Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

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  • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

    Originally posted by CthulhuRises View Post
    Perhaps you should use some of that Black List 3.0 money to invest in a dictionary.

    "a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person."

    The circumstance being that the script was given to a reader who gave it an 8 the second time around. Again, what if he chose to not purchase a second read? According to your system, the script would not have been worthy if he had not bought another read. Seems to be a bit of a game of chance. Buy 5 reads...if your script is pretty good, it's bound to get an 8 on one of your rolls. Might be a 6, 6, 5, 7, and 8. But hey, all you need is one 8 for that script to be "better" than a script with one 7.
    But the operative word (quite literally in this case) is chance, not circumstance.

    It wasn't chance that made the person rate that script an 8. It was the fact that the writer wrote a script that the reader responded to. To claim that it's chance does a great disservice to the writer who wrote a script that elicited a reaction in our reader. It suggests that every script written or every script submitted would eventually elicit such a reaction if it just found the right reader. And more importantly, that suggestion is just flat wrong. There are plenty of writers who that have paid for two, three, even seven reads at this point, and never so much as gotten above a rating of five.

    I'm sure at this point you're going to counter that it was chance that routed this script to this reader, and sure, on some level, chance dictates every aspect of our lives. But that's a fool's argument, and it doesn't discount the fact that that script moved that reader to that score, which is what we're looking for.

    And as for what would have happened if he hadn't bought that second read, well, I'm sure he would have pursued other avenues and may have found success with them. I'm not sure what you could possibly expect us to do to address this possible concern beyond forcing everyone to buy multiple reads to start in order to have more data points. We opted to give writers the power to make their own decisions. I'm happy with that decision.

    Comment


    • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

      Originally posted by Manchester View Post
      Michael, if you're gonna take exception to what I wrote, at least take exception to what I actually wrote.

      I wrote: "If you want to sell a script to Joel Silver, you write one based on what kind of script he wants."

      Did your client sell that script to Joel Silver? No? QED.

      I do appreciate that a well-done script can get someone work. Even with Joel Silver. I didn't question that. "Just to make this absolutely clear", as you said, nothing I wrote questioned that. I didn't imply what you seemed to have inferred. So to mangle some metaphors, you're tilting at a straw man.

      I wrote if you want to medal in Olympic Greco-Roman wrestling, don't train for freestyle wrestling. Similarly, if you want to write a script that Joel Silver will buy, try to get a good idea of what Joel Silver wants to buy. OTOH, if your goal is simply to impress Joel Silver with a well-written script so that he might hire you to write a different script, then do that.

      To reiterate my overall point: If you want to succeed in a marketplace, know the marketplace. If you want to sell X to customer Y, know what customer Y wants.
      I was speaking to the generality of quality material being found and shared.

      When I send out a script, I know who are the right producers and who are the wrong ones.

      For the black list, for the ones featured on the sites "top unproduced scripts" or "top uploaded scripts" there is no specificity, so it doesn't matter, as the "customer" is Hollywood as a whole.

      Best,

      MB
      twitter.com/mbotti

      Comment


      • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

        It would be interesting to see some genre related data, as to what's making up the pie chart.
        It's the eye of the Tiger, it's the thrill of the fight

        Comment


        • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

          As that writer, look, let's be realistic. Reads are a subjective endeavor no matter the level. Though at first I took the 3 to mean it as a judgment on the quality of the script, as Franklin explains above, the rating is more accurately described as how likely the reader is to recommend the script. (I still encourage him to put this in the FAQ if it hasn't been done already for the writers' benefit). Another reader rated it an 8, which got the script a lot of looks, and so these two scores mirrors the variance of its performance in contests, which had some early round dinks and some finals.

          Look, you may get a writer who "gets" your script, you may not, but the best way to hedge getting a good score is to write a great script. In other words, no lackluster script is ever going to get an 8 or above. My advice is get a couple reads, see where your script stands, and then you can make an informed decision.

          Comment


          • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

            Originally posted by Jules View Post
            It would be interesting to see some genre related data, as to what's making up the pie chart.
            It's coming. Likely Tuesday, maybe Monday.

            Comment


            • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

              Originally posted by michaelb View Post
              Just to make this absolutely clear, what you said above is incorrect.
              Originally posted by Manchester View Post
              Michael, if you're gonna take exception to what I wrote, at least take exception to what I actually wrote.
              Originally posted by michaelb View Post
              I was speaking to the generality of quality material being found and shared.
              Oh, OK then. Apology accepted. Thanks.

              .

              Comment


              • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                Got my second review and the second 7.

                Story of my life: "Yes, this is nice, quite good! Good-bye."

                That said, both reviews contained quite valuable notes.
                And the premise is 8 this time, so I'm making a progress ;-)

                Comment


                • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                  Franklin, the top BL script - MCCARTHY - has an average rating of 7.5. Yes, I know it's great and the writer is got repped by CAA! Yay!

