How do you make a script you've been commissioned to write about the setbacks that occur while trying to deliver a load of dry ice into something interesting? My solution, turn it into an allegory about the ICE raids currently going on in the country and the underlying politics they represent. I hadn't heard from the producer who commissioned the work for a while, so I sent him this poster mock-up I did along with the latest revision of the script. I heard back from him within a few hours with an offer to set up a meeting with his finance guy and discuss the possibility of using the script (which is a 30-minute short) as the foundation piece of a feature. I guess the lesson here is that it's important for your script to have a strong visual hook you can lean into when trying to get people's attention. Happy Holidays.
1 person likes this
Thanks for sharing Tim!
1 person likes this
Congratulations on the job and meeting, Tim Morell! A strong visual hook can help. I pitch my scripts on Stage 32, Twitter/X, and IG with posters.
1 person likes this
As much as many writers don't like to hear it, posters and visuals are powerful. Script Revolution has encouraged them from day one. We've been slowly moving into a need to present scripts more like pitches than just a logline and pdf. AI makes it very easy to generate the images now too.
2 people like this
Genius!
2 people like this
That’s awesome news!!
1 person likes this
Your experience perfectly highlights one of the most underrated truths in filmmaking: a strong visual hook can open doors that a script alone often cannot. Turning a simple dry-ice delivery story into a politically resonant allegory was a brilliant creative leap. And the fact that the producer responded so quickly—after seeing your poster—proves how powerful visual communication can be in this industry.
Congratulations on getting interest for a feature adaptation!
Wishing you even more creative wins in the coming year.
2 people like this
That's fantastic! This really shows the power of combining storytelling with compelling imagery.
Awesome news! Congrats
Happy holidays!
3 people like this
Thanks for all of the nice comments. The weird thing about it is that I met this guy after responding to a post he put on a neighborhood site called Nextdoor. He'd just graduated from AFI and was looking to meet people interested in film. I replied, we met, and it turned out he was interested in scripts about the Mexican immigrant experience in CA. The story shown in the poster was one from a collection of stories he had an option on that kind of dealt with the topic.
I told him I had a script about that exact issue, so I agreed to read the collection of stories, and he agreed to read the script. He liked the script more than I liked the stories and he got all hot on the idea of doing it and he asked if I would be interested in adapting this collection of stories while he tried to get his finance guy interested in my script. I said, sure.
He and another writer had put together a treatment that tried to combine elements of all the stories into one feature length script. I thought it was a really admirable effort, but didn't feel like it really added up to anything in the end, so I suggested taking three stories you could tie together in some way and doing it as a kind of Ballad of Buster Scruggs thing,
The problem was, I couldn't find three stories I liked enough to do that with, so he suggested adapting just the one. He was listed on IMDB and had made some shorts that had gotten some festival recognition as well as a found footage type horror film that has some nice reviews on YouTube, so I thought it would be worth the effort.
Once I found the hook I wanted to the story, it only took about a week to write and when I showed it to him, he got all excited about doing that, So I guess we'll see where it all goes. Hopefully, I'll have a better understanding of things if this meeting with the finance guy actually happens at which point I'll have a chance to figure out how legit any of it is.
1 person likes this
Tim, way to GO! Here's wishing you tremendous success with "Igloo among Palms!"
1 person likes this
I like how the visual and the concept reinforce each other here. It creates instant clarity for the reader. Thanks for putting this out there.
Yeah, I wasn't unhappy with the way it came out for an AI thing, but with a little refinement it could be quite interesting. For instance, I don't like the font, and I would have liked to see the car's grille facing to right of the image, so that the word Imperial on its grille could be seen as the word has a broader connotation in the script beyond just being the name of the car.