Film Courage: So in your first book Make your Story Really Stinkin' Big,' you have Chapter 10:
Some Sage Advice, sort of the ending chapter I guess.
What is some sage advice that you can share from the book? Houston Howard, Author/Instructor: So the the biggest thing I
would tell people that that are either trying to break in or that already are
in and they're trying to figure out how to stay afloat is to think outside the
paradigm outside of the the path that we're all given the same door that
everybody's supposed to go through the same the same way that we're supposed to
do things start thinking outside those boxes because when you can think outside
those boxes there's more opportunities than you then you realize to actually
differentiate yourself in the marketplace and continue to do the thing
that you love the most which is tell stories and which is then to create
things that people can can can participate in and be affected by and so
it's it for me it's a the mindset of having a mindset of disruption having a
mindset of innovation having a mindset of an entrepreneur who builds a consumer
brand rather than how a producer builds an entertainment brand if you if anybody
builds an entertainment brand the way an entrepreneur builds a consumer brand you
build it differently because there's different different principles at play
but but for some reason people in this little Hollywood bubble and they think
free market economics doesn't does it impact anything we're just all about
story in our in our as long as I just write good scripts that I'm good and
sadly for you know 95% of writers out here even working writers that the just
writing a a great just being great at your individual craft isn't enough and
you know unless you're one of like the top a-list you know number one person in
in the town or the top ten riders in the town everybody is trying to figure out
how do I stop going from paycheck to paycheck
how do ice doc because even if you're even if
you're like a list you're still going to paycheck to paycheck there's all those
periods of uncertainty there's always periods where where the the new
up-and-comers are in there and things start to wind down a little bit you got
to get there and hustle there may be big paychecks to big paychecks but there's
the stress and the pressure that is just around this industry that if you don't
start thinking outside of the paradigm you it's just it'll it'll wear you down
after a while and and so so the biggest advice I could get
it's just get out there and look at all the tools that you have at your disposal
and figure out how to use all of them in the best way how to how to look at
models that have been there for a hundred years and say say how do I
increment lead deviate from that how can i how can I operate within it but the
same time put pressure on it from the outside just start to change it how can
i establish myself and my brand as a writer and a filmmaker as a different
brand than all these other eight million people that are trying to do the exact
same thing as me how do i do all those things and it so that it's not always
how do i just write the better script because it's very difficult to write the
better script so so now i if if if you put yourself in a disruption mindset and
an innovation mindset i'm thinking outside the box i'm kicking
the box down the road and and looking at it from a completely different mindset
now there's opportunities that they'll seed that that they didn't see before
because they were too myopic right they'll see that maybe you know maybe if
i if I create a multi-platform transmedia super story that has a film
and a book series and a TV show and a video game component and a mobile game
component then if I build that I can shop it as a movie but at the same time
I can also shop it as TV but at the same time I can also shop it as a video game
but at the same time I can also shop it as a book series I worked with it with a
filmmaker who who was trying to shop a TV pilot for years
and and I said okay well let's let's build some of this stuff out and she
built a book series into her plan she as she was shopping a TV pilot she was able
to take this book series and may get a get a publishing deal out of it
where she was never able to get the TV deal but she ended up selling it as to a
publisher got a publishing deal is now working off their ad with books and is
using the audience she's building from the books now the TV public the TV
networks are coming to her to to say can we put your books on TV and so and so
what that did is it gave her not just one outlet that she just kept going
after cuz she's like I'm a TV writer all I can do is TV this think a little bit
bigger this thing differently and think about how to approach the marketplace
differently what the the networks and the studios and all the buyers what they
what they really buy is audience what they buy is pre awareness and so that
they don't studios and networks don't reboot things because they love them
it's the people didn't greenlight the studio's didn't greenlight baywatch
because they love Baywatch they green-lighted they greenlit
Baywatch because there's there's a pre awareness of Baywatch that makes the
investment less risky and so if you understand the principle of what they
love is pre awareness then all your job is as a creator is to how do I create
pre awareness if I can create pre awareness for my TV show create pre
awareness for my movie I've solved the problem because if they love pre
awareness I'm gonna give them pre awareness but how do I do pre weirdness
for a movie if I'm a filmmaker I can't do pre
readiness for a movie by making another movie because then it's a catch-22 well
the way you do Priam earnest for a movie is now do something other than a movie
let's go out and do something that we know we can do it easy in the
marketplace that can quickly build it up build an audience maybe you publish your
own book maybe do music do social media etc etc etc and then you build that pre
awareness for it then the studios and the network's they now will listen to
you have a different conversation because you broaden your think
and you've established your pre awareness not only that but you've
generated revenue made your investors happy etc etc etc so you only get to
that point if you think outside the box you have to think from a not from a
story perspective but an IP perspective think from an IP perspective then again
execute in a story level but you always have to think from an IP perspective so
that you can take advantage of different opportunities but it seems like creating
a product it's easier to be a disruptor it's easier you know you look at Apple
they they were the underdog for a while were they targeted to people that were
the misfits you know their whole campaign which was really cool and then
of course that type of person wanted to buy those machines and look at Tesla
they you know it was it was a it was a car that was not a Prius it was
