what's everyone's opinion on this. I know better than to query lucas or dreamworks, but some of these lower rung companies that state "no loglines or query without representation" really anoy me. Should you query them anyway and see what happens?
unsolicited material
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In general if they say "no" it means they're going to delete or throw away whatever they recieve outside of that.
You can, but chances are good you won't get a response from a company not seeking new material.
Most of the time you won't get a response even from those who are open to queries. Unlike with short stories and books, where you're probably 80-95% likely to get a form rejection when it's a no, with scripts the default is no news=don't call us, we'll call you.
Most of the time you won't get a response even from those who are open to queries. Unlike with short stories and books, where you're probably 80-95% likely to get a form rejection when it's a no, with scripts the default is no news=don't call us, we'll call you.
Or it just goes into the Spam Filter of Death and is never seen.
Even some agencies do this. CAA auto-redirects unapproved email to their legal department.
I wonder how many terrific scripts have been trashed in the movie industry, without even being read.
Perhaps many, it doesn't matter. If a studio isn't looking for new material, it means they aren't looking for new material, period. Their slates are full, their resources maxed.
And if a script is terrific, which very very few are, then chances are good if the writer goes through many routes it'll get noticed.
my theory leave no stone unturned
I have recently launched my own personal email query blast, so far running about 5% request for my script. Next will be a massive snail mail blast, I have heard that usually has a higher response.
I have recently launched my own personal email query blast, so far running about 5% request for my script. Next will be a massive snail mail blast, I have heard that usually has a higher response.
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What I've learned is that following the rules a publisher or studio sets are holy.
If you don't follow their rules for submitting, they'll know you're hard to work with from the word go. Just get representation first, then query them. With a bit of luck the agent you get actually knows people you never ever dreamed of submitting to even though you wanted. The studios want stuff submitted through agents because the agents know what they're looking for and they're gonna have the guarantee it's been vetted. Why worry about the slush pile when you have a perfectly good source of scripts delivering them to your desk without all the hassle?
If you don't follow their rules for submitting, they'll know you're hard to work with from the word go. Just get representation first, then query them. With a bit of luck the agent you get actually knows people you never ever dreamed of submitting to even though you wanted. The studios want stuff submitted through agents because the agents know what they're looking for and they're gonna have the guarantee it's been vetted. Why worry about the slush pile when you have a perfectly good source of scripts delivering them to your desk without all the hassle?
I can answer that question.
The answer is -- very few.
I know that a lot of people, especially people who are on the outside trying to get in have the feeling that the "outside world" is full of great scripts that aren't being made and that mediocre scripts on the inside get made sort of because they're written by people "on the inside."
Certainly, if you happen to be on the inside -- if you Mom is a famous actress or if your Dad is a famous director, and you have a script you want read -- you bet that it's going to be a lot easier to get your script read.
I have no doubt that "Rachel Getting Married" -- if it had been written by someone who *wasn't* Jenny Lumet, would have had a very difficult, if not an impossible time, getting made.
It's not a bad script, but it's certainly not a great script. The fact that her Dad could put it in the hands of Jonathan Demme, who could put it in the hands of Anne Hathaway -- that's what made that movie happen.
Jenny *Lumet* could make that happen. Jenny Schmoe from the Bronx almost certainly could not even with the identical script.
That being said -- I don't consider Rachel Getting Married a terrific script. If someone had managed to make that movie on a minimal budget without Anne Hathaway in it -- I doubt it would have ever even gotten released, never mind gotten the kind of attention it got.
It's not as if Rachel Getting Married took the place of some other script that was necessarily much better that didn't get made.
There really aren't that many terrific scripts out there. Not even in the ranks of professional writers who are really good.
I mean, it's not as if every movie that a director makes is a masterpiece. Well, not every script that any writer writes, likewise, is really great.
In the course of your career, you may only hit the real top of your game a handful of times.
Back when I was working at a development company in New York, we'd read anything -- all you had to do was sign a release form -- and over six years, I read a couple thousand screenplays -- many from established writers and many from unsold unagented writers.
