What would you do next after developing a feature this far on your own?
Hi!
I’m in my 40s, with an established career outside the film industry, and for the past couple of years I’ve been developing an original animated feature alongside that work. I’m now at a point where I’m not quite sure what the most rel
evant next step is. But I'm already getting myself ready for lots of unanswered emails and automated declines.
I'm deliberately not sharing the title, logline or story because I'm not looking for feedback on the film itself or asking anyone to read anything. I'm more interested in hearing from people who have been through development or production and might have some perspective on the situation.
The project has grown into a fairly large development bible. The overall story is structured, including the main character arcs, momentum pressure controls, sequence-level progression and causal chain. There's also a lot of work on the world and its internal rules, visual storytelling and staging, sound/music intentions, themes, audience. I have even made mood reels for the main sequences using other film materials and temp tracks to really show the intent. I've also made shorter documents that extract the important parts depending on who I will be presenting the project to.
Screenplay hasn't been part of this work. A lot of it has been figuring out the story, structure, rhythm, world, characters and how I imagine the film and its concept working visually and emotionally.
That's also why I don't really consider myself a screenwriter. I created the project and want to stay very involved creatively (a bit like a showrunner would in a series), but I don't necessarily want to write the final screenplay alone. Ideally I'd like to work with an experienced screenwriter who could challenge and improve what I've built rather than simply turn my notes into screenplay format.
My goal now is ultimately to find a producer and an animation studio in France, and I'm also starting to identify screenwriters who might be a good fit. I'm not looking to raise money or finance the film myself at this point. What I'm really trying to figure out is how to move from developing it alone to bringing the right professional people into the project.
So I'm curious what people here would do in this situation. Would you approach producers first and potentially find the writer with them? Try to find a screenwriter first? Or is having a screenplay basically expected before approaching producers with a feature like this?
I'm also wondering whether developing something this much before bringing professionals in is generally useful, or whether there's a point where having too much already defined can actually become a disadvantage.
I'd especially appreciate hearing from people who've worked in development or producing, or have seen projects come in from people outside the film industry.