This is a transcript of SYS 453 – Australian Film Grants and Making Supernatural Horror With David Willing .
Welcome to Episode 453 of the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I’m Ashley Scott Meyers, screenwriter and blogger with sellingyourscreenplay.com. Today, I am interviewing writer director David Willing who just did a low budget horror film called Surrogate, which we talk about, but we also talk about his career, he started out doing a bunch of short films, and then we talk right up through as how he’s now doing feature films, so stay tuned for that interview. If you find this episode valuable, please help me out by giving me a review in iTunes or leave me a comment on YouTube or retweeting the podcast on Twitter or liking or sharing it on Facebook. These social media shares really do help spread word about the podcast, so they’re very much appreciated. Any websites or links that I mentioned in podcast can be found on my blog in the show notes. I also publish a transcript with every episode in case you’d rather read the show or look at something later on. You’ll find all the podcast show notes at www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/podcast and then just look for episode number 453. If you want my free guide How to Sell a screenplay in five weeks, you can pick that up by going to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. It’s completely free, you just put in your email address and I’ll send you a new lesson once per week for five weeks along with a bunch of bonus lessons. I teach the whole process of how to sell your screenplay in that guide. I’ll teach you how to write a professional logline and query letter, and how to find agents, managers and producers who are looking for material, really is everything you need to know to sell your screenplay just go to sellingyourscreenplay.com/guide. So, now let’s get into the main segment. Today, I am interviewing writer-director David Willing. Here is the interview.
Ashley
Welcome David to the Selling Your Screenplay Podcast. I really appreciate you coming on the show with me today.
David
Thank you very much for having me, Ashley, we’re looking forward to it.
Ashley
So, to start out, maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background, where did you grow up and how did you get interested in entertainment business?
David
So, I grew up in Melbourne, Australia. And I really fell in love with cinema at a very young age. I remember a film called Bogies that I watched when I was five years old on black and white film on television on a Saturday afternoon. And since then I’ve just had a deep love for cinema. And when I got into early high school, started doing some super eight films and had a media class at school and I actually started out wanting to do horror makeup effects. After watching Nightmare on Elm Street, I sort of wanted to do Freddy Krueger makeup. And then when I started to discover, you know, using a camera and then lighting and then eventually then got into writing and directing and went to film school after that, and yeah, since then I’ve just sort of been working away in various parts of the industry predominately as a writer, director.
Ashley
So, talk about some of those first steps. So, you went to film school? And then what were those first steps out of film school to actually, you know, breaking into the industry? What were some of those first jobs that you had? And how did you get them? I’m always curious to hear kind of how were you able to land those first couple jobs.
David
Yeah, it’s interesting, I always come from different places, I think the first commercial I did was for a friend who was working at a crisis helpline and they wanted a just a community based commercial for a fundraiser. So, you know, I remember the first time I was actually in a pub, when it came on the TV. And there is that buzz, the very first time you see something you’ve made, come up on the TV, there is always a little bit of a thrill. And, and then after that some short films that are predominately the stuff that I instigated to whoever I was working with, at the time, you know, got this. So, I made a short film called Collier Brothers when I was just out of film school, and that one was we just wanted to make the film on that subject matter. So, we raise the finance and essentially put the project together ourselves. And then, you know, from a writing perspective, I mean, in Australia, there’s not really a lot of writing for higher kind of work in industry, you’ve just got to, you know, it’s a lot of spec writing. So that’s what I’ve probably spent my time writing those, you know, some short films and into feature films. And I mean, Surrogate is my first feature film, and we’ve made this, you know, it’s very independently financed and approached as a film. So, we have sort of a two-tier system in Australia. So, we have a government funding agencies at a state and federal level, or otherwise, projects made independent of those, and Surrogate was made independent.
Ashley
Gotcha. So, now talk a little bit about this idea of the state and then federal, you know, grant money for the arts and film that’s totally alien as an American. We don’t really have a system like that. But I do talk to Europeans that have had the system and my impression of it is the people that get the money and are sort of on the end and receiving the money from these institutions they think is the greatest system ever invented, and the people that are not on the inside and are trying to fight their way in think it’s the most corrupt evil system ever invented. So, where do you kind of land on this? Have you applied for some of these grants? How do you feel it’s working? Is it very political? Are they actually giving the best filmmakers? Or is it more about who, you know, just how does one navigate that system?
