Amazon.com has launched Amazon Studios, a new online business that invites filmmakers and screenwriters around the world to submit full-length movies and scripts to make money, get discovered and get their movie made.
Writers and filmmakers can add scripts and test movies to Amazon Studios. Full-length test movies will introduce public test screenings to the earliest stages of the movie development process; film fans can review Amazon Studios scripts and test movies, or even upload alternate, revised versions.
While test movies must include imaginative stories with great acting and sound they don’t need to have theatrical-quality production values. The Amazon Studios test movie process is intended to guide a film’s development and assess its potential. Amazon Studios has produced five test movie samples, in different styles and genres, which can be found on its Getting Started page.
“We are excited to introduce writers, filmmakers and movie lovers to Amazon Studios,” said Roy Price, Director of Digital Product Development. “Full-length test movies will show stories up on their feet and attract helpful feedback at an early stage. We hope that Amazon Studios will help filmmakers experiment and collaborate and we look forward to developing hit movies.”
Amazon Studios will give the best projects to Warner Bros. Pictures who will have first right of refusal. Under the Amazon Studios development agreement, if a filmmaker or screenwriter creates a project with an original script and it is released by Amazon Studios as a theatrical feature film, the submitter will receive a rights payment of $200,000; if the movie makes over $60 million at the U.S. box office, the original filmmaker or screenwriter will receive a $400,000 bonus. If Warner Bros. Pictures is not inclined to develop a particular project, Amazon Studios can then produce the project in cooperation with another studio.
Aspiring filmmakers have until December 31, 2011 to have their work considered. Winning screenplays and full-length test movies will be selected on the basis of commercial viability and will be judged by a series of industry panelists including: screenwriter and chair, Writing Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Jack Epps, Jr. (“Top Gun,” “Dick Tracy”), producer Mark Gill (former president of Miramax and Warner Independent Pictures), screenwriter Mike Werb (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “Curious George,” “Face/Off,” “The Mask”) and producer and chair, Production Division of the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Michael Taylor (“Bottle Rocket,” “The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper”).
“Amazon Studios is a great idea. Getting feedback is essential for creative artists to improve their work,” said Jack Epps, writing chair for USC School of Cinematic Arts. “By letting anyone submit a movie or screenplay to be considered for a major motion picture, Amazon Studios is really opening the doors to Hollywood.”
via DigitalTrends
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