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Lesson 2
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Jack Young’s Marketable Components of “STREAM”
What I learned doing this assignment is that marketing seems to be everything with getting our concept into production. It requires a shift in focus for us writers and a little bit of a learning curve in how we look at this process.
Logline.
“A man in crisis and having family and legal issues must die to enter a mysterious energy stream to save his family and mankind.”
A. Unique. The audience takes a journey beyond death into the hereafter. We introduce the concept of “Skins” whereas someone has discovered the process of capturing the human soul and encasing it in an artificial skin.
B. Great Title: Currently doesn’t have a great title “STREAM” May need a title change.
C. True. N/A
D. Timely — connected to some major trend or event. An epidemic like the Covid but affecting births.
E. It’s a first. The world of the hereafter and astral travel hasn’t been explored to this detail before.
F. Ultimate. The world is experiencing a no-birth crisis and man is on the verge of extinction.
G. Wide audience appeal. TV shows that fall into a category of being within the sci-fi genre have proven to be quite popular and ever-growing when it comes to the target audience and demographic that find themselves drawn to and hooked in by it.
H. Adapted from a popular book. N/A
I. Similarity to a box-office success. Similarities to “Flatliners” and “Star Gate” whereas the story centers of astral travel to other worlds and devices that transport humans across the universe.
J. A great role for a bankable actor. Juicy roles for characters of:
Michael – A man in crisis and having family and legal issues that is our reluctant hero.
Diane – Michael’s wife who is wearing blinders in order to save her family from destruction but is a lot stronger and braver that even she knows.
Cronus – a juicy antagonist role. He’s part human/part alien/part evil. He’s complex yet hounded by his human weaknesses.
Components of Marketability that have the most potential for selling this script:
Uniqueness of the story. No zombies, no superheroes, but new and strange worlds with aliens, demons, angels, and sorcerers on a collision course.
Wide Audience Appeal. Right now, sci-fi and fantasy shows are popular on many streaming platforms.
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Eric Humble’s Marketable Components
What I learned doing this assignment is: that the marketability of my pilot and show concept really hinge on the business decisions, some of which need to be boosted to the forefront a bit in order to sell the project. In going back over the 10 diamonds, I’m discovering that the show needs some elevation on a few of the levels in order to create a strong pitch. In some ways, I think this is actually going to help in the writing of the pilot, which I’m still in the midst of. It is making me think of the moments in the script that will really deliver on the elements I’ll be pitching through.
Pick one or two components and tell us how your script already fulfills them AND how you might highlight these two in order to elevate the pitch.
1. Tell us your current logline.
A pharmaceutical chemist whose wife is dying of cancer discovers a secret society dedicated to suppressing cures for disease and must infiltrate their ranks in order to protect a homeless con artist they’re hunting, one of the last of a line of immortals whose DNA holds the key to curing cancer.
2. Look through the 10 Components of Marketability and pick one or two that have the most potential for selling this script.
A. Unique: A secret society dedicated to suppressing cures for disease in order to keep Big Pharma and Big Insurance in the red, and ultimately to control the shape of history.
B. Great Title: Blood Apothecary
C. True: N/A
D. Timely — connected to some major trend or event: Health care frustrations – especially in the wake of a pandemic.
E. It’s a first:
First story about a Big Pharma company
The big business of cures and disease
F. Ultimate:
They shape human history by deciding which diseases get cured, when, and which are allowed to run rampant
G. Wide audience appeal: Target Audience: Men over 25, Secondary Audience: Women over 25
H. Adapted from a popular book: N/A
I. Similarity to a box-office success: Mr. Robot in the world of Big Pharma
J. A great role for a bankable actor:
Jude: brilliant chemist, transforms from staunch company man to warrior.
3. Do a quick brainstorm session about ways to elevate those two components for this script and tell us how you might pitch the script through the two components.
Example: If you say your script has a great role, in one or two sentences, tell us how you can emphasize that role as you pitch your concept.
Unique: A secret society dedicated to suppressing cures for disease in order to keep Big Pharma and Big Insurance in the red, and ultimately to control the shape of history.
Pitch: Leprosy. The Plague. Smallpox. Polio. COVID. History is shaped by
disease. What if there was a cure existed long before there was
ever an outbreak – and a small, powerful group of people decided when
and where that cure was “discovered?”
Timely — connected to some major trend or event: Health care frustrations – especially in the wake of a pandemic.
Pitch: A global pandemic left virtually no person or industry untouched… what if
all that was by design to transform the world into what it is at this moment?
What if everything from leprosy to the Black Plague to smallpox to COVID
was a grand plan by a small group of very powerful people?
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