Movie Hobo Business Kung-Fu (The Way of the Producer)
Movies As Novels. Yes, Please! by Filmutopia - The Podcast
This week's blog also has a little podcast... it's an experiment. Partly to see if I can get the process to work and also to see if anyone gets anything out of it.
One of the things I learned very early on in independent movie making, is I have to be adaptable. This is because regardless of how well I do my fund raising, I'm always going to be presented with problems that can't be fixed, with the amount of money I have available. What this seems to mean is that independent movie makers often learn one of two skill-sets: how to creatively adapt to the circumstances or how to compromise. When it comes to movie making, my take is that compromise is always a mistake. In fact, I'd go as far as to say, that it's better not to shoot, than to shoot a project you know isn't going to be the movie it should be. That's why adaptability is the most important skill a producer can have. Not only that, the less money I have, the more adaptable I have to be. Personally, I think adaptability is probably more important than money and the top end of the industry would be in better shape, if people used more of it, instead of spending their way out of problems... but that's a rant for another day. I learned my attitudes to adaptability through the study of martial arts... in particular a Tai Chi based martial art called Feng Shou. Without getting too Kill Bill about it, what I learned from Chee Soo was that the best way to deal with an on coming force was to get out of its way... and more than that, to give it a little bit of help. This may not sound like it can be applied to the movie business, but it can. In business terms, what this means is that I won't get my movie made by struggling against the forces at play in the industry... I'll get Smoke made by pointing the business plan in the same direction as the tide... not only that, as the tide changes I need to adapt with it, rather than trying to force my way forwards with the old plan. This week, I've made a strategic shift to turn Smoke into the tide. Basically, I've started writing a version of Smoke to pitch as a novel.One of the underlying truths of the industry is that adaptations of existing novels, perform better at the box office and are more likely to get made, than new ideas from spec scripts. A lot of screenwriters, trying to sell speculative screenplays bitch about this issue. It's occurred to me that rather than kicking against that trend, it made perfect business sense to turn Smoke into a novel, as well as screenplay. The argument for doing it is very simple: firstly, it's an opportunity to take my existing product (the script) and open it out to new potential markets. This means that even if the movie never came off, I'd still have an alternative opportunity to earn from the story; secondly, getting the novel published automatically increases the potential audience base for the movie and increases its credibility as a product. It's a win, win situation.. and as Smoke is currently stalled by lack of development money and the endless wait for people to get back to me about stuff, it's also a sensible use of my time. When in doubt, write. Part of my thinking about reworking Smoke for the book trade, is related to the current push from people like Power to the Pixel and Ted Hope to get independents to think about multi-platform releases as a way of building audiences. However, whilst they seem to be obsessed with digital platforms, I've been looking wider and at more traditional industries... so, I've been asking myself: would my movie make a credible graphic novel? Can I sell it as a comic book series? Is it more literally and therefore more attractive to people who read fiction? The bottom line with cross platform selling, is that I need to match the alternate products to my movie's potential audience base. With Smoke it was and still is a toss-up between novel and graphic novel... but, as I have the skill to write a novel, unaided, the novel won... for the moment. I've enjoyed this week's writing, a lot. Writing a novel is a new experience for me, so starting was actually quite a scary experience. When you have skills in one style of writing, they don't automatically translate into a new medium. However, it's coming together really nicely. What's been really interesting for me, has been to see how writing a screenplay in novel form, has forced me to unpack the characters in greater depth than I do for a screenplay. I'm honestly surprised screenwriters don't do it more often. There's actually a lot more to this idea of going with the flow, rather than kicking against it... especially in terms of the business side of movie production, but maybe that's a discussion for another day. What I think is important though, is to get over the idea that in the movie business, the movie isn't the product... the story is, the characters are. And, like in any business, there are often multiple ways to bring those characters and this story to an audience... all of which ultimately serve the best interest of the movie. (as usual I'll be around on Twitter @filmutopia Sunday morning to chat with people about this post and stuff in general)
