Film Courage: What three things does a producer want in a screenplay?
Alok Mishra, Producer of 1 BR Movie: I would say for for me personally I'm a genre producer.
I want originality. If it's not original I don't want to have seen it for a long time
and I want it to be 90 pages. I feel there are very few movies that are horror movies
that need to be longer than 90 minutes typically. You'll get The Shining and different things like
that but but typically I think that horror movies and comedies should be 90 minutes,
get in, get out, see the funny, see the scary, that's it. That's what I think
Film Courage: What are the top reasons you would reject a screenplay?
Alok: It's not original or I've seen it very recently.
Is it an idea, most of all, is it an idea I think people will want to see again coming back to it
who wants to see this movie right is there an audience for this movie if I don't think there's
an audience familiar I think it's a very small audience then it's more likely a pass from me
but have you watched a film or read a script where you can tell this wouldn't test well going back to
your marketing brain but you personally liked it there are some scripts that are in fact I read
one it was just it's an incredible script it's batty it's not a horror movie but it's just it's
about the depths of alcoholism or something right and I just thought this was such a crazy almost
Darren Aronofsky kind of script or whatever but I I kept on going back to like wow would
I want to put money in this move because they wanted some money or whatever and I was like
I think I would put money in the movie but I'd really have to have a very
big conversation with the other producers and the director as to how we're going to market this film
because it's a very specific like critic driven sort of like piece that we'd have to get into like
a Sundance or Tribeca or like a con or something like that it's the only way this movie is going
to make its money back right and so so the answer is yes I would take a risk on certain things but
you better know how to market that thing you better know exactly how you're going to try
to get your money back because it's not like the normal way you would within a mainstream audience
how long did you Ponder this this script
I pondered it up right up until production when they were going to make the movie and I was about
to write a check for the movie however I found out sadly there was some bad players involved
with the movie and I'm not going to name something that but I I found out there were some people like
you should Google everybody like I put it from an IMDb Pro but sometimes you Google people and you
just have to come up with like this person's name this person ruined my life dot com and you're like
holy cow how did I overlook this and then you're just like I can't be in business with this person
so that's the main reason I didn't do it I loved the script I loved everything about it I love the
director radio directors fantastic but this other guy didn't want to touch him with a 10-foot Pole
how many pages of a screenplay will you read before you move on the whole thing it may take
me six months to read it but if I say I'm going to read it and eventually you bug me enough I
will read it and I will give you notes so that is typically at least you get that from me
but I'm I try to read at least a script today and I'm really backlogged so I'm always trying
to like catch up really in some ways where do you find these Scripts it's I have managers that send
things to me I have a couple agents that feed me stuff I have a lot of filmmaker friends that
we've made at the different film festivals or just living in Los Angeles really they're and
then they're successful people on their sort of careers in some way and so they always like
send me stuff and like well listen can you find me some money sometimes but I can sometimes I can't
sometimes it's something where we need to go to somebody much bigger to raise the money because
it's like much bigger budget but but I'm very I'm very into networking and I'm very into surrounding
myself with hopefully talented people who are consistently making interesting product and who
are consistently making interesting scripts and stories how did you find the screenplay for one VR
by ex-wife went to high school with Allard Cantor Allard Cantor and Jarrod Murray are two managers
that run a company called Epicenter [Literary Management and Production Company] and David
Marmor our writer/director was rep by these guys so I had one of those lunches that you have in Los
Angeles where you talk about the projects you're working on another douche-baggery and at the end
of that lunch I was sent two scripts and I never read for six months and the reason was in my own
defense is we were about to go to production on something else and it was very pre-production and
that sort of like pit of hell and I was working very hard on them and that project fell through
and all of a sudden I found myself looking for scripts and I'm like oh let me read these scripts
I didn't read before and I read those both of those scripts one of them was a movie called
Tragedy Girls which is fantastic horror comedy and Craig Robinson and a bunch of people are in it
I basically read that script and I said no because horror comedy is tough to do invariably you find
that the horror audience don't doesn't think it's scary enough and the comedy audience is too scary
so I said that's a pass and they told me hey that we just finished that movie last week and I said
what do I know the second movie was one BR and love the love the script I met with David Marmor
right away and we got along he very smart sweet soft-spoken guy but really knows what he wants
so I immediately found the script that way and called my producing partner I was like
listen we have got to like we have got to you have got to read this you have got to like
we have got to we have got to sign a letter of intent to like to get an operating agreement
together and and start making this our first film so that's how it started so you did the Hollywood
lunch you you did the Hollywood lunch you say what you want about the Hollywood lunch it's it's
it's very necessary I miss it I'll tell you this stuff you go to Sundance and it's like going to
