Market Readiness Report
How close are you to a sellable project?
Development, Production, Funding & Distribution
A 90-day plan that turns the whole thing into actions
Maybe you’re mid-submission, wondering what actually happens after festivals. Maybe the film’s finished, the laurels are on the poster, and the project is exactly where it was a year ago. Or maybe what exists today is a feature script, and you can’t get a straight answer about what it needs to get made.
Different starting points, same problem: the industry doesn’t send feedback. Sales agents don’t explain a pass. Distributors don’t reply. So you’re left guessing whether it’s the film, the package, or a test you never knew you were sitting.
After years of taking projects to market, we can tell you it’s almost never talent. The gap sits in paperwork, numbers and positioning. All of it buildable, most of it cheaply. And whatever you’re holding (a finished feature, a proof-of-concept short, a script), the report reads it the same way: a project headed for production.
Philip Barantini’s short Boiling Point won Best Director at our Season Awards. We walked the project into Cannes.
It travelled because the package was already complete: a knockout short as proof of concept, a feature script ready to go, and Stephen Graham attached. The market couldn’t ignore it. It became the Netflix feature, and set Philip up to make Adolescence.
For years we’ve been putting projects in front of the sales agents, distributors and producers we work with at Cannes, EFM and AFM. That taught us something useful: buyers run the same tests on every project, at every budget level. The tests are learnable. They’re just never taught.
The Market Readiness Report is your project put through those tests by the team that walked *Boiling Point* into Cannes. You get:
Multiple pages, written for your project. Six elements scored out of 10, each score with its reason and its fix attached. Your market position with comps that match your budget, not your ambitions. A route map showing where you stand and where the sales agent actually enters. Story notes. Then the 90-day plan: six named actions, ordered.
Here’s a finding from the sample (a complete report, the filmmaker’s details redacted):
"£350k (ish)" is a believable number for a two-hander on one island, and the £19k spent is real and itemised. What's missing is the paperwork a financier responds to: no budget top sheet, and a finance plan that currently reads "one application planned, one conversation open, remainder open". Nothing here is wrong. It's just early, and the documents are what move it from early to fundable.
Every finding lands like that: the gap named, then the move that closes it. Read the whole thing before you decide: DOWNLOAD A SAMPLE REPORT
If your report lands Market Ready, we take the project into Market Representation: walked into Cannes, EFM and AFM and put in front of buyers we already work with. We take no rights in your work, no cut of any deal, and no extra fee.
Representation can’t be bought, at any price. Every project earns it through the report, and most projects aren’t ready yet. That’s normal, and it’s the point: Build First is a plan, and the report is the toolkit. Do the build, come back stronger.
If what exists today is a feature script, the report reads it the same way: a project headed for production. You get the route, the package and the numbers, with story notes through the industry’s eyes.
You want the report and nothing else
Your Market Readiness Report. No membership, nothing else attached.
Get all the features of Lift-Off Membership + the report
One report per project per membership year, plus the 11 industry contact lists, the Network Hub, and everything else in Pro.
The report scores what a buyer sees first: your paperwork. That’s deliberate, because buyers judge the package before they press play. And we read everything you attach at intake (script, deck, screener link), so the more you attach, the further the read goes. The sample shows exactly how the report tells you what it did and didn’t read.
Judge it on the deliverable. Read the sample report, then decide whether it’s worth $249 to you. The report arrives whatever happens with any festival selection, and the terms are on this page: no rights, no cut, nothing hidden.
People and machines, in that order of importance.
We use AI in the analysis and the drafting. It’s the reason a small team can read every project this deeply and still deliver within 10 working days of your intake, and we think that’s the right use of it: the report is an assessment, so the machine does the paperwork and the people do the thinking.
The judgment stays human. We score the six elements, set your tier, sign off every report before it leaves, and make every call on taking a project to market. Talent before technology; it’s the house rule.
If any AI involvement is a hard no for you, fair enough, and this service won’t be the fit. If you’d rather judge the output, the sample report is here: DOWNLOAD A SAMPLE REPORT.
No. Festival programming and the report run on separate tracks. Your submission is judged exactly the same either way.
Selection asks whether a film fits a programme. The report asks a different question: what does this project need to reach the market? Plenty of films we couldn’t programme have strong packages, and plenty of brilliant films have weak ones. This is the read that tells you which you have.
Most reports land at Build First, and they say so warmly, with the plan attached. Earlier is actually the cheap time to find your gaps: a rights problem costs a signature now and a dead deal later.
Peer feedback tells you how the film plays in a room. The report answers the buyer’s questions: what exists, what’s missing, what’s the route. Both are worth having. Only one of them is about money.
Then the report is about the feature your short proves. That’s what a proof of concept is for.
A script consultant runs $300 to $500 for a session, usually with nothing in writing at the end. Coverage services read the script alone. This reads the whole package, in writing, with a plan. And weigh it against the quieter alternative: another year of submission fees with no idea what’s actually in the way.
Every application produces a report, delivered within 10 working days of completing your questionaiire.
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