Ground Control's Scott Glassgold on the Short Story Boom
The manager/producer behind a run of high-profile sales talks about creating IP and the importance of the big idea
I’ve long been interested in short stories as underlying IP.
Scott Glassgold founded management and production company Ground Control, and has made a splash recently with a number of high-profile short story sales done in partnership with Verve, including The Dwelling to Amazon (with Michael B. Jordan producing), I Am Not Alone (with Misha Green attached to write/direct and Jessica Chastain to star), My Wife & I Bought a Ranch and We Used to Live Here to Netflix, Caretaker to Universal (with Sydney Sweeney attached and Michael Bay producing), I Think My Mother-In-Law Is Trying to Kill Me to Sony 3000, Wilderness Reform to Paramount and The Occupant to New Line.
It’s quite a run. So I thought Scott would be the perfect guide to better understand what’s going on in this space. We had a really interesting chat about how he became a short story maven; what makes the short story model work, especially for writers without an established track record; the joys of discovering new talent and what genres he’d like to tackle beyond horror. I wanted to share highlights of our conversation because he does a good job of illuminating this corner of the IP market.
After graduating from George Washington, Glassgold’s first jobs in Hollywood were at Disney and New Line. He then moved into producing independent films starting with 2009’s Hurricane Season, the Forest Whitaker-Isaiah Washington sports drama, set against the backdrop of Hurricane Katrina. That film led to him developing relationships with writers and directors and founding Ground Control in 2015, where he zeroed in on developing short films as springboards to film deals. He mainly focused on horror, partnering in 2019 with Sony genre label Screen Gems to create the Horror Lab to facilitate the process.
We’ll pick up his story there, as Glassgold explains how helping make proof-of-concept short films led to becoming a hot broker of short stories.
Optionist: Before we start talking about short stories, tell us how your work making short films factored into your journey.
Scott Glassgold: Part of that model was developing short films, conceptualizing them and using them as springboards into getting a film deal. The crowning achievement of that model — we sold many shorts over the years — was a movie called Prospect with Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher that had a very long tail as their stars rose. People are still finding it. That’s a movie I'm very proud of, and that's a movie that started as a short film that debuted at South by Southwest and then three years later we were back with the feature film. It was our proof of concept. It's very much a model I believe in. It's a great way to give filmmakers an opportunity to show what they can do and show the vision for their work.
The economics of short films can be really tough though.
The premise behind any short film was that it wasn't just a calling card, but it was a transactional piece of IP. That’s what Prospect was. The short film was the IP for the feature film. There’s been a lot of success in the horror space. There was Prospect and Smile was another short that became a feature film. That was always the premium I would put on any short that I took on — great that it demonstrated ability, but simultaneously, did it have the DNA to be a feature film? Just to make sure I'm addressing your question — the short film in of itself is really difficult to monetize beyond parlaying it into an option or a sale to a studio.
How did that transition to brokering short story deals?
In many ways it's taking the model of short films to a different medium. Not to diminish the short film, but in many ways for our approach, it's far more user-friendly. Even to your point about sunk costs, it’s different. Technically, outside of sweat equity, it's not hard to create a short story. You can have much bigger scope. You can do far more refinements, right? You can edit. You can constantly tinker until you get there. Beyond that, when we’re making a short film, it’s most likely a first-time director, and with that comes a ceiling on how big you can build out these packages. Inevitably that director wants to remain the director, rightfully so. But that has its limitations in the market.
What are you looking for in a short story that makes it sellable?
First and foremost for me is the concept, the big idea. If we've done that first part right with the story by making sure its very well written and it has a big idea, I can then go to the highest level of screenwriter, the highest level of actor, and share it with them and take it to the market.
What other advantages are there to working with short stories?
What I find just as rewarding is in that situation where an emerging prose writer has written a short story — if it was the equivalent of a short film, people would say, “Hey, that's cool, but we want someone else to write or direct it.” In these instances, in addition to the success of selling the short story to a film company, we retain publishing rights and the writer can then go off and write the novel adaptation of their short story. So in addition to [it] obviously being lucrative, they are able to continue doing what they do according to their skillset, meaning prose writing, and they get to continue on the project without feeling like they’re becoming a bystander, which was often a third rail of the short films. I really do believe in the short film model, but when we were doing science fiction it required bigger budgets and that's when it became a harder pill to swallow for financiers or otherwise to keep on these first-time directors.
Do you approach pitching a short story differently than other kinds of material?
At the end of the day, you're pitching something that more often than not lends itself to a big idea, right? The litmus test before it even leaves my door is, can it be clearly articulated in a way that an idea can be distinctly understood in a matter of sentences? If it's not, it's probably not well suited for a short story. If I have to tell you my big idea and it takes me two paragraphs, it's not a big idea. [laugh]. It could be a cool idea and it could be a cool movie, but it's certainly not something that you could hand on a platter.
