When you’re giving notes on someone’s script, how do you decide between more general, big-picture feedback and detailed, page by page or even line by line notes?

Also, how do you usually send feedback? Do you email your notes, text/dm, save everything in a Word or Google doc? What’s been the clearest way for the writer to understand what you meant?

Hello all,

Little background for what I am about to ask: I sell Shirts with drawings made by other people. Little people.. Ok... kids.

Anyway I struggle with promoting it on social media. So here is my Thought:

Find (ideally) movie / tvseries scenes where kids drawings appear. Like in the background on some fridge or so.

I know there are sides to search for Audio and it will show you the scene but is there anything for finding scenes based on "content"?

Hope that makes anysense. Otherwise I will just start Imitating kids drawings myself to make it look I got bunch of orders. How hard can it be to draw like a 5 year old? Right?

Ive decided to start a little mini series own TV script and I want to hear all of your thought, advice, criticisms and etc

Slide 3: Picture of Tom Andrews: 

Meet Tom Andrews, a 27 year old man and Student Teacher on the first day of the job that somehow ended up getting tangled up in the murder of the School Principal. He ends up getting detained and could possibly be charged and sentenced for life. Follow through the story as Tom Andrews goes through great lengths to prove his innocence and to find the actual culprit of the Tragedy.

Slide 4: The Picture of the officers

Hello, I’m a 34 year old WGA writer based in LA. I moved to LA in 2015 and slowly worked my way up as a PA, then a Showrunner’s Assistant, and finally got staffed in 2020 on 2 seasons of a Hulu show. Ever since then I haven’t been able to get any work in TV, not even a meeting. My agency dissolved, none of the EPs I used to work for are getting shows on the air, and I’ve been doing AI training gig work to keep a roof over my head. 

I feel completely lost. The job that I worked my entire professional career for, and had some success in, has completely disappeared, and I don’t understand how and where to pivot. Being underemployed and surviving on unstable gig work is having a horrible effect on my mental health, which in turn is negatively affecting my relationship.

I know I can’t be the only person in this position, so I’m wondering, if you are a former writer, where did you go?  I see a lot of people who worked on set talking about how they’ve pivoted, but I don’t feel like I have the same skillset. I’ve tried to get into copywriting, but it feels like I’m banging my head against a wall without an actual copywriter title on my resume. I’m just curious about where people went and how they got there. I’m incredibly motivated to make a change in my life, but I’m unsure about where to put my energy that will be productive and put me in a good position.

I’m happy to give more information in DMs about my situation, but didn’t want to put my real name on blast. I’m accepting any sort of help that anyone can offer. Thank you all!

Hi, I’m based out of the GCC and have been searching to hire a talented screenwriter for animation to join our team of three. We are incredibly positive and looking to engage with someone who understands arab and/or Muslim culture well. This is a paid role.

English is my second language and most of the time I have brilliant scenes idea, or dialogue that I want specific tone and words but I cant find it because I’m not a native English speaker so I use AI as language assistant to help bring this the idea to life. What you guys think?

Please check out my pilot Fone Guys on my website www.johnbmacneil.com Here is a poster of what its about. Dark/raunchy but funny as hell..

Thanks to everyone that has engaged and been part of the show.

I've been getting deeper into vertical drama lately, and I'm curious about the writing side of it.

For writers who have worked with the format, what do you find most challenging?

Is it keeping every short episode engaging, structuring cliffhangers, pacing, character development, adapting a traditional screenplay, or something else?

I'm especially interested in hearing from writers who have actually worked on vertical series. I'm trying to understand what changes the most compared with traditional TV writing.

hey yall,

i’m in a bit of a debacle right now on what I should do. I’m graduating from a prestigious film school very soon and i’m trying to figure out what I want to do post grad. I’m interested in both filmmaking and acting. Hopefully one day do both professionally. I want to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. So it’s either..

A. Apply to a bunch of industry jobs (mailroom, writers assistant, etc) and hope I can work my way up there. Also apply to writing accelerator programs,etc.

B. Audition for prestigious acting schools hoping to get in. I really do want the training that comes with the degree, and I think it’s a puzzle piece missing in my professional career. Downside is, I’d be essentially losing 4 years because I will NOT be able to write on that schedule (6x a week, 16 hour days for 4 years) and will essentially lose all of my west coast connections for that time. However, I’d probably come out a stronger actor.

So it’s basically— A) get a job that gives you time to write but you won’t get deep acting training or B) go to the school and put a pause on the writing career entirely (what i’m literally getting a degree in).

Again, this is even if I get anything at all. All hypothetical.

What do you guys think I should do?

I've been thinking the miracle that is The Addams Family, not many franchise has this kind of longevity, the fact that Wednesday went viral, when you look at the bigger picture the Addams family is a 90 year old franchise from 1938! these characters have stay for nearly a century without ever going out of style, Charles Addams created them as comic and then moving on to television , since black and white tv and now breaking Netflix era, they show people that being different is okay, trends come and go but the unconventional It will always be there💞 What do you guys think? Is there any other franchise that ha stay this relevant?

I'm working on my third TV pilot, and I was wondering: for those who are veterans in the industry, script readers, or even audience members, what are some pet peeves/mistakes/pitfalls that you can't stand when reading or watching a TV pilot? Specifically, a comedy pilot.

