Cooper RaiffS Movie “Cha Cha Real Smooth” is sold to Apple For $ 15 million in 2022, but Hans was not the first, nor the last one as such a business at a festival. It is not to say that it was simple, but with Raiff’s new project he does not even have that track record to fall back on.
Raiff’s latest project is “Hal & Harper”, an 8-part Dramedy series presented in Sundancesection section. The series Stars Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo, Betty Gilpin and Raiff, and is one of the higher profiles ever played in Park City. The gnob is that there is very little precedent for an episodic project to find a distributor in the sales market at Sundance. People do not come to Sundance with a pot with money set aside to buy show how they are with movies. And for all idiosyncratic series out there, the way television is funded today for the most part “indie TV“Is just not one thing.
“It’s not a new model, it’s the same model. The independent movie model is a fantastic model that works, and then you say, why don’t you do it for TV? Many people, including myself, really believe in it. It is only since the past year or that I have actually had this awakening, ”Raiff told IndieWire. “There is no reason for a network or streamer to buy an independent TV show, and I definitely didn’t tell anyone when I tried to get funding for the show.”
Raiff hopes to change it, but it will take a big swing. Indie -Film creators can do the wavy projects that a studio would never do and do it on cheap. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to TV. Raiff made “Hal & Harper” for under $ 10 million, a number that producer Lionsgate TV heard and said: “It’s damn good. It’s smart, it sounds smart.” Raiff even shot “Hal & Harper” as a 4.5 hours of film and filmed scenes in the pilot back to back with something shown in the final.
But he realized that a streamer or network is just thinking about whether this show will get them more subscribers or keep them. Although the show is good, they have no proof of buying a show rather than making it themselves will work. So if “Hal & Harper” were to sell, he needed to make his show “undeniable” to buyers. It must be so good that an executive must choose it over dozen other passion projects on their slate they can do instead.
“I thought I could do a show that was just for me, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted to watch on TV,” Raiff said. “But about a year ago when I was in the editing, I realized that I had to do this thing undeniable so they have to buy it.”
Raiff says “Hal & Harper” was originally set up in a network, but he came to realize in the middle of the development that the managers fit the show in a box he did not want it to be in. A producer saw him in a zoom meeting and told him , “I can say we don’t enjoy this.” He was not, and the producer struggled to get the rights back.
The pivot to make it independently did not mean that Raiff could do what he wanted. “Hal & Harper” still needed to feel like something a streamer would have done itself. So it has binge-friendly cliff hangers, commercial flowers and cut from 10 episodes to eight. Raiff trimmed a six -minute opening sequence of Ruffalo and Gilpin who were just a record of life’s world building. The opening needed to “go harder.”
Raiff also told Sundance that he needed to present the entire series, not just a pilot, to let buyers know exactly what they are getting. Only the first four episodes will be shown in a theater at Sundance, but all eight sections will be available via Sundances online portal during the second half of the festival.
“They think they know what works for them, and they really stick to it,” Raiff said. “I would have believed two years ago that you just go and show a slice of life TV show that is not something that anyone has ever seen before, with Mark Ruffalo and Lili Reinhart, and they will buy it. But I have realized the past year, no, they will not. They will not because they have no reason to break what they have done. It is definitely not broken. It works really well for them. “
Non-scripted shows such as “100 foot wave” has had more success in the Indie-TV market, but it is more difficult in the script. “Penelope”, Mark Duplass and Mel Eslyn’s series sold to Netflix after an SXSW premiere last year, spent a week in US top 10, but is a slow burning series that is unlikely to start a larger market for indie -TV. “Animals” received a two -season order from HBO after showing two episodes at Sundance 2015. “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer” both started as very personal, independent projects before a streamer made them meet. But some agents Indieview spoke to were skeptical such success stories were increasingly than single. The lack of activity among episodic titles Date back to when Sundance launched the 2018 section.
The good news is that Raiff has left the door open for a second season of “Hal & Harper”, that is, if anyone buys it and the audience wants more.
“I hope people just love it. I hope that people really see themselves in the characters and get a feeling of the healing they get, ”Raiff said. “The dream would be to go to some place: Apple, Netflix, HBO, Amazon, FX, Hulu, all these places. I would die for the show to be in any of these places. And I’ll try to manifest it. ”
“Hal & Harper” premieres on Sunday January 26 at Sundance and will be available for streaming via Sundances online portal.
