal list of "connections" that they have, or is there some form of industry network where available material is listed?

    Sorry if this is a stupid question. I was just wondering, and hopefully someone on here can shed some light for me.

    Thanks

    UPDATE: I just found this little bit from a manager (not my manager) talking about the old process:

    "We (this particular manager) have friends at FilmTracker who tracks on about fifteen tracking boards. We have him post one sentence about the spec script on the tracking board on a Tuesday morning. Development execs around town use these boards to know what material agents and managers are taking out and if they are interested they will call on the material. We have our studio based producer list and as we call them with the idea and the time it will be available. If they are interested they send a messenger to pick up the same day. We have an answer from the producers the next morning if they are passing or if it is something they want for their studio, known as a territory, or what other territories they would like as well. We assign one producer per territory and they take it into the studio executive who typically makes a decision about whether or not they are interested in the script within 48 hours. The decision to bid is usually fueled by competition from the other studios because they know that if they like it and they don't take it off the table then somebody else will."

    So FilmTracker no longer exists as far as know, so now where do the Development Execs look?
    Last edited by caissiela; 06-28-2009, 03:54 AM.

  • #2
    Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

    I think Filmtracker was absorbed into Studio System.

    Tracking boards are mostly used to swap information among a group of peers...sort of like the DDP message board. I belong to some tracking boards and they're not boards...they're just e-mail groups. There's 10 or 20 people in an e-mail group and they share information, ask questions or favors of each other. Some people belong to more than one group so info from one group can jump into another group and spread that way... Most reps don't like tracking boards or tracking groups as they're really called now because information is shared quickly among people. So like if a new script is out and someone reads it and doesn't like it he can spread the word which can help to kill a script...But good word of mouth ccan create interest.

    Never heard of a manager or agent sticking a logline up on a tracking board or advertising it through an e-mail group hoping for takers...that's a manager who has no juice and not a clue and no connections...Might as well join Inktip, do it yourself and save 10% if it sells.

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    • #3
      Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

      Gilly knows a ton more than I do, but just from a personal perspective I know that reps usually "slip" a script to a few folks they think are the best for the project, and if any of them like it, sometimes they let that be known, and it creates some interest.
      Two years ago my old manager did this, I begged him to let me leak word of the script and some of the interest to trackingb.com, and we were all amazed how people showed up out of the woodwork just asking for a copy of it. A few days later it was dead as a doornail, but boy was it fun while it lasted ...

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      • #4
        Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

        "and we were all amazed how people showed up out of the woodwork just asking for a copy of it. A few days later it was dead as a doornail, but boy was it fun while it lasted ..."
        --------------------------------------
        Might have been fun, but it also provokes the logical interesting question: How often do such "out of the woodwork" requesters, lured by a commercial-sounding logline, receive the script and successfully get another writer to run with the concept and a few of the script's elements in a legally transmuted form ... then shop the newly-titled altered/enhanced script a month or two later?

        Fundamentally, it's not easy to estimate how often it happens I'd guess. And realistically, there are other far more controllable things for writers to occupy their mind with.

        Ernie

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        • #5
          Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

          Originally posted by caissiela View Post
          Okay, at the time I was close with my manager and they explain to me that they post the logline on one of these tracking boards, and then anyone interested contacts them, and they send the script out. The whole process was over and done in two days.
          I understand the ease and the convenience of the tracking boards, but if you have a rep that ONLY posts your logline to online forums, that rep really isn't making much of an effort to help you. Once upon a time, reps would actually pick up the phone or leave the office to meet with people to discuss their clients' work.

          Seriously, though... the internet is a wonderful resource and there are tons of services, websites, and communities that are dedicated to getting material circulated around the industry. But if that's all your rep does and considers posting the logline on a website as the extent of "taking a script to market", that rep isn't taking your work seriously. Every rep I know who is professional and serious about his or her clients' work is getting that material out there every way they can... including taking meetings and making phone calls, in addition to posting the logline on a forum somewhere.

