Got a Screenplay?

ShadowScript is a blog that reviews screenplays. I have been reading it for a couple of months now, although I usually just read the first two or three paragraphs to get a feel for what the author thinks of a script. The stories behind the script are often more interesting than the script itself.

Everyone has a script in their left hand bottom desk drawer. I have ideas for five scripts and I intend to write at least two of them when I retire. Unfortunately, the odds of selling a screenplay is even less than the odds of making a professional spec-fic sale. At least in spec-fic there are semi-pro sites. Of the hundreds of thousands of screenplays written each year, only a few hundred get made into movies, and not many more are actually read by a decision maker.

ShadowScript will be reviewing a random screenplay submitted to their site during the first week in May.  The first they will pick two whole screenplays and the rest of the week, they will pick just the random loglines. They will treat the screenplay seriously, but they don’t expect to get any real winners from the slush. I would guess that they will get about 500 scripts, and could get many more if the word gets out. If they review one a day, then the odds of getting reviewed would be 1 in 250. This is far greater than the 1 in 10,000 odds of getting a script read by submitting it using standard strategies.

They say that if your script is chosen they will be gentle. Maybe, though, your screenplay is a real gem and they will rave over it. (You are deluding yourself if you believe that.)

Get your script in now!

WEEK ONE - AMATEUR WEEK - ANYONE CAN SUBMIT
e-mail address: [email protected]

Instructions: First off, write your logline INTO THE SUBJECT LINE. If it doesn't fit, write as much as you can. The full logline will also be posted in the body of the message. Attach a PDF of your script with the e-mail. Here is a sample of how the body of the e-mail should look:

Name: Joe Screenwriter
Title: Blanket Man
Genre: Horror
Logline: When the people of Sleepville begin losing their blankets one by one, they realize that a horrifying entity known as “Blanket Man” has been stealing them, in hopes of making everyone really chilly at night.

May is Amateur Month!.

3 Comments

  1. Michelle (Mush) wrote:

    Does this mean we write the dialogue, design costumes for the characters, hire actors based on their height and hair color, create accents for the characters, and build stages for backgrounds?

    Do we submit a screen play in the form of a story board (like a comic book)?

    Or, do we summarize the movie script we want to submit, without having much control over what the characters look like or where the movie is filmed?

    Friday, April 16, 2010 at 9:55 pm | Permalink
  2. Keith wrote:

    This guy wants a complete screenplay – all the words, about 100 pages or so. In the screenplay you should describe all the costumes, sets, accents and settings, but you need to write out the words, including all the dialogue.

    There is a standard format for screenplays. Many writers include a treatment, which is like a story. Some include sketches and even story boards, but this guy wants the standard format screenplay and the “logline”. A logline is the story in a nutshell usually one sentence. If you can’t summarize the story in a logline, no one wants to read your screenplay.

    If you are lucky enough to sell a screenplay, it usually is rewritten four or five times by other writers in order to fit the director’s idea of what the movie will be. You probably won’t recognize the movie when it is finally produced. Movies like “Hurt Locker” where the screenplay goes from the written word to the screen without being rewritten many times are rare.

    On the plus side, the minimum that you get for a screenplay is about $58,000.

    Friday, April 16, 2010 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
  3. Michelle (Mush) wrote:

    Darn. I’m not much of a screenplay writer.

    Friday, April 16, 2010 at 11:00 pm | Permalink