I did not intend to write a follow up to my earlier post now know as Negotiating the New Amazon, Part 1. But my 45 day option review period has come and gone and I thought my observations may be useful to others.
First, a basis from which to begin:
I have been aware of Amazon Studios from their beginnings but had not submitted a project until now. I submitted my action/comedy feature Test Drive as a private submission. This included a 45 day option period where Amazon Studios can review and evaluate the script. As a private submission, no one else has access to the script. The only public notice of my project is participation in what AS calls Premise Wars. This is a head-to-head battle where your logline is put up against another project’s logline and a winner is chosen by an Amazon Studios community member. My 45 days are up and I was informed Amazon Studios does not wish to purchase or extend their option on Test Drive.
If you have not, I urge you to read my first post this topic especially if you’re unfamiliar with the new workings of Amazon Studios. Negotiating The New Amazon, Part One
Here are some observations based on my experience briefly outlined above.
PREMISE WARS
The usefulness and significance of Premise Wars is a hotly debated topic among AS members. Does a winning logline increase your chances of success in their evaluations? Amazon is not saying. In my case I won 22 and lost 9 Premise Wars battles. That is a 71% victory rate which is very high for any given project that I’ve observed on AS. Most projects, even on the Development Slate, hover around 30-50%, so Test Drive is way above average but was not chosen for Development. Clearly, Premise Wars is not the only factor under evaluation and nor should it be –if it is considered at all.
Some peculiar things surrounding Premise Wars occurred during my 45 day evaluation. There was a stretch of two weeks where my script seemed to not participate at all in Premise Wars. The counter stopped at 29 battles. I finished with 31 total battles so there were a couple added at the end but it seemed dead (or broken) for weeks. There were also a couple days were the Premise Wars counter (your win-loss record) was removed from my project page, not one seems to know why. AS has not communicated any reason.
THE OPTION PERIOD & DOWNLOADS
I love the 45 days. It seems a reasonable amount of time to evaluate a project and it doesn’t tie up your script in a free option very long. This and the ability to submit privately are the two biggest boosts to any screenwriter looking to submit.
Downloads is another topic of some debate in the AS community. It is a common (mis)conception that if you have more than one download on a private project that you’ve got a script they are serious about. Some people have apparently had zero downloads. Most have one. A few have two. This is only worth measuring in private submissions because anyone can download a public script. My script had two downloads, but again, was not selected to move upward. The only thing Amazon Studios is saying about this is that only AS has access to your script when submitted privately. Obviously, this gives little insight as to whether “two” is a magic number. By the way, it appears no one has had three downloads on a private script.
DEVELOPMENT SLATE
The writers receive a $10.000 payment from AS to extend the option on the script for 18 months. As of this writing there are 16 projects on the Development Slate. I’ve seen a couple go and a couple be added. Most, frankly, sound pretty good. Some seem pedestrian to me. There’s a good variety of genres represented, though others are conspicuously absent. Full disclosure: I have not read more than the first 20 pages of a couple scripts.
But how big can this list get? 16 seems pretty generous. In its current form and parameters I can’t imagine it growing past 20 titles. I foresee a future where writers will be competing for a spot among these 20 seats. Making the selection process (especially down the line) more and more difficult to crack. As Amazon Studios uses resources and money in working to develop a title, I imagine it becomes more difficult to cut loose a project with so many resources tied up in it. This is a situation to watch. If handled poorly, submissions from quality writers will quickly dry up.
CONSIDER LIST
The minor league of scripts in contention to be developed into films at Amazon Studios. It is my understanding that these scripts do not receive the $10,000 option extension payment that those on the Development side get. Further, I am not aware of any script having made the leap from Consider to Development. Please let me know if I am mistaken here. But if these two points are true, it makes me wonder about the usefulness of the Consider List.
I suspect its main purpose is to keep more writers involved with the site and generate some discussion and feedback for more projects beyond those on the Development Slate. And some writers may relish being included on such a list even though there is no financial reward and movement to Development is unlikely.
It is also worth noting that if you are selected for the Consider List your project becomes public. Presumably you can choose to reject inclusion on the Consider List, but you’d be also choosing to remove your project from AS entirely.
Of course all Development Slate projects are public, but since AS has paid these writers to extend their option it really is AS’s prerogative to make it public.
