Movie Industry Agent Wanted

I got sent this a while ago from a reader named Clint:


Movie Industry Agent Wanted (Mesa)

Date: 2011-06-10, 10:53AM MST
Reply to: job-aekt9-2432521565@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]

Reputable, experienced agent wanted to sell screenwriter's scripts to producers, directors or film companies. Four are done, ready for pre-production or option, all of feature length and are registered with the Writers Guild. This is not a job for the beginner. It requires someone who has the insider connections with Hollywood and a proven record of successful sales within that industry. Screenwriter has agreement with an author to do his other five books as scripts and books are already published and solely owned by said author.

Of those done, two are of historical and factual content and never been done on film in their entireity. Another is a western done as a sequel to a successful movie in the 70's which starred the late John Wayne (no copyright violation) and the last one is based upon myth about a haunted lighthouse in Oregon. Two of the four can be filmed almost entirely in Arizona. Budgets would vary from low to high.

Compensation is just what the industry standard is. A flat 10% of what a script sells for after it is sold. There are no up front fees paid, again per industry standard.

For futher information make contact with an outline of your background and proven success.

I don't even know where to begin with this, except to say that even putting aside the foolishness of seeking an agent on Craigslist, this is a classic example of how NOT to write a query.

Let's treat this like those Highlights games and see if you can spot all the things this posting does wrong.

Reader question - How much feedback should I get before I know I'm ready?

Becka asks me:

How much and what kind of feedback and coverage should I get for my scripts before I try to get an agent?

So far I've just been in a local class, entered a small contest where they give you a summary of 20 readers' notes, and I am soon getting some extended coverage on another script. I can only afford a couple more basic coverage services and a contest or two over the next few months- how should I get the most for my money and start rackin' up the feedback on my first few scripts and treatments?

Well, there's quantity of coverage and then there's quality of coverage. 50 reviews from amateurs not much more experienced than you is worth less than two or three reviews from experienced writers and readers.

Let's take this piece-by-piece. The contest - how professional is it? Who are these "20 readers?" What are their credentials? Are the people running the contest employed in Hollywood or is this one of those regional film festival screenplay competitions?

I don't mean to say that someone not currently inside the system can't give cogent notes, but on average, you're going to get more effective feedback from someone close to "the show." It's quite possible that this festival recruited its readers via postings on Craigslist or EntertainmentCareers.net. They could be interns at small management companies, fresh off the bus.

I don't know if I put a lot of faith in contest feedback. I've covered the topic of coverage services a few times, but this is probably a good time to reiterate the basics.

For me personally, the instances where I would pay for coverage are rare, owing largely to the fact that I live in Los Angeles and there is no shortage of close friends I can ask to read my script who are either writers or work in the industry. The last spec I wrote, I vetted through about 15 people who I trusted and it didn't cost me a dime. I got a lot of useful feedback, as well as some notes I just decided I was going to ignore. Now, obviously if you live in Iowa and don't know any other screenwriters or anyone who's ever read a screenplay, then you might benefit from the services of a professional reader.

So my advice would be to be selective in choosing your reader. Check out screenwriting boards to get recommendations for readers. As with any business, I'm sure every reader and company will have some good feedback and some bad feedback. Check out their websites, decide if their prices are fair, investigate their connections and see if you can find any testimonials from previous clients. Some of the better services have very insightful and knowledgeable readers, while others might pay the readers pennies, which probably won't inspire them to read your script too carefully. So if you're going to buy coverage based solely on what's cheapest, you'll probably get what you pay for.

When I covered this topic before, I got some good responses endorsing Scott The Reader including this from a reader named Christina:

"[Scott] charges $60 and will give me notes sometimes in 24 hours. He's good - his notes, years later, end up being on the right track even if i can't see it when I first get them back. What I like most about him is utter professionalism. He never dips into arrogance or snarkiness the way some readers can. (Like myself!) He just tells you what he sees with a rational, level-headed voice. He does a lot of production company coverage, I think.

I don't know him personally, but some of my LA friends know him as a real person and report he's a nice guy. I kinda like not knowing him. That way he's not biased by my sunny, outgoing personality.

I've also gotten some strong feedback on Script Shark. It's worth pointing out that Script Shark is a little more expensive than Scott the Reader, starting at $175 for standard coverage. It's also worth pointing out that at least one Shark reader (AH) hangs out over on the Done Deal Pro message boards and has gotten a lot of positive feedback from readers there. His site is The Screenplay Mechanic, and his rates start at $95 for one page of notes and $119 for studio style coverage. I've never used him, but his customers seem to be satisfied, if the Done Deal feedback is anything to go on.

Also, I once traded scripts with Amanda the Aspiring Writer and was very pleased with the results. She knows her stuff, having been an agency assistant, where part of the job was to do coverage regularly. She charges $110 for feature coverage.

