Tag Archives: scripts

Here’s my conundrum. Do I be blunt about how bad it is to be a desperate screenwriter or do I softpedal it, so I don’t get anyone mad?

Why, you ask, would I be concerned about getting anyone mad? Well, my last blog about the lack of a conspiracy to keep new writers away from Hollywood did, amazingly enough, make some people mad. Some really mad. And I heard from them. In fact, I was accused by more than one of being a shill for the conspirators.

Yep, a shill for the mean, nasty, uncaring managers, agents, agencies, producers, directors, and studios that spend their days not working on films and TV, no, but gleefully spending their days together laughing like hyenas at all the screenwriters whose scripts they have refused to read for NO GOOD REASON.

Yeah, you found me out. A shill. A shill for the same directors and producers and studios who I struggle with everyday to get my own work read. That makes sense.

Actually, when you think about it in terms of this Blog’s topic, it does make sense. Desperate people do, say, and think stupid things. And accuse people of things that if they were thinking straight, they would never dream of doing. But for a certain percentage of writers, logic and thought go right out the door when it comes to their scripts.

I do understand how much work it takes to write and finish a script. Most scripts. I read one a while back that the writer bragged he’d written in two days. 144 pages. It just came as a “stream of thought and is destined to be a hit”. All you can do with writers like this is smile, point and say “Look a Producer”, and run away when they look.

Most of the time it does take a ton of work to finish a script. And when you’re done, it’s your new baby. You love it and will do anything to protect it and get it seen, even if you can’t realize it may be ugly.

One my dearest friends is an Exec at a prominent production company. To say he’s bombarded daily with read requests is a gross understatement. Most of the time he rightly says No. That can be based on many things. His time (he works damn hard) and his interest in the logline (and it better be a damn good logline). Sometimes he reads things as a favor to someone.

When he does consent to read a script he’s very clear that it’s not in any way shape or form an acceptance to buy that script by his company. Yet, when he tells the writers no, and 99.99999% of the time he tells them no, some act like he’s gone back on his word to them. He’s likely to hear back from them either anger that he doesn’t know a good script when he reads it, how wrong he is, sob stories, begging, rage, insults, threats, and other acts of desperation that insures these writers that my friend (and his company) will be ignoring them for now and evermore.

I understand desperation. I understand waiting for an email or waiting by the phone for a call. I started off as an actor. I’d audition for some film or commercial or TV show, desperate for the job, then go home and worry and fret in desperation to hear if I got it. I didn’t get them and I finally figured out why. Desperation shows on camera and casting people and producers and directors HATE IT. It was only when I decided “Hey, I’m probably not going to get the part anyway, so why not have some fun with it” that I started getting some parts. BIG wake up call. I still didn’t get the majority of them because nobody does, but I got my share.

The same goes for writers. Desperation shows. It shows in your attitude. It shows in your query letters if you’re not careful and smart. It shows when you try to network. Bugging people and refusing to take no for an answer is the ultimate act of desperation and makes you look crazy and no one wants to work with crazy.

NO. NO. NO. Get used to this word. It’s what writers hear 99% of the time. It’s what actors hear 99% of the time. Believe it or not, it’s what Producers and Directors hear most all of the time. NO.

It’s not personal either. Unless you’re desperate, then it’s a little personal because no one wants to be around it. No mostly has to do with the quality of your work or where that work fits into need or timing… a million things have to go right to get a yes. But you have more of a chance if your script is truly great and you’re NOT desperate.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s hard not to be desperate in certain situations. I get that. But you just can’t act like it or show it. It will affect outcomes and relationships. It can kill some relationships before they have a chance to start.

Nothing get accomplished or changed when you beg or argue with someone who has said No. In this business they’ve already moved on the moment they decided No. Whether it’s deciding not to read it at all or during reading the first ten pages or seriously contemplating it after finishing a read, then saying No, you need to lick your wounds and move on like the pros do.

There’s no conspiracy. It’s just plain hard to option or sell a movie script or TV show. It’s really really hard. It gets harder if you’re desperate.

 

(follow me on Twitter @bobsnz)

 

Is there a Hollywood conspiracy against new writers? An organized effort to thwart new writers from breaking in? Is it a closed industry dedicated to keeping new writers out? I know this is a question every writer has asked themselves. Well, every writer except me and a few thousand other relatively sane writers who have a reasonable grasp on reality.

Let’s get this out of the way right now. There is no conspiracy. NO cabal of producers who sit and twirl their mustaches and plot to keep spec scripts from being read or optioned. People who want to keep the industry closed to new ideas or new writers. Yes, the industry is hard to break into. But any big industry is hard to break into. It takes work and perseverance. Patience and more hard work. Talent and even more hard work.

You mean I have to pay my dues? I don’t get what I want because I want it? Now? Then there must be a conspiracy.

