Movie Industry Scams; How To Avoid Them

Scams in the movie biz and how to avoid them

Indie filmmakers, spec screen writers and newbie actors are particularly vulnerable to scams… and, because there are so many people pinning their hopes and dreams on making it into the industry, there are now many cynical “businesses” who are set up solely to take advantage of those hopes and dreams. It’s sad, but true and because it’s both incredibly easy and cheap to set up an online business, I hear more and more tales of attempted scams every single day.

So, because there seems to have been a rash of particularly bad ones recently, here’s the basic information you need to avoid these scum-bags. Read more

Finding the Right Script Consultant by Victoria Lucas

You’ve just finished the third rewrite of your script. Your friends think it’s wonderful and even the screenwriters in your group heap praise upon you. You go to sleep with visions of Oscar acceptance speeches dancing in your head. But is the screenplay ready to be sent out? How can you tell if will impress producers and agents the same way?

One way is to consult a professional script analyst. Read more

The importance of feedback in script development

It is a fundamental truth about screen writing, that nobody sets out to write a bad script.

And yet, industry sources reliably inform me that 98% of the spec scripts in circulation in Hollywood are way below the minimum quality standards for scripts. Or, in other words, there is a 98% gap between what writer’s think is a good script and what professional readers think. Read more