Black List script coverage service

I recently received an email from Donna, a writer who I’ve known for several years after she did a writing workshop with me. Here it is in its entirety and reprinted with Donna’s permission:

Hi Scott

I want to thank you for the post regarding The Black List and its new script service. Wasn’t real thrilled with the thought of plunking down more cash for the opportunity to be read since the contest circuit tends to leave a pre-pro discouraged and, most often, feeling like a chump. But plunk down I did and what a genuine surprise!

First of all, I’ve received every type of response to queries that exist: The rubber stamp. The form letter. The form letter with initials. The personalized note at the bottom of a form letter. The personalized letter with encouraging words. Email conversations that created hope but, alas, stopped. I’ve had phone conversations with gatekeepers and even the assistant who has a gatekeeper. I’ve been strung along for over a year with repeated conversations with an agent who in the end decided he just didn’t have time for my project but, as with many, offered kind encouragement to send something else when I wanted only to find out that person no longer worked for the agency any longer and searching proved fruitless. As if they had risen to an echelon where pre-pros no longer interest them. Seriously; I’ve seen and heard it all.

What was different about this, for me, anyway, was that the short, precise and professional response actually told me more than all of those conversations combined; it told me how the industry felt about my work as a product. Specific notes as to who would or would not be interested in my product. And I know you’ve posted about this very subject before but I didn’t make the connection until I received these notes for my work. Knowing you have a good story isn’t enough. Knowing how the story falls just short of appealing to a specific demographic is invaluable. Knowing specifically why your story would appeal to an actor, priceless.

Rather than hearing that the story is “insert adjective” but it just didn’t work for them, I know now exactly where it fell short and THAT tells me what to do for the rewrite and where my focus should be. Was it an absolute thrill to be ranked ‘above average’? Absolutely. More importantly, though, I now can rewrite with a focus on my product.

Thanks again. For never giving up on us.
donna

Donna raises a great point. If you’re going to pay for professional script coverage, the people reading your scripts should be professionals. In the case of the Black List script coverage service, this means — for the most part — people who are actually working in the entertainment business.

Why is this important? Precisely because of the point Donna makes: …it told me how the industry felt about my work as a product. Specific notes as to who would or would not be interested in my product.

Not just comments on your story, but feedback grounded in the realities of the movie business as a business. Who better to provide informed coverage than people currently employed in the field?

I resonate with this approach because I teach screenwriting the same way: Not just theory, but theory tied directly to how Hollywood works. Same thing I do here on the blog.

As I have stated previously, I do not make any money off this new Black List initiative, nor am I involved in it other than being a friend of Franklin and interested in supporting his efforts to open up new avenues into the Hollywood film industry.

That said — and also as I have said earlier — the emergence of the Black List script coverage service has taken a load off my mind because now, for the first time, I have an answer I can give to people who ask me, “Where should I go to get my script covered?”

Donna’s comments confirm that recommendation.

For more on the new Black List, go here.

For information on the partnership between the Black List and the Writers Guild of America, East, go here.

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