Dear Friend,

It's common knowledge that it's difficult to break into Hollywood.

In fact, the difficulty of breaking into Hollywood has become such a stigma that many writers become discouraged before even giving it a real shot.

So today I wanted to remind you of 3 Hollywood success stories.

Read these stories when you're having one of those "dark night of the soul" moments.

(I got these from Brass Magazine)

Napoleon Dynamite

A cult classic, "Napoleon Dynamite" is an independent film created by the husband and wife team Jared and Jerusha Hess, about a dorky student who saves his high school friend's class-president campaign with slick dance moves. It was edited on a $6,000 Macintosh with Final Cut Pro. Jon Heder, the main actor, was paid $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite. After becoming all the rage at the Sundance Film Festival, it was picked up by major production companies, released nationwide, and grossed $44.5 million.

Finding Forrester

This movie tells the story of a teen writing prodigy who grew up in a troubled neighborhood and finds a mentor in a famous writer. "Finding Forrester" was written by Mike Rich, who had no screenwriting experience and worked on the screenplay as a side project while paying the bills with his day job. The success of "Finding Forrester" allowed him to start writing full-time. He's gone on to write other inspirational movies such as "Secretariat," "Radio," and "The Rookie."

And of course, the legendary story of...

Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor who only had $106 to his name when he saw Muhammad Ali fight Chuck Wepner. Wepner, who was given no chance against Ali, lasted 15 rounds and even knocked Ali down before getting knocked out. Inspired, Stallone wrote the rough draft of the "Rocky" script in three days. By chance, the script was picked up after Stallone was turned down at an audition for a different movie and mentioned he had written the story. "Rocky" won the 1976 Oscar for Best Picture, gave birth to five sequels, and introduced the world to the Italian Stallion.

The point is, success in Hollywood is NOT impossible... it just seems that way sometimes.

But the truth is, since screenwriting success has been achieved before (and continues to be achieved every day), it can be achieved again.

More importantly, it means YOU can achieve it!

PLUS – success leaves clues...

And that's what this newsletter is all about

Giving you the strategies, shortcuts, and tips you need to reach the lofty heights you read and dream about.

I hope these stories provide some hope and inspiration for you this week =)

With that being said, here's what we've got for you in this week's action-packed Screenwriter's Success Newsletter!

The Business of Show Institute Recommends: is the weekly screenwriting product or service that our staff has personally reviewed and feel you would benefit from. This week? Free video reveals the #1 secret to getting your screenplay read by top Hollywood professionals... even if you don't live in Los Angeles!

Check it out here:

http://screenwritingsuccessnow.com/bosi/

Harriet Beecher Stowe on Screenwriting?: is this week's article by yours truly. In this piece I talk about the proper mindset that all successful screenwriters have. Having this mindset will save you years of heartache and frustration!

The Box Office Report: gives you the latest feature film releases as well as the opening weekend projections, so you can be on top of this critical information.

Too Often When I Loved: is this week's article by mc foley. mc is an active writer and regular contributor to this newsletter. The title of her column is "Lessons Learned: One Writer's Journey".

A Legal Perspective for Screenwriters: is our column by entertainment attorney Gordon P. Firemark. To ask your legal questions, email us at legalquestions@thebusinessofshowinstitute.com. If your question is chosen, it (and your answer) will appear in an issue of The Screenwriter's Success Newsletter.

My Adventures in Porn: is this week's article by screenwriter/director/producer Sean McGinly. Sean wrote and directed "The Great Buck Howard" (starring John Malkovich, Colin Hanks, and Tom Hanks), directed "Brothers: Stories of 9/11," and wrote and directed "2 Days" (starring Paul Rudd, Adam Scott, and Donal Logue). You can read his blog at http://seanmcginly.com/

Best Business Advice for Screenwriters: is dedicated to asking a top executive or successful screenwriter the absolute best advice they could give a screenwriter looking for success. This week’s contributor? Writer/Director of “Shotgun Stories”, “Take Shelter”, and “Mud” – Jeff Nichols!

The Scoggins Report: is our weekly spec market analysis and/or pitch report. Use this column to see what's selling, who's buying what, and what genre you should be writing for. This real-time Hollywood market intelligence is pure gold...

