For those who may not be familiar with the term, the
spec script is a screenplay written under no kind of assignment other than the writer's will or need to write. Working freelance. Just like you would pen a newspaper article of your own and tried to sell it to a newspaper. Due to market dimensions and other constraints, it is not usually practiced in Europe - the
auteur paradigm and the public financing system often requires that every script shall be attached to a director or a producer right from the start. On the other side of the Atlantic, not only it happens but also some of those spec scripts end up turning into some of the most successful movies of the year. Take
Michael Arndt's debut with
Little Miss Sunshine (won Oscar for
Best Original Screenplay),
Alan Ball's
American Beauty (won several Oscars),
Shyalaman's
The Sixth Sense (nominated for several Oscars), cult erotic-thriller
Basic Instict (script sold for $3 million) or
Charlie Kaufman's
Being John Malkovich. And did you know
Quentin Tarantino didn't start his career with
Reservoir Dogs but by selling two spec scripts,
Natural Born Killers (to
Oliver Stone) and
True Romance (
Tony Scott) ?
Every year, spec scripts are sold and the industry is always waiting and searching for the next writer coming up with the most amazing story of his own initiative. This time, we may be witnessing the birth of a new spec selling strategy: t
he spec script trailer.
Brandon Bestenheider &
Allen Bey became a first-time seller team of screenwriters when recently
Universal Pictures optioned their
Grim Night screenplay. This is a horror film about a night that happens once a year in the whole world, when people lock themselves at home and hide from the terrifying Grims, some hooded black creatures. There you go, the strong concept, the precise genre, the probably archetypal structure, stuff that makes it different but recognizable enough for the big studios to see it as a business chance. It has been done, it worked; it has something new, people will want to watch it.
But do you wonder how did this two guys pitch this to the agents ? Do you imagine how they articulated the synopsis, how they structured the presentation, if they embarrassedly choked at some point ? Brandon and Allen did something much more effective. They got themselves a movie camera, some costumes and some friends and shoot a spec script trailer of what they wrote and wanted to sell. Check it out bellow.
Remember
James Curran, from some posts back, who created those amazing
The Adventures of Tintin opening credits and now is going to work for
Steven Spielberg ? Well, that's it. Be creative. And thrive.
No comments:
Post a Comment