Consider With Reservations: The Stars of Quantity Over Quality Cinema

A recent viewing of a few direct-to-DVD type films gave me flashbacks to my reader days. I explore that in this post for Film School Rejects:

In my prior life as a script reader, I certainly read a lot of bad scripts, but at times, an even more common occurrence was a script that seemed to do a great many things right, but somehow fell just short of being something you wanted to champion as a movie. As draining as the terrible scripts were, there’s something pure about clear-cut bad. It takes little effort to explain why they’re unfit.

The real challenges were the scripts that had kind of a decent premise, kind of an okay twist or two, and a lead character who wasn’t bad so much as he or she was just… there. The raw materials are there for what COULD be a script. They just happen to be assembled in the least compelling way possible. It’s competent enough that it feels close to being a movie, but it’s raw enough that you won’t want to put your job on the line to tell someone else to read it. Scripts like this often got the “Consider with Reservations” ranking. If you’ve worked in Hollywood, you’ve probably read a number of scripts like this. If you’re not in the biz, it’s hard to find a good analogy to explain these scripts that need more time to bake.

Then, after a trip to Netflix one recent afternoon, I realized there’s an easy series of examples I can point to. In their library at any given time, you’ll stumble across a ton of recent films you’ve never heard of that star former mega-stars like Nicolas Cage, Bruce Willis, John Cusack, and Pierce Brosnan.

The men who headlined some of the biggest films of the eighties and nineties now film entire movies that no one knows exists until they show up under the heading “Because you liked Con Air.” Just going back five years, here are the films of just ONE of those aforementioned actors: Stolen, The Croods, The Frozen Ground, Joe, Rage, Outcast, Left Behind, Dying of the Light, The Runner, Pay the Ghost, The Trust, Snowden, The USS Indianapolis, Dog Eat Dog, Army of One, Arsenal, and Vengeance: A Love Story. That’s SEVENTEEN films! How far into that list were you before you were sure I was talking about Nicolas Cage?

Read the rest of Consider With Reservations: The Stars of Quantity Over Quality Cinema over at Film School Rejects

Reader question: How does one join the union as a script reader?

Shayna writes:

I was hoping I could pick your brain about the story analyst world... 

I'm currently a freelance reader, whose potentially looking to one day not be a freelance reader. I've done the agency thing, I've done the publishing thing and I'm really hoping to steer clear of the assistant world going forward. The few freelance jobs I've had have basically come to me and I've been exhausting my search for additional jobs, but as you know they're nearly impossible to come by. 

If I were looking to get further into this, would it benefit me to join a union? And on a separate note, is there anywhere else to look for these jobs, besides entertainmentcareers.net?

She's talking about the Story Analyst's Union, which is part of the Motion Picture Editors Guild. There are benefits to Union Membership, particularly with regard to pay. A few years ago it was something like $27/hour. That sounds good, but you have to realize that before the Guild can accept any new members, they have to check their roster and make sure that not a single active member is available.

As you might expect, that usually means that it's a hard union to break into. Very early in my career, I asked the SVP of Development at my company about how one goes about getting in, and he laid out that above scenario, while noting it was virtually impossible to break in. I'd think it's even MORE difficult now as reader jobs have disappeared, leading the union members to cling even tighter to their claim.

All of this goes back to my earlier advice - you don't want to be chasing jobs as a script reader. Find a different area of the business that excites you.

A tale of sexism and self-respect on a Hollywood job interview

This story's been on my mind these last few weeks. A few years have gone by since it happened, so I feel pretty secure in telling it with a few identifying details removed/obscured.

I was interviewing with two producers for the job of assisting both of them. On the face of it, it seemed like a good job. The production company was flush with cash, they had a couple high-profile projects on the horizon, and I knew someone who worked with one of the two. He'd given me the highest recommendation possible.

Some context for those not in the business - I did some calling around to people working at production companies and studios. Knowing the job description, which would be assisting TWO executives full-time, I tried to get back a reasonable estimate of what the job SHOULD be worth. The studio friends told me "Two execs? At that level? $70k." Those with production company experience quoted me a wide range, with $40k on the low end, and $60k on the high. (Those who lowballed it later acknowledged that they'd have raised their estimates if they knew it was for two execs.)

So I take a meeting with these guys and OH MY GOD there were moments I seriously thought I'd stepped into Entourage. One of the two was relatively professional and the other was a like a caricature of a Hollywood producer, and a caricature written by someone whose only experience in the biz was other caricatures on TV. The guy's a big talker with an overcompensating swagger and someone who you got the sense saw every conversation as a dick measuring contest.

But in the back of my mind I'm thinking "Worst case scenario: do a year here and having this place on your resume instantly makes you more desirable around town." So as the quasi-racist and definitely sexist statements pile up, I resolve to choke down my disgust and do my best not to wince. This becomes sorely tested when they come around to the subject of hiring some new support staff.

 "....and we're going to hire a receptionist."
- "A HOT receptionist!"
"Yeah, I've checked in with a couple of modeling agencies. We'll probably go that way."

This was soon followed up with a discussion of how they were dead set on hiring a guy for this assistant job "because you know how women are.... we want someone we can have fun with." Given what happened later, I kinda wish I'd just trashed the interview and said, "No. What do you mean? Tell me 'how women are.'" If nothing else it would make for a better story.

The casual sexism disturbed me at the time and it still bugs me now. The meeting had all the professional decorum of a locker room. I'd been out here for a number of years at the time and I'd never seen such blatant sleaziness during a job interview. Usually people at least TRY to put on their best face then.

Okay, there was one other weird interview I had within a year of moving to town. It was at a small production company, at a point where I had only two internships on my resume. I was meeting with the company principal about being his assistant. He glances at my resume, says "You interned for Jenny Smith?" (not her real name) "Yes," I brighten, taking his recognition for approval.

"JENNY SMITH IS A FUCKING CUNT!" And then he just lets the statement hang there. I have NO idea how to react to that. Laugh? Ignore it? Try to change the subject? I honestly can't remember what happened next. I think I merely looked shocked and after an eternal long silence, the assistant he brought in with him shifts the subject.

But back to the guys determined to hire a model. This line of discussion also lead to talk of how there'd be a lot of "dinner meetings" and some surprising interest in if I was married and for how long. I've been on plenty of interviews where family life comes up and this was different. I felt like I was being interrogated while Mr. Entourage squinted, cocked his head and ran my words through whatever Doucebag processor was also regulating his libido.

When I repeated the conversation verbatim to my wife, she drew the same conclusion I did: "It sounds like you're going to have to go to strip clubs with these guys."

Still, we agreed that if they were paying what it sounded like this job would be worth, and the opportunity to contribute was as great as they said, I'd be a fool to turn it down. (Sadly, there's so much sexism in this industry that if you discounted any job offered by a male pig, the pickings would be very slim. Not that I haven't worked for some great bosses in the past, but if you're around long enough here, you'll run against a lot of the bad eggs.)

Not long after that, I get the call. I passed the interview. Now I have to meet with their HR person. No disrespect to anyone who works in HR, but my experience is that these people have no soul. At the time of this interview, I hadn't yet had some of the more scarring run-ins, so I made the mistake of believing I was dealing with a human being.

I meet with the HR woman and after a few pleasantries, we get to the REAL meat of the meeting - salary range. I didn't go well. The woman interviewing me balked when I told her what a job assisting ONE high level exec at a studio was paying - and that I deserved AT LEAST that for two. Her answer? "If we were looking to pay that much, there are much more qualified people I'd be talking to than you."

Again, here's where Future Bitter would reach back into the past and tell himself, "This meeting just ended. Your relationship with this company just ended. Get up and walk out while you can take your self-respect with you." Alas, I sit there helpless as the offer goes from metaphorical insult to literal insult.

I ask what they DO think would be reasonable. Are you ready for this? "$32,000," she says. "Frick and Frack [not their real names] really like you and they really want to give you a chance even though your resume doesn't have all the experience they were looking for."

Again, this is the point where someone with self-respect would walk out. Instead, I continue to be polite as the woman says, "Let me go back to them and see if there's any room for more."

There is. And I know there is because Mr. Entourage spent half the interview boasting about all the money he was spending. Like, discretion is not in this guy's vocabulary.

A week later I get the call from HR. "Hi, I just wanted to see if you were interested in doing the job for the number we discussed."

"Honestly, for what they say the job is, that number is an insult. I can't do it for that little." The Mortal Combat graphic "FINISH HIM" keeps flashing before my eyes, but I remain almost unfailingly polite as I terminate the call.

And that was the point when I really came around to the notion that I didn't necessarily NEED an industry job if I already had a decent network and just needed something that paid the bills while I kept writing.

And the irony now strikes me that if I named who these guys were, there are plenty who'd think I was the unprofessional one for smearing them like that.

How does a reader keep from being too harsh?

I can't believe I missed it, but the 7th anniversary of this blog was just over a week ago. Time flies, especially when life is so busy.  Very sorry about the scarcity of posts on this site for a while. As I've said, it's a combination of life being busy and of me having tackled a lot of tops over the last seven years.

I got an email recently from Eva that I felt merited some attention:

I've been reading for the French film industry for 7 years now (production and distribution companies, talent agencies, and sometimes worked directly with authors), and I know I can be a tough bitch on the analysis and try to "babyproof" everything (a lot of money is involved in producing a film, but I'm sure you don't need a reminder). It wasn't such a bad issue working with producers. But I lately started to read for the Script Department of a distribution company that wants to get involved in development. And the head of development keeps telling me I'm too harsh even though he thinks I have good ideas (I mean I've only read two scripts for them so far - one I brushed off because of a repetitive and non-evolving structure and the other that I considered could be ok with some rewriting - and two drafts of a treatment).

And the thing is I know I tend to be some sort of purist when it comes to story writing but when I see patterns that don't match or a story that is being forced into an arbitrary frame, it kind of drives me nuts. Even though I always explain, with examples, why I think a script is weak, I still feel that I set the bar too high. Tell me I'm not crazy and that you get that feeling too... Because I sometimes wonder if I have too much hope in people willing to make not even great but at least good movies, or if "carelessness" is just a new trend.

How do you manage this kind of situation? And how do you adjust your reports depending on the company you work for? Because I feel that the guy I just started to work for always needs to be reassured a lot. Do you sometimes question your opinion on a script? Because I often fear I'm being too harsh and I could have missed something. 

Ah, when to be too harsh. I was pretty fortunate in how I came up. The first production company I worked for really only wanted two paragraphs of written coverage. When you're forced to be that sparse, it becomes easy to avoid beating a dead horse too harshly. Even then, every now and then one of the VPs might tell me that a particular word for phrase seemed needlessly harsh, and I'd adjust. (More often than not, the gratuitous harshness was the result of my trying to be clever, or at least an attempt to amuse myself.)

The bottom line is: I had room to learn the difference between being blunt and between being mean. And we're talking about a job where 80% of what I read was an easy pass. Fortunately, as this was just internal coverage, I was free to be as direct as I wanted in calling something awful.

And even then, I still needed a little tempering. When I went to read for one of the "Big 5" agencies, their coverage structure was more strict and called for more diplomacy. After all, you never knew when a script you panned would later end up getting a client attached to it (happened often), or if the writer would end up repped at the agency (also happened.)

The best advice about writing criticism in general is to write it like the person responsible for that work will read it. Imagine them reading it. Better still, imagine them reading it and then ending up sitting across from you at a social gathering. There are movies I've trashed where I'll totally stand behind my harshest words. If the writer created something vile or misogynist, I won't shrink from that assessment when confronted. You'll find your most fair and honest criticism is the easiest to stand behind.

Your cheap shots - not so much. (Though even then, you'll occasionally come across a writer or director so full of themselves that they're practically begging to be deflated.)

I wouldn't worry about setting the bar too high. Finding something worth of production (or distribution) is incredibly rare. You're there to be the yardstick for people sinking their money into films. If you were writing coverage for the writers, trying to help them refine their work into something people want, then I might tell you to ease up and make more effort to be constructive.

I think your boss wants to just make sure that you're an objective enough person that don't fall into the habit of reading scripts to find what's wrong with them. You might try making a point of recognizing the good, or at least calling out the attempts. That would give the review a little more balance, and show that you're smart about understanding why something isn't working.

Do I sometimes question my opinion on a script? Not often. It's more likely to happen when the script is mediocre than if it's really good or aggressively bad. You'll get scripts that don't seem to do anything wrong, but also leave you completely apathetic. That's where you point out the good, but also note that much of it left you uncompelled.

I had this happen with a script at the first company I worked at. It was a cool concept, but the script itself wasn't just dry, it was arid. I could not see the movie there. The tension was non-existent, the visual moments were few and far between and the pacing was slow.

I have never been more wrong about a script. A year later the movie was done and the director had found all those moments that weren't there on the page. He cast the right actors. He shot it the right way. He tightened the pace. In a good script you'll get a sense of these elements, but when they're gone you really feel their absence.

As a reader, you can only make the call based on what's in front of you. It's not a challenge unique to that job. People who actually have to put money into these scripts face the same crucible with a lot higher stakes. The biggest thing you have to temper as a reader is not falling victim to your own cleverness. That's where you make most of your unforced errors.

Best screenwriting post of the week: "Amateur Screenwriter Confident Hollywood Will Make His Movie Exactly As He Envisions It."

This post gave me equal parts belly-laughs and script reader PTSD. Do not take this lightly - if you have ever dealt with amateur screenwriters who refuse to see reason, you will need a trigger warning for this article: "Amateur Screenwriter Confident Hollywood Will Make His Movie Exactly As He Envisions It."

[Imperial, PA] Sean Tierney is excited to have finally finished his first screenplay after working on it for the past six years. He initially thought his magnum opus was finished two years ago, so he mailed a copy to DreamWorks Studios (Attn: Steven Spielberg or David Geffen if Steven’s out on location) but he received no response.

“I guess it wasn’t quite there yet.”

He eagerly went back to work refining his 173 page script by adding another 68 pages including an extended prologue to give more backstory to his seven major characters. Once it was done he took it to a local writers group who had offered him a table reading and discussion. Unfortunately they ‘totally botched it’ by not reading his dialog with the exact intonation he heard in his head when he wrote it.

Read the rest at the link.

When I looked foolish by making a case for SOUTHLAND TALES

As I hinted yesterday, here's the story of how I looked like a fool when I told my bosses I really, really liked the script SOUTHLAND TALES.

There was some incredibly clever writing in that script, as well as a truly unique premise. But it wasn't realized exceptionally well. Isolated pockets of it worked so well that as a reader you really wanted the whole thing to come together and be more than the sum of its parts.  I got this just before a weekend and it was such a priority that I was going to be reading it alongside the VP of Development, the SVP of Development, the assistant to the President of Development and the President of Development himself.

After my first read, I could never have explained half of what went on in that script.  It was just all over the place and full of complex, scientific concepts and technobabble about the nature of time and reality. There were enough ideas in there for three completely different films. But the one-third of it that I really understood, I really liked.

I read it a second time, and understood it only marginally better.

I read the script FOUR times over the weekend, taking notes each time until I felt I had puzzled out most of the narrative. Then read it a FIFTH time as I wrote up the synopsis and tried to bring some order to a very chaotic script. I gave it a consider, citing its imagination, even as I knew it only worked about 50% and that was with immense effort on the part of the audience. To bulletproof myself, I mentioned the commercial viablity of all of the talent attached.

Monday morning, I was the only one in the office who didn't come in with a "What the fuck was that?!" reaction. Suffice to say, I stuck my neck way out on that one and it was a risk that didn't pay off. Worse, my efforts at explaining what went on in the film sounded less like someone bringing clarity to a confusing, dense story and more like someone grasping at straws. I probably sounded like some film school graduate opining that The Fox & The Hound was really an allegory for the Cold War.  I was in way over my head, and more importantly, I was never going to change the votes of that tribunal so I never should have been that diligent with my coverage if I knew I was going out on a limb for this project.

The big punchline was that about two years after that, DOMINO came out and proved to be one of the worst films of the decade. Tony Scott over-directed it to all hell with a style that was completely wrong for the film. And then after that SOUTHLAND TALES bombed big too.

