Inside the Magic: How James Cameron and Disney Are Revolutionizing Animation—Secrets Revealed by Pietro Schito
And then the more elements you have, the better. So let’s start, let’s do like a quick list. I hope this can be helpful for your audience to understand what are the steps. As always in film, in art, you know, these things tend to happen out of order. But if you had to focus on something and set goals, I would start with an idea, of course, having a good logline to share it, then you get into synopsis and you get into script, treatment, rewrites, rewrites. But at some point, you want to start seeing what you’re talking about, what you’re writing about. You want to maybe hire a concert artist or a character designer and trying to create a pre-production independent team that can help you visualize this project. If you are tied on budget, I would focus on a, on one piece of key art that shows what, what is this about? What is the vibe of this, of the story? That’s something that if you go to Disney, for example, they always put on the wall this key art for any of their new films. Like to put everyone on the same page, I’m looking at one now, I have a poster there from one of their films. It’s this landscape art that, that it’s one piece, very well done, but it gives you the entire vibe from the tone, the colors, the character, the dynamic. Hopefully you also see some kind of a story in a single picture. And those things, they really are sometimes what sells a project because they know that in animation, that the story will be evolving constantly. So that’s why I love it. I think that it’s wonderful that it, compared to live action, you get surrounded by people that are constantly improving your story. So, you look smarter as a screenwriter in animation because the story is getting better and better and better. And so, on the other side, it means that, you know, having the perfect polished script, it’s not, maybe it’s not the best bet at that moment. You know, if you want to, if you want to produce and see this project on the screen, if you want to use it as a piece of portfolio, then polish it and do another one and do another one, do spec scripts and things as an animation writer, that’s a different path, or solely as a writer. And so after this pitch deck that hopefully you have, you know, a synopsis, key art, character design, if it’s TV, maybe an episode stream board, which is a quick summary of all these, the episode ideas that you had, maybe you have your pilot attached as well. But also it can, the next step would be, if you’re in the independent market, it would be to produce two things. A teaser, something that shows, gives a better taste of what the vibe, the style, the animation style, the animation technique as well. And then a pilot, if it’s a TV show, which is way more expensive. For that, you need a studio because usually it’s the only way, I mean, you can produce something like that, even for a teaser. And for a producer, even a big studio like Netflix, for you, they want to, the more elements they have and the more they can trust all the elements, the easier it is for them to pick up the show and at least for a pilot production. And so with a teaser, you can show not only that the idea is much more tangible and it’s easier to get a gist of what is this show about, but also you’re showing that you have the right connection with the studio. Hopefully they have some credits that can prove that they are able to pull off a production and that there’s a specific style. There is a pipeline and technique that’s been thought to create this show. And that will help you. It’s another element you have. Sometimes you can go with different studios and say, you know, I’m creating this. I would love to attach you as a potential studio. And we’re talking about, I don’t know, it’s a feature film, 5, 10, 15, whatever, a million of dollars of, that’s how we think we’re going to budget this film. And you can create an agreement with the studio. Sometimes if there is an exchange where they’re providing maybe talent and resources to create a teaser, then you get into, you know, the legality of an agreement and with a teaser, a pitch deck and a pilot or a script, then you have all the elements. And the key element, of course, is also you pitching the show, you know, you’re pitching the project. And so, the verbal pitch is not like you can never get away from that. It’s always super important. Plus nowadays, if you have a teaser, put it on social media, put it everywhere, because no one will read the script, but everyone will click on a 30, 60 second teaser. And those things, if they’re good, they travel very fast.