something that was sexy and it spoke volumes about who you were but in terms
of writing a script or or or getting a series out there it seems like they
would be very difficult to differentiate yourself yeah I mean it's it's very
difficult to differentiate yourself that's that's why I say let's let's it's
if it's difficult to differentiate yourself within the television industry
or you know that from you know from all the other series or from the all the
other features that are being created the one way to differentiate yourself is
to is to differentiate and diversify your plan and and and differentiate and
diversify your intellectual property to where now it's not just a your IP and
your project isn't just a feature film there's all these other components there
when you do that you differentiate yourself as a creator okay right and so
and you you can look at somebody like JJ Abrams like George Lucas their brand
isn't the same brand as any other filmmakers the people look look at them
almost in a different category right and so that helps differentiate you from the
beginning secondly if you get good at it what it does is also allows you to do it
for other people so now you can go to somebody who's making a movie and say
hey you ever thought about doing it like this and if you've already done it a
couple times they'll come to you is say hey can you help me do this to my
project one which is great for you because you get paid for it
and and secondly that continues just to
build your brand is this this disrupter type of a person another thing that you
could that that that I always talk about and try to encourage people in is to
figure out the the passion and the purpose behind the brand like what like
how do you make your brand important how do you make your brand sort of connected
to the like the emotional foundation of people and what people care about and
it's the thing called corporate social responsibility if you can tap into how
how your entertainment brand isn't just cool but how it's important on some
level then you actually you could actually connect with the audience in a
different way not just in a cool way but at an emotional way and so a lot of
times now what's been in vogue of how to get series and features produced and
picked up is that before you go to the network's of the studios or to whoever
that you want to shop these things to is to figure out the thematic premise
behind your project I call it a soap box and as the what are you trying to say
about your project and with your project you take the time to go build an
advisory council of organizations that will endure not fun but and just come
alongside and endorse you and so if you you know if you have you know something
like get the movie get out that is very much in one it's a great movie but it's
infused with this race-conscious soap box that talk together that really is
seated with the with the evils of racism and how you know we you know it's very
apparent but if you have a project like that take the time to go to you know
the n-double-a-cp to black lives matter to some of these other organizations say
I just want you to endorse me and and and and because the reason that I want
to create this project is I want to enhance the lives of certain people in
this certain way if you have a project that is like the leftovers that is all
about grief and how you may grief and how you manage loss and then
all of a sudden take the time to go find organizations that are focused on how to
help people manage grief how to help people manage loss these are different
there's authors that write books about these things how do you make those
collaborations the connections from the beginning then when you go have those
conversations with networks and studios or investors you can you can they can
see the organizations that are coming along side of you and endorsing your
project because of what you're trying to say with it that then also distinguishes
you in the marketplace as well because you you now have you're now you're now
moored to two organizations and entities that that that have been well
established in in in society not only that if the organization's endorse you
then they're donor basis and the people that they that they connect with will
also support it which then proves that there's a market for the project so so
it's very this interesting you know outline all this in the in my new book
where where it's figuring out that emotional base that that emotional
foundation that can align yourself with nonprofit entities other organizations
that then help differentiate yourself then if you're if you're if you then
diversify the product line in a trans mediated super story way now you're
hitting on both levels and you really have something different so not only is
your project differentiated but you as a creator have been differentiated
yourself and you have a different brand yourself which is great but you only get
to that point is if you elevate your elevate your thinking above I'm just a
filmmaker I'm just an author I'm just a director that's all I am I die all I do
is direct movies I'm a I'm a movie director and that's it if you never
think outside of that box you'll never do anything else you'll never take
advantage of the the hundreds of opportunities that surround you every
single day you know you we have to be able to build that build the car
differently in it an 18-wheeler when it's going down the road and it blows a
tire keeps on going right but if your filmmaker and you and
and you're riding down the road on a unicycle and you blow that tire you fall
flat on your face right so we have to figure out the the machine that we're
riding needs to be built differently so that we can we can we can help
differentiate ourselves and keep going and float on top of the water right and
so mixing all the metaphors at this point but but but you could what I'm
trying to say is that it's the mindset it's a vision that if you don't have
you're not going to be able to take advantage of it but if you do have
there's so much stuff that you can do it's incredible once people it's like
it's like seeing the matrix right you don't now see oh I can do that and I can
do that and I can do that and I can do that and I can collaborate with this
person that can generate over no revenue over here and now I can do this and
generate pre awareness within loops be background to have better conversations
with the network studios and investors that I wanted to have conversations with
from the beginning all the while building this really dynamic robust
audience base that will then follow you for your whole entire career as long as
you keep feeding them in the right way the reason I was laughing was because I
was actually thinking of the wheel analogy and then you said it yes so
that's why I was smiling but yeah it sounds like so you're not really
inventing if you want to go with a metaphor a better story wheel you're
giving tentacles so that's absolutely you're spreading different okay don't
that makes sense yeah sure
you