Popularity: 2%

What market are YOU writing for?

Low prices on spec scripts!

It occurred to me today that we toss around the phrase, SPEC SCRIPT as if we know what we’re talking about.

The overwhelming hypothesis is that a spec script is simply a script written on SPECULATION. No guarantees that you’ll sell it. No guarantees that anyone will be interested.

No guarantees.

PERIOD.

Sounds grim, doesn’t it?

On top of that, once you write a spec script (I mean when it is COMPLETELY finished), it’s ready for the spec script market isn’t it?

Maybe not.

Here I go again with the HIGH CONCEPT RANT. I get a lot of email and comments about HIGH CONCEPT and before I get deeper into the spec script market, I need to clear up HIGH CONCEPT.

We’re writers… It’s UP TO US to write a compelling story that’s riveting and keeps the attention of the reader and hopefully, an audience.

Cool. We know this. We accomplish this. Cool.

So if YOU’RE writing for the spec script market, shouldn’t you know exactly what the spec script market IS?

Let me tell you what it AIN’T.

It ain’t the repository for the worm farm debutante spec UNLESS you’ve found the high concept within that story and EXPLOITED the hell out of it.

Ask ANY producer, director, agent, manager, or pro screenwriter what kind of script everyone is looking for and one consistent element that you’re going to hear OVER and OVER and OVER again is HIGH CONCEPT.

High concept doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
High concept doesn’t mean you have to sell out.
High concept doesn’t mean formula.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe you should write what you want to write… Write your passion. Write what you know (this is an entirely different post that I will get to), write what makes your heart beat.

But do yourself a favor and find the high concept within that story that’s aching to come out.

One of the older posts here talks about writing what FASCINATES YOU. Let me once again shout this out at the top of my virtual lungs…

WRITE WHAT FASCINATES YOU!

In other words, SOMEWHERE in your story that’s aching to get out of you OR that you’ve already purged from your heart, mind, spirit, body, and soul is a high concept waiting to escape. That’s right, it’s in there somewhere even if your story is about the worm farm debutante.

You just gotta find it.
Then once you find it, you gotta show it to us.

Some if not MOST of my favorite films are Indie films and yeah, maybe a lot of these don’t make a hell of a lot of money but SOMEBODY’S GOTTA WRITE ‘EM and guess what?

SOMEBODY GETS PAID.

So I’m NOT sitting here trying to tell you to write the next PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. Not the next TITANIC. Not the next Matrix. If you’ve got a story like that – cool. Write it!

What I am telling you however, is that as a spec screenwriter, it’s YOUR JOB – strike that… IT’S YOUR DUTY to find the high concept within your story. It’s that elusive SOMETHING that’s going to make us FOCUS our attention directly at you and say, “Wow! I’d pay $10 to see that!”

There’s SOMETHING about your story that MAKES YOU WANT TO WRITE IT. What is it? Do you know? If not, WHY NOT?

I’m hoping that the SOMETHING is something that fascinates you about the story. Find that one thing that fascinates you and focus on it for a few days.

Stand back from it.

When you’re far enough away from it, turn it upside down. Turn it inside out. Change the sex of the Protagonist. Change the period. Change the relationships between the characters. Change the locations. Change the events i.e., RATCH ‘em up as high and tight as they will go and see how that changes the story. Often, a simple little change creates a domino effect for the entire story and can create or DISCOVER the high concept within the concept.

Yes, you can do all this without selling out.
Yes, you can do all this without losing your vision.
Yes, you can do all this without being formulaic.

I will go a step further and say, THIS IS YOUR JOB “IF” you’re writing for the spec market or should I say, the CURRENT spec market.

You’ve read the magazines.
You’ve read the books.
You’ve read the blogs.
You’ve taken the workshops.
You’ve discussed it on forums.
You’ve entered the contests.

Yet you still write something that contains no high concept.

Why?

Find the high concept within your concept and then ratchet, ramp, and tighten up the conflict and action and don’t stop till you’ve blown us away.

High concept. It’s in there. You just gotta find it.