500 meetings without having to drive that's what I think but I wonder in some sense because you're
all feeling good you're around like-minded people maybe it skews it maybe it's better to have the
lunch because you're in La you're dealing with all the stuff that's true to LA and it's sort of like
dating you want to know is this going to work with this person sure like I'm sure that's that's it's
the reason you meet people in general I met David Marmor for a coffee right and we met the Culver
Hotel and hung out and I had a scone and like look you talk about your sensibilities you talk about
what you're interested in you talk about like is there is there something here do we have like oh
well I really love Exorcist three I love Exorcist three like do you have the same sensibilities
I think that's that's another reason that you meet with people but like look that lunch or a
coffee or drinks or whatever it is is it's just connection Any Which Way right that's what we're
talking about at the end of the day are you connected to the person could I work with this
person can I work with this person when the car breaks down which invariably it will break down
like that's the whole idea about making a movie the cartoon some breaking down what do you do
when the car breaks down well you could yell and scream or you can say okay what are we going to do
about this now how are we going to solve this problem right and you want like-minded people
right and so sometimes you discover that when you're making movies sometimes you just compare
that before the movie because you just kind of sense this person is a nice person it's not a
yeller he's going to talk and I can be the yeller whatever it is like good cop/bad cop whatever it
is right but I think what you're trying to get out I think it's more about connection like that's the
reason these lunches or whatever they are drinks or coffees or whatever you want to find out that
they have the you're like-minded you have the same sensibilities and maybe you have the same goals
and it's not just a year that you may be tied to this person maybe several years oh yeah so
to know that as well like this isn't just a one and done one year and to be fair I didn't think
that but now I know that like I thought they'd be done like oh we're shooting this thing as
a lark because it's 2017 December it'll be out by next year no no and then when it does
come out it comes out during covet so now we're definitely like stuck together and we
didn't get everything we thought we would get in terms of a theatrical release or whatever it is
what was it in the screenplay for one BR that made you want to make this movie
it just wasn't expected the way it sort of read at the beginning and I didn't know anything about
it I just went in cold right first you think it may be something supernatural you may think it's
a bunch of different things a lot of sort of red herrings going on and that turns out
to be something kind of really different and something we haven't seen in a while
if in a long while and then it it actually is somewhat original in addition to that the
kind of twists and turns like every act there's something that pivots in a different way which I
hadn't seen hardly at all if not in a long time and to be fair like it was on a script level but
it became even more in the edit as well but on the script level like it definitely was something much
different than we hadn't seen in a long time and it was contained in terms of the actual atmosphere
was contained which is important for a low budget film CS that was sort of the unique thing about
it it was in our budget level it definitely was something we hadn't seen before and it went places
we didn't quite expect and it pivots at different parts of the different acts it pivots in different
ways that it made it very sort of interesting even on the page and so when you took your your test
marketing your research brain how did it measure up well look I I thought about trailer moments
right and it's funny like it had trailer moments it had it had definite trailer moments I also knew
that look like the performance that this this young lady is going to give Nicole Brydon Bloom
gave is going to be key to the whole thing like she literally is like the movie like the her face
has to emote and she has to have that kind of face Nicole has these big eyes and she can just tell
there's like a million things going on with her with her when she like looks at the camera right
we needed to find like that particular actress and we did thankfully we knew the ending was extremely
important we knew there were a little we did little thing we knew there was little things
within the script that we could toggle and and sort of make our make our own in terms of like
producers giving some advice and different things like that like that we had a torture
song in there right that happens in the movie without getting like giving up too many spoilers
but like we went through a couple different ideas of this The Producers came up with ideas and then
David had ideas and we were able to like get the right song and everything else so that was
even sort of on the script level that we sort of noticed that little things we could do that would
make the movie maybe successful and some right in terms of like or our traditional sense of of
successful in terms of like maybe a mainstream thing did you envision the audience who would be
watching this absolutely look we we knew that it was such a smart script we knew that we had almost
a almost a a four quadrant audience of sorts eight it's not nobody under 18 is really about
this movie I don't think unfortunately like that's what we see from like IMDb in different places
that have like demographics and and different things like this data we knew that it's skew
older weirdly it was a lot of accessibility to the movie and in fact it was confirmed in a way
we went in to for a meeting with Netflix and Netflix told us why we like your movie because
this is the kind of movie you can watch with your mom and we were like oh wow I don't know whether
to be insulted or yeah I guess we're going to take that as a compliment because it's accessible and
we could we could see that sort of on the script level too where okay it's kind of thoughtful in
certain ways there is like violence to it but the way the violence is framed was that it was
