Should I Upload a Script to the Black List

Prior to about a decade ago, whether or not to upload your screenplay to an online service like Inktip, or a forum, paid or otherwise, was a decision that no screenwriter had to make. There simply was no signal to practice so, other than for us to share our work via e-mail or in discussion boards, should we exist so bold.

But now, uploading screenplays to exist listed on a website seems like something many writers are oddly comfy about. It's ane thing to send your script to a script coverage visitor like mine for feedback, or to agents and producers straight, or even to the one or ii legitimate script contests out at that place.  But for a writer to post their script on a site which promises the potential of exposure and the potential of access —companies like Inktip and The Blackness List — has become a dismaying new trend from where I sit. This new type of web-Hollywood hybrid — the screenplay directory — has become, in essence, the new middle man in the spec script merchandise; Inktip and The Blackness Listing take somehow convinced scores of new writers that they're the new gatekeepers, past challenge to exist a fast runway to the real gatekeepers — that is, the kickoff readers at studios, production companies, and agencies.

And then what's a screenwriter to do? Pay the "new gatekeepers" similar the Black List and Inktip in hopes of getting her script read past one of these services? It would seem so, if you're not paying attending to the real earth — the world across your mouse and screen.

Is getting your screenplay out onto the web a bad thing? Not necessarily. In my view, in that location is some utility to be gleaned in doing then, but that utility is limited, and it pales in comparison to the method I can whole-heartedly recommend, which I'll depict towards the terminate of this article.

But offset, I'll share some tips on keeping your ideas safe and your intellectual holding protected when sending your screenplay out into the wild west of the net or to any script directory or service that promises the potential of exposure.

Written just i script ever? Continue it offline

Some screenwriters work on a single screenplay for decades. I don't recommend it, at all, but it's more common than you'd think. If you're one such "magnum opus" screenwriter with but i script to offering the earth, or if your ideas don't menstruum as quickly or as consistently as they do for other screenwriters, you might want to avert posting your script in any online forum or directory. Why? Because you lot've simply got also much to lose. This is 1 of the key reasons I recommend that all screenwriters work on multiple projects, and build a reservoir of screenplays over the years. For 1, working on a unmarried script often does picayune to boost your chops. Most first screenplays are often so fundamentally flawed, they're simply rarely salvageable without considerable effort, even subsequently multiple attempts. Further, they're usually written effectually what proves to be a stale or trite concept.

Got a completely mind-blowing concept? Go along it offline

If you believe you've got a concept that Hollywood would die for, you lot might want to go on that ane private as well. Merely brand sure it's not just y'all who thinks it's a heed-bravado concept. Run it by trusted friends, colleagues, fellow writers, manufacture friends you have a history with. Come across if they agree that the concept is amazing. A key manner to measure how awesome your concept is is to spotter their faces when you tell it to them for the first time. Seriously. If their eyebrows enhance, if their jaw drops, if snot blasts out of their nose, you probably have a great concept. If you don't get whatsoever of those physical reactions, chances are, yous probably don't.

Watermark your screenplay

An instance of a Final Draft watermark

If you're nevertheless up for sharing your script online via some sort of forum or directory or service, make sure you're protected. Copyright it and annals it with the WGA before you ever click Ship on annihilation.

And while you're at it, feel free to take some extra precautions. Similar watermarking.

Script readers often hate 'em, and they're not always super-effective in preventing piracy, just many producers utilise them consistently, to both track and protect their outgoing screenplays. Watermarks can be as complicated as a fancy, washed-out graphic behind the text of every page, spanning from top to bottom, or as simple every bit Last Draft does information technology: only one big cake of diagonal text that tells you the championship of the script.

In Fadein, just select File > Batch Watermark

In Final Typhoon 9, just select Document > Watermark and type your watermark. The watermark won't appear on the script until you print information technology or salve the script as a PDF.

In Moving-picture show Magic Screenwriter, select File > Print > Setup (upper left corner) > Watermark ( or Product > Watermark Setup on a Mac).

Information technology's probably all-time to not mess with any opacity settings, as the defaults all announced to piece of work just fine.

For each identify you transport your script, send a slightly different, trackable version

Information technology might sound like a lot of work, but if your script leaks to the public when information technology shouldn't, or gets stolen or otherwise purloined, in that location's an easy style to run across which of the venues you sent it to, or which of the people you sent it to, did the leaking and/or purloining.

Information technology'southward a bit hammy, only just add a unique tracking lawmaking somewhere in the text of the title page, near the contact information. For example, if you lot're sending the script to the Nicholl and to a festival and to a producer named Larry, impress/PDF three different versions of the script: "102N" "304F" and "291L". In this example, the commencement 3 digits are meaningless, only the N, F, and Fifty will remind you you lot sent the script to "Nicholl," "Festival," and "Larry."