The spec script market is the high concept market. There, I said it. Notice I say, SPEC SCRIPT. Don’t tell me about all those movies that get made that do not SEEM to have a high concept because I’m gonna be the first son of a bitch to find the high concept and throw it right back at you.

Sure there are movies being made that seemingly have no high concept… On the face of it.

And sure there are vanity movies getting made because somebody somewhere has the power to greenlight the project.

I’m not talking about that shit.

I’m talking about the spec script market. I’m talking about the high concept market.

It’s there.

Right under your nose.

Unk

Tags:




Wednesday: 1 November 2006|1745|Under Uncategorized

Print This Post Print This Post
 

Comments

23 Responses to “What market are YOU writing for?”

  1. MaryAn on Wednesday: 1 November 2006|2015

    Instead of trying to write high concept, find the high concept in what you’re writing? This is a new concept for me. And, can somebody please define vanity film for me?

  2. Unk on Wednesday: 1 November 2006|2027

    How about BATTLEFIELD EARTH?

    Unk

  3. Unk on Wednesday: 1 November 2006|2030

    How about MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL?

    Unk

  4. Unk on Wednesday: 1 November 2006|2031

    How about PURPLE RAIN?

    Unk

  5. Unk on Wednesday: 1 November 2006|2034

    How about GLITTER?

    Unk

  6. Clive on Thursday: 2 November 2006|0350

    I think you’re going soft in your old age unk! Letting us off far too easy.

    I don’t think high concept is a high enough bar, because high concept just means that the film can be explained in a few sentences and the idea is strong enough to persuade you to got to the cinema.

    My current take is that for unknown spec script writers, our job is to have ideas have exceed high concept and are viral in nature.

    The idea has to be so simple it can be explained to the guy in the street in a few sentences — and is so strong that not only can’t he wait to go to the cinema to see the film, he’s also so blown away by the idea, he immediately calls up all his mates to tell them about it.

    If you can find an idea like that, it’s a guaranteed sale, because it will be obvious to the first producer you show it to, that they HAVE to make this film.

  7. Ann Wesley Hardin on Thursday: 2 November 2006|0734

    I think King Kong was a self-indulgent vanity film but man did I love it! I’d pay to see Jackson get vain anytime.

    Of course, it also had a high concept. It’d be interesting to create a logline: Giant ape falls in love with a woman, then falls off the Empire State Building.

    LOL.

  8. MaryAn on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1019

    Actress leads on her kidnapper to save her life but succombs to gorilla Stockholm Syndrome.

  9. emily blake on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1022

    Thanks. People like to go on about high concept over at Wordplayer but I always feel like they have no idea what it really means. Most of us have no idea what it really means. Sometimes I just want to say, to hell with it, stop thinking about it, just write something good and the rest will come. So this post is nice to read.

  10. Laura Reyna on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1157

    Great post. Thanks! :-)

  11. Ann Wesley Hardin on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1216

    LOL, MaryAn!

    Here’s another one in limmerick.

    There once was a blonde ingenue,
    playing a simian revue.
    She danced and she charmed,
    the ape was disarmed,
    and splattered on Fifth Avenue

  12. Unk on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1523

    Hmmm. Now that’s something I’ve never pondered…

    Using a limmerick as your logline.

    Gonna have to think about that one.

    Ann — You’re hired!

    Clive…

    Baby steps my friend… Baby steps. LOL.

    Unk

  13. Ann Wesley Hardin on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1540

    In other words, SOMEWHERE in your story that’s aching to get out of you OR that you’ve already purged from your heart, mind, spirit, body, and soul is a high concept waiting to escape. That’s right, it’s in there somewhere even if your story is about the worm farm debutante.

    This really is the heart of your post, Unk. It’s fabulous and I probably wouldn’t even know it if it hadn’t happened to me with my fourth book.

    I’d written this book about four years ago and while the characterization was some of my best, something was missing. When I began rewrites, that “thing” eluded me for months, dammit, until I took Stephen King’s advice (from On Writing) and put it in the drawer for a month. When I took it out, I looked for theme and symbols, and lo and behold, there within the pages was my high concept. My subconscious had been feeding it to me all along.

