Peter Katz, Story Driven CEO: Do they get me hyped because you have to be hyped to go
through all the different it's kind of like Indiana Jones or a big heist to get these
deals going you have to do whatever it takes. You have to put yourself out there so you
have to have that fire in you and great clients light that fire in me.
Film Courage: What do you promise your writers?
Peter: I don't looking necessarily… there's a template because I do think each writer
is unique and has unique sense of priorities for what they want. But I guess when you look
at it maybe not necessarily a promise it's what I guess an expectation of a manager is
that they need to be able to work together and look at material and figure out which
concepts may be more viable and develop them and then take them out to market and doing
these things are very important to any writer and so it's not just putting somebody in a
room because sometimes writer just go have a meeting but why is the meet why are you
having the meeting is this person specifically looking for this kind of material I think
that's also important it's not just oh let's just show off here have a meeting here because
there's some pointless meetings in Hollywood I'll tell you there's meetings that you'll
leave with they'll give you a water bottle and you’re I got a water bottle and that
was it if I have a meeting I want my clients to get paid at some point from that relationship
I want to make sure that it's the right person at the right time then maybe it's not now
but six months from now I get a phone call from this producer and says I'm absolutely
looking for that writer looking for that kind of writer that I met so there is a there needs
to be pragmatism from the beginning of development of an idea to taking it out to establishing
a network in the industry that you're just arbitrarily doing something but I would never
just go just write something or just meet somebody it needs to have a purpose so that's
a lot of my goal is working in conjunction with a client sometimes it means also working
with an agent and a lawyer or a publicist there's different collaborators that can get
pulled into a team and each team's unique and for me I want to make sure that I have
a great relationship and shorthand with all the members of the team.
Film Courage: What do you not promise your writers?
Peter: I never set a frame this is going to be this or it's not going to be that I kind
of keep it flexible but what I could say is this I’m a passionate person I believe in
your work I'm going to do whatever it takes to advance our agendas that's just to build
either building a viable business out of a client or if a client is already a business
how to maintain that business and make it bigger and so do they have to exclusively
work with you you make them sign something where they would only work with you I don't
necessarily look at it exclusively so I work with agents all the time I love collaborating
with the right agent so I could have an agent that I have a good relationship with and then
they have qualities that they bring to the table so for me it's not proprietary over
the client I want to get the right agent ideally the right lawyer and then some clients might
want to publish this maybe specifically for film festivals or one of the movies movies
get released work with the publicist so to me it's almost each client is its own unique
business that we're working together so a manager an agent could have multiple businesses
running out once it's different than being a producer where you have a movie mostly you
make the film it gets released everyone makes their money it's done unless it's a franchise
or spin-offs but let's say it's just a normal film a client is a is going to always be building
new opportunities and potentially you could take assignments or sell something so there's
so many more variables as an individual than it then it's just a one-off movie that gets
released so to me it's just being receptive to those needs and seeing opportunities as
they present themselves what do you look for in a client I think that the client that I
want to work with connects my taste so I think that anybody in this industry just because
if let's say a manager an agent passes on them it doesn't mean that they're not amazingly
talented it just means that maybe that rep has different tastes my tastes are not it's
not math it's not this indisputable thing it's more this is a fact is this person good
or bad it's more I read the script I watch a movie and then I'm passionate it moves me
emotionally because I do think that we live in a living's hard how just the day to day
it's just you get apathetic you had a hard day or whatever and sometimes you're just
all right this day felt the next day and you're whatever but if you read a really good script
it stops time you're oh my gosh I'm feeling this writer's voice it just is moving me and
that's the kind of client that I want is that they move me specifically I might they might
not remove the other manager at this company and that's fine or vice versa there might
be a totally viable client that doesn't excite me but another manager loves working with
them so it's very specific to my curation is going to be that do they get me hyped because
you have to be hyped to go through all the different it's kind of Indiana Jones or a
big heist it's to get these deals going you have to do whatever it takes you have to put
yourself out there so you have to have that fire in you and the great clients light that
fire in me and now beyond that aspect of it we also need to have a good back and forth
it needs to be hey we're working together because we like each other enough it doesn't
mean oh my gosh this client is exactly me I’m not looking for me I don't care if they're
different backgrounds everything to me it's not I'm looking for I want to rap myself I
want to write voices that excite me because I've never seen anything it that's what gets
me into it so so I'm just mean that we have a relationship that is really about listening
to each other and respecting each other and open to different ideas and once you have
the the work that makes you get moving and get going and making making things happen
plus you have that partnership where we could adapt to we're saying the chaos of of anything
that is thrown at us that's the ideal client for me when you say chaos what kind of chaos
could come up I think that the entertainment industry is unlike a lot of other fields because
how quickly it mutates there's always new opportunities but at the same time there could
be new risks so which you think let's say from the 90’s may not work now or what industry
it's just everything's rapidly changing which is why it's also kind of fun because you're
who knows what's happening next but it just means you just have to keep your eye out there
and see what's happening and be tapped in to to these innovations and that's to me what
the chaos is it's and that bleeds into your day-to-day too so on a macro level there's
all these shifts but it creates ripple effects that you feel immediately and that's what
you have to be okay with you're not getting into this business because you're you want
something that's very stagnant you get into it because you want something that could just
be super compelling all the time because you don't know what's going to happen next and
to me that's why I'm excited about my work do you to be kept guessing sometimes it's
not that I want to be kept guessing is that I've always been interested in media and technology
I've always been interested in movies how they're distributed how they're monetized
so for me I love just seeing I love seeing this world shifting and seeing new new possibilities
so when you see Netflix and suddenly you watch a limited series that Queen's Gambit on you're
wow that's possible I haven't seen a limited series that before so to me it's about getting
inspired I'm very open to finding inspiration as new projects get made and new businesses
advance and then you could see an opportunity podcasting is starting to blow up and it's
so much fun to also manage some podcasters and work with them and work on those unique
deals that are starting to surface from major companies so that's what gets me and it's
the inspiration around these new new innovations that's what gets me interested in the next
one and you had a podcast yourself yeah I had a podcast called Hollywood 2.0 and it
was basically a podcast that covered the intersection of media and technology and we talked to everybody
from people create virtual reality people created distribution companies digitally and
it was exciting to just see what the trailblazers are doing and did you notice I don't know
what year you started that by the way I don't remember exactly when I started I did it for
a few years and before I was a manager and it just was it was also fun it was seeing
it and then seeing how other people are experiencing the industry and and where it's going because
the people I talked to were the ones that are always on the bleeding edge of innovation
so somebody could be from the Sundance innovation at Sundance studying virtual reality and innovation
and that speaker could be coming from that point of view so to me it was fun to watch
these businesses evolve and some of them actually one of them got acquired one of the the the
founders sold a a podcast company so it was really cool to see the acquisition and see
money move into the podcast space and that was the early sign of the signals of things
that come so yeah I really enjoyed it in a lot of ways I keep doing it through my work
by seeing maybe a movie that I have a client makes could also be a tv show how do you spin
off a film into tv and that's starting to become you start seeing that people are thinking
that way you'll see a show that will be starting as a movie and recently there was a great
film that's on Netflix called The Hater and that was sold to HBO as a TV show pitch so
that's something that's really unique to me I'm wow you could do that so that's why I
got inspired but it's what if I got one of my clients movies facility that kind of thing
always keeps me keeps me thinking.
Question For The Viewers:
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