If I was to pay for coverage, those four places would probably be where I would start. In my web searching for reviews, I've come across a strong number of good reviews vs. any bad reviews. And in the grand scheme of things, the prices don't seem that unreasonable, especially when all of those readers seem to be above board.

How much feedback you need to get probably depends on the reaction to your first few submissions. Do people seem to feel that you're ready? Are they captivated by your concept, drawn in by your characters? Do they think that this is an idea that people want to see? If you get a couple middling reactions, I'd take that as a sign to do some significant reworking before I sent it out to anyone else.

I wouldn't query any agents until you start getting very enthusiastic responses from people who know what they're talking about. It's not enough to get polite encouragement. You should be getting reactions on the order of "This is a VERY strong sample! I couldn't put it down. I tried to find things wrong with it and I came up empty!" Reactions like "This isn't really my thing, but I'm sure someone will like it" aren't what you should be looking for.

I'll make the following predictions - someone will pop in to suggest Triggerstreet.com as an option. Someone else will pop in to offer the opinion that Triggerstreet is a cesspool of amateurs and that most of what you'll find there amounts to the blind leading the blind. Then someone will take offense to that and defend it as a good screenwriting community that can help beginners develop their skills.

Pretty much all of those are right.

Not having read your script, I can't tell you when you're ready. All I can say is that patience is a virtue. Don't be overeager to query. Agents get a lot of queries each week and it's very easy to ignore a query that doesn't grab them right away. It's even easier to pass on a middling or so-so script. Don't query with anything less than a script that's going to knock their socks off.

If you've got the informed opinion of industry pros that this script is ready, then go to it. If all the feedback advises caution and redevelopment, I'd pump the brakes.

"The Oscar Goes to...." and "Gimmie my money back!"

We're halfway through the year in movies, so let's do a little experiment.

Oscar voters are often accused of having short memories, as, let's face it, it's a lot harder to remember back 12 months than it is six months. True, many studios play to this by putting their mostly likely contenders at the end of the year. Still, there are always a few worthy contenders that somehow sneak in among the blockbusters, rom-coms and Kevin James movies destined for a long run on your local Southwest Airlines jets.

So what films from the first six months of 2011 deserve not to be forgotten when Harvey Weinstein starts purchasing Oscar buzz as if it were frozen orange futures in Trading Places?

Related to that... let's be honest, there's a lot of crap that gets shoveled into the local multiplexes in the first half of the year. I've heard there are some stars who have refunded money to disgruntled viewers. George Clooney has supposed given several fans their money back for Batman & Robin. George, I'll let you be on that one. Batman & Robin was a gift from the comedy gods. But you're not off the hook for Ocean's Twelve.

So what 2011 movie do you want your money back for, and what star do you fantasize about accosting on the street or in a restaurant in order to get back your $12?

Transformers - The Dark of the Industry

It comes this week - the latest Transformers film. You know it's going to suck. I know it's going to suck, and yet I can't shake the feeling that in a moment of weakness, even the most cynical viewer is going to rationalize, "Well, if I'm going to see it, I might as well see it on a big screen. And they're really pushing the 3D hard on this, claiming it's nothing like we've ever seen before. I mean, James Cameron is hyping this and that guy's ego is so huge he almost never hypes a project he isn't directly connected to.'

"And hey, AMC has half-price showings before noon. What could it hurt?"

I beg you, don't listen to that voice. I hear it too. There's a part of me that keeps thinking, "Well, I'm probably going to tear this thing a new one, so it would only be responsible journalism to be informed about it. But I'd better see it in 3D just so I'm coming from an informed place if I put the lie to Bay's hype."

And then I remember the $6 (half-price screening, remember) I spent on the previous Transformers film and how halfway through the film, I couldn't remember a less pleasant experience in the theater since a forced viewing of WR's Mysteries of the Organism in film school. And THAT film featured a nearly-ten minute sequence of an artist making a plaster cast of a well-endowed man's erect member. At one point, the scene cuts from an excruciatingly long medium shot of the process to an extreme close-up with an angle that could have only been taken from between the prone subject's knees. The gentleman's urologist likely has never gone in as close for an inspection as this camera did.

And even then, the experience of enduring that sequence was only slightly less uncomfortable than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. At least it was over in ten minutes or so. (Though other parts of this film were still excruciating to get through.)

So as you're tempted to catch a few hours of air conditioning this week, do yourself a favor and remember just how bad the previous Transformers movies were. If you keep going to the theatre, it'll only encourage them to make more.

If you're so motivated, post in the comments your reasons for attending or skipping Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

Friday Free-For-All: Bruce Campbell on how bad movies happen

Many thanks to The Auditors of the Amazon for posting a video clip yesterday that I've been looking for for quite some time now. I'd heard a while back on a Bruce Campbell speech he's often uses where he "tricks" his fans into greenlighting a bomb of a film.