    One of our biggest enemies is impatience. Writers want to finish it now and submit it now, before the opportunities dry up or the story goes out of vogue, or whatever. But the good news is, a good story never goes out of vogue and if you have the patience to endure your process, to wait for the goodies, then usually the wait is worth it.

    The high concept I found in that one story lead to three! My editor loves the series and the first story has been well received. But I’ll tell you, none of this would’ve happened if I’d left the story in it’s original state and didn’t poke around a little. And the question that started the whole thing was: what if one of the main characters was a space alien?

    It’s a simple question. Ask it, or something like it, about one of your characters and maybe you’ll get your high concept, or what I like to call, the real story, out of it too. Can’t hurt. Just c&p your document onto a new page (after saving the original ;) ) and have at it.

  14. Ann Wesley Hardin on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1543

    Unk, when I get stuck while writing back cover copy, or boiling my story down for a synopsis, the limmerick has always been my salvation. I don’t know why. Maybe it uses a different area of the brain, but it works like a charm. I reckon it’d work for loglines too. LOL.

  15. Unk on Thursday: 2 November 2006|1600

    Ann,

    You said: “One of our biggest enemies is impatience.”

    Yow! This one really is the STINGER. How true. So many try to push their stuff out into the market or the contests without those OH SO VALUABLE PASSES that can really make the screenplay SCREAM.

    I cannot tell you how many screenplays I read where I sit back and ponder, “Why didn’t they do this — why didn’t they do that?”

    The high concept is almost always RIGHT THERE looking at you in a what is otherwise a well written screenplay.

    The fact that YOU found it in your one story and it in turn lead to three is amazing.

    CAN YOU SPELL FRANCHISE?

    What if the high concept within your concept could be the next hot franchise which by the way, EVERYBODY’S LOOKING FOR…

    Whew… Good stuff. Thanks for sharing!

    Unk

  16. Clive on Friday: 3 November 2006|0207

    I get the impression that the question of HOW we pull high concept ideas from our stories is something we could kick around in the Unk forum!

    I’ll kick off a thread in there.

  17. Joshua James on Friday: 3 November 2006|0802

    Oh boy, it’s Friday and Unk is at it once more . . . I’m going to go into a bit of controversy here.

    Again, Unk, you recall I mentioned BROKEBACK earlier? Not high concept. High story, sure . . .

    I can also think of TRAFFIC, which made big bucks, but at the time it was made, no one really thought it would make a profit, they were hoping for some awards and make back costs, not that it would gross over a hundred mil -

    High Concept is really about marketing, not about story. There is high concept and there is high story.

    You may be able to find the “high” concept in each film above, but I guarantee you that concept had nothing to do with why each movie above got made, in fact, they got made IN SPITE of their high concept. They were, however, successful because of their highly executed stories.

    Did that make the “high concept” of their story bad? Or the concept of PULP FICTION, which was also turned down all over town?

    It seems to me, again, that high concept is an idea for MARKETING the film that often has nothing to do with the STORY of it.

    The 25 words or less concept from THE PLAYER.

    The thing is, marketing is fluid and the idea doesn’t account enough for changes and evolutions in audience tastes. Most suits would have held their view, even while being waterboarded, that no one really wants to see a gay cowboy movie. Because at that point, no one had. They would have swore upon their lives it would be a failure.

    They were wrong, of course.

    That’s the weakness of high concept. It only reflects what happened. Not what will happen or could happen. Or what you could make happen if you got behind a movie no one’s ever seen before.

    Again, when I use the words high concept, I’m really talking about marketing. Because the logline where you can fill in the blanks without hearing the rest, that’s marketing, that’s a TV commerical. That’s not high story, that’s an ad.

    The high concept is a way for suits to control product without being terribly informed about writing and story, is it not? They don’t have to read it, if it’s about gay cowboys, forget it. Nobody makes movies about that.

    If it’s a movie about an assassin hired to kill his best friend, forget it, there are too many movies in development like that.

