r/Screenwriting

what the title says

I've seen Teaser used in hour long dramas (Like Breaking Bad and Lost), and Cold Open in half hour comedies (Like Brooklyn Nine Nine and The Office).

What's the difference?

TITLE: Spam Call (2ND DRAFT)

FORMAT: Short Film/Sketch

GENRE: Comedy

LENGTH: 6 1/2 pages

PLOT: A man's most important life moments are constantly interrupted by irritating spam calls from telemarketers.

Hey guys,

A while back I posted the first draft of a comedy script I wrote about a guy whose life gets interrupted at inopportune times by phone calls from a pushy and persuasive telemarketer. I finished a rewrite of it and I'd love to get your thoughts/suggestions on what works and what still needs improvement. I'm not quite sure about the sluglines and some of the scene directions, myself. Anyway, here it is. Thanks for reading!

SPAM CALL 2nd Draft

I've "finished" two pilots and have sent them both out for feedback.

They get good feedback from peers and paid coverage, but I've twice gotten notes that my pilots lacked a B story. I feel hesitant on how to incorporate this. I do agree with what they've said, but I'm having a hard time visualizing how to add it in when I'm focusing on setting up a series story in a half-hour script.

I understand and am comfortable with A,B,C stories as a concept. My question is for specifically pilots.

I imagine I'm overthinking it and it doesn't need to be as fleshed out as I'm expecting.

Does anyone have a recommondation on a good pilot that incorporates a B story in a half-hour show?

Appreciate any help and guidance.

Is anyone here based in Asia and in an online screenwriting group? If not, would you like to start one.

By Asia, I mean anywhere between India and Japan, including Australia and most of Russia. As long as communication is in English. It's cool.

Myself, I'm based in Taiwan and I have joined a couple of L.A. based screenwriting groups before. Both were genuinely great and my writing has improved massively as a result, but timezone differences kept getting in the way.

So, if anyone reading this is in a group, I'd love to join. If you don't have one, and you'd like to be in one, maybe we could start it.

UPDATE: I’m sending this DM to everyone who's replied. I’ll collect some numbers and work out what works for best people here

Let me know your time zone and the times/days that work for you. Also, do you prefer an online video call Google Meet or Zoom or just text-based discussion.

If you didn't get the DM, DM me.

Mainly looking for feedback relating to the story and how it reads for you guys as I am pitching this in my class and I really want to direct.

I've been toying with an idea for a feature based on, or inspired by, the story of someone who is still alive and well today. This person is a former pro athlete who left Europe to play in one of the major US leagues, had a long and successful career, retired in the 90s and is in their 80s today. They are not a household name, but if you are a fan of one of the teams they played on, you probably know who they are.

I understand that this isn't the easiest story in the world to get made, but I'm trying to figure out possible pathways to doing so anyways, since I really believe this could be something good. My basic thinking is that this could either be 1) a direct, authorised biopic using real events, names and places or 2) an "inspired by" kind of story that changes the events and names and places, probably depending on whether this person would be interested in giving the story their blessing or not. Ideally, they would, and I could interview them and everything, but if they weren't, that could still leave the "inspired by" route open.

In either case, I'm trying to understand what could be a good starting point for developing something like this. Probably writing like a one-pager outlining the general structure of the story and a little bit of why tell this story and why I should be the one to do it, but after that, should I try to get in touch with this person directly and see if they were interested in collaborating? Or should I try to find a producer first and then approach the person as a tandem? Or does the fact that it's based on real events prevent a producer from getting involved before I have secured some rights to the story?

FWIW, I am a working writer here in my home country (Northern Europe); I don't claim to have a lot of pull or anything, but I am also not a complete nobody. I'm not represented by an agent or a manager at this time, since that isn't really a thing here.

TLDR: Studio system in india in f*cked

I have been working as a dev exec at a major Indian film studio for more than 6 months now.

My experience has broken something inside me and idk where to go from here.

I’m the first rung of the ladder at the studio so I’m the first one who gets to read scripts when they come in.

In my time I have noticed that the studio is not really interested in developing work or talent. They want everything ready. They don’t want to pay writers to develop upon any material. I’ve had the opportunity to contact some big names among the indian writers and they’ve even submitted good ideas / concepts. They have all been passed on by the studio because they will require development.

They literally expect a complete show bible and a bound script if it’s a movie. Basically they want writers to write on spec. But even then they will not pay them. They will take the project to a streamer (there are only 4 in india: Netflix, Amazon, JioStar, Sony) and if the streamer likes something then and only then will they commission the project.

In my time I have not seen any project get commissioned, no script that’s being bought. The streamers always find a problem with the material (and usually the problem is solvable with development) and reject it.

Moreover, everyone at my workplace is a marketing person or MBA including my boss and my boss’ boss. Nobody comes from a film background or actually even cares if they’re making a good film or not. Everyone just wants to know if the film will sell on the first weekend.

I’m overworked, underpaid and there’s an unsaid expectation to work 24 hrs with no overtime pay. Work life balance is not a thing. Asking for a holiday seems like I’m doing a crime. And btw this was something really new for me: earned leaves. I have to work to earn my holiday. This all is giving me hints of slavery…

I see no future for cinema in india. The studio will survive and even thrive because of all the royalties they continue to get. It feels like that’s becomes their main business, their main source of income.

I want to know how do you keep hope alive. It’s so terrible out here. I came here in the hope that I would pitch them my movie someday but now I’m just hiding the fact that I have even written one because if I do they’ll argue that the movie is there’s since I wrote it while I’m employed with their company.

This is disillusioning me from cinema. The business is actively working against the art and artists, not even trying to support.

