Given everything going on, is this a right time to market our screenplays? What is the best way to go about it? One of the platforms was candid enough to suggest that this indeed may not be the best time as studios are not even looking for new scripts or perhaps new writers.
And also, the market might be more focused on stories and locations in Europe and Latin America, especially with Netflix who has global presence and market share in these emerging markets. Production might be in short supply due to the virus but I'd imagine, networks must be hungry for new contents.
Thoughts.
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I just get the feeling that smaller scripts are better. Big, epic, adventures with huge casts are probably not getting much attention in the Covid world.
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This is a tricky one. Zak, Every network would do anything or even kill for a new content. About 80% of what you can watch on TV are animated series, documentaries and talk shows set in some weird looking studio on ZOOM or some other platform. Hardly any TV series or movies have been filmed since March, wether we like it or not. I don't know about Latin America filming situation but Europe right now is pretty much dead. There's no active filming (Movies and TV series) All you need for documentaries is previously filmed material and a narrator. It won't take long before we hear "Brought to you, by popular demand, Jimmy Kimmel Live Season 1 or some such shit.
Bill@ Let's say you have a screenplay, 98 pages, 5 main characters and only 6 or seven main locations. In Covid world they want you to reduce number of characters to 4 or 3. At the same time, the very same people want you to increase the number of actors in your script and that doesn't include people with some form of disabilities on set. What's the solution? Well, option #1 - we can write the way it's been done since most of us can remember and wait until filming goes back to normal. Option #2 - We finish the script the old fashion way and if that company wants to remove of add characters, let them try. I'm not going to take the entire story structure apart (no matter how good it is) to please some producer or director because none of these rules don't make sense. Either we reduce or increase the number of characters, it can't be both at the same time.
No offence Zak studios are not foaming at the mouth to get hold of scripts from unknown writers. They have a sizeable stable of writers. People they know and trust.
How is the indie market? Just fine. It is like the minor leagues for many sports. More teams, more games or opportunities. From here you may be able to break into the big league.
As a freelanced that does writing on spec I don't put too much worry in it. My sympathy goes to work-for-a-living commissioned writes (other staff as well). These must be harsh times for some of them...
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probably good and bad- depending on which resources you believe, your status/track record, pay-scale needs. Streamer companies like Netflix, Apple have their own algorithm pay-scale, 0 residuals now but maybe year 2021-22, streamer companies will buy bankrupted movie theaters and show their own movies.
https://scriptpipeline.com/september-2020-script-sales
Jack - A good bet.
Been similar here for a long time...We actually do not have screenwriting community (except a few that work on TV) Director is a writer 98 percent of the time and in many cases producer or co-producer as well... this is why we have mostly melodramatic junk coming outta Balkans that finds it's way nowhere further commercially speaking... I loathed it and will continue so as I always thought it's a sort of monopolizing an idea. I think I'll stick to solely writing no matter what...