Coverage or cover up?

Stop being paranoid. Take rejection in stride. Incorporate good notes.

Start writing another script.

"What else you got?" Has to have an answer.

Paranoid

You asked, so I will answer.

You are being paranoid.

Sometimes I read scripts for writers and charge for it. Mostly, though, I have done it for free. I have found that the wilder a script is in some grandiose way (e.g., chasing across the galaxy), the less willing the writer is to accept criticism.

Sometimes a script just does not work.

As for the guy whom you paid - the one who raved about how good your script is - he had his opinion. Whether he was entirely honest with you, I do not know.

Just keep working and have faith in yourself.

Nala1 said:

I have this friend, well he became a friend after I paid him to look over my 2 scripts. He's a former WGA board member, published author on scriptwriting and in general a well respected type. One of my scripts he "enjoyed immensely." The other he said would be good in case anyone asks to see something else. He told me, "You're a scriptwiter and don't let anyone tell you, you aren't. Now what you need to do is go out there and find a team that shares your vision to produce it (the immensely enjoyed script). It's like you have a lost tribe out there somewhere that you need to find. Don't let anyone make you change the work to something you don't want, rather find those who share your vision. And don't, by any means let it stop you when the doors slam and the nay sayers protest, coz there's gonna be a lot of that."

Hmm, go out and find your lost tribe. Just how do I do that? So went around seeking the net for answers and came upon a review for a script coverage outfit. This little service has had some success in linking writers to producers. I'll try that. Surely they will enjoy the script immensely as well! Ah, my ticket to representation and beyond. How cool!

The coverage came back with all but one of the check boxes in the lowest rank on the grid. It was a grim and humorless litany of pathetic sighs and head shaking. Finger wagging.

But as well something quite curious; the reader hadn't even understood the basic premise, huh? It's stated and restated, with visuals and everything. When the villain against a backdrop of huge video screens depicting atrocities tells the hero he intends to siphon the human genetic code in order to create a master race of super men to populate the galaxy, you wouldn't expect a reader to say, "You fail to explain in a satisfactory way, why this is a bad thing." Or words to that effect. Huh? Somehow I don't think the average viewer or even studio exec would need to be told that introducing things like genocide to an extraterrestrial community that doesn't even have war, let alone any lethal weapons is bad thing.

The reader's synopsis is a boring list of events that obfuscate the drama in such a way that anyone reading it would agree there's nothing compelling in the story. The synopsis even diffuses a key high-speed Road Warrior-esque in space chase scene set piece by saying something that absolutely did not happen; the chasers changed their mind and turned around it said. Why the lie? What on earth?

There were many other instances or weirdness where the questions raised by the reader were things that the characters ask and answer themselves and other similar incoherencies.

I should point out that the reader truly offered some really good suggestions peppered here and there. Things I was eager to fix. I love doing rewrites. It's where a big chunk of the magic happens. Plus I get to spend some time with my characters, my little imaginary friends. But these fixes took only a day at most.

So my questions to those who may wish to respond are, is this reader approach common? Should I complain? It's a small world out there and it could all back fire on me. I could quickly find myself on some black list. Coverage is not like a normal service where you have a customer service rep to go to. Complaining can get you into trouble. Should I let sleeping dogs lie and just take this as one of those many door slams I'm going to encounter? It's all so curious. My premise is I think quite unique and never been done before. At least not that I am aware. This reader has been around for a long time and has relations with producers. Could the obfuscation be a means through which the reader can pass on the premise to a favorite producer? Or am I just being paranoid? The script is registered both with the WGA and with the U.S. Copyright office.

Click to expand...

Okay. A few things. In my time, I've been a reader, I supervised readers and I've had my scripts read and have read the coverage -- gotten really good coverage and really bad coverage on the identical script.

Is this some paranoid thing where they're passing on the script and secretly doing this, that, or the other? No.

What's happening is this. Readers, even in my time, were shockingly underpaid. I doubt that it's improved since then. And they get paid by the script.

And there's a funny little thing that, when you work as a reader, you soon discover.