Digging the Well Before You're Thirsty: is our column dedicated to tracking the promotions and movements of Hollywood's Executives. Use this market intelligence wisely...

3 Ways to Clear Clutter for Contest Conquest: is this week's article from screenwriting contest judge and author of "39 Ways to Win a Screenwriting Contest & The Nine Mistakes New Writers Make" – Sean Hinchey. The title of his column is "Insights and Screenwriting Wisdom from a Veteran Screenwriting Contest Judge".

That's it for this issue, but we are dedicated to making this newsletter THE resource for aspiring screenwriters.

If you enjoyed it, and would like to pass it along to friends, please have them go directly to http://www.TheBusinessOfShowInstitute.com and have them sign up there.

May Your Life Be Extraordinary,

Marvin V. Acuna

Harriet Beecher Stowe on Screenwriting?

by Marvin V. Acuna

Harriet Beecher Stowe once said:

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

For many aspiring writers the search for a representative to sign them and market their material or to align themselves with an established producer who will bring their words to life can be a daunting and frustrating task. It can make you SCREAM!

Submitting your material blindly and never hearing back a response is tough, but to submit material that has been requested and then NEVER hear back, ugh. Shoot me now.

That voice in your head turns on you. Doubt creeps in. Am I good? Am I wasting my time? Should I get a real job? Self-preservation of the ego kicks into overdrive. Then the big one: What have I done with my life?

Be assured you are not alone. You may feel alone, but you are most definitely not. First everyone in the business has their own challenge and while it may feel different from yours, it isn't. The agent that didn't make partner, the producer who's last movie tanked, the actor who no longer opens a film, the writer who wants to direct, the TV writer who wants to be in film...the list is endless. This is the business of Next.

Keep in mind that you may never hear from the recipient of your material ever again. The reasons vary so greatly that you will never know why.

Next time you feel this way, remember the following: You are in control of only one outcome - completing a final written product. The rest is not in your hands. It's just not. We trick ourselves into believing that if we worry enough and get angry enough we will somehow impact the outcome. It won't.

Introduce your material and follow-up about a month later if you don't hear a response. Follow-up a month after that and so on...

When do you stop following up? Depends on you...

Keep in mind that you are not the only screenwriter that submitted material. Additionally, the professionals I personally know have so much material presented to them from varying sources that much gets lost in the shuffle.

Submit and move on to the next. In fact, your mantra should always be NEXT, moving on!

Submit, follow up, submit, and follow up. NOTE: If you submit via email it may be useful to attach your screenplay again to make it easily accessible to the third party.

Sometimes my office receives angry calls or emails because a writer is frustrated that we have not responded to their material. That immediately gets our response. My assistant scans our submissions and tosses their screenplay away.

Be original in your follow-ups. Maybe it's not an email, but it's a thank you card for the opportunity to submit. Maybe it's an article you read about them, their movie or their client that you include in a note. Maybe you attend a conference where they are speaking. You get it... the possibilities are endless.

Be gracious, patient and most of all original when you follow up... you are a writer after all.

Submit, follow up, submit and follow up. Next, moving on!

But remember: never, EVER give up!

The Box Office Report

Lessons Learned: One Writer's Journey

Too Often When I Loved

by mc foley

"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so."
(-David Grayson)

I've always felt that one of the greatest gifts given to a writer, is the ability to catch a fleeting moment, a passing chance, a fading dream... to catch something that, by its very nature, is temporary—

—and to enshrine it in a temple of letters — a feast of words — before it's gone forever.

As Greg Rucka (comic book writer/novelist: Whiteout, Queen & Country, 52, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, etc) once said, in reference to the English language, (and I'm mangling his words here): A writer uses 26 symbols to evoke emotion in another human being. 26 symbols ... instigating joy, anger, fear, love...

It's a powerful gift. An age-old skill, which has inspired revolutions, pushed legislation, elected presidents, eulogized heroes... and in my own case — saved me from prison time.

It was a fall afternoon in Virginia. I was about fifteen. And I'd devised a brilliant plan to — with the help of a friend — "borrow" my father's Hyundai, head to the nearest mall, and "borrow" some merchandise. Yes, I was an asshole. And I proved it by jacking over a grand in merch from a store, racing outside, and getting chased and dragged down by plainclothes police who cuffed my friend and I in front of a crowd of onlookers, pulled us to the backroom, and called our parents.

