Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Q. I just subscribed to the online HCD, but I do not find any email's of any known production houses there, like Warner Bros, Dreamworks, Sony Pictures etc. Please help as I don't know whom to send my query letter to.

Those aren't production houses, those are studios. There's no point in querying a studio directly.

You wouldn't query studios, you'd query production companies. The Hollywood Creative Directory (printed or online) lists production companies, their personnel and email addresses. You would want to query the development people.

Many production companies have deal at studios; they're "on the lot." They'll have first-look deals with whichever studio whose gates they drive through in the morning.

I can't speak to how well querying producers works. I think it's very hard to get your script read if you don't have an agent. If any reader has got their script read by querying producers, please let us know.

Labels: queries

9:15 AM

2 Comments:

I know when I interned at a production company, you couldn't get your query past the interns. If you didn't already have an agent or manager, an intern would send your query/script/comic book/etc back to you with a form letter. No one else would ever see it. This is the industry standard practice so that you don't sue the production company when someone else has a similar idea to the one you had.

Unless someone says they are accepting unsolicited queries, all sending one does is waste the companies money on postage mailing it back to you.

By  Unknown, at 10:07 AM  

Sounds like the person who wrote to you is on their first screenplay. Most people who've been at it a while already know that about the studios.

If that is the case, they probably shouldn't query anybody. They should write their next script instead.

By  Emily Blake, at 11:45 AM  

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