ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

Interesting!

So is this a type of studio coverage (giving Pass, Consider, or Recommend) or like a mentorship program? Who will be the readers/producers? What criteria are you assessing their skills against? What are the costs?

I'm sure that you'll get to these shortly as you near going live.

Be interested to see who you have on board to work with the writers.

Wozy

9 years, 12 months ago - Richard Edwards

Hi Victoria,

Thanks for the questions! All of them excellently put. :)

The script development sector could be called competitive but I think "healthy" is a much more apt term - lots of great services like yours and Blacklist (both of which differ comfortably) plus of course there are a wealth of individual readers and editors offering their skills. This is a sign of a healthy arena, suggests a demand for these services and is a great indicator of potential to develop new products that can support writers.

As for Writemash itself, its main point of difference is primarily that it's a curated marketplace as opposed to being a gatewayed reading service. Also, of course, we cover playwriting, journalism and prose, and are led by myself with a small team who have strong reading or tech/platform backgrounds.

Whilst I naturally can't go into the details here of how much money we have to spend on advertising or who our initial backers are, things are looking quietly promising so far.

Plus, regarding your point about economics and paying readers, I should clarify that, as a marketplace, development professionals that wish to promote their services with us (and are accepted) are free to set their own rates - Writemash works by taking a small % fee on each transaction.

Thanks for the links to Overdrive too - looks a very interesting service and I'll be following its progress.

All the best
Richard

10 years ago - Richard Edwards

Hi Marlom,

Thanks for the questions! The Black List is indeed pretty awesome, but we see ourselves as quite different, being primarily a marketplace rather than a script hosting and browsing service (rather than writing it out again, take a look at my reply to Wozy, above).

In terms of what's in it for the development professionals, at Writemash they choose the services they can offer and they control their rates, and they are paid directly by the readers. Writemash just takes a small % of the transaction.

Hope that's tres interesting too ;)

Richard

10 years ago - Vasco de Sousa

I can't tell you about the script reader's point of view, but I can from the director/writer/producer perspective.

A script needs to retain its original passion. One man's treasure is another man's garbage, but one man's garbage is another man's treasure.

If you are creating such a business, you should get people who specialize in different audience segments. There's no point in trying to please an anti-religious horror fan with a church comedy, or trying to please a Stalinist with a get-rich inspirational story.

Most script reading is useless because script readers fail to realize that there is no such thing as a universal story.

I didn't send Dara Says ( http://darasays.com ) to a script reader because I couldn't find one that specialized in romantic comedy, and what about family friendly romantic comedy? What if the script reader told me to put nudity or swearing in it? Or to change the point of view?

I had an audience in mind when I made Dara Says, and I couldn't find a script reader who was a part of that audience. I found that audience though, and they are still buying Dara Says online. And they enjoy it.

As for "The United States and Ukraine", I have yet to see any script reader even begin to deal with documentary.

Now, get yourself a diverse list of tastes. If someone hates prison movies, they won't be able to judge a good prison movie. If someone hates religious movies, they won't be able to judge a good religious movie. Some people can't sympathize with Hamlet. Some great critics hated Titanic, yet it was super successful.

Nobody is a fan of every genre, so get yourself specialists in each. Or, perhaps your whole company could specialize in one genre, say Native American horror movies, or Welsh Victorian melodrama.

There are too many know-it-alls who call themselves script readers, and most of them are full of hot air. Don't be another one of those.

10 years ago - Industrial Scripts

Hi Richard

This looks like an interesting endeavour but as Lee intimated above the independent script development sector is incredibly competitive and getting more competitive every day.

We've (http://screenplayscripts.com/) been in business since 2010 and with 500+ verified client reviews on Google and backing from Curtis Brown and Shooting People (and previously Paramount Pictures) are pretty well established here in the UK, but equally there are a great many other script development services already in business and going hard. This is particularly true in America, of course, where companies are increasingly targeting UK and international clients - and spending a lot of money in advertising revenue in the process to attract said clients. The Black List is just one of many well-organised, well-resourced places with a serious jump on what you're looking to do.

So, playing devil's advocate, what is writemash's "point of difference" in this crowded marketplace? What can it offer that, say, a company like ours or a connection platform like the Black List or an individual script editor such as Kate Leys cannot? Just about every service for writers you can imagine, has been created and is already being run by someone (our mentoring and connection platform, OVERDRIVE, launched recently - http://screenplayscripts.com/overdrive/). And how much revenue do you have to throw at advertising? How much revenue do you have to throw at content creation? Is there an investor with deep pockets involved (there'd probably need to be, to make a dent in the market)? How are you going to charge competitively but also make the economics work out for all concerned (the best script editors, as we know better than most(!) don't come cheap...)?

Answers to these questions will inform whether yours is a viable platform moving forward.

Hope this helps.

Very best,

Victoria
http://screenplayscripts.com/

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

I would guess that blcklist would be a high end competitor... lots on the backend in addition to feedback.

10 years ago - Marlom Tander

I can see why writers want the service, but what it's in it for the dev pros? Is it a Brit version of https://blcklst.com/ ? That would be tres interesting.

10 years ago - Lee 'Wozy' Warren

It comes down to what your expectations from the reader are.

There are typically two areas where writers continue to fail when approaching a producer 1) Quality 2) credibility. Both of these can be developed/improved over time but you need to know what you want to work on. No one person/reader/producer etc is a master of all aspects. You need different people with different skills to help develop different aspects.

It's no good sending a script and saying - analyse this - for everything!

Wozy