[00:00:00] So today on Reality Coaching for Writers, the question is, do you want to be in the films? Do you want a movie? Do you want to turn your novel into a screenplay?
[00:00:10] Welcome Zena Dell Lowe. You are the guru, you are the the queen of this. And so tell the listeners a little bit about what you do, your background and why we have you on reality coaching for writers today.
[00:00:21] Well, thank you for having me on the show. Uh, I work in Hollywood. I am a producer, writer, and also I've done some acting, but mostly I am producing and screenwriting these days. And so I try to stay abreast on the happenings of Hollywood and what's going on there. And I'm working with a couple of companies now where we are actually acquiring material.
[00:00:46] So it's actually a really good opportunity for people if they know me or if they meet me at a conference or whatever, or they listen to your show. it might be a good time too to be submitting some project ideas, and my hope is to be able to give you a better rundown today of what Hollywood is actually looking for, what you would need to do to make your story right for Hollywood and some of the pitfalls to avoid some of the mistakes that a lot of Christian writers in particular make when it comes to trying to get their stories into Hollywood. So hopefully that'll be helpful.
[00:01:24] That is helpful because probably, um, I don't know, once every month or so with some of the clients I have, they'll come to me and ask me what do they have to do to get their novel into the screenplay?
[00:01:38] And, and you, and you've run into this, we've talked about this at conferences before, that the novelist is probably not the best person to write a screenplay. Uh, is that something that you've run into in, in your work?
[00:01:50] Absolutely. In fact, it's usually a mistake for most novelists unless they've actually trained, you know, formatting as an art form for screenplays is, is its own specialty.
[00:02:04] It took me years to get good at it, years to get good at it. So most people, unless they really have a heart for writing, for film and television, they shouldn't spend their time trying to learn it unless they really love it, because it is hard to master this. It isn't easy, and it would be better for them to wait for Hollywood to come to them because they're published and then Hollywood hires a screenwriter to adapt it because it's its own specialty. It's its own area. That's what I do. I do a lot of adaptations. That's what I'm, often hired to do.
[00:02:47] So, so ,let me, let me kind of jump in there, because I've got a client right now that, um, she's got a bible that that's what she wants to do.
[00:02:55] She wants to see it made into a screenplay and she wants to, you know, write the screenplay and all that.
[00:03:00] So, for her to pitch that concept, how does that, what's the process look like for that? I mean, if she's got the book finished and, you know, she's got a synopsis and all the stuff, she would normally go pitch the novel to a to an editor, an agent, how does she pitch that concept to someone like yourself?
[00:03:17] Okay, great. So here's the process and let's just talk about in Hollywood, what, what does Hollywood do?
[00:03:23] So first of all, when you're working with a production company, what happens is those producers are typically looking for good, viable projects, things that they think are marketable. And things that are going to do well in terms of recouping money on investment. That's one of the things you always have to remember when it comes to Hollywood. It is expensive to make a movie or a TV show. It is expensive. And so that narrows down right there, the kind of projects they're going to do.
[00:03:56] And unfortunately, a lot of Christians are actually writing the kind of projects that. I hate to say this because you know, I don't want to discourage anybody, but at the same time, we need to be realistic. There's certain genres that Hollywood just isn't interested in because it's too difficult to recoup the money on the investment.
[00:04:16] So unless it falls into a certain realm, first of all, it probably isn't going to be looked at. But here's the good news for novelists. It is all about risk minimization. That is what Hollywood is interested in, minimizing the risks. And so if, if you have clients that have published novels, they have already passed a test.
[00:04:43] See, Hollywood is always afraid, especially the people that are in charge, they're always afraid they're gonna be wrong, and they're gonna be the one left holding the bag and they're gonna be the one that gets fired. There's a real risk for that. And so, They want to know that somebody else has said "No, this is a good story."
[00:05:02] And one of the things that tells them that somebody else has said this is a good story is that it's published.
[00:05:08] Also, it minimizes risk because it means there's probably a little bit of a built-in audience. Already, it means somebody saw enough merit in it to actually publish it, and now there's probably an audience.
[00:05:22] So now you've got a couple of things supporting that project. So if you have a published, and I'm talking traditionally published, I don't mean self-published, unfortunately, self-published doesn't pass the test that Hollywood is looking for because again, they're looking for proof that the concept resonated with somebody else in a decision making position who then shares sort of the responsibility of whether or not that project is any good.
[00:05:54] And so it minimizes their own risk to say this is a good project. So if you have a traditionally published novel or even a memoir or whatever, but it was published in the traditional market and, and that that could be the Christian market too. But I mean, by a traditional publisher, not self-publishing, then you have a viable project that Hollywood probably would be interested in hearing about.
