cutting pages?

lol, true

there's a lady on donedeal who works as a reader for a prodco. She said (and I am summarising her opinion here), "if the screenplay is under 100 pages, i don't think you have a whole story. if it's over 120, i hate you."

and these are the gatekeepers at the companies. if they pass on your script, it's dead before the higher-ups ever get a chance to hear about this perfect screenplay. and these gatekeepers are paid to read scripts all day, every day. they're not going to care enough to appreciate the finer points of the screenplay, all they know is that they have to read it. they may even resent their job, meaning they're all the more likely to pass on your screenplay for no reason.

if you want the screenplay to have a chance of going to the next stage, this is the first person to look at them, and you certainly don't want to inundate them with page count.
 
that sucks you,know I love my script and to cut anything is like circumsizing my baby, it hurts but it has to be done to be accepted. I'm not circumsized and people think that's weird. God i hate these rules, and its a drama. damn I'm so pissed i gotta do my re-write. and cut something but what!
 
by the way, anyone recomend a good editor, my grammer and punctation is horrible. I need help. script is awsome expect for that flaw.
 
I dont know, theres something about someone not charging for a circumcision that makes me question there validity.<---- is that even the right word?
 
Well, no offense, but your lack grammar and spelling skills, and inability to use the tools provided to fix said skills leads me to believe you will not need a crack team of dedicated, skilled, editors to fix your script.

I'm sure you're afraid we're all going to steal your script to? It's not going to happen. People steal ideas, not scripts. If your script is as good as you say it is, than nobody could write the idea better than you. So there's nothing to worry about.

just show us some of your script.
 
There's this bum who hangs around the local Starbucks and hits people up for spare change. And he's mentally ill. He claims he's a secret agent working for the CIA trying to catch terrorists. He's like any one of the millions of mental cases out there, making all kinds of nutty claims.

He doesn't shower, he has no teeth, he's on meth when he can afford it, and he talks to himself in a loud voice.

I wonder how many people who pass him ever ask themselves the question "I wonder if he really is a secret agent for the CIA?"

That's the scenario as far as I can see with pest22o. When I worked at one of the big talent agencies here in town, I've seen many hundreds of unsolicited scripts from earnest amateurs. And I've met or been importuned by dozens and dozens of such "undiscovered writers". The guy is a classic. He has overblown ideas of the worth of his writing ("best script evar!"), his script is bloated (of course), and he just cannot bear to cut a single line (of course), and even if he would ever so reluctantly agree, he doesn't actually know how to do that (surprise...not!), besides, it would be a crime to cut anything and he wants to direct it himself cause anyone else is likely to destroy his baby (oh yeah!), plus he can't spell or write gramatically. What's wrong with this picture?

What's utterly bizarre, is that anyone is taking this guy seriously at all. Do you really ask yourself "maybe he is an undiscovered genius"? That's like asking yourself if the mentally ill bum on the streetcorner is really a secret agent for the CIA. All the signs point to the classic mentally ill street person, but I guess some think to themselves "what if he is in the CIA... da, da da...!". Same here - all the classic signs are there, big as a billboard, and folks are wondering "well, maybe he can actually write!".

The only thing this tells me, is that none of these folks have the faintest experience with the industry... zero.
 
Yeah this just reeks of the CIA homeless guy. Although it would be a good undercover gig... But I guess you wouldnt announce that you are CIA if you are undercover...

Anyways. I just made a really good pasta and steak meal but I'm not about to call it the best ever. Pesto you need to take your faults, own them, and find out how to fix them. You've gotten a couple of really good offers here and you're crazy not to take one if not both of these gentlemen up on their offers. Shoot I've got a "best script ever" I may have to send their way if it ever gets finished. Its a ways away from there though. People keep paying me to do other things. Life sucks.
 
It wasn't so much as taking him seriously on his word, as a willingness to help him regardless of the shortcomings.

That's just good policy.

A
 
Ah, don't take all this to heart pest, just take some of the good advice and run with it.
 
alex whitmer said:
It wasn't so much as taking him seriously on his word, as a willingness to help him regardless of the shortcomings.

That's just good policy.

A
Click to expand...

