Finding the Right Producer
by Charles Deemer (Apr-05-2002)
Once you've written your query letter, where do you send it?
There
are two ways to approach an answer to this question, and I recommend both.
First, do some research to find producers who have shown an interest in
material similar to yours; and second, find
producers who, for one reason or another, cannot be eliminated from possible
interest in your kind of story.
Doing Research
Make
a list of all the movies you can think of that answer the following statement:
"The people who made [movie] would do an excellent job with my
story."
Spend
some time on this. Your list should have as many movies as you can think of.
Take
this list to the Internet Movie Database.
Look up each title. Write down the names of all producers and production
companies associated with the movie. Do this for each movie. You should end up
with a long list of producers.
Now
take this new list to the bible of marketing, the Producers volume of the
Hollywood Creative Directory (HCD). This is not free. You can buy a hard copy
for about $60. Better yet, take out a trial one-week
subscription to the online version for $14.95 (or subscribe for a year if you
can afford it and if you plan to market at least 3 screenplays during the
year).
What
you want to do is find each producer and production company in the HCD.
Disregard producers whose address are at studios and major entities (production
companies you've heard of). They won't have time for you. You are looking for
the small independent producers with whom film projects from new writers
usually start. Study the opening credits at
the next movie you go to: you'll see a big name you recognize, like Dreamworks,
but you'll also see something like "in association with Stubborn Mule
Films." That's the place you want to send your query!
During
your trial week, go through your entire list and write down the email
addresses, if any, and snail mail address for each producer. If possible, you
want to do your querying by email, which is much more
efficient and also much easier.
The Shotgun Method
After
you've gone through your list of producers and prodcos, you've completed the
first approach, based on research. The second approach is "the shotgun
method," and to begin, you generate the "list of producers with
emails" from the online HCD. You'll get a list of over
500 producers. Go through each one to look at their credits. What you are
looking for here is anything that can eliminate them from having a possible
interest in your story. For example, they may be genre-specific (and not your
genre) or interested only in TV. You now have a "second string" list
of email addresses.
Sending the Email Query
Begin
with email queries. Begin with your first list. Put the word QUERY in the
subject line and send out your query letter to every email address on your
first list, and then every name on your second list. This will be a huge job,
so break it into small parts. Send out 10 or 20 emails a day, for example,
until you've exhausted both lists. In case you haven't figured it out by now,
marketing is a numbers game. The more queries you send out, the more reads
you're going to get. If you haven't sent out at least 100 emails, you aren't
working at marketing hard enough.
Sending the Snail Mail Query
When
you send your query letter to producers without published email addresses,
include an SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) or, better yet, list your
800 number (get one!). With snail mail, direct the letter to a specific person,
either the producer on your list or the name associated with
"development" in the HCD.
Waiting for Results
What
kind of results can you expect? At least ten percent. That is, for every ten
queries you send out, you should get one request for a script. If you're not
getting a ten percent return, jazz up your query letter.
Don't
make any follow ups to query letters. To those to whom you send scripts, don't
do a follow up until three months have passed -- then just send a short
paragraph asking if the script has been read yet.
Most
emails will go unanswered. A small percentage will respond with a polite no and
a smaller percentage will request a script.
Now
is also the time to start a new script! You need to do this for several
reasons: one, the get in the habit of being a producing screenwriter who is
ALWAYS working on a new script; and two, to get the old one out of your system
so the mountain of rejections coming your way will be less painful.
Marketing
is harder work than writing. Trust me on this. But without biting the bullet in
this area, your script is doomed to be unread. You CAN get producers to read
your script but you have to do the hard labor
to earn these readings. What's keeping you from starting?