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Why
Option Free TV?
While the
television market is more wide open than ever, with everyone and their
beautiful, blond daughter believing they have created the next hit
reality show, the stakes for investing production companies is higher
than ever. Maybe you hear a good idea, but wonder if you will be
able
to sell it to a network. With Option Free TV, you can
significantly
reduce the up front risk because you can shop these ideas OPTION
FREE.
That's right, you can have exclusive rights to shop the project listed
her for up to sixty days without paying an option fee. That gives
you
an opportunity to determine market and interest for such material
before risking your precious resources.
After
the
sixty day period, you can negotiate additional time and in most cases,
if there are not competing concerns wishing to exercise a free option
on the material, you can have a sixty day extention and continue to
shop the project. If, after the 120 day option you wish to
consider
additional option, then it would be negotiated like any other
option.
If the project is sold within the sixty or one hundred twenty day
period, then financial negotiations will begin.
That's
how
we make our living. I once heard a real estate agent say, "I'm
not in
the business of showing houses, I'm in the business of selling
houses". That's exactly how I feel about my work. I can
spend
thousands of dollars on pitch festivals to market and advertisie my
work while the production executives agonize over whether or not to
invest in an idea, or I can simply save that money and wait for the big
payoff. That payoff is a larger ownership of the profits after
the
project is picked up by a network.
How
can I
offer option free tv? I worked for a major Los Angeles studio for
5
1/2 years and the industry has been VERY good to me. I don't need
a
few hundred dollars here and there. I've decided to employ one of
the
oldest, best accepted practices of investment, the bigger the risk, the
bigger the potential reward. I'm all about
waiting for the big payday and I'll risk and/or trade the small payday
for a shot at the big one every time.
In 2006, we introduced our very first screenplay and tv scriptwriting
contest and I was excited that we received over two hundred
entries. Click here, or on the contest link in the left navigation bar to
see our first group of winners for the optionfreetv writing contest.
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