The 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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Read MoreTop 5 Bad Things Script Consultants Say About Script Coverage Which Aren’t True
Script coverage, as we all know, is 3-4 page “book report” on a screenplay, consisting of a synopsis and a set of reader comments on the script itself. The basic idea is, a busy producer or agent hires a script reader to read the stack of scripts on her desk, and then write COVERAGE for each script. That way, the agent can read the 3-4 pages of coverage, rather than the full 100-page script, saving time and money. And as you know, many companies online now offer script coverage as...
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