An awful Inktip "success story" - how one writer's script got ruined

Weirdly, one of the older posts that is most prolific in generating new comments or emails is something I wrote ages ago about InkTip. InkTip is a site where users can post loglines for their scripts - and even complete scripts - in the hopes that some of their producer and manager members take a liking to it.

I'm gonna be blunt. In all my years out here, I've not heard of any significant deals made from this site and I don't think any of the companies I worked for ever used InkTip. (And one of two of those DID go to Pitchfests, which I also advise against.) I don't foresee a situation where my answer to any question about Inktip is gonna be, "Spend your money HERE to jump-start your screenwriting career.")

The story I'm about to link to doesn't have TOO much to do with Inktip, aside from the chain of events starting there. I'm just aware that putting "InkTip" into a post will increase the odds of people finding it via Google, so maybe the above paragraph will save them an email or comment.

Almost 20 years ago, A.J. Via put one of his first scripts on InkTip. There it sat for 15 years until it was discovered by Chad Ridgely, who'd scraped together money to produce a film. It took another year and a half, but finally the project started to come together... just as that professional relationship fell apart.

As the AV Club notes:

By the time of the premiere, almost two years later in November 2015, at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival (where it somehow ended up winning Best Comedy Feature against other no-budget competitors that had names like Frankenstein’s Patchwork Monster and Valley Of The Sasquatch), contact between Via and Ridgely was essentially nil, to the point where Via felt uncomfortable even attending the premiere. (Via describes that email exchange thusly: “I’d write, ‘Where and when would I go if I was actually coming to see this movie?’ And he would reply back, like, ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll see you. That’s great!’ And that would be the end of it.”) Thus, it wasn’t until months later, when the film finally came out via digital platforms like iTunes, that Via had the opportunity to see it. His wife alerted him to the fact that his movie was coming out after she saw a notice online saying Massacre On Aisle 12 was now available for purchase.

That night, Via plugged in his Amazon Fire stick, sat down on the couch with his wife, and finally got to see the results of a script he had written roughly 15 years earlier. To hear him describe it is an experience roughly akin to having a next-door neighbor recall in intimate detail an eyewitness account of their own child being slapped around. He says his wife fell asleep after about 20 minutes and he didn’t wake her, so happy he was for her to miss the film. “The first 10, 15 minutes of it, she turned to me five or seven times and said, ‘Did you write that?’ And I said, ‘No, no, no. I didn’t write that. I didn’t write that.’ To the point where as jokes were happening, I was turning to her saying, ‘I didn’t write that. I didn’t write that.’” He watched it in silence, blank-faced, until it ended. Then he put it aside, the way a shell-shocked mugging victim will often have a delayed response to their encounter. Via couldn’t even process what he had seen.

After several weeks, he felt ready to watch it again, and actually engage with the material. It was almost as bad as the first time. “I don’t want to come out sounding like I’m on a high horse. There are things that can be offensive that I’ll laugh at,” he stresses, before singling out the bombardment of gay panic humor that is laced throughout the film as his biggest issue with it. “And I don’t mean to make it sound like I wrote Casablanca. It was a horror comedy that was really designed to be dark, you know, kind of in poor taste. But I looked at it and was like, ‘This is such schlock. This is stuff a 10-year-old would think was funny.’” It really depressed Via to see his name on something he so profoundly disliked. He warned friends to stay away—the same friends he had proudly boasted to a couple of years earlier about the movie he wrote that was getting made.

In retrospect, Via wonders how he could’ve been so naive about what the results would be. He had really gotten along with Ridgely at first, had considered him someone who understood what Via wanted to do, who loved the same jokes, the same beats in the script, and the two had appeared creatively simpatico. But as the partnership eroded in tandem with the original screenplay, Via started to investigate Ridgely’s output further, and kicked himself for not looking more closely at the outset. “He’s a very sex-obsessed—I mean, you can see for yourself [on Ridgely’s site]. His biggest things on there are songs about boobies and movies he’s made that are—he does a whole fake game show, Gay Or Not Gay? And it’s supposed to be this hilarious thing of trying to guess if an actor is queer or not.” 

The whole article is worth a read. Check it all out here.

Why every aspiring writer should be excited about Black List 3.0

I'll say this for Franklin Leonard, he doesn't do anything small.

The Black List creator has just announced a new feature to the Black List website, dubbed Black List 3.0.  Just last week, membership to the Black List website was made free for all industry pros.  Currently the site has a tracking board of sorts, where those industry pros are able to rate scripts that are listed within the database.  (The scripts themselves are not stored, just the identifying information like title, writer, representation, attachments and so on.)

