Where to send it - which is best?

[chrischance]

It was my birthday yesterday and a close friend offered to buy me a membership of any outfit that deals with scripts ie., Inktip. Or perhaps I would like to join UK Screen Services? This is a nice birthday gift but I'm blowed if I know which is best for me.
I have two spec scripts ready for pitching so has anyone got an idea of which value for money outfit is best?

[Plot Device]

I'm torn between InkTip and IMDbPro.

InkTip is kinda like an ongoing game of playing the lottery for months or even years as far as waiting for your magic number to come up. But then when it DOES come up, and it's one of the members-only ads, I could sometimes cry.

As for IMDbPro, I have some awesome scripts that I am certain folks like Jim Carrey and Brendan Fraser and Dennis Quaid would love to at least review, but I have no way of getting in touch with their production companies (often called "vanity prodcos") nor do I even know the names of their production companies -- but if I had IMDbPro, then ALL those production companies would be at my fingertips.

[thothguard51]

Unsure how true it is, but I was told by an accquaintance that you never send scripts to any actor or production company without having an agent represent you. He said the reason is because they ALL have been known to run with the idea, have someone else rewrite it and claim it as theirs.

[Maryn]

I advise against IMDbPro.

When you have marketable scripts, you can get their 10-day trial (or is it two weeks?) for free just by having a current user account in good standing at IMDb, grabbing all the information on agents, production companies, or whatever else you want before the free trial expires.

Maryn, a regular at its Shop Talk Writers board

[nmstevens]

Unsure how true it is, but I was told by an accquaintance that you never send scripts to any actor or production company without having an agent represent you. He said the reason is because they ALL have been known to run with the idea, have someone else rewrite it and claim it as theirs.

I'm not sure who your friend is or where he gets his facts, but this notion crops up a lot, especially amongst aspiring writers who value their ideas more than their experience.

So it's important to be clear on certain points.

No idea is protectable under copyright law -- only that idea embodied in some fixed form of expression, like a screenplay or a treatment or a story. That means that even if you've registered the copyright, even if you have an agent, even if you've actually made the movie, that the underlying *idea* isn't protectable.

That's why, after the first Friday the Thirteenth movie came out, there were dozens of movies that ripped off the idea of Friday the Thirteenth. That's why, after Jaws came out, there were countless movies that, in one form or another, ripped off the idea for Jaws.

And it was all perfectly legal because the "ideas" for those movies are not legally protectable.

In order to demonstrate that someone stole your literary material, you have to demonstrate "significant" copying of things like characters, situations, dialogue, incidents, structure, etc.

Plus, the items in question have to be unique and original to your script, as opposed to things that would naturally and inevitably follow, given the idea in question -- if it's a bank heist story, for instance, you'd naturally expect there to be scenes involving the planning of the heist, casing the bank, breaking in, conflicts amongst the robbers, something going wrong, etc. because you'd expect those things in *any* bank heist movie.

If what your friend says is true and all of these places are desperate to rip off all of these unsuspecting beginners -- why is it that virtually every place you call, you'll find that the first question they ask you is, "Do you have an agent?" and if you answer no, they'll be happy to tell you that they won't accept un-agented submissions.

Why? Because they're desperate to rip off your stuff?

I ran into somebody who was very careful *never* to send a script anywhere without attaching a release form -- somehow or other, this person had gotten the impression that the release form protected *him.* It must have come as a real shock when I explained that the release form is designed to protect the *company* from the writer.

That's why *they* want release forms. That's why *they* want you to have an agent. Because it protects them.

In both cases, it protects them from inexperienced, beginning writers who might be inclined to sue because they don't understand how common it is for similar scripts and similar ideas to be floating around in Hollywood, given the number of people writing scripts.

I mean, for every movie you see, there are maybe fifty that went through the development process and never made it to the screen, and hundreds more that made the rounds, maybe got optioned, or never even made it past being covered and rejected.

And that doesn't include the literally thousands that got turned away at the gate and never even got covered.

People talk about the secrets of Hollywood.

Here's one of them. There are really just only so many good ideas. A limitless number of bad ones, but given the basic structure of a Hollywood narrative motion picture, the number of good ideas are actually limited.

And with literally hundreds of professional writers whose business revolves around coming up with ideas for movies -- I mean that's part of writing movies -- first coming up with the idea, and then actually writing it -- that were you to actually come up with an idea, the chances of it actually being an idea that no one else had ever come up with, would be unlikely in the extreme.

At best, if you were lucky, it might be an idea that hadn't been used in a long time, or a variation of an idea that was sufficiently new that it felt really fresh.

Sixth Sense was, at best, a fresh variation of an idea that was used in Ambrose Bierce's Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and later in Carnival of Souls. People with any kind of familiarity with the genre certainly didn't see it as anything new.

