Querying One Agency with three Scripts?

If they're all first drafts - yeah, it's too much. Even the first one is.

Thats's a good question. Enlighten me, please.

Anyway....

From an agent's point of view, I know that if you called them up and said, "I have three ideas," they'd say, "Send me the best one." To that end, I'd advise marketing your best work to the most appropriate agency.

The seven days worries me a little. You only really get one shot with an agency you know, there's no harm in taking a couple of weeks to rewrite and polish. Just sayin.

No, I don't think so. I was referring more to the actual reading of the script. Send a bad script and they'll much be less willing to request your work in future.

But given enough time, you can certainly re-query an agency with new ideas.

How do you feel about the script you've just written?

Well, sometimes you can churn out a script that fast if you're in the zone - doesn't happen to me very often. I suppose it's going to take you time to get responses to your queries so you've time to rewrite it if you feel a need - which I hope you will.

If it were me, I'd pick out the best script of the four you've written and spend my time querying that. An agent will be impressed by a well-written query marketing a single concept. If you list three or four in a single query they may interpret that as a lack of focus/confidence in your writing and they'll probably just ask for the best one anyway. Up to you of course -just my two cents.

You will find that different agencies will be suitable for different scripts. Therein lies the challenge of finding the right place to send your work. I'm sure you know that the CGI one is gonna be a tough sell simply due to the nature of the medium. Good low budgets and good comedies are always wanted though. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

I have a little story about a script called Six Days that I wrote ironically enough in Six Days.

That was about a year and a half ago. I've had a lot of good things said about it, it's undergone many revisions, and it still needs to go under yet another one because it had logic plotholes.

Please, send the script to someone else and get an objective opinion. Because from my standpoint it looked pretty dang good. Moral of the story, they usually aren't as good as you think they are.

Going with everyone else's advice, send your best one, wait for a response. If they say not right for us, but what else do you have? Then send another one. No need to pummel them.

Hobbledehoy said:

I feel pretty good about it. I've re-read it and see no issues.

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I emailed 30 pages of my current WIP to my critique group last week. I re-read it several times, and there definitely no typos or silly mistakes when I emailed it.

Well, guess what?

The critique group meeting is tonight, and I just looked at the PDF again. It is full of little typos and repetitions (my big bugbear) that I SWEAR weren't there the first time. (Some even have a squiggly underline that I couldn't possibly miss)

I don't know how they snuck in - but they are definitely there now. I suspect a mouse has been turning on my laptop while I'm asleep at night, and adding the mistakes.

Put the script away for a week or two and re-read it. I guarantee you'll find something that you can improve.

In the meantime ... how about I trade your helpful muse for my hapless mouse?

Good luck,

Mac

This last week I queried a script I wrote 5 years ago, got an OK to upload the script (this was in response to an InkTip ad, nothing to get excited about), and made the mistake of looking at the script instead of just generating a PDF and chucking it out there. Ay caramba! I spent most of the week tearing my hair out trying to wrestle an amateur hour wad of steaming crap into something that's vaguely readable. Easily trimmed 10 pages and maybe rewrote 40 percent or more of the wooden dialogue.

'Way back when, this was the same script that got mega-interest from a consortium of producers and investors who enthused over the project for weeks, but got up and walked away at the last moment without a word of explanation, as sometimes happens. These guys must have been high on weed! If someone had posted something this awful in Share Your Work, I would have ripped it up for ass paper. And thanked myself for doing so.

Good to see you have such faith in your first pass writing, Hobbledehoy! Some people have the gift.

-Derek

Is anyone else laughing out loud at this thread?

Is this the comedy channel?

I think I'll write a movie in the next six hours called: "How My Danish Neighbor Killed Jesus." Lead character will be named Mac Typo, and his wife insists on using Miss instead of Mrs and whispers "We're not really married to each other."

It's become Pavlovian for me: Hobble makes me giggle!

seanie blue said:

I think I'll write a movie in the next six hours called: "How My Danish Neighbor Killed Jesus." Lead character will be named Mac Typo, and his wife insists on using Miss instead of Mrs and whispers "We're not really married to each other."

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I'd see it.

seanie blue said:

Is anyone else laughing out loud at this thread?

Is this the comedy channel?

I think I'll write a movie in the next six hours called: "How My Danish Neighbor Killed Jesus." Lead character will be named Mac Typo, and his wife insists on using Miss instead of Mrs and whispers "We're not really married to each other."

It's become Pavlovian for me: Hobble makes me giggle!

Click to expand...

Hello SB. Still tearing it up, I assume?

Anyway, at most places, when you submit you get put into a database. They'll know if you submitted before and what they thought of it. And some Prod cos even have rules about how many scripts you can submit in a year.

The point though, is that it's absolutely unacceptable to submit three scripts to one prod co at one time. You'll look like a newbie and will be ignored.

