A quick initial word about query letters: I think they're the WORST way to introduce yourself. Every aspiring writer tries it, most aren't good at it, and in turn most managers/agents/prodcos don't care for them. The BEST way to get someone to read your spec is by referral, but if you have only a few or no contacts in the biz who you can use as a referral, you're stuck with querying. With that in mind...
This blog was created so I could track what I'm doing to attain my career goals, and hopefully those reading can learn from what I'm doing right, and steer clear of what's not working. But I realized I haven't talked about my own work for a while.
So what's the Dangerous Screenwriter up to?Last year I completed my first spec that's ready for market, "Dark Rum Chronicles: The Adventures of Nick Drama". How do I know it's ready for market? Because aside from my mom and the rest of my family saying so, I slipped it to a friend at one of the big agencies who passed it to their story department for coverage.
Coverage came back mostly positive, scoring "consider"s for both writer and project. Since this coverage was from a major agency which covers thousands of scripts per year - rather than a mid-sized to small one which may cover hundreds - that feedback at least tells me my spec stands up well to other works being considered, and most importantly won't embarrass me in the marketplace & instantly turn my name to mud.
I was lucky on this one. Usually a writer never sees studio/agency coverage of their work. Usually you don't want to. But if you're starting out, seeing that coverage can be invaluable.
Another way to gauge if your spec is ready to show would be to give it to an industry contact (if you have one), or a PROFESSIONAL script analyst (not Joe Schmoe you met on some message board who has no credits and is charging you $100. Guess I'll have to write a special article on decent analysts, but for starters expect to spend @ $200-350 for good notes - not cheap but worth it in the long run to get solid notes that improve your chance of getting work/sold).
Check out Pilar Alessandra, Michael Hauge and Karl Iglesias, as well as nobullscript. and hireahollywoodexec.com/). I can't vouch for any of these services since I haven't personally used any of them, but Pilar has great credentials (Ex-reader/analyst for Imagine & Dreamworks, among others) and gives consistently excellent advice through her "On the Page" podcast. Michael Hauge and Karl Iglesias have written quite a few books with solid advice, have their own track records you can peruse and solid industry relationships. The others give consistently great advice as well, and also have great credentials & track records - at least better than $100 Joe.
So, since my spec got positive coverage, maybe at that point I should have started hitting up agents, managers, prodcos, everybody. But I didn't.
I wanted to have something else ready. My fear was, with so many people trying to write movies, I wouldn't be taken seriously. I wanted to have another polished, commercial spec to back me up, as well as flesh out some pitches of other ideas I'm working on.
When I go out with my first spec, I want to have a "portfolio" that shows I'm a writer, not some wank thinking I could make an easy million because I saw "Snakes on a Plane" forty times and know my abc's.
So I've been working on my second spec, and now feel confident enough to start querying managers, possibly some prodcos and talent. Why managers instead of agents? First, there's the nature of these beasts: agents aren't sellers and career builders, they're dealmakers and deal closers. They don't have time for unproven commodities (me). Agents nurture deals, managers are the ones that nurture careers.
Second, it's a numbers game: if you were to gather a list of all the agencies in town vs all the managers in town, managers outnumber agents by about 3-1. That's because there's plenty of talent out there to develop, not much that can actually sell. Managers, in turn, are much easier to acquire than agents and more useful and "hands on" to a fledgling writing pro.
In drafting my queries I'm using advice and templates from two very useful books every screenwriter should own, "Breakfast With Sharks" by Michael Lent, and "The Screenwriter's Bible" by David Trottier. I've also been scouring the web in places like Done Deal Pro and The Artful Writer for other query tips.
After drafting 20-30 letters (yes, you have to work just as hard on your query as you did on your spec, and it has to be just as tight if not tighter), I now have 5 different variations of queries that are solid and will try them all out, tracking results to see what's working best. I have a document "tracking sheet" where I'll be logging all the responses/non-responses to see which letters are working best. Now that I'm confident in my query letters being able to stand out among the pack and garner interest, it's time to start targeting WHO I'm going to send them to.
It makes little sense to spend the time & money hitting up a major manager who represents only major writers. So I'm making lists of management companies, then looking them up on IMDBPro for a list of their employees. I then look into each employee's credits and see if I can find anything else about them on the web.
What I'm looking for are specific manager names, clicking on them to see who they represent. I click on their clients' names, and if they represent any writers with one or no credits but things in production/development, I mark those as managers to query. I'm also looking at what RELATIONSHIPS these managers/companies have with other management, production companies & studios. Do these companies and their relations traffic in the type of fare I'm selling? If not, they don't make the list.
It's a lot of work, but all of the above research is absolutely necessary, just so I can target specific people within companies instead of "To Whom it May Concern", which will only get you an express-ticket to their trash/delete bin because it shows you haven't done your homework & can't be bothered to even find out someone's name at their company and research their interests/buying habits, much less be trusted with multi-million dollar projects.
Now I have a ton of names to send my query to, but no way to contact them (unless anyone out there wants to pass me Ron Howard's email address or cell #). What to do? There's the traditional route of purchasing the Hollywood Creative Directory, and the also traditional route of hitting up your contacts/friends. I have a few Hollywood friends, but am not in the habit of asking for favors that can cheapen a friendship.
However, since I started this blog, I've been able to do a bit of "online networking" and therefore have some "internet friends" (which by definition means our relationships are already cheap and whorey) I can hit up who traffic in just this sort of information. The point is, be creative and use what you have/have created.
Sign up for industry conference calls with agents/managers/producers through one of the many sites that offer them. In many of these calls the participants will give their contact info and preferred methods of querying to those on on the call.
Join IMDBPro and check out companies' email structures. If Imagine entertainment says to contact them at query-imagine.com, try ron-imagine.com, or ronh-imagine.com or rh-imagine.com, etc.
Like I said, be creative. Might sound like a shot in the dark, but if you have a great logline/email title line that catches their eye, they're certainly more likely to read your query than if you never tried. And if you have a solid query, you just may get requests.
Like I said, I'm just starting to apply these techniques, so can't speak from personal experience, yet. But now that I have my "master list" of managers/companies to query, I'll start sending them out & let you know what happens.
Watch The Dark Knight - clip 8 in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
No comments:
Post a Comment