We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Evan Littman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Evan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made?

The always cliched and always true answer: invest in yourself.

This doesn’t necessarily mean money. Time and skillset development are more important. For example, my business offers Film/TV consulting on creative and commercial levels. I read scripts and look at film packages so I can discuss with my clients how best to proceed. In order to develop those project analysis skills early in my career, I spent a ton of time outside of my regular work hours doing side gigs that paid a little bit of money, but a lot of valuable experience. When I was an assistant at Lionsgate, I would regularly take on three or four scripts each weekend to cover for an outside production company.

(To cover, or to write coverage, means to read a script and type up a synopsis and comments to send to your boss so they can avoid reading the script for themselves. Gotta love Hollywood).

That investment and self-improvement is ongoing. After I left Lionsgate, I worked at a small distribution agency as an acquisitions executive, where I regularly attended markets like Cannes, Berlin, and AFM. After the day’s work, I could have gone back to my room to read — but first, I decided to spend some time networking, exchanging information and meeting people I otherwise might not have spoken to. Tiring, but worth it.

Evan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Hi, I’m Evan! I own and operate GetMade Consulting, which does three main things:

First, since I have years of experience in the independent film market, I primarily work with foreign distributors to evaluate film projects for them to acquire and distribute in their territories. Typically, production and sales companies get together at international markets like Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, or the American Film Market to try and sell or pre-sell their projects to distributors in other countries. Those projects are often at the script stage, awaiting enough financial interest to move to production. I help distributors evaluate which projects to acquire, including movies you probably didn’t know were independent, like John Wick, Emancipation, or Kandahar.

Second, I work with creatives like writers, directors, producers, and sometimes actors to develop their project for the international market. These folks come to me with projects in various stages of development, from a treatment to a finished film.

Third, I work with production companies, financiers, or producers to guide them through selling or pre-selling their projects. So in addition to the above services, I also take a look at the sales estimates or offers from foreign distributors, and advise the client how to move forward.

My business is generated almost entirely through word of mouth. You only get one shot at a reputation. Post-COVID, I have found that I respect anyone who is quick to respond to emails and calls, so I try to offer that same promptness to my contacts and clients.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

“What is networking?”

Nobody really tells you how networking actually works. When I first moved out to LA, I thought it was basically a transactional social experience where two people trade business cards, and then one of them buys a script from the other. Or something like that.

Real networking is where you make real connections with people you genuinely want to befriend. Because you’re emotionally invested in the friendship, you want that person to succeed, so you are willing to do favors for them. Because they feel the same, they are equally willing to do favors for you. As you each rise, you push and pull each other up, sharing the good and bad experiences along the way. Then one of you becomes fabulously rich and invites the other one to hang at their new pool. Or something like that.

Backstory (specifics removed): I learned this when I was introduced to a mutual acquaintance who was an aspiring creative with questions about independent film finance. This person emailed me a bunch of times with questions, which I was happy to answer. A few months later, I reached out with a question of my own and was met with radio silence. It’s not a surprise that this person didn’t end up being creatively successful in Hollywood.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

My business is not heavily social media oriented, but I built up a small audience pre-pandemic and can give some very straightforward advice on how I did it.

1. Post every day. It’s pretty easy to schedule posts in advance for the week. I used a service called Hootsuite, which allows you to schedule the same post across multiple social media platforms. I decided on one post a day because that’s all I had the energy and time for, but some businesses may want to post two, three, or more times per day.

2. Make sure all your posts are consistent with your brand identity. This means the type of content you’re posting, as well as the style. For example, my primary audience for social media was writers and directors, so I posted about movies and screenwriting. Stylistically, I made sure my posts incorporated the colors of my logo and a consistent font, to better align my posts with my brand.

3. No low-effort content. My intention was to provide some kind of value, however small, with each post. Script tips that were more complex than “make sure it’s good” or “don’t show up at an agent’s house.” Valuable, informative, educational posts not only show my audience that I know what I’m doing, but also fosters engagement and invites repeat views or follows because of the implicit promise of more good stuff tomorrow.

After following these simple rules for a year or two, I had accrued thousands of followers.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.getmadeconsulting.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/go.get.made/
• Facebook: Seriously it’s time to delete your Facebook
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/evan-littman-91190b1a
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoGetMade