Spec Scout

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  • #91
    Re: Spec Scout

    It is my understanding - which I admit could be wrong, especially since I have no credentials to back up my opinions - that spec scripts are routinely 'covered' with comments circulated on private tracking boards - the ones writers have no access to whatsoever.
    This is a good opportunity to clear up this misconception -- w/r/t scripts and writers, the vast vast vast majority of private tracking boards don't discuss opinions beyond "I liked it" or "We aren't buying it." They all talk about who they're bringing in for a meeting -- on my last round of generals, I met with almost every member of at least two boards. It's funny when they ask who else you've met with and you mention a few names and they give knowing nods or "Yeah, Alex told me he really liked you." They don't post coverage -- that's proprietary. It's mostly banal business stuff and gossip -- what fund has this amount of money, who's going to which festival, that kind of thing.

    They certainly *do* talk about scripts they've read and which ones they liked and which ones they don't, but usually in person -- and they're always meeting up with each other, mixers or lunch or parties at the aforementioned festivals or markets. This is a face-to-face business.

    But the idea of a script being killed because one person on a tracking board said it sucked is false. Each board just isn't that large

    I also know - and this is fact - that a well know tracking board open to subscription by anyone, routinely posts current scripts, and often has comments also posted, some of which can be pretty brutal.
    I agree with 8bit -- the forums at tracking-board rarely involve opinions, and are the opposite of what could be considered influential.

    I've already been blocked on twitter and had my account at tracking-board dot com suspended for expressing even the vaguest of criticisms, which don't even include this one:

    tracking-board dot com charges for access to their forums, where spec and pre-production scripts are traded, which is ****ing ridiculous. Leaving aside the ethics of reading scripts which haven't been produced, how can it be ok for someone to charge for access to scripts they don't own?

    Perhaps the head of tracking-board, who has posted here recently, would like to respond.

    Comment


    • #92
      Re: Spec Scout

      Scoggins, I'll wait until you implement the opt-out policy on your website. I'd like to see you follow through with that rather pick out the specific writers who don't want to be included in Spec Scout.

      Thanks.

      And oh yeah -- Please don't try to make me feel like a crying, boo-hoo victim of the Abbott Management / Spec Scout coverage system. My spec was a first draft that was used to lock down some generals. Surprisingly, a few of those execs wanted that script. It was NEVER tracked (I'm a member at the same tracking board you plucked your info from) and NEVER circulated wide. People passed it on, talked about it, etc., but in private. Basically, it was announced that the spec was acquired, you guys grab the draft, and have your three "industry pro readers" do coverage on it. There was no scouting there. The script was already through the system.

      Comment


      • #93
        Re: Spec Scout

        Hi Jason,

        I have a script that is logged on the site, that I never paid coverage/nor uploaded. It has five different loglines written in the preview window of the coverage sneak-peek. Am I to assume that it got reviewed five times? And not three?

        And what does a writer do to leverage this information for your site? If I pay for three reviews does that mean it now potentially gets covered eight times, which naturally sounds excessive...

        The script also made The Hit List 2012.

        EJ

        Comment


        • #94
          Re: Spec Scout

          Did I miss the This Thread is Closed memo?

          Midnite

          Comment


          • #95
            Re: Spec Scout

            I just skimmed this long-ish thread and I didn't notice any actual success stories based on good Spec Scout ratings.

            Are there any?

            Seems like with SS, the BL, etc. that's where the rubber hits the road...
            "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

            Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

            Comment


            • #96
              Re: Spec Scout

              Our latest draft and rw is complete, and will be hitting many of them (lists,contests) simultaneously. I have been waiting since August to get it done and out. We got it where we want it now. SpecScout WILL be one of the 5 we choose.
              • Go and do likewise gents..

              Comment


              • #97
                Re: Spec Scout

                Originally posted by LauriD View Post
                I just skimmed this long-ish thread and I didn't notice any actual success stories based on good Spec Scout ratings.

                Are there any?

                Seems like with SS, the BL, etc. that's where the rubber hits the road...
                Laurie, WL on there?
                • Go and do likewise gents..

                Comment


                • #98
                  Re: Spec Scout

                  Originally posted by Bitter Script Reader View Post
                  I'm seeing disturbing echoes between this and ScriptShadow. Though that might be unfair as Carson doesn't charge for access to his reviews.
                  Indeed. This service seems far worse than even the most negative assessment of SS.

                  At least in the case of ScriptShadow when SS was reviewing specs, a writer could ask that his script not be reviewed and it wouldn't be reviewed, or if it was reviewed, he could ask for the review to be pulled and it would be pulled.

                  Plus, as BSR points out, Carson's revenue only came from ads (which, in my experience at least, yield minimal returns).

                  And at the very least, at SS, a writer could see the review of his own script.

                  But SpecScout, it seems:

                  1. Reviews scripts whether the writers like it or not.

                  2. Does not pull reviews at the writer's request.

                  3. Directly profits off the labor of scriptwriters by charging access, then doesn't give any money back to the scriptwriters whose scripts (being reviewed) give SpecScout its only broadly notable content.

                  4. Doesn't even allow screenwriters to see the reviews of their own scripts!

                  Unless I'm reading something wrong, this service seems utterly horrible.
                  Last edited by karsten; 01-23-2013, 06:14 AM.

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Re: Spec Scout

                    This whole thing is very, very shady.
                    Chicks Who Script podcast

                    Comment


                    • Re: Spec Scout

                      Originally posted by karsten View Post
                      .

                      3. Directly profits off the labor of scriptwriters by charging access, then doesn't give any money back to the scriptwriters whose scripts (being reviewed) give SpecScout its only broadly notable content.
                      Exactly what has been in my mind. Charging people for access to a script that you don't own is beyond what even ScriptShadow had the nerve to do.