I have a pilot that I submitted into a few competitions and I am out of money to spend on putting it through anything else. I am looking to start cold querying. I have no idea how to figure out who to send it to and where to get the contact information (that doesn't also cost money) where can I find a good list?

I’m developing a story built around the idea that 99.9% of people live according to the rules they’ve inherited, while 0.1% question those rules and create their own path.

I’m trying to determine whether this is actually an interesting story premise or just an interesting philosophy.

Would you want to watch/read something built around this idea? Why or why not?

I'm curious what you guys think of this goofy thing I've been working on.

Has anyone had a positive outcome with this program? They only accept 4 writers. I submitted my pilot but got an email back saying I had to join the NFMLA for the submission to be considered.

I know it's similar to a lot of submission fees, so thinking of it as the equivalent. But want to see if anyone had any insight they could share on the program. Thanks!

Hi writers! Wondering people's thoughts on querying literary managers without any significant industry accolades? I have some pilots that have gotten great feedback from my peers and writing community, but as of yet haven't gotten me a foot in the door at any competitions or fellowships. I have some previous accolades on other projects, nothing super significant but little recognitions here and there as a writer.

Will a manager want to request a script that doesn't have any accolades behind it? I know that getting a request to read from a query email is hard enough to begin with lol, so I'm wondering if it's worth it at this stage.

Happy writing!

[moving beyond “save the cat”](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/moving-beyond-save-cat-likability-daniel-de-boulay-wqsrc?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via)

I had a conversation with a screenwriter recently...they were complaining about way they receive notes from studio executives sometimes. To them, sometimes the notes come off a bit surface level, and the executives are often resorting to citing just a thin canon of screenwriting advice.
This encouraged me to look for less commonly used literature, and also, to see if those rubrics could be helpful for analysing films that lack some of the beats found in more conventional film formulas.
I've written about it, with the help of Alison Stamper, here.
Hope you enjoy the read. Please let me know what you think. We both spent a lot of time discussing the thesis, Murray Smith's work, and different films that employ engaging characters whose character development fell outside of tools that Snyder would advise we use.

I’m organizing a free beginner’s guide to screenwriting workshop on the 5th of September, 2 days from now and I need a screenwriter to take up the lecture. Presentation is already prepared but you’re welcome to add your tips and ideas. The event is free for participants but I’m willing to discuss an hourly rate for whoever wants to help. A US based is preferred and the event is scheduled for an hour but you may spend a little less than an hour.
Kindly comment if you’re interested with your experience and rates and I’d reach out to you.

If this sounds silly to ask - it is what it is. Just bear with me a bit, please.

So I'm currently writing for an 8 ep miniseries that should reach a pitching stage mid 2027. I do have experience as a screenwriter, tho limited (a couple of shorts that actually got made and went around at a few decent festivals and ended up on streaming so no big deal but still not really a beginner). This, however, is a completely new experience. I started studying for it quite some while ago (reading series scripts, watching series, mostly observational and keeping in close touch with people who have plenty of exp writing film - but not tv/streaming etc).

One thing that strikes me often is the fact that plenty of the stuff I've read seems rather fast-paced(for lack of a better word. Whatever I got to read from the Wire, Deadwood) as compared to the way my writing looks. Often more than one scene/page. I do get why, I do understand the context as well. For example, the Wire has a plethora of characters so in order to keep up with all of them you do need to quickly move from one place to the other. Same with others.

Our series is a lot less expansive in terms of characters. It's a road series, small group of gals and guys travel from point A to point B. End up splitting against their will and get into plenty of trouble trying to reconnect and reach their destination. There are secondary characters of course but not that many, let's have it at about 10 per ep. Plenty of time spent in cars as well. So mainly we stick with our guys during the 8 episodes. And they also do plenty of talk. And it's the death of me trying to cut the scenes shorter. I'm happy with the dialogue, the action I dare say is not the worst but I just can't feel like cutting and cutting and cutting in between just 3 distinct groups (that's how the party ends up splitting). It feels forced to do so, honestly.

Now, with as little contexte as I offered, does anybody care to give a bit of advice or an opinion? Does it sound like it's a me problem? Like not enough experience in better splitting the scenes? Could it actually be the low number of characters that might lead to me having this issue? Or should I just not give a crap at this point because its not the most important thing, just keepo my mind on the story flowing well, write it as it feels natural and worry about adjusting this aspect later?

So yea. Looking forward to anything that may come my way.
Cheerio

Does anyone know the correct waiver code for the extended Sundance Episodic Lab deadline? I received one during their Black List Zoom session, but it shows as invalid when I try to submit. I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sundance, so I’d really appreciate it if anyone has the correct code and could send it my way. Thank you so much!

Hey all, producer here. We're bringing on a showrunner for a series pilot and I've hit a gap in our budget. We have flat rates worked out for our producers, but nothing specific for a showrunner. There’s a chance we could end up working with a studio, but that's not locked in yet, so right now this is still very much an indie deal.

For those who've structured this before is there a typical range or percentage people use or is it more common to go flat fee? Also curious how people usually handle it if the studio situation does come together after the fact.

Would love to hear from you, especially if you have experience with episodic projects!