[00:06:22] So now the acid test becomes, or the question becomes, well, what do I do? How do you get it to them?
[00:06:27] Well, that's where it gets tricky, because on the one hand, it helps to know somebody. Hello. It helps to know somebody who works in Hollywood who knows different companies that are looking for different things.
[00:06:43] But if you don't, let's just say you don't. Well, that's when you have to do the same thing you would do if you worked, if you were trying to get your brand new novel or memoir, whatever published in, in Publishing World, you would have to do research.
[00:07:00] You'd have to look and see what kind of production companies were producing the kinds of things that seemed right for whatever your published material is, and then you would have to reach out, you'd have to get on their website, find out who the contact people would be, and send a blind email.
[00:07:20] You would not submit your work until they ask for it because that'll go straight in the garbage and it's a pain, and, and then you're out. You wouldn't do that.
[00:07:28] You would simply write a letter and say, "Hey, I have published a novel. It's here's, it's doing really well."
[00:07:37] Hopefully it's doing really well.
[00:07:38] "Here are some of the reviews I've gotten. Here's the basic story. You know, you. Give a log line really, really short, two to three sentence explanation and say that you're reaching out because you see that that particular production company seems to be doing work that you think would be right. Is there someone you could talk to or is this something that your company would have any interest in looking into further?"
[00:08:02] And the chances are, if they like that log line, somebody will reach out and say, "Well, let's set up a phone call."
[00:08:08] And then you'll have an opportunity to do a verbal pitch. And then they'll decide if they want to look at it. So that's kind of the process.
[00:08:16] It's, but it, it means you have to do the legwork and again, you need to have something published.
[00:08:25] So that's why, I often tell writers, novelists, don't spend the time trying to put it into a screenplay. That doesn't make it any more likely.
[00:08:36] In fact, it probably makes it less likely simply because you're probably not good enough to have adapted it well. It's better to just have your novel done, published the right way, and now that is your calling card.
[00:08:51] Your novel is your calling card. They want to adapt it if it's a good story.
[00:08:55] Right. Which is why the Crawdad's novel, got made into a movie, right?
[00:09:01] Correct.
[00:09:01] They're, you, you pass that test and they get interested in it. So switching gears a little bit.
[00:09:08] Sure.
[00:09:08] One of the things we wanted to talk about was what's, what's happening on the Christian side of filmmaking? With what's happened with The Chosen, The Jesus Revolution and what Dallas Jenkins and, and that group is doing.
[00:09:19] Can you speak to that a little bit about whether there are opportunities for Christian authors on that side?
[00:09:23] Absolutely. And and the answer is yes, there is a window right now. Now, here's why. Why? You have to always ask the question why.
[00:09:33] Well, the, the reason why is because there's money in it. The reason why is there is a market.
[00:09:40] Now, personally, I feel like we, we are getting better. We are getting better and we must continue to get better. We must continue to get better because right now most of the audience are just other Christians and it's very much preaching to the choir.
[00:10:01] And here's the truth, we're only as good as the stuff that we watch. The stuff that we consume, that's the, that becomes the bar of our own artistic merit.
[00:10:13] So we should be excellent. We should be the best of the best, and yet we're still pretty mediocre. Nevertheless, there are some of these projects that are getting better and better. And that's good news for us.
[00:10:27] And because they're profitable, there are departments in all major studios now that cater to a faith-based audience. The problem is they don't always know what that means.
[00:10:40] So to a lot of them faith-based might mean more children, you know, family friendly type stuff, which of course is fine, but they don't really know what that means in a lot of ways.
[00:10:53] But for example, my girlfriend, Leanne, is now working at CBS. And her department has just been put in charge of acquiring faith-based materials.
[00:11:07] She works at CBS Universal, which means, and it's an, and not necessarily just for shows that would show on CBS or shows that would be made for Universal, but rather they can also pitch to Amazon and Netflix and stuff like that. It's a pretty interesting way that that happens.
[00:11:27] But because they know it's marketable, they needed a department that was actively trying to acquire faith-based material.
[00:11:36] But the question is, what does that mean? And in my humble opinion, what we need to do is we need to get some rated R faith-based material in there, which I know might make a lot of your listeners squirm. But what I mean by rated R is adult content. We need some stuff that's, that's for adults, it's for mature audiences.
[00:11:58] It doesn't mean gratuitous nudity and cussing and anything like that. I just mean content suitable to adults, which is traditionally rated R. We need some, we need some better stuff besides just family friendly or we're gonna become irrelevant.
[00:12:14] So the, the, the, just taking it down the, the rated R path for just a second.