I did eventually see SOUTHLAND TALES and it reminded me of the gulf that can exists between how a script reads and how it is eventually translated to the screen. That's probably the most polite way that I can explain that I imagined a completely different tone than what director Richard Kelly eventually delivered. The film feels far more solemn and self-important than it seemed to be on the page.

In particular, every bit of humor around the character played by Sarah Michelle Geller falls flat in the feature. There were exchanges that I took to be witty and satirical on the page that show no evidence of either in the finished film. If it was just a case of Gellar's delivery being off, I'd blame her performance, but what she delivers is so in line with the overall tone of the film that there's no conclusion to draw other than the fact she gave exactly what the director wanted.

Ultimately, I have to admit my bosses were right. The film didn't do well with critics or audiences, it was certainly over-complicated, and you probably could never have visualized the film the way Kelly did if you were just going off of the script.

SOUTHLAND TALES taught me a lot about the difference between seeing potential in a project and merely wanting a project to be good because of its association with something else you loved. It was a painful lesson, but one I'm glad I learned. I was being paid for my honest opinion, and I needed to learn to be brutally honest with myself when developing those opinions.

When a script takes a decade to get made, maybe it doesn't want to be born

I don't often have time to listen to podcasts, in part because I already have so many on my playlist that I keep falling behind on ones that everyone constantly recommends.  Because of this, I'd avoided getting hooked on How Did This Get Made? until I saw a recent live show at the Largo and could resist the siren call no longer. Each episode is about an hour long and covers a different notoriously bad movie.  The intent seems to be that the movies aren't just merely terrible, but entertainingly terrible. I can attest that some of my favorite episodes are the ones dissecting Superman III and Jaws: The Revenge.

I began by looking up the episodes for films that I had seen and once I tore through those, found that hosts Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael were funny enough that it was entertaining hearing them flip out over movies I hadn't seen.

As it happened, one of my early picks in this category was the episode revolving around the Robin Williams/Barry Levinson collaboration Toys. My only recollection of this film was that it came out around the same time as Aladdin, that the commercials mostly consisted of Robin Williams riffing in an empty field, and that it was considered an incredibly awful film. As both Williams and Levinson were coming off a hot streak of films at the time, this was not dissimilar to if Christopher Nolan and Jennifer Lawrence teamed up for a film that made Pluto Nash look good.

Drew McWeeny of HitFix was the episode's guest and brought up a fact that I'd heard, but completely forgotten - that for years, Toys was considered one of the greatest unmade scripts in Hollywood. Levinson spent almost a decade and a half trying to get it made.  Only coming off of a four-year streak that included Good Morning, Vietnam, Rain Man, and Bugsy did he have enough clout to make this dream project.

And it bombed. Horribly.

It's unfortunately not uncommon for directors to totally blow all the capital they built on previous works by ramming through a long-gestating passion project: Kevin Spacey's Beyond the Sea immediately sprang to mind as such a film and I bet a number of you can fill up the comment sections with more examples.

And that's not even getting into the films made when a director is too big to be told no, such as M. Night Shyamalan's The Lady in the Water.

This might give a creative mind something to consider - if it's been almost impossible to get a particular script going even after you've "made it" and you have to be virtually untouchable to force it into production, maybe there's a reason for that.  At the very least, consider that this "trunk script" might not represent your work at its best.

There's a very recent example of this: Matthew Weiner's Are You Here.   As this Entertainment Weekly article explains, this was a passion project of Weiner's for over a decade. He wrote it between his first two seasons of The Sopranos. (He started on that show in 2004, so presumably this script's first draft was written in 2004 or 2005.) The article says "it took him eight years to get the script to Owen Wilson, two breaks from Mad Men to shoot it, and two more seasons to finish and edit the film."  The math on all of that seems dubious as it pushes the timeline past the present, but let's just say it took a decade or so to go from script to finished film, which became his feature directorial debut.

Let's also stipulate that Matthew Weiner is not a bad writer.  Mad Men is critically acclaimed and is pretty clearly his voice and his vision. He's not a hack, but he's not infallible either.  And within all of this, let's not overlook the most important detail - the Matthew Weiner who wrote this script a decade ago is not the same Matthew Weiner working on each episode of Mad Men. 

Yes, in a literal sense, it is the same guy. But I've always believed that writers grow and develop with each subsequent work. If you're doing it right, you should be getting better, particularly in the earlier stages of your career. By 2005, I think I was on my fourth screenplay and I thought I was getting pretty decent. Today, I would never show ANY of those scripts as a sample of my writing talent. As valuable as they were to my growth as a writer, I'm far better subsequent to writing those.

I actually read Are You Here a number of years ago and I immediately identified it as a "trunk script." (The term is used to refer to a script that a writer hauls out from the bottom of their stack, as if it had been locked away in a trunk.) This script came after a stretch of really sub-par scripts for work. It had been such a bleak week that when I saw the name "Matthew Weiner" on the title page, I was elated that at least one assignment that week wouldn't crush my soul.

I have not seen the finished film, so I can't render a verdict about it. However, having read the script, I can tell you have zero interest in seeing the film and there's not been a single review that changed my mind about this.  I had to sit on this opinion for a few years, as I didn't think it was fair to bash the script before the movie came out.  I was very aware that when that day came, it would be an excellent object lesson for a lot of writers, though.

It ended up being one of the most boring reads I'd had in a while.  I've read worse, I've read a LOT worse, so I'm not trying to claim that it was one of the worst scripts in existence. However, if it wasn't for the extremely acclaimed name attached to it, this thing would land in the PASS pile so fast it would break the sound barrier. I actually contacted my employer to confirm this was indeed the work of THE Matthew Weiner and not a similarly-named scribe because it contained so many hallmarks of an unseasoned writer.

For starters, the script was 138 pages long. That's a red flag with ANY script unless you're talking about some sort of epic.  This was not an epic. It was a story about a man whose father dies and leaves him an inheritance in the form of millions of dollars worth of Amish land in Pennsylvania. His sister is challenging the will and while he deals with that, he also struggles with his feelings for his young step-mother.  So in terms of concept, this isn't necessarily the sort of high-concept tale that makes for a immediately compelling read.

Even as a character-based story, it floundered. Part of what made the script laborious was that there was little sense of pace. I recall the reading of the father's will came at nearly 45 pages into the script and the script didn't make the road getting there interesting. A lot of the same points about the characters were hit again and again.  Without a strong concept and plot forcing things to advance scene-by-scene, the script was left to lean on the characters. I've seen this work before in other scripts, certainly in scripts that I praised even though they ultimately went nowhere at the companies where I was working. This script just didn't have momentum. It felt like a first draft, and a first draft from someone who was still learning how to make character drama engaging in a screenplay.

It got made eventually, probably because Matthew Weiner was just too big a name for someone to NOT take a chance on his passion project. I'm sure that the thinking was "Well, this is the guy who did Mad Men and no one got that until it came out either. I'm sure he'll make something great here too!"  Sometimes you take a gamble on something like that and it turns out to be Star Wars or The Matrix. And then sometimes you end up with a film that scored a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes and apparently had a box office so unremarkable that Box Office Mojo doesn't even have figures for it.

I have been blinded by that sort of thinking in the past too, so I can't really fault it. Early in my career, I read Richard Kelly's excellent spec script DOMINO. I championed it to my bosses, to no avail. (Their pass was more business-related than having anything to do with the quality or the commercial prospects of the material, I should note.) Having already been convinced that Richard Kelly was a genius writer operating on another level (though oddly, I wasn't blown away by DONNIE DARKO,) I was ecstatic when his next screenplay hit my desk.

That script was SOUTHLAND TALES.

I was convinced I'd told this story on the blog before, but I can't find it in the archives. As this is already a long post, I'm going to shunt that tale into it's own post for tomorrow.


I still stand by my praise of DOMINO's script, but I'm all too aware that I raved about SOUTHLAND TALES because I was a DOMINO disciple and I wanted SOUTHLAND TALES to be just as exemplary.

