Screenwriting

Congratulations to everyone who has made it this far! Wishing you all the best as you continue on your journey.

Wow! That's great news!

Sam Rivera at a quick glance the first list has a few names repeated several times—presumably they are writers who’ve received more than one script request? but is that on the basis that several producers requested the same script or that that writer succeeded with several scripts?

also—ethnic Chinese here, living in Borneo—special congrats to the writers with brown names on the list! REPRESENT!

That's amazing! Congrats to all!

Great job everyone…Congratulations!

Really nice and interesting tips :) Grinch is absolutely awesome Christmas movie. :))

Thanks, Petra Jurasova. You're right. I want to see Jim Carrey play another Grinch type character.

i thought you were talking about hamlet for a minute but then i remembered that, no, the danish prince didn’t have a redemption arc, lol

Bill Albert That's awesome Bill, kudos for this really cool script! The logline should be way shorter, and I know it is so challenging to put all the amazing things into a longish one sentence, but the thing I have found that helps ( because I have the same issue sometimes ), I imagine myself talking to a trusted friend, someone I love talking to, could be anyone, even an imaginary friend, the point is, someone who you love talking to, who always makes you confident and happy, and imagine they ask you, "Give me a one sentence logline of your script?" It's an exercise in getting out of the "should, do, force, nerves, fear" of getting the logline right.

Omar Barnes brilliant post, and suggestion.

you’ve made me realise, the reason I’m grappling with my own logline is, I’m trying to craft a two sentence synopsis of a short film with, paradoxically, a lot of moving parts—the task is Herculean!

but of course that’s not what it should be, at all! I’d lost sight of the proverbial forest…

from now on i need to keep reminding myself:

elevator pitch

elevator pitch

elevator pitch

James - yes, that’s my take on the thing. A Logline is for a producer - sell the script - marketeers write a marketing one. But I always write Taglines, those are for the audience/anybody.

Having said the above, here are a couple of examples of my Taglines:

‘A girl has appetites’ - Sci-fi, ‘Not Zombie’, Drama TV Series Pilot.

‘All laws are unjust, all business is stealing, only the guilty are innocent’ Major fraud, con-artist, terrorism, action movie.

David Taylor i love your con artist tagline. vibes of 1984’s propaganda/ mind-control mantras

Funny but interesting how the subject is moving into new territory. Actually, no one has said they have synopses or scripts stored on Stage 32. ;-)

Dolf Van Stijgeren it’s cool how the topic’s evolved. there are unique ideas. i like to think the top three of my works in progress have not been done before—at least in my combination or execution. they would i fear be stealable.

as for your earlier—much earlier—question: what did the other commenter mean, that putting up synopses here is both safe and unsafe: my own take is this—i wouldn’t steal your killer concept, and you wouldn’t steal mine. this goes, I’m sure, for every other commenter who’s taken time to sensibly post responses in this conversation. but S32 is public and there are a number of shady characters I’ve seen floating around. so perhaps the answer lies in direct swaps with connections that you click with. personally i believe we should do such swaps—if nothing else, to salve the loneliness of us long-distance writers

nod to Alan Sillitoe

You can't copyright an idea, but I would register all your work with the US Copyright office and/or the WGA. As I have learned, it's rare for ideas to be stolen because the cost of litigation is usually more than stealing the project is worth. Best of luck!

Yes, register it to show it's yours. As far as theft, I like what my friend, a writer, said, "No legit person is going to risk their reputation on stealing your script. If they do, you drop the lawsuit on them when the film releases so you can get their profits too. Second, do you really think you have this one of a kind idea, that's so good, that people will want to steal it?" Good words...

I'd just put up the first 10-20 pages. If something catches someone's eye to the point where they want to read the read of your story, they'll contact you. You won't be giving anything away and they'll see how you create your set up before they swoop in and change everything.

Maurice Vaughan Thanks again, Maurice — sincerely.

Your insight really helps me refine the way I want to tell this story and gives me a clearer direction.

I truly appreciate the time and attention you gave my question.

You're welcome, Philippe Jeanneteau. Have a great rest of the week! Keep me posted on your series.

Thanks, Maurice — I’ll pay attention to that in my next posts!

You're welcome, Philippe Jeanneteau.

Philippe Jeanneteau have you read or, in this case, heard Warren Ellis? that’s a persistent theme of his—the closest comp would be the radio serial department of midnight. Check out how he tackles the slow burn reveals

Hire an attorney. Period.

Thank you again everyone! Very useful!

It's on of those things that's highly contextual to a whole bunch of variables.

Giving a first-time producer a $1 option when you are an industry nobody might be a wise move. Doing the same when there's some buzz around your scripts would be foolish.