I don't know what was worse — getting arrested in front of a public crowd — having to face someone else's parents, who consider you a juvenile delinquent/bad influence on their angel — or having to face my own parents. Parents like my father, a man who'd served his country on two tours of duty in Vietnam, where he contracted the black plague (yes — that plague — the bubonic one) and almost died, who'd worked diligently, often seven days a week, for endless decades. Parents like my mother, who'd immigrated to this country and adapted to a series of cultural norms utterly different from her own — including the need to beat her own accent out of her speaking voice in order to be taken seriously in the DC government work world.

Charged with a felony, losing every shred of respect my family had for me, and having to quit my job at a local restaurant, was pretty gut wrenching for a freshman in high school. And as our official hearing neared, my friend and I were informed that a judge could sentence us to large fines, community service and jail time.

Faced with the foreboding unknown, I did what any traumatized, guilt-ridden, locked-down writer would do...

...I wrote.

I wrote a sixteen-page letter to the arresting officer (okay, okay — it was eight pages, double-sided). I poured my guts out on those pages. Lamenting the complete absence of judgment on my part, the lack of self-respect, the loss of discipline, the failure as a citizen. I did not simply apologize for breaking the law — I expressed that, in my opinion, what I did was a humiliating reflection of myself as a human being.

A few days after sending the letter, we got a phone call from the arresting officer. This was, he said, the first time he'd ever received a letter like this.

It's odd to relay an account of praise for something you wrote yourself — but to complete the story, I will just say: the officer was impressed by the letter. He used words like "sincere" and "moving." And when time came to finally stand in front of the judge, the charges had been dropped — to misdemeanor.

After the hearing, the officer took my friend and I on a tour of the jail. "Take a look," he said, "this is where you should have been."

How could I have known — that the simple act of committing pen to paper would change the entire outcome of one situation. A change, which, in effect, changed the outcome of not just my life — but also, my friend's.

Since then, I've often turned to those 26 symbols. In times of great joy, in times of crisis, in times of love... both experienced and impossible...

Other writers undoubtedly do the same... writers like Alan Ball, who has said in interviews that he was sitting in NYC's World Trade Center Plaza one day watching a plastic bag blowing around in the wind... and that image ultimately became the unforgettable — and achingly beautiful — "dancing bag" scene in American Beauty.

Writers like Stuart Beattie, who has spoken about a sudden thought he had one day, while sitting in the back of a cab in Sydney: what if I was a killer? — a thought, which, years later, morphed into the film Collateral.

Life, as we all know, comes with messy, unexplained twists and turns. It comes with unfathomable sadness. It comes with magic. Luckily, for our tribe, the tribe of storytellers, we have been blessed with the ability to encapsulate those ephemeral chapters — to distill the essence of thought — into a character, a landscape, an embodiment of something or someone on this Earth who we loved... who we lost... or who we could never have...

...until we wrote.

-mc foley

About mc foley:
MC Foley was born in Cebu, Philippines, raised in Virginia and resides in West Hollywood, CA. After winning a poetry slam competition in Oakland, CA, Foley toured as a performance poet, doing shows across the U.S. and overseas. Foley then wrote/acted lead in "The Coconut Masquerade," a play written in verse and produced by Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco's SOMA district. Segments of "Coconut," were featured in theaters around the country including the national Hip Hop Theater Festival and LA's Greenway Court Theater. Now in LA, MC Foley is an active novelist, screenwriter and weekly e-columnist. Recently Ms. Foley completed work on a debut YA novel, The Ice Hotel. The novel is a fantasy adventure written especially for readers experiencing the profound pain of loss. In the book, a family, reeling from their eldest son's death, escapes to the Ice Hotel, where an age-old, arctic magic connects this world to the next. The Ice Hotel is now available at Amazon. Order your copy here.

A Legal Perspective for Screenwriters

by Gordon P. Firemark

Question:
"My screenplay is based on a true story. Most of the characters are long deceased and the facts of the story are on public record. However there are four people still living whose names appear and two of which are characters. I'm not doing life stories of either rather just using their names and depicting brief appearances. Is there some kind of standard release I can obtain without a long legal document?"

