So Many Script Consultants; So Much...

Screenwriting Myths: “There are so many consultants, and they’re all the same!”

? One of the services we provide our network, gratis, is collecting and posting various paid screenwriting jobs and script search opportunities.

Occasionally, we like to highlight the more “questionable” opportunities.

1) Recently, a company known only as “Eccentric Stories” promoted a script contest and advertised that it provides monthly winners of $500 cash and “guaranteed representation”.

• Their website advertises “Introductions to Agents, Producers and Executives”- seemingly every screenwriter’s dream- or nightmare, if you aren’t careful.
• Prominent in their first sentence of their home page is the claim “Take your Chance to be the next Academy Award winner discovered by Eccentric Stories”. Now, I’m ALWAYS wary of any contest or writing service that boosts unsubstantiated claims of “Academy Award- level” success. If you have the chance to be the NEXT one, wouldn’t that imply there was a first one? If so, who and what was the first one? No such back-up claim exists, unfortunately.

2) Other signs of a not-too-legitimate service/contest or screenwriting service-

• The level of writing skill demonstrated on the site itself. This site, for example, has every other word capitalized, and some bad grammar and punctuation issues. It looks to have been written by a fifteen-year-old girl, using her smart phone.
• The biggest “red flag” on sites like these is the fact that there is absolutely nobody advertised as being associated with them- no site owners, no website managers, and no judges- nothing.

3) Another technique some services promote is the “literary manager” hook; This is a claim by a certain party indicating that they are accepting materials to be considered for “literary management”. As a screenwriter or a novelist, most of us look for these types of announcements and do not hesitate in responding to them, especially when presented by a known agency.

• We discovered one such arrangement, whereby the submitted materials were forwarded to their “literary management consultant"- who was nothing more than a screenwriting consultant. If your submission didn’t pass muster (and I doubt any of them do first time around), don’t fret: for $50,000, and their help, this consultant will get your script to the point where they can "guarantee representation" (from their OWN company)!

?Now, this is NOT wild speculation on our part, as we have the many email exchanges to support this. We were alerted to this scheme by readers of this newsletter, and they thought something wasn’t right. In fact, this writer felt “used, and taken advantage of”. They had a concept they felt would be perfect for Oprah and her production company, and when they contacted Harpo Productions, they were told they needed to have agent representation to be considered. They found this “talent agency”, who specialized in child actors, but were also promoting their new “literary management team”. The writers contacted the agency, who, in turn, passed them on to “Andy Rodman”, a “script broker”. He has a website, where he claims NOT to be an agent, but can get your script to the place where they can “guarantee agent representation”.

Well, of course they can- for $50,000.

Well, these writers contacted Mr. Rodman, and they shared their story about Harpo Productions having interest in their concept, but they required representation. Mr. Rodman then made all sorts of claims of being in regular contact with Harpo about this concept. One of his emails even included the following:

“FADE OUT P. 131—Just finished. Wow! You should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! Let's make an offer to this Brit to buy this script as is and employ (Perhaps myself and my partner, in order to keep the outlay reasonable, and turn it into a workable viable produce-able movie). Anyway, we are happy and proud to represent him through our agency.”

More about Mr. Rodman in an upcoming issue.

Next Week: Ten (10) Tips on Finding the Best Screenwriting Companies or Consultants.

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WRITER'S BIO:?Geno Scala spent 24-plus years in the Hollywood community and was the?Executive Director?for the?72nd Annual Academy Awards, as well as?The Soul Train Awards,?The Grammys,?The Blockbuster Video Awards Show?and?The Saturn Award Show.?

He is adapting several books into screenplays, including "Firestorm" by Solange Ritchie, "Escapes" by Vic DiMartino (now called "The Podesta"), and an original concept for Regi Hendrix, cousin to Jimi Hendrix, about Jimi's first major hit "Hey, Joe". Geno has multiple produced projects currently on Tubi and Prime, including?"Assassin 33 A.D.", "Black Easter"?and?"The Tombs", and his screenplay "Fight Fire with Fist" is fully financed ($16.4M) with actors Liam Hemsworth and Samuel L. Jackson attached.