Understanding How Screenplay 'Tracking Boards' Work in Hollywood

Here's a great article from Ben Mezrich (I think, originally printed in the Hollywood Reporter, but don't quote me, as the article's a couple of years old and I've misplaced the link to it).

Enjoy!

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I'm at a party, and it's as crowded as it is glamorous. Elbowing my way to the balcony for a breath of fresh air, I gaze down at the unreal scene below: Fur coats draped over pink tank tops, sable hoods dyed to match, Gucci boots with impossibly high heels, designer cell phones in waterproof holsters, pashmina scarves, sunglasses hanging from platinum straps. Nobody seems to care that it's 30 degrees outside, with a stiff wind sweeping down from the mountains. There's enough star power here to keep everyone warm: Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson, J.Lo, Ben Affleck.

"Welcome to fucking Sundance," somebody next to me says. I turn to see Dana Brunetti, who's also watching the crowd. Brunetti is a producer with TriggerStreet.com, Kevin Spacey's production company. He's the reason I was able to get past the black-clad goon at the door.
The truth is, I don't belong here. I am not a Hollywood player. I am a writer from Boston, a novelist and occasional journalist. Over the past few years, like a million other struggling writers out there, I have chased the dream of breaking into the movie business. I've collected hundreds of rejection slips from agents, producers, and studios. Recently, all this changed. I wrote an article last year called "Hacking Las Vegas" (Wired 10.09), and the next thing I know I'm being approached to turn it into a movie starring Spacey. (We're in the very early stages of negotiating a deal.) I want to believe that Hollywood sat up and took notice of my talent and hard work. But I've heard rumors that have made me question my confidence - whispers of a dirty little industry practice that has brought me here to Utah on a mission both personal and journalistic.

I've been tipped to the network of semisecret cyberhallways, called tracking boards, that are open only to the most elite power players in the industry. In simplest terms, these boards are sophisticated chat rooms and BBSes where high-level executives at various studios trade information about potential projects.

They may seem innocuous at first glance, but the boards are where a writer meets his fate. Before a script goes out, it either gets deep-sixed or hyped up. Often, it's said, execs will go online and leak privileged information or even lie about projects in order to drive prices up - or down. If the rumors are true, it means that the fix is in: major collusions between studios, arbitrary blackballing, a system that mocks any standard of fair play. It's not just scripts - books, directors, even actors are tracked.

I need more than rumors, so I have arranged a rendezvous with a tracker. She's here, wedged between two frumpy screenwriters and a director with a shaved head. She's a tall, striking brunette with pouty lips and oil spills for eyes. As I approach, she shakes free and beckons me toward a quiet alcove near the coatroom.

"If you use my name," she says by way of a greeting, "I'll have lawyers all over you."

She knows why I asked for the meeting. She's talking to me as a favor to Brunetti, but she's defensive. She's an exec herself, a director of development at a studio synonymous with Oscar-quality fare. She - and people like her - control the purse strings that make movies possible.

"I'm not kidding," she continues. "I could get fired for talking about this."

She takes a breath, then plunges in. "Bottom line," she says, gesturing to the scene around us, "all of this starts with the boards. You've heard of the herd mentality, right? How no decisions in Hollywood are made independently? A project that's interesting to one studio is interesting to all studios; likewise, a project with one detractor is dead with everyone. Well, the tracking boards are the herd mentality gone digital."

One detractor? A single, semi-anonymous comment can sink a script? I'd heard as much from other writers but had assumed it was just the fruit of febrile imaginations - or sour grapes. But here was the woman who signs the checks, confirming my paranoia.

"If you get behind a project that nobody else wants and it fails, you're fucked. If you buy a project that everyone wants, you're at the front of the herd," she explains. I know she catches the expression that flashes across my face, because she pauses briefly before continuing in a low voice. "This business runs on fear," she says, "and the tracking boards give that fear a voice."

I look around the room - at the stars, writers, directors, producers - and for a moment I can actually see the system at play. A positive track leads to a heated auction, a seven-figure deal, a blockbuster movie - not to mention parties at Sundance. But more likely, the trackers conspire to end your Hollywood career before it gets off the ground.

"If you're dead on the tracking boards," the executive whispers, "you're dead in this business."

