Reader Question: What about selling a synopsis to Hollywood?

An open forum question via email from Dave:

There's been quite a discussion going on over at twelvepoint.com, via twitter, shooting people, etc., about selling one-page synopses, or just one-sentence ideas to Hollywood.

There are plenty of anecdotes about producers buying ideas for hit movies for large sums of money. People like Robert Kosberg at http://www.moviepitch.com/, sites such as http://www.buymymovieidea.net/index.html and http://www.tvfilmrights.com/WriterIntro.asp all claim to be in the business of buying synopses rather than completed screenplays.

What's your take on the viability of the one-pager or a logline as a commodity, i.e., not as a pitch for a finished screenplay or a means of soliciting a writing gig, but simply as a stand-alone product? Is there a realistic chance of selling ideas to Hollywood if you're not an established A-list writer?

By the way, I'm aware of the fact that you can't copyright an idea, what I'm talking about here is an idea fleshed out into a brief synopsis, perhaps max. 500 words, or articulated in a carefully composed logline (or both...).

Sure, you can sell a treatment. The question is where does the money go? Answer: Not much your way. I don't have direct experience with this on the scripted side of things, but re non-scripted TV, networks pay anywhere from $10-25K for series concepts. That may seem like a decent amount of money, but if the thing actually goes to series, you're looking at an overall budget of anywhere from $2-10M. I would think you'd be looking at a similar, if not greater disparity on the feature film side.

The larger point is that this approach -- selling a story concept -- devalues the importance of the concept. A great concept defines everything about the movie - from script development, casting, production, and marketing. If you opt to sell the concept -- and let's say it's for $50K -- that is still a tiny fraction of what the concept (if it's a good one) is worth to a movie studio.

As someone who has spent nearly every day of the last two decades generating story ideas for possible pitches and scripts, I have some idea about how hard it is to come up with a great concept. If you have one that you think is good enough to sell as a concept, then why not write it on spec as a full-length screenplay? You not only maximize the possible financial return (a spec script sale is a lot more money than what you'd get for a story treatment), you also afford yourself more protection. That is if you pitch a producer a story concept, even present them a 1-page treatment, what's to prevent them from saying, "Gee, sorry, we already have that idea in development" and simply ripping off the idea? With a 100-page spec script, you put flesh on the bones of your concept, which makes the submission process much safer.

Of course, this assumes you are a writer. If you're not and you come up with a great story concept, before you head off to sell the idea, why not try to find a screenwriter with whom you can work on a spec script? You agree to give you a "story by" credit for some specified percentage of the upfront sale.

I'd like to hear from GITS readers on this. Have you ever shopped story concepts to a producer? Would you consider it? Why? Why not?

But again, my instinct would be to do the work and write a spec script -- to maximize the possible financial benefit and give yourself - and your story concept - the most protection.

NOTE: Speaking of story concepts, starting April 1st GITS will have a new series of posts: "A Story Idea Per Day for a Month." Every day during April, I will be posting a news item that could be the basis of a movie. Hopefully an informative series to spur your own creativity and inspire you to become more dedicated to generating story ideas.