I'm sure that's how these passion projects eventually find their producers, someone wants them to be as good as everything else that creator has done.  The producers are staking their career on that writer's rep. For you, the writer, when your entire filmography is essentially collateral, you need to make sure that property is worth it.

And from what I see, that is the failing often. Writers and directors fly too close to the sun on their passion projects without running them through the checks and balances their early work faced. Perhaps their brilliance came out of compromise, or at least having to justify and fight for their vision.  Mostly, it needs to recognize that early works are often better left in the past.

If even Matthew Weiner can make the mistake of spending years on a "trunk script," what makes you the unsold writer so confident of everything in your catalog?  I hear so often from writers who say they have a dozen scripts "ready to go right now" and those are the writers whom I will never, ever read from because they have zero awareness of their own abilities.  If you've really taken an honest shot with 12 scripts of brilliance, SOMETHING would have happened for you by now. At a minimum, you'd be repped.

I've written about 10 spec screenplays and of those ten, I'd maybe use five as writing samples. MAYBE. There are two that I'd really lead with. and the other three are back-ups that are at least solid enough that a buyer might feel there's something the could work with.  I've got a similar ratio in my pilot scripts. 

More importantly, if I'm lucky enough to get a particular film made, I already feel like I'd be more inclined to develop something new as the follow-up rather than reach back four or five years to a script I've grown beyond.  I don't know if there are many old ideas that are so original or meaningful that they're worth blowing all your clout on, but I'm aware that opinion is informed by seeing so many of these projects crash and burn.

If you aren't your own worst critic, you'll learn that there are plenty of people who'll line up for that particular gig once you pass on it. Just ask Matthew Weiner.  But let's be honest, the guy is still going to be untouchable in TV.  Are You Here won't hurt that in the slightest. He probably is going to find it harder to direct his next feature, though. I can't help but wonder what might have resulted if his directing debut had been a script he wrote

The big takeaway - if Matthew Weiner can still make the mistake of sending out a old script that should have been cast aside or rebuilt entirely, what makes you think that everything in your portfolio deserves to be made?  Always move forward and don't cling to that early effort as the one that must be made.

Webshow: "How to be a Reader"

One of the most frequent questions I get is "How can I be a script reader?"  Having just walked away from my reader jobs, this seemed like a good time to address that question on the YouTube channel.

Post #999 - "Script reader... NO MORE"

Okay, so maybe the blog title is a little dramatic, but I couldn't resist the Spider-Man allusion. If I could actually draw, you might have gotten a sketch of the Bitter Puppet walking away from a trashcan full of scripts.  Instead, you get the copyright infringement above.

[Update: a very kind reader, AP Quach, did a sketch much as I described.  It was kind of a kick to see!  Check out more of her work at http://www.sassquach.com.]

For some time now, I've talked about how the market for script reading is drying up. Sure, you can always hang out your own shingle and take payment directly from people interested in your feedback, but the days of supporting yourself on just a couple regular script-reading gigs with agencies, production companies and studios are fading fast, if not gone entirely.  It's why when people have written in asking how to become a reader, I've told them, "You don't want this job."

Things have been going down this road since the writer's strike.  For a while, I was able to compensate thanks to the sheer number of freelance jobs, but I've been aware of the ticking clock.  Each year, it became more and more difficult to make a full living off of just my reading gigs.  I've pursued other jobs within the industry, particularly with the goal of becoming a writer's assistant.  I got maddeningly close several times, close enough that I convinced myself I just needed to stick with the freelance jobs a little bit longer because surely my objective was within my grasp.

But as the years wore on, I enjoyed reading less and less.  The scripts seemed to get worse, and I found increasingly less satisfaction in what I was doing.  The companies I read for were unfortunately very stable in their development departments, which meant there was little opportunity to convert my reading gigs into some sort of Creative Exec position.  I'd love to work in Development if the opportunity presented itself, but I'm done being just "the reader."

So effective immediately, I'm ending all of my freelance reading jobs.  I'm not going to say no to any permanent positions that come my way, and you can bet your ass I'll be looking for writer assistant gigs come pilot season.  The difference is this time I'll be doing it without a net.

When I made this decision, I honestly felt like a great relief.  In the past, my writing has definitely been better for the brief hiatuses I've taken from reading.  But it's not even the reading that really wore me down. It's the futility of being that first filter.  Most of what you read is crap, and even when you find the good stuff, there's little reward or opportunity to develop it.

Fear not, this blog isn't going anywhere.  I've got a decade of experience in the industry and I'll continue to draw upon that here.  I'll always be willing to give the benefit of my experience.  But the days of enduring multiple scripts a week (most of them sub-par), being paid by the script and then having little stake in what happens to it afterwards are over.

You can't start a new chapter without ending the old one first.  As such, I have decided that, at least for my career as a freelance reader, this is definitely the end.

See you on Monday for Post #1000!

My appearance on Hollywood Bound and Down podcast

I'm the featured guest this week on Joshua Caldwell's podcast Hollywood Bound and Down.  In a chat of about 90 minutes (geez, I'm long-winded), you can find out a great deal about me as Josh and I talk about climbing the ladder in Hollywood, some of my experiences in development, and a lot of talk about the projects I involved myself in in college.

I haven't listened to it yet. (Contrary to what the long interview might lead you to believe, I kinda hate the sound of my own voice in long stretches.)  However, I remember that Josh asked a lot of interesting questions even though I had been concerned he'd hit on the same subjects I see asked about again and again in my inbox.  I hope you guys enjoy it, and if you're curious about the podcast in general, here's a handy introduction below...

Hollywood Bound and Down is a podcast hosted by writer, director, producer and MTV Movie Award winner Joshua Caldwell. Interviewing industry professionals Joshua explores the world of Hollywood for those at the beginning of the careers and discusses how they became successful, broke in, got their start, the art and craft of making films, television, web series and more. His guests to date include actress Missy Peregrym (Rookie Blue), Writer/Director Eric England (Contracted), Writer/Director Julian Higgins (House), actor Manny Montana (Graceland), screenwriter Kyle Ward (Machete Kills) and screenwriter/writer's assistant Adam Gaines (The Bridge).

Josh's twitter: @Joshua_Caldwell.
 HBAD Twitter: @HBAD_Podcast.


Here's the iTunes link: Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hollywood-bound-down/id692417004?mt=2 

My episode: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/007-bitter-script-reader-blogger/id692417004?i=168941430&mt=2

"Do readers read so much that it becomes impossible for anything to NOT seem like a cliche?"

In response to last week's post about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Kevin Lenihan asked:


A question I have is whether you would have liked the script if it had appeared on your desk as a spec by an unknown. I ask this sincerely and with the fullest of respect.

I check in with the blog once and a while. Plenty of interesting thoughts here.

But what I wonder is if there might be a problem with people that have read too many scripts or seen too many movies. Everything becomes so "familiar" to them that it becomes virtually impossible for a script or film to please them. Even worse, because of the human tendency to fit things into previously experienced molds, there may be the possibility of misunderstanding a story as the mind fills in the blanks with its own expectations.

Recently I watched Seven Psychopaths, and it struck me that the writer was expressing a frustration with this phenomena where critics and readers are so determined to find something that does not resemble anything they've seen before that the only things left for the writer are to create absurd plots and characters.

I once saw a script reader complain about gangsters "having guns", how that was so cliche. What should they be armed with then? Hedge clippers?

Please don't take this as criticism. On the contrary, I empathize with your situation, with your having read so many scripts, many no doubt awful. I just wonder if the result is that as soon as you encounter something which resembles something familiar, the assumption is that the story is following the same path. You might at times fill in the picture before the story has been given a chance to. 

It's a fair question but it overlooks a simple fact - we still recognize GOOD scripts that use those elements.  I don't think it's a case of film or scripts becoming impossible to please an audience, more that the standard is higher.  Consider Roger Ebert - the man often watched three movies a DAY and was still capable of being impressed by strong tentpole crowdpleasers and smaller indie films alike.

The familiar alone isn't what often inspires wrath; it's the uninspired usage of the familiar.  In the wake of Garden State, I can't tell you how many naval-gazing scripts I read about one's own quarterlife crisis, often featuring a spirtely girl who's sole purpose for existing was to pull our hero out of the doldrums.  In those cases, the author wasn't bringing anything of their own to it - there were merely repeating what had been done.  Often, they were including story beats without justifying them.

