Tag: script submissions

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Truly Free Film

When Do You Submit A Project To A Financier Or Distributor? (continued)

I’ve written about this before, and I am sure I will write about this again.  It keeps coming up, both with my own projects and with those I consult on.

I think it is really simple and it is based on both experience and common sense.

It is my belief that there is only one chance to show a script where it will have real impact — and that is when it can be portrayed as “inevitable”.  That is usually when there are both talent and finance commitments — the two components that make a dream real for the industry.

The ideal time to submit a project is

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Truly Free Film

When Do You Submit A Project To A Financier?

I have been producing movies for about twenty-five years. And it still is a thrill when an executive asks me to submit a project. But does a simple request mean you should send the project you have slaved over on in to them?

I have never had a company actually finance a project that is not either already somewhat packaged with cast or has pre-sales done on it. I have to remind myself over and over. Good acquisitions execs craft all sorts of arguments of why I should submit my projects early — and sometimes I fall for it. I think when they succeed in suckering me in they too honestly believe that they can get it made without already being fully realized (short of execution); but they soon learn they can’t. Which is not to say that they can’t get it set up, but that is often a far cry from getting it made.

Acquistions executives job is to bring projects in, period. So they ask. And often we comply. If the sign of insanity is to repeat the same action over and over, expecting the result to change, are we insane to keep doing this practice?

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