Answer:
This question raises a number of issues. First off, if the events depicted really happened, and the persons involved were really involved, it's possible that their consent won't even be needed. As the writer, you might prefer to let the decision whether to get a release fall on the shoulders of the producer of the project, either before or after he buys the project. But, you may prefer to err on the side of caution, and obtain a release to include when selling the script. If so, it need not be a lengthy document, but it IS a legal document, so it's going to be more than a paragraph or two. What's involved is a person relinquishing some of their rights, so it's important that the document be thorough and complete. (The version I tell my clients to use fits on a single page... but just barely)

Lawyers hate the phrase "standard contract", and will tell you that every legal situation is different, and that legal documents like contracts need to be custom-tailored to the particular situation. While this is true, there are some generic forms available on the web, or in form books. The trick(s) are knowing where to find a good form, and whether the form you've selected is appropriate to your particular situation.

As with most of my answers in this column, I have to recommend that you hire an attorney to give you more customized legal advice, and if necessary to draft a suitable document for your project. You might be surprised how little it costs to get things done right... so you can sleep better at night.


Have a legal question? Email them to: legalquestions@thebusinessofshowinstitute.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

The foregoing is intended as general information only and does not establish an attorney-client relationship with Mr. Firemark. This information is not a substitute for a private, independent consultation with an attorney selected to advise you after a full investigation of the facts and law relevant to your matter. Neither Mr. Firemark nor The Business of Show Institute will be responsible for readers' detrimental reliance upon the information appearing in this column.

About Gordon P. Firemark:
Gordon Firemark is an attorney whose practice is devoted to the representation of artists, writers, producers and directors in the fields of theater, film, television,and music. He is also the publisher of Entertainment Law Update, a newsletter for artists and professionals in the entertainment industries. His practice also covers intellectual property, cyberspace, new media and business/corporate matters for clients in the entertainment industry.

Mr. Firemark serves on the Boards of Governors of The Los Angeles Stage Alliance (the organization responsible for the annual Ovation Awards for excellence in Theater), and The Academy for New Musical Theatre. In the past he has served on the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, where he served as liason to the Association's Entertainment Law Section (of which he is a former chairman).

Mr. Firemark holds a B.A. in Radio, Television and Film from the University of Oregon, and earned his law degree at Southwestern University School of Law. Before opening The Law Offices of Gordon P. Firemark, Mr. Firemark was a partner with the Business Affairs Group, a boutique entertainment law firm in Los Angeles. He has also worked in the legal and business affairs departments at Hanna Barbera Productions and the MGM/UA Worldwide Television Group, and started his legal career as an associate at Neville L. Johnson & Associates, a West L.A. firm specializing in entertainment litigation.

For more about Mr. Firemark, visit http://firemark.com/.

My Adventures in Porn

by Sean McGinly

Many years ago, before I’d managed to get anything going with my career, I did some writing on assignment for the straight to video market. I’m talking about B movie, Roger Corman-esque (and a couple times, actual Roger Corman) films that basically boiled down to one of two categories. Either they were low budget, genre, action films or they were “erotic thrillers”, which basically is just a euphemism for soft-core porn.

I had a friend who was working for a guy named Andrew Stevens. Andrew had been a pretty well known actor in the 70’s and 80’s. In the 90’s Andrew reinvented himself as a producer of these straight to video movies. His first hit was called “Night Eyes”, which he also acted in. If, like me, you watched a lot of late night Cinemax (or Skinemax as it was also known) then chances are you came across Night Eyes and/or its many sequels at some point. The movies all followed a kind of format. There was a noir-ish plot involving a private security guard and a sexy woman he’d been hired to protect. Inevitably, they’d both wind up nude and simulating sex in a way that was more tasteful than hard core porn but that still showed a lot of boobs and a little bit of man ass.

This friend of mine who worked for Andrew Stevens mentioned that they were looking for a writer for “Night Eyes 4”. Yes, this was to be the fourth installment of the successful series. This one was starring Paula Barbieri who had recently gained some measure of fame because of her association with the O.J. Simpson case and her appearance in Playboy. I had spent a little time with Andrew Stevens socially and for some reason (probably because I was willing to do it for $2,500) he agreed to hire me to write Night Eyes 4. I really had no idea what I was doing but Andrew was patient with me and somehow I got through it. I wasn’t sure how having “Night Eyes 4” on my list of credits would affect my career so I decided to be credited as “Henry Krinkle”, a reference to the film, “Taxi Driver”.

