Short Stories For Making Short Films
Eduviges Gearlds
Scott Glassgold founded management and production company Ground Control, and has made a splash recently with a number of high-profile short story sales done in partnership with Verve, including The Dwelling to Amazon (with Michael B. Jordan producing), I Am Not Alone (with Misha Green attached to write/direct and Jessica Chastain to star), My Wife & I Bought a Ranch and We Used to Live Here to Netflix, Caretaker to Universal (with Sydney Sweeney attached and Michael Bay producing), I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying to Kill Me to Sony 3000, Wilderness Reform to Paramount and The Occupant to New Line.
First and foremost for me is the concept, the big idea. If we've done that first part right with the story by making sure its very well written and it has a big idea, I can then go to the highest level of screenwriter, the highest level of actor, and share it with them and take it to the market.
At the end of the day, you're pitching something that more often than not lends itself to a big idea, right? The litmus test before it even leaves my door is, can it be clearly articulated in a way that an idea can be distinctly understood in a matter of sentences? If it's not, it's probably not well suited for a short story. If I have to tell you my big idea and it takes me two paragraphs, it's not a big idea. [laugh]. It could be a cool idea and it could be a cool movie, but it's certainly not something that you could hand on a platter.
Some of the best editing I got on my book was from my agent, a group who in my mind are underappreciated in this regard. A good agent or manager has to be a good editor. If you're just a salesman then you're only gonna do so much in this business.
You did an interview with Brian Grazer, who is a hero of mine. He's been doing it in comedy for years. He did it with Splash. He did it with Liar Liar. Those are ideas that came from him that they built out into films. Both of those movies are perfect examples of things that could have been a short story, right? Nothing would make me happier than to grow our model into comedy as well.
It's something we're having ongoing conversations about. We've been approached by publishers about doing an anthology of our latest stories and curating and doing a regular anthology. It's all part of our growing this model. The key is, are we curating and developing stories for book first, or are we still continuing with our model of film and television and then simultaneously bringing those to the publishing? But the short answer is yes.
It\u2019s quite a run. So I thought Scott would be the perfect guide to better understand what\u2019s going on in this space. We had a really interesting chat about how he became a short story maven; what makes the short story model work, especially for writers without an established track record; the joys of discovering new talent and what genres he\u2019d like to tackle beyond horror. I wanted to share highlights of our conversation because he does a good job of illuminating this corner of the IP market.
After graduating from George Washington, Glassgold\u2019s first jobs in Hollywood were at Disney and New Line. He then moved into producing independent films starting with 2009\u2019s Hurricane Season, the Forest Whitaker-Isaiah Washington sports drama, set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina. That film led to him developing relationships with writers and directors and founding Ground Control in 2015, where he zeroed in on developing short films as springboards to film deals. He mainly focused on horror, partnering in 2019 with Sony genre label Screen Gems to create the Horror Lab to facilitate the process.
Scott Glassgold: Part of that model was developing short films, conceptualizing them and using them as springboards into getting a film deal. The crowning achievement of that model \u2014 we sold many shorts over the years \u2014 was a movie called Prospect with Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher that had a very long tail as their stars rose. People are still finding it. That\u2019s a movie I'm very proud of, and that's a movie that started as a short film that debuted at South by Southwest and then three years later we were back with the feature film. It was our proof of concept. It's very much a model I believe in. It's a great way to give filmmakers an opportunity to show what they can do and show the vision for their work.
The premise behind any short film was that it wasn't just a calling card, but it was a transactional piece of IP. That\u2019s what Prospect was. The short film was the IP for the feature film. There\u2019s been a lot of success in the horror space. There was Prospect and Smile was another short that became a feature film. That was always the premium I would put on any short that I took on \u2014 great that it demonstrated ability, but simultaneously, did it have the DNA to be a feature film? Just to make sure I'm addressing your question \u2014 the short film in of itself is really difficult to monetize beyond parlaying it into an option or a sale to a studio.
In many ways it's taking the model of short films to a different medium. Not to diminish the short film, but in many ways for our approach, it's far more user-friendly. Even to your point about sunk costs, it\u2019s different. Technically, outside of sweat equity, it's not hard to create a short story. You can have much bigger scope. You can do far more refinements, right? You can edit. You can constantly tinker until you get there. Beyond that, when we\u2019re making a short film, it\u2019s most likely a first-time director, and with that comes a ceiling on how big you can build out these packages. Inevitably that director wants to remain the director, rightfully so. But that has its limitations in the market.
What I find just as rewarding is in that situation where an emerging prose writer has written a short story \u2014 if it was the equivalent of a short film, people would say, \u201CHey, that's cool, but we want someone else to write or direct it.\u201D In these instances, in addition to the success of selling the short story to a film company, we retain publishing rights and the writer can then go off and write the novel adaptation of their short story. So in addition to [it] obviously being lucrative, they are able to continue doing what they do according to their skillset, meaning prose writing, and they get to continue on the project without feeling like they\u2019re becoming a bystander, which was often a third rail of the short films. I really do believe in the short film model, but when we were doing science fiction it required bigger budgets and that's when it became a harder pill to swallow for financiers or otherwise to keep on these first-time directors.
The short story is hyper-focused on either the concept or the narrative, whereas a novel, given its space, can ramble. Ramble isn't even the right word \u2014 it can explore other nooks and crannies of world or character. Whereas our version of the short story is very hyper-focused on a narrative. There\u2019s exceptions where we\u2019re giving snapshots to a world where the world has changed elements or is so extraordinary that it\u2019s just as crucial as telling the story from the beginning to end.
I put the emphasis not on finding material, but on finding voices, on finding original fresh voices who we can work together with to build a story. There are exceptions. The Query Brothers came in white hot with My Wife and I Bought a Ranch [sold to Netflix with screenwriter Harrison Query adapting brother Matt\u2019s short story], and that thing was just fucking awesome. They're extraordinarily confident and they are the exception. More often than not, it's meeting a writer who's really talented and asking, \\\"What are you working on?\\\" And then you start building from there. Finding the unique voice is where it all begins. In terms of looking \u2014 it's anywhere and everywhere is the short answer, really. And hopefully where nobody else is looking. [Laughs]
At the end of the day, it still is a big idea town. I think the ability to present big ideas in a way that is very clear and crystallized but is not within the confines of IP that's spoken for, I feel like that has a little bit to do with what's exciting about all this \u2014 I truly believe we're creating IP. I know that sort of can be considered a dirty word because it gets put in the bucket of toys or other things. But I think that's what's so exciting about it\u2014 a writer from the middle of the country who's had no industry success whatsoever, can come up with an idea and we can grow it literally to the highest level of talent in town and we're simultaneously turning it into a book. I mean, that's truly the seeds of IP, and the fact that this short story allows you to do that, I think is really fun.
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