FEEDBACK
If your project is not selected for the Development Slate, you won’t get any kind of feedback or coverage from Amazon. This doesn’t necessarily mean coverage was not performed on your script, just that you don’t get to see it. I am not sure about the Consider List. Although I don’t see any notes posted for the new additions, it seem logical that AS would provide some notes for developing these scripts further at least to the screenwriter.
Public scripts are eligible for community feedback and reviews. See below for more on that.
AMAZON STUDIOS COMMUNITY
Here is where Amazon Studios needs to invest some work. There’s a discussion board called The Commissary. But it is a single thread—no categories of topics—and it is nearly impossible to find. I found it by accident through Google. I have since learned there is a tiny word link to it on the bottom right of your Home Page but it is clearly being underplayed.
Other activates you can involve yourself in include reviewing public scripts posted by others. There are many reviews out there but my impression is that most people are not reviewing. In its new form AS makes it easy to post a script privately and forget about it until your 45 days are up.
However, if you’ve got a freshly pressed first draft or an old trunk script you’d like to get some community feedback on, this is a good place to look for reviews. You can post a public project and ask for others to review it, usually by trading reviews. Of course the difficult to navigate and underused discussion board makes this tricky. There needs to be a holistic approach to member involvement possibly tied to peer reviews.
Other script sites have rules where you must first review another’s script before receiving a review on yours. Something like that may work. But one must also consider the value of a peer review. Most people can’t/don’t/won’t write anything near a decent script. Most people have no idea what they are talking about when discussion their toothbrush let alone a subject as complex as screenwriting. It may be to my detriment but I am generally not interested in receiving reviews of my work from strangers in a public forum.
There’s also virtually no communication from Amazon Studios. Nothing to offer insight into what they are doing, planning or looking for. Their blog roll is uninspiring and rarely has anything interesting.
Their Facebook page, too, reads like a junior high-schooler’s pop culture quiz. ‘What’s your favorite movie robot?’ ‘What movie are you seeing this weekend?’ There’s no value to an experienced screenwriter here.
Amazon Studios is not doing much to foster the feeling that you are part of an artistic community. It’s more like a cold virtual storefront we loiter in waiting to hear if we’ve been invited into the club’s private room.
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
There are more opportunities for artistic types rolling out of Amazon Studios. There are pitches, competitions and submissions for film trailers, script rewrites, TV specs and promotional/production artwork. These pay real money. Thumbs up, here.
FUTURE OF AMAZON STUDIOS
Given the overhaul of their submission and evaluation methods announced in April 2012, I have a reasonable impression that Amazon Studios has taken a genuine interest in generating better material and making it fairer to creatives (especially writers) in the process.
I believe they are serious about making movies. I think it is likely that they will find, develop and sell a script to a major studio (see their first-look deal with WB) in the next 18 months. That does not necessary mean the studio will “make” the film of course. I also think it is likely they will purchase material for their own distribution. Could be a feature, but I can more easily see a series or two being developed and produced through AS for distribution though their online Amazon Prime video service or other assets they may acquire.
I think they have a good idea of what they are doing. They seem to be making some good decisions. My concerns surround keeping themselves relevant. A development slate of 15-20 scripts only keeps that many people actively involved. Even considering the other opportunities mentioned, there is a relatively low active-participation rate. They need to better engage the average user.
OVERALL
There’s a lot to like about the improved Amazon Studios. The access they are giving to aspiring screenwriters and others is unprecedented. It presents some great opportunities. Of course they are also running a business. If they want to increase the quality of the product they generate and attract the most talented people to participate, they need to balance the business concerns with the creative, human element.
The build-it-and-they-will-come approach has sustained them thus far but I think they’ll need to engage users better in the near future to stay relevant.
I am very interested in the the experience and reactions of others who have experience with Amazon Studios. Let me know what you think.
Related articles
- Amazon Studios Unveils Movie Development Slate, And New Rules For Scripts (deadline.com)
- Negotiating the New Amazon (markvioli.wordpress.com)
Mark — Very insightful look at Amazon Studios.
I’d like to mention another option — I put my screenplay submissions public but with the limitation that no one could add to the script. Here’s why I did this: Perhaps someone else will read the script and be interested in it after the 45-day option has expired. So far this hasn’t happened. But the scripts stay public for an unspecified time period after the option is over, so who knows?