And in those six years, we didn't so much as option a single screenplay from an unsold writer. We did buy several teleplays from unsold for a series we were doing, although many of them had to be rewritten -- but in features -- not one.
I remember one or two that I'd consider to be exceptional -- out of thousands, but were not scripts that our company wanted to buy. They were good -- but not commercial.
That's the general sense that I've gotten from most people who, for instance, do evaluations for contests, which also cater mostly to non-pros.
The stuff, for the most part, is just flat out amateurish. Not surprising, since most of it is written by amateurs.
Work of quality is extraordinarily rare. If you come across something really exceptional, it's one in a thousand.
For a contest, "exceptional" does it. That's all they need.
But for a development company, "exceptional" isn't enough. It also has to be commercial.
At my company, in six years, I never found one feature script like that written by an unsold writer.
NMS
Unfortunately, the commercial aspect is what makes production companies and studios scared. They'd rather buy the same old material that has a proven track record with an audience than stick their neck out and try something new.
It's the same with television, they're milking reality television for all it's worth. I mean, 8 seasons of American Idol is just plainly excruciating. They should try a new format that doesn't involve phoning in or texting a vote.
It's the same with television, they're milking reality television for all it's worth. I mean, 8 seasons of American Idol is just plainly excruciating. They should try a new format that doesn't involve phoning in or texting a vote.
The story is pops Sidney actually resisted helping her shop her script to the producer - she joked that she threatened to never let him see his grandkids again if he didn't help her. I wonder what he's trying to warn her, and the rest of us, about the biz.
Yes, that's one of the great myths in our industry! The truth is that what gets optioned or bought is a fair representation of the best available material.
At the risk of digressing from this thread's original topic, I'll say this:
This thread, like so many others, reflects the difficulties a new writer faces in trying to get into Hollywood.
I think it is time people with movie ideas asked themselves if it worth the trouble. Do you specifically want to sell a screenplay to a Hollywood studio? Or do you want to see that movie you imagined get made -and make money from it?
I make the distinction because I think while any route to making a movie is hard, writing/producing may actually be easier and more artistically and fiscally gratifying than the Hollywood route.
This thread, like so many others, reflects the difficulties a new writer faces in trying to get into Hollywood.
I think it is time people with movie ideas asked themselves if it worth the trouble. Do you specifically want to sell a screenplay to a Hollywood studio? Or do you want to see that movie you imagined get made -and make money from it?
I make the distinction because I think while any route to making a movie is hard, writing/producing may actually be easier and more artistically and fiscally gratifying than the Hollywood route.
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How is it a myth? You're talking 500 scripts a year, maybe, get optioned, though most are studio hired pieces with pre-concieved ideas/treatments out of tens of thousands if not more?
30-50,000 scripts get registered every year with the WGA, yet only a very small percentage go anywhere. I'd say it's pretty accurate to say there are very few terrific scripts out there.
All I can tell you from having produced (and written) is that working to a tightish budget (which indie flicks invariably are) is fine until things go a bit wrong, which they always do, and then pulling the pearl out of the manky oyster is hyper-stressful and unbelievably time-intensive. Hopefully it's worth it, it's certainly fun a lot of the time, but fiscally more gratifying than being bought out by a studio? Not sure. And if a studio green-lights then it has ready-made distribution. Certainly not better fiscally to go indie if you put in some of your own or your own prodco's funds...unless of course you can then convince one of the studios' distribution arms to distribute it widely. Back to square one again and your film competes with the thousand other films that jostle for distribution in any format.
I wouldn't do this game just for the money because often money and art don't mix. Writing/producing is rarer than writing/directing. There's a good reason for that. I'm on the horns of this dilemma - if that is indeed the expression - right now. Only God knows how it will turn out, but I do try, wherever possible, to enjoy the whole process otherwise I would probably become an alcoholic/drug addict/raving loon (and there enough of them already, especially in LA).
The first rule of producing is that you never use your own money.
That aside, you have presented the worst case scenario for producing and the best case scenario for writing.
