Work one-on-one with an executive at mutually agreed upon times around your schedule. To start, you'll have a 15-minute strategy call with your executive to get the lay of the land for the month. Then, you’ll have email access to your executive throughout, plus four one-hour story notes sessions. Work on a single screenplay or multiple scripts plus get additional notes on your pitch, brand strategy, and career advice - work your mentorship to its fullest potential!
Introduction:
Introduce yourself - talk a little bit about your credits and experience.
Introduce the world - talk about how and why you connect to the material on a personal level and why you wanted to write it / would want to see a movie/TV series like this.
The World:
Talk about the real-world stakes, the "why is this story important to make now" and how it resonates thematically in today's world. This is where you’d also say this movie/TV show is X meets Y (if it's a TV drama, find two TV dramas that relate tonally and emotionally, don't give movie or comedy tv examples).
The Characters:
Talk about the main characters one by one. Mention dream prototypes.
The Story:
Walk me through the big, important story beats.
The Themes / The Why Now:
Wrap it all up by again, hitting on the head, why a story like this feels refreshing and relevant. Why is it needed? Why is it important? Why is there urgency to tell it now?
Indie Darlings
Reality Television, Unscripted content, and movies that feel way too expensive.
Danyelle Foord is the Vice President of Development & Production of Big Cat Productions. She produced SUMMER '03 which premiered at the 2018 SXSW and premiered theatrically later that Fall; AMERICAN OUTLAWS, which premiered at the 2023 Santa Barbara Film Festival and was written and directed by Sean McEwen who was an Executive Producer on Sam Levinson (EUPHORIA)'s first film ANOTHER HAPPY DAY; and THE LINE starring Alex Wolfe and Halle Bailey which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.
Prior to Big Cat Productions Danyelle worked for Aaron Kaplan at Kapital Entertainment, where she helped develop numerous television shows, including LIFE IN PIECES for CBS, SANTA CLARITA DIET for Netflix and DIVORCE for HBO. Danyelle then went on to work at Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment, where she worked on films such as LOWRIDERS, AMERICAN MADE, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Doug Liman and INFERNO directed by Ron Howard.
Big Cat Productions is dedicated to empowering new, diverse and unique filmmakers, whose voices inspire, educate and entertain, Big Cat’s current projects include: ONE DOLLAR, a Paramount+ series directed by Craig Zobel. Additionally, Big Cat is developing an under-wraps film project with Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali as well as a Roe v. Wade project based on the autobiography of Sarah Weddington, the lawyer who argued and won the case at just 26 years old, becoming the youngest person in history ever to do so.
Wow! Danyelle's experienced, collaborative, and selflessly creative approach to her consultation on my feature script revealed multiple avenues for adding depth & emotional stakes to each of my four central character's stories.
~ Bradford Richardson, Screenwriter
Private Month Mentorship
Each month mentorship kicks off with a preliminary 15-min. call to set expectations and lay out strategy for the month. Writer will have email access to the executive plus 4x one-hour consultations with the exec. Exec will read up to 4 scripts in one month (different drafts of the same script or 4 different scripts) and conduct 4x one-hour story notes calls. Calls can also include feedback on your pitch, branding, or career strategy.
If you pay with the deposit/payment plan, your second half will be due the 2nd week of the Mentorship. If you need a different type of payment plan, email dorian@roadmapwriters.com.
What To Expect
After registering, you will receive an automatic Order Confirmation email. Then Roadmap's Director of Consultations, Terra Joy, will get your mentor looped in with you! If you do not hear from Terra or the exec within 3 days of registering, feel free to email terra@roadmapwriters.com for an update.
Before starting your Month Mentorship, please ensure you are familiar with our Code of Conduct.