Just last month I read a thriller that committed the same sort of offenses.  It centered on a crooked cop and the gang war that was brewing as a new tough guy moved into town.  The problem was that there was no depth to any of these beats.  We were merely show the new gang wiping out the old gang, with no explanation ever given as to what each gang's agenda was.  The crooked cop had been owned by the old gang, and then switched sides to join the new one, but again, there was no internal motivation for that switch-up.

It was as if the writer had watched a lot of crime thrillers, identified certain beats that occurred in each one, and then duplicated them.  But without any motivated relationship between those beats, there was no story.  It was a collection of events, none of which seemed necessary to the others.

That script was an extreme case of getting so much wrong at once.  More often you'll end up with a script with a tepid plot and a few familiar elements that make little effort to cast familiar elements in a new light.  While there is a fair number of terrible scripts out there, the vast majority of scripts are mediocre.  Hell, there's probably an argument to be made that the vast majority of released films are mediocre. 

But you know the side effect of so much mediocrity?  The really good stuff stands out, and that's what The Perks of Being a Wallflower is - really good.  You pose the question of if I would have liked the script if it crossed my desk as the work of an unknown.  The simple truth is that Stephen Chbosky might as well be an unknown to me. I've never read his work before and I'm not familiar with him at all.

Beyond that, one isn't a script reader for long before they likely will be in the position of writing PASS on a script written by an established writer.  Is it possible that now and then Cameron Crowe might get a stronger benefit of the doubt than a new writer might?  Probably.  But then, Crowe has a track record of turning out strong films, so there's more faith in his ability to execute something that isn't coming through on the page.  But Crowe has EARNED that benefit of the doubt.

Chbosky turned in an excellent film without the benefit of a long screenwriting and directing track record.  I could see some people giving this a pass for business reasons (Emma Watson apparently was taking meetings with every studio in town, telling them to make this movie, only to be met with disinterst), but I find it unlikely that anyone would read this and question the quality of the writing.

How do readers get hired and do they get in trouble for recommending scripts that bombed?

Glenn asks:


I'm curious how studios, production companies, etc. hire script readers they feel have the skill set to determine film worthy material verses those readers that are more apt to be relegated to second-tier screenwriting competitions. I often hear about interns and fresh out of film school students getting these positions in both venues so what sets a good reader from a mediocre one? Beyond the years of experience and who you have worked for, how does someone with a high level of expertise get hired? Does anyone ever track or question the number of films a reader placed under a recommend or consider status that made money verses those that bombed? 

Let me clear up something here - if interns are ever reading anything, it comes from the slush pile and from the lower-priority scripts that aren't expected to be any good.  The stuff that comes in from the reputable agents always goes to the execs, their assistants and the experienced readers.  The interns and the PAs who are new to the biz usually cut their teeth on that lesser priority stuff.  In my direct experience, the execs these interns/PAs are reporting to will usually mentor them and help them learn the ropes of writing coverage.

Agencies have their own methods of training their mailroom employees.  I can't speak to that too directly, but again, they're not reading the priority material.

How does someone with a high level of expertise get hired?  The same way they get hired for any job.  Job postings go out, assistants and readers with some experience under their belt send out resumes, have their personal references call in, and so on.  Often the company will want to see some coverage samples.

This also sometimes leads to something I really hate, which is when the person doing the hiring hands you a script and says, "We'd like you to do coverage on this script."  I get the logic behind this - they'd like to see how you break down a script that they already know so they've got a good way to size up how well you are at accurately summarizing a screenplay and giving insightful comments on it.

On the other hand, you're basically asking the person to do for free something that they'd get paid for.  You wouldn't hire an assistant by having them come in for a day or two and run the desk for free, would you?  So then why is it acceptable to get free coverage for someone who has a strong resume, solid samples and references willing to vouch for them?

Anyway...

As far as your last question, in general, it hasn't been my experience that someone will keep track of a reader's suggestions and punish them if their recommendations subsequently bomb.  Let's not forget - a reader is just there to thin the material.  It's not the reader's CONSIDER or RECOMMEND that got a movie made - there are always plenty of development people above them who make that call.  If the project got as far as being made, the blame is out of the reader's hands.  It's more likely that a reader recommending subpar material will find themselves out of a job simply because their bosses keep having to read terrible scripts, thereby proving that the reader is useless to them as a "first filter."

I also have found that - with production companies - there's also little risk to you if you panned a script that the company later decided to make.  Agencies are another story - owing to the fact that some agents are incredibly thin-skinned crybabies when it comes to the slightest bit of criticism directed at projects that their clients have even the most tenuous connection to.  If you think an agent isn't capable of overreacting to even a mild PASS, you haven't written coverage for them long enough.  (And if you happened to be an agent and those last few sentences have pissed you off, thank you for proving my point.)

A few months into my first job as a PA at a production company, I was given an assignment to read an important spec for the company President.  By this point, I'd been doing coverage for all the other development execs for at least three months and I'd gotten pretty good at it.  But this was "the show" - my chance to impress.  Fortunately, I had an entire weekend to read this script.

Just my luck, it was a sci-fi film with a fairly complicated premise and story.  Even though the writer had been around the block a few times, it still was dealing with some fairly heady concepts and tricky plot twists.  I read the script once and wasn't sure I understood it all, even after taking notes.  So I read it a second time, and then a third time as I wrote up my synopsis.

After I had my synopsis done, I kept rewriting it until I trimmed the length by an entire half page.  It took me the better part of the day to read and write up, but I eventually distilled the story down to its most essential components and actually made some sense out of the story.  I dare say that even the script's writer couldn't have wrung more coherence out of the story.

Oops.

I made a nearly incomprehensible script make sense.  And when the story made sense, it was easy to see the stuff in there that could be cool.  The comments were critical, but not especially cutting.  It was a PASS, but it read like a gentle PASS.  I think you can guess where this goes.

Long story short - the synopsis I wrote was later used to entice buyers for the foreign presale.  For a while, I worried that my critical comments would come back to haunt me.  As it turned out, no one cared in the slightest that I spoke ill of a project that we made.

They cared less when the film was (eventually) released and it bombed.  Hey, I tried to warn them.

In another instance, a script I was assigned to read ended up being one of the worst professional scripts I had the displeasure to write up.  It was only through sheer force of will that the words "sucks" and "shit sandwich" did not appear in my coverage.  Instead, I aggressively pointed out every last plot hole and conceptual flaw.  I didn't flat out state it, but it was impossible to not read this review and not question everything about the script, including the writer's own proficiency.

Here's where you probably expect me to tell you that they went ahead and bought it the very next week.  Well I'm not going to say that.

That's because they had already bought it just days earlier.  Did they tell me that when they sent me the script? No.  Did I know beforehand?.... Does it matter?

This particular film crashed rather hard in wide release.  The reviews were intensely unkind.  The box office was worse.  There were no reprisals, unless you count the fact I had to sit through the movie.

Now you're probably wondering, did I ever recommend a script that subsequently bombed? Not exactly.  Nothing I endorsed to a company was later made AT that company and bombed FOR that company.

I did, however, recommend DOMINO.  My bosses at the time passed, frankly, in large part because of the director.  As much as I loved the script, I hated the movie.  But for more on that, read this entry.

Is it all or nothing? And what makes a script generic?

Dennis wrote in with a question:

Do you get rocked by an amazing character and say "The plot sucks, but I'd like to spend more time with that character?" 

Or do you occasionally say "What a grab f-ing story. We could spice up the characters?" 

Or do you only let the whole pizza, with all the toppings get by?

This is kind of a case-by-case basis. I've certainly written up coverage that says something along the lines of "The main character is fun, but the premise and the plot are garbage."  Just as surely I've written, "The concept is very clever and marketable, but the script is marred by some cardboard characters and leaden plotting."

As to how much a bad lead character can hurt an awesome concept, that's something that depends on the degree of the "badness" and the ingenuity of the script's virtues.  Some scripts are fixer-uppers that can easily be flipped, while others are money pits.  For the most part, you can tell the difference between the two, and that can also be influenced by a host of other elements like: who's attached to the script, how similar films like it have done recently, what sort of project are we looking to do, and so on.