When you pass on a script, it's almost a gilt-edged guarantee that nobody above you in the chain-of-command, will ever read the script.

So -- it isn't at all unusual for the average reader, at some point, to connect these two facts:

1) The more scripts I read, the more money I make.

2) If I pass on a script, nobody above me will ever really know how carefully or even *if* I ever actually read the script in question.

Now, you have to realize that most coverage is never meant to be seen outside of the production house or the agency. Certainly the writer never sees it and is thus never in a position to mention that the coverage may be seriously at odds with the actual script.

But unless someone at the company actually reads the script and compares the two -- they'd never know.

And when the script is a pass, it virtually never gets read and no one will ever be the wiser.

So what happens? What happens is that a reader will probably read the first act (and ninety-plus percent of the time, it's going to be a pass) -- get the premise down -- skim most of the middle, and then read the end, to get the ending. And then slam through the coverage as fast as humanly possible, get the premise down, fumble through the middle, get the ending down, churn out some easy comments (and they usually are easy because with most scripts that are passes, it's easy to come up with a bunch of stuff that's wrong with them.

And then -- it's on to the next. Because with what you get paid, if you don't churn 'em out, you're going to starve.

Now, how do I know this? Because on more than one occasion, when I worked as a story editor, we had situations where readers would submit coverage, call it a "pass" but my boss, for whatever reason, would read the logline and he'd decide -- you know, I kind of like that idea

And of course, that didn't mean that *he* would read. That means that I'd get to read it.

And once I read it, I'd go back and look at the coverage and realize that half or two thirds of the coverage had just been completely-the-fuck made up.

So I would have to call whoever did the coverage and say, "Hey, man, don't do this. You really actually need to read this stuff because every so often, somebody here is going to read it, and then you're going to get nailed. So don't do it."

When I was working as a writer, I've submitted screenplays and (mistake on their part) companies have sent me the coverage and, as in your case, it was incredibly obvious that the reader had done exactly the same thing -- he'd just scanned the script and slammed out the coverage without really reading it.

So this sort of thing is incredibly common.

But the fact is, later on, when I was working freelance and I did coverage to help pay the bills -- guess what? I did the same thing. You'd get a script, you'd know within ten pages -- this is a total absolute pass -- there is no way in the world this thing would sell even to line the bottom of a bird cage. I got more important things to do with my life than wade through 120 page of this crap.

So I would do exactly the same thing. I'd read enough of the beginning to figure out the premise, skim the middle part, read the ending and write the coverage as fast as possible, write the notes in broad strokes and it's on to the next one.

Because the point is, from the perspective of the reader -- I'm writing to help the company find viable projects, I'm not writing in order to help the writer improve his work.

So if it's a pass and there's nothing there, from my perspective, of any value to the company, the rest is of nominal value. My old boss literally never even read the coverage. All he was interested in was the cover sheet with the logline and those boxes with the check marks on it.

If the logline wasn't interesting to him -- forget about it. If it was, he'd have the script read internally. That's it.

One line. What's the script about? Interesting. Not interesting. Next.

Readers develop an incredibly blase' approach to material - they have to plow through dozens upon dozens of scripts a week. They are generally given very specific guidelines as to what sort of material their company is looking to develop and when they come across something that they recognize as "not an X sort of project" -- with "X" being the sort of movie that their company is interested in making, they just want to get through it and move on.

Now, I don't know how this particular company that you submitted to is set up.

There are obviously some companies that do coverage aimed specifically at screenwriters. But that was never what coverage was about, and using it in this way is really fundamentally at odds with what coverage was originally intended to accomplish, even when it's done correctly.

And that always came down to the same mandate -- find us projects to acquire, to develop, to produce.

And presuming that that's what this company you're talking about is all about, then there may very well be two different agendas at work.

The first is the obvious agenda of the reader simply doing the coverage -- and the not-very-good, perfunctory way in which he did it.

The other, unspoken agenda is between the reader and the company and it has to do with the chances of achieving that writer-producer relationship that they may be offering to potential writers.