David
Yeah, it is an interesting one. You know, predominately, I’m in our industry aspects of it just wouldn’t exist. And same with Europe. I mean, America, you’ve got, you know, got such a big market and such a viable industry. So here, there’s just certain parts of the arts that wouldn’t exist, because it’s not the audience base to drive that revenue. So, I’ve had Beth, who I wrote Surrogate with we actually met, so we’re in the state of Victoria. And so, there’s the film financing body, they’re funded both of us to write drafts of screenplays. So, we had to write our initial draft, and we submitted that lots of people submit them, and then you get four of us got selected to write, to get development funding for the next draft. So that’s the only time I’ve had finance from them. And it’s, the thing is, is it’s ultra-competitive, you know, like anything, there’s a lot of people not, not a lot of funds, or a lot of places or, you know, spots available to get that that funding. And with Surrogate, we decided not to go down that that route, because we what I said to Beth is because we’ve had other screenplays in development, you know, I said, Let’s get something made, you know, you know, as you know, getting made is really tough. And we just felt that by going through the funding body things, one of the downside is, it just takes a lot of time. You know, films in general take time, but I sort of went if we go down that path, which we go down there, this is going to turn into a 7-to-10-year process, which is about the average time to develop that project. And I really wanted to do one inside. You know, we’ve been on it six years now, but the film was finished November last year. So, it was just a bit more of an efficient way to go about it, but obviously don’t have access to as much money.
Ashley
Yeah, that’s the downside.
David
You know, that’s the difference. But we you know, it got made it, you know, we might still be hearing in meetings, trying to get it financed, which is really a practical decision. We weren’t we just don’t want another project in development t hat doesn’t happen.
Ashley
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, I think this is a good segue. Let’s dig into Surrogate, maybe just start out you can give us a quick pitch or logline, what is the logline for this film?
David
So, it’s a ghost horror about Natalie Paxton, who is a single mother and a nurse and she gets rushed to hospital with this really weird medical condition that happens to her medical malaise. And suddenly all these bizarre things start happening to her and her daughter, and she has to fight to stop from her family being destroyed.
Ashley
So, now I noticed you’ve co-written this, you were the director and co-writer with Beth King. How did where did this idea come from? Was it a script that you got from Beth and then you tweaked it? Did you guys work on this original? But just talking about the genesis? How did this idea come about? And then what was sort of the initial stages of writing it with Beth or did she find you after she had the idea?
David
So, Beth and I met as part of script development on other separate projects. And that was probably about 10 years ago. And so, the project came about I approached her we were having dinner one night, I said; Hey, let’s just write the horror. And let’s get it made. And so, what we did is we actually we met two or three times a week for about two months. And we would just meet for four or five hours and we were brainstorming ideas. So, Surrogate came out of a brainstorming session, we didn’t know what we’re going to go with and so across a few months we came up with about there’s about six or seven different ideas for films, and they’re mostly horror though we’re interested in crime as well. And so, it just came to the fore of the one that we thought had had the most potential, it was very rudimentary at the start, we really just had this idea about this mother and daughter and paranormal story.
Ashley
Now as you guys are coming up, it sounds like you have six or seven story ideas that you’re liking and you just said this one seemed to have the most potential, just talk about that. Well, how were you grading these ideas? And why did you think this one had the most potential?
