Monday, January 16, 2012

Stop wasting my time!

I've had it up to here with shitty writers.  No, you know what?  I'm not even going to dignify the "work" those morons do by equating them with real working professionals.  The people I'm talking about are hacks, plain and simple.  They're dilettantes who think that because they have seen a lot of Jason Statham movies and pirated a copy of Final Draft that they are entitled to churn out 125 pages of garbage and expect people to read it.

There are plenty of produced writers who are favored targets of internet critics (and let's be honest, they often end up in the crosshairs of this blog too.)  I'm talking about the Ehren Krugers of the world, the Friedberg/Seltzers, the Neveldine/Taylors, and whoever is to blame for G.I. Joe.  Let me just say, if you think those guys are the worst the writing world has to offer, come do my job for a week.  At the end of that week, you'll beg to read every draft of Friedberg/Seltzer's latest piece of crap.

What depresses me is that for every bad script I've read lately, I've not been able to banish the thought that this hack has robbed me of at least three hours of my life, once we count the time it takes to write the coverage.  Usually it's longer than that, because longer scripts take greater effort to read, to follow and to write up.

What makes most of these scripts bad?  Inexperience and laziness.  A new writer is bound to make mistakes because they don't know any better.  That's not a problem.  Making mistakes is good, it's healthy, and you can learn from making mistakes.  But make those mistakes in private.  Don't reveal your ineptitude to an outsider.  Your early scripts aren't meant to be seen by anyone.  They're the training wheels.

But how do these scripts get to me, you may ask?  Agents are supposed to provide one screen against that.  The problem is that there are a fair number of agents who don't seem to give a shit.  They'll push anything out there and give a Development Exec a hard sell on something that wouldn't survive its first round at Amazon Studios.  A bad agent isn't going to be looking out for me or my boss - they're just trying to get their clients read.

I have to assume that the worst of the worst that reach me do so through some kind of personal connection the writer has to someone at my company.  Some distant cousin of an production accountant just wrote a screenplay for their college screenwriting class and suddenly it falls to me to read their "heartwarming" independent film about a mute eight year-old boy who deals with the pain of an abusive home by teaching an ostrich how to fly.  Or perhaps the writer managed to schmooze the right person at a party and they said, "Sure, send it to me."

If you're the hack who has that sort of contact, let me give you a nickel's worth of free advice - don't push that script out there until you know it's ready.  This is where "laziness" comes in.  Read, re-read, and then rewrite that screenplay to within an inch of its life.  You might not get a second chance at submitting, even with the close connection in the company.  In fact, when I get a whiff of the favor scripts, I sometimes come down even harder on every aspect of the screenplay.  Your script will get such a strong pass that your contact will be too embarrassed to EVER bring something with your name on it into the company again.

Getting your script read is less important than getting the RIGHT script read.  Before you pass on a script, pretend there's a very angry guy like me on the other end, who will seize upon every weakness and bring it to light.  I'm like those cancer-causing body scanners at the airport - I see everything.  So if this script is hiding a bomb in its ass, it's not going to get past me.  Don't pretend that you can sneak shitty work past me or any of my colleagues.

Every moment I waste on your writing is time I could be spending on a more deserving writer.  It's time that I could be spending discovering scripts worthy of attention instead of acting like some sort of sewage filter.  After all my years of doing this, I don't have the time or the luxury of being polite to the worst of the worst, and frankly my bosses don't either.

24 comments:

  1. Ha, awesome. If only writers outside Hollywood could get our scripts to you it might alleviate some of those problems my friend.

    W

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  2. I covered this here - http://www.cobblestonecreative.com/www.cobblestonecreative.com/THE_8TH_PAGE/THE_8TH_PAGE.html

    But I want to advise newbie writers...hire a reader to advise you. I was lucky enough to get amanda Pendolino's thoughts on some of my work. Great practical advice. I shelved both projects while I got some work done on an optioned work and now am getting back to the old scripts...using her notes....what I have learned in the interim...and plain old common sense.

    Don't be a douche...you have to spend to sell...and you have to work to call yourself a pro.

    - Hank

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  3. Oh...and save your anal retentive side for the script...enjoy the typos here and on your facebook page...'cause they'll get your ass handed to you in the real world...

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  4. This is exactly why I pay a private mentor who won't let me submit a single page anywhere until I have every detail mastered.

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  5. Odin, I hope you're kidding. Scripts from outside Hollywood are much much much worse than any of the drivel you get inside. At least in Hollywood people tend to know what a script looks like. The myth that there are incredible screenwriters who can't get a break because they live in Duluth is just that, a myth.

    Apparently there's the brilliant business model that I've yet to tap into. I set myself up as "consultant" and then I charge people lots of money so I can tell them that their scripts suck and they shouldn't show them to anyone else. Repeat until wealthy.

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  6. Bitter, I'm with you 100%. I remember the first time I got a script to read from CAA and I was so excited because I'd finally get to read something "good." But no, it was the same junk as the rest of them.

    eitanthewriter.com

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  7. The really sad part is that it is more than likely that these inept hacks are wholly unaware just how bad they are. They earnestly believe that their script is not only ready to compete with the likes of Billy Wilder and Nora Ephron but will blow them out of the water with its creative brilliance.

    It is an inherent trait of the inadequate that they are not adequate to evaluate their own inadequacies.

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    1. Your observation on inadequacy is entirely adequate. An illustration, perhaps better than inadequate, originally from youarenotsosmart, not there any more, found it here, on the Dunning-Kruger Effect: http://martialcraft.com/are-you-suffering-from-the-dunning-kruger-effect/

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  8. "...it falls to me to read their "heartwarming" independent film about a mute eight year-old boy who deals with the pain of an abusive home by teaching an ostrich how to fly."

