How to Choose Who Makes Your Proof of Concept

The reels all look good. That is the problem with choosing based on reels: a reel is a selection of best moments from projects with different briefs, different budgets and different clients, assembled by the people asking for your money.

What you are actually buying is judgment across a few hundred decisions you will never see. So interrogate the process instead. Here are the questions we would ask any studio, including ours, and what the answers reveal.

The diagnosis questions

1. Before we talk about the film, what do you need to know about the project? A studio that starts asking about your decision, your audience and your deadline is diagnosing. One that starts asking about runtime, aspect ratio and delivery date is quoting.

2. What do you think this film needs to prove? If they cannot form a view after hearing about the project, they will not form one during production either, and you will end up directing by committee.

3. What would make you tell us not to make this? Every studio should have a version of this project they would decline. If the answer is that they would take anything, you are talking to a vendor rather than a partner.

The process questions

4. Walk me through what happens before anything is produced. You want to hear about research, a script or treatment, a storyboard, and something that demonstrates rhythm rather than only framing. A board proves the shots work. It does not prove the film works, because a film is a thing that happens in time.

5. When do I see something, and what will it be? The right answer is early and cheap. If the first thing you see is a near finished cut, every note you have is expensive and late.

6. Show me something you rejected and tell me why. The single most revealing question on the list. A director has rejection criteria and can name them: the camera flattened the scene, the performance read as a pose, the rhythm died at the cut. Anyone who has never rejected anything has never had a standard.

The authorship questions

7. Whose film is this? There are three legitimate answers and they should be chosen deliberately: you direct and they produce, you co direct, or they direct. In film and television this matters enormously, because part of what a proof of concept is evaluated on is whether the attached director can deliver. A proof made entirely in someone else's voice can prove the idea and fail the actual test.

8. What happens if I disagree with a creative decision? You are looking for a defined process, not for agreement. A studio that folds on every note has no point of view, and a point of view is what you are paying for.

The commercial questions

9. What do I own, and what am I licensed to do with it? Ask specifically about pitch use, public release, festival submission, paid media, territory and time. This is where quotes that look similar turn out not to be.

10. What is not included? A good proposal answers this without being asked.

The two answers that matter most

Of those ten, two carry most of the signal.

The rejection question, because taste is a subtractive faculty. Anyone can generate options. What separates a director is the ability to look at something competent and say no, and to explain why in terms that are about the film rather than about preference.

And the whose film is this question, because it is the one most studios have never been asked and have therefore never thought about. The answer you want is not a particular model. It is evidence that they know there are three.

Two red flags

• A promise about outcomes. Nobody can promise you financing, a green light, an attachment or festival eligibility. A studio that promises any of these is telling you what they are willing to say to close.
• A fixed price with no diagnosis. If the number arrives before the questions, the number is for a generic deliverable, and generic is the one thing a proof of concept cannot be.

Our answers to all ten are effectively the proof of concept page, which exists so you can check them before a call.

Interrogate process, not reels. The two questions that carry most of the signal are show me something you rejected and why, and whose film is this, because the first reveals whether they have a standard and the second reveals whether they know authorship is a choice.