Wednesday, July 19, 2006

What are your thoughts on querying production companies with a spec script without having an agent? Is it a complete waste of time? Should the approach be different than an agent query?

I've covered this in my book Crafty Screenwriting, but the headline is: it's not a waste of time. Back when I was a development exec, I read stuff based on query letters, and I'm sure I wasn't the only development exec who did. (I am not sure I optioned any, but that's a function of how few scripts we optioned.) There's no real difference between a query addressed to a development exec and one addressed to an agent, except that you're looking for a sale or option, not representation.

However, you should try your damnedest to get an agent first.

What I don't know much about is whether most queries are done by email now. The last time I worked in feature development was, oh, seven years ago. Back then queries were mostly by mail, and scripts were mostly sent by paper. Would those readers of this blog who work at production companies and agencies kindly comment about whether they'd rather get a query by email now? And whether they're okay with people sending in scripts by email?

Labels: breaking in, queries

7:16 AM

1 Comments:

To test, I did a big query by snail mail (about 200 letters) and a big query by email.

Snail mail got nothing -- but a lot of return to senders and even a few situations where they put the unopened query in a larger envelope (costing more than the orginal query) along with a letter explaining in clear legal terms why they didn't open it.

Email got a few requests.

By  Steve Peterson, at 7:44 PM  

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