    I can almost hear the Morgan Freeman urging the bird to "Fly!Fly! while a nurse (played by Drew Barrymore) helps the boy to start a blog that becomes a success and...

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  9. Please tell me the ostrich thing is an exaggeration. Please. Because I know people are stupid and all, but surely no one is dumb enough to think an ostrich can actually fly.

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  10. Finally, Bitter putting the "Bitter" back in The Bitter Script Reader. You're at your best when your at your angriest! Love it!

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  11. I'm actually terrified to submit any of my own work now.

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  12. Dude, I think the job is finally getting to you. Face the fact that you are the lowest rung on the proverbial ladder and you're doing what you're suppsoed to be doing. It's an almost universally accepted reality that 99% of all scripts by new writers are bad. That's why you and other readers exist -- to sort through the garbage in the hope of finding something unspoiled and edible. And that, as you know, is a very rare thing.
    I got signed to my agent and got a good-money deal on my first script and never got read by a reader at all. My agent reads everythying herself and does not use readers. And I ended up with a great agent. And the producer who read my script, without the services of a readerm did so because he had a long relationship with my agent -- not an unusual thing at all.
    If you are this upset about doing your job, just stop doing it. After all, the fact that you have all these connections and are still unrepped and unsold, apparently, certainly suggests something about the commercial quality of your work, doesn't it?
    Maybe it's time to move on and get more serious about trying to be a writer, instead of a low-paid garbage man. Just a thought.

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    1. Once I take out your humblebrag about your situation, which doesn't really apply to the topic at hand, I'm left to wonder what exactly you have left to say besides a few cheap shots at me based upon some vague assumptions.

      "It's an almost universally accepted reality that 99% of all scripts by new writers are bad." Fair enough - so why not challenge those people to do better? Why not give them a heads up that people on the other side of the desk, whether it's me or some development exec, will NOT give them the benefit of the doubt? Write a bad script and that coverage will live forever. Maybe a few readers would benefit from that fear that turning in the garbage that constitutes most first time scripts could hobble them right out of the gate.

      It sounds like you were lucky to find a good agent, but I stand by my statement that there are plenty who apparently don't give a shit about quality.

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  13. ...I think I'll go write another draft.

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    1. Ditto. This post couldn't have come at a better time. He's right about being lazy for absolute sure. I'll definitely go back to the drawing board :D.

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  14. Shit rolls downhill. Could your boss help improve the quality of scripts that enter the company's doors and onto your desk? Someone needs to speak up. If these scripts are wasting your time, the company may as well be burning cash.

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  15. on a completely different note, what's the title of the ostrich movie you mentioned.

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  16. Hi again. Zuul. I didn't mean for you to take my comment so personally. I meant no insult. It's just that I think you ignore the reality of your job if you complain about how bad many scripts are. Whether there are agents and pro writers who don't give a sh** just adds insult to injury, it seems to me -- especially if you do care about the craft and the movies, which I'm sure you do.
    I have followed your blog every day for a year now because of your stated promise to help improve what's out there -- my work included. It jsut seems to me that you have drifted far from that mission statement with a lot of your posts -- and now gone so far as to bemoan the essential reality of what you do. That was really my point. This business is a bitch -- even if you do care, do have talent and do have an agent. And it gets harder all the time. Therefore, IMHO, the only way for anyone to survive in it is to love it. Period.

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  17. I'm a reader in the UK, and I also spend a lot of time wading through work which could have benefited from either a couple more drafts, or even a serious re-think, before being sent out. I do get quite annoyed when something REALLY poorly-thought-out crosses my desk; it shows arrogance and fecklessness, neither of which are attractive qualities. Even if the writer doesn't mean to appear this way, they can send out all the wrong impressions by rushing out a poorly written, under-researched screenplay. And a bad reputation is tough to shake. So high-five to the Bitter Script Reader for this post!

    I agree that writers who send scripts of that standard out into the world are their own worst enemies. So a blog post such as this, which aims to point that out to them, can only be beneficial to both jaded readers and budding writers alike.

    @jtwg50 - "After all, the fact that you have all these connections and are still unrepped and unsold, apparently, certainly suggests something about the commercial quality of your work, doesn't it?" - and you didn't expect that to be taken personally??

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  18. Thanks for a sobering read on an already crappy Tuesday. I am so tired of rewriting my current screenplay that I'm adopting a "fuck it" attitude - Eh, it's good enough, throw it out there. But deep down, I know it's not good enough. I know I can't be lazy about the rewrite process. Thanks for reminding me.

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  19. Why do you read the whole thing if it sucks? Just curious. I'm not a script writer unless you count skits for kids.

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    1. It's the way things work. I have to write up a full synopsis so that someone can read that and then talk to the writer as if they've read the whole thing.

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  20. The fortunate thing about my screenplays is that i'm relentlessly critical of my own work and when I give it to friends and colleagues for evaluation, I tell them to be brutal. I tell them to be honest. The only way to get better is to see the flaws yourself and have other spot flaws you overlook or never even consider. I don't moan and groan when i'm on the sixth draft if it still needs polishing! I refuse to sell a half assed project!

    And I love the stories i'm telling. I just want them to be good from page one to page 120. It's about the little moments, not just the big picture. And even though I have alot of faith in my storytelling ability (been doing amateur comics since I was like 5), I know I can do better. So people like you BitterScriptReader are doing people like us a favor to call out the undeserving hacks while we slave to make something worth reading, worth financing, worth seeing.

    Because the difference between us and them is that we WANT to see the movie we're on the big screen. We WANT to tell good stories and make a living off of it...so we can tell MORE good stories. We love the medium since we were children. We don't do it for any stupid get-rich-quick mentality.

    With that, i'm on to continually improve my work before going to Los Angeles to connect with the agent, or whomever, and get this ball rolling.

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