Breaking In - What are they looking for anyway?
Looking back over the last few weeks, we’ve covered quite a bit under the banner of screenwriting, and looked at a few alternative ways to get your foot in the proverbial door. And despite the fact that we say ‘write what you want to write, not what you think the execs want to to see written’ don’t you still want to know what the big wigs actually want from you and your scripts?
I thought so.
Lucky for you, I went out and spoke to some folks making their living out there in The Industry, to ask them just that. Project Manager at Creative England, and already a contributor to The Screenwriting Chronicles, Jude Lister was one of these wonderfully helpful people.
Part of Jude's role with Creative England involves designing training activity geared towards emerging writers, to support project development and to "prepare them for the 'real world' of the industry and put them on a path towards developing sustainable careers." The training looks at the writer's storytelling instincts and what they're doing with character, structure, tone, and all that jazz, plus how to face challenges in the development process when you come up against notes from execs, and how to keep ahold of your story at its core. Another aspect the training covers, perhaps less often considered, is whether the project fits with the writer's long-term career goals: it asks if this project is the right first feature for the particular writer.
Jude also reviews applications for various funding programmes, so get your post-it notes out, find a pen that actually works, and get note-taking people. This is what Jude said when I asked her about what she is looking for in these applications, that emerging writers could learn from: "I am looking for a clear, engaging and distinctive story - with a team behind it who inspire confidence that they can pull it off (and in the case of emerging writers/directors - who are ready to step up and would benefit from doing so on this particular project). I personally love to come across something bold, surprising and/or unusual. Competition is fierce!"
Now another opinion that counts for something in this industry, is the opinion of agents. They're the folks that help attach writers to projects. While in the US, this job is divided into separate roles of Manager and Agent (and often the legal contractual side of things is a separate role too), in the UK this is all lumped into one: The Agent.
I spoke to Hannah Boulton at The Agency, whose clients include a mixture of writers and directors, about what she looks for when taking on clients, and what would attract her to a project. So these were some of Hannah's pointers for writing a great script that demands attention.
I thought so.
Lucky for you, I went out and spoke to some folks making their living out there in The Industry, to ask them just that. Project Manager at Creative England, and already a contributor to The Screenwriting Chronicles, Jude Lister was one of these wonderfully helpful people.
Part of Jude's role with Creative England involves designing training activity geared towards emerging writers, to support project development and to "prepare them for the 'real world' of the industry and put them on a path towards developing sustainable careers." The training looks at the writer's storytelling instincts and what they're doing with character, structure, tone, and all that jazz, plus how to face challenges in the development process when you come up against notes from execs, and how to keep ahold of your story at its core. Another aspect the training covers, perhaps less often considered, is whether the project fits with the writer's long-term career goals: it asks if this project is the right first feature for the particular writer.
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Jude also reviews applications for various funding programmes, so get your post-it notes out, find a pen that actually works, and get note-taking people. This is what Jude said when I asked her about what she is looking for in these applications, that emerging writers could learn from: "I am looking for a clear, engaging and distinctive story - with a team behind it who inspire confidence that they can pull it off (and in the case of emerging writers/directors - who are ready to step up and would benefit from doing so on this particular project). I personally love to come across something bold, surprising and/or unusual. Competition is fierce!"
Now another opinion that counts for something in this industry, is the opinion of agents. They're the folks that help attach writers to projects. While in the US, this job is divided into separate roles of Manager and Agent (and often the legal contractual side of things is a separate role too), in the UK this is all lumped into one: The Agent.
I spoke to Hannah Boulton at The Agency, whose clients include a mixture of writers and directors, about what she looks for when taking on clients, and what would attract her to a project. So these were some of Hannah's pointers for writing a great script that demands attention.
- Consideration of the form - successful film tends to be more experience-led, where TV is more character-led.
- "Specificity" - you can tell when a writer's connection to their setting or subject matter is genuine by the level of detail in the script.
- New characters/worlds/writer's voice - "I love being surprised."
- Be economic with dialogue, and go easy on the voiceover.
- The best scripts show off the writer and what they have to say.
Of course these are all particular to Hannah herself, and this list is not the key to the perfect script, however much we might wish it. Hannah also gives some advice in the video below on finding and approaching agents (because we all know those emails can be pretty intimidating to send off).
When I spoke to Hannah she did say that there was one piece of advice that she would give to writers, especially early in their career, and that is: "Keep on writing." Ideas can date quickly, but trends come back around in cycles, and if you are always writing, you're generating new ideas more frequently.
But remember, my young padawans, while you can take all of this as a lesson, don't do so at the expense of your writing. Don't be writing things to please the powers that be, just because you think that's what they want to see. Writing stories that are true to you and your individual voice? All that still stands, whatever the big wigs say.
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