CAA agent Julia Glausi always knows when she wants to help a script get made: “When I read something, if I immediately have ideas on how to be helpful, I know I have to work on it.”
Glausi — a media finance agent at Creative Artists Agency — spoke this past weekend at a Filmquest panel in Provo, Utah called “Packaging and Financing,” where she gave moviemakers some insights on what types of scrips are being made into TV shows and movies.
“I kind of think like a producer,” she said. “If I have ideas on who should be reading this, or if I have ideas on how to put this together, then I know it’s something I want to work on.”
To the delight of the filmmakers in attendance, she said financiers are fairly interested lately in independent genre films.
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“I know right now, high-concept, low-budget is the thing,” she said. “Coming up with an idea that can be made with the resources at your disposal is probably the way to think about it.”
Glausi cited Palm Springs as an example of the kind of high-concept, relatively inexpensive film that is especially appealing now. Now on Hulu, the film was budgeted for $4 million dollars, but sold for a record $17,500,000.69 million at Sundance.
She added that 18 months into the pandemic, “right now I think it’s tougher for movies that are a little heavy, or bleak.” But she added that there’s still plenty of interest in horror.
“Don’t write for what’s next _ by the time it’s written, times have changed,” she cautioned. “You can be more creative with genre though, and all the buyers want horror.”
And she offered some timeless advice.
“I service projects,” she said. “Get in touch with producers, work for or around agents, and build a list of readers.”
