Q: Guys, where do you think readers are in their career?
A: At best, one, maybe two rungs on the ladder above you as an aspiring writer.
These (gatekeeper?) guys have put in the hard work to painstakingly reach reach the dizzy heights of their career where they possibly (definite insta share) have a desk, in a shared space - occupied with perhaps, many other hell bent ’go getters’.
Let’s pluck two random readers from the thronging mass…
Olga: Loves Sci-Fi, Serial Killer docs…
Your sure fire ’Rom-Com’ belter lands on her desk.
She doesn’t care that that you do or don’t block type your sluglines - nor does she care that you ’improperly’ fail to capitalise your characters in the first mention, along with a detailed, yet professionally succinct description .
She’s bored.
Man, so much shit has passed over her desk today that has never creased the spine past of the first 3 pages.
Your script is next…
Title page raises an eyebrow... You evil satanist - how dare you fuck with the title page!
Page 1.
Ooh, the grammar, punctuation and formatting is really icky...
Oh wait - this character:
GRETTA, early teen - An AK47 pulls the arm of her Hulk Hogan T shirt over her bony shoulder.
Olga is in!
...We don’t need a second reader, the point is, if you chime - you chime. It ain’t physics - it’s art.
Fuck the rules!
John August of Scriptnotes fame was a reader for three years at New Line (I think) he was required to read and note 3 screenplays a day. So 240 working days x 3 screenplays x 3 years = 2100+ screenplays. In that time he suggested just 3. Every time he got in trouble for suggesting substandard stuff.
I am not a bash my head against the wall sort of guy. I am going to make a very small career on my own. Use that as a stepping stone to reach the lowest rung on someone else's ladder. Then figure out my next move from there.
This gate keeper things seems like too harder work.
I don't mind bashing my head against the wall now and then, Craig. I've got one script that out performs all my others in its ability to attract interest. It got me my first option offer (which I've turned down, at least for now, because the offer can be revisited, I'm told). It's being read by production houses right now via a shopping agreement I have with a film director, a manager at a big Hollywood outfit is reading it, and a Hollywood production company whose most recent project was a Stephen King-based story just requested the script. All this interest (and more, actually) over the course of a few months without a great deal of effort on my part (thanks in part to Script Revolution hosting). I think the attraction is the concept. It's kind of unique and yet easy to grasp. So to do a little less head bashing, you can write low budget scripts (which I mean to try my hand at one day) or you can spend more time and energy at the start developing a mid or high budget script's concept from a commercial standpoint, it seems to me. (Of course I've heard it said no one is buying specs in Hollywood and the true reason for writing one is to get work for hire. To the extent that's true, I really am bashing my head here in trying to get a 40 million dollar script made.)
I agree with Vic. Don't fear the reaper. I mean, reader.
@A.S. we empower them. We go back to these services cash in hand. If everyone ignored them, they would go away. They would wither on the vine.
I take notes, suggestions and any other form of feedback from people I am collaborating with. Finding these collaborators is a long road. It is like speed dating the entire planet. But this cottage industry of "experts" I refuse to feed.
Not everyone is a mean spirited scam artist. But I am yet to find a single one that has any real connections.
This is a thought I have always found amusing. Why are people so keen to hold up "Ex development executives" as great things. This people must be crap at the job. Otherwise would be a development executive.
I was invited to read (early rounds) for one of the "top" contests... and my internal response was "Uh, am I honestly qualified enough atm to do this?", so I declined.
[ insert Groucho Marx quote here ]