Entertainment Licensing & Branding Blog

To make a successful brand you will have to do more than just write a good story, be it a short story, novel or screenplay.  Every writer hopes and looks forward to their big break.  Well unless you make it happen, it isn’t going to happen.
So what can you do?

First,  you need an amazing story idea - then write it down.  A story so damn good that everyone wants to read it or hear it told.  That means having a great idea and putting it on paper.  I always explain when I give seminars or am a keynote speaker at conferences and events, start with a short story, two or three pages that will express the basics of the idea, but more importantly, turns your unprotectable idea into something you can copyright.

I recommend the three page short story structure so that you can write Act 1 on page one, Act 2 on page two and Act 3 on the final page.  This gives you the skeleton of the story.  I do this as soon as possible, that way if I talk to anyone about this intellectual property, it is no longer just an idea (which are easily borrowed).

Once you have that, you can expand it into novel format or a screenplay or a comic book/graphic novel, video game story format, etc…   This is where diversifying your original story allows you to sell it into several markets.

I write the screenplay next because it only has to be a maximum of 120 pages.  This script, based on your short story, will be able to be shown once you have the first draft completed - rewritten several times with input from friends and professionals in the industry that you can trust (will not borrow your excellent concept).  If many of these readers point out the same problem or area, then this is a sign to correct or improve or delete that section of your story.  That is why readers screen screenplays at studios and production companies.  This is also a great way to ensure you are ready to submit your best work.

Second, you have to brand yourself by making people, especially industry people, notice and want to know more about you.  AND what you have written about.

By drawing on your past, previous  profession, jobs, interests, you may spark some interest with a person who can lift you from obscurity.  If you have no writing past then it is time to start creating one right now.

Your brand? Who are you right now and what have you done in the past.  How can this bio info be leveraged to make you stand out from all the other writers?

Take a class at a reputable University or College/school.  Co-write with a famous writer.  Write greeting cards or comics or video games or any thing - even a website blog like this.  What ever gets you attention and in the search engines.  That way if some one tries to locate you, they search for your name on the internet and there you are.

If you write two screenplays mention the second one in your query letter as it makes you seem more professional than a one-time script writer.  Then there is the  email/mailing campaign that promotes you and your screenplay.  What should be in a query letter will depend on who it is written for.  I will discuss this in a future post.

The key is to get as much exposure as possible.  Network at events, conferences, trade shows, mingle where other writers hang out or join a writer’s group, meet producers, directors and actors.  If you can, put on a party and invite the elite, if they don’t show, hey you tried.  If they do, make sure they enjoy themselves, that way they will remember you.

There are so many ways to make a brand so don’t limit yourself to staying within the box.  My mother always said, “If you don’t ask… you won’t receive.”  She is right, so go ahead and contact the star or element you need to take the next step.  The worse they can do is say ‘No’.   Robert Ludlum said no to me three times and I still did a deal with the man.

Work with what you have, create the image you want and live the part.  Sure the world’s a stage but you are the writer, write the lead character (you) a really juicy part.  Because, in the end, you only get one life to live = so live it the way you want to and you will be surprised how many doors open if you just keep promoting yourself and have others help you too.

This is the reason stars remain stars - they hire Public Relations firms.  Which is another great idea to help brand yourself if you can afford it.  Otherwise, you are your own PR company.

Cheers and good luck branding your story and yourself!

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

Quite a while ago, the tax department told me that one of my brands did not have any value and would have to be struck from my company balance sheet.  I was surprised and asked the following questions?

1) What about the time I put in on writing the short story and screenplay to establish the concept and develop my idea?  Their reply was that no value would be given for my work.  The months of writing and time I committed to raising the funds to produce items based on the brand were not considered until I asked a few more questions:

2) What about the fifty bucks I spent on registering the copyright? I mean, the registration lasts until 50 years after I am dead and gone. Doesn’t that have any value.  Okay, they would recognize that the brand had a value of $50.

3) What about the Trademark costs for Canada and the United States of America? Okay, after providing proof, they acknowledged the $1,500 for this cost could be retained on the books.  After all, my Trademarks will last quite a few more years and are still valid .

