Ever wonder why certain film projects gain rapid acceptance by the industry, while others languish in development? Or why the lists of talent attachments that excite - or turn off - film financiers, sales agents, studio greenlighters and acquisition scouts seem governed by their own confounding logic?
The answers to those and so many other filmmaking mysteries lie in a professional evaluation process that gauges all manner of moving parts to anoint those most likely to succeed. Anticipation of audience tastes plays just one part in that decision-making matrix. Also in the mix are a host of business-to-business metrics that include performance data, track records, market dynamics, awards recognition, budget/genre considerations and an accumulation of collective industry wisdom regarding team combinations, execution potential and talent credentials.
In short, we all get scored.
Historically, all that institutional judgment has been siloed away in industry heads. As executives, we lean on our years of interpretative experience and then seek corroboration from supporting data and the opinions of our trusted networks. Valuable as the resulting information can often be, it also creates a climate of inconsistency and uncertainty across the industry. Temperature readings on talents and their ideas are so variable and subject to change that even those at the heart of the gatekeeping business resort to games of industry whispers and second-guesswork.
If only we could create a more systematic and reliable first read of the relative strength of film projects, filmmaking talents and film companies as they might be measured by their business peers. Well, that’s the ambition of Slated’s “Credits Scores” and “Packaging Scores” being introduced today in their nascent form.
Our scores are the first concerted attempt at a points-based system that reflects how our industry weighs up what’s being pitched to them at any given time. Over time, those scores will become refined enough to also help filmmaking teams determine the credibility of investors and distribution entities - insights that become more pressing as the business escalates across the globe. The many other ‘star’ metrics out there that are certainly entertaining, and occasionally eye-opening, but their primary purpose is to measure celebrity and power status at just the consumer end - a ranking hierarchy that inevitably shortchanges the critical roles of screenwriters, producers, executives, brokers and below-the-line artisans in turning a potent story into a fully financed reality.
No doubt, our debut scores will stir up some intense industry feedback. But as you read through this FAQ explanation of our scoring system mechanics, keep in mind that this is as much an iterative work-in-progress as the film business itself. Drawing on the available troves of data compiled by our partners at Baseline, we went to great computational lengths to synthesize the way the film business measures itself. But it is just a start. Slated will be forever refining its chosen metrics and data inputs to better approximate the industry’s own shifting preferences and sentiments. The scores are indicative, not absolute, and they will keep flexing up and down as new informational data-points flow constantly through our automated system.
The end-goal is not to put a final number on any member’s individual worth or potential value, but to incentivize better packaging practices. If you find your film Packging Score jumping up as a result of teaming a first-time filmmaker with a seasoned producer, and that number then leaps up again with the involvement of a top-tier sales agent, chances are your project is that much closer to hitting an industry sweet-spot. And don’t be disheartened if your project finds itself with a zero Packaging Score: since so much is predicated on past performance, future outlier successes will by definition arrive below our industry radar. Our job is to help steer such left-field projects towards some level of industry embrace by coaxing them into recognised attachments and enhanced bankability.
More immediately, our scores will help address the primary concern of everyone looking to raise money and rally support behind their pet projects: access to the industry’s top tables. Until now, networking across Slated’s membership has been confined to those who agree to mutually ‘track’ one another. Anyone wishing to break out of those narrow degrees of separation can now use the Credits Scores and Packing Scores as a powerful and more forensic filtering tool that allows them to be introduced to those well outside their immediate circles.
Of course, you need to earn a Score in the first place. Which is why we suggest that your first order of business, once you have checked out your own number, is to make sure you are properly ‘matched’ with Baseline’s own data and that all your information is accurate and up-to-date. To that end, we have built in verification and editing tools. You can learn more about those and the many other features of our Scores by clicking on this FAQ link.
As with all scoring systems, there will be flaws. But remember this: the industry is already scoring you behind-the-scenes anyway. This at least opens up that evaluation process to wider scrutiny while also giving you the means to affect the outcome through positive engagement. Over time, the numbers will become more meaningful and the benchmarks more effective. And if by then people have learned to game our system, we will have succeeded in mirroring the industry even more fully.