Is there something about the form of the short story that makes it more attractive to buyers?
The short story is hyper-focused on either the concept or the narrative, whereas a novel, given its space, can ramble. Ramble isn't even the right word — it can explore other nooks and crannies of world or character. Whereas our version of the short story is very hyper-focused on a narrative. There’s exceptions where we’re giving snapshots to a world where the world has changed elements or is so extraordinary that it’s just as crucial as telling the story from the beginning to end.
“The litmus test before it even leaves my door is, can it be clearly articulated in a way that an idea can be distinctly understood in a matter of sentences?”
Where are you finding writers?
I put the emphasis not on finding material, but on finding voices, on finding original fresh voices who we can work together with to build a story. There are exceptions. The Query Brothers came in white hot with My Wife and I Bought a Ranch [sold to Netflix with screenwriter Harrison Query adapting brother Matt’s short story], and that thing was just fucking awesome. They're extraordinarily confident and they are the exception. More often than not, it's meeting a writer who's really talented and asking, "What are you working on?" And then you start building from there. Finding the unique voice is where it all begins. In terms of looking — it's anywhere and everywhere is the short answer, really. And hopefully where nobody else is looking. [Laughs]
A number of the short stories you have sold have come from writers who emerged from non-traditional paths, like writing on the internet rather than through big publishing houses or literary magazines. For example, Marcus Kliewer (We Used to Live Here, The Caretaker) and Nick Moorefox (I Think My Mother-in-Law is Trying to Kill Me) first posted their stories on Reddit. Is that a hurdle you have to overcome in the market?
At the end of the day, it still is a big idea town. I think the ability to present big ideas in a way that is very clear and crystallized but is not within the confines of IP that's spoken for, I feel like that has a little bit to do with what's exciting about all this — I truly believe we're creating IP. I know that sort of can be considered a dirty word because it gets put in the bucket of toys or other things. But I think that's what's so exciting about it— a writer from the middle of the country who's had no industry success whatsoever, can come up with an idea and we can grow it literally to the highest level of talent in town and we're simultaneously turning it into a book. I mean, that's truly the seeds of IP, and the fact that this short story allows you to do that, I think is really fun.
You’ve demonstrated a good eye for new talent.
One of the best parts of this job is that in maximizing the monetization, it's not just going into my pocket, it's these writers. These are very often writers who had the dream of breaking into the business, and geographically, they're most likely not in the epicenter of publishing or film. They're writing after coming home from a hard day's work with the dream. So to have the privilege to work with these kinds of people, help them grow their craft, specifically refine their stories, sell them in a big way, and change their life is one of the greatest things about all of this. We get to make this call, this literal call, when a deal closes — there are writers who, when I met them, they're literally sleeping on a relative's couch. And by the end of the journey of a short story, between a film deal and a publishing deal, [to] be able to pick up the phone and tell them they've made over a million dollars, it’s really special.
“I put the emphasis not on finding material, but on finding voices, on finding original fresh voices who we can work together with to build a story.”
Do you offer a lot of editing advice? Are you very hands-on?
One hundred percent. It's a development process like any other development process. A note that I give is not necessarily an aesthetic note as much as it is a note to make sure it’s ready for the market. The goal is that those things dovetail into a really great piece of material.
Some of the best editing I got on my book was from my agent, a group who in my mind are underappreciated in this regard. A good agent or manager has to be a good editor. If you're just a salesman then you're only gonna do so much in this business.
Very true. It's a good prompt for me to recognize my partners from Verve in all this, specifically David Boxerbaum, Adam Levine and Liz Parker. Adam and David on the film side, Liz on the publishing side. We all do this collectively — taking it from A to Z all the way to market.
Are you exploring other genres where the short story formula could be successful?
You did an interview with Brian Grazer, who is a hero of mine. He's been doing it in comedy for years. He did it with Splash. He did it with Liar Liar. Those are ideas that came from him that they built out into films. Both of those movies are perfect examples of things that could have been a short story, right? Nothing would make me happier than to grow our model into comedy as well.
There was a lot of interest at the beginning of the e-book revolution in digital shorts. Kindle had its Kindle Shorts program and then there were publishers like Atavist specifically focused on publishing stuff that was somewhere between a long magazine article and a short book. That fizzled, but I always thought there were possibilities in that space. Is that something you’ve considered?
It's something we're having ongoing conversations about. We've been approached by publishers about doing an anthology of our latest stories and curating and doing a regular anthology. It's all part of our growing this model. The key is, are we curating and developing stories for book first, or are we still continuing with our model of film and television and then simultaneously bringing those to the publishing? But the short answer is yes.
That’s a wrap for today, folks. Hope you enjoyed the Q&A. We’ll be back Friday for the Optionist’s regular list of great material with rights available.