But the big move has come this week.  Starting soon, non-pros will be able to pay a fee to make their scripts available on the Black List site.  For an additional fee, the script can be covered by trusted industry readers, who will then evaluate and rate the script.  Thus, if I upload my spec BIG ROOSTERS & SOAKED KITTENS and pay both fees, the following will happen:

First, a Black List approved reader will read the entire script and rate it according to the sites metrics.  As expected the coverage will also detail the genre/s and most likely the budget of the script.  Then, that information will be made available in the database for as long as I pay the monthly fee.

(And let's be realistic, the fees are necessary if any industry readers worth their salt are going to take their time to read these submissions.  It's just simple economics - if you want quality gatekeepers, they're going to need to have some compensation for their time.)

So let's say the Black List writer really liked my low-to-mid budget comedy and gave it a score that averaged out to 8.5 out of 10.  Every member who searches for a script with those parameters will have access to my script, my coverage and my contact information.  So for the price of a late submission to a prestigious contest, I could end up with a script request from a major company or two.  Or ten.

And here's where the real brilliance of Mr. Leonard's scheme comes in.  The Black List is a brand that everyone in town knows.  It is perhaps the most coveted insider list and it's spawned more than a few imitators.  People trust the Black List... and Mr. Leonard just made access to the site completely free for them.  At present, I'm told there are over 1,100 industry pros signed up as members.

I don't care how many tracking boards most development people are already signed up for.  If something like this is free, they're gonna sign up for it, if only to have the inside track on the next Black List.  By doing this, it practically guarantees that The Black List will have a higher quality of clientele than something like InkTip.

Granted, InkTip is a little cheaper at $60 for six months, but there all you're posting is the logline.  At BL 3.0, there's a gatekeeper there who's going to play town crier for anything worth while.

This also solves the problem with Triggerstreet.  Over there, users can post their scripts for free... but they're only being read and rated by other community members.  Thus, there's less of a chance those readers will have the same discerning tastes as readers who work within the industry and in a worst case scenario, it could be the blind leading the blind.

And then there's Amazon Studios.  Look, you all know what I think of the site by now.  I think Black List 3.0 totally demolishes Amazon in every fashion.  Sure, Amazon was also free... but at the cost of giving them a temporary exclusive option and the right to buy the script for a predetermined price.  Plus, does anyone think Amazon's actually going to get a feature film released?

With the Black List, you're getting your material in front of people who've actually made real movies before - not dilettantes who were fixated on producing test films.  You own the script, you (or your representation) has full ability to negotiate the sale.  The Black List doesn't gloom onto your work at all.  They don't option it, they don't attach themselves as producers.  Their involvement goes only as far as making the introduction possible.  (They're basically going "Oprah, Uma.  Uma, Oprah.")

And let's talk contests and fellowships.  As we've talked about before, most contests are probably going to run you between $40-$75.  In most of those cases, that's just the fee to enter.  You rarely get coverage or anything else.  We've also mentioned that there are few contests that are really strong at jump-starting careers.  It's my supposition that you'll probably have access to more real industry insiders through The Black List than through most contest submissions.  Even if the cost for a month of posting is a little more than a contest submission, the potential benefit far outweighs that.

And then let's not forget the coverage/scouting services that evaluate your script and promise to pass it to their contacts if it's deemed good enough.  Coverage from ScriptShark will run you $149. Script Pipeline charges $350.  And then there's a lone reader out there who's currently charging $1000 a read.  (The cherry on top of that is that he also is trying to be a manager and a producer.  No one should ever have to pay either of those sorts of professionals for a read, as that's stepping into some very murky ethical territory.)

So if you're one of the people who would pay to enter a contest, or who would pay those huge fees just for coverage and the barest promise of "access," you should be jumping for joy about Black List 3.0.  It seems like a good idea on it's own, but when you put it in context with all the other "breaking into Hollywood" services there are, this has the potential to be a clear winner.

It's basically a Voltron of everything good about Triggerstreet, InkTip, Amazon Studios and most contests, with very little of the most derided aspects of those services.


I saw a lot of negativity about this venture last month when details started leaking out on Deadline.  That disappoints me for a lot of reasons, chiefly because I think this is unquestionably one of the best opportunities to come along for aspiring writers in a long time.  I see a lot of potential here and a lot of opportunity.  But opportunism?  No, I don't feel that at all.

I don't know Franklin well.  I've only met him a couple of times and have mostly communicated now and then via email and Twitter.  I can say that he's struck me as an incredibly intelligent and above board professional and I'm truly convinced he has the best of intentions with this site.

But I know that there will be a lot of questions about this, so I've reached out to Franklin Leonard and I'll be posting an EXCLUSIVE video interview with him tomorrow!  (That's right - that means the creator of the Black List is going to submit to questioning by a puppet!) Spread the word and come back tomorrow to see me interrogate Franklin about Black List 3.0

Related:

Go Into The Story: New Black List Feature for aspiring writers
Amanda Pendolino: The Black List Launches services for aspiring writers
The What, How, and Why of the Black List: The Long Answer by Franklin Leonard
Screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe with "My Thoughts on the Black List Project"

An InkTip horror story

Quite a while back I asked readers if they had any experience with InkTip. I didn't get many responses then, but recently a reader named Anne wrote in with her experience. It seems she wasn't terribly satisfied with them. I've heard anecdotially that other people have had better luck, so I'm not putting this in as a general "InkTip is a scam" post, but rather, to encourage others to post their feedback regarding the site.

