GLOSSARY OF TERMS

 THE PITCH

Telling someone the idea for a movie.

There is no standard "pitch " but if you are a professional screenwriter you will develop a means by which you can interest a studio executive in your project. At the top end of the scale this might mean hiring actors, developing powerpoint presentations, and displaying storyboards and singing the theme tune. There are stories of insane writers bouncing off the walls enacting entire movies with all the roles, the songs, the dance movies and do everything bar eat fire, and only then because the sprinkler systems would interrupt the flow.

In IDEATOSALE the pitch is simply a one page description of your project. You might tell us the plot, you might tell us the concept and characters, or just the subject matter. Whatever you do, do not be boring. If it is funny, make the pitch funny. If it is sad, make us cry.

THE TREATMENT

There are no standards for this either but a lot of grants bodies require a twelve page, present tense, outline of the story. This document is as much about selling the movie as it is an aid to writing. And often one writes these documents after one has written a draft of the script. 

For our purposes though the treatment is an aid to the writing. We recommend that you write a treatment, telling the story as visually as possible, and outlining what happens in each act. The length of this outline can be anywhere between six and twenty odd pages.

THE FIRST DRAFT SCRIPT

This is a much abused term. It means the first draft that you present to a producer but it might actually have been the twentieth rewrite of the script. For our purposes here it is the script that you feel ready to get some feedback on.  

NOTES

An editor or script executive will read a draft of the scripts and give "notes". These notes will be his thoughts on what he liked and did not like about the script. He will make suggestions for changes and factor into this process thoughts on the castibility of the script and the costs.

When our tutors make notes they are more concerned with making the script as good as possible and with giving notes that will help the writer achieve this aim. 

THE FINAL DRAFT SCRIPT

Once again, another much abused term. There is no final draft until the movie has been made, but for our purposes this is the script that you consider worth sending to a producer.

COVERAGE

Studio heads rarely read scripts, but they often quickly look through the "coverage." These are readers reports on scripts and as such are ruthless and basic. They will outline the story and genre and if they think it is worth a read, they will highlight the selling points. The documents they produce are known as "coverage". Professional Coverage is not designed to help a writer write better. It is designed to help a jaded studio executive make a decision whether to actually look at a script or not.

We will give you a sample of the coverage that you might expect and a little extra in the form of an interpretation of what it means.

A RECOMMEND

This is what you are looking for in the coverage. If your script receive a "recommend" we will take a close look at it and try to find some representation, i.e. an agent, and maybe try find a producer to option it.

OPTION

A producer options a script by paying a small amount of money in order to have the right to try and find the financing to make the script into a movie. Often the option will last only a few months after which if the film production is not underway you will have the right to sell it to someone else.