By artistically and fiscally gratifying I meant this: wouldn't it be better to have made the film you pictured in your head and have it on the videoclub shelf with a small profit in your pocket as opposed to one day, after years of effort, have a reader toss your script into the sluch pile because it had three brads and not two?
I think both eventualities take about the same amount of time, and, with the movie industry's speed, it's important to achieve smaller victories faster, while you're still alive.
That aside, you have presented the worst case scenario for producing and the best case scenario for writing.
By artistically and fiscally gratifying I meant this: wouldn't it be better to have made the film you pictured in your head and have it on the videoclub shelf with a small profit in your pocket as opposed to one day, after years of effort, have a reader toss your script into the sluch pile because it had three brads and not two?
I think both eventualities take about the same amount of time, and, with the movie industry's speed, it's important to achieve smaller victories faster, while you're still alive.
Yes yes yes. 100% agreed. That's why producing, if you can stomach it, may get your baby up there on the screen faster than hoping for a studio. However, that doesn't mean it's much easier. It's like saying that it's easier to run a 100 in 10.1 seconds than it is to run it in 9.9 seconds. Very few people can do either.
By the way: the film you have pictured in your head will only be the one you see on screen if you've financed it 100%. Between your director, editor, financiers, sales agent, distributor(s) and the censor you may find that what you thought you'd filmed is not what's actually up there. This applies hugely if you're a writer only. Which breaks your first rule and which no-one I know (including myself) is crazy enough to do.
You're kidding, right? It's a highly biased representation of the most commercial available material as presented by those with the contacts to get through the front gate.
Since most scripts never make to a studio (or even a prod. co.) then there is absolutely no way to say that the best ones get optioned.
A little closer to topic.
I emailed my query to an agency on Tuesday. Today I received an email requesting a synopsis. I wont name the agency, but if you look them up in HCD it clearly says “No Unsolicited Material”. My theory – query, if they don’t like it, want it, need it- they’ll say no or nothing at all but they may end up interested…
Just my 7 ½ cents
I emailed my query to an agency on Tuesday. Today I received an email requesting a synopsis. I wont name the agency, but if you look them up in HCD it clearly says “No Unsolicited Material”. My theory – query, if they don’t like it, want it, need it- they’ll say no or nothing at all but they may end up interested…
Just my 7 ½ cents
Now a couple companies in HCD, their websites actually say 'No Unsolicited IDEAS' or 'MATERIALS'. That means No, Don't Even Ask. 'No Unsolicited Submissions' means query first.
Well, this is fundamentally a mass medium.
I could, I suppose, claim that I've written the greatest novel of all time -- unfortunately, it has no commercial viability. In fact, it has so little commercial viability that nobody in the world likes it except one person.
Me. I'm not even going to show it to anybody else. Ever.
Fortunately, I not only like it, but have the taste to recognize it for what it is -- the greatest novel of all time.
Now -- just maybe -- maybe I've written another Remembrances of Things Past. Who knows?
But the odds are all against it.
Anyone who evaluates scripts on an on-going basis -- readers, execs, people who read submissions for contests -- all of the places where people non-pros send their screenplays send them, will tell you the same thing (and I've done all of these things).
The overwhelming majority of scripts are just plain godawful.
Most aspiring screenwriters are just plain amateurs who will never be anything else -- will never get within shouting distance of writing a screenplay of professional calibre -- even an average script.
I mean take the worst Hollywood movie that you have ever seen.
These writers will never, in a million years ever write anything that good.
I mean -- you've got people who play pro ball. And then you've got semi-pro.
And then you've got people who play ball on the weekends.
And then you've got people who watch a lot of baseball on TV or maybe watch it every so often -- but think they know how to play ball.
And because of that, they think they can actually get up and go to bat with guys who actually play real pro ball. In real stadiums. And get paid real seven figure sums for doing it.
But the fact that they sit at home in their chairs and call those guys bums when they strike out -- actually *doesn't* mean that those guys can get up to bat and hit the ball better.
Now, maybe one in a million actually can.
And those are the guys who go out and get those multi-million dollar contracts.
Because, as a rule, if they're really that good, they don't just sit and yell at their TVs.
NMS