          A good rep goes out and finds someone to sell your work to... they don't wait for someone to come to them.

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          • #6
            Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

            Thanks for all the advice and insight. I guess I wasn't so much concerned with whether or not my manager was lazy (they got it in to a lot of great people so I don't that is the case), but rather how the system was set up or is set up now. As far as the time crunch goes...how do they contact all of these people, and in doing so all these people know "the drill". By that I mean the producers that request the material know they have a 24 hour-48 hour max window before its over. (I know things can happen after that, but it seemed like a set industry standard/accepted system that was/is? in play) Are agents and manager calling all of these people the day before? Are the producers waiting by the phone? It just seems like there is a set system, that as a writer, I feel like I'm in the dark on. Maybe its just me. I know that usually the 1st day is to producers, with the intent of the second day having territories assigned, so again I go back to the time restraints and structure that has to already be in play no?

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            • #7
              Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

              Originally posted by caissiela View Post
              Thanks for all the advice and insight. I guess I wasn't so much concerned with whether or not my manager was lazy (they got it in to a lot of great people so I don't that is the case), but rather how the system was set up or is set up now. As far as the time crunch goes...how do they contact all of these people, and in doing so all these people know "the drill". By that I mean the producers that request the material know they have a 24 hour-48 hour max window before its over. (I know things can happen after that, but it seemed like a set industry standard/accepted system that was/is? in play) Are agents and manager calling all of these people the day before? Are the producers waiting by the phone? It just seems like there is a set system, that as a writer, I feel like I'm in the dark on. Maybe its just me. I know that usually the 1st day is to producers, with the intent of the second day having territories assigned, so again I go back to the time restraints and structure that has to already be in play no?
              There is no "window" before your script is dead... and if there is, it's certainly not a 24-48 hour window. Maybe if the script has been making the rounds for so many months that everybody's heard of it and knows it's a pass... but that's certainly not after 48 hours.

              This is the problem with managers who just post loglines online... yeah, it might be 24-48 hours before the logline falls off the front page of a message board or something like that, but your rep should be representing your work all the time... not just in the 48 hours after you've given it to him. A rep may spend weeks or even months taking lunches and meetings to try and sell a producer or company on his clients' work.

              Sure, if there's a "hot spec" going around, everybody wants it right away... but if you're an unknown writer trying to get his or her work out there, there is no "time crunch" from the time you've written it to the time that no one will touch it.

              There is a set system in place, but it goes like this:

              1. Producers and production companies are always looking for good material.
              2. You write good material and give it to your representative.
              3. Your representative takes meetings, makes phone calls, posts the logline online, rents out billboard space on Wilshire, takes out an add in Hollywood Reporter... whatever he or she thinks is likely to get interest in your script so he can place it in the hands of the producers and production companies in Step 1.
              4. Repeat Step 3 as often as necessary until A) The rep has exhausted every possible avenue and they've all said no to the script, or B) Someone is interested enough to pay for the script and take it off the market.

              A good rep spends the vast majority of his day, every day, trying to get his clients' work sold. That job doesn't end 48 hours after you give him the script.

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              • #8
                Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

                A spec of mine went out a month or two ago. This was how it worked:

                When agent and manager were ready to take the spec out, they took their giant list of contacts and came up with a list of 20 or so likely companies: one or two at each studio and a handful of people with their own money.

                The spec went out to everyone on that list. Agent and manager spent the day of (specs usually go out on Tuesdays) on the phone with those people, talking it up, and then the spec itself went out with a cover letter.

                As the spec wound up on tracking groups or people heard about it through the grapevine, more requests came in. They sent it to these people as well, but they weren't their primary targets.

                I got an update pretty much every day on what was going on, as producers came back and asked for territories, as it went in to studios that weekend, and then as studio after studio said no thanks.

                My spec obviously didn't sell, which is, alas, really common. But I've had a gazillion meetings off of it and am pitching on multiple assignments, so overall I think it was good for me. Months later, I still go on a couple of generals a week off that spec, so I don't think the super-short timeframe is really that accurate: the vast majority of specs are not going to sell. But they should at least generate a bunch of meetings for you.