David
Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. Because I mean, some of the, with the other ideas we spend a little bit of time developing and we just realized that wouldn’t be enough. There’s not enough meat in the idea to get horror film, or a feature film out of that. Some of them we were like, oh, that would make a good short or, you know, the idea just sort of ran out of steam. And with Surrogate, when we hit onto the hook of the story, that’s what started to get us really excited. And it’s difficult to get into that without spoiling. So, I don’t want to sound too cryptic, but it was, we’re talking in this meeting about near us, there’s this mountain range, or it’s about two hours out of our city. And she would tell us that as a child when she was driving through this range with her auntie, her auntie and so there’s a ghost hitchhiker here, and when you drive along, and then an auntie would clandestinely turn the air conditioning on, and the temperature would drop. And we think that’s where we came up with this idea about Yeah, what happens when you’ve got the ghosts that can drift in and out of your life, and it was really, again, it’s been hard to get without going into detail on the story stuff. But as the sort of story started develop around what was happening to this mother, and why and how her daughter was now in danger, as we were sort of building on those character ideas and the story events, and there’s a little bit of a thriller, crime story in there. I mean, when you have a look at any ghost horror, there is sort of a lay detective story going on. And as we developed, like, what’s happened in the past and started connecting, connecting those dots in the story that was, you know, we just felt that there was a lot to work with this, you know, there’s a lot of potential from a story and a cinematic point of view.
Ashley
Gotcha. Now, how much did just like practical business decisions come into this? I mean, just, you know, the sort of the general consensus that we hear are like horror thriller, low budget, Horror-Thriller action, you know, are a lot easier to sell than rom coms or dramas, how much did that affect you? Are you just more interested in these genre films by nature? Or was this a consideration as you were going through your ideas?
David
Was just generally interested in in heart said, we’re both really big fans of horror films for Beth actually used to go on and watch a lot, a lot of horror films prior to that. In terms of not such a market but a few things that I laid out at the start of the project was that it had to be something you know, within a reasonable budget range. So, the other thing that appealed to us about the idea of Surrogate initially, a lot of it was set in one house and overtime this story expanded out, but seek minimal locations, minimal cost, but also said to Beth, whenever I do a writing, the script needs to be 85 to 100. Or it’s 85 to 90 pages. So, it was really about a new approaching and it would be like let’s get as much time and focus and money on a smaller part of the story rather than blowing it out. And also, I’m believer, I teach in film making in screenwriting courses, that it’s, you know, a 90 minute film or, you know, as a screenwriter a 90 minutes, screenplays got 25% less opportunities to be weak than a two hour screenplay. You know, so it’s very demanding, as you know, to write a screenplay says let’s keep it contained. So, the decisions were really about how we write, you know, contain story, and it did expand a little bit over time, but some of that is more production tricks. It looks like we’re shooting a lot more locations than we ultimately did. And then the other bit was that yes, from an audience point of view, I know that, you know, horror plays really well, internationally. Horror, from Australia, you know, does quite well in Europe, and America and Asia as well. So, it’s really about then pitching a very, very passionate and dedicated audience, the horror group.
Ashley
Yeah, for sure. So, let’s talk about the actual writing of this. So, you and Beth are working on these ideas of venture you set on this idea. What is your collaboration look like? Are you guys in the same room? One is at the keyboard, one of us yelling at the other one. Are you in different rooms on Zoom meetings? Just describe your actual collaboration? How are you cranking out script pages on this?
David
Yeah, so when it was the brainstorming stuff, it’s us in a room just throwing around ideas, back and forth. And what we’d like to do is keep it really open at the start. And, you know, that whole thing like when I rehearse with actors, it’s I can throw it out there and play around with it. So, we’d only be saying no to too many things. But then as we go on, we, we start to kind of go what’s a good idea or what’s not, and part of that is judgement and taste and Beth and I open with each other, you know, if something’s not a good idea, we’ll say, you know, it’ll hit that point that’s not working or that’s not good. And so, then we had sort of whiteboards and index cards. So we focus a lot like, Beth is very character focused. So, it was really about developing the character, but also the story where like, you know, the actual script pages of the, you know, if you’ve got a good story, that’s the quicker part to write. So, we spent months just plotting out what the stories and the characters were. So, we would do that together in a room for session, and we’d go away and write some notes and then send them then we’d get back together. Then, once we really had that the story knotted out, we wrote a, it’s about a 7-to-10-page, sort of outline treatment of that idea, and then we tweaked it a bit. And then Beth wrote the first part for paths of the draft. And she writes quickly, once she’s in the projects, for she spit out a draft pretty quickly. And then I read that, and then I did an edit of that draft, and then rewrote scenes, and then we got together and discussed it, and then she would do rewrites of my scene. So ultimately, everything in the film like I can, I know the bits where whose idea was, but every scene has been written by both of us at a point. So, whether it’s doing a dialogue, rewrite a scene structure. For an example, there’s a really long silence type scene in the film and Beth initial pass it that was about three and a half pages, and I really, from a director, point of view, saw the potential of this scene, and it was one of the ones where, you know, you know, it’s always about, how do we tighten it up? It was like, I think we can really expand this scene. So, I took that and stretch it to a seven minutes scene. So yeah, we’re just, it’s that back and forward between editing each other stuff and talking about that. And all because I come from very visual, you know, from a director point of view. And Beth comes from very much a character point of view. So, we really get that, this is how it’s working emotionally character. And here’s the story. And we’ll combine those two together.
