Comments on: Don’t Even Think About Selling Your Screenplay Until You Do These 7 Things

By: dennis

dennis — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 03:41:25 +0000

Dear Melody, I don’t get the 120 or less page script or nada. Are we now as a society trying to make the art of cinema into a modern day assembly line, or paint by the numbers kind of thing. A great movie is original in its concept, writing, and most importantly in its soul…. oh and its length….. at least thats the way it looks to me.
You probably won’t be surprised my wife and I have just finished a 3 hr. screenplay that I began in 1994 writing 3-4 months a year. Actually I’ve enjoyed and respected your e mailings and was thinking about talking to you about some kind of arrangement with the script that no-one has yet read. We’re petrified of someone taking ideas and or concept…..willingly or not. We’re both 72 and know we have to move soon. Anyway just venting a bit of frustration…. Not easy having a truly great screenplay and not being able to decide what to do with it.

By: admin

admin — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 19:23:46 +0000

In reply to Taylor Waters. Lol, Taylor... We have marketing services to help you get your script out there!

By: Taylor Waters

Taylor Waters — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 19:23:21 +0000

Dr. Melody “always wear pearls” Jackson.

I am presently adapting my novel, The Bedroom Killer (Amazon), into an 8-part cable series. It could be a one time, stand alone story – or adapted into a three of four season series. There are five murders in all, which could be split into various seasons. I’m reading various cable series pilot scripts (Ray Donovon) to get a handle on formatting, pace, etc., for cable. Seems fairly similar to feature film scripts…just shorter in length. Oh, and all on spec. Still need to be discovered by that very smart, up and coming literary agent (hint). Take care, you gorgeous woman…and thanks for all the help you give.

By: Kavi Akbardeen

Kavi Akbardeen — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 01:27:13 +0000

Dear Madam, Please don’t not confuse us. Many well-versed professionals teach thus:
1. Concept: One short sentence.
2.Log line: about 60 words.
3.Pitch: Two paragraphs.
4.Synopsis: One page.
5.Treatment: About three pages.
6.Script: 90-120 pages.
7 Courier 12.
8. Or Final Draft
Am I right? If I am perfectly right,please teach the new writers what I have written above. I shall thank you thousand times.Thank you…thank you……
Kavi Akbardeen
17-9-2015

By: admin

admin — Thu, 21 May 2015 05:01:20 +0000

In reply to Wayne.

Hi Wayne, thanks for your comment. By “solid” rewrites, I’m including all of the passes you mentioned as part of one rewrite.

By “re-write,” I mean that you are making major changes to characters, story, or structure. To get to a final draft of that particular re-write, you would do many individual passes as you mentioned…. one for sluglines, one for EACH character reviewing dialogue, changing passive sentences to active, replacing all of the “ing” verbs with the present moment, spell-checking… and so on. Each of those would be a “pass” – not a rewrite… part of the polish.

But thanks for pointing it out so I could clarify it for everyone!

By: Wayne

Wayne — Wed, 20 May 2015 18:54:30 +0000

“Complete at least three solid re-writes or drafts of the same script improving it each time”.

That’s got to me a misprint – Certainly you must recommend more than three re-writes. One such rewrite could be dedicated to word smithing’ , and making sure your sluglines are constant. Changing passive sentences to active sentences , the easiest being looking or look for ‘ing’ words. Necessary scenes. Breakdown what this scene is suposed to do. Go in with a purpose for that rewrite.

Another tip–, that brings it up to eight. Have a table read. Gets some friends together and go through it. Oh you’ll catch more than a few things.

Thanks for all you do SG.

Wayne