Entertainment Licensing & Branding Blog

Seeking white knight investors for entertainment property.  Get in on the ground floor and take the elevator up to the top.

Own a piece of this brand.  Help produce a graphic novel and develop a license.

For more information contact Sandford Tuey at info@Playdigm.com - put ‘Investor’ in the subject line.

Imagine co-owning a Men In Black or Hellboy or another successful brand. They started as comics first, then turned into the entertainment juggernauts they are today.  This is our plan - join our team!

Recently I was asked which screenwriting books would I want to have with me if I was on a island in the middle of nowhere.  My response is below:

1)  Save The Cat by Blake Snyder.

2) How To Make a Good Script Great by Linda Seger.

3) Screenplay by Syd Field.

I would also hope to have actual screenplays to read as samples and a copy of -

Clause By Clause by Stephen F. Breimer as this is the screenwriters legal guide.

Of course, an internet connection in an air-conditioned hotel near the beach with room service would be great.

Hey, nobody said it was a deserted island… lol

A great way to launch a licensing project is to write a spec script. For those who do not know what a spec script is - it’s a screenplay written on speculation with the hopes of selling it or to use as a sample of your writing to show the film and television buyers and agents.  A spec script  is like a demo tape for musicians or short films for actors and directors.

If you’ve never written a screenplay I recommend you read the following material:

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Screenplay by Syd Field - to learn the proper format and craft.

How to Make a Good Script Great by Linda Segar - to get the story perfect and edit it properly.

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Save the Cat by Blake Snyder - to learn what the buyers like and the formula certain movies are written in. Also Save the Cat Goes to the Movies by Blake Snyder - he breaks down films that we all know and love proving his system is the way to sell your scripts.

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Clause By Clause by Stephen F. Breimer - to understand the complicated contracts every writer needs to know.

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A Pound of Flesh by Art Linson - to learn integral information from a producer’s point of view.

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Fatal Subtraction by Pierce O’Donnell & Dennis McDougal - for insight into how a major studio deals with writers, screenplays and motion pictures.

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The Creative Hollywood Directory and any of it’s competitors - for addresses and contact information on all the players in the industry. The Internet Movie Data Base falls into this category.

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Obviously, the first step is to write a Spec Script and then rewrite it.  As I have stated in previous posts, getting your friends and any professional industry people you happen to know to read your screenplay is crucial to it being ready for submission to agencies, management companies, producers and studios/networks. Make sure it is the best sample of your writing skills before sending it anywhere.

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Sending a spec script to an agent, manager or producer is not as easy as it should be. Most do not accept unsolicited material, so the key is to convince them to request your spec script by first sending a Query Letter (I will be discussing Query Letters in a future post).  This form of contact will either get a positive response and you can forward your screenplay to them or it will garner a negative response or none at all (not unusual).

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If you get the rejection letter, then maybe you chose a contact that does not produce the type of film you wrote or you should contact someone else at that company or you should move onto the next company that produces the genre you are writing.  Either way, it is a numbers game and the more Query Letters you send out, the better chance you have of someone requesting it to read and the more people reading it will help the chance of it being optioned or sold.

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Spec writers should register their stories with the WGA (Writers Guild of America) the WGC (Writers Guild of Canada) and/or copyright their scripts with the Library of Congress or Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

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Hollywood has used this process in choosing new film and television writers for decades. It’s a way to find employment, a sale or at least secure professional representation (agents, managers).

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More importantly, it is a great way to improve your writing skills and

diversify your brand. Good luck with your endeavours.

Sandford Tuey

info@Playdigm.com

It’s one thing to be a dreamer of words but another to be a doer of action.

So don’t just write a spec screenplay and send it out with the hopes of it getting optioned and produced.  Do that for the big budget projects you find your soul must write but in your spare time, write a very tiny budget script for the internet and broadcast it yourself.

Sure you will need a camera (iphone/cell phone or HD videocam recorder will do), a copy of adobe moviemaker or similar editing software and garageband or protools for embedding the audio and soundtrack. You become your own global studio.  Then upload to one of the many distribution networks out there.

Why?  Because quite a few writer/producer types are being discovered by this method of self-production.  That is why I am now writing a pilot webisode that could be expanded into many more (just in case the public likes the concept).

A fellow screenwriter wrote a script but was unable to locate enough actors to participate in the project, so instead of giving up, she made puppets and had them recite her dialogue.  Very creative AND she owns the name and likeness for each puppet/character.  Inexpensive and yet brilliant idea.

It may sound sacrilegious but movies are 90 minute commercials for the merchandise and toys (if they have a mass merchandising story capability).   All the ancillary products are the reason comics are doing so well as movies.  It takes the same amount of time to write a toy commercial movie like Transformers or Ironman, as it does to write a non-merchandisable love story or drama.

If you produce your short film let me know as I really look forward to seeing it.  So don’t wait for producers to make your movie, make it yourself. Take control of your destiny and just do it for fun!  Maybe profits will follow!

Good luck with your endeavours!

Sandford Tuey

What are Action Book Ends?