                      Comment


                      • Re: Spec Scout

                        Originally posted by ChristopherCurtis View Post
                        Laurie, WL on there?
                        no. i was thinking about it, which led me to this thread.
                        "People who work in Hollywood are the ones who didn't quit." -- Lawrence Kasdan

                        Please visit my website and blog: www.lauridonahue.com.

                        Comment


                        • Re: Spec Scout

                          I think I caught Geoff saying he doesn't have access to the site here, but he did get a referral from a clients script hosted/capture with their date that led to a lead.

                          Curious if MichaelB or any assistants or reps that lurk also have membership to this site and what they think of it as users?

                          EJ

                          Comment


                          • Re: Spec Scout

                            Have any writers used Spec Scout? Opinion, results?

                            Have they addressed all the issues previously posted here?

                            Did, noticed they raised the minimum score to be listed on the site from 60 to 70.

                            Comment


                            • Re: Spec Scout

                              Hi, all. My apologies for going quiet after the invigorating exchange during the holidays. I'll be more attentive to this thread going forward. In the meantime, I thought I'd re-start the conversation by giving an update on the changes we made to Spec Scout in the wake of that conversation. I'll stay high level for this post and get as granular as you want in my replies. And please forgive me in advance for the lengthy post.

                              As a reminder, there are three basic facets to SpecScout:

                              - We're tracking the spec market on a daily basis, and basic project info is free to anyone who comes to the site on a day to day basis;

                              - We're doing coverage on scripts that hit the spec market, which includes our Spec Scout Score, and making that coverage available in one place (i.e., in our coverage library, available to our pro subscribers for a monthly fee); and

                              - We're providing a paid coverage service to writers using the same rubric and scoring system we apply to spec market scripts. Writer clients whose scripts score above a 68 on our 1 to 100 point scale are invited to be included in the coverage library for no additional fee. (The cutoff was 70 for a while, but we changed it to 68 for reasons I explain below.)

                              Each script we cover is read and reviewed by three separate readers who, in addition to having significant experience doing coverage before they start working with us, a) have been trained by us by reading and covering literally dozens of scripts before their work is available on our site or through our paid service, and b) use a very lengthy (45+ page) and very granular rubric we developed in order to make sure they're all reviewing the material the same way. In addition to providing an overall Pass/Consider/Recommend-style rating, they evaluate 10 individual attributes of the script and provide ratings for each on a 1-to-5 scale. Our algorithm calculates those scores into a single number on a 1-to-100 scale, and the Spec Scout Score is the average of the three readers' scores.

                              To clear up a misconception I noticed above, subscribers cannot download scripts from our site. We're not charging for access to scripts. We're not a script library in any sense of the term. Our subscribers are paying for access to a library of coverage. When subscribers are interested in material they discover on our site, we put them in touch with the agent or manager or writer directly.

                              Another misconception I noticed is the idea that we're covering random drafts of scripts that are already in development around town, the way ScriptShadow reviews material in development, for example. We're not. We're only covering the drafts of scripts that were originally sent into the marketplace, and we're doing this because we think its a useful service in and of itself but also so we can compare apples to apples, if you will, between those scripts and the material submitted for our paid coverage service. This way, we can credibly recommend high-scoring scripts from our paid coverage service.

                              Here's the single biggest change we made to the site in the wake of the earlier conversation in this thread: We're suppressing scores and coverage comments for all scripts that score below a 68 on our 1 to 100 scale. This goes not just for the public site, which anyone can see, but also behind our paywall, which is only accessible to agents, managers, producers, executives and their ilk.

                              Practically speaking, any script that scores above 60 is actually quite good -- it means that each of our three readers have given it an overall "Consider" rating along with solid scores in the individual categories. That said, a score of 68 turns out to be the point at which negative comments in our coverage disappear, replaced by constructive comments about ways to make an already good script better. And that, to quote myself, is in line with our mission to highlight the best stuff out there.

                              We've also implemented (but not yet widely publicized) an opt-out policy in response to earlier suggestions. Any writer (or rep) whose script's scores and comments are visible on the site (because it's scored above a 68) may request that we suppress those scores and comments. We won't delete the project from our database, since that would undermine our tracking activities, but we're happy to suppress comments and scores on a case-by-case basis.

                              I was initially worried that the lack of a score would signal that a given project is by definition a bad script and thus cause harm. So far, that doesn't seem to be a problem in practice, since a) our coverage of spec market scripts currently lags the market by several weeks, thanks to the load on our readers from paid script submissions, b) we don't have access to every single script that hits the market, and c) we don't indicate which scripts have been opted-out. We'll be keeping an eye on this going forward to make sure the dynamic doesn't shift.

                              ...and I think that's enough for this post. I'll do a better job of lurking on the threads in the days to come to respond to questions, slings and arrows.
                              Jason Scoggins

                              http://www.specscout.com

                              or for that matter

                              http://www.scogginsreport.com

                              Comment


                              • Re: Spec Scout

                                Originally posted by EJ Pennypacker View Post
                                Hi Jason,

                                I have a script that is logged on the site, that I never paid coverage/nor uploaded. It has five different loglines written in the preview window of the coverage sneak-peek. Am I to assume that it got reviewed five times? And not three?

                                And what does a writer do to leverage this information for your site? If I pay for three reviews does that mean it now potentially gets covered eight times, which naturally sounds excessive...

                                The script also made The Hit List 2012.

                                EJ
                                Love to hear your thoughts on this Jason

                                EJ

                                Comment

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