Getting representation really is a whole lot of it, you're correct. And classes have no effect on that whatsoever. Forget about classes, if your screenwriting is up to par. That is, if others generally agree it's up to par (or even if they don't). And if you don't think it is but can polish no further? Write another screenplay, different genre. The more you write, the better you get. It's a law of Nature. And always remember what William Goldman said: Nobody Knows Anything. That is, concerning whether a script, or a movie made from that script, will be a success.
Because for all I know, you may very well have written a screenplay that blows anything I've written out of the water, anything NMStevens has written out of the water, anything others here have written out of the water. So, we're back to representation.
I cold-called a well known production company to pitch my Western out here in Silly Land. Know how many words I got out before I was abruptly cut off? About 4 words. "We don't accept any material without representation!". Click. That's pretty much standard. I got the same result from many other production companies. There are exceptions, but agents make the deals here. It's a rigged town.
Those who claim that you can get a script sold WITHOUT representation are conveniently leaving out that magical "C" word: Connections. That asset sometimes can trump lack of representation. It's one reason why they tell starting screenwriters to get to where the business is conducted, such as out here in Silly Land. Boots on the ground. You might - maybe - just happen to meet someone who leads to someone else and they know somebody...
Connections can go back to friends you made at a posh, expensive and prominent back-East college too. Connections can come from being in a parallel career for an appreciable length of time. Newspaper writers of longevity, for example, will find it easier to get a book of theirs published - because in addition to honed writing skills, they've also brushed up against the people who work the publishing business. Connections can come from what I'm doing: A bit of acting here in Silly Land. You meet producers, writers, directors.
Global Rule #1: Write because you enjoy it, at some level. That is always the prime motivator.
Nobody can argue with your Global Rule #1 -- but as to the rest of what you're saying --
You talk about making connections and that taking classes has no effect on that.
My first professional sale -- albeit a tiny one, a treatment for a low budget feature that I sold for $250 dollars, came about as a result of a producer who came into a class I was taking at NYU and basically said, "Here are some titles we've got to some movies we'd like to make -- if you write a treatment to one of these titles and we like it, we'll buy it." I wrote one, they liked it. They bought it.
It never got made, but it was my first sale.
My first option by a professional company came about as a result of *sitting in* on a class that was being given at NYU -- after I'd graduated. It was being given by a woman who was an exec at a company who'd come in to talk about her experiences and at the end of the class she invited people to send her material. I sent her something I'd written, got a letter back -- not quite right for us, do you have anything else. I'd just finished another script, send that in -- they optioned it.
It also never got made, but again -- my first option by a professional company.
And it turns out that that same woman ultimately went to work for a company in New York where I'd gone in to meet their story editor about a script I'd written -- again, based on a cold query letter.
Based on that meeting, they invited me to pitch for their new TV show -- and who did I end up pitching to? This same woman who had earlier optioned that screenplay.
Based on that pitch meeting, I ended up making my first professional sale of a teleplay -- which was produced.
At that point, I didn't have an agent -- had sold a treatment, had had two screenplays optioned, had sold a teleplay which was produced.
The only connections I had were those that I developed -- *through* classes I had attended and through cold queries and later through cold-calling which is something that you also claim doesn't work.
At various points in my early career I've had agents and I had a manager. None of them ever sold anything that I ever wrote.
Yet over those same years I managed to sell my own material and to make my own connections.
I grew up in West Roxbury. I moved to NY to go NYU Grad Film. I've never lived in L.A. (except for a month when I stayed there to direct a low budget feature).
The town isn't "rigged" -- the town is behaving sensibly. It only makes around 250 features a year. Include features made for TV and DTV and it only goes up to around maybe 500. If you accept that the ratio of scripts bought to movies made is around ten to one, figure that around 5000 screenplays are bought/commissioned every year.
But last year alone, FIFTY thousand screenplays were registered with the guild. And it's not as if every year all the screenplays from the years before are simply tossed on the fire. Many of them are still in play.
It's not even as if the odds of getting into that 5000 are ten to one -- because the overwhelming majority of those scripts aren't spec scripts. They are commissioned properties -- works for hire based on either books, or remakes, or sequels, or magazine articles or an idea that a producer has come up with. All TV movies are works for hire. The majority of Hollywood features are works for hire. And a substantial percentage of indie films are the work of writer/directors, or writer/producer/directors -- and thus they represent a limited market for spec screenplays.
Plus, as many of you know, the market for indie films is in very bad shape in any case.
So those of us who write spec scripts, whether aspiring screenwriters or working screenwriters, are in competition for a very small number of slots.
Those who are prospective buyers of those screenplays are not looking to trawl for a grain of wheat in the midst of a ton of chaff. They don't have to. It's a buyer's market.
Every script they have to cover is money out of their development budget. And the cold cruel fact is, the chances of a script by an unvetted, unsold beginner being worth buying are so slim that they just aren't worth reading in the overwhelming majority of cases.
When a script comes by way of an agent, when it comes from a writer that they know, a writer whose work they have read, a writer who has produced credits -- all of that goes to increase the odds that what they're getting is going to be worth reading -- going to be worth buying.
Maybe those odds, at best, maybe fifty to one, or a hundred to one -- because (having worked in a development company) you end up having to read fifty or a hundred scripts --even agented scripts -- before you find one that you really want to option or buy.
But once you start dealing with unagented material -- just stuff from the slushpile, then suddenly you're dealing with odds of many thousands to one of finding something that's worth buying.
And for the overwhelming majority of buyers, to spend seventy or ninety bucks a pop to have thousands of such things covered on the off chance that one might be worthwhile just isn't worth it.
That is *their* reality.
And that being said, there are still ways that you can get past the "Do you have an agent?" roadblock.
I did it for years -- I describe how in that FAQ link I keep attaching to various posts.
NMS