The takeaway from the writer's perspective should be that you can't count on any single aspect of the script to save your ass.  Write the best damn script you can, the best damn characters you can, and have a unique plot that we haven't seen before.

Along those lines, Jeffrey asks:


I came across your blog and wanted to ask you something (not to read my screenplay though) - I presume that you spend your time head in hand (for possibly only the first ten pages) that you're reading a generic screenplay. And that's what I want to ask about. If one isn't populating the fictional world with Pynchonian weird characters, or writing Diablo Cody swearing couplets - what are some of the signs of dreaded genericism. 

I realize that this is a very open ended question, and I'm just some idiot (probably one of many) emailing you with (inane) questions, but if you'd indulge ms with a little of your wisdom, that would be great.

 It's a hard question to answer.  For me, it's if I can tell where the script is going to go long before it gets there.  Some things are obvious - if this is a romantic comedy, the couple introduced at the start is probably going to end up together.  That's a gimmie. My beef starts if the road to getting there is predictable.

Does the couple bicker and deny their feelings for a long time?
Do they get together on a contrived date that strains to be wacky?
Is there a misunderstanding that causes one member of the couple to believe the other has cheated on them?
Does said misunderstanding somehow involve a slutty friend/co-worker/rival who has been set-up as promiscuous from the start?
If a workplace romantic comedy, is someone up for promotion?

In horror films you could make a similar list that details the sorts of characters along for the ride (the good girl, the jock, the geek, the slut, the stoner and the fat guy/wacky comedy relief), the order of the kills, the pacing of the kills, the fact that someone WILL be killed in a state of undress, the liklihood that at somepoint, someone will run through the woods and another person will probably take a shower or skinny dip....

I think you get my point.  It's when the same familiar beats get executed without any irony or self-awareness.  Cabin in the Woods works because it takes all those horror cliches and puts them in a context where the people pulling the strings know that they're cliches and NEED those cliches to play out.  In doing so, the film says something about the nature of horror films and our love of the genre.

A generic film has nothing to say. It simply is. It's like a mynah bird - it can talk, but only by repeating what it's already heard.

"Are readers biased against scripts from smaller reps?"

Cameron writes:

Hello bitter script reader... First off, I enjoy the blog--and I really like the youtube videos as well. 

Second I was hoping you could shed some light on something I've been thinking about. I'm currently fortunate enough to finally break through that first tough barrier of getting representation. There are several agencies/management companies I'm currently considering. I know you have a long history of reading screenplays for various places--and probably know a ton of other readers as well. 

I was curious if there was any bias you've ever seen amongst readers when you get sent scripts--lets say from CAA vs. a boutique agency or Circle of Confusion vs. small independent manager. 

Do companies/readers take "bigger" agency/management submissions more seriously than a smaller ones? I would love to think that the writing will simply speak for itself, but from what you seen is this true?

The first time I read this, my gut reaction was "No, not at all.  I don't think that has ANY bearing on the read."  But then I thought about it a little more and realized the following issues MIGHT come into play.

- Scripts from bigger agencies probably will be read faster.  This has less to do with reader bias and more often to do with the fact that the exec who needs the coverage will assign a higher priority to a script that comes in from a more reputable source.  On that count, all you're really losing is time, though.

- If a submission comes in from one of the bigger agencies and it REALLY sucks, odds are we might be subconsciously harder on it.  Probably every reader has finished a particularly bad script and thought "CAA reps this guy?!  How the hell did that happen?"  But again, that's a problem for the bigger repped writer, not necessarily you.

- The one instance where having a lower-level manager might hurt you is if your rep has shoveled a LOT of shit to my company lately.  I'm not talking about the "Eh, it's not for me" kind of PASS, nor the "Generic on every level" PASS.  I'm talking about the "I don't believe anyone in your office read a fucking word of this script because this is so bad  you'd be embarrassed for people to find it in your trash!"  (And yes, these guys exist.)  That's when you really start off on the wrong foot with me and then everything you do wrong in the script will go into my master thesis of why this particular rep should not get his calls returned.

But again, not that for this to be a problem, you have to have written a bad script.  Down on my level, there aren't many ways for a lower-prestige rep to screw you over.  Where the lesser rep might present a problem is in getting someone to accept their submission, but that's mostly a decision made above my level.

Of "Recommends"

Paul writes in with two questions:

1)  As a reader, if you want to "recommend" a script but have doubts how it will be received by your boss(es), do you play safe and only "consider" it?

I've covered this before but it bears repeating, "Recommends" are incredibly rare.  If I give a Recommend to a script, it means I'm telling everyone in the company to drop everything immediately and read this right away.  I'm saying "This isn't just better than anything else that has come through these doors, it's completely flawless and objectively brilliant."

As you might guess, few scripts meet that criteria.  "Recommend" means that you're over the moon for this script.  "Consider" is when you pick up a girl at the bar who's pretty cute, maybe even really cute.  "Recommend" is when you pick up Brooklyn Decker.

Do you know how hard it is to walk into a bar and find a Brooklyn Decker?  That's how hard it is to find a Recommend.  I don't think I've EVER given a Recommend, and that's not just because I'm scared of the reaction from my bosses, it's because I've never found a script I'm in that love with.

2)  And do you only look at scripts your boss would be interested in?  What do you do with scripts that you would "recommend" but know your boss(es) aren't looking for said material?

Hypothetically, if I came across a script that was boiling over with brilliance, but it was completely wrong for the bosses I was reading for, I'd still give it a Consider.  I might - MIGHT - give a "Recommend" on the writer, because if a script is that good, clearly the writer is doing something right.  Maybe this particular concept or story is wrong for the company, but it'd be worth flagging this writer in case he had something that would work for us.

I'd find it really hard to PASS on a script that was extremely well-written.  A competent script that was a mismatch? Yeah, I could easily pass on that.  "Competence" isn't good enough.  Think of it like American Idol.  Usually all or most of the top 12 are at least competant vocalists and still better than the average Joe - but how many of them are superb?  How many of them would you buy an album from?  How many of them would stand out on the radio?

If you want to get a Recommend, you can't just be the 9th place vocalist in a nationwide talent search.  You've gotta be Kelly Clarkson or Adam Lambert.

Inside the submission process with Gavin Polone

If you haven't already checked out Gavin Polone's weekly Vulture column, head over there and check it out to get an agent/producer's take on how script submissions are evaluated.

I also closely read scripts that my friends send me or those that have been submitted by writers with whom I’ve worked before. But other than that, scripts submitted to me as possible development projects are given to my development executive and our assistants, who write a synopsis and critique on each. When an agent calls and says, “I’m going out with this project that I think you’ll love,” I always reply, “Thanks, I’ll read it right away," but both he and I know that what I really meant by "it" was the write-up from my assistant, not the script. 

It goes without saying that this is how most scripts end up in my hands.  With dozens of scripts coming into the office each week, it's the only way the people at the top can focus on the stronger material and get their jobs done.  I know there are plenty of aspiring writers who will argue about the unfairness of that practice, but logically it's the only way any development office can function.  It's not (usually) because the producer is lazy and hates to read - it's because there's just so much to read.

If my assistant really liked it and my development executive concurs, I will read about twenty pages; if I like those twenty pages, I read on until I don’t like it anymore or I finish. If I get all of the way through, I probably will get involved with the project in some way; if I pass (which is the usual outcome), I will send an e-mail to the agent thanking him for thinking of me but declining to produce the project. I’ll offer some reason as to why I’m passing — maybe I didn't "relate to the premise" or "connect to the characters" — but, of course, anything specific I say is actually plagiarized from the document my assistant gave me urging me to pass. 

Twenty pages.  There.  You have it right there from someone at the top.  I've gotten some flack in the past when I've harped on the importance of having a strong first fifteen pages.  Some writers have shot back, "But you have to read the whole thing!  Why should I write to your laziness if my awesome spec scripts needs thirty pages of build-up?"

Because you're not just writing to my "laziness." You have to write to the habits of people like Gavin too. Even if you catch me on a generous day, you'll still have to knock it out of the park with those above my paygrade - and they're a lot harder to impress.