At a writers board I lurk on sometimes to see what people are asking and thinking (and to get Blog topics on occasion), I was not surprised to see the often asked question, “Why won’t Hollywood just open its doors for new writers?” “Why do they keep going back to the same things all the time?” “Why don’t they buy spec scripts?” or... “Why don’t they buy MY spec script?”

I’ll tell you why they don’t buy your spec. It probably sucks. You probably queried it or networked to get it read before it was ready to be seen or you wrote it about a subject matter no one wants to buy. Tough words, but the main reasons why spec scripts don’t get optioned or sell.

There are so many things to consider as a screenwriter before you ever write the first word of a script anyway. And you have to be honest about it. Is this idea viable? Is it something people would pay to see? Do I know enough about this subject to write intelligently about it? What kind of research do I need to do? What new things can I bring to this idea that will make it stand out? Who is the audience I’m writing for? These are real questions to ask yourself when thinking about the film you want to write. I can’t tell you how many scripts I’ve read that were written without the author thinking about these things that, out of the gate, killed their script.

I’ve read police procedural scripts that have been done a thousand times before. Films about hobbies or about car repair or painting murals or the world of flower arranging. (really) Fast and Furious copies. Tarantino copies. Raunchy comedy copies that brought zero new ideas or concepts. Zombie films with nothing new. The list goes on.

If you write about hospitals, find out how they work for God’s sake and don’t make it up. If you set your script in a real place or real occupation (that’s interesting) find out how it works. I half read a script about scrapbooking and finally couldn’t read any more because it was too painful.

I’ve read scripts about people’s personal fetishes (get help, some of you). NONE of them put any thought into the fact that people have to read these and decide to INVEST MONEY in them. And I’ve been taken aback by the profound anger of these same writers when I’ve dared asked them who they thought would want to see something or invest in something like they wrote, not even taking into account the quality.

This is the hard work and honest thought needed before you write that most people don’t think about or want to do because it doesn’t lend itself to the instant gratification they’re looking for.

Again, I have seen real anger from people who can’t believe their script (usually their first script) isn’t the toast of Hollywood immediately upon its completion. I mean, sometimes it’s pure rage. I often see posts from writers who say, “Hollywood needs to be changed. I say we writers band together and change it.” and I ask them, “How would you change it?” They say 100% of the time, “Open it up to everybody. Have the studios stop making remakes and sequels and superhero movies and start buying specs again and make original films.”

I point out that the studios make these kinds of films because they’re profitable, there’s a demand and an audience for them, they’re safe investments for their investors, and... they’re private corporations who get to make what they want no matter how many writers “band together”.

More honesty. Producers LOVE new writers. They really do. But... it’s new writers who are great. And being great isn’t easy and it isn’t something that happens overnight. Sure, there might be some element of luck involved, but you still have to deliver to cash in on that luck.

I have a friend who’s a reader for a BIG production house. BIG. She says in the last three months she’s recommended ONE script and read well over a hundred. And she’s a good reader. In the past year I’ve read three scripts I thought were great, out of the close to a hundred I’ve read. And two of them were from previously optioned writers. It’s NOT easy.

And the angry writers say to this... “Then why is there so much CRAP made?” Well, first of all, crap is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of what you may think of as crap has an audience and makes money and that’s the whole idea of the film BUSINESS. The rest of it? I’ve seen great scripts turned into not great films over and over again. But they were great scripts to begin with.

It’s easy for me to say... just write a great script. It’s much much harder to do. Those great scripts you’ve read? They didn’t just appear. The hours and days and months and years of damn hard work to get there aren’t charted on the cover page, but you can see it in the content.

No one is trying to keep you from succeeding. And the competition is ferocious for sure. But great scripts with great ideas do rise to the top. They don’t always get made, but they do rise and get noticed. And those writers who can consistently deliver on the promise of that great script do get to make a living writing for films and TV.

But there’s no conspiracy and it’s never ever easy.

Made it through about 8 pages of a script I was sent a couple of days ago. I had to stop reading. It wasn’t the story, I don’t think. I have no idea because I couldn’t wade through the misspellings and atrocious grammar to get to it.

Maybe some of them were typos. There’s not a writer alive that can find every single typo in a script. But most of them were sheer laziness and probably based on the attitude of “If they buy it, they’ll fix it. It’s the story that counts.” I’ve actually heard more than one writer say this or something similar to me in the past.

They are wrong. Spelling and grammar matter in a script. It reflects on how serious you are taken as a writer. Making the read as smooth and mistake free as you can is essential to getting your story told. Every misspelling or massive grammatical error takes the reader out of your story and focuses them on how poor the writer is for leaving them there.

Your writing reflects you. And getting anyone, besides your family and close friends, to read your script is an accomplishment. What you want is for them to want to read more, to love what you do and your style, to get them on board with you as a writer. Bad grammar and spelling does the opposite.