Take it away, Anne...

The following is written without prejudice, based on my experiences with InkTip. I am not saying I am a great writer but some of my scripts were Quarter Finalists and few received Consider status. So this is just an educated opinion and not sour grapes.

I stayed with InkTip for almost four years. I had a lot of activity but no substance and definitely no results. Over the years, I had better results from one shot e-mail queries from Script Express and others. No kidding. Their producers are a bunch of young wannabees , or unemployed actors looking for a new gig. Some of them are not even listed on Imdb. There is no background info on them, anywhere. I seriously question their connections to the industry. I found InkTip's vetting process extremely lax, sloppy and irresponsible. They don't even bother to check for references. Name dropping is enough for them. Some of their "Industry professionals" wrote back to me after accessing the script on InkTip, telling me they liked my style of writing, etc. and requested the script with a release form. Afterward, either I heard nothing again or they wrote back to sell their services to me for script consulting. One even requested $10,000 to re-write the script without telling me what was wrong with it. When I informed InkTip of this, I was told that they were aware of it and the person was asked to leave and no longer was associated with them, although they were listing the services of the same person on their database. Go figure.

I drew the line when LA Film School (including scriptwriting) student posed as a producer and asked me how much I would demand for the production rights of my script. Upon checking, I noticed that she accessed the script many times over, on the site, and further queries indicated that she was indeed a student. When I asked for an explanation, InkTip treated me like an idiot, trying to convince me that they were producers as well as a film school. Further queries indicated that, although they did student productions, it was mostly for the work of their scriptwriting students. InkTip kept defending their actions, refusing to see the seriousness of the situation. That did it! Consequently, I cancelled all five of my scripts and subscription of the preferred newsletter and parted company. Thanks but no thanks. It was obvious I could not trust them anymore.

The whole thing in my experience was a bust. It's a useless money pit, only benefiting Jerrol and company and never the writer. I also witnessed that their loyalty is directed to industry members on their database and not to the writers, who pay dearly for their services. One is better off going to MovieBytes and subscribing to "Who is Buying What" and then pitching directly to those producers.

Lately, I have been getting a lot of e-mails from all over, advertising forthcoming InkTip Pitch festival. If we're dealing with the same calibre of producers, I'll say save your money. It's not worth it.

Tuesday Talkback: InkTip

I've never had much direct experience with InkTip. For those of you who don't know, InkTip is a site where writers can pay $60 to have their script's logline and synopsis posted in an index accessed by industry professionals looking for scripts. In this way, if you have a low-budget cop-thriller script, a producer who's in the market for material like that can search the database for that genre. Then, presumably, they'll come across your logline and if it sounds like an intriguing concept, they'll request the script.

A friend of mine posted a few of his loglines on there some years back and despite a few nibbles from producers, it didn't really result in any positive movement for his career. Since then, I've gone over to the site a few times, but never really got up the nerve to post anything.

Some of my hesitation comes from an internet post I saw a while back, from a guy who purported to have once worked in development at one of the basic cable networks that often produces genre TV-Movies and miniseries. He claimed that when his bosses needed ideas, they'd tell him to comb InkTip for interesting premises that they could then steal and have one of their own writers use. Now, that claim might have carried more weight had the poster used his actual name, or been able to point to a specific example of a produced project being ripped off from the site. After all, that could just be a lie from someone looking to discredit InkTip.

But a few weeks ago I realized that there were probably more than a few of my readers who have used the service, and decided to put out the call for any success stories. Unfortunately, I received no true responses to that. In fact, the only user response I got from an aspiring writer was this one from Rob:

Inktip blows man marbles. I paid $60 and in 5 weeks I’ve had 4 small-time production companies glance at my logline. Nobody has read my synopsis or script. I advise avoiding it like a one-legged, thirteen year old, syphilis infested Thai hooker...on her period.

Colorful language aside, I felt bad about putting up a post denouncing InkTip when I had only the testimony of one reader. A producer who reads this site also responded that:

Re: InkTip - I've found them very proactive about pursuing producers. I get polite, informed, follow-up phone calls every time my assistant logs on and searches (once a blue moon) - it's a great idea - unfortunately there's no quality control so you get log lines like my favourite below!

"A growth on an arthritic old woman's elbow develops an appetite for her pets"

So consider this an open call for all experiences with InkTip, postive, negative or neutral. If you've used the site, sound-off in the comments and let us know if you felt it was a worthwhile purchase.