One of the things about Andrew was that he was very busy so he preferred to work with the same people over and over again. But he didn’t really negotiate with writers. He’d call you up and tell you what he was going to pay you and that was it. If you mentioned a lawyer or an agent the deal was off. If you expressed the slightest hesitation the deal was off. You were to write the script, write it quickly and write it to his specifications. At one point I was in the bathroom at his office standing at the urinal and he sidled up to the one next to me and said he had a quick, really low budget erotic thriller he was making. He needed a script written in a week and he’d pay me $1,500. I took the job before I’d zipped up my pants. That was the low end of the scale. The high end was $7,000.

At first I went into these experiences thinking that I’d manage to bring something special to them; that somehow I’d elevate the genre. Andrew had no time for this. If you tried to give a bad guy a little dimension he’d be on the phone, “What is it with this character? We don’t need all this complexity. Just make the good guys really good and the bad guys really bad and leave it at that.” I quickly gave up on trying to elevate anything and just tried to get the job done.

If a film wasn’t about action and effects it was about sex. In the erotic thrillers there were times where in an 80 page script there would be 8 sex scenes. And this wasn’t because I loved writing sex scenes. This was the number that was asked for and that it was my job to deliver. At times it felt like a man and a woman rarely entered a room together without having sex. It was a challenge to, again and again, get two people into a conversation that could plausibly lead to them taking their clothes off within minutes of coming across one another. It wasn’t like hard core pornography where the TV repairman shows up and next thing the characters are having sex. There was always some kind of story. But it was close.

Twice, I wrote scripts for movies where Andrew had teamed up with Roger Corman. Both of these scripts I co-wrote with the friend who had originally introduced me to Andrew. We never met Mr. Corman but his notes were relayed to us. Both times it was the same note: “Put in two more nude scenes”. In one of the films this presented a real challenge because it was set on a military submarine and women weren’t allowed to serve on submarines at that point. We’d already put in 2 nude scenes where one of the male characters fantasized about sex he’d had in the past. We couldn’t do this again. What we wound up doing was having a band of bad guys raid the submarine. How they actually managed to board this submerged vessel was never explained. Among the bad guys was a sex crazed, psychopathic bad girl. She more or less raped one of the sailors (though rape may be too strong a word since he only resisted for a few seconds and then kind of enjoyed it) and then killed him right after like a black widow. Everyone seemed relatively pleased with this solution.

Another thing that often went on was that entire films were written around a piece of footage that had been purchased. I once was called to the home of Fred Olen Ray, a legendary B movie director who did a lot of work for Andrew. He screened a scene for me from Airport ’77 or ’79. I can’t remember which one. Somehow, he’d bought this piece of footage and now it was my job to reverse engineer a story that used this, which I did. I wrote the whole script and then a week before production I got a call from Andrew. He had managed to hire Ice T for 3 days. It was now my job to figure out a way to write in a part that was heroic and important where Ice T could be a bad ass. But he couldn’t be too heroic and important because he could only work 3 days and whoever wound up playing the lead would have to get most of the good stuff. The solution I came up with was that when the action started Ice T kicked some ass but then he was unfairly ambushed by the bad guys and left for dead. Of course, at the end, he came back to life and aided the lead good guy in saving the day.

Yet another thing we commonly did was take a movie that was a hit in theaters and downscale it. For instance, you may recall the movie “Con Air” where a group of prisoners are being transferred on a plane and they somehow take it over and wreak havoc. We took the exact same plot except our prisoners were being transferred not by plane, but by train.

A big part of doing this work was just submitting to the process and not getting too caught up in the desire to do something special or artistic. This was business. Once you agreed to write one of these scripts you were stepping into something that was already in motion. Often you were writing a script that was being cast at the same time. Crew had already been hired. A shoot date was often not more than a week or two away. There was no time to work out problems. There was no time to get everything perfect or even mostly good. You had to just accept that given the content and the limitations some of the work you did was going to be hacky, derivative or just plain ridiculous.