Also, I have just submitted three TV comedy projects as this is now a new opportunity at Amazon Studios. These could clearly be video shows.
Here’s my bio page on Amazon Studios — http://studios.amazon.com/users/48358
P.S. About those premise battles — while I watched my results obsessively, they are truly meaningless. Pitching a comedy premise against a horror premise? Really? What does the winning result actually mean?
Phyllis, thanks for your comment.
I wonder if it is the case that other (outside) production companies could possibly be using AS’s public projects to search for new material. It doesn’t seem likely, but could be a real possibility. I’d love to know if anyone has any further insight on this. Great thought…
Nice overview.
We likewise submitted privately. While they didn’t option us, they did give us a “consider”. But we think just as there are serious reasons NOT to submit publicly, there are good reasons not to accept being added to the “consider” page, largely because it requires you make the screenplay public.
Here’s why we see that as a problem: http://chipstreet.com/2012/06/01/amazon-studios-new-old-deal-for-screenplay-options/
Re: Premise wars – we got 14 of 26 – just over 53%. What’s that mean? Who knows. I’m with Phyllis. It’s of no use to me to know how my horror logline stacked up against a kids movie or a romcom. As a writer I need to know how to tweak it to appeal to a prodco who makes horror movies and sees lots of horror loglines. Without giving us the metrics of our wins, it’s useless.
Mark,
First off, the premise wars are absolutely meaningless simply because the only people voting in premise wars are other Amazon Studios members clicking relatively randomly in the hope that they will get to vote on their own premise. On average there is almost always a 50%/50% win/lose ratio. You might as well flip a coin. All premise wars does is drive site traffic. Finally on this subject, why are scripts submitted and passed on in 2010 still popping up in the premise wars? As an example, this script,
http://studios.amazon.com/projects/934
long since dead, along with the 7,000 other projects from last year’s contest should have been flushed, as the 45 days are up: they shouldn’t really have carried over to begin with.
Amazon was dropping on average at least $150,000 a month on the previous contests, which a majority of that money went to the test film contests. There was some thought that perhaps Amazon would allocate that same amount of money in the new Amazon Studios and simply just buy up an shite-load of scripts, even if it were essentially just for the concepts. At $10,000 a pop, Amazon could option up to 15 projects a month. Still a lot more effective than the entire setup for Amazon Studios first year.
The amazing thing is that the whole ball of wax of Amazon Studios operating costs up to this point is probably around $3 million dollars, including staff salaries and other expenses (readers). That’s about the same amount of money that the “Snow White and the Huntsman” script sold for; for a movie that needs to make $400 million in order to break even.
Unfortunately, this reallocation hasn’t happened. It seems Amazon has gone back to “awarding” two scripts a month a $10,000 option. The two scripts that Amazon has just optioned are incredibly terrible in every aspect, and are two properties that any Hollywood studio would never, ever develop. What is sad is that the two new projects are invariably worse than the other really bad projects also in development. The new projects up for development make no sense in any market. A anachronistic Romeo and Juliet movie that’s over two hours long and a really weird “Davinci Code”-like movie that reads like amateur script 101 will never sell tickets. So the question is, why did Amazon option them? Are they really going to put the Romeo and Juliet movie through the paces with community-based rewrites? Why bother? The concept is DOA.
It seems that three things are still in play.
One: Nobody either still knows or cares Amazon Studios even exists.
Two: The quality of entries are still well below sub par because of this vacuum.
Three: Amazon is still somehow selecting projects that aren’t hip, aren’t groundbreaking, but simply terrible.
The question is how did a 127 page period piece get through any real Hollywood reader and thus in the hands of any development executive at Amazon Studios? Any real reader would have destroyed the script on many aspects, and the script should have died on the vine, but somehow it broke through the lines and is now being “developed.”
There has been some discussion on the “two downloads” that most people have gotten when they submitted the script privately. What’s probably happening is that one download is internal, and one is “external” by a contracted reader. I assume this is done to at least give a real world view on the script, to possibly counter the obvious non-pro, non-Hollywood viewpoint of whomever Amazon has reading the scripts at home base.
But it’s apparent that the Amazon viewpoint always trumps any real feedback on any of these projects. Otherwise, almost none of the projects currently in development would be on the slate.
The big question nobody has been able to answer in going on two years is “What does Amazon Studios really want?”
