HIGH CONCEPT

Skip Press, in Writer’s Guide to Hollywood Producers, Directors and Screenwriter’s Agents, defines high concept as a short statement of the basic idea of a movie, which can often be expressed in the title. As an example he offers “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein”.

A basic source for understanding how the term high concept is used to pitch story ideas in Hollywood is Robert Kosberg’s “The Bottom Line of High Concept” chapter in his book, How To Sell Your Idea to Hollywood. Kosberg credits the idea of high concept to Barry Diller and Michael Eisner. They created the term when they were young executives at ABC in the late sixties working to promote TV Movies.

“Diller and Eisner had to devise a way to grab attention in a TV Guide listing with just one or two lines. That’s how the term high concept originated. To capture an audience, that one sentence had to convey just how exciting, sexy, provocative, and entertaining the movie was going to be for them to watch.”

Because of the limited space a TV program was allocated in TV Guide, an exciting log line had to be created that would interest the reader, “hook them”, and get them to watch your TV program instead of one on another station. The program’s story had to be expressed using only its most exciting parts.

What is the difference between a logline and a high concept? It is best to think of a logline as a humdrum high concept, and a high concept as an exciting logline. Both are one sentence statements about the essence of your story.

Kosberg states that, “The essence of high concept is that it is both brief and provocative. It piques the imagination and promises that big things are going to happen out of an ordinary situation.” A high concept is not limited to any specific genre, but can be used to promote a comedy, drama, action/adventure, horror or fantasy project. It is meant to excite the audience, to tease them into wanting to see more. It is not so much a story design or writing tool as a marketing and selling gimmick.

For the screenwriter, the high concept statement of your project is a one line sentence intended to excite the producer to whom you are trying to sell your story. Your objective is to get him to read your script, or to buy your script, or to take your project up one level higher in the studio food chain. How do you excite a producer or studio executive? Simple! You appeal to his greed. Studio executives are in the jobs they have because they want to produce movies that make money. When pitching a story idea, you must understand the psychology of the studio executive. You are asking them to put at least $50 million into your project. Since the collapse of the NASDAQ Stock Market, $50 million is once again a lot of money. To justify that type of expenditure he is going to have to make back at least 2.5 times his investment. This means that your project must gross at least $125 million. So you have to persuade him that your story has that kind of box-office potential.

So how do you do that? Well the easiest way is to tell him that it is very much like another picture that has recently grossed over $125 million, but much better! Your project is just like yesterday’s megahit movie, only different, but different in a way that will generate more money than the previous film. Kosberg states, “remember, when you’re pitching these ideas, executives are looking at both how commercial they are and how unique they are. An idea should be like something successful that’s been done before and markedly different at the same time. Alike yet different.”

Your project will not be commercially viable for the producer or studio executive unless he has another popular movie to which it can be compared. The screenwriter must understand that there are only a very few people in Hollywood that can actually give the “green light” to a studio feature film production. The rest of the development executives are there to listen to pitches and read scripts in the hope of finding a viable commercial project that they can take up to the next level. They will not pitch your project to their boss unless they think he will want to make it, and take it up still another level in the studio. You must excite him, and make him believe that your project has the potential of becoming the next megahit.

So how do you design a high concept for your story? First start by looking at a list of films that have grossed over $150 million in the last five to ten years. These lists are available from Variety and the Hollywood Reporter, or on www sites such as Mr. Showbiz and Box Office Guru. Why only the last five to ten years? Because what the audience likes changes. What was popular ten years ago may no longer be popular today. So it is best to look at only those blockbusters made in the last few years. Find a film that you personally enjoyed, and is in some respects similar to your story. It can’t be identical, because then the studio executive will tell you that it has already been done. What you have to do is place the story into a different context. The classic examples of high concepts are takeoffs of the Bruce Willis Die Hard movies, starting with “Die Hard in an Office Skyscraper” to “Die Hard on a Luxury Cruise Liner” to “Die Hard on a Jumbo Jet Airplane”, etc, etc, etc…

The point is to establish a reference film for the Studio Executive so that he can visualize your story and see its commercial potential. When you write the script, it will not be identical to the original Die Hard movie and Bruce Willis will not star in the project, but you will have gotten the studio executive excited, which was the motivation of the pitch. He has to be able to visualize the story in a way that will make it easy for him then to turn around and pitch it to his boss. Use only successful films! You defeat your objective if you tell the executive that your story is just like a movie that bombed and was pulled out of the theaters after the first weekend. Can you blame a producer for not wanting to put $50 million into that project? If you pitch “Ishtar in Salt Lake City” as the high concept for your movie, it will not take you where you want to go.

Another way of creating a high concept project is that instead of taking one successful movie and placing it into a different context, link together the titles of two successful movies. Kosberg states, “by merging two contemporary movie titles that are immediately recognizable—X meets Y—you come up with a brand-new brainchild, a high-concept Z.” For example, “The Terminator meets The Men in Black” would be a new high concept, as would “Pretty Woman meets the Apollo 13” for some out of space fun. You could also try to pitch “Mission Impossible meets Forrest Gump” or “Big Daddy meets Notting Hill” for two “fish-out-of-water” stories. Finally, if you run out of imagination, you can always pitch “Lethal Weapon 2 meets Lethal Weapon 3” as your high concept of the week.

Some high concepts use popular or famous books in their statement instead of movies. For example, the movies Batman and MIB were adaptations of popular comic characters. “Jurassic Park” and “Jaws” are inherently high concept projects because they were based on popular novels. This establishes a reference for the producer, and gives him confidence that there will be a market for the movie.

Besides connecting your story to a recently popular film, you should cast it with a bankable actor and actress. This will help to make your project more exciting for the executive. Read James Ulmer’s Hollywood Hot List: The Complete Guide to Star Rankings, and cast your movie. His year 2000 list ranks the top ten stars to be Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Brad Pitt, Meg Ryan, Leonardo DiCaprio and Will Smith. If any of these stars can be cast as the protagonist for your script, they will enhance your chances of selling the project. The name of the star alone will not make your project a high concept property, but it will increase your chances of getting the movie made.

Always remember, when pitching high concepts to studio executives, true originality is out and greed is in!

If your project is really original and unique, the executives will not know how to market it. This is unfortunate, but that’s the way Hollywood Studios operate. Kosberg believes that, “Science fiction and fantasy score well when combined with comic elements…the studios are looking to make films that have cross-over appeal or that will attract a wide audience margin. It should come as no surprise that the majority of movies currently made are contemporary comedies set in urban centers about adults.”

Audience identification with your protagonist is essential for commercial success. The members of the audience must become emotionally involved with the hero and the love interest in your story. This is often accomplished if you make them be ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Put a normal person into a bizarre situation. But ultimately it is not “character studies” that are high concept movies. Kosberg believes that “when it is time for the studio to decide whether they want to buy your idea or not, its plot is going to be more important than character growth. But characters do not sell in the pitch meeting. Premises sell.” To this I would add, it is a well structured story that can be related to a commercially successful film that will close the deal.

Skip Press believes that “it is difficult to pitch any movie, much less line up a pitch meeting, without a high concept…So polish up on your high concept. You might sell your project without it, but you’ll be in the minority.”