Write On: Peter Katz - Manager & Producer, Story Driven

“Sameness is terrible. Your goal is to cut through it. If you
have a unique perspective, you’re going to take vampires or
anything that everybody thinks they know and do it in a way
that’s really exciting and gets people really pumped up about it.
There are all these incredible worlds to explore, but there just
needs to be somebody that can take you there that has a different
way of doing it… I want to see creators that offer something
specific and unique. Specificity is key to me. I don’t want a
cover band. I don’t want people covering what has been before. I
want to see something new. I want to see a badass band with a new
singer or new lyrics, a new style of music,” says Peter Katz,
founder of Story Driven, a literary management and production
company. 


On today’s episode, we speak to Peter Katz, a manager and
producer championing writers with fresh, unique voices who are
forging new ground. We talk about what he looks for in a writing
sample, why he loves being a judge in Final Draft’s Big Break
screenplay competition, and why short stories are having a bright
moment in the film industry. 


“Recently, I’ve actually seen TV executives starting to think
about short stories as a foundation for potential shows. It’s a
really effective way to communicate an idea quickly, in a really
conceptual way, but also, it’s not like a pitch. It’s very tonal.
You have character perspective and you have the style that the
author brings to it. So I think it has a really unique marriage
between pitching the concept, but also immersing you in a world
in a very short period of time. That’s why I think it’s been
effective in selling to a market, because you could share a short
story with somebody and it doesn’t demand a lot of time. If it’s
developed properly, you’re able to learn about the potential of
this project and then quickly share with somebody else on your
team. And overnight, a lot of people can sign on to a project
because it doesn’t take as long as other mediums,” says
Katz. 


To hear more about Katz’s perspective on the industry and what he
looks for in a writer’s voice, listen to the podcast.