Learn to write to industry standard.
So you’ve finished writing your screenplay and you're anxious to send it out to producers, agents, managers, screenplay competitions and fellowships.
Before you make that trip to the post office (and expose yourself to possible disappointment), ask yourself this question: “Is my great story written to Industry Standard?”
What does Industry Standard mean?
Industry Standard is a benchmark set by the film industry which a spec screenplay must meet to be considered acceptable.
A Few Things for You to Consider.
No one knows just how many screenplays, submitted by aspiring writers each year, never make it past the lowest reader in the producer’s office or even the kid in the mail room. Data suggests that number is surely in the tens of thousands.
According to the Writer's Guild of America, 55,000 pieces of literary material are registered annually, 30,00 of which are screenplays.
The most common reason for the failure to advance up the ladder? These screenplays were not written to Industry Standard.
Let’s say you built a race car instead of a screenplay. Not just “any” race car, but the fastest, best-handling, best-designed race car in the world. Now you’re ready to enter it in NASCAR, where you expect to win the acclaim your car so richly deserves. But if you failed to follow the rules and guidelines—the Industry Standard required by the racing commission—your amazing race car will never get on the track, let alone into the race.
This sad fact is true in the world of screenwriting as well. If your script doesn’t meet Industry Standard, it will not get read by the people at the bottom, let alone the top. After just the first 3-10 pages, it will be tossed on the “pass” pile, doomed to the round/slush file without a producer even knowing you’d submitted. Sounds tragic, doesn't it.
Your time and effort are valuable. So is your dream.
The movie business is constantly in flux, adapting to fit an ever-changing audience. With the growth of the Internet, screenwriting has become even more competitive. More and more people enter the race daily, dreaming of getting discovered, of getting their stories produced.
You have your dream, too. So you spend time and energy—not to mention hard-earned dollars--in classes and on books and software. But are you still ignoring obvious elements your script must possess to be recognized?
All the top film schools (AFI, UCLA, USC, NYU, Columbia, UT Austin, SFSU, Cal Arts, North Carolina), books, and websites teach how to write your story into a screenplay. They may focus on the art of developing interesting characters, bullet-proof structure, a plot that twists and turns, and action that jumps off the page, Sadly, most of the schools and books don’t spend enough (or any) time in the area of formatting to the Industry Standard.
Today, state-of-the-art screenwriting software programs (Final Draft, Movie Magic Screenwriter) can outline your screenplay, format your script, help develop characters, even storyboard your project.. But it’s still up to you, the screenwriter, to know and follow the rules that ensure your screenplay is written to Industry Standard. Why even take the chance of dooming your great story to oblivion?
Learn how to make the reader your ally in success.
You are judged by your screenplay. A script not written to Industry Standard immediately brands the screenwriter an amateur in the eyes of the all-important reader.
You’re asking that first reader on the ladder to success to go out on a limb. You want that person to pass up lunch to finish your script—and recommend it for further investment of time, money and enthusiasm. Many of these folks do this on top of a regular day job. They read so many bad scripts that they're aching to read a good story, in the right format, so they can finally say yes!
You want that reader to vote for your dream. Why not at least meet the reader half-way with a script that’s not an immediate turn-off because of common deficiencies you could easily avoid, if you just knew how.
- Eva Sutherland