How Current Events & Trends Can Help Your Project Get Financed
+ another under the radar Packaging strategy for you to leverage
Hi there! Last week we talked about an under-utilized Packaging tool - the proof of concept. Today I want to talk about another under the radar packaging tool for your tool kit and that’s a current event or trend.
👉🏼 But first - the deadline to receive the discount for my Packaging Strategies Playbook course ends Friday.
The course starts Monday (April 29) and is a four lesson roadmap for morphing a ‘naked’ script into a viable market-ready package that you can confidently raise financing for.
It’s the exact framework I use to Package all my own projects, plus those of my consulting clients. This blueprint has been responsible for dozens of successfully made films and series so you can’t lose by applying even some of the strategies I’ll teach in this course.
Wanna learn more? Click here and register by Friday to save 15%
Current Events & Trends
One of the non-obvious Packaging tools you can pull out from your toolbox is aligning your project with a current event or trend. For example, there’s a few Documentaries I’m putting together that are timely and aligned with a particular international geo-political current event. As a result, sales agents and buyers see this as an advantage and prioritize funding over other ‘non timely’ Docs.
Anniversaries are a big one - can your project be tied to an anniversary of a major event, win, political movement, etc.? Both big and small count - think about laws that were passed, rights that were won, major scientific discoveries, inventions, deaths, births, etc. etc. etc…. you get the idea of how flexible this can be.
Major sporting events like the Olympics, World Cup, NBA playoffs, etc. can be a great packaging tool if there’s alignment with your project. I’ve pushed out shopping certain projects specifically to be able to leverage the buzz of major sporting events.
Can you point to a trend or issue in the zeitgeist? On the impact films I produce, we leverage popular issues of the day to entice buyers and financial contributors into our fold. It’s a major part of the package in fact, in some ways even more important than the cast and other ‘commercial’ elements.
Can Sales Agents Be Part Of Your Package?
Turns out, yes! Sales agents can be an important packaging tool before approaching certain investors as they not only lend credibility, but more importantly they validate marketability of the project. And sales agents will be attracted to the current events and trends components I mentioned above, because they are looking for new titles that ‘stand out’ in their slate to buyers and current events are an easy sales tool to leverage. I know when I was a sales agent I pulled this out all the time - always aligning projects with what’s happening currently to create conversation and urgency around a project.
Is this all making sense and coalescing into a strategy you can act upon?
Hit me up in the comments with questions or clarifications….
👉🏼 And don’t forget to register for my Packaging Strategies Playbook course by Friday and save 15% on registration!
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your day!
Stacey
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I can see that leveraging current events makes sense but it seems to me that concept tends to apply mostly to documentaries and perhaps unscripted shows or am I mistaken?