If this seems disingenuous, keep in mind that the writer's agent probably didn't read the script either: A more genuine process would be to have my assistant deal directly with his assistant, since they're the only ones who did read it. But to preserve the illusion on all sides, when the agent calls his client and goes over the list of producers to whom he submitted the script, he will say, “Gavin Polone passed,” not “Gavin Polone’s assistant told him to pass.” 

I'll admit that this process breaks down when the agent's assistant is a moron with no taste.  I've gotten submissions where I've had zero trouble believing that the submitting agent never even skimmed the script.  I'd like to see more quality control in what gets sent out, but when you mix fringe agents with story editors and creative execs who are still making names for themselves, you end up with a less than perfect screening process.  Still, I don't know what a fringe agent gains from setting our rubbish and having that swill associated with their name.

In fact, there's one agent who - at least based on his submissions - couldn't recognize a truly shitty script if bad writing looked like a naked Brooklyn Decker and good writing resembled Golda Meir!

And as we've said before, the best way to avoid getting screwed by this process is to write an awesome screenplay.

Are Script Readers misunderstood and unfairly maligned?

So right after I plugged Scott Myers's screenwriting roundtable on Go Into the Story, I found my profession was the subject of discussion in yesterday's post:

Scott Myers:  As a writer, did you ever want to kill a reader?” 

F. Scott Frazier: I actually think the readers are unfairly put upon, and just in my complete anecdotal experience, to me it always seems like, if the script is bad, but they’re trying to be nice. They come back with these Save the Cat, Syd Field kind of beats with what’s wrong with the script. This is what’s wrong with the script! Because you didn’t have your end act point on page 30. But if a script is great, I don’t think they care about that sort of thing. 

Chris Borrelli: I’ll tell you, building off of what Scott said. First off, short answer: yes, I have. And there is a bitterness that comes to people who read and read and read, and think that they can do a better script and they get mad when scripts sell, and they think their scripts are better than that. But that said, if you got asked in life why you don’t like something, you kept getting asked this about all these different things, at some point, you run out of things to say. Sometimes you just don’t like things. And these readers are doing at least two scripts a day and they didn’t like your script and they have to give a reason to fill out their three or four page coverage, sometimes they just go to templates or some basic things. So I don’t read too much into reasons why people pass unless I hear it over and over again. Because sometimes — and I’ve been on the other side of the desk — you have to say something, but a lot of times you just don’t connect to it. 

F. Scott Frazier: And I think not connecting to it goes right back to that emotion we were just talking about. 

True, true - ALL true! Here's the thing about readers... everyone who gets a PASS seems to have this perception that all we do is read something and try to find what's wrong with scripts - as if we get a prize for finding material falliable.

It's exactly the opposite - we want the scripts to be good. Every time we open a PDF, we're desperately, achingly, hoping that the next hour of reading and two hours of coverage-writing won't be painful and mind-numbing.

Don't you think every reader wants to be the hero who runs into their bosses office and says "This one! Make THIS one!" It's brilliant, it's exactly what you're looking for and I found it! That's right! That reflected glory belongs to me! ME! ME!"

Okay... maybe that last part is a little bit of overkill. But that's totally the mentality a reader might get when they find material they're excited about. It can work in your favor as the writer because bitter readers like me might feel that your success is their victory as well. We can be your best friend and your biggest champion. We want you to be good because it makes US look good!)

(On the other hand, any reader who boasts at a cocktail party about the great script he "discovered" is probably setting himself up for well-earned snorts of derision. I'm not saying it's always easy to spot the diamonds in the rough, but if a reader gets too cocky, he's likely to be reminded he merely read the script - he didn't WRITE it.)

And John Swetnam is very astute at pointing something else out:

"A lot of these readers, though, they work for somebody, and they’re also filtering their own opinion through the opinion of the person they’re working for. So they know their boss’s sensibility and to me, that’s really their job. To know what their boss likes. A lot of the time, they’re the first bit of the filtering process and you can’t really blame them because their boss told them to look for romantic comedies."

Too true. Having said that, I've never been afraid to slam something that's up my boss's alley if I thought it was a terrible script. (Hell, there are multiple examples of me slamming scripts that ultimately got made at the companies in question... only to tank HARD.) And when the writing is brilliant - even if it's not the most natural fit for my bosses, I certainly will give it a rave.

I have no reason to want you or your script to suck. I have no motivation to pass on a brilliant script and leave it there on the street for someone else to buy. What sense would that make?

If you want to beat the reader, write an awesome script. Greg Russo says as much:

"I’ll throw something out there to the person who asked the question, who I’m assuming is trying to break in as a screenwriter. Don’t worry so much about readers passing on your script. Be careful not to give them any easy ways to pass on your script. If they’re not going to like your concept, they’re not going to like it."

The difference between coverage and a review

After my post on Monday wherein I expressed that aspiring script readers might find it useful to peruse internet reviews, I got a tweet from someone called "BrainyReviewer":

"So if aspiring script readers should read reviews, that entails reviewers (good ones) can succeed as script readers?"

That's one of those apples = oranges/transitive property tricks that I'm often wary to agree with because it's not a perfect analogy.  Limited to 140 characters in response, I tweeted back "It's possible, assuming they can adapt to the needs of coverage."

To that, BrainyReviewer asked, "Can you please elaborate?"

Certainly.  At the core of this is a simple truth.  A review is not coverage.  What Roger Ebert writes is not coverage.  What AICN publishes is not coverage.  And most any review you read on the internet is not coverage.

Coverage and reviews are similar in that both (presumably) entail looking at a work of art analytically.  A review of a TV show or a movie might examine the deeper themes of the film, note the complexity of the plot or character arcs, or evaluate the merits of the concept.  The difference is that the format of a movie review or a random internet review is almost certainly less rigid than coverage.  When writing coverage, brevity is often important.  You're writing a review for people who are too busy to read the actual script, so the coverage needs to break down the nuts and bolt succinctly in a professional fashion.

In my experience, agencies are the most rigid when it comes to coverage format.  Basic coverage is four paragraps, broken down as follows:

- Introduction
- Characters
- Plot/Structure/Concept
- Conclusion

Most of the time, that's all expected to fit on less than a page.  Depending on the agency, there might be a little give on those numbers, but I'm not aware of any agency that encourages coverage to be two pages or more.  Most of the places I've worked for prefer the coverage notes not go over a page.

Also, as rigid as agency coverage guidelines are (and like everything else associated with agency work, they are indeed needlessly complicated and weighed down with a multitude of arbitrary rules) production companies tend to be a bit looser about coverage structure.  Out of habit, I maintain the four-paragraph format unless specifically directed otherwise - but I have read for companies that have accepted briefer, more superficial coverage.

But I'm drifting.  My point is that reviewers used to just putting their thoughts down on paper might find it a bit of a tricky adjustment fitting into the constraints of coverage. In addition to that structure, coverage is supposed to somewhat objective and analytical in a way that a review often isn't.  If I'm reading a genre that I personally hate, I still need to be able to weigh the script on it's merits.  My own tasted can't be the last word on the script.  It can be a guide, certainly, but I've got to have more to back up my opinion than just "It sucks."

Don't get me wrong - most of what I read sucks.  I just need to be able to "show my work" and do the math to PROVE that it sucks.

I'm sure many reviewers are capable of adapting to this format, but I did feel that it was important to make this distinction.

The last word on "How Can I Become a Script Reader?"

In the nearly three years I've run this blog, one question has been submitted more frequently than any others: "How can I become a script reader?"  I've run several blog posts covering this question from many angles and yet I rarely go long without getting an email that asks this question.  From now on, unless I have a compelling reason to give more of an answer, I'm just going to reply to that question with a link to this page.  

So how can I become a script reader?

I'll direct you to this post where I talk about my history and how I got the job.  As several years have passed, things have doubtlessly changed, but the important detail to understand is that it's rare to get hired right out of college as a script reader.  At the risk of sounding someone pretentious, Script Reader isn't a job you "get," it's a job you "earn."  Get a job that puts you in contact with people who need scripts read, then offer to do coverage on the side for them.  If you want to be a Script Reader, don't be above taking a "lowly" PA job, particularly an Office PA job.