    Completely bypassing EXECUTION.

    The execution of an idea can make something that may seem ordinary on the surface, but once done by the right writer, can kick some serious ass.

    LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Dysfunctional family goes on road trip.

    Wait, we already have something like that, shooting now, called RV. We got Robin Williams, and it’s a tired concept, to tell the truth, Ice Cube just did one like it, didn’t make any money. So we’re going to pass on your little movie. Robin Williams will make all the money on this road comedy stuff.

    Which one do people remember? And why? Because of the story. Not the concept. Because of the execution. Not the concept. Because of the high story.

    Again, not a bad thing to be able to sum up a film in 25 words. It helps to solidify whatever it is. You can come up with an idea, a concept, that is good and have the story executed well (I’m looking forward to the upcoming STRANGER THAN FICTION). But it’s not the only way to create product that people really want to see in cinema (I’m thinking BORAT, which I cannot wait to see).

    And high concept can lead to real stinkers as well, right?

    A really great story has a voice, in theatre and in literature, they’re always looking for new voices. By voices, I mean people who tell stories really well. Like Neil Gaimann. Quentin Tarantino. Tony Kushner. Stephen “The Fucking Man” King.

    The living writing who has the most movies to his credit? Stephen “The Fucking Man” King.

    MISERY? High concept. STAND BY ME? bunch of kids go look at a dead body? Not really. Great movie. SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION? With a title like that, what’s it about? And it’s in prison? And there’s no love story? I don’t think so.

    All three are great movies because all three are great stories, regardless of what the concept is. In fact, I would argue that Shawshank, one of the most rented videos ever, didn’t succeed when first released because they never really knew how to market it (tied down by the “high concept” method of selling, though I bet Miramax would have figured it out) until after it got to the video stores.

    In the making of movies (and I love movies, I enjoy writing and talking them) the idea is more important and, like I said before, I think that the idea is only more important because the folks in charge feel like that’s an area where they can contribute. They don’t write, they cannot write, but they can have an idea, so that way they have an ownership in the creative execution of the product.

    In reality, the story matters more than the idea, when you think about it. It’s one reason why you cannot copyright an idea, only the specific expression of an idea.

    A movie is a story, at its core, its DNA is story-based. It’s not the same creature as a novel or play, it’s not the same creature as a TV show, but they all share the story DNA and stories work best when told in voices born to tell them.

    Again, Unk, I’m not whining or bitching . . . these are just thoughts I’ve had while observing a lot of what’s going on and the develop execs I talk to here in the big apple - in my mind, I think good stories will find their audience, eventually.

  18. Unk on Friday: 3 November 2006|1915

    Josh,

    Hope you don’t mind but my reply to you was even LONGER than your comment above… LOL.

    So I went ahead and turned it into a post trying to cover your points as best I could in the amount of time I have to do so…

    Unk

  19. HIGH CONCEPT debated… » The Unknown Screenwriter - screenwriting tips, tricks, rants, and observations... on Friday: 3 November 2006|2030

    [...] *NOTE: To read Josh’s comment, CLICK HERE. Then scroll down toward the bottom of all the comments… Josh’s is the REALLY REALLY LONG ONE… LOL. [...]

  20. The Moviequill on Saturday: 4 November 2006|0914

    If I am too busy to read blogs I always find time to come here because I always learn something, or get inspired etc… you should change your name to The Muse haha… I am going to steal a quote from you on a future post

  21. Unk on Saturday: 4 November 2006|1410

    Moviequill,

    Just as long as you remember to BEER ME later… LOL.

    Unk

  22. Understanding High Concept at $1000 Spielberg on Sunday: 5 November 2006|0323

    [...] For the last couple of days I’ve been involved in a debate over at Unknown Screenwriter about high concept. [...]

  23. Generating Great Ideas For Your Movie II at $1000 Spielberg on Tuesday: 14 November 2006|0507

    [...] Once again, my good friend Unk over at Unknown Screenwriter comes to the rescue, which this incredible quote, from a recent debate over high concept. [...]

Leave a Reply