Or, if that's also much ataxia on your title page, some other like shooting fish in a barrel, if not as hammy mode to do it is to simply modify a word or ii in the body of the script itself. For example, on folio xiv you might have a line that reads "Susan takes the gun." For the Nicholl, change "takes" to "grabs." For the festival, alter "takes" to "seizes." For Larry, modify the "takes" to "pockets." Make certain you remember, of form, which word is associated with which place you sent the script to.

And so, if the worst-case scenario comes true and your script gets purloined, and you subsequently detect your script online in a forum with a different title and a different writer taking credit for it, you can zip downward to folio 14 and look for that changed word. You'll know immediately which of the three venues you sent your script to was probably responsible for the leak/theft (or negligence which allowed the leak/theft.)

Going public with your script – Where to list it?

So you lot're ready to become your script out in that location. You've registered information technology with the WGA, you've copyrighted it, and yous've watermarked it or otherwise protected information technology so that you have some sort of recourse should the spec hitting the fan.

Now yous need a place to ship it to. And the way I see it, if y'all're looking to put your script online for the purposes of gaining exposure or access, or at least the potential thereof, you've got several choices, at least two of which I can recommend with, as I mentioned, a whole center: Inktip and The Black Listing.

InkTip (AKA Pay us $threescore for 4 months and peradventure a producer volition find your script in our directory and contact yous)

Is it just me, or are these guys a chip paranoid?

After almost 20 years existence in business reading scripts, and three requests to bring together InkTip, my production company has never been canonical as a Producer on Inktip, able to browse and search for new projects that I might want to buy or option. This, despite my credentials and despite my long history of working with screenwriters. And left without an explanation from Inktip, I can only assume the worst: the Inktipsies are worried that considering I'yard not but a producer, but I'm a producer that also runs a script reading business organization, that I'll become in and poach their users, or somehow lure them away from Inktip with my natural good looks (?)

Getting rejected from Inktip as a Producer has been a frightfully disappointing even so hilarious series of foibles, which usually plays out like this:

i) I sign up on Inktip with my production company, fully disclosing my real name and information, and the fact that I run a script coverage visitor, (in addition to my IMDB and credentials as a produced, distributed, viable contained feature movie writer, managing director, and producer).

2) I'm contacted by someone at Inktip who says "Hey at that place, how are you?" and "vets" me, I can only imagine. Cool. I'm all about it. Check me out on IMDB. Talk to who you need to talk to. Confirm that I'one thousand a real life working independent moving-picture show producer. (And the Inktip guys who vet me? Always nice. Always polite. The most recent time I was rejected, I was asked to provide references that would vouch for my character, which I did promptly, including 2 long-time Inktip producers.)

three) Crickets. That is, I mysteriously receive no invite and no follow up emails and my account is deleted.

So if you're thinking of listing a script on Inktip, in the hopes of attracting some sort of producer or interest in your piece of work, all I can say is exist careful. Do your homework and talk to people that take used information technology, and don't rely on Inktip to sell you lot on the details. Talk to third parties before you pay Inktip dime one.

Without access as a Producer to Inktip, I tin only, like the rest of u.s.a., read the mixed reviews and discussions out there in the webby-sphere. That, and trust my producer friends, who are able to utilize the site from the "Producer" side, when they say that there's a lot of, well, junk on Inktip to filter through, which doesn't always arrive a pleasant feel. To wit: Only one of my Producer friends has always optioned a script off of Inktip, in the hopes that the concept could exist tweaked to fit my Producer friend'due south slate. Ultimately, the author worked half-heartedly on the projection and my Producer friend had to let him go and dump the projection.

The Black List (AKA Pay usa $25/month and your script, if information technology'due south good enough, might get seen past the correct people)

I never used the Black List every bit a screenwriter, but I can say three things I know nigh them:

1) The guy who runs the shop responds very, very quickly whenever someone doubts the company or criticizes it on Reddit and other forums. To the point that the screenwriting Reddit at /r/screenwriting is basically just 1 big advert for The Black List, bearded every bit a discussion.

2) The opinion of The Black List by the people who utilize it seems to exist very mixed. Some seem to be dazzled past the thought of their script getting some attention while others seem genuinely displeased by the scoring and critique provided, or by the concept itself.

three) The lure of a quick Hollywood script auction is sexy, and that's what The Blackness List is selling, so naturally, they're  always popping up in blogs and in media, which causes a sort of cocky-fulfilling marketing loop for them.

Then accept a chance on Inktip? Or accept a take chances on The Blackness Listing?