Options are strange beasts in today's age too. Supply and demand isn't what it was in the 90s. There's small producers out there having to pitch a lot of projects to get anything moving, and a writer with a dozen credits in the indie scene can still be a complete unknown outside of their regular collaborators.

Be very careful the production company produces with decent production values and isn't just some idiot filming on his iPhone. Ask for reels of their previous work.

I've had 6 scripts optioned and one film produced as a result. I would strongly suggest vetting the production company thoroughly. It's probably wise to have an entertainment lawyer look the option over, but it's not necessary. In my case, I had worked as an actor on a film that the production was producing, so I got to know the principals very well. The language of the option is pretty simple, but I would look for hidden clauses. Make sure you have your script writing fee clearly laid out (mine was 2.5% of the total production budget) and the companies I am working with were nice enough to include a clause saying that if the movie was a huge financial success, I'd get a piece of the action. My first option was for 36 months. Way too long. That expired with nothing happening so during those 3 years I couldn't shop the script around. This last option is for 18 months. There is a clause in all my options where the production company can bring in a "script doctor" or another writer to help with re-writes. I balked at that a bit, but the writer they assigned was easy to work with and really entertained my ideas. Very important: register all your scripts with the US Copyright office and/or the WGA. Protect your work! All the best with your screenplays....

Hey, Michele Sandretto. I plan on reading the first 10 pages this week and posting my feedback. Stage 32 also has a First 10 Pages Review (www.stage32.com/scriptservices/coverage/buy?id=20).

Thank you EVERYONE for being such engaged and engaging webinar attendees! The Stage32 community vibes were alive and well for sure :)

Here is, for everyone's private access, the submission link to MANSA:

https://airtable.com/app5JJgZcr9THFNUe/pagc96Gen8O4X4uhI/form

Please remember to use judiciously, as per the mandate.

If you had any other questions or ones we didn't get to, please place them in this chat thread and Ammon will forego sleeping forever and check in to answer some of them ;)

And, of course, thank you to Ammon for yet another brilliant and actionable webinar! You are appreciated.

Thank you Ammon and our great host! A few more questions: What is the ideal length of a script to shoot in 10 days? Is 10 days the industry norm? How many pages is each episode? How did you get started in this space? Why & how did Mansa build their own app? Thank you again for a terrific webinar!

Sebastian Tudores Thank you for asking our questions. This was a great webinar. Onward and upward.

thank you Sheri Barbera !

Thanks much MB Stevens ! Onward and upward indeed!

Sandra Isabel Correia / Darrell Pennington - regarding comedy ... I saw a clip of Jerry Seinfeld speaking about comedy today and how disappointed he is that there's no real comedy going on. And so I think McBride / Goggins and that crew is probably the only comedy writer(s) team that I have seen in recent years do really outrageous comedy well and comedy that's actually funny. I only saw Vice Prinicpals (2016) just a couple of years ago, and then Righteous Gemstones (2019) - both well worth the time - but you gotta like rough and tumble humor - they don't mess around. :)

TOM SCHAEFER I am very disappointed with the lack of quality R rated comedy that is not just directed to 16-25 y.o. males. I long for the days of yore, like the late 90's and early 2000's hahaha. But all the way back to the 70's as well. Politically incorrect / skewering of ALL points of view television seems pretty non existent to me. That is what I am trying to accomplish with Dixie Dynamite.

I agree with your assessment on McBride/Goggins especially. The first Season of Righteous Gemstones might be my fave McBride work. Judy Gemstone is such a well written anti-feminist feminist and the spine of the show for me. Amber is probably a close second and someone I have had in mind for the lead Dixie character I have written.

I like your way of thinking about producers and the right production company of your projects!

Darrell Pennington - McBride and crew go for the jugular - and their characters are not only cartoonish in raw emotions, they are all larger than life, and ALL IN. "Double-down ALL IN".

This I think is one of the reasons they have succeeded. Every actor in their shows is ALL IN. I have noticed this about bands. When you watch a band perform on a late night show like Letterman/Fallon/Kimmel - you will see every performer ALL IN. So that's a model for me. I keep getting Gary Vaynerchuk videos in my socials - Gary's ALL IN.

So I think in today's numb universe you will need to go ALL IN without being too sophomoric unless the CW network is what you're aiming for. I find that Mcbride and crew have really worked the dialogue and it's highly relatable, accentuating shit we all talk about they throw some gasoline on! And I have also seen the comraderie that Mcbride and Co have with each other and you can see they are literally laughing all the way to bank.

Brilliant questions, I need to think on that one.