The work I did for Andrew wasn’t art. At times it was fun. Just as often it was drudgery. That said, I am grateful to Andrew Stevens for hiring me. Nobody else was hiring me to do anything and Andrew could have found lots of other guys who would have been thrilled to be in my spot. Most of the people I dealt with were nice and considerate. Andrew was a funny, charming, dynamic guy. Directors I worked with like Fred Olen Ray and Rodney McDonald were genuinely nice people. Jim Wynorski, another legendary B movie director, was something of an exception. One time, he called me on the phone to give me notes on a script and after a bit I heard the toilet flush on his end of the line. He’d been speaking with me for 10 minutes and made no effort whatsoever to conceal that he’d been sitting on the pot the whole time.

I used the pseudonym Henry Krinkle twice but I kind of got the feeling that not using my real name was a little insulting to Andrew and the other people who worked on these films. No one ever said anything to me. I just sensed it. I needed the work and the money and didn’t want to give anyone a reason to not hire me. I started using my own name. This caused some problems. Once, I was in a video store with a girlfriend when we came upon a film called “Sexual Roulette”. I picked it up with a laugh and said, “Look, I wrote this”. She didn’t believe me until she saw my name on the box and she wasn’t amused. The movie wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was a rip off of “Indecent Proposal” with the genders switched. Instead of Robert Redford playing the owner of a casino in Las Vegas and seducing Demi Moore it was Tane McClure playing the owner of a casino in Reno and seducing some guy who looked like a gay porn star.

Using my real name also came back to haunt me once I started to have a real career. In 2008 my film, “The Great Buck Howard” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Here are the opening lines to one of the first reviews that came out:

"One might not expect a sweet, funny and warm-hearted crowd pleaser from the man who wrote movies like Sexual Roulette, Sonic Impact and Venomous, but I guess filmmaker Sean McGinly has spent the last eleven years churning out shlock flicks just so he could get to something good..."

In a way, the reviewer here was right. There are lots of people who assume that writing for the straight to video market is how I got my start. The truth is that the real movie and television business operates completely separate from the straight to video world. No amount of writing I did on things like “Sexual Roulette” helped me get an agent or start having a legitimate career. What it did do though was that it helped me pay the bills in a way that was easier and less time consuming than waiting tables or driving a cab. I lived very cheaply at this point. I’d work for 3 or 4 weeks on one of these straight to video jobs and I’d have enough money to pay my bills for a few months. And it was during these months, financed and freed up by my adventures in pornography, that I was able to write the scripts that got me started.

About Sean McGinly:
Sean McGinly’s screenwriting career began, as is too often the case, with a lie to his parents. In the fall of 1993, the writer-director of the John Malkovich/Colin Hanks/Emily Blunt/Tom Hanks film The Great Buck Howard was supposed to be in San Diego finishing his first semester at law school, but he’d already moved to L.A. to pursue his forbidden dream of writing and directing movies.

The above is a first in a series of essays about his experiences navigating the Labrynith we call... Hollywood. www.seanmcginly.com

Best Business Advice for Screenwriters

Jeff Nichols – Writer/Director of “Shotgun Stories”, “Take Shelter”, and “Mud” – On his best advice for screenwriters:

“I remember I was in junior high school and I was going to write a short story about mobsters, or New York mobsters. I think I had just seen a Scorsese film. And I told my dad that. And he was like, ‘You haven’t ever been to New York.’ And I said, ‘Nah, but that’s where mobsters live.’ And he basically said, ‘Why don’t you write something about Arkansas?’ And a window in my mind opened, and I realized all of a sudden that I had access to something that was interesting, that the rest of the world couldn’t write about, because I was the one there.

And it just seems like, you have an idea, and it feels kind of fake or false or movie-ish, but when I drag it down to Arkansas and place it there, it starts to feel realistic and grounded and I’m accountable for the realism, because I know these people and these places and I have to get it right. And that’s a good thing, because so many southern films are affectations that it’s good to feel accountable to some kind of realism.”

