What is "development" anyway?

The best case scenario for some screenwriters is to sell his sweat-soaked script to a big studio for gobs of cash. If you're a screenwriter, you know how difficult it is to get through Hollywood's front door. And the still-active WGA strike has pretty much closed off all side doors for now also.

Enter independent film making. Starline Films loves my script and has pledged to help me raise a development budget. The production budget has not yet been determined, but is expected to be between $1-5 million dollars. While the development budget is included in that, development is a separate process that precedes full production when the director yells "action!"

Development is really the pre-production process. Steps taken to package the movie in such a way as to attract the bigger money and gain distribution.

We're going to need about $80-100k to develop Mobbed Up. What is this money used for? I wanted to know too. Here's what I found out:

• Talent
  Name actors, while not essential, certainly help any film to have greater appeal to both investors and audiences. While it is too early for me to mention names here, Starline definitely has direct contacts to much of the talent needed to make Mobbed Up successful. This also includes attaching a name director. Money here is spent on issuing deposits to these talented people to show we're serious and to book production into their schedules. This can be a significant portion of the budget.
  
• Trailer/Short Film
  Often a log line doesn't do enough to attract the money. So a trailer (similar to what you may see in the theater before a film) or a short film (a visual synopsis of the story about 15 minutes in length) can help get the creativity across. These would usually be shot with local actors whether name actors have signed on or not.
• Story Development
  If any enhancements or rewrites to the script need to be made, they are often taken care of in pre-production. This would often mean bringing in another writer to handle such edits. Bringing in a name writer can also be a good attachment and add more credence in the mind of investors. In the case of Mobbed Up, Starline feels (and I certainly agree) that my script is very near to shooting quality so this a road we probably won't need to go down, saving some money in the process.
• Securing Locations
  Wanna make a movie--you need to shoot it somewhere. Many locations require a deposit or donation. Locations are a cost that can significantly increase the full production budget due to the costs of changing locations, travel etc. We are again fortunate that Mobbed Up could conceivably be shot entirely on one boardwalk.

Clearly, a lot needs to be done and it is going to cost real money. But people who know are confident Mobbed Up will attract top actors. Even some I was considering as I was writing the script. Attaching top talent goes a long way to get your film the attention it needs during pre-production and ultimately its showing at the box office (or off the DVD shelves).

In coming days/weeks I'll share further thoughts on the development process and keep you informed as to what's going on. After all, that's the point of this blog isn't it?

By the way, if you're interested in investing in Mobbed Up, please contact Kevin Leckner at Starline Films.