What education should I get in order to be a better reader?

Watch movies, read scripts.  That's essential.  Don't just watch/read good movies, but do the same for bad ones and attempt to understand why they're bad.  I also highly recommend reading reviews.  When I was in college, I visited Roger Ebert's website several times a week and I learned a lot about the art of criticism just from reading his takes on films.  I didn't always agree with him - but it was almost always informative to read why he thought what he thought.

There were also two other reviewers whose work I devoured in those days.  Tim Lynch was a major internet reviewer in the Star Trek world during the late 90s.  Though he'd been mostly retired by the time I stumbled onto his review archive, I found his reviews of Deep Space Nine so insightful about the show and TV writing in general that I made it a point to read the corresponding review before revisiting any of those episodes in syndication or DVD.  It was like a master class in both criticism and TV writing.

Another Trek reviewer who always left me with a lot to think about is Jamahl Epsicokhan aka "Jammer."  He covered most of the modern Trek series and Battlestar Galactica.  If none of those shows floats your boat, that's cool.  The net is full of quality reviewers out there, so find something you're passionate about and see if there's a reviewer who inspires you to think deeper about what you watch.

Are there many jobs out there?  How can I get hired? How much does script reading pay?

If you're looking to be a full-time script reader, completely supporting yourself just on that job, I'm going to tell you it's very difficult. It used to be that some production companies I've worked for had a script reader on salary.  They'd pay a weekly rate and that reader would get a relatively consistent workload.  Those guys had the security of knowing they'd be able to pay their bills each week.

Far more common is an arrangement where the reader is paid per script.  This rate varies.  Most reputable companies should be paying at least $50 a script, but it's not entirely unheard of to get more, like $70 a script for basic coverage.  So if you read ten scripts a week (hardly an impossible task), you could pocket between $500-$700.

That's not too bad.  So what's the problem?

The problem is that for the last three years, companies have been cutting back.  As you can see, a reader who covers 2-3 scripts a day is costing the company about the same amount as a full-time assistant.  When the pennies get pinched, that becomes an unnecessary expense.  Thus, a lot of companies have started farming out work to freelance readers only when absolutely necessary and have forced the assistants to do a lot more of the reading. The reason for this should be obvious - the assistants are already on salary and they aren't paid extra for these additional coverages. Make an assistant take those extra two scripts a day and the company has just saved the cost of an entire person's salary.

Most readers I know have to read for more than one company.  When I got started, I was more than secure just with one company.  I picked up a second gig just for security and that was a perfect arrangement because when one office was light, I knew I had the safety net of another.  As work dwindled, I did my best to pick up other gigs.  At one point I was juggling work from four different companies.  Some weeks they all had enough to keep me busy, but there were times where I found all of those employers to be light on work.

Reader jobs as they were when I got started no longer exist.  If you want to really make it climbing the ladder this way, set your sites on an assistant job and try to climb the ranks in development as a development assistant or a story editor.  Long-term, that's a far wiser strategy.


So how can I be a script-reader without living in NYC or LA?

Are you daft?

Look, I get that the fantasy is that in the age of the internet, everyone can sit on the toilet with their iPads in their laps and do their jobs from anywhere.  There might even be some readers who've managed to move out of LA and continue their jobs - but they almost certainly built relationships in the business first and made a reputation for themselves by actually being in LA.

If you want to work for an agency and a production company, you're almost certainly going to have to physically be here.  The only way I ever see getting past that is if you've got an impressive resume that backs up your coverage skills.  Usually the person asking the question above is someone fresh out of college or someone slightly older who's settled into a "real" job and life and wants to work for Hollywood without uprooting.

I don't see it happening.  I'm sorry to be that blunt, but that's what my experience tells me.

But I saw an ad for Film Festivals and Screenwriting Contests who are looking for readers who can submit coverage over the internet!  You're a liar!

I consider most of those jobs beneath my notice.  Contests really don't pay much at all, and they're seasonal so it's nothing even close to a permanent solution.  At best, you'll get coverage experience you might be able to parlay into another gig.  Most of those places underpay so hideously that I think it undervalues the entire coverage process.  I know of a place that paid $30 for two-pages of synopsis and 2-3 pages of notes.  For that level of work anything less than $50 is taking advantage

There are some competitions where all you have to do is fill out a score sheet and you'll get paid maybe $10-20 a script.  That's not taking advantage quite as much, but still... what are you getting out of that?  Most contest submissions are crap and a real pain to read.  You can always learn something from bad writing, but after a few contest scripts, you'll often cease to see anything of value.

If you had to start all over again, would you pursue being a reader?

As I indicated, I'd make more of an effort to stay on the development track and rise within a company.  It's a really bad time to try to break into reading. The jobs aren't out there, the workload is shrinking and you're competing with guys like me who have a lot more experience. Reader jobs tend to go to people who have already made contacts in the business and guys like me are always looking for additional freelance assignments. If you don't have any contacts in the business yet, it's going to be hard to break into this end of it.

Reader question: Should all readers recognize the same script as strong writing?

Matt asks:

A screenplay I submitted to Nicholl made semi-finals two years ago. I re-wrote the heck out of it, again, and again, and again, figuring out of ten sps this was the first to get any attention, so I might be onto something.

Submitted it again this year, and it went out the first round.

I realize there were over 6000 entries, what one reader likes, another hates, etc... Question is: If a script is really "that good" should it be recognized as such by most trained readers? Was it most likely a fluke it even made semis before (like maybe the subject matter hit the right reader on the right day cuz of something in his/her personal life etc)??

I could probably offer some long-winded thesis about criticism, personal tastes, and how the varying quality of submissions between the two years can contribute to these different results.... but I won't. This is the sort of answer that's bound to drive some aspiring writers nuts because they DEMAND automaton-like consistency from readers.

Here's the thing - that's not possible. Sure, you'll probably find general agreement about the very best screenplays and the very worst screenplays, but there's a whole middle section of that curve that's neither enough fish nor foul to get the exact same reactions from a plurality of readers.

The very best writing - the strongest writing that's eventually going to send those writers onto their career - will probably garner similar reviews from readers. Is it likely that all the scripts at the semi-finals are at that top level? Personally, I wouldn't stake my rep on it.

I'm not saying you're not a good writer, or that your work doesn't show potential. It might just be that you're still in the middle of the pack. You show promise, but you're not quite ready for "the show." Yet.

You also have to look at the fact you didn't submit the exact same script both years. You rewrote it, which could account for the difference in reactions. Maybe there was something in that more raw version that the readers were responding too. Perhaps the rewrite took some passion, some edge or some urgency out of the script. I've seen it happen before.

But look at this - you got to the semi-finals. You hit near the target. If you were an archer, you'd keep drilling, keep firing arrows until you hit dead center more consistently. Put the reader out of your head. Yes, sometimes you might get a crap reader. Sometimes you might get a good reader on a bad day. But none of that really matters.

Why?

Because there's nothing you can do about it. You accomplish nothing by worrying about this. Reasonable, intelligent people will sometimes come to very different and still valid conclusions about the scripts they read. I took a quick look at the comments at Scriptshadow and saw plenty of evidence of this. You see evidence of this in movie reviews. Heck, I'm willing to bet that there are movies that you love that your friends can't stand.

I've got a friend who will argue that Armageddon is legitimately one of the best movies ever made. Yet he and I agree on many other films. Corner him at a party and bring up (500) Days of Summer and you will see him physically react with disgust and contempt for that film. (So he's not ALL wrong in his cinema critiques.) Me, I'm stunned so many of my film classmates had near-religious experiences during Magnolia. I hated that film so much that it's pretty much put me off of Paul Thomas Anderson's work for life.

Seriously. You will have to drug me and throw me in a straight jacket to get me in that theatre. I don't care if the film gets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Blame everyone who put their hand to their heart in Oscar season 2000 and said, "SUCH a brilliant movie. Magnolia was incredible."

Liars. Every last one of them.

Anyway....

Keep writing. Keep working. And when you're really good, you won't have to worry about getting the "right" reader. Even bad readers recognize a home run.