Screenwriting

So, you want to be a screenwriter? Get in line. There are on average 35,000-50,000 screenplays registered with the Writers Guild of America each year and of those, roughly 600 of those screenplays become a Hollywood movie. Want to take an independent approach? According to IMDB there were over 18,000 total movies made in 2009, the bulk of them being independent films. Furthermore, the Sundance Film Festival, the Mecca of independent film only screened 145 feature length movies in 2009. The point is screenwriting isn’t a viable career. Go do something else.

Still with me? Good, you don’t give up easily. That’s the first trait a screenwriter will need: the will and desire to succeed in the midst of seemingly insurmountable odds. As a profession, screenwriting has far more downs than ups. Developing thick skin and a tenacious attitude is essential to being successful and achieving long term success. So, we ask, how do we break into the tight nit, hierarchal system of Hollywood? How do we get our screenplays made into films? There are two schools of thought: go to film school or take the independent approach.


In either case, the foundation to a good movie and getting noticed is a great screenplay. Like all writing, screenwriting has its own form and it’s very important. There isn’t a Hollywood reader or successful filmmaker that will read a screenplay that isn’t written in the proper format. You wouldn’t read a book that was written backwards, would you? To make the format easier, professionals use various kinds of software: Final Draft, Mariner, Movie Magic, or Celtx (the most popular free software). For tips on the screenwriting format, refer to William M. Akers’ book, Your Screenplay Sucks! or How Not to Write a Screenplay by Denny Martin Flinn.

The next step is writing a great screenplay. Nobody knows how to write a screenplay, but industry professionals know one when they read one. As Dov S-S. Simens suggests in his book, From Reel to Deal, if you want to know if your screenplay is good, give it to a filmmaker or Hollywood executive. If they want to make it into a movie, it’s good. If not, then it sucks. Period.

Once you have a great screenplay under your arm, it’s time to get it made or sold and that’s the trickiest part. The old catch-22 is: you have to have an agent to sell a screenplay, but you can’t get an agent until you sell one. So, what to do? You can blindly send it to every Hollywood talent agency and movie studio in town in hopes of a Hollywood reader or assistant reading it and passing it on up the ladder. You can stand outside talent agencies and production companies and give your thirty second pitch to agents and executives while they try and climb in their car. You can contact local filmmakers and try and make it independently. In any case, your screenplay better be worth their time or you’ve just burned industry contact upon contact.

In the end, if you want to be a successful screenwriter, just give up. Go do something else, because you’re going to fail. But if you truly want it bad enough, write a great script and do what it takes to get it into the hands of those with the power. Be tenacious, be vicious, and stick with it, because over time your great script will catch the eye of someone. All it takes is one person to love it and make it into a movie. One.

--Craig Looney

Useful Books:
Your Screenplay Sucks! - William M. Akers
The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters - David Trottier
How Not to Write a Screenplay - Denny Martin Flinn
Rebel Without a Crew - Robert Rodriguez
My First Movie - Stephen Lowenstein
Moviemakers' Master Class - Laurent Tirard

Useful Links
http://www.wga.org/ -- Writers Guild of America West
http://celtx.com/ -- Free Screenwriting Software