Film Courage: Scott, can you take us through a realistic scenario of a screenwriter pitching an idea to an executive? Where does it begin?
Scott Kirkpatrick, Executive Vice President of Co-Productions & Distribution/Author: Usually it takes a good amount of schmoozing to get the meeting in the first place. There is a lot of sort of getting your foot in the door professionally. When the meeting actually is secured, it usually starts at loglines. Usually an executive on the other side of the room is looking for specific types of programs. They’ll be kind of overly specific in terms of they want mysteries about XYZ, they want romances about ABC, and they’ll sort of walk you through clear-cut expectations of what they’re looking for in a project. and they’re usually looking for a list of loglines or very, very short synopses (like 100-200 words) and that’s usually done by email. When you do secure the meeting, and in today’s world it’s almost usually Zoom or some kind of a teleconference, you just sort of walk through those ideas a bit. But it’s really much more about sussing out:
-Who you are;
-What you bring to the table;
-How many variations of the same thing you can deliver upon.
In the hopes of maybe not just doing a one-time deal but actually…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Scott Kirkpatrick is the Executive Vice President of Co-Productions & Distribution for Nicely Entertainment—a Los Angeles-based production and distribution company that produces original TV movies and scripted TV series—where he brokers major content deals and has executive produced a variety of TV movies including “The Art of Christmas”, “Sappy Holiday” and “The Snowball Effect”. Previously, Kirkpatrick served as the Senior Vice President of North American Sales & Business Development for the London-based NENT Studios UK where he oversaw international television distribution deals on a variety of programs including BBC’s “The Cry”, Channel 4’s “Shameless” and ITV’s “Doc Martin”. Prior to this, Kirkpatrick served as Executive Director of Distribution for MarVista Entertainment, a Los Angeles-based production and distribution company that produces original TV movies and has managed international TV deals on major franchises, including “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”. Before shifting to the distribution side of the industry, Kirkpatrick worked behind the scenes on major studio productions, including “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”, and has produced and directed TV series and feature films including “Eye for an Eye” and “Roadside Massacre”. He is the author of the books “Writing for the Green Light: How to Make Your Script the One Hollywood Notices” and “Introduction to Media Distribution: Film, Television and New Media”. Kirkpatrick lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
CONNECT WITH SCOTT KIRKPATRICK
Linkedin.com/in/scottkirkpatrick310
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