And I have to assume that they've done this in the past with certain writers and certain projects. And based on their track record, on their contacts, on the kinds of projects and the level of financing, they no doubt have a sense of the sorts of projects and the sorts of producers they've have success with in the past and will therefor have success with in the future.

And in the same way that we gave that sort of information to our readers -- what we were looking for and what we weren't -- it's very likely that they've conveyed that information to their readers.

So if you've written a two-hundred million dollar blockbuster, chances are they're not going to be in a position to do anything with that. Or a small historical art film.

Or who knows? But certainly, they have some parameters that are going to determine which projects they'll be interested in taking on and which they won't.

The notes and the coverage and the comments are almost an after-the-fact issue.

In the end, they're going to take on the projects that they feel they can make work, that they feel they can find a partner for.

Believe me, when I was working as a story editor, I never simply took the word of any coverage. If I read the logline and it interested me, I'd read the coverage, and even if the coverage or the comments weren't good or it was a pass, I'd still open up the script and read a few pages.

And in the end, that's where the script passed or failed. Either those few pages made me want to read more or it didn't.

And it was a rare event that a script that got passed on made me want to read more.

But sometimes it did.

Ultimately, a pass someplace is just that. It's a pass at that place. It just means that you move on to some other place.

Bad coverage someplace just means that -- it just means some reader gave you bad coverage.

You just have to move on. If you believe in the project, then you need to find other people who do and move on from there.

Oh, and by the way, not to be a hard-ass, but that phrase that you used, "-- intends to siphon the human genetic code in order to create a master race of super men to populate the galaxy" -- I have to tell you that that was a little clear to me too.

I say this not having any idea how it was developed in your script, but I just don't know what it means to "siphon" the human genetic code. Does one die when one has one's genetic code siphoned? Is it copying? Do you melt, dissolve? Evaporate? That is, if they just take a sample of our genetic code and go off with it to make their super soldiers, I suppose that might be bad for other people who in turn get "de-populated" but -- what happens to us?

I mean -- does this master race turn around and start by de-populating earth?

Again, I don't know how it's presented in the screenplay, but just in your short description -- it really wasn't completely clear.

NMS

Nala1 said:

@NMS Wow! Thanks! I'm guessing all you've noted isn't news to coverage outfits. Have they tried raising their fees to better pay their readers, so they can do their jobs without the added pressure?

Yes "siphoning" apparently isn't working. I'd chosen that because it seemed somehow more dastardly than simply "drawing DNA samples," which is harmless to the donor. The villain says, "They won't know what hit them." But now that seems unclear as well. Does it mean they won't even notice samples are being taken (intended), or does it mean they won't know why all of a sudden they've taken ill (unintended).

I'm considering adding a short montage that shows a series of examples-- a coffee mug is placed on a table after the drinker has finished taking a sip. A tentacle zaps the spot on the mug where the drinker's lips had been, etc.

But then you get into a whole other series of questions a reader could ask. How does the tentacle know where to strike? How do we know it's taking DNA?

A script is not a self-sufficient thing. Otherwise why not just publish the script? I'm always asking myself what do I need to say vs. what will the director and actors bring to the project. It's a balancing act. What can I do to minimize my words so the director and actors can have something to do? Sometimes I fall too much on the minimal side and need to watch for that. Will a director chose to drill down visually to the chromosomal level and show a tentacle lifting a DNA strand? I leave it to the director to decide how to "explain" visually. 'But have I given the director and actors enough to go on?' is always my question.

Click to expand...

Well, this may fall more in the category of a script critique so I won't belabor it -- but as a general and fundamental principle for all screenwriters:

It's never the business of the director or the actors to effectively tell the story -- that is, to clearly communicate what the hell is happening.

That's your job.

If space aliens are coming to earth and stealing human DNA to make a race of super soldiers -- then "that's what's happening."

It's not up to the director to figure out how to convey that. That's your job. Whether a weird light appears over sleeping people and you zoom in and show micro-machines harvesting DNA and teleporting up to their super-ships and being fed into their super-soldier cloning machines or whatever the hell you want to do -- that's your business.

