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THURSDAY – DEC 1 – IS THE DEADLINE FOR THE HIGH CONCEPT SHOWDOWN!
SUBMISSION DETAILS HERE!
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We are just about 24 hours away from the deadline to the High Concept Showdown. This has got me thinking about ‘concept’ and what kind of concepts get people to read scripts. Because, as I like to remind screenwriters, screenwriting is a numbers game. But it’s a numbers game you can win if you play the numbers right.
You simply do whatever you can to increase the number of people who read your script. The number one way to do that outside of having an agent hawking your script all over town, is to come up with a concept that intrigues people enough that they request your script. Too many writers skip this part of the process. Or they put their fingers in their ears and scream “lalalalaalalallalaal” so they don’t have to deal with it. They’d rather write whatever they want and deal with the potential downsides of a weak concept later.
Don’t do that!
A couple of days ago, I read a script from a young writer. Talented guy. Good with dialogue. He made interesting creative choices that gave his script an unpredictable narrative. But I had a talk with him afterwards and I told him, straight up, that promoting this script is going to be difficult (but not impossible) because it doesn’t have an obvious hook. It doesn’t have that juicy concept that gets a lot of people requesting the script. And, as we established, less requests means less of a chance that someone falls in love with it and wants to make it.
As I was explaining this to him, something occurred to me. The idea of a “hook” has changed over the years. By the way, the difference between a concept and a hook is that a concept is the whole enchilada – your whole idea. Whereas a hook is a component of the concept. It’s the part that gets potential readers/viewers excited.
So, if you look at the concept for Cocaine Bear, it would be, “A rural town is upended when a bear gets into a stash of ditched cocaine and becomes a raging predator, determined to take down anyone in its path.” That whole thing is the concept. But the actual hook is just a bear high on cocaine. As soon as the reader sees that, that’s the reason they want to read the script. (by the way, if you have this script, SEND IT TO ME! – carsonreeves1@gmail.com)
So, back in the day, a “hook” was synonymous with “high concept.” Aliens coming to earth to kill us all (Independence Day), a dinosaur theme park (Jurassic Park), a kid who can see dead people (Sixth Sense). There was an expectation that a movie had to feel BIG in order to get that “hook” label. That’s not the case anymore. Our entertainment becomes more fractionated every day. Big movies are relegated to a few key franchises.
This has expanded the definition of hook and it’s important to understand this new definition because, again, a hook is the reason someone wants to open your script. You don’t have to have the most amazing high concept in the world to get someone to request your screenplay. But you certainly need a hook. So let’s look at what that means in 2022.
The most obvious hook-y ideas are high concept ideas. These include the ones I mentioned above. It also includes movies like The Hunger Games, Inception, Don’t Look Up, Finch, and A Quiet Place.
The next class of ‘hook’ is ideas that have that one flashy element you can build a marketing campaign around (a poster and a trailer). The overall story doesn’t have to be some giant concept. You just need that poster-worthy element. Remember, all studios care about is people showing up. So the primary thing they’re concerned about is an idea that GETS PEOPLE TO SHOW UP. So any flashy item that achieves this is enough. Snakes on a Plane. Twister. Cocaine Bear. X. An evil smile (Smile).
The ‘cool idea’ hook is our third type. These are hooks where the overall movie idea itself is fun, interesting, or clever in some way. These movies usually take place in the real world. They don’t have anything fantasy-related or sci-fi related about them. They’ve just got a fun premise that captures your interest. This would be movies like Good Will Hunting, Knives Out, Parasite, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Hurt Locker.
The fourth class of hook is NAME BRAND RECOGNITION. This one has sort of always been around. But it’s increased in value recently. This hook includes anything in the world, past or present, that has some popular recognition. The idea here is that people will show up to watch things they know. This includes biopics (Elvis). It includes well known true stories (a movie about D-Day, for example). House of Gucci, the Dahmer series. I would even place “Once Upon a Time In Hollywood” in this category since it was promoted as a movie that indirectly covered Charles Manson. Lesser known real people or true stories do not fall into this hook category by the way. Bling Ring – no hook. Breaking (John Boyega movie based on a true story) – no hook.