Back in LA, I decide to dig a little deeper. Acting on a tip, I find what I'm looking for in a black glass building in Santa Monica. There's no lobby: It's just a stack of spartan offices that rises high into the smoggy sky.

Rafi Gordon, president of Baseline-FilmTracker, and Alex Amin, executive vice president, are waiting for me when the elevator doors open on the fifth floor. They're young, bright, and shiny in that LA way, affable and smiling. They introduce themselves as they lead me through their office.

Five years ago, there were just a few homegrown tracking boards in Hollywood; today, there are many, but they are all managed by Gordon and Amin. FilmTracker's parent company, Hollywood Media Corporation, specializes in industry-specific databases - film credits, bios, and the like - but the glamour end of the operation is the by-invitation-only boards. They're kept small by necessity. Membership is strictly controlled. Anytime a new studio executive, producer, or development person is hired, one of the first things they do is try to sign on to a board. They're let in either by a democratic vote or an administrator who decides if the applicant is qualified. "We have the tracking-board business pretty much cornered," Amin says.

"I think we're up to 200 separate boards now, tracking over 2,000 projects," Gordon adds, as we reach a corner office. They shut the door behind me. Amin takes a position at a computer on one side of a cluttered desk, Gordon by the window.

"In the beginning," Amin explains, "there was this very rudimentary message board started by a guy named Roy Lee. I was at MGM at the time, about 1997 - hell, we didn't even have email or Internet capability - and Roy started this service that was basically just a bulletin board. People would add comments to a text stream about spec material that was going out for auction."

Spec material - original projects in either script or treatment form - are the lottery tickets of the movie industry. Unlike assigned projects, which are always given to established screenwriters, spec material can come from almost any source: unknowns, wannabes, even novelists like me. Through spec auctions, new projects and writers are introduced to Hollywood. When a studio buys a spec, a career begins.

"Around 1999," Amin continues, "about 12 major-studio junior execs - me included - got together. We wanted something more sophisticated. We wanted to be able to search for the info we needed, to keep archives, to do this quickly. So we built ScriptTracker - which eventually became FilmTracker, a central Web site where tracking boards are managed and maintained."

While he's talking, he's hitting keys on the computer in front of him. I can't see the screen, just the blue-green reflection in his eyes.

"And who uses these boards?" I ask, looking from Amin to his boss.

"Pretty much anyone who has any power," Amin answers. "From the top levels down to the junior execs. Studio VPs, heads of development, producers, buyers, sellers, and assistants. They pay anywhere from $15 to $300 per month for the privilege, depending on their level of access. Currently we have about 10,000 active members."

Robert Dowling, the editor in chief and publisher of The Hollywood Reporter, corroborates: "Everybody uses the boards," he says, "and at the highest level they can."

Still, it seems remarkable to me that these two photogenic kids built a machine that's used by everyone from Jerry Bruckheimer's assistant to the head of development at Paramount, from the grunt who reads scripts for Matt Damon to the major buying executives at MGM.

"People begin tracking projects the minute an agent mentions it to anyone else," Amin continues. "By the time a script goes to auction, everyone's already tracked it."

Opinions, comments, information on buying and selling - all of it is available before a project is officially on the market. It's a Hollywood cartel.

"All the information you need on a project is at your fingertips," Amin says smiling. "In fact, I've got your tracking page right here in front of me."

With a flourish, Amin positions the computer screen so I can see. My name flickers past in glowing green type, followed by a description of my Vegas project - and a string of comments from various handles, presumably Hollywood heavies. I quickly read some of the posts:

Crime caper.

Need more info now. Getting buzz.

In at Warner. But they aren't going to

And then Amin spins the screen away. I feel cold.

Hollywood's way of making sure you know where the power lies is to keep you waiting - which explains why a certain development executive at one of the biggest studios in town is 20 minutes late for our meeting. I'm just cooling my heels in her stark corporate office. Nothing personal.

She finally sweeps into the room and answers the question I've been saving up for her. "Of course you can manipulate the tracking boards," she says, all business except for the playful smile tugging at her lips. "It happens all the time."

I sit up in my chair. If the boards can be gamed, then the auctions that result - and, in turn, the daily liaisons that shape the movie industry - are inherently corrupt.

"Why would people manipulate the boards?" I prod, trying to push her toward the answers I already suspect.

