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Do you send out script release forms with production company name and contact numbers.
I’ve a great script although set in Atlanta, it would work equally well for London.
Stilettos
Diamonds are a girl’s best friend unless they steal eighty million dollars worth, then they become a girl’s worst enemy.Joe,
It would be useful if you stated budget and whether it has to be a UK location.
Your web site shows nothing about film production and your post nothing about what the deal might be?
Are you looking to purchase a script, do you have finance and distribution in place or is it a backend deal that might happen?
Just some of the questions that come to mind.
Please clarify your intentions and objectives.
I would love to send you synopsises, but I like to know if my script will meet the producers requirements, more closely than the broad brush you have used.
I presume you are going to be the producer, maybe even the director or are you looking for a script that allows you to enter the film industry as an actor?Again Joe,
It would be useful to know more of your intentions and objectives.
Is this a paid position, or a writers fee based on finance being available at some time in the future, maybe?
I have written scripts for directors and producers, based on their ideas and or treatments. I’ve worked as story editor on a script for an LA director and I am just completing a script for an Indie Producer, but in all my work the terms were clearly defined up front.
Helping me decide if the job was worth pursuing.Adrian
So few people realise that the film industry is an industry and people involved in it, are in business.
It’s great that amateurs and want-to-bes can get through the system and become successful. I have, in a very short time, but I’ve done it by approaching people with care and diligence.
Sending out unsolicited scripts is a sure way to get ignored, it’s no different to the hundreds of telephone sales people offing double glazing or cheaper power and it demeans your work by association.
The film industry is probably the most desired and hardest to enter. Last year some hundred thousand scripts were registered and less than one thousand made it to a screen.
In LA there are some two to three hundred thousand actors looking for work and as with most businesses people are protective of their jobs and roles once they are part of the circus.
As a writer I realised early on that even if my screenplays were the best thing since sliced bread, unless somebody read them, I was wasting my time.
Not knowing anybody in the industry meant I had no contacts, so I researched how others had managed to break in. It’s all on the web, interviews, blogs, web sites and news letters.
I initially settled for placing my scripts on InkTip, after registering them with the WGA.
I received my first offer to write a script for a director within four months of starting, after he had read two of my scripts on that site.
Now I have four commissions under my belt, one option and one editing job, and I am the script moderator on an American based Indie Producers web site, all within two years.
So it can be done, if you do it correctly.
If you are a writer, remember that every post you write, every blog, every email is an example of your skill, and the Internet makes almost everything you write, visible to the whole world.
It’s a great shop window, both for talent and idiots.I would love to submit to you horror scripts as requested, but after reading your release form I have to say I reconsidered.
Having completed and signed various such forms for both UK and US production companies I’ve never seen one that so blatantly states the writer has no rights over the material they submit to you, when you consider the wording of your clause 2 and clause 3.
Quote from clause 2:
“You understand and agree that Olive Pictures’ use of material similar to or identical with the Material or containing features or elements similar to or identical with those contained in the Material will not obligate Olive Pictures to negotiate with you, nor will it entitle you to any compensation of any kind if Olive Pictures determines that it has an independent legal right to use such other material.”
Quote from clause 3:
You acknowledge that you are submitting the Material voluntarily and not in confidence or in trust, and that your submission of the Material does not create any confidential.”
So you get the writer to sign that Olive Pictures has the right to develop a story concept identical with that contained in the Script submitted to you and that they also agree, up front, that the writer should not trust you and has no recall when later it appears you produced an identical story.
When you consider several major production companies are in legal battles right now over plagiarism your release form really encourages submissions and trust.
How can you have or create later something that is identical to a submission, particularly when you consider most scripts are normally around twenty thousand words. It’s a mathematical impossibility.
Please reply as I would like to submit to a UK company and I am interested in knowing more about your company as on IMDb there is a Olive Pictures Inc who are listed with the production of ‘The Invasion’ starting Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and then there is Olive Pictures (GB) who are listed with the production of Oxbridge Baby – My first DVD.
I ask because your web site does not mention your past achievements.Beth
I did say ‘Want-a-Be’s’.
I am a professional writer paid for my work but the number of people out there looking for something for nothing amazes me.
RonJames
Have a look at Zoetrope, great site to help develop your skills, shorts, features, poems. Just a great site for writers wanting to learn.
RonJim
You give no details about yourself, either in your email or in your bio. You do not state what your terms are and yet you hope to get a serious reply.
What do you have, an idea?
Have you pitched it and got a studio waiting to buy or an option on the concept.
I write professionally and normally a screenplay takes about 120 hours to write the first draft.
About an hour for each minute of screen time. I and any other writer worth their salt wants to know they are working on a project worthwhile with a placement for their work.
If it’s just an idea place it on MovieJigsaw. I’ve written three scripts based on ideas on that site, because the story creator had posted a treatment, with some structure, they had developed profiles on characters and appeared serious.
Last year over 110,000 scripts were registered and less than 600 were made into feature movies.
Get real, everybody’s got ideas.
Who is we, Icon or Wecon?In your bio you ask, “how to get to Sesame Street?”
Follow the Yellow Brick Road. It’s just over the rainbow.
Regarding your request for help with four feature scripts.
I am a scriptwriter that has ready taken two treatments for two renowned producers, from idea to finished screenplay. Both go into production this year and will give me by first IMDB accreditations.
Also, today I received an offer to option one of my original screenplays, ‘The Box’ to be presented at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Please send me a PM outlining what help you need and what the terms of your contract will be.
Will it include a writer’s credit, up-front fee, percentage of production budget or is it just an editing job with a fee?
Thanks and good luck with your porjects.
Ron Aberdeen.
Keeping busy keeps you busy.Hi Matt
Like most things in life, it looks like a ‘People You Know’ solution.
I’ve been approached by agents and nearly ripped off by one. At the moment I seem to be able to get work under my own steam.
Good! More brass for me.
Yes, I would like an agent but one who would help develop my career, guide my writing style, get me into pitches. Get me or at least my scripts in front of the people I know would make the movie, if they read the script.
One that allows me to get on with my writing and the necessary research.
Not collect my manuscripts and put them in the post to someone else.
I find networking through the web a great place to make contacts and develop relationships. That’s how I got my first three commissions.
Other than that its cold calling or cold emailing and cold responses (if you get one).
