FRANKLIN LEONARD - Founder of The Black List

Team Deakins

James Ellis Deakins

Tv & Film, Filmlighting, Deakins, Movies, Filmmaking, Production, Film, Cinematography, Film Interviews

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Franklin Leonard, the founder of The Black List, joins us on this episode of the Team Deakins Podcast for a fascinating conversation. Franklin, a Harvard-educated military brat, starts by recounting his many travels across continents and industries before finding his footing as an assistant in the motion picture literary department at CAA. Having transitioned into development, Franklin shares how The Black List was born out of an innate desire to do better in his job as a junior executive at the time. We learn how The Black List has since evolved and how Franklin’s experiences influenced those evolutions to address industry access issues. We later consider what makes a good script, the inherent subjectivity of evaluating art, and how a script appearing on the list can vindicate one’s interest in “weird” material. Franklin stresses how the ultimate goal should not be to get on The Black List but to get your movie made, and he exposes the psyops he executes to avoid leaking which scripts end up on the list.

The Black List is an annual list of the most-liked scripts circulating within Hollywood in a given year, and it has served as a valuable industry tool for filmmakers since its inception.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi and welcome to season two of the Team Deacons podcast.
0:08.1	A collection of informal conversations between Roger and James Deacons and a guest.
0:14.0	We never know where the conversation will take us, so listen in and see where it goes.
0:21.8	Today we're speaking to someone with a very interesting path.
0:25.3	He's worked in politics, the newspaper business, agencies, production companies and studios.
0:31.9	Along the way, he created the Blacklist, a platform which supports writers tremendously
0:37.5	by offering mentorships, feedback and exposure for their works.
0:42.1	The Blacklist has become a valued industry tool.
0:46.1	We're pleased to welcome Franklin Leonard with us today.
0:49.3	Thank you, Franklin.
0:51.9	Yeah, great.
0:53.9	Our normal opening question is how did you get to where you are today?
0:58.8	Because you had such a different path, it's going to be really interesting, so do tell us.
1:04.4	Yeah, we're the dancers, kind of a long one.
1:07.1	I grew up in Army Brat, my father was in the Army, and we moved around a lot when I was a kid.
1:12.7	I was born in Hawaii, which in Texas and Kansas, in Germany for three years.
1:16.9	Then we moved back to his hometown of Columbus, Georgia when I was about eight years old.
1:21.4	I always loved movies.
1:23.0	I was a really nerdy kid, I was really into math, and going to the movies, usually by myself,
1:30.0	on a Friday and Saturday night was my primary social life, and when I turned 16 the first
1:37.2	thing I did was drive to Blockbuster.
1:38.9	I think that's probably the best early indication that I might end up where I have,
	...

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