Go back and look at all of the previous rewrite contests and then look at what Amazon currently has in development and then ask yourself how in the hell could anyone figure out what Amazon is looking for, and then rewrite any of the scripts in development to Amazon’s satisfaction?
Yes, obviously they want to be a real movie studio, as well as provide their own user-generated content. But from everything I’ve seen since Amazon Studios started, their goals have always been obfuscated. Is Amazon Studios ultimate goal is to almost always develop projects by amateurs? It sure seems so. Sure, given enough time, Amazon Studios may very well find the next Kubrick, and given the low operating costs, all it really takes is one hit to make Amazon Studios a success.
But here’s another question. Would Amazon Studios have any idea what do do if they truly found a really hot project? Would they waste time trying to get “community feedback” and community-based rewrites? Or would they put the hot project immediately in true production? We haven’t seen any indication that Amazon is working on anything at all. There were rumors of a Zombies Vs. Gladiators test movie; something that may very well premiere at Comic Con this year, but there’s been no info since the rewrite contest last year. Yes, other movie studios have a lot of movies in development that never see light of day, but given the dearth of new news on 90% of the projects in development on Amazon Studios, I’d say that only four projects are actually being possibly prepped for real production.
There is absolutely no “community” on Amazon Studios, and there really never has been. Last year’s contest was just that, a contest. Everyone was in competition with each other, so no true community could ever really develop. Putting a project out publicly is utterly useless because the only people that ever come to Amazon Studios are other amateur to semi-pro writers looking to break into the system. How is the guy that wrote “Codex,” a new script added to the development slate, really going to properly evaluate my script when his own script has a minefield of problems?
Furthermore, by submitting publicly you give up more rights, including the right for Amazon to make a comic of your script AND make a test movie of your script during the 45 day period, and beyond if they option it.
I have no problem with Amazon testing the waters per-ce by publicly listing a project to get (the very limited and narrow) feedback from Amazon Studios users once it has been optioned. But I don’t understand the strange attitude of “Well, we sort of liked your script, maybe, but not enough to green light it. However, if you list it publicly, we’ll bump you up to the meaningless “consider” status,and we still won’t give you any feedback.” This makes no sense.
If Amazon truly likes a script, or a project, then they should either like, it or not. Either it works, or it does not work. There really is no middle ground.
Where is Amazon Studios partner Warner Bros. in all of this? It’s obvious that Warner Bros. liked none of the projects on Amazon Studios slate, otherwise Amazon Studios would have purchased at least one of the scripts, which has not happened yet. This is actually really bothersome. Most of the scripts in development has won prizes in last years contest, usually around $20,000. But in all that time, and apparent free rewrites, Amazon still doesn’t think any of the project are worth actually paying the writer $200,000 for to actually purchase the script. Even the mega-powerball winner “12 Princesses” with $1.25 million in prizes ==still is just under option==. Once again, ==still is just under option==… a very expensive option.
What Amazon Studios has created is a sub-development, self-enclosed world.
One of the movies under development has Ed Saxon, the producer of “Silence of the Lambs” attached as producer. However, this project’s writer has yet to actually get paid for the script outside of the $20,000 “best script” prize from last year, and a $10,000 option from this year. It is really strange to have some of the very high level producers working on these projects that have not even been purchased yet from the writers.
If Amazon has enough faith to bring in Ed Saxon, or Bill Gerber to helm a project, then how in the world can they not buy the script from the writer?
Look, this way, although somewhat strange, isn’t much different from the usual development scheme of things, but usually when a top level producer is brought in on a hot project, the script has long since been bought an paid for. What we’re seeing is that Amazon will develop the shit out of any project, but will only ever purchase it if it actually goes into production.
Hopefully this year we’ll see at least one good movie finally start production at Amazon Studios
Mark,
I came across the Amazon Studio program last year, thought about it, and then like you, dismissed it. I didn’t want to give away any of my scripts that I had worked so hard on creating. Ten thousand dollars didn’t seem like a lot of money to warant giving all your rights away with no guarantee the movie would even get made. I was also somewhat confused by many of the things Amazon Studio proclaimed in their contracts. I’m glad to see they have gotten closer to reality, though there is still a lot that needs to be done.
Your two postings on the Amazon Studio system helped to clear up many things for me. In short, you made it easy to understand, especially with the new changes that were instigated back in April.
Thank you for that,
Wayne C. Rogers