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                • #9
                  Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

                  Originally posted by corduroy View Post
                  A spec of mine went out a month or two ago. This was how it worked:

                  When agent and manager were ready to take the spec out, they took their giant list of contacts and came up with a list of 20 or so likely companies: one or two at each studio and a handful of people with their own money.

                  The spec went out to everyone on that list. Agent and manager spent the day of (specs usually go out on Tuesdays) on the phone with those people, talking it up, and then the spec itself went out with a cover letter.

                  As the spec wound up on tracking groups or people heard about it through the grapevine, more requests came in. They sent it to these people as well, but they weren't their primary targets.

                  I got an update pretty much every day on what was going on, as producers came back and asked for territories, as it went in to studios that weekend, and then as studio after studio said no thanks.

                  My spec obviously didn't sell, which is, alas, really common. But I've had a gazillion meetings off of it and am pitching on multiple assignments, so overall I think it was good for me. Months later, I still go on a couple of generals a week off that spec, so I don't think the super-short timeframe is really that accurate: the vast majority of specs are not going to sell. But they should at least generate a bunch of meetings for you.
                  Hi cRoy. Great information. This, for me is the murky side brought into the light. I've seen/read relatively very little on the tracking and the actually step-time-lines. Thanks for sharing... can't get enough on how these tracking groups evolve, form, meet, etc.

                  Spill, please, those in the know.

                  The upshot for me is the meetings it generates. Man I'd love to get a script out and dazzle (with the right substantive stuff) my way into a shot at some money jobs. Everyone's dream of course. A quick ? Does being the quickest, most-glib and sharp mind in the room translate into jobs... or is it in your opinion all on the page? (I'm not referring to myself as that guy, ... I'm no slouch but my partner is absolutely phenomenal... the type to one day run a studio... that may not be a compliment)

                  Thanks for your thoughts.... don't wanna hi-jack, just an aside, 'cause the tracking b's and process are fascinating and critical. Thanks all.
                  Doth thou desirest a slapping? - William Shakespeare

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                  • #10
                    Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

                    Does being the quickest, most-glib and sharp mind in the room translate into jobs...
                    absolutely not. you must humble yourself and let the powers that be think they're smarter and know more than you. this i understand is much more difficult for men to do. many women have learned this is the easier way to get in the door. let them think they are in charge -- but know that they really are too. humble yourself.

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                    • #11
                      Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

                      Originally posted by NikeeGoddess View Post
                      absolutely not. you must humble yourself and let the powers that be think they're smarter and know more than you. this i understand is much more difficult for men to do. many women have learned this is the easier way to get in the door. let them think they are in charge -- but know that they really are too. humble yourself.
                      Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio have great advice on this. They say YOU have to be the expert in that room as the storyteller. You have to instill confidence in the producers that you know what your are talking about and have a point of view. You have to come across as confident and knowledgeable. You have to give them a reason to hire you.

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                      • #12
                        Re: How taking a script to market works these days?

                        Originally posted by NikeeGoddess View Post
                        absolutely not. you must humble yourself and let the powers that be think they're smarter and know more than you. this i understand is much more difficult for men to do. many women have learned this is the easier way to get in the door. let them think they are in charge -- but know that they really are too. humble yourself.
                        Originally posted by artisone View Post
                        Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio have great advice on this. They say YOU have to be the expert in that room as the storyteller. You have to instill confidence in the producers that you know what your are talking about and have a point of view. You have to come across as confident and knowledgeable. You have to give them a reason to hire you.
                        I think success in any field depends on a compromise between the two extremes. You need to be knowledgeable enough to give people the confidence that they're hiring someone to do something they can't... someone who is an expert at doing what they need done. But you also have to be humble enough to also give them the confidence that they're ultimately in charge and that you're someone who will listen and defer to their authority at the end of the day.

                        More than one writer has lost an assignment for being too much one way or the other...

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