                  I'm assuming it started out with an 8+ rating, which meant it was featured on the weekly email to reps, and then with 20+ average ratings, some obviously lower than 8, the average went down to a number that would not get it included on the weekly email - 7.5.

                  If a script receives 2 paid readings and gets 8s by Tues., the day after the email went out, and then receives a bunch more ratings that brings the average down to 7, does that script still get included in the email the following Monday if technically the rating is now less than 8?
                  "Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." -[/SIZE] James R. Cook

                  Comment


                  • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                    There's a lot of nitpicking going on here, which is IMO pretty pointless. This is a system designed by people which is intended to achieve a specific goal; providing access to the Hollywood system to scripts which may otherwise not have a shot. I think you need to judge a system by how well it performs its mission, not so much by process. Because it is designed by humans, and the success of individual clients is in part determined by subjective taste, it will never be perfect. There will always be scripts that slip through the cracks. That doesn't mean the system is badly designed.

                    It is, IMO, simply the best of its kind in existence.

                    Doesn't mean that it can't be improved, but it would be great to see people post ideas for improvement rather than hectoring criticisms which have nothing to do with improvement of the system.

                    Lastly, people talk about the BL 3.0 being a money making venture. Well, no ****. I would love to hear about any screenwriting contest administrators out there who work for free.

                    It's a service, a paid one, because it requires human labor to function, nothing wrong there.

                    Comment


                    • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                      Originally posted by JoJo View Post
                      Franklin, the top BL script - MCCARTHY - has an average rating of 7.5. Yes, I know it's great and the writer is got repped by CAA! Yay!

                      I'm assuming it started out with an 8+ rating, which meant it was featured on the weekly email to reps, and then with 20+ average ratings, some obviously lower than 8, the average went down to a number that would not get it included on the weekly email - 7.5.

                      If a script receives 2 paid readings and gets 8s by Tues., the day after the email went out, and then receives a bunch more ratings that brings the average down to 7, does that script still get included in the email the following Monday if technically the rating is now less than 8?
                      Great question, the 8 from our paid readers is what triggers the inclusion in our email. A script can get an 8 from our readers, get downloaded during the week, get a series of 2s from other raters, and still be included in our email.

                      As a side note, if your script maintains an average of 8 over multiple ratings, you're in very good shape.

                      Comment


                      • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                        Also,

                        From Deadline this morning:

                        Black List Makes First Website Discovery: 'McCarthy' Screenwriter Signs With CAA

                        http://bit.ly/WgEQsG

                        Well maybe these things really do work. The Black List announced today the first success story from its month-old new online pay service for unrepresented screenwriters to have their work analyzed by industry professionals. Last week, Justin Kremer, formerly an assistant at Black Bear Pictures, signed with CAA based on his screenplay McCarthy chronicling the rise of Senator Joe McCarthy's anti-Communist fervor. Kremer uploaded his script to the site on October 19, four days after launch, and paid for a single read from a Black List reader. When the screenplay got a high score, it was included in the site's weekly member email spotlighting its highest rated scripts. After dozens of downloads from Black List industry members and more ratings from those who read it, McCarthy became the site's highest rated uploaded script.

                        Kremer, who attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and graduated from the Dramatic Writing Conservatory at the State University of New York/Purchase, said in a statement that "the script had been completed for some time and was collecting dust in a drawer. I submitted McCarthy to the Black List site out of sheer curiosity, and entered the process with absolutely no expectations.- He describes the response as "incredible- and says that "none of this would have been possible without the Black List site-. Explained Blck List founder Franklin Leonard, -He's a hell of a writer whose great work simply hadn't been exposed prior to his uploading it to our site. This is, simply put, why we created it.- Since the Black List launched its pay service on October 15th, over 1,100 screenplays have been uploaded.

                        Comment


                        • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                          Originally posted by FranklinLeonard View Post
                          Great question, the 8 from our paid readers is what triggers the inclusion in our email. A script can get an 8 from our readers, get downloaded during the week, get a series of 2s from other raters, and still be included in our email.

                          As a side note, if your script maintains an average of 8 over multiple ratings, you're in very good shape.
                          Thanks! Good to know (as I anxiously await my scores!)
                          "Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again." -[/SIZE] James R. Cook

                          Comment


                          • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                            Hi Franklin,

                            I read the entire thread... I'm so exhausted, but I think I have a good grasp of your platform. I have several questions, though, and thanks for taking the time:

                            1. If a writer pays to host for a month, then skips X months, and then pays for a fresh month-- will the reader-comments and ratings still be there when the writer hosts again, unchanged? I guess the Part B question is, how many months can you skip hosting before info is deleted, if deleted at all?

                            2. Someone asked earlier, but I don't think I saw a response-- does the search function allow your Pro members to search for scripts by contest awards/placements? Also, when Pro members view an entry, will they see contest awards/placements, even if they didn't do a search for it?

                            3. I read the back-and-forth about the first $25 hosting period overlapping with the $50 reading period, and how that's kind of a "dead time" that the script has while waiting for the rating. I know you've said that it isn't dead time, and some people said that it is... but to beat on the point...

