What are some major tips to get my script read by the industry?

by Matt Misetich (General Manager)
October, 2008

#1: Write a Logline that Pops. 
 
What does that mean?  Well, don’t get too wordy with loglines.  Keep them short, but ultra descriptive.  Between the following two loglines, which one sounds better?
 
--Two police officers who used to go to school together back in Colorado where they played baseball are forced to reconcile their past problems in order to fight off a child killer preying upon children in their small town.
 
--Parker and Blake, baseball teammates and friends until a falling out years ago, must band together as small-town officers to hunt down a vicious child killer during a brutal Oklahoma heat wave.
 
 Just remember to keep it short and snappy, keeping only the plot elements you know are absolutely vital.  In this case, that these two men were friends, had a falling out, and now must come together again to stop a child killer, set against a somewhat original setting.

#2: Know Who You’re Submitting To
 
Tailor your queries as much as possible to whomever you're submitting to.  This means you have to do your research.  If a production company’s library of films is all horror, don’t submit your animated comedy.  This just frustrates everyone involved—you, as a writer, won’t get a response, and they, as producers, will feel like they wasted their time on reading your query.  Look into the company or manager you’re submitting to as deep as you can.  Over half have websites, you could check the films a company’s released on IMDB. . . lots of ways to go about writing a genuine and well-thought-out query.  Also, if you send queries to large studios they often don’t read material from unrepresented writers, and you’ll just be expending energy and time that could be placed elsewhere. Script Pimp's Writers Database has also helped writers a great deal here by narrowing down criteria such as genre and budget.
 
There are plenty more tips to include here, but if you follow these basic three, you’ll have a huge jump on the competition.