The final and newest class of ‘hook’ is, in a way, a false hook. I’m not convinced that audiences care about this hook. But industry people are obsessed with it and since they’re the ones who can make your movie happen, impressing them is all that matters. And this is the social hook. It’s building your movie around a social issue. She Said. Fruitvale Station. Hidden Figures. Do The Right Thing. The Crying Game. All social hooks.
And yes, there is occasionally crossover with “Social Hooks” and “Name Brand Recognition Hooks.” Crossover is fine. Actually, you can crossover between all five of these with a single idea. But you need at least one hook element to hook a reader.
To that end, what does a movie idea without a hook look like? Unfortunately, we don’t usually see movies without hooks because a major reason the movie was able to get made was that it had a hook. If it doesn’t have one, it doesn’t get made. Sometimes, artsy writer-directors can get non-hook movies made because the movie is greenlit for them, not their idea. A few examples would include Nomadland, Cha-Cha Real Smooth, Columbus, Causeway, and Palmer. Some of you are probably saying, “I’ve never even heard of those movies.” And that may be the best example of why not having a hook is such a problem.
In order to gain a little more clarity over this, here are some movies and their hooks.
She Said – A social hook and a NAME RECOGNITION hook. The movie is about the #metoo movement as well as Harvey Weinstein. A good example of why social hooks are great for studio executives but not so great for audiences.
Nope – Nope definitely has a hook. I would put it in the first category. High concept hook. A group of people on a horse farm believe that an alien entity in the sky is stalking them.
The Whale – This is an interesting one because it does have a unique element to it that could arguably sell a film – a 600 pound man. There’s never been a movie before about a 600 pound man. So it does have some marketing value to it. But this is an example of how having a hook doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good hook. On the “hook” scale, this is probably between a 6 and a 7 out of 10.
The Social Network – A good example of a NAME BRAND RECOGNITION hook. This was in the early days of Facebook so everyone was curious about Facebook at the time. It marketed itself.
Good Time – This movie doesn’t have a hook. A guy is trying to get his brother back and if he fails, his brother goes to jail. It takes place within 24 hours and speeds things along at an insane clip. But just as an idea? It doesn’t really have a hook. Trying to save someone is such a common setup for a movie that it’s not enough. Which is why, even though it’s a great movie, nobody was interested in checking it out.
Nightcrawler – This is another tough one because the world of late-night blood-chasing indie news vans was certainly an unknown world at the time. So it did have that unique element. But a clue as to whether something has a legit hook or not is how much the marketing campaign leans into the actor playing the role rather than the idea itself. Their whole marketing campaign for this movie was built around Jake Gylenhaal. Not what he was doing.
Ladybird – This one had a negative hook. Almost all coming-of-age scripts do. If you’re trying to break in as a screenwriter, stay away from these. They only get made if you’re the director and someone decides to finance the film. Although writer-directors can get them made.
The Big Short – Yes, this one would fall under BRAND NAME RECOGNITION. The 2008 financial collapse was a big enough event to create marketing recognition. With that said, it wasn’t the highest scoring hook. People eventually went to see it because of the actors. But graded as a hook alone, it was probably a 6 out of 10.
If all of this confuses you, take a step back and internalize what I’m about to say: Just write something you can honestly imagine people paying money to see. Where writers get into trouble is when they only write ideas that interest them, never considering the audience. Those are the ideas that tend to lack hooks.
Will be interesting to see which of your ideas hooked me tomorrow. HIGH CONCEPT SHOWDOWN is 24 HOURS AWAY!!!
Get A Screenplay Consultation from Carson! – Do you want me to look at your script? Tell you how it stacks up against the other 10,000 scripts I’ve read? How it stacks up against all the scripts being sent around town? Is it up to par with those scripts? Is it better than those scripts? Is it not as good? If so, what’s wrong? How can you fix it? This is my area of expertise so if you’ve been thinking about getting a consultation, now is the time to do so! I can give you $50 off if you mention this article. E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com to get started!
