Finding Screenplays

Reading screenplays in Hollywood is often seen as a task for entry level sifting machines. I was fortunate to be given a broader role in the process, which raised the stakes of my involvement from a simple filter to finding something I’d actually help make.

One common way the avalanche of material was funneled to decision makers happened through events where writers moved between tables to pitch their story for a few minutes at each. Like auditioning wasn’t for acting, this was not at all a great way of discovering if someone could write, so I had to find how to get the most out of these gatherings.

Sometimes the events were held at places where in order to get inside, the producers first had to walk by the writers waiting outside the pitch hall. Usually I’d be the youngest to show up for the other side. There wasn’t always a staff member to check you in or meet you at the end of the line, so walking up towards the door I passed a gauntlet of people parsing a mystery differently from each other. The eyes and murmurs gave it away. Is he skipping the line? Who is he? “Oh.” Some were intrigued, some were minding their business. This taught me a few first hand lessons about preconception.

Most people were great.

Only twice over the years did someone overtly show disrespect at the table. One spent the first portion of her time questioning if it was worth her effort and if I was a real producer, and once she remembered she’d signed up for a vetted event where only reputable companies could set up, she chose to use the next portion of her pitch ranting without prompt that just because she had an accent didn’t mean she was a bad writer. I highly recommend not doing either of these things. The story she’d written was supernatural, but the supplemental material revealed this lady believed all of it to be completely true. The writing was average.

Instead of using pitch time for the usual two or five minutes where a writer lays out their case, I tended more towards learning only the essence and then started talking about writing, how the work came about, the writer’s thoughts and so on. Conversations like that told me what I needed to know, it often made the writer forget they were nervous, and it increased the quality of writing I ended up letting past my initial filter. Online submissions are woefully incomparable, because they do not allow for a back and forth. Not all writers are socially inclined, but many do come out of their shell when you respect them as peers and have a genuine interest in their work. Common sense.

When I first encountered Ken Rotcop’s PitchMart events, he had more or less set them up this way outright, encouraging personable interactions between writers and producers. This was great. He also fed us lunch halfway through the event, letting three writers choose which producer to sit with for the meal. Then we all ate while talking even more about writing. You might think this would be inefficient for vetting material in high volume, but some of the scripts from these events were significantly better than what I found elsewhere.

It is nevertheless consuming to vet material. Screenplays were also typically physical submissions at the time, so my apartment could have been filled entirely with scripts if I simply said yes to everything, and I mean from floor to ceiling. The genre filter at Chotzen-Jenner Productions was dramatic stories about life, which helped reduce the amount, but you could still gather a mountain if careless.

Reader fatigue was one of the sensations I did my best to avoid. If you power through a bunch of scripts to get the pile down, you end up wasting time because the lens becomes different. Nothing will look as good as if you give it an honest reading, and doing otherwise is unfair to the writer. The idea that great writing will capture your spirit no matter what is untrue, same as how not every song you like feels right to listen to in absolutely every moment, or how you don’t always feel like watching a particular genre of film that day. Finding the pace at which I could comfortably glean and preserve a writer’s intention and rhythm made a big difference to how many good screenplays I encountered.

From both sides of the table

Modern submissions make no sense to me. An entire book takes up less media space than a single photo, and yet there’s still this archaic requirement from the physical days of only accepting 10 pages first, or 1 chapter, or 3 chapters, or 10,000 words. There are also file formats now that can be opened on practically any device, yet here too there are sometimes demand for specific, limiting types. Even during the paper days I always took the entire screenplay and simply read what I needed. This saved me from having to request the full version if I wanted to carry on, and access to the complete manuscript frankly makes more sense for evaluation because it allows a better look at pacing and consistency throughout the work right off the bat. Putting down a story for days or weeks and then returning to it also breaks up the mood engaged readers would feel.

I don’t understand the song and dance of query letters either. It has always felt to me like something we do simply because that’s how it’s been done for a long time. Are you going to turn down great material because the writer was not able to guess how you like your letters written? Would you take on bad material because a writer is good at writing a letter? Hopefully not. Nowadays many people search online how to write these anyway, which only creates a flood of similar drivel.

My recommendation: ask for the log line, a few sentences about the story, and the entire manuscript as a PDF file. Read in earnest what you need and move as desired.