May 2013 Pitch Market Scorecard

by Jason Scoggins & Cindy Kaplan

As our tifosi know, there’s nothing we like better than digging around in the data to find hidden patterns. We found a good one for you this week — glance at the Overall Pitch Numbers grid, below. 2013’s lagging a bit behind last year’s pace, and 2012 obviously ended up quite a bit lower than 2011’s total. But when you isolate January through April and compare year-over-year, you find that 2013 is almost exactly on pace with 2011, which ended 30% higher than 2012‘s numbers.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to worry about — to match 2011’s final total we’ll have to see strong sales throughout the summer and a couple of big monthly sales numbers in the Fall. But that seems as likely as not, since generally speaking the studios still seem to be fixated on pitches rather than spec scripts, as you can see from the combined grid at the top of page 4.

One other pattern worth noting can be seen in the Studio Buyers Grid on page 3: Universal has been remarkably aggressive with pitch purchases this year, echoing last year’s pattern but more so (9 in 2013 vs 7 by this point in 2012). The studio has bought nearly twice as many pitches as the second place buyer so far this year (Fox, with 5).

Cannes and Memorial Weekend are likely to keep the second half of May’s numbers fairly low for the second year running. But take heart: If the rest of the major buyers start to get in the game next month (we’re looking at you, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros.), we’ll be in very good shape going into the summer.

Here are basic pitch sales numbers through May 13 on their own, with year-over-year monthly comparisons...

...and here are the same monthly pitch sales numbers in graph form.

The following are combined spec and pitch sales numbers through May 13, with year over year monthly comparisons...

...and here are those combined spec and pitch sales numbers in graph form as well.

Here are the combined pitch and spec purchase numbers for Studio Buyers that have bought at least one of each in 2013.

Here are the combined pitch and spec purchase numbers for Non-Studio Buyers that have bought at least one of each in 2013.

Each of the following production companies has been attached to at least one pitch sale so far this year. Names in bold are new or have set up an additional pitch since the last Scorecard.

Here are the combined pitch and spec sales numbers for the agencies that have sold at least one of each in 2013:

The following 48 agents have been involved with at least one pitch sale so far this year.

Here are the combined pitch and spec sales for management companies that have sold at least one of each in 2013.

The following 31 managers have been involved with at least one pitch sale so far this year:

About The Scoggins Report:
The Scoggins Report is a terribly unscientific analysis of the feature film development business based on information assembled from a variety of public and non-public sources. The numbers in the reports are by no means official statistics. Caveat emptor.

Check out the newsletter’s beautiful new home on SpecScout.com.


About Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a serial entrepreneur and senior entertainment industry executive whose 15+ year career includes stints as a TV literary agent and feature literary manager. His most recent venture, SpecScout.com, which soft launched at the beginning of December 2012, is his second web-based entertainment industry start-up. Previously, he'd founded the film development database company ItsontheGrid.com. In addition to guiding Spec Scout, he continues to provide consulting and management services to his clients.

Digging the Well Before You're Thirsty:

Tracking the Movement of Hollywood's Executives

What do you do when a friend gets promoted or moves to a new position? You congratulate them right?

What else might you do? You might send them a card telling them how excited you are for their new position. Later, you might follow up with that person to see how they're settling in. Then, you might send them an interesting article once in a while.

Why would you do this? Because that's how relationships are nurtured and developed. (They're not developed by asking for favors before the relationship has matured)

So we'd like you to help us in congratulating the following executives who have just been promoted or moved positions.

The Business of Show Institute Congratulates the Following Executives in Their New Positions:

Kate Juergens
Chief Creative Officer, ABC Family

Roger Pollock
Head of International Film Marketing, IMAX Corporation

Jennifer Lopez
Chief Creative Officer, NuvoTV

Robert Walak
President/MD Europe Production, Acquisitions & Television, The Weinstein Company

Negeen Yazdi
EVP Europe Acquisitions and Co-Productions, The Weinstein Company

3 Ways to Clear Clutter for Contest Conquest

by Sean Hinchey

I know, this may seem like a departure from the usual articles about winning screenplays for contests. But I often have people tell me that they find it hard to write because of other commitments or they don't have a clear place where they can escape to write. Don't you feel like running away from writing when your desk gets so cluttered? There is a connection between a chaotic desk and a muddled mind. Reflect on all the times when you feel overwhelmed, confused or unproductive.