[00:12:19] Are you talking about maybe things that are more violent? I mean, when you just said that, I was sitting there thinking that, I dunno, probably 20% of the Bible would be rated R
[00:12:27] At least 20, 50%. Yeah. Or maybe 75%. I mean, you read anything in the Old Testament, it would be rated R.
[00:12:36] It's not just that, it's, there's violent
[00:12:39] content. I mean, the truth is, the Bible talks about incest, rape, you know, deceit, murder, all these things. That's rated R. That's content suitable to adults.
[00:12:54] Nevertheless, how we portray that would be the key. If we're doing Game of Thrones and we're hiring porn actresses to be naked and reenacting things in the background, now we've crossed a line.
[00:13:07] So we can't necessarily do that, but we should be able to create content that has to do with the real stuff that's going on.
[00:13:13] What happens is Christians tend to want to write positive, fluffy stuff as if that's going to change and impact the world, and the truth is the world is getting darker.
[00:13:26] Right now, I feel like the world has been progressively taking a turn into darkness, which means we can't, we can't combat the darkness with fluff. We've gotta combat the darkness with truth.
[00:13:40] And truth is, by nature, adult oriented it, it tells the truth about sin. It exposes sin at the very roots.
[00:13:50] And so a lot of the family friendly content is just feel good, but it's not actually penetrating the hearts and the minds of the people. It just is innocuous. It's non-offensive. It just feels good. But we might need to do some stuff that's a little more radical than that.
[00:14:06] It is really interesting what you're saying because on the Christian living non-fiction side, Uh, when I was, when Diana and I were looking at manuscripts and conferences for years, so much of what we, we was put in front of us was horror stuff.
[00:14:22] It was horror stories. Stories of, of women who have come out of horrific backgrounds. Stuff that if you were made into a film would be rated R, right? That's what sells a lot of times in the Christian living market because it does address exactly what you just said. It addresses real life issues and how did somebody come out of that, right?
[00:14:41] But on the fiction, side to your point, it's like we don't even talk about that in, in the storytelling side of it. Um, yeah, it's, it's really interesting. Well, before we run outta time, I wanted to throw one more thing at you and ask, ask your thoughts on this. Do you see any movement in the, what, what I would call either animation or the uh, cartoon side for kids. Cause we, we hit at kids a little bit, but is there anything coming down on the Christian side of things to where there's more kid-friendly Christian content? You know, where, let me ask you this way, as a kid, we have the little gumby thing where David and Goliath with little Gumby dolls dressed up and it was just, you know, stick figure stuff.
[00:15:20] But, you know, I remember watching it. Anything like that that you see coming down within the film industry for that?
[00:15:27] Well, you know, it is tricky because Disney is really ruining content for kids. In fact, I would encourage any of your listeners to boycott Disney. Disney has— they've gone off the rails.
[00:15:44] And they are so woke agenda. The ideology. They're putting trans stuff into everything. They are sexualizing kids. They are, I mean, they're rewriting history and telling lies about history in the name of critical race theory, but it's actually a reversal of history. It's not even true.
[00:16:05] It is so despicable what Disney is doing. And there are a lot of people that realize this. And the question then becomes, because Disney has had the corner on the market for kids for so long, now what?
[00:16:17] Well, there are some things coming out now. Of course, we've always had things like Larry the Cucumber and Bob the Tomato, you know, Veggie Tails, that sort of thing.
[00:16:29] They, they're great and they're at CBS Universal, but there are a number of different places now that have been really trying to develop some content for children.
[00:16:40] But there are some really good companies that are trying to do stuff for kids.
[00:16:46] The Daily Wire, they have earmarked a hundred million dollars towards children's programming. Now I think they're having difficulty finding viable projects to fulfill a slate of, of programming for kids because it is, a lot of people have pitched to them, but I don't think the ideas have been particularly thrilling and they want it to be very high, excellent content.
[00:17:16] But if you are looking for that there, there's new companies out there.
[00:17:20] My friend Frank just started a new company that was funded by Christians, particularly for this purpose, to be able to provide content to the children's market that combats what Disney's putting out.
[00:17:35] So yes, there are opportunities out there. And what I would encourage people if they have a story, because most people don't quite know what Hollywood's looking for, they certainly don't have an idea of how to get their story there.
[00:17:49] Have them contact me. Send me an email. Just send me an email and I'll do my best. I mean, I don't know how many listeners you have. If I get flooded, it might take me a little bit to get back to them, but nevertheless, they can run it by me and I can help at least direct them to the right place. Uh, off the top of my head, I can think of five or six places that are really looking for good children's content, but they have to be good.
[00:18:15] And I myself have been, um, optioning some material I just optioned. Um, coop knows the scoop. Uh, if you. Familiar with that and, um, trying to pitch that to a couple of places. And, uh, I've got some, some good opportunities there. So I'm looking for children's material also that I can pitch to some of these companies.