I've been doing this for 9 years. I've written over a dozen features and half a dozen pilots, plus a bunch of shorts. I'm in multiple writing/networking groups, been to a couple film festivals to meet people, read the trades/craft books/articles and watch videos/podcasts.

I've had a couple features in development with producers, but it never worked out (and I never got paid... it was always 'later'). I've filmed some shorts, and adapted some scripts to books. Done a bit of the contest/fellowship route (mostly QF/SF), and extensive targeted querying (with a lot of requests.. but not a lot of follow up). I've used good, vetted script consultants on my best work. I've had personal referrals from friends in the industry. I've done everything you should.

I've made a lot of friends along the way in all walks. Most of them are repped, but not getting anything. Some of them have been successful, but even then they just sell a lot of scripts that never actually get produced. Everyone just seems to talk... and talk... and never do anything.

I love writing. I'm always going to do it. But all of this hot air and ass scratching seems to be a waste of precious energy. Do I just need more time? Is the industry in shambles right now? I would film the lowest budget ones myself, but as a parent I absolutely don't have money for anything other than the shorts I've been making.

Aside from this being a very, very hard business to crack at the worst time ever, what am I missing?

The second evaluation for my script on just came in. Another 7. I’m happy about the 9s in Dialogue and Characters, but at the end of the day it’s still an overall 7.

Anyway, this now gives me a perfect 7 average, so should I appear on the Top List now? How exactly does that work, and how long will I stay there?

And one last question, sorry: has anyone here ever had any success with industry downloads simply from being on the Top List, despite not having an overall 8? I actually got my second industry download just a few days ago, even though my script technically wasn’t “appearing” anywhere, so I’m wondering if being on the Top List now could improve my chances.

Thanks, everyone!

I've been waiting to get my first ten pages to a good place and while I found one post by someone who could be that person, it appears their account is banned. Is it the same person? What happened?

EDIT: Per request here are my ten pages: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1nEkTYXZmvA2hPXNHDfSmKTFuJTV3OFGs

LOGLINE: With professional baseball on the brink of collapse, a German-Jewish immigrant fights to preserve America’s pastime — by creating the World Series.

I'm trying to write "...easy access to both business and pleasure-centered areas of the city."

Should this be written as

A) "business- and pleasure-centered "

B) "business and pleasure centered"

C) "business and pleasure-centered"

maybe even

D) "business- and pleasure- centered"

I think it's C. I'm not really sure though, maybe it's D.

Anybody know?

I see a lot of posts here of writers losing hope and being frustrated (valid). I’d like to throw my story out as a more positive change of pace.

I’m new to screenwriting, but been a performing comedian and sketch writer since 2018.

I’ve always struggled with what I imagine most creatives do. Which is, finding purpose in things we don’t want to do, but have to in order to survive in a capitalist world. I’ve never really fit into corporate environments. I make too many jokes, I like to laugh, I’m imaginative, I get too sucked into projects - AKA I don’t take things “seriously” enough. I’m a square peg in a round hole. It beats you down. I make it work.

Performing stand-up has been my outlet for a while now, it’s the first place I found where I could be myself unabashedly and people loved it. There is a lot I love about it, but it never completely scratched the itch I had. Until I found screenwriting.

I know the industry is in a bad place. I know it’s “unrealistic”, the odds aren’t in my favor. That’s okay.

I feel like I finally understand the common adage about writing. Similar to a teen getting advice from a parent - you never really get it until you experience it for yourself. I don’t write because I expect it to become my career. I write because I have to.

Stand-up limits me to my personal experiences. Screenwriting opens the door to anything I can imagine. I can’t stop writing, reading scripts, watching videos of other people reading scripts. It’s all I think about. And I’m having so much fun. I haven’t felt this way since I initially found comedy in 2018.

I enrolled in the UCLA Professional TV Writing Program and I can’t wait. I’m reaching a point where I think I’ve maxed out on most of what I can learn on my own (apart from just reading and writing more).

I’d love to hear y’all’s experiences. Why did you start? But more importantly, why didn’t you stop?

I'm finishing up my M.A. in Screenwriting and one of the things that I think the programme didn't do well was it didn't teach us how to write shorts.

At all.

Everything was all about writing feature films. There was a module on television, but the television module was such a small part of our grade, and we were only required to write the first 15 pages of a pilot, not the full pilot. (I wrote the full pilot anyway.)

But shorts can be valuable for getting some credits in the industry.

So, what resources would be good for writing shorts specifically if you already know how to do features?

And more importantly, how do you come up with the idea for shorts if you're used to thinking in feature-length or novel-length concepts?

I feel like I keep seeing the same content again and again in my apps, which limits my worldview, which affects my writing. I've tried resetting Instagram, but I just ended up with the same algorithm again after a week. So I crave algorithm-free chronology 😂 I've started using feedzebra, which is honestly amazing for chronological news from around the world, but I'm wondering if there's anything similar/better for story inspiration? I can only write about the NBA and US politics and screenwriting so much 😂

Obviously not in terms of their deplorable behavior, but the types of movies they make. Back in the day, those were the guys who took big swings on projects that wouldn't fit into studio slates. Good, compelling projects with merit outside of just chasing the global BO.

Are there any comparable producers of today? The Parts & Labor guys come to mind. Is it A24 and their network of producers? Or up and coming folks who focus on those type of projects and are gaining recognition?

Hello,

I am new to screenwriting. I was told that sometimes it is better to write the ending so you have a clear path to how the story ends. I knew when I came up with this story I knew exactly how its going to end but whether or not it is easier to build characters and their world from this is something I al not sure about. Any advice?

Oh and this is the first draft of the final scene.

I know it’s not giving much but if I say anything more it will spoil the whole thing.

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n7av8R7UKR_J0lbqNS_R_l9Q4oXzPsGL/view?usp=drivesdk

Thank you so much for any feedback!