EDDIE GAMARRA: The Real Deal About Television & New Media

Hollywood is derivative; Hollywood is redundant; Hollywood is driven by brands, Eddie says. It can still be hard to predict what will work--Alvin & the Chipmunks was a big hit; Nancy Drew was a flop. There are 20 people in Hollywood who are meaningful--20 actors, 20 writers, 20 directors--and they're very busy, Eddie says.

For TV, he says, it's a little different. TV is a character-driven and relationship-driven. When considering whether your books might work for TV, think about whether you can imagine your characters surviving for episode after episode with anything thrown at them and still remaining your characters. (At the end of every episode, Homer Simpson is always Homer Simpson, for example.)

There are three ways book writers can make money in Hollywood:

• Options: A studio has exclusive rights to make your book into a film for a specified period of time (which may or may not happen).
• Purchases: The studio owns all the rights. Writers will very rarely get any involvement in a project involving their books/characters.
• Back-end: Bonuses on box-office milestones, for example.
  

--POSTED BY ALICE

EDDIE GAMARRA: The Real Deal About Television & New Media

Gotham likes to think this way: If you have an idea and you think it works as a books, sell it as a book first. In Hollywood when a project is acquired, movie companies generally want all rights to everything. You can end up having a movie made from your book and books based on the movie made of your book with your characters. These deals can be really complicated.

Let's say you've sold millions of copies of a book, Eddie says, that pretty much mean nothing to Hollywood. For them, it's all about sales figures. They don't care about reviews and awards, just numbers. Foreign sales are also important--Hollywood is a worldwide business.

For film executives, what really matters is the concept. They think in terms of what will be on the poster, what's the big idea, what's the hook. These execs don't have time to read books. They read blurbs or jacket copy. So when you're thinking about whether your book has movie potential, think about whether it would translate into a movie trailer.

--POSTED BY ALICE

EDDIE GAMARRA: The Real Deal About Television & New Media

Gotham Group's Eddie Gamarra has worked with Libba Bray, Holly Black, Mo Willems and other great authors.

This conference, he says, is so astounding to him--he cannot fathom a gathering in Los Angeles where producers and others in the industry get up on a panel and tell writers how to break in. "It just wouldn't happen."

Eddie works as a manager. Managers, he says, think in terms of ideas and what they can do with them. They can sell both film and TV rights. They are a creator-driven company and like to work with creative people who are multi-hyphenates: writer-llustrators, actor-writer, etc.

Gotham works with screenwriters, directors, animators, publishers, comic book publishers, and they co-agent with book agents.

--POSTED BY ALICE

MICHAEL REISMAN: "What Hollywood Wants With Your Book"

MICHAEL REISMAN: "What Hollywood Wants With Your Book"

(Pictured above: Michael preps for his lecture by providing not one, not two, but THREE handouts!)

Michael Reisman, author of the bestselling SIMON BLOOM middle grade novel series, discussed the behind-the-scenes tips on why and how Hollywood options books, based on his own experience for more than ten years as a story analyst for movie studios and television networks, including Nickelodeon. His own SIMON BLOOM book was recently optioned as a movie.

He provided three handouts that were extremely helpful. They were:

-- A sample of "script coverage" on Lisa Yee's novel, MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS. This showed Michael's synopsis and analysis of her novel and whether or not he considered potential movie/TV material. He wrote "CONSIDER," which means "Worth a serious look; needs varying degrees of changes."

-- A handout explaining what points story analysts consider while reading and covering book properties. (Examples include "Characterization: Asks how realistic and multi-dimensional the characters are. Will audiences identify with them? Will they care about them?")

-- A handout explaining coverage "jargon." ("CONSIDER" was just defined above, but another example includes: "CONSIDER CONCEPT: Too many problems to adapt directly, but may be worth purchase for core ideas or key elements" and "RECOMMEND: Buy; needs no or almost no changing.")

Some highlights from Michael's extremely informative talk:

-- "Don't write what will make a movie deal. Write what makes a good book." He emphasized how different these genres are and you should simply concentrate on writing the best book possible, period.

-- Retain your movie and TV rights. "I'm a happier man because of my movie deal" given that he retained his own rights.

-- Get a movie agent or manager to help navigate through the Hollywood world.

Overall, Michael delivered a very thorough lecture on how Hollywood approaches book properties and why they option or do not option books. But the information he provided in the handouts and in his advice/examples during the lecture were both applicable not only to published authors interested in trying to get their works optioned but also for aspiring writers because the points brought up about how Hollywood story analysts critique premise, dialogue, storyline and premise ideas was very helpful. Another example of the excellent informative lectures provided for writers at SCBWI's national conference!

Posted by Paula Yoo