Book ends hold books on a shelf together and are rooted at each side with something solid and secure.

Action is a portion of a story that draws the reader to the material and can enhance and develop characters if done right. Each tome between the Book Ends of Action are like chapters of a novel or scenes in a movie. Usually action between the Book Ends of Action, will not compete with these two action sequences.

Therefore, Action Book Ends are how good writers start their stories with a bang and then finish their stories with even bigger climactic action sequences.

Warning Spoiler Alert:

In IRONMAN, the protagonist Tony Stark is in Afghanistan riding in the Fun-Humvee until explosions and action cause him to be captured by terrorists. This introduces the main character in a great way and we see the type of person he is by the way he reacts to the situation he finds himself in. Reacting to action.

At the end of the movie, Ironman is fighting WAR MACHINE, which is a bigger, more powerful and deadlier armored type robot suit. This climactic end sequence is crammed with more action than the opening sequence (which is the standard in action films). The story reveals even more character of both the protagonist, love interest and the antagonist. That is until the story is wrapped up in the resolution scenes and the lights come up in the theater.

Even though this important Marvel character’s life is in jeopardy, (inside we all know they would never kill him off), but you just never know until the film is over. This tension is heightened by action that may harm the protagonist.

Is this brand too valuable to terminate it’s lead character? Other characters have died (Superman, Captain America, etc) which may surprise their followers at the time but due to the effort and money allocated to building such brands, it doesn’t make financial sense to stop the continued brand development process. Plus, we all know characters can be brought back from the dead at any time the creators/writers desire.

Conflict develops character. So use the Action Book Ends to spice up your stories and attract audiences. Your writing career and entertainment project depends on it.

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Orders for the FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - ebook will be available in 2009. Preorder now by contacting Info@Playdigm.com and for further information. (c) Tuey All Rights Reserved.

When I ask creators of entertainment product, "Who is your
target audience?"  Most would reply with consumers of a certain range,
say, 'children 4 to 12' or 'Males 14 and above'. 

I respond with, "Yes, that is your final public target audience
objective to have your product reach, but the REAL initial audience
are buyers of products like yours. Because if you can't convince
them to take your product, the public audience will never be
introduced to your entertainment project."

So, if the true audience for your projects or screenplays are the
producers, studio executives and their other advisers they surround
themselves with. You must ensure that they enjoy the story, packaging
and come to an agreement that the public viewing audience will enjoy
the entertainment product too.

This is true too for products that need to get a buyer to purchase
your product and put it on a shelf so that consumers have the chance
to see and buy it.  Sales representatives, wholesalers, distributors
and others in the chain of marketing.

When you come up with an idea, get opinions on it from the closest
person you know to the immediate buying audience (production crew,
agents, lower management at companies you would love to have read,
review and buy your product).  If they like it, they may hand it off
to someone they know in a better position to get it made.

I personally know of a writer who hands out his screenplays to who
ever will read them and on occasion, after several years, sometimes
someone in the industry becomes interested. Then it is revealed later
that a friend of a friend gave the script to someone else who liked
it and passed it to an assistant producer who handed it to a director
they knew, until finally it was optioned by a producer.  

In the end the story and writing quality drove the product towards
its REAL audience/market - someone who can make the entertainment
product.  So make sure you are writing for these readers.  

This selling draft will need to be directed to producers not the
viewing audience. The screenplay directed to the final target audience
the viewers, will be written from the original version that was sold.
Many rewrites will be done to ensure the end viewers will enjoy the
show.

So look at your entertainment vehicle (script/product) as two parts.
One draft is for selling the script to industry professionals and the
second is for the target public audience.  Kind of a two phase
approach.

Impress the buyers first is the key.

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Orders for the FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - ebook will be available in 2009. Preorder now by contacting Info@Playdigm.com and for further information. (c) Tuey All Rights Reserved.

As a give back to my community I offered my knowledge and skills, free of charge, to graduates of the Search program held at the Alliance of Arts and Culture in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Every Thursday for four years, artists made appointments with me. I would sit one-on-one with them and try to answer their questions. Believe me there were a lot of questions and I answered them to the best of my ability and personal experience. If I did not know the answer, I would contact one of my professional advisors and get them an answer.

After six months of providing this voluntary service, the head of the Search program informed me that the artists I was helping were gaining forward motion with their careers. So she decided to secure my services with an hourly payment. Even back-paying me for the previous six months pro-bono work I provided.

Well the Federal government cut the program a couple years ago but every now and then I have artists ask me business questions about ‘How to make money from their art.”

So I have decided to use this blog to comment upon things that pop in my head or specific answers to your questions or queries I receive at conferences, speaking engagements and panels I am on.

Should you have any questions, send them to Info@Playdigm.com and I will respond as quickly as I can. Remember, I am extremely busy developing a host of my own projects and  other companies projects that I am on their Board of Directors.  .

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sandford Tuey

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Orders for the FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - ebook will be available in 2009. Preorder now by contacting Info@Playdigm.com and for further information. (c) Tuey All Rights Reserved.