Special bonus:

As I was composing this blog entry, Wil Wheaton posted this video to his Tumblr. Children of the 80s, I defy you not to watch this and laugh yourselves silly.

Ideas are cheap

Tuesday I participated in this massive discussion on Go Into The Story, during which I opined, "Ideas are cheap." Perhaps some of you saw this talk, but for those who didn't, here's what I meant by that.

In both interviews and in person, I've heard many a working writer roll their eyes at that notion, usually citing an incident that follows as such:

Said writer mentions his profession at a party. A fellow unknown to that writer says, "Hey, I've got a great idea for a movie! How about I give it to you, you write it up and we'll split it 50-50?" This story usually ends with the working writer straining not to be incredibly insulted at the proposal.

Perhaps even some of you have been on the receiving end of this. I'm always a little put off by the attitude of the pitcher. The implicit message seems to be that coming up with an idea and developing an idea take an equal amount of effort. Quite simply, anyone who believes that has not sweated over multiple drafts of a script.

For example, these are ideas:

4 teenage guys make a pact to get laid before prom.

Two teens experience trouble getting beer to a high school party so they can impress girls.

A case of mistaken identity has a couple on a date night hunted by cops and crooks.

Those are ideas, but are they story? Do they trump the work that goes into the structure and execution of said ideas? As someone who's had a couple really, really good ideas that resulted in a script or two that didn't live up to their promise, I can say yes. A thousand people could have come up with those ideas, but only a few could have executed them as successful films.

How often have you watched TV or seen a movie trailer for an idea that you could have sworn you had first? I don't know a writer who's hasn't had that experience.

THAT is what I'm trying to express when I say ideas are cheap. It takes more than a good idea to make a good script.

Is mediocre the New "Good?"

Go Into The Story's Scott Myers and I exchanged a few tweets Friday night, which was motivated by my assessment of Green Lantern, which was "Not as good as I hoped, but not nearly as bad as I feared."

Scott replied: "Rinse, repeat for all comic book movies / sequels? Mediocrity = The New Good?"

I have to admit, I'm wondering if that's the case. I've seen a lot of movies this year that have been "just okay." Almost six months in, I can't think of a single release that's blown me away. I've been entertained, certainly, by movies like Thor, Paul, X-Men: First Class, and Super 8 among others, but I've yet to come across a film that really made me saw "WOW! Why can't I make that?"

In other words, it seems like Hollywood is doing a good job of getting on base even hitting a few triples, but no one's hit a home run yet - let alone a grand slam. Yet every now and then it seems that film fans try so hard to praise a particular film as not just good, but as the second coming of film. I'm not naming names, but there's been a recent release or two that seems to have gotten more credit than they're due.

For instance, something that's an original idea in a sea of remakes seems to get an A grade just by virtue of the fact that it's not a rehash. Yet if the film were held to a more objective standard. It might be more of a B.

So is this how we rate movies now? "A for effort?" All flaws are forgiven so long as the filmmakers had pure motives?

Which brings me to a couple tweets from screenwriter Justin Marks (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.)

First he said, "Go find me a bad Hollywood movie, then find me the director who says he wasn't trying to do something special with it. Doesn't exist."

This remark clearly ruffled some feathers and I saw one reply Justin wrote, saying to a person arguing with him, "I refuse to accept your premise that there are people who intentionally set out to spend 2 yrs making a bad movie!"

No, of course no one sets out to make a bad movie, but that doesn't mean there aren't cynical reasons for making a movie - reasons that perhaps lead creators to cut corners creatively. There's also the fact that these movies are a product with a release date, and sometimes, creators have to make sacrifices to meet their deadline.

Let's put it this way - when you were in school and had a 20 page paper due, I'm sure you didn't set out to get a D grade. However, the circumstances under which you approached completing that assignment might not have been the most conducive to an A grade. You don't necessarily have to be lazy to be incapable of putting the best effort possible. Maybe the material was beyond your grasp, maybe you completely misunderstood the assignment, maybe you completely lost sight of the goal.

Whatever the reason, when the teacher handed you back your work, explained all the ways in which you failed the assignment, I'm willing to be you didn't offer a defensive "I tried!" and expect that to wipe the slate clean.

Filmmakers made bad decisions for reasons other than laziness - and just saying "Well, they tried" isn't good enough. That doesn't mean that an utter failure like G.I. Joe or Wolverine gets a walk. True, perhaps some criticisms of those films step too far into personal attacks, and I suspect that's what Mr. Marks is reacting to.

But when we start arguing that motive and effort are on an equal par with quality - that's what leads to what Scott was talking about - the day that medicore is the new good.

What do you think?