I want to make a movie...

Just parroting what I've read at other sites (squawk!): Find out who the actor's agent is. (A trial subscription to IMDb Pro will allow that, or a friend who's got the Pro version.) Contact the actor's agent with an overview of the project, including whether/when you anticipate financing to be in place and the same for when/where filming is planned to begin. (I gather many actors' schedules are insane.)

But don't stop there. Use what connections you have or can make to reach the actor through other means without being creepy-aggressive. Depending on who he is and how 'big' he is, he may be far more approachable than you or I might assume, when it's for a professional purpose rather than fandom.

Maryn, curious now

Edit: I forgot to say that you should probably not initiate professional contact until you have a draft of the script complete and good enough that you'd be proud to have him read it.

Celia Cyanide said:

Let me just add that yes, I would absolutely not initiate anything until I have the script polished. I just wanted to ask for advice about it now, before I get too into it and have my heart set on this actor, only to find out there is no way in hell I could ever get the one I want.

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It really depends on the actor, where he is in his career, etc. Many agents and managers will not take a producer seriously unless they have at least part of the financing in place. Meaning they won't even read the script. And unless you personally have a track record, the fact that you're planning to make it yourself, rather than being a producer who has optioned your material, well that can just make it that much harder to be taken seriously.

And even if you do get a chance to submit, you are not necessarily submitting to the actor or even his personal rep. It may go through the agency coverage process and get passed upon before the actor in question ever knows it exists.

So if you do have another path to the actor through other means, that may be the best way to go, although even if you do get the actor interested, they still might want you to submit through their reps and have the script screened.

Then again, depending upon the actor and his professional circumstances you may be able to get your script into his hands even if you go through his rep.

Though, if I were you I'd have a heart to heart with your heart about that particular actor, and prepare it for the possibility that someone else may very well wind up in the roll, that is if it ever gets made.

By the way can get the rep info for many actors through SAG. They may even have place where you can search on their website - the WGA does - but if not you can always call.

Celia Cyanide said:

Who would be deciding this, then, if not the director?

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My point was that the actor and his reps decide whether or not they want to attach the actor or even consider attaching the actor to the project. It can be hard to get a read to attach talent to a spec script that is not set up anywhere and has no financing attached.

The fact that you are attaching yourself as a director as well, is just an additional albatross around the script's neck. I'm not saying that you shouldn't direct it yourself if you want to, but that fact is certainly not going to help you get a name actor attached and may very well hurt.

Celia Cyanide said:

Do agencies typically accept unsolicited screenplays? I was under the impression that they did not.

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Some agencies do accept queries, although many of the major ones want referrals. But I wasn't talking about you querying a literary agent. I was saying that if you contact your actor's agent and he likes the pitch and asks you to submit, the script may go directly to the agency readers for coverage and the agent, not to mention the actor may never even see the script, if it receives a pass.

The dilemma is finding an actor who has the clout to help you land financing and distribution.

Some actors are popular in the US but have no juice overseas - and vice versa. It's great to attach an actor but a nightmare when you learn that no one will finance the movie with him as the star.

Although times are changing, many reps do not like their clients to be used as bait for financing. Because if the producers cannot raise the money, the actor could be blamed. ("He can get a movie financed.") And no rep wants to take that kind of chance.

Often, actors who attach to projects with inexperienced directors are actors who have little to lose. And they are often the kind of talent that cannot excite financiers.

The director can make or break the project as many actors will only want to to work with directors they trust. Some will not work with first time directors.

Developmentexec has covered lots of scenarios above. Give it a shot and see what happens.

Celia Cyanide said:

Interesting points.



Just for reference, I am not a first time director. While I haven't made a ton of movies, I have directed a feature that has a DVD distribution deal.

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Sorry about that.

I believe the casting director normally finds the actors, unless the director knows/is married or related to some people. If you're a big actor with an impressive black book, you can pick your own actors.

Celia Cyanide said:

The casting director does find the actors, but does not have the final say over the director. The director usually gets to makes the final casting choices, but sometimes a producer or investor might. But the director is generally considered responsible for everything in the final product.

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Well, here's the deal as I understand it, having also directed in DTV and now working as a screenwriter and having come close to directing in the theatrical world.

When you get into the world of movies that are financed either at the studio level or through other entities that generally finance movies, they will almost always demand approval of certain things -- and approval of the director and of at least one star is virtually non-negotiable.

In fact, the greenlight is almost always contingent on signing both an approved director and approved star (or stars) from lists that are drawn up by the producers.

If you can't get someone on the list to say "yes" -- no money. No movie.

Often the names that "mean something" (that's a term that you run into a lot) may seem odd. Names that don't mean much of anything here may mean a lot in foreign, and if the money or a substantial amount of it is coming from foreign, having one of those names in the cast can suddenly make the difference between having that money and not having it.

Suddenly you've got X -- a name that "means something in foreign." Or weirdly, you'll ask, How about Y -- who may be a really big name and they'll say, -- no. No good. She doesn't mean anything in foreign. She may be big as the day is long, but for whatever reason, certain people simply can't get a movie greenlit.

And that is the big issue. Producers and investors and agents know which stars are which. We generally don't.

