After the initial near blunder, the rest of the consultation for my script of Dig Down went smoothly. It also went about as good as I ever could have expected, let alone ask for.
The judge who I was on the call with told me it was a real pleasure reading my script, and that one of the biggest problems he had with it was that in doing these competitions, screenplays like this only came along once every month or so, so he jokingly blamed me that it would be another month before he read something so solid.
He also relayed that this was going to be a different type of call than what he was used to for these consultations. They are pricey, but they are open to anyone who doesn’t mind spending the cash for them. The high cost, theoretically, should weed out scripts that aren’t polished, as you could get the feedback from this very competition for much cheaper. Apparently that isn’t typical, at least for this contest’s judge, as he stated that for some calls, they’re going over the basics of formatting.
That still blows me away. I get wanting feedback on your screenplay, that’s why I entered this contest, but again, they offered a variety of services, many much cheaper than this alternative. Yes, you wouldn’t get a phone consultation in those meetings, but why not get a sense of where you stood before plunking down this kind of cash.
I know the answer though – most people don’t know what they don’t know. They might not realize how far off target they are from where they need to be. And from the judge’s comment that sometimes he’s spending time arguing with them about formatting basics, it sounds like people don’t always want to believe they’re that far off, even when they’re told.
Another positive was that the judge said my script had everything. As I alluded to in earlier posts, the reason it was taking so long to get the notes turned out to be because they really liked it. That didn’t mean that there still wasn’t areas to improve (I’ll get into that in the next post), but that any notes needed to be thought out beyond the surface level (like formatting) to really elevate the screenplay to the next level. The judge said that all the elements were there for what people were looking for in a movie, now it was just about bringing them out in the best way.
With the focus on positive feedback, I found myself more and more relaxed as the phone call went on, which helped me feel comfortable in discussing points about the script. The concern I had going into the consultation that I wouldn’t be able to thoughtful responses to questions – that evaporated within moments after the early near faux paus, as I felt at ease the rest of the meeting.
A great example of this was his question about the name of the script, and whether it should be changed. While I didn’t necessarily have the sales at that time to insist that the story had name recognition, I went into the different layers that the title held for me, and this actually helped shape an idea to give it a film noir element (more on this in the coming posts). The conversation went for two and a half hours before it started to wind down, and at no point was there a shortage of discussion on ideas to improve the script further.
I think we could have kept talking longer, but he did have another consultation to prepare for. And to be honest, as much as he may have enjoyed my story, even I can see there’s only so long someone else can have the interest to discuss it. But as we were wrapping up the call, he did reiterate that because of this level of feedback and consultation, I had the ability to make revisions as I saw fit (another great thing about this contest, and working with editors, they’ve never tried to mold the story into what they want, they’ve always just made suggestions for what they feel could help improve the story I want to tell) and resubmit, up to the contests deadline, and ended the call with something that conveyed he had faith in me as a writer.
“I’m looking forward to reading the revisions.”