She crosses the office to her desk and drops into her chair. Opening her desk drawer, she pulls out a cordless telephone headset.

"If I wanted to get back at an agent who screwed me on something, I could put on the board that my studio is passing on their script. That would pretty much kill the heat on the project.

"Likewise, maybe as a favor to an agent, I could post something like, 'I love this, my boss loves it.' That will create buzz, and quite possibly people will start bidding preemptively because they're afraid of losing the project."

Movie titles flash before my eyes: Bubble Boy. Kangaroo Jack. Dude, Where's My Car?

To prove her point, she logs on to the FilmTracker board and gestures for me to come over to her side of the desk. "At about 8 this morning, this script called Pet Store appeared on my tracking board. It's about to go out, and it's getting some interesting hype."

Leaning over the back of her chair, I scan the trackers' comments. Each begins with a handle, followed by a few words:

This is everywhere.

In at Paramount. My boss is jumping on this!

Better move fast

And then, simply: Huh? Talking animals?

On their own, the comments seem inconsequential. But it's the collective wisdom of 27 top development executives at the major studios: Paramount, Universal, Sony, MGM.

"When someone wants onto the board," She explains, "the moderator emails us all and asks if that person is OK. We can blackball someone we don't like. It's like sorority rush." Is she joking? I can't tell. "I know all these people. So this hype makes me interested. The next step is to call the script's agent, see what's shaking."

She hits the speakerphone. After three rings, a male voice answers. She tells the agent on the other end that she loves Pet Store (no matter that she hasn't actually seen it yet) and she wants to know where it stands. He gives her the standard agent line: It's hot, very hot - we'll have a deal by the afternoon. You better get moving, blah blah, et cetera.

She rolls her eyes at me, then gets off the phone to show me the synopsis. Pet Store is about a pet shop. All the animals talk, and there's an evil cockatoo who hacks into the owner's computer, somehow getting the store's bank to foreclose. Now the animals are finding a way to fight back

She rolls her eyes again. But the tracking is good, the hype is still rising.

"It's really about buzz," she says, deferring to the will of the herd. "Tracking boards create it. This script, as bad as it sounds, has it."

The thing is, as far as I can tell, no one has actually read the script yet. It hasn't even gone out to auction; nobody is supposed to have this script. I have to ask: "Would a studio buy a project based on positive tracking, without ever reading it?"

She gives me that smile. "They'd never admit it."

I try a different approach.

"Would you turn down a project without reading it because of negative tracking?"

She doesn't even pause.

"Absolutely."

Another day, and another bigwig movie executive won't go on the record. We're sharing a booth at a nightclub, and he's giving me a fat dose of Hollywood reality. "The bottom line? It's the studio's job to say no. A bad track simply gets the job done."

We're in Vegas for yet another movie industry party, and the club is swarming with development people. It all seems a lot less glamorous now. I'm not starstruck anymore, I'm angry.

"Is it legal? I ask. "Opinions are one thing. But collusive behavior, or manipulative lies - like the pumping and dumping on an Internet stock board - these are more complicated issues. With no regulation, there's just no way to know how dirty the system really is."

My rant is interrupted by a curvaceous blond hostess brandishing a bottle of Cristal.

The producer replies: "Sure, people do try and manipulate the boards. But whether it's unethical or mildly illegal - does it really matter? Good projects turn into good movies. Bad projects turn into bad movies. The buying is just one part of the process."

"It doesn't seem like a very fair system," I say, but I can't sustain my righteousness. I'm embarrassed by how naive I sound. I've seen how the system works, and can no longer pretend that projects are considered purely on their own merits. I am an insider now, reeling from a week that started in Utah, passed through LA, and ended in Sin City.

"No shit," the producer laughs. "I get agents calling all the time: 'Hey, I know you have this project: Please don't kill it.' I don't want any part of it; I actually try to read the damn things."

I nod, but I don't believe him. His words are noble, yet I can see the glint of shark in his eyes.

Someone slides into the booth next to us. It's Dana Brunetti. He's been eavesdropping. He takes a glass of champagne and waves it in my direction.

"You realize, of course, now that you know all our secrets, we're going to have to kill you."

I'm pretty sure he's kidding.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON BEN MEZRICH CLICK HERE.

Cheers!
Brian M Logan
ThatActionGuy.com
EMAIL ME HERE

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