4) How about the replacement costs for the board game?  They said that since it was not in production at this time, they would not give me any value for the camera ready artwork, plastic metal molds to produce the tokens and other materials associated with the board game design.  After a few discussions, it was made clear that some of the replacement value would be allowed if I could prove there was still a market for the game. This would only be proven by actual recent sales.  The amount to reproduce the preproduction materials was around $50,000.

5) I convinced them that global internet sales would be satisfactory for their purposes and put a board game up for sale on eBay.  It sold for $150 US - this shocked the government representative, who immediately told me that the sales price must have been an anomaly and I needed to sell at least three to get an average value.  So I sold two more at over $100 US to his dismay.  He thought I might get $12 each but had to agree that there was still a market for the product.

6) Then we realized that all the merchandise would need to be given a value and yet these assets would not be based on a sales price but on a manufacturing price and/or replacement value to make such products.  So I provided the cost to produce the posters, comics, mugs, t-shirts and other items related to my brand and worked out a value.

7) I requested one last time to be given a value for the time and effort I put into the original story and screenplay but got the standard argument that until the script sells there is no way a price could be granted.  I disagreed politely and stated that the value of my screenplay should be no less than the cost of photocopying the 118 pages at five cents a page.  He admitted that would be fair (I didn’t think it was fair but it was a start).

What if I sell the script for the Writers Guild minimum?  What if I sell it for $100 to a low budget producer or a friend?  What if it gets produced into a movie and earns $100,000,000?  What about the video game and graphic novel?

Even though I am willing to write and push all these variations of my brand forward there is a limit to what value the government revenue agency and/or any investors will allow.  So what is your brand truly worth?

Only your imagination knows if your brand is priceless or worthless.

The more you develop and diversify your idea/brand, the more valuable it becomes.  If you can’t sell the screenplay or get the film made, write the novel as this will allow you a second market to try and generate income from your brand.   The more you diversify the project, the better chance you have of success and increasing your brand’s worth.

Some people believe a project’s value is only based on the sales it has, but what if the brand has never been produced in any form yet?  Unproven…

Then the value is what you make others believe it is.  For example: If you get ten investors to put up $10,000 each - then it seems easy to say that the value must be around a hundred grand or more.  How do you convince people that your brand is worth that kind of money?

A worthy project/brand, a ton of confidence and a professional business plan.  I co-wrote a prospectus business plan that helped list my company onto a stock exchange and banked $800,000.  In a future post, I will be going over what should be in a proper business plan that will give you a good chance of raising real money with your brand.

First create a brand that is worth all the work of writing a business plan and going through the process of raising money, etc…  This will help increase the true value of what your brand is worth!!

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 not easy being creative and designing brands, toys, games, stories, products and screenplays. You work on your concepts every chance you get, with no guarantee that anyone  will ever see your latest masterpiece.  Showing it to friends and relatives is fine but just not enough.

Getting representation in the entertainment industry should be one of your goals.  If you allocate five days a week to writing, reduce it to four and dedicate one solid day a week to finding an agent or manager to advance your career.  Or mail out query letters to producers, studios and broadcasters. It is what I did to successfully get represented and gain interest in the industry.

Having someone shopping your screenplays to producers, broadcasters and studios is a best case scenario. It allows you to focus on the writing, creating and meetings with producers, directors, studio/broadcasters and actors to discuss their involvement with your script and brand.  You can concentrate on being a writer and put all your energy into the more enjoyable part of being a creator, the creating of stuff.

Make sure you find an agent or manager that you can work with. Don’t make the mistake of settling for the first agent or manager that shows an interest in your work unless you really get along with and relate well with them.  More importantly, will they market your material to a list of their connections, producers and production companies, make submissions, follow up and help negotiate a deal? If they also help you develop and edit your work, so much the better.