                            I think the suggestion in the previous posts was that writers should get the rating first, so that they could decide whether or not to host it for an additional $25... but instead, how about just charging a flat fee that first month of $75 and starting the hosting period when the rating is submitted (or making that optional for the writer vs the way it is currently)?

                            imo, either way, it's $75. The difference is:
                            -one way, the writer gets 1 or 2 weeks of hosting during which Pros can view their paid reader-rating.
                            -the other way, the writer gets 4 weeks, starting when the reader submits his/her rating.

                            Money is tight, I embarrass myself every time I talk about how much I'm struggling, but I am, and I know I'm not the only one struggling... so if I can make $25 last 2 more weeks, that's really a big deal for someone like me.

                            4. Sorry, more about money-- will you consider any economies of scale discounts? Package deals, etc? Like 3reads/2months = X% discount? I think it'd be great to have incentives for writers to take advantage of this service.

                            5. Any surcharge on reads for a longer script?

                            6. Readers reading by genre is clearly better for both the reader and the writer... since it gives a best possible outcome/pairing. In that same vein, of getting that best match between reader/writer-- would it be feasible to include in the writers' interface a check-off list of sorts?... regarding some general parameters about preferred readers? I'm obviously not asking for personal info about your readers, but a loose set of qualifiers, like age range, education b.g., gender, etc... just general stuff? (I know readers tend to be of an age group, etc, anyway, but if you could break down that demographic further, in broad strokes...)

                            If writers could set some basic parameters about the readers they prefer (prefer, not guaranteed), I think that would be helpful in pairing material w/a reader who would be more appreciative/cognizant of the subject matter. I ask b/c I read a post in regards to some BL readers being young... and I'm afraid of young people... specifically when it comes to stuff with a technical or an historical context. I'm just afraid they might not have a strong grasp of some types of material, just by the nature of having less world-experience/knowledge... (I think the argument "as long as the writing is strong and clear" is valid to some extent, but when it comes to something that's just over their heads... ie, if the reader only knew generalizations about American civil war, s/he might think a script was taking creative license if there were scenes about the pro-slavery riots in the north... or if the reader has no grasp of history at all... things of this nature)

                            Imo, having some dimension of these qualifiers will better the probability that the material won't be overlooked... albeit, better the probability only as much as the qualifiers are specific... but even a little bit counts.




                            Lots of questions, sorry to shotgun like this, but I figure it's better just to put it out and let you answer on your own time. And thanks again for spending time to answer everyone's questions.

                            Comment


                            • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                              Originally posted by FranklinLeonard View Post
                              Also,

                              From Deadline this morning:

                              Black List Makes First Website Discovery: ‘McCarthy’ Screenwriter Signs With CAA

                              http://bit.ly/WgEQsG

                              Well maybe these things really do work. The Black List announced today the first success story from its month-old new online pay service for unrepresented screenwriters to have their work analyzed by industry professionals. Last week, Justin Kremer, formerly an assistant at Black Bear Pictures, signed with CAA based on his screenplay McCarthy chronicling the rise of Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist fervor. Kremer uploaded his script to the site on October 19, four days after launch, and paid for a single read from a Black List reader. When the screenplay got a high score, it was included in the site’s weekly member email spotlighting its highest rated scripts. After dozens of downloads from Black List industry members and more ratings from those who read it, McCarthy became the site’s highest rated uploaded script.

                              Kremer, who attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated from the Dramatic Writing Conservatory at the State University of New York/Purchase, said in a statement that “the script had been completed for some time and was collecting dust in a drawer. I submitted McCarthy to the Black List site out of sheer curiosity, and entered the process with absolutely no expectations.” He describes the response as “incredible” and says that “none of this would have been possible without the Black List site”. Explained Blck List founder Franklin Leonard, ”He’s a hell of a writer whose great work simply hadn’t been exposed prior to his uploading it to our site. This is, simply put, why we created it.” Since the Black List launched its pay service on October 15th, over 1,100 screenplays have been uploaded.
                              Congratulations Franklin, that's an enormous achievement this short into the life of BL 3.0.

                              I think a lot of us are really impressed with how you not only threw yourself into the deep end of questions, comments, and criticism here, but have managed to stick around some 1,000+ posts later (including all the BL threads). It is readily apparent how passionate you are about finding great writers and great scripts. My hat is off to you, sir.
                              "Write every day. Don't quit. The rest is all bullshit." - Brian Koppelman

                              Comment


                              • Re: Black List founder Franklin Leonard answers your questions about the Black List

                                Originally posted by Hamboogul View Post

                                Over the last six months, I had around 100 introductory meetings where studios and producers pitched me tentpole franchises, Robert Ludlum and Ray Bradbury novels, graphic novels, network and cable TV, etc.
                                I'm curious about what you mean when you said "studios and producers pitched me..." Were these assignments they offered you? Or were you invited to "take meetings" where you pitched your ideas on how to adapt something, and did you have to prepare a leave behind?

                                Sign me,
                                Confused

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