You've finished a draft or two, maybe three, or even a dozen drafts of your screenplay. Now what?
The problem writers and filmmakers face upon finishing the often enormous task of writing their best screenplays is finding pathways to bring those scripts to the screen. In Leaning Into Genius, I teach you about the many pathways that lie before you and how to package your project for each.
Most "how to break in" resources will tell you what to do — submit to competitions, apply to labs, and find financing. What they rarely tell you is how to do these things —
How to craft a logline that earns a read.
How to write application materials that stand out among thousands of others.
How to package a project so a producer or financier takes you seriously.
And for those who have pathways to getting their work financed and made but are struggling with producer or studio development notes, my consultation work and Precision Writing (invite only) are targeted, one-on-one session packages where the goals are specific to your needs —
Why remain in perpetual development?
What if all that’s missing is exactness?
What if there’s a higher need to conform to certain patterns, conventions, or standards of genre, budget, or the slate of films for which yours is a part?
Competition and lab programs require a specific kind of writing — not screenwriting, but writing about your screenwriting. A logline that’s industry standard. A short and long synopsis that does justice to a 110-page script. Application questions designed to filter out writers who haven't done the work. The skills that make a great screenplay don't automatically translate. They're different muscles.
Financing — whether private equity, studio, or hybrid — requires a packaged project. A film deck. A budget. A clear visual language. A producing team, or at least the foundations of one. Attachments, comp titles —
The work of building this package is what separates writers who keep waiting for someone to discover them from writers whose projects move.
And packaged projects in studio development require writers and filmmakers to have the fortitude to see that the work isn’t over, but only just begun. The goals have changed — narrowed — and a higher level of focus is necessary to go from financed or non-financed development to seeing their work on the screen, or stepping on set, for that matter.
Whereas most development help, teaching, consulting, or coaching tells you to do these things, Leaning Into Genius and my consulting work intuitively do these things with you, giving method to the madness of film development hell.
Filmmakers Taylor Hinds and Savannah Sivert went from finished draft to collaboration with producers in four months. Filmmaker Jess Berry used the process to gain acceptance into the Proof Film Festival Development Lab. Filmmaker and writing coach Izzy Stevens went from a finished horror script to collaborating with a producing partner and becoming a Finalist in the Stowe Story Labs NYX Horror Collective Fellowship —
Those whom I consult with work on projects for their agents and managers, or major companies like Disney, Hulu, and commercial brands.
And, as a filmmaker, I used Leaning Into Genius to process and package my own project for the Film Independent Producers Lab 2024.
Over four months, we build the full package for your project: logline, synopses, pitch deck, lookbook, target lists for competitions and labs, query letters for producers and managers, and a strategic roadmap matched to your specific project's strengths. We work on the materials. We work on how to use them. By the end, you have what you need to move — and you've practiced the actual conversations.
You can sit on a great script for eternity. Take action instead with Leaning Into Genius -
Schedule a free 20-minute consultation to discuss the full Leaning Into Genius coaching engagement.