Beyond the Frame

For any chance of success, directors and producers must work together as a team on source material that is rich and meaningful.  The well-known independent producer, Ted Hope, opines on the ten things you must do before you submit a script for consideration to the person in charge:

1. Cut at least another 10% of the script. Even when you think you are finished, there’s always another 10% that can come out.
2. Clarify what you feel the themes are and how they evolve during the course of the narrative.
3. Figure out some of the ways that the story can be expanded onto other platforms.
4. Know what the historical precedents are for your story and how you differ from them in how you have chosen to tell it.
5. Review the script from each characters’ point of view and make sure that their dialogue and actions remain emotionally true for each of them in their different situations.
6. Recognize what some of the mysteries contained within both the characters and story are that you are committed to protecting — as not everything should be explained.
7. Understand why you are truly prepared to tell this story at this time – or not.  
8. Make the world that the characters inhabit truly authentic; don’t just give them jobs or apartments or hip music to listen to.
9. Make it somehow provocative, intriguing, audacious, or thought provoking — something that will make it stand out.
10. Make sure it is more than just a good story told well. Be truly ambitious. Take us somewhere new, or take us there in a new way.

The key thing with this list or any list is still to put yourself in the shoes of whom you are submitting the project to.