Yes, scriptwriting is different. We can all acknowledge that. You can write in fragmented sentences. You can break any and all grammar rules in dialogue if you have to. You can even break some spelling rules in dialogue to get a character’s syntax across. That works. But systemic spelling problems on every page will get your script tossed, in my opinion. Ur is not a substitute for Your. Twitter speak in your action lines is not the best way to get your story across.

Every program has spellcheck, so I’m kind of amazed that the spelling errors are still so prevalent. But they are and mostly all in bad scripts.

The excellent scripts I’ve read in the past and three for sure in the past couple of months were, not surprisingly, about 99% mistake free. (Thumbs up to Mike Maples, Emily Blake, & Eliza Lee)

I’m not reading the rest of that script I got 8 pages into. I’m calling the writer and telling her why, too. If she fixes it, I will happily give it another try.

Ok. Spelling and grammar rant over. Now... let’s talk about budget.

This is one subject that really gets some people in a lather. Should you pay attention to the budget of the script you’re writing? Or... should you just write the story you want to write and to hell with how much it will cost to make?

There are compelling arguments on both sides, but I come down on the side of paying attention to it, with a BIG unless...

If you are writing your big budget script as a writing sample, using it to try to get a big budget writing job somewhere down the line, I get it. That makes sense. I have a couple of those.

To expect to sell big budget scripts is a whole different matter. The truth is that there are very few producers or production companies that can make big budget scripts anymore that are pure specs. Maybe 5 or 6, tops. Maybe. And even those will make a script based on a sequel or a well known novel or a comic book or a cancelled TV show or a video game or an iconic cartoon or an amusement park ride or a board game before they’ll make a big budget spec. Hell… they’ll remake a previously failed film before they’ll make a big budget spec.

Now, before you fill my inbox with all the exceptions, I am aware of them and also know I can count those on my fingers in the last 5 years. You don’t even have to be paying much attention at all to see this trend. And add in unproduced writer to your resume and the odds go down a lot further.

But, as a writer trying to break in, if you write your scripts, or most of your scripts, with a budget of a million dollars or so, some maybe even less, there are tons of producers and production companies that want to read what you have and they can actually buy them and make them.

I am convinced that as a new writer trying to get noticed and optioned, right now, at this time in the industry, writing a great low budget film is the way. That may change, although I doubt it, with all the studios making safe tentpole Spiderman 14’s rather than something they have to take a chance on.

A great big budget script can help you if it’s for a writing sample, so you have to weigh it. But getting a big budget script read is also harder to do, in my opinion.

Write what moves you, but think about writing something lower budget that moves you, too. There are a lot more people out there who can read and option those.

 

One thing screenwriters hear all the time is “Write what you know.” Well… in a lot of cases that can be pretty limiting. Yes, writers should be drawing on their personal experiences for sure, because what you’ve seen and heard for real can be used as real in your writing, even if you have to enhance it or use it out of its original context.

But writers… most writers… come up with ideas for scripts all the time on subjects they know nothing about and what separates the good or great writers from the pack is what they do about it.

The good writers do RESEARCH. Real research. They don’t just look up stuff on Wikipedia or do a cursory internet search, they get out there in the real world and find what they’re looking for to bring authenticity to whatever they are writing about.

I read a script not too long ago that mostly took place in a Hospital. To say this might have been the worst script I have ever read is giving it some credit. The paper it was printed on threw up a little knowing what was written there. Nonetheless, the Hospital scenes were extra astounding due to the fact that the writer got everything about them 100% wrong.

Where do I start… ok… A nurse who is an integral part of the plot is only a REGISTERED NURSE because it’s part of her community service for being arrested for prostitution. No nursing school. No nursing license. Community service. The protagonist uses vacant operating rooms in the Hospital to do illegal operations on someone as part of a revenge plan without anyone there knowing or finding out. They use a “spare Hospital Room” for this same person while they recover, keeping it a secret from everyone.

I asked him, “Where is this Hospital? On Mars?” I then asked him if he had done one second of research on how hospitals really work. I knew the answer. “No.” I then told him that none if this would happen, ever, in any hospital in this country, ever. His answer was, “But it’s a movie. It’s not real.” It was then that I thanked him for letting read his opus and made a quick getaway.

Most all scripts are fictional and most are set in the real world and thus, need to be grounded in that world. If you’re going to be writing a film about the Secret Service, you need to find something out about how they operate. If you’re setting a film in a hospital or crime lab or anywhere else real, you need to learn the reality of those places so your script is steeped in that reality.

If your characters are doctors or cops or lawyers or scientists or any profession that requires a specific knowledge or ability, it’s your job to obtain enough of that knowledge to write intelligently about it. AND… you’ll find that knowledge opens all kinds of plot doors you never would have thought of in a lot of cases.

