![]() Heck, many are crammed with spec scripts from known writers, both regularly employed and underemployed ones.īut for those lucky few who do get their scripts read, you, the screenwriter, will likely never read the script coverage that script readers writes about your script. The result is studio and agency inboxes are crammed with spec scripts from unknown writers. ![]() And everybody thinks they can write a script. ![]() An immutable fact of the film business since time immemorial has been that everybody wants in. Paid script coverage isn’t for everybody, but here’s my take on the two biggest reasons it can help, and the two biggest reasons why it might not be right for you:īiggest Benefit #1: It gives your script a “dry run” for the real submission process.ĩ0 times out of 100, or even more frequently, if you’re sending in your script to an agency, producer, or production company, your script isn’t getting read. But while I’m a huge advocate of paid script feedback for my own writing, and am a huge fan of it because it’s my business, I have to make one thing super clear: I’m an even bigger advocate of getting as much free feedback on your work as possible before paying for any script coverage. And standing shoulder-to-shoulder with all those methods and options, free and otherwise, is the service of paid script coverage.įull disclosure: I’ve run the script coverage service Screenplay Readers since 1999. Now it’s more accessible than ever to find communities and like-minded folks to help you with your screenwriting. Prior to paid script coverage services, a screenwriter would generally rely on her writer colleagues, writers group, mentors, or friends and family, to provide her with insight into her work.īut with the rise of the world wide web also came the rise of online meetups and writers groups and screenwriting forums. Traditionally, receiving script feedback on one’s own screenplay - feedback of any kind - has never been a super easy endeavor. So now there’s a virtual cottage industry of script coverage companies spanning the internet, ranging from the good to the bad, from the expensive to the cheap, from professional work to hatchet jobs. They were now taking their trade online, and exchanging their time and critical chops for money. Script readers were no longer only to be found in agencies and studios and production companies, or working with name talent. Script coverage was an internal document designed to stay internal, and not necessarily get back to the screenwriter whose script was covered.īut with the rise of the internet, script coverage became available as a tool for screenwriters and filmmakers, who could use to improve their screenplay. That is, the only entities doing script coverage were agencies, production companies, studios, and producers. In the past, generally pre-1996 or so, script coverage was an in-house thing only. In other words, script coverage is a glorified “book report” of a screenplay or teleplay, designed to provide “the skinny” about a script, in order to save someone higher up from having to read the actual script. Script coverage saves a producer, agent, or otherwise busy film industry “somebody” from having to read the actual script. While the templates and methodologies can be as different as the different entities doing the script coverage, one basic purpose is common to all script coverages: So, it’s fair to surmise that most people who write script coverage, or read scripts for a living, probably learned from reading the script coverage of their predecessor at a production company or studio or agency - each of which, by the way, has its own unique way of doing it.ĭoes the script coverage include a synopsis? How long of a synopsis? A critique section? If so, is it free-form, prose critique, or is it a series of boxes to check off and score, like “Plot,” “Character,” “Conflict,” etc.? Is there an analysis grid? Does it include a logline? Up top, does it indicate the writer’s name? The submission date? Does it indicate who submitted it? Usually you’re introduced to script coverage at your first gig, or even internship, by way of your boss or higher-up handing you a script (or a PDF these days) and a Word document containing the script coverage template from the lucky person who wrote script coverage before you got there. Script coverage, it’s been said, is one of those things about the film industry that nobody really learns about until they’re actually in the industry.
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