Chances are, your desk was a mess — the physical manifestation of a frenzied brain. We've all been there. The sticky notes, pages with random ideas on them, stacks of writing magazines — all the elements of putting together your next screenplay. Sometimes all that mess can actually slow you down. It does for me when I'm trying to write my next article.

How do you put everything you have into some sort of order so that you can not only get back to work, but actually find something when you need it? It's easy, and although it may seem like it'll take a lot of time, it won't be all that bad. Keep in mind, you're doing this to be more productive so that you can get your script polished in time to meet the deadline of that upcoming screenwriting contest.

Here's what you'll need: some tabbed file folders, a pen and an empty garbage pail. See, I told you it would be easy! Let's get started. In just Three Simple Steps, you'll be back to completing your contest winning script with a clear mind.

Step 1: Clear an area on the floor near your desk. It doesn't have to be a huge area, but makes sure there's no spilled soda or coffee on the floor from those late night writing sessions. The reason you will be using the floor is to be able to stand over your new piles of material as you clear your desk.

The idea is to create new, organized files, not just another large mess. It also gives you an "eagle's eye" view of everything you will be saving, thus speeding up the process of organizing.

Step 2: Keep in mind that you are going to only touch each piece of paper once. Do not — and this is very important — do not pick up something and set it back down with the intention of organizing it later. Now is the time to handle it.

Here are two simple questions to ask yourself to make this entire process easier and quicker.

Why was I saving this? You should know right away why that item is taking up space on your desk. If you forgot why you had it on your desk, you can probably throw it away. If you do remember why you were saving it, then ask yourself:

Do I need it? It's amazing how much stuff we accumulate that we don't need — pld notes from script changes we made, ideas for a new screenplay that you opted not to write. If you don't need it, chuck it.

If you are saving an entire magazine for only one article, cut it out and throw away the rest of the magazine. Reduce everything down to the bare essentials.

OK, you're more than halfway done with the process, only one more step to go!

Step 3: Take those file folders and begin to label the tabs. Start with the first item that you see on your desk. Perhaps you have a piece of paper that has some ideas about a great character you want to develop. Write "Characters" on the tab, place the open folder on the floor, and set that piece of paper inside it.

See, you're already on the way to cleaning up your mess. What's the next piece of paper that you see? It could be notes about one of your scripts that you need to incorporate into the next draft. Write "Feedback" on the tab of another file folder and set it on the floor. Place that paper inside. Write "Articles" on another file tab for those magazine articles you're saving.

As you keep going, you'll find that the folders will rapidly fill up with the random pieces of paper cluttering your desk, and your mind. Keep working through the pile. By the time you are done, everything on your desk should either be neatly tucked away in a fresh folder, or in the waste barrel.

Now with a clean desk you can get back to the important task at hand: finishing your script so you can make that contest deadline. Should you need to find any of that information you filed, it'll all be at your fingertips. Just make sure everything gets put back when you're done, otherwise you'll have to start from scratch with this process!


In a previous article, Great Beginnings, we talked about how to grab the attention of the judges. Next week, we'll talk about how to keep their focus riveted to your screenplay in Great Journeys so your screenplay takes its rightful place at the top!

About Sean Hinchey:
Sean Hinchey has been a script consultant for International Creative Management (ICM), Miracle Entertainment, Nash Entertainment, and Viviano Entertainment. He's also read the preliminary drafts of Michael Crichton's best-selling novels, State of Fear and Next and has performed extensive research for the stage plays and screenplays of writer/director Floyd Mutrux (American Hot Wax, Million Dollar Quartet).

Sean's expertise has made him a highly sought after judge for such prestigious screenwriting contests such as: The Big Break Contest, The Miramax Open Door Contest, Artists and Writer's Contest, Energy Contest, Smart Contest and The Chills and Thrills Contest. Throughout his career, Sean has read over two thousand scripts, giving him an insight into what it takes to become the winner of a screenwriting contest.

Three of Sean's screenplays have been optioned and one was a finalist in the Film in Arizona Screenwriting Competition. He won an award for his first non-fiction book, Backpacking Through Divorce.

Drawing from these experiences, he's written a book, 39 Ways to Win a Screenwriting Contest & The Nine Mistakes New Writers Make, set for publication this year.