So you, in all innocence, get some actor attached as the star of your movie thinking that you've advanced the chances of your movie getting produced, only to realize that, in fact, you've attached somebody that's going to essentially destroy your chances of getting greenlit. Nobody wants her. Nobody can use her.

I mean, sure. She can be "hired" -- for the third lead. For the star's friend. For the girl who gets killed in the second act. But not as the star.

That's always the problem with attachments and what I always warn people about -- that attachments come in two kinds. Ballast and balloons.

You always want the "balloon" kind of attachment. The kind that will lift your project up toward getting produced. You never want the "ballast" kind of attachment, the kind that weighs your project down, the kind that you end up having to lift, as an additional weight, up toward production.

Because, as we all know, too much ballast, and you'll never get off the ground.

NMS

I think they pick which script will be most marketable and easy to cast. If one character is very tall and obese, that's going to be hard to cast.

Writing your script around one person is risky. It means that it's a star vehicle- AKA a movie whose job it is to give X actor a juicy part. It might be seen as a good vehicle, or not.

Celia Cyanide said:

Interesting stuff. Thanks for the responses.



This is very interesting. This may sound like a dumb question, but how do they choose the script then? I work mainly in independent film, because I decided to just make my own stuff instead of trying to sell the script. And I've enjoyed it thus far. I was trying to approach this in the same way, but I don't know if that's possible.



So is there a way to find out what kind of attachments we have? This is also interesting to me because the reason why I want this actor is simply because I like this person's work, and I think this actor would be great in the role.

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Generally, studios look at projects in two ways.

One, they look at high concept ideas -- like that thing about the people stuck on top of the ski tower? That's a high concept idea. That's something that's going to sell pretty much on the strength of the concept. That's what they're going to put in the advertising campaign, on the poster art, in the trailers -- people stuck on top of the ski tower. Phones don't work. We're freezing. Wolves are gathering. Uh oh.

For a movie like that, if you've got somebody recognizable on top of the ski tower, that's fine. If not -- oh well. You're not really selling it on that basis.

The "idea" is really the star.

For other movies, studios will really look at it, in a sense, as "bait" -- they want that concept, that immediately graspable idea that they can put in a trailer, that they can convey in a poster -- hey, here's one. "Daddy Daycare" -- you just say the name of the movie and you got what the movie's about.

But you also want a movie that has parts in it that, for lack of a better word, are like "bait" -- parts that you can dangle in front of a star and say, "Hey, look at this great part, wouldn't this part plus a great big truck load of money make you want to spend X number of months of your life working for us?"

That's really a lot of what this business is about, finding the right combination of the right script with the right part plus truck loads of money plus open slots in various stars schedules to get the right people to say yes at the right time so that a movie will happen.

Often you'll wonder -- why did this movie ever get made? And the answer sometimes is -- for some odd reason, everything just happened to fall into place at just the right time for that particular movie. Everyone's schedule was open. The script was there. The money was there. The director was there. And bang. It happened.

Because a lot of times, for a movie to happen it's like some bizarre astrological event where all of the planets have to line up just so -- this star's schedule and that star's schedule and that director's schedule. And if even one person isn't available, the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

And it happens all the time. Everything's ready to go. Everything's in place. Millions have been spent on pre-production. And so-and-so gets hung up on extra shooting on the movie that he's on now. It's gone over schedule. And so-and-so, the other star, has another commitment on the other end. He can't be pushed back. So you're going to lose a month on star A, and star B can't give you a month on the back end -- and that's it. The whole thing falls apart.

So instead of a movie it's lawsuits all around (because all of these people have "pay or play" deals where you have to pay them whether you make the movie or not) and a great big mess.

As to who's bankable and who's not, that's really a question that needs to be put to the people who are putting up the money on the one hand, and to the people who are likely to be distributing the movie on the other.

And you want to have those questions answered before you attach a cast.

That is, you want to have those conversations (or your producer does) both with potential backers and potential distributors, during which you might "float" a given name. Something like, "We're thinking of X, in the role of Y. Would that name be of any help?"

And it would either help, or hurt, or not mean anything. If it helps, great. If it hurts, that's bad. It it doesn't mean anything, you might hold off and maybe pursue of the possibility of finding a name - um, that is, a person, who might help.

NMS

Can you PM me who the actor is? I'm really curious

Lady Ice said:

Can you PM me who the actor is? I'm really curious

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I'm sorry. That would be what's know as, "speaking out of school." But you can certainly read these "insider" books and find accounts of movies where the plug gets pulled at the last minute for reasons along these same lines and lawsuits commence.

Why movies happens, why movies don't happen. Why some things seem to languish in development for a decade while other movies just seem to happen in almost no time at all -- it all has to do with the bizarre clockwork movements of studio requirements for big movies and star availability.

NMS

Celia Cyanide said:

I thought she meant the actor I was interested in working with? I apologize, Lady Ice, if that is not what you meant.

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I may have misunderstood as well. Maybe I need to apologize.

NMS

Finding contact details on IMDB is by far the best approach to take unless you can get to the actor in a face to face pitch situation (no, don't ambush them at a red carpet premiere event).

If that doesn't yield you in the information you need: apparently the whole "Six Degrees of Separation" thing is actually true. I have access to only a handful of celebrities (with a varying degree of clout), but if I couldn't get access to someone, I'd ask them to pass on the message. It helped me get interviews and it only expands my circle of contacts.