Ok, Bob… since you think you know so much… how do we go about doing this the way you suggest instead of just surfing the net for our education.

I can only go by what I’ve done in the past. I’ve interviewed and gone on ride-alongs with cops. I’ve interviewed real life detectives and even one Chief of Police of a semi-large city. I’ve bought lunch or visited at work to watch them in action, all kinds of doctors, forensic scientists, gunsmiths, military experts of all kinds, lawyers, art experts, Theoretical Physicists, Historians, Chefs, FBI agents, Theologists… You name it, I went and found them.

And I found they all had the same thing in common. They wanted me to get what I was writing about correct. To a person, they mostly hated the way their professions had been portrayed in film and on TV and were more than happy to help me get it right. Did I know all these people before interviewing them or watching them work? Nope. I cold called  some of them and got referrals from friends for others and told them I was writing a film about what they do for a living and wanted to get it right. A few have said no, but mostly it’s been a fabulous experience leading to a couple of lasting friendships.

Great research makes your job writing a great story easier and it helps once you’ve optioned or sold a script, too. I can think of three separate instances where I was in production meetings getting notes where someone has questioned whether something I wrote in the script could really happen. In all three instances I was able to use the research to prove that each thing could and in most cases would happen in whatever setting or occupation I set my story. Not only are they impressed that you know, but sometimes stop asking those kinds of questions after a while because you’ve demonstrated that you do your research.

Yes. It takes more of your valuable time. Yes, you do have delay starting your script with the great idea. Yes, it takes effort and does cost something, but it also leads to your script being a whole lot better than if you don’t. It might make the difference between an Option and a Pass.

… and don’t be like me.

Not quite true. I keep ok records. I back everything up. When I’m actively working on a project, I triple back it up every night. A few years ago I lost 20+ pages of a script rewrite that I was blazing through with spectacular results. Then… it was gone. No back up. Nothing. I threw things. I pounded on the floor. Guess what? Still didn’t have the pages.

And I’m convinced what I wrote to replace them wasn’t as good. So now… I’m uber-careful about making sure I don’t lose what I’ve written.

This is less about backing up your work than it is about backing up your ideas. Keeping good notes. Dating them. Filing them. Having them at your fingertips.

I’ve been living an adventure this week because I didn’t bother to record on paper an idea I pitched off the top of my head in a meeting with a production company six months ago.

It was one of those meetings where I went in with a planned itinerary of ideas and completed scripts. I was going to dazzle them.

Wrong. Didn’t respond to any of them. So I made something up on the spot, knowing what they kinda were looking for.

Now comes my warning. If you’re going to wing it, remember what you said. Apparently, I pitched one great idea. Not that I knew it at the time. Not so good that I thought they’d buy it or was something I’d write for myself in the future. So I promptly forgot about it. Didn’t write it down. Didn’t save it or even make notes afterward about the meeting.

Fast forward to last week. Six months after the meeting in question. A call. A call from the Development Exec at said Production Company. “Hi Bob. We were talking about your pitch and it’s been decided that we’d like to move forward with it. So we’re sending contracts (for money) to your manager and would like a full treatment in a couple of weeks because we think we’re going to fast track it.”

“Wow. That’s great,” I responded. “Which pitch?” Then...  the words I didn’t want to hear. A four word description… “The film about _______. ”   Huh? What? Now… in the deepest recesses of what used to be my mind, I recalled something about this topic. Not sure what.

One of my biggest strengths (and problems) in creative meetings is that my mind flies. I mentally sort ideas at computer speed looking for the one that works at that minute. And if you’re dealing with a rewrite meeting, it can make you look like a frigging genius. But I also take copious notes at those meetings, because ten minutes after that meeting I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything I said.

For this pitch, I took no notes because I READ THE ROOM INCORRECTLY and thought, “Ok. No harm. No foul.” My bad.

Back to the call. Instead of going into a catatonic state, which I considered, I did have the presence of mind to say, “Do you have your notes or a logline you’ve developed so I can compare them with mine? So I don’t go someplace with it you don’t want me to.”

They did and thought it would be a good idea if I had them. Whew. So now, I’m writing the treatment. I’ve also called them twice and asked if I could make radical changes in the story I don’t know, to make it a story that I CAN make work. They loved the ideas. Whew again.

This makes me lucky. A lucky idiot. This could have been a major embarrassment. I have instituted new rules. You say it, you write it down.

I already have my indispensable white board in my office filled with specs I’m working on, writing assignments, deadlines, page counts, and script ideas. My wife bought it for me a couple of years ago. One of the best gifts ever.

Now, I have binders. One for ideas and future pitches. One for what I said in ANY meeting or was said to me. Kept by date and time.

KEEP GOOD RECORDS. Keep them. You will need them. Especially if you don’t have them.