From a 2002 screenplay to patented funding models and a recording project with a vocalist who contributed to two Grammy-winning projects, DeTitta’s career keeps returning to one question: how do creative people get their work made and paid for?
Most people build a career in one field. John DeTitta has built one across three: film, music and technology.
From a 2002 Screenplay to Independent Film Production
It began with a screenplay. In the summer of 2002, DeTitta wrote 150 pages drawn from his own experiences as an entrepreneur, then took the script from producer to producer. By his account, he secured financial commitments from a producer to turn it into a feature film. Then life intervened. DeTitta stepped away to care for his daughter, and the screenplay was later rewritten and developed into a feature. His website says films he has been involved in, or that were adapted from his writing, have reached wide theatrical release.
He kept producing. DeTitta has raised funds for several movie projects, and IMDb lists him as writer, producer, and director of the 2010 film Ten Talents, and as executive producer of the 2014 series Gibson Music Showcase. His website describes the Showcase as more than 30 productions.
“I’m drawn to true stories, the kind that leave you feeling something. If I can’t say in a sentence why a story matters, I’m not ready to write it.”
Arranging Music the Way a Screenwriter Builds a Script
Music is the second thread. A keyboardist who arranges in many genres, DeTitta approaches a song much as a screenwriter approaches a script, deciding what to build up, what to leave out, and where a piece should breathe.
Among his music projects is Keep on Walking, a 2016 EP featuring Ms. Monet, a session and touring vocalist whose credits include work on Grammy-winning recordings. She sings five songs on the release. An online video shows her performing the title track, written by DeTitta, live before more than a thousand people. He also produced the Gibson Concert Series at the Hit Factory, the well-known recording studio in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen.
A Patent Born From a Funding Problem
The third thread is technology, and it grew directly out of the first. According to his biography, DeTitta built his first artist-funding platform after struggling to finance his own screenplay. He is the named inventor on U.S. Patent No. 10,325,290, granted in 2019, which describes a way for advertisers to finance projects, from films to charitable causes, by buying media whose revenue flows into a project fund. A continuation, No. 11,416,898, followed. Both trace to a 2004 filing.
He says he conceived the idea of sharing advertising revenue with online content creators in 2003, and that his technology is now used by more than 80 social media and gaming websites and has reached more than 20 million creators worldwide.
“When I started, artists had almost no say in how their work got funded. Seeing creators earn from advertising today tells me the idea was worth chasing. Next, I want to build tools that help emerging artists get their first project made.”
What Ties the Three Fields Together
What connects the three fields, DeTitta says, is a preference for building things that help people and can also sustain themselves financially. His website puts it plainly, describing products and services for the greater good that still turn a profit.
The pattern shows in his own work. The screenplay that stalled for lack of funding led to a funding method, and that method now serves the creators who make films, music and video.
DeTitta is based in New York and is available for consulting and speaking engagements in the music and film industries, entrepreneurship, app development, fundraising, and screenwriting.
Readers can find more of DeTitta’s work at his official website and on his YouTube channel.