But that's beside the point -- it didn't sell because it was a "new idea" -- it sold on the strength of its execution, on its characters, its moments, its emotions.

That's not just "an idea" that someone can rip off and hire someone else to write. That's the stuff that a company wants to buy.

They didn't buy the "idea" for the Sixth Sense. They bought the script for the Sixth Sense.

And that's what aspiring writers who are trying to sell their work have to get out of thinking about -- this obsession about "ideas" -- because what's going to get you a sale isn't an "idea" -- what people are going to look for, and what they are going to want to buy from you is a "script."

The best way to protect any idea is to write it in the form of a script that people will want to buy and you won't ever have to worry about anybody stealing the idea.

NMS

[chrischance]

Thanks, guys, but I still haven't made up my mind. I'm edging toward Inktip, but I'll hang for a little while.
What NMS says about 'ideas' is bang on, but what you say, Nick, doesn't really affect me because my 'ideas' are about me; my personal life and the facts surrounding it. There are no ideas to my stories; they are factual and take you to places normal people cannot imagine. I suppose you might think it's like trying to pinch 'Midnight Express' or 'Shawshank Redemption.' I thought about that when I used both titles in my logline, but then I thought bollox, what happened to me was different in every way, especially the infamous Carabanchel prison and the corruption therein. Anyway, I digress; the aim of this post is to find where to spend my friend's money.
Best,
Chris.

[mario_c]

First of all, welcome Mr. Chance. And NMS, another outstanding rant - I think I need to queue Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge now. *does it* OK, I'm back. :D
But back on topic - you should subscribe to the Inktip eMails and test it out to see if any good opportunities for you arise. It's sort of an industry joke how incredibly specific the ads are - parkour dramas set in Australia, Christmas musicals set in Chile cast for a 20-something male lead and so forth - but there are lots of options and no-to-low budge productions associated with it.
You might also look into a tracking board subscription. TrackingB is the premium one, followed by the Tracking Board - I got a discount, but it's very worth it. At the top end of the pricing spectrum is Hollywood Creative Directory which is $200 annually and IMDBPro which is $15 a month! One of these is invaluable for digging up industry contacts, you might get both when you're a fully paid writer and don't need them anymore because you have an agent or manager :D.
My 2 cents. I've never heard of this UK Screen Services, nor has Google.

[chrischance]

Thanks for the tips, Mario, I'll check them out now.
UK Screen Services = http://www.ukscreen.com/
Best,
Chris.

[mario_c]

OK Thanks! Good luck!

[Harmonica]

I would recommend Inktip - while it can get expensive over time, it does generate some good leads and exposure for you and your script. I indirectly met my current lit manager via Inktip's weekly newsletter, and have also met a number of filmmakers through my work being posted on the site.

There are a lot of indie producers, a lot of low-budget projects, which can be a tough market unless you wrote your script with budget in mind, but overall, Inktip is a great place to start.

cheers

[chrischance]

Many thanks guys, but I spent my pal's dosh on a chinky on Garrucha waterfront.
Why? Because thanks to the info in my signature on these and other boards, a management and production co., liked what they saw on my site and approached with an offer of representation.
With the advice of a knowledgeable and experienced manager I am now into my first rewrite of one of my specs. I am really pleased with this, especially as he is in L.A.
You never know from which direction the bolt of lightning comes.

[lucky79]

I don't recommend Inktip. I have had more luck with Virtual Pitch Fest. I had a bad experience with Inktip. I met a producer through them who optioned a screenplay of mine. (After 12 months and a lot of untruths, nothing happened - the script is still out there). I got really angry when Inktip posted that the deal was done and even gave a date as to when the film was beginning production - it was all news to me. The film never got made and all that happened was some "wannabe" film maker tied up my script for 12 months when I could have been showing it to genuine producers. Now when I read in their newsletter that such-and-such has sold or optioned a script and "it will go into production in the fall", I wonder whether that's really the case.

A friend of mine once told me that Inktip was just a haven for wannabe film makers (who, unfortunately, make up a BIG percentage of this industry) to try and get a cheap script to cut their teeth on. If you're looking to have a short made by some film student in Norway, I guess it could happen. And that's not a bad thing. A lot of writers start out having shorts produced & building a portfolio that way. You can atleast go from being an "unproduced" writer to being a produced one. But if you're expecting William Morris to find your script there and make you famous, it probably won't happen.

I got my agent from Virtual Pitch Fest and I also strongly recommend entering a few of the good/top screenplay competitions. Often the prizes are meetings or readings with some of the top LA agencies & production companies who otherwise wouldn't even answer your emails.

I'm new here & hope I've been helpful!