As someone said above, submit whichever script is best for that prod co. They will, in fact, expect you to have other scripts. If they like your script and it's not what they're looking for they may ask to read others. This definitely happens with agents who definitely suppose you have more than one script.

As a side note, I'm generally confused why you guys always submit to prod cos instead of agents. But to each their own.

zeprosnepsid said:

As a side note, I'm generally confused why you guys always submit to prod cos instead of agents. But to each their own.

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?? I was under the impression that agents are only interested in clients with a track record, whereas prodcos are interested in high concept scripts. No? Yes?

I've mentioned this thread on the DD board before: The Futility of Pursuing an Agent -- which kinda speaks for itself.

No argument intended, looking for your opinion.

-Derek

Hi Derek

Screenplay agents are a funny lot. They want what they THINK the market wants, which can mean a lot of great stuff that an imaginative prodco would make into a movie gets returned. I've had a 'this would make a great film, but we're not taking period films now' from an agent in the same week as a huge distributor told me this was EXACTLY what they were looking for. Guess the agent missed out on their 10% by trying to second-guess the market...

Studios/distributors seem to like big-budget, high-concept films, however crass the concept. Mid to small prodcos would rather have great characters, discernable genre (ie not a mix of five genres - too confusing) and a wonderful story that grabs them from the first page.

I like small/mid prodcos making films in the US$1m-US$15m range. They're more prepared to start reading, and if you can hook them early on then they might even make it to the end.

If you can get a GOOD agent - and that's a process of trial and error to some extent - then it's like golddust because your scripts will go to places you could only dream about. But a bad agent, as others have written on AWC, is a LOT worse than no agent at all.

I think it's good advice to get one film made and then get an agent because you're more likely to get one of the good ones actually wanting to represent you. That's my thrupenny-worth.

Sure dpat. But that's one (anonymous) man's opinion. I counter with Site link removed per request of other site's Webmaster It's not all good news, but it does say that agents will and want to take on new clients. And have and will take on clients with no experience. But the key, which I'll get to, is to get at their secretaries, assistants and junior agents.

Also, you have nothing to lose querying an agent. It's an envelope and a stamp. It's a lot cheaper than making the movie yourself. Or dealing with small prod cos that may or may not be legit or may be legit but still not pay you.

Lots of working writers get agents first (and therefore get work fast). Sure, a lot of them win contests (that Iris lady who wrote Sands of Iwo Jima won a small contest - Palm Springs or something, and got an agent and got her script made and nominated for an Oscar in a very very short period of time), but some simply submit.

Agents will expect you to have more than one script by the way. This is pretty important. You can make and lose a contact pretty fast if you are a one hit wonder.

I used to know a ton of agent assistants and junior agents. One agent's assistant at ICM talked to me one the phone for two hours one day after I graduated school and gave me an unending amount of great info (he is now the head of an entire division at ICM). Unfortunately, when I knew these people I didn't have anything to show. Now that I might have something to show, they're all senior agents that won't take my phone calls. But junior agents and assistants are looking for new product. They absolutely are. They're looking really really hard.

Always query a specific agent, not a general agency. If you can, address it to their secretary or assistant. You can easily call their secretary/assistant and say I have a query I'd like to send it, can I address it to you? They like that. And they'll very possibly read it.

Another good way to find these people is to read the trades. 'So and so was recently promoted from junior to senior...' or 'so-and-so, good agent's assistant at ICM...' Or if you go to any of these seminars or anything, ask the writer not who their agents is, but who their agent's assistant is.

If the assistant/secretary/junior agent likes it, it's the same thing as a referral.

I think going through an agency is actually easier than prod co hell. As the guy in your link referred to, going through small prod cos takes years and years. You struggle and struggle to get a 100k film make, then a $1 mil film made. 10 years later, and probably with a lot of bad experiences in between, you finally graduate to working on studio pictures. Prod cos are always making promises they don't keep, going under, are swindlers or subject to swindlers themselves. I just think people shouldn't rule the agency route out is all...

?? I was under the impression that agents are only interested in clients with a track record, whereas prodcos are interested in high concept scripts. No? Yes?

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i'm under the impression that agents are only interested in "newbie" clients with potential. why would they sign a two year contract with a one hit wonder. they want to be able to sell and get assignments and sell some more -- as much as possible during that time and don't want to wait for the writer to write another script. that's why a newbie with 4 or 5 not good but great scripts is ideal.

and what agent wouldn't want a writer with a proven track record?! but that writer probably already has an agent and therefore the new agent would be pilfering/stealing/taking advantage with their contract is up for renewal.

okay so, BACK ON TOPIC:
imo i think it's great if you have 3 or 4 scripts but query with your best and if they like it they will always ask, "what else have you got?" you should be able to have those others scripts market ready as well.

What I meant was, don't bother to impress an agent with your one script and not have any other scripts to back it up. Because then you lose contact with that agent. And you may never get it again. I was not very clear.

But yeah, only query one. But you should have more.