I've been thinking about the increasingly difficult journey from writing a screenplay to getting a film made.
As writers and directors, we're expected to arrive with more than a compelling story. We need a polished screenplay, a credible budget, a clearly defined audience, a financing strategy, potential distribution pathways and, ideally, some recognisable talent attached.
In other words, we need to do a substantial amount of the work that a producer might ordinarily help us do before we can attract a producer in the first place.
It's a curious paradox. We need a producer to help package a project, but we increasingly need a packaged project before a producer is prepared to commit.
I understand the reasons. Independent filmmaking is a difficult business, financing is challenging and producers cannot afford to invest substantial unpaid development time in every promising screenplay. Their time, expertise and relationships are valuable.
But the consequences for writers and directors are significant. We shoulder not only the creative work, but also much of the preliminary development, packaging and commercial thinking required to make a project viable. We invest our time, energy and often our own money in getting a film to the point where someone else might consider taking it on.
I've spent much of my career working across writing, directing and producing, so I'm not approaching this without an understanding of the challenges. But I do wonder whether the current process sometimes asks filmmakers to do too much before the collaboration that could make a project possible has even begun.
My own approach is to build as much momentum as I reasonably can: develop the screenplay, understand its potential audience, explore the production proposition and identify people who might help move it forward. The aim isn't to replace a producer. It's to create the conditions in which a meaningful partnership becomes possible.
Filmmaking is, of course, a highly collaborative enterprise. Writers and directors need to take responsibility for their projects, certainly. But we also need producers and funding bodies that can recognise potential before every element is in place and bring their own expertise and resources to the table to help turn that potential into a fully fledged creative enterprise.
Perhaps the real challenge is finding the precise point at which preparation can become partnership.
And given that filmmaking is a relationship business, there are plenty of reasons to treat people well along the way. You never know who you might want to partner with in years to come. I'm collaborating today with artists and producers I've known for years, even decades. Good things take time.
Gabriel Reid
29 October 2026