ScreenCraft has teamed up with Coverfly to sit down with Kurt Conner, Director of Development at Ubisoft Film and Television. Ubisoft is a video game publisher best known for games like Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia. Before joining Ubisoft, Conner worked in film and TV for over a decade, Connor has now spent the last six years at Ubisoft, which he says is a dream come true. “ I basically foster relationships with writers and directors and create the ideas that we think are interesting and will break through,” he says. Here are the takeaways from our conversation.
Conner Looks for a Strong Point of View
Conner reads a lot of writing samples in his search to find writers to adapt Ubisoft video games into film and TV properties. First and foremost, he says the main thing he’s looking for is a strong point of view. “We have never been interested in a one-for-one adaptation of any of our games. We’ve always wanted to use the games as a jumping-off point for you to tell the story you want to tell,” says Connor.
He says the more different or cool the writing sample is, the better. “Even a pilot script – you don’t have to think about the whole series, people will ask you about the whole series, but if you have a dynamite pilot sample, people will say, ‘Oh, this is awesome! She knows how to set up a world.’ It can be as big as you want.” To find out more about how to write for video games, click here.
So if a writer presents a sample with a strong voice and clear vision, Conner knows they will be more likely to take one of their videogame properties and develop it into something fresh and exciting. “As long as it feels within the world and tone of the game, anything is fair game,” he says.
Read More: How to Develop Your Voice as a Screenwriter
Opportunities for Female and Non-Binary Genre Writers
One of Ubisoft’s goals is to develop diverse voices through a fellowship that includes mentorship and access to Ubisoft’s library of IP. “It’s a non-exclusive, paid fellowship where we pick one woman for film and one woman for TV and basically give them access to our entire back catalog of games – as well as implore them to come up with an original idea should they want to,” he says.
Having female and diverse writers is important to create bold, exciting content, Conner says, but finding them can be difficult – even in Hollywood. “Every time we were looking for a female genre writer, we’d get the same five names. Why are only these people doing this? There’s more people out there!” says Connor who’s more than willing to go the extra mile to find them. In the first year of the program, they selected Mishna Wolff for the fellowship based on her writing sample. For IFC, Wolff went on to develop their first independent feature, Werewolves Within (based on the Ubisoft game of the same name).
Read More: Play Mechanics: Adapting Video Games For the Screen
Conner’s Advice to Writers
Conner says to keep these three words in mind when writing a sample: smart, commercial and unexpected. Whatever you write, a feature spec, a TV pilot, a podcast or a short story, it should absolutely tick off these three boxes.
On the more practical side of things, Conner encourages writers to, “Write all the time!” and get as much help from industry professionals – like the folks at Coverfly – as possible. “Try to get someone on your side – a manager, an agent, even if it’s just a friend who’s a manager.” He says this is important because it’s hard to go it alone and get access to development execs without someone who can get past the gatekeepers. Most companies, including Ubisoft, won’t accept unsolicited submissions for legal reasons.
His last bit of advice has to do with getting notes. “Through the development process, you will get notes, upon notes, upon notes,” he says. Learning how to navigate through that process of listening to and incorporating notes in your work is a skill that is imperative to have. “It’s a tough process, it can really beat you down. But it will help you and your script will only get better.”
Learn about Ubisoft’s TV and Film Fellowship for Women and read about past fellows.
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Author: Shanee Edwards