No it's not good policy. Again, sorry to pull this card, but from experience: it won't work. When I first started out at the agency, I would carefully read all scripts, no matter how crazy. And I'd meet with a certain kind of "aspiring writer" when the more seasoned folks at the agency would just shake their heads. I guess I was idealistic, and laboring under the old "Van Gogh was not appreciated during his life" myth. Well, it only took a few months before I understood - deeply - that it's not how real life works. If you have certain classic signs of a knucklehead, you are, yes, Virginia, wait for it - a knucklehead! People who behave like pest22o are the very definition of the deluded ignoramus. It's not the case of a misunderstood guy (those are rare, and at least show "strange" symptoms, which is why they don't make it, unrecognized by Hollywood - but not "classic" symptoms). It's like the case of the bum - if he's a weird dude who is somewhat eccentric and unlikely - OK, maybe there's a chance he's a secret agent for the CIA... but when he looks and acts 100% exactly like a wino, mentally ill bum, guess what, the odds are pretty much 100% that that's what he is - a mentally ill homeless person.

Anyhow, the path is always the same with these kind of "writers" - you encourage them, you give them pointers, you help them out in ways small and big. Sadly, it always ends the same way - massive disappointment, and the inevitable failure. If there's no talent, no amount of work is going to unearth it... cause it ain't there. Best to cut your losses. If you see a "classic" your best bet is to nod, and keep walking.

No matter how you talk to the nutty bum, and no matter how much you support him with spare change and whatnot, he'll never turn out to be a CIA agent. Keep walking.
 
I happen to know for a fact, a story about a certain FBI Agent who was undercover in california, he was homless man for 3 years trying to get a drug bust.
 
you know what! I'm gonna send each and everyone of you my script. I swear! But don't you judge it on grammatical or punctuation errors, how about that! that's how confident I am about my story and Idea. EVERY one of you let me know how you want it? Give me a 2 months to prep it. I wanna make it's extra nice for you guys, that'll get you guys to shut up.
 
For Old Corpse

For Old Corpse

Name seems fitting.

I for have had just the opposite experience, but then again my mind tends to be open for at least half the day.

In a scary kinda way you remind me of my old teachers with the 'what's good for one kid is good for all, no exceptions'.

Maybe you should try another profession where the human spirit isn't so evident in your daily chores -- Like canning peas or something. I beileve some of the world greatest cynics are on canning lines. Just a tip.

For those of you around long enough to remember this commercial (shown only once during the superbowl), I picture this as Old Corpse' idea of a perfect world. I for one am the woman with the hammer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

So, pest! It's highly likely your script is not what what you believe (hope) it to be. Yet. With an adjustment of attitude and a new-found commitment to the craft beyone just great ideas, there is hope. Gotta start with you.

So, you wanna go the Old Corpse way, or the Alex way? Send me the first few pages, and I will help you get the thing Holltwood ready. Free.

The ball is your court.

alexwhitmer@yahoo.com

Alex
 
OldCorpse said:
There's this bum who hangs around the local Starbucks and hits people up for spare change. And he's mentally ill. He claims he's a secret agent working for the CIA trying to catch terrorists. He's like any one of the millions of mental cases out there, making all kinds of nutty claims.

He doesn't shower, he has no teeth, he's on meth when he can afford it, and he talks to himself in a loud voice.

I wonder how many people who pass him ever ask themselves the question "I wonder if he really is a secret agent for the CIA?"
Click to expand...

Hey, screw you buddy! I am a CIA agent and I can prove it. Watch your back.
 
Ah, the inevitable raging hormones of post-adolescent males. How I missed thee so.

This is one of the very reasons I am so loathed to "Intraweb Forums;" their voracious, long-winded, dull, repetitive, never-ceasing, disgusting, horrible strain of artistic, runny diarrhea, transmogrified into words. Perhaps it was the Olean. (At least cut down on fiber.)

What we have here are two seemingly opposite sides of the "screenwriters moral issuance," as it were. The unconquerablely snide Olde, and the sugar-sweet-hyper-über-ultra-"professional" Alex, a guy who apparently has written more successful scripts than Gore Vidal and the guy who carries in bags at the Marriot COMBINED.

And what are these two demigawds doing? Fighting over an individual with fewer brain cells than Artie Lange has had successful lays.

I'm not really sure why anyone is taking time with this "fellow." It's not like you owe him anything (unless you do, and in that case, GOD HELP YOU). All you're doing by even responding to him, is giving the poor whelp something to go on... something to make him go: "o gee i was gunna quit but now the internet says i good and they kep fiting over me so i gonna kep riting even tho i cant rigt my way out of a whet paper bhag lol." Stop responding to him. Stop encouraging him. Let his unwanting persona that has no interest in pursuing writing, (minus superficial, deluded involvement) fade out like a bad DV edit. Let these threads, which will forever be remembered as "DVXuser's Screenwriting's Darkest Hours," die their inevitable unheroic death.

Ad mortem, sires. Ad mortem.
 
they saw arguing on the internet is like racing in the special olympics. even if you win, you're still retared. now i didn't say that, "they" did
 
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