Lelnd Little
Forum Replies Created
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I’m Leland Little
I’ve completed a handful of screenplays in multiple genres, half of which have been submitted for consideration to producers. I am working on an action movie that I hope to sell as a result of this class.
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Leland Little
I agree to the terms of this release form
GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
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Leland’s Marketing Campaign
Plan of Action:
Review script, make sure it is the best it can be
Develop query email to reflect the best hook possible with a 3 line synopsis that is a hook in itself.
Send out to actors who can play lead rolls, using contact information in IMDB Pro.
Thanks you for a great class.
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Leland’s Query Letter Draft One
The cop is a lady, a beauty who beats up big men, catches crooks
Title: Dick & Jane go to War
Genre: Thriller
She’s a cop, tall, beautiful, athletic and capable of taking down big men with ease. Against internal prejudice she overcomes roadblocks, stops her new partner from running her off, escapes after being drugged and taken captive, catches the serial killer. Her geek friend gives her an edge. She’s there to save him when a super-hacker sends in mercenaries. After a gun battle, Uzis against handguns, our cop saves her geek friend, catches the super-hacker, gets the promotion.
Would love to show you more.
Leland
Phone ### ### ####
Email xx@gmail.com
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Leland’s Target Market
Five movies similar to Dick & Jane go to War
1. The Last Stand
2. One For the Money
3. Jesse Stone, Night Passage
4. Jesse Stone, Stone Cold
5. Longmire
6. Castle
Five actors to play the lead role, (woman, 6 feet tall, twenty-something)
1. Ireland Baldwin
2. Aisha Tyler (if she can look 20 something)
3. Lais Ribeiro
4. Jourdan Dunn
List of Producers:
From The Last Stand:
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura plus 7 others
From One for the Money:
Wendy Finerman plus 8 others
From Castle:
Armayan Bernstein plus 42 others
From Jesse Stone Night Passage:
Michael Brandman plus 7 others
From Longmire:
Hunt Baldwin plus 11 others
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Leland’s Phone Pitch
Lead with High Concept
I’m Leland. This is a thriller about a stunningly beautiful cop with a talent for beating up big men, catching serial killers.
Budget Range: $2 million to $3 million
Main Character would be good for Ireland Baldwin. Mid 20’s, six feet tall.
Pages: 104
Who else has seen this: Zero Gravity Management
Fits your company because you do movies like this.
The ending: Our hero fights mercenaries, catches an FBI most wanted super hacker, gets the promotion to detective.
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Leland’s Pitch Fest Pitch
My name is Leland and I’m a writer.
Today I have a Thriller called DICK & JANE GO TO WAR.
This is the story of a lady cop succeeding against the Boy’s Club who are out to run her off. She’s tall, beautiful, exceptionally smart, and fights back with surprising strength. Along with a talent for beating up big guys and catching serial killers, which makes her a hero, she saves her geek friend from mercenaries sent to take him out.
Budge range: $2.4 million to $3.0 million
Actors for role: Ireland Baldwin (she’s the right age, at 6’1” the right height)
Key acts:
Opening, the lead characters partner is killed in a setup by a serial killer
Act I: Our character is locked out of the investigation, calls on her geek friend to stay in the loop
First turning point: She gets a new partner and faces a new challenge, catches a perp
Act II: Our character saves the police chief’s life, chases the perp, who gets away, then captures our character, drugs her with intent of taking advantage, only to have her unwitting escape destroy his plans.
Second turning point: Our character arrests the son of her new partner, there’s tension
Act III: Our character fights mercenaries sent to kill her geek friend, captures the serial killer during the big fight at the end.
Crisis: Our character is in all out war against the mercenaries, who have Uzis against her 9mm.
Resolution: She takes out the hacker who sent the mercenaries after her friend. She’s the hero.
How does it end:
Our hero saves her geek friend while waging war against the mercenaries sent to kill him. In the process she takes down the super hacker who sent the mercenaries, takes out the serial killer who gets in her way, and saves her geek friend. It’s all in a days work.
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Leland’s Query Letter
Opening Hook:
The cop is a lady, a beauty, with a talent for beating up big men.
Synopsis:
She’s a cop, tall, beautiful, athletic and capable of taking down big men with ease. The cop shop is a man’s club. Beauty queens not welcome. Their response is to set up roadblocks. Our lady cop breaks them down, repeatedly. The boys club cringes when she catches the bad guys, including a serial killer and becomes the hero, even when she’s taken prisoner, drugged, and unwittingly escapes. She has hidden resources, including a secret weapon in a geek friend who helps her discover what’s going on behind her back, gives her the tools to fight back. When a super hacker sends mercenaries to take out her geek friend, she’s there, carries him to safety, literally, on her back. There’s a battle, Uzis against handguns, a big chase, and a final shootout where the lady cop takes down the super hacker. Just another day at the office.
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Leland’s Synopsis Hooks
She’s a cop, tall, beautiful, athletic and capable to taking down big men with ease. But she’s on a police force that doesn’t want her, sets up roadblocks that she breaks down, cringes when she catches the bad guys and is suddenly the hero. She has a geek friend who helps her discover what’s going on behind her back, gives her to tools to fight back. When a serial cop-killer targets her as his next objective, she finds herself a prisoner, drugged and confuse, but gets free, fights back, sends the killer running. He’s now gunning for her. The lady cop has other problems. Her new partner was sent to run her off, but she turns things on him, arrests his son. He has friends with lots of money and power, but our lady cop discovers why he has those friends, breaks the bonds, that send him running for cover. When a super hacker sends mercenaries to take out the geek friend, the lady cop carries his to safety, literally, on her back. There’s a battle, Uzis against handguns, a big chase, and a final shootout where the lady cop takes down the super hacker. He’s a big catch. In the end, the lady cop reaches her objective of becoming a detective.
