…and Dark & Stormy Nights

“Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.” Leo Tolstoy Yesterday I mentioned having had my shares of Days in the Sun. (The kind of days when you tell everyone on Facebook that life is good.)  But like [...]

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Days in the Sun

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these things.” George Washington Carver “Everyone, no exceptions, feels like they are still 18 and [...]

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Query Letter Strikeout (Part 2)

Well, Christopher Lockhart read my post yesterday, Query Letter Strikeout, and had this email response that he agreed to let me post: “I think it’s important to understand that agencies don’t abhor “small” movies.  Compared to THOR or the BATMAN franchise, your pitch is for a “small” movie.  Yes, those kinds of projects can be [...]

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Query Letter Strikeout

Keep it short.  That’s the short version of this post on query letters and loglines. Keep it short. Unfortunately, it’s going to take one long post to explain in detail why to keep it short. In fact, it’s going to be over 2,000 words—but there’s a lot to learn here. If you’re in college, you [...]

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“Die Hard “—The Logline

In the post “The Inside Pitch” I mentioned improving your pitching skills by coming up with loglines and pitches for existing and successful films. (It’s sort of like wanting to be a comedian and doing an old Jerry Sienfeld routine in front of your friends. If they don’t laugh, it’s probably not that the material isn’t [...]

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Getting Your Script Read (Tip #51)

Since writers are always talking about how difficult it is to get their script read, I found a quote from Christopher Lockhart, story editor at WME, from a post he wrote on his blog “The Inside Pitch” several years ago.  This is an excerpt for a question he received from a Colorado screenwriter who asked [...]

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“The Inside Pitch”

“A pitch is a verbal presentation of your dramatic story. It is a concise presentation.” Christopher Lockhart A logline is a super tiny pitch. A TV guide presentation of your story. Two or three sentences. If you ever want to sympathize with Hollywood executives watch the DVD “The Inside Pitch”, a workshop that turned into a TV [...]

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Christopher Lockhart Q&A (Part 5)

SWS Question 7: Screenwriter Diablo Cody is with your agency and a great inspiration behind this blog because she went to college in Iowa. I love that she broke into the industry writing a spec script in Minneapolis that went on to win an Oscar. And while “Juno” was her first screenplay, by her own [...]

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Christopher Lockhart Q&A (Part 4)

SWS Question #5: What should a writer avoid when writing a query letter? CHRISTOPHER LOCKHART*: Avoid silly, self-effacing, or obsequious letters. Be professional. Often, authors of comedy scripts try to pen funny letters. In some cases, it is effective. However, if the letter does not garner a chuckle, this can kill the script. Allow the [...]

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Christopher Lockhart Q&A (Part 3)

SWS Question #4: So if the way to finding a manager, agent, or production company is a strong logline and query letter, can you give us what you consider an effective examples of both? CHRISTOPHER LOCKHART*: You cannot go wrong with a short letter that features one brief paragraph indicating your intent, one brief paragraph [...]

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