purposeful it wasn't gratuitous there's nothing where we're trying to like there's no you could
go different places with like movies that people get sort of maybe put through the ringer let's
call it but we knew that this didn't have any of that thankfully it has some elements of of horror
and different things like this really the movie is a psychological Thriller with elements of horror
right that's what we define it as so we knew that it had enough of these different elements to be to
make it accessible to a wider audience even on the page we also have a strong supporting character
who's older and and I think they work well together the protagonist in that character and
it also shows the goodness of your protagonists in the dealings with without giving away too much but
I I like that I thought that was well the other thing on the page that was interesting is that
even the so-called villains in the in the film like they think they're doing right like they
really do believe that they are helping people and clearly it's misguided but you you almost
kind of see like our main character kind of see their point of view which is interesting in its
own right too like she kind of sees like okay this maybe could be a good life maybe maybe these rules
are actually kind of necessary misguided as they may be what's your advice to screenwriters who are
trying to pitch their scripts and get them read I think that you coming back to it hopefully it's
original if it's not original hopefully something you haven't seen in a long time or it's done in
such a way that it is a new spin on whatever this maybe standard genre thing could be right we have
so many different like Groundhog's Day movies now we have the horror versions of them now we have
like the people that will take it into a different twist Freaky Friday horror version is freaky let's
say okay well they kind of did the same twist but differently right they made it their own
so I guess my advice is if you could go original go original if you don't if it's not original
them have a new spin on it so that it seems like it's original or you haven't seen it in a long
time those are the things the other thing too is don't turn in anything that's halfway done
you're never going to get a second chance I'm not going to read it again I can tell you that there's
very few people that I'd read a second script a second time for if I didn't like it the first
time so you better when you're going to give it to somebody it better be in its finest form like
have all the typos out of it have every format it correctly just make sure you're putting your best
foot forward when you're giving it to somebody to read because they are spending their time to
read it too right you're trying to make it there's been there time to read it what about the school
of thought that like certain things are in style for a short window of time so found footage after
Blair Witch now there's all this found footage stuff for a while and it's trendy it's what
people want to see what about going with the flow if you can do it within a short window of time
look everyone's trying to make terrifier too now right like terrifier 2 made a billion dollar well
like 13 million dollars but let's shop for like $250,000 and now everyone's thinking look if I
can just put together this ultra gross movie I can maybe get it on the big screen too what they don't
realize is that Terrifier 2 had like eight to ten years worth of awareness for that film had was on
Netflix and all the AVOD [Advertising-based Video On Demand is a model] platforms likebTerrifier One
from came out 2016. it's 2022. six years that movie had of like people soaking it up and some
people actually liking the film so that when it came out they didn't do any marketing for that
film they just put Lucid in 750 theaters maybe like a million three million for opening weekend
and went up every weekend right that's because I had awareness that was the main thing you can't
just jump on this bandwagon let's call it and hope to like make some money like they they try to do
this with uh the Grinch movie you're the mean one or whatever which is not as good as Terrifier 2
by the way but they tried to be jump on this bandwagon oh this can be ultra gross and it's
like it's the Grinch and it should be really interesting and didn't make that much money
compared to Terrifier 2 because Terrified 2 is actually good and had a lot of awareness for it so
but then but there's all look there's always these things where okay the shark movie is popular well
you go to Tubi there's literally 100 shark movies oh clown movies are popular there is a Shark Clown
movie on Tubi right now but I haven't watched but exists right there's a Santa clown shark movie on
Tubi right now right you can try to take all these genres you think are popular and make a movie and
maybe you'll make some money but it's it's a trend try to do something that people aren't doing right
try to do something that like you haven't seen hopefully and other people will copy you here's
the funny thing so Netflix rejected us twice before they they took us the third time they
took us the third time because we did well on VOD and we opened during 2020 and no one was watching
anything so maybe that helped us too we took took Netflix review and VOD numbers hey look look we
did pretty well and they're like all right we'll take you we'll give you no money but we'll take
you so then fast forward to us getting to number one and saying the top five for like eight days
our friends go in for a meeting with Netflix and they're like it's going to be a pass we're
looking for female in peril contained atmosphere everything we had gotten reject before and now
they're looking for it right here's the truth of it you write something original that's interesting
and then they'll copy you right they don't believe until they believe is the idea so that's why doing
something original maybe is not the worst thing to do as long as you can market it that's the
main thing rising above the noise is the toughest part for most filmmakers just so so easy to make a
movie nowadays there's hundreds of horror movies all of them have better post posters in the next
but rising above the noise is the main thing if you have something original it's even better.