[00:18:39] So, you know, have your people reach out to me. I'd be happy to help as much as I can. I know that I can't give as much information as people would need in this limited amount of time. And it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. It's hard. But that's at least a step in the right direction. And yes, the, the short answer is, and I know I'm talking a lot, but the short answer is there are opportunities.
[00:19:00] There are windows here that are open for us that maybe have never been open before. Potentially because of the darkness in all of these other things. And there's a hunger and a thirst and a desire for good content. And it can be for children or it can be for adults. It just has to be true. It has to be powerful.
[00:19:21] It can't just be fluff. We don't have time for just fluff. Anymore. So if you have something like that and you think it's visual and it makes a good story, then they can reach out to me at [email protected]
[00:19:39] Last question and then we'll wrap up. How has AI impacted anything in what you do or has it?
[00:19:46] Interesting. Well, for me personally, it hasn't done much. I know that there are some people that have actually started to write stories with an AI. I don't get that because to me that feels very formulaic and cliche. I don't see how that would have any sort of depth or any weight. Or true characterization.
[00:20:15] Nevertheless, I know that there are people that are doing that. We'll have to wait and see if those stories are any good. Maybe, maybe it'll turn out the AIs write better stories than us. You never know. But it hasn't fully impacted me yet personally.
[00:20:31] I think a lot of people in entertainment do realize there's something sort of brilliant about the artist's mind and connections that are made and ways to put story together that maybe an AI just isn't a match for yet. But I could be wrong. I often am. It just hasn't impacted me fully yet.
[00:20:50] How about, how about on the technology side? Is AI still playing a big part on the AI side?
[00:20:53] Yes. And, and certainly that's more and more true as movies are getting made, the technology just keeps getting more and more advanced. It's pretty amazing, really.
[00:21:03] There is talk that at some point we won't even need actors. I don't know that that's gonna be true, but that everything will be an avatar and that's what we'll be, we'll be watching, but they'll look so real.
[00:21:21] So then, so then you'll have a Brad Pitt character who never ages because it's, it was never a real character in the first place. Just a movie star forever. I mean, there is talk about that on that end, which I think would be a real travesty.
[00:21:35] Oh, there you go. Now you've given me a story idea. So I'm thinking of Julia Roberts back in Notting Hill, where she's talking about, you know, doing the physical, you know, stuff.
[00:21:44] And I'm thinking maybe that's the future of a story is, you know, you've got a mid 30 actor now, actress, now. And she's already pitching her avatar. She's already lining it up so that she can, she can act forever. She just has to do the voiceovers. She's 80. As long as she can maintain her voice, she still looks good.
[00:22:02] And you know, she's still making, making movies, you know, she doesn't have to worry about aging out. Um, You know, something like that.
[00:22:09] Zena, thank you so much for joining us today on Reality Coaching for Writers. You've been a blessing to Diana and I over the years and the work you're doing, and we are gonna feature this show and, and get people to contact you.
[00:22:22] One last question, then I'll let you go. So if there's one key for a story that if an author was going to pitch to you or pitch all this that we've heard today, what is the one thing that you would tell them that a story needs before somebody's really gonna be interested in it?
[00:22:40] Okay, well, a great character. I mean, you need a great character. You have to have a great character. The the catch is that when you pitch it in a short form, you can't actually get into too many of the nuances of that character. But essentially it all comes back to whether or not it's a great character.
[00:22:59] And if it's a great character, then all of a sudden there's interest. It's what connects the audience to the story. It's what allows for, you know, Hollywood is definitely looking for franchises. They want to be able to have a sequel and then another sequel, or they want to be able to have another season if it's a TV series.
[00:23:18] And the only way that that's possible is if there's a great character. So make sure you have a great character.
[00:23:25] I do want to say
[00:23:25] If there is someone out there listening to this who is interested in learning how to write for screenplay, because I love it. I mean, I absolutely love writing with this formatting, but they need to learn the basics. I have a class called Formatting as an Artform.
[00:23:42] I believe it's the most comprehensive class on screenplay formatting in existence. I think it is so good. Susan May Warren took it. Said that it was the best class on screenplay writing she'd ever seen. And she's read all the books and, and she's written 90 novels, and yet she still took my course and absolutely was blown away by it.
[00:24:05] So I really think it's good and I would recommend people check it out and it's on sale right now. So it's a good time to get in on it. If they're interested, they can go to the website, https://thestorytellersmission.com and find out more about formatting as an art form.
[00:24:21] And we will add that link to the end of this podcast.
[00:24:24] So thank you very much. Zena, loved having you on here. Hope to catch you at a conference sometime soon.
[00:24:29] Thank you for having me.