Certain, it's a bit disappointing as a peer working in the screenwriting services industry to have my production squad continually refused admittance into Inktip equally a Producer only because I'chiliad a peer working in the screenwriting services industry. My thought is: if I wanted to "poach" Inktip's users (e.chiliad. contact all the screenwriters on Inktip and say "Hey! Come buy script consulting from me!"), quite simply, two things would happen:

ane) Any screenwriter with one-half a brain would say "Buzz off, wiggle! I'm not paying Inktip merely to accept some third party concern solicit me."

and 2) Inktip would spot any such transgression immediately and boot me.

Subsequently having giving them full disclosure upward front end on the multiple occasions over the years I respectfully requested access, information technology boggles my admittedly small mind that information technology hasn't ever occurred to Inktip that if I was truly interested, non in accessing Inktip as an indie producer in search of material for my companies, Brooklyn Reptyle and The Double Null Moving-picture show Concern, just in poaching their users for my script notes business, it would brand infinitely more sense for me to use a imitation name, or borrow a name from IMDB in guild to gain access, or at the very least not tell them that I run a script reading bu siness. For Christ's sake, people! Eat a pot brownie or something. Arctic. They're non coming to become you, Barbara.

So I can just conclude that, while I assume Inktip must be an alternative for some really desperate writers out in that location (and for some really depression-rung producers), Inktip must exist desperately agape of losing business organization somehow. And whatsoever business concern that afraid of losing business, or that paranoid, in my opinion, is probably non something I'm comfy throwing money at.

So if I had to… and I mean gun-to-the-head-had-to, cull betwixt Inktip and The Black List, I'd probably just tell them to shoot me. (I've led a good long life.) Whatever you choose, whether information technology's a paid site like The Black Listing or a costless site like Script Revolution or Script Mother, be conscientious. And watch out for basics. As I mentioned,  Inktip seems to be operating from a identify of pure, unmitigated terror when information technology comes to letting independent producers who happen to run script analysis companies into their site. And terror, my friends, is not sexy.

Simply ultimately, if I'm honest, I truly can't really recommend either of these paid companies, nor any other visitor that offers the potential of getting your script read and exposed in exchange for cash.

Selling services like script notes and feedback and helping writers, yes. Fifty-fifty script contests, yes. Merely selling the potential of admission and exposure, no.

Why? Considering…

The all-time way to make it as a screenwriter is still FREE

Information technology's a fine line betwixt getting your textile seen and protecting your intellectual belongings, at present more than ever. Before the internet, you'd have to manually retype a printed script, or steal a floppy disk, to pirate someone's screenplay. Now we've got all these new channels that make submitting your script to the film industry easier than ever, simply due to that same ease, everybody is doing it, making it way harder than ever before to break in.

If you're serious most making it, sure, you need to get your cloth read. Certain you need to go people excited about your scripts.

But remember, there's a whole world out at that place that'due south non the internet.

That is, the cardinal to getting seen, to getting your material read, might actually lie, non in the ease and convenience of submitting your script to Inktip or Black Listing or any other service, simply…

… with skilful old-fashioned persistence and face time.

What the online services promising to claw you upwardly with Hollywood access are selling basically comes down to ane matter: convenience. They're betting on you non wanting to put too much endeavor into getting read. They're betting on you preferring to type in a credit card over driving to LA and hoofing it on a film or two and so you tin see people and get your script onto desks. They're betting on you lot being so convinced that the merely way to make it in the film industry is to upload that PDF and pray y'all get a expert form.

The truth is, in that location are still many, many different roads to making it as a screenwriter, and as I said at the kickoff these new online "gatekeepers" are just another course of middle homo, continuing between you and what used to be the gatekeepers.

Why practice we autumn for it? Again, convenience. Ease. The promise of a possible good effect. And considering, I think, we've all forgotten what it ways to interact with actual human beings in a real concrete infinite. (Thank you internet!)

And now in that location'due south an entire generation of new screenwriters coming up that have no idea that the old analog ways even existed. To many of them, the only fashion into the industry is through the welcoming doors of the $25/month Black List, the $60 Inktip, or becoming a YouTube star by lighting their farts on fire.

But let me blazon information technology loud and clear:

Information technology's non about paying anybody for access or listing your script on some directory. It'south almost hard piece of work. And friends you help and who assist yous. And continually getting amend every bit a screenwriter.

And so save your greenbacks when it comes to buying exposure or admission. Relieve your cash and get out here and arrive front end of people, in person. Talk to them. Brand friends. Build alliances. Do favors. Piece of work on films. Somewhen, your material volition exist read. Even ameliorate, your experiences in the real world, as opposed to the virtual globe, will brand yous a stronger screenwriter, boosting your chances even further that your material will be not just read, but liked.

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Source: https://www.screenplayreaders.com/blacklist-inktip/

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