The point is -- it *is* your business, because unless you effectively convey what the hell is going on in your story, the reader is going to be confused and the the screenplay won't ever get to a director and it won't ever get to the screen.

NMS

Nala1 said:

>snip<

I still don't get why a reader would eliminate this from all discussion, both in the synopsis and in the notes? These are key story points.

Click to expand...

Nala, without having read the script, I see it as all backstory. The story -- as I understand it -- is the hero's attempt to save the rest of the universe from the earthlings. (That right there could be problematic, since the stakes have nothing to do with me, everything to do with a bunch of planets I'll never visit.)

Get your script to talent, if you can. I just had a script optioned by a company that gave it horrible coverage. Luckily, the talent read it before the reader got his/her immature hands on it. Other people pay a producer big bucks to take it to an agency and to all intents of purposes pay for great coverage. I mean PAY, like 50k. it goes to the producer, and they leverage the coverage via contacts.
Go to the talent. Readers are usually young, underpaid, worked to death, and unless you wrote something that they are particularly interested in, and didn't have a really s**tty day, and their boss didn't give them 89 scripts to look at over their unpaid weekend, then you have a shot.
Go to the talent! Cannot emphasize that enough. I got great coverage at FOX for a very good script. Nothing ever happened with that script. The script I got horrible coverage on will most likely get made into a movie...because it really is a good script, albeit not for 22 year olds with no concept of mortality. And I got it to two directors and they both wanted to make it. I chose the director. He got talent attached. End of story.
Do not, I repeat for emphasis, do not complain! If you want to survive in Hollywood, then develop a thick skin, and write, write, write. Very, very, very few writers, directors, and actors make it in Hollywood SOLELY on contacts and favors. Eventually they have to produce. The ones that make it CAN produce. And they can take it on the chin big time. Thank the reader for their profound notes and MOVE ON.

Hi,
Just got back on. To answer your question. Get involved with actors, directors, writers, everyone you can. You do not know where it will lead. Get involved with the community of artists. These are all people who are struggling just like you. Some are good people, some are not. Doesn't matter. get involved. and most importantly keep writing. I've written about 25-30 screenplays. More than half of them are "filed" away, never to see the light of day again. but it doesn't matter. Get your arsenal together. They want a comedy, you have a comedy. They want a drama. You have a drama. Action? Sure, here you go. And don't let them get you down!!! You will eventually find out who your friends are. But you need to let that world know that you produce, produce, produce, and there is nothing that any of them can say that will ever stop you. One day they will get out of your way and you will have arrived.

I hate to say this, but having been produced in prime time TV, cable and film I have a tiny bit of experience.

If someone is truly interested in your script, and is willing to put up option money, then just get out of the way. Please, do this for yourself. I've watched too many writers, including myself think they had a say in these matters, and truthfully, they don't. Producers and directors ask your opinion, but for the most part, especially when your are starting out, they don't give s**t. They want you to feel important, but what they would prefer is that you hand in the final draft and drop dead of a heart attack once the contract is signed.
Get out of your own way and focus on writing. Getting a movie made today is monumental. You are asking people you don't know to invest hundreds of thousands or millions for 100 pages of your thoughts. If somebody really likes it and is wiling to put up what we call "good faith" money, then say think you and go about your life. When they ask for rewrites, give it to them. Do not shoot yourself in the foot at the starting gate.

FYI In the theater you do have power. Playwrights have the power to hire or fire directors, actors, etc. But with scripts, you pretty much have to get out of the way. Getting involved with a theater groups and honing your dialogue skills, hearing it being read, etc. is a good way to spread your wings. And at least you see your stuff performed. Movies are a long, long, long shot.

I wouldn't do actor readings without a director. Actor's can bungle things up pretty badly at the first go, unless they're exceptional actors. If your script is done, and you feel it can go out, then find a director (there are a lot of them around) hopefully a good one, because there are a zillion bad ones, and have him get actors together to do an informal reading. If it's a lot of action and not a lot of dialogue, then the reading might be pointless. But if it's dialogue heavy, then the reading can be worthwhile.