Top 4 Reasons Why Screenwriters Need to Move to Los Angeles
Yeah, the world is shrinking, and yeah you can use Skype or Google Hangouts, to communicate across the globe (or ICQ, or AIM, or Ham radio while you’re at it), but if you’re serious about screenwriting, you need to move to Los Angeles. I hate to say it. As it is, me and my gal sometimes can’t get to the beach, or over to a museum, or sometimes even just out to drinks with friends, because the traffic’s so bloody bad. There’s simply too many people here. And sadly, they’re all humans. But as a...
read moreThe Top 5 Skills Needed to Be A Great Script Reader
My friend Lena made a snide comment about script reading yesterday over coffee. “Any monkey can be a script reader.” So I slung poo at her. I jest! I immediately stepped up into the role of defense attorney and proceeded to destroy her case against script readers, with a slew of points and observations I’m now phrasing into a more easily digestible list, in the hopes that future generations of Lenas could grow up in a world where the talents of script readers are not only so caustically slandered, but perhaps...
read moreTop 8 Good and Bad Things About Script Coverage
4) It’s far less expensive than hiring a script consultant or script doctor Some screenwriters who’ve made it over the walls of the Hollywood castle don’t need to worry about having money anymore. They’ve made it as a paid screenwriter, and so hiring a script consultant or a script doctor to give them script notes isn’t a big expense for them. But if you’re like the rest of us screenwriters out there, paid and unpaid, you’re probably very concerned with where your money goes. And hiring a...
read moreAnimation writers need feedback too!
Hey kids! Brian here. I recently ran into screenwriter Steven Darancette at a local awesome coffee shop. Steve and I had worked together on several features in the past, but hadn’t hung out for a while. In the interim, Steve had written for a ton of produced shows, including some for Warner Bros. (Ozzy & Drix, Biker Mice From Mars, Zorro-Generation Z, and others) So when he told me he had opened his new site Darancette Development, a script consulting service focusing on TV animation, I was super curious. I wanted to know...
read moreWriter Beware: Buying “Access” to Studio Execs and Agents
A friend I’ve known for 30 years stopped in for a few days, visiting from the UK. We’ve always been close, so he knew I ran a company that did something with screenplays, but didn’t know exactly what that meant. So he asked, and I showed him how Screenplay Readers worked: Agents, writers, and producers submit scripts to our reader team, we read them, and then we give our analysis of their scripts in small 4-5 page script coverages. He was wowed at the whole concept in general, having given up a writing background and...
read moreField Guide to Spotting Screenwriters In The Wild (Part Two)
Classifying the myriad types of screenwriters out there has been a task that’s eluded science since the dawn of cinema. But me and my team from the University of Screenplay Readers has been able to compile and catalog, at long last, these unique creatures. And we’ve put them in our blog. Because that’s what scientists do. In my Field Guide To Spotting Screenwriters In The Wild (Part One), I was able to classify several major species of screenwriters you may encounter in their natural habitats. I now continue that...
read moreField Guide to Spotting Screenwriters In The Wild (Part One)
I’ve worked with all types of screenwriters here at Screenplay Readers, good, bad, friendly, evil, you name it. And having written, directed and produced 5 feature films, I’ve had the fortune of being exposed to (or inoculated by, you might say) an even wider variety of the species known as screenwriterus domesticus. So, since the moviemaking world has been clamoring for some sort of taxonomy/classification system for all the different species of screenwriters, I thought I would take it upon myself to do the honors. I present to...
read moreTop 5 Self-Tweaks To Make You More Appealing to An Agent
If you’re a screenwriter looking for representation, you’re probably well aware of the basics: be a nice person, be firm, be confident, etc. But here are five angles you may want to consider before sending out that first query letter, which may help boost your chances of landing that agent or manager who could make the difference to your screenwriting career. #5 – Make your concept mind-blowingly original and amazing Easy, right? Well put it this way: if you haven’t been able to come up with at least ONE script...
read moreShooting The Messenger – How to Not Be A Dick When Getting Paid Script Feedback
My company Screenplay Readers provides script coverage, and we’re a team of vastly different script analysts, with vastly different tastes and backgrounds, as is any good script coverage company (and there are LOTS of good script coverage companies (coverageink.com, scriptapalooza.com, etc). But where you go wrong as a screenwriter in choosing one of us script coverage companies to cover your script is when you treat the entire process as if it’s an *objective science*, free of reader biases. Like geology. Or auto repair. The...
read moreTop 5 Ways to Get a Recommend on your Script Coverage
Has your screenplay ever received a RECOMMEND when getting script coverage? As a script analyst running my own script coverage company, Screenplay Readers, I’m constantly bombarded with questions from screenwriters and producers, but perhaps no question is asked more than: “What do I gotta do to get my script rated as a RECOMMEND?” And after replying to email after email over the years, I finally realized that there were 5 basic things I was telling the screenwriters who asked this question. And those top five things are...
read moreNeed more than script coverage?
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