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Leland’s High Concept/Elevator Pitch
Main Hook: Young cop and her autistic geek friend solve cases while fighting internal prejudice, break down roadblocks, stop other cops from running her off, beat up a few big cowboys.
How to Say it:
Dilemma: Young cop catches killers, solves cases against extreme internal prejudice.
Main Conflict: When top brass try to run her off, a young cop fights back, catches the killer
What’s at stake: She’s set up to take the fall, turns things around, catches the bad cop and the killer
Goal/Unique Opposition: The Police Chief sets her up for failure, but young cop overcomes the odds, takes down the big cowboys sent to teach her a lesson, catches the killer.
Elevator Pitch:
Unique: Dallas cop fights a police chief who’s out to run her off, beats up a few cowboys, catches the killer.
Great Title: Dick & Jane go to War. It’s not your typical first grade reader.
Timely: Its give me what I want or the highway, meaning a young cop must say no to sex with the police chief, fight her new partner sent to chase her off, then catch the killer. Just another day at the office.
A first: Dallas cop beats up cowboys sent to teach her a lesson, goes against the police chief’s ultimatums, stops her new partner from running her off, then catches the killer.
Ultimate: Her life is in crosshairs as young Dallas cop chases a killer, fights internal prejudice, escapes when taken prisoner, stops her new partner from running her off.
Wide Audience Appeal: The brass wants something from a young Dallas cop that she’s not willing to give, set her up to take the fall, but she turns things around, catches a killer that no one else can find
Great Role: A young, beautiful, smart Dallas cop beats up a few cowboys while fighting internal battles to keep her job, catches the killer no one else can find.
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Leland’s 10 Most Interesting Things
Item 1: Hooks
Unique Hero: She’s a woman in a police force that thinks women belong in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. She must do twice as much to get half the recognition. She’s also tall, at 6 feet, beautiful, athletic, and exceptionally smart. With a black degree in Tai Kwan Do she has a knack for beating up the guys, including big cowboys and huge football players. They don’t like that. Jane gets the job done in spite of the roadblocks.
Major Hook in Opening: The villain, a skinny, pock-marked kid with tattoos kills our hero’s partner with a bow, placing an arrow through the sergeant’s neck. This sets the tone for the movie. Our hero is locked out of the investigation and goes to her geek friend for help.
One major turning point is when the villain captures the hero for illicit purposes. While still drugged she fights her way free, struggles with the villain, and escapes. This takes the action in a different direction.
A second turning point is when our hero is assigned a new partner, a zealot who attacks her with a vengeance because she does not fit his beliefs of what women are and should be.
Emotional Dilemma: Our hero has a past experience that impacts everything she does. That past is revealed when she is drugged, which gives the villain something to hold over her. It adds a new problem to her already existing struggles at work.
A major twist is when our hero discovers something sinister about the police chief, which she does not use against him. Another twist is when she discovers who the serial killer, someone she went to school with, but keeps that knowledge to herself.
One betrayal is when the Chief of Police assigns our hero a new partner with the intent of running her off.
One big surprise is when our villain captures our hero. She’s drugged and out of it. A second surprise is how she gets out of it.
Item 2: Things that would interest a producer:
These would include the character herself and her struggles to make it against the odds. The villain has a way of killing cops without being seen. They don’t know who he is, but he knows who our hero is and sets out to get her. Then there are the mercenaries, men sent to kill our hero’s geek friend and who our hero saves. Good thing she’s strong and athletic.
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Leland’s Marketable Components
Logline: Young cop protects her autistic computer genius friend from mercenaries, fights internal discrimination as she chases a serial killer
Wide audience appeal: We have a young, tall woman trying to be a cop in Dallas where the system fights her every step of the way. She fights back and beats the system. She’s beating the odds, an underdog who makes it work for her. Audiences like underdogs who make things work.
Great Title: Dick & Jane go to War
This may be an age thing, but anyone who read the Dick & Jane readers in the first grade would have fun with this one.
Great role for a bankable actor: The title role was designed around Aisha Tyler, who is six feet tall and attractive, but too old. It would work for certain model/actresses who are the right age, six feet tall, beautiful, and have had some success in movies like the Vikings.
Pitching: I would play the underdog winning against the odds. Audiences like to see underdogs win, and this is where our heroine excels when the system is fighting against her. You have a stunningly beautiful, tall, athletic, and intelligent woman trying to make it in the Dallas police department where most of the men can’t get passed googling her body. She has a knack for talking back, speaking her mind which makes the brass angry, then becomes the hero when fighting the bad guys. And…she has a geek friend who’s a little autistic, but a genius when it comes to breaking into computers. Together they fight the system and catch criminals.
What did I learn: There are 10 things that make a movie marketable. Sell one and you sell the movie.
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Leland’s Project and Market
Genre: Action/Crime
Title: Dick and Jane go to War
Concept: A Movie where Cops, Killers, Hackers meet for coffee and bullets
Logline: Young cop protects her autistic computer genius friend from mercenaries, fights internal discrimination as she chases a serial killer.
What makes it attractive: A young and beautiful Dallas City Cop beats the odds, fights departmental prejudice in her quest to be a detective while chasing a serial killer. She must save her friend and confident, an autistic geek genius from a super hacker out for revenge.
Primary Target: Producers.
Why: They’re buyers.
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Name: Leland
Have 9 completed scripts ready to market, in different genres, with 3 scripts that will never see the light of day
What I hope to get out of this program is a sold screenplay
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Leland Little
I agree to the terms of this release form
GROUP RELEASE FORM
As a member of this group, I agree to the following:
1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.
2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.
I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.
3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.
4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.
5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.
6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.
This completes the Group Release Form for the class.