It’s a two way street, so help them do their job as well. Their time and money is precious and they could be working on another person’s file, so do what ever you can to help them advance your career.  Run a concept and logline by them before you put in the long hours of writing a treatment and final screenplay. They will ensure that your piece of work is ready for the outside world. Your agent/manager should be able to find real people with actual credits who will fall in love with you and your script and who fight for your projects.  These representatives are really worth their ten percent commission.

The mission of getting rep’d is a logistical campaign. It’s not easy and some say it’s 80 percent of your actual effort compared to the 20 percent dedicated to the creation of your screenplay, manuscript, toy, game or other brand/product. Start by submitting to agencies that accept query letters and submissions. You can find these contacts in Canada by looking in the Reel West Digest and Canada Film Directory or in the USA by purchasing the Hollywood Creative Directory or joining an industry association and guild. Check out websites related to the industry you are in such as IMDB pro and similar sites like these.  Use search engines and you will be surprised how easy it is to locate potential industry mentors.

Then the hard part starts - getting past the gatekeepers and having the chance to pitch your project to the person who can make a decision or write the check. The more personal you can become involved with these contacts you are making, the easier it will be to follow up and gain their interest in your properties and brands. Get to know them and have them get to know you, in and outside of the office.

Good luck with your search for representation and keep focused on your goal.

Sandford Tuey

info@Playdigm.com

Writers and Creators of stories, characters, novels, comics or any other intellectual property must not just think about the industry they are in.  A brand is much larger than the initial concept and how it is introduced to the public.

The original one page short story you write may be expanded into a 90 to 120 page screenplay, which in turn could be copied and pasted into word processing software and then reformatted and expanded with more details into a 300 page novel or non-fiction book. You can also reformat all this into a comic series or graphic novel (like I have done) or reformat the text into a video game script.  This allows you to diversify your one idea into many separate markets and saves a lot of time and work in gaining brand awareness.

The short story can be submitted to magazines, the screenplay to film and television producers, while the novel version can be sent to book publishers. The comic/graphic novel and video game script can be sent out to comic and video game publishers

This is a great way to move your writing project further if it is not selling or being optioned in another medium.  Diversify your brand for better sales, interest and awareness.

Multiple markets are the way to go.

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(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.

The Making of Galactic Gladiators

Stage 1

Originally I wrote a short story to be used as a synopsis and outline for the screenplay that I wanted to write.  Standard procedure before writing the script. By putting down my thoughts on three pages of paper in the form of a short fictional story I established two things, 1) immediate copyright protection and 2) it structured my concept into three acts.  This helped with the writing of the screenplay later.

Stage 2

As I wrote the short story I had to come up with the lead characters - protagonist and antagonist, their friends and henchmen, names for the intergalactic races and describe what each of these creatures looked like.  What kind of worlds do they live on and what structure of governments, mind set, life styles or if they even lived above ground or in oceans of methane.  In a resumes form I wrote out each important item in this sci-fi action adventure. This is one of my favorite parts of developing a brand.  Using my imagination.

This stage took me four months to work out and the writing of the story took about three weeks after this research.  Of course, tweaking and improving the overall concepts happens all the time, even to this day.

Stage 3

I gave the story to friends, family and business associates to gain input and opinions. I gathered up all this data and sifted through the material.   After a couple weeks, I went back to my original story and planned out the beats of the story in a new file within the movie magic screenwriting software.  This laid the framework, the blueprint and I commenced the screenplay. As the writing went on I made positive changes to the basic concept too.

How to decide which ideas to keep and which to discard came down to repeat comments.  First, if I liked an idea I came up with or one from someone else, I would analyze how it could affect the entire story, plot or characters.  If it seemed like a good idea I kept it and incorporated it into the concept.  If the idea did not fit or was questionable, I would run it past people to see what they thought.  If many liked it, I added it to the story, if no one liked it or only a few thought it worthy, I would chuck it.  The idea had to be liked by most of the focus group people to make it into the story.

Stay tuned for the next stages of Developing the Galactic Gladiators brand.

To read Galactic Gladiators Report #1.

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Order my ebook - FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - now. It will be available later in 2009. Preorder by contacting  Info@Playdigm.com.

(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.