Ashley
And what is your development process look like? So, you guys eventually had a draft that you both liked? Do you have some other writer friends, producer friends, actor friends that you then send it out and get notes? How do you sort of develop and get ready, especially something like this, where it sounded like you sort of knew you guys were going to try and fund it, you know, raise the money and shoot it yourself? So, your development process is your own? What does that look like on this?
David
So yeah, we had, I think it was the, by about the third draft, I mean, I never show my first one or two drafts to anyone outside of either, you know who I’m writing it with. But the third draft, we gave it to a couple of writing colleagues to read. And two of those were, were actually writers we met at the same development workshop several years earlier. So, all four of us still meet and read each other’s work. And I find that really helpful. So, we gave it to them, and that they gave us a couple of notes, and some perspective on it, which was really helpful. Then we wrote another draft based on that. And what I found also interesting is it’s the discussions around the script that came, you know, that was quite helpful in the story, because you’re seeing how people react to them. So, it wasn’t necessary, just technical, like you know, Steve, one of the guys who read it, who’s a horror fan as well, he just did the whole, another kill would be good. Just one more like when I’m reading and so you get that kind of feedback. But then there was also this debate, because he’s a parent that, you know, it’s ghosts horror dealing with families. He’s like, man, some of this stuff is really, really intense. So gave us that perspective. But I was like, great, that’s what we, that’s what we want. And then we wrote another draft, and then we sent it to some screenplay competitions. And we got some feedback notes from that. So, I did quite well at final draft, it was a semi-finalist and farmed out some screenshots from them. And then animal logic was running. I’ve had a total mental blank on the sub company’s name, but animal logic runner screenplay competition, and we submitted for that we really, they picked the final three and we’re in that and there was sort of one was going to be the winner and then the other two were equal second, so we just got hit the post and we got notes on that from Studio Beatly, who’s an Australian writer, but he’s, you know, really well known for Pirates of the Caribbean. And whatever that Tom Cruise film is where he’s the hitman, I’ve had the mental blank.
Ashley
Collateral Damage, is that?
David
Collateral. Yeah. So, he’s a string-based writer working over there. So, he gave us about 14 pages of script notes. And it’s always interesting, really, you know, receiving notes. Like any of them, some of them you agree with some of them, you disagree with them. But it’s always very, you know, it’s held for credibly stimulating to at least give them that perspective. So, yeah.
Ashley
And how do you approach screenplay structure? There’s the very sort of template, the Syd field, the Blake Snyder schools that have very clear, you know, paradigms and templates to follow. Some people are more intuitive on their structure, where do you fall on sort of the structure?
David
Yeah, it’s always an interesting one. I mean, I like a well-structured film. And it’s when we’re developing this, I mean, we’ve watched a lot, I mean, already watched a lot of horror, but we’re really just studying the genre, I’m really big on you know, my film students, I teach him as well about really study that genre that you’re writing in. So, it really became about what’s the stuff that is expected in that genre and how do you do it in an original way. But I do like that, you know, the structural approach. I mean, I don’t like that really prescriptive. This has to happen exactly here. And by this point, or this page, because if I take my top 10 favorite films that they wouldn’t beat, but it still is very considered, you know, what’s your inciting incident, what’s your first act. I wanted to a fairly tight first act on the film anyway, just to get in and moving with the story. And I mean, from a directing point of view, I certainly know of the structure is makes life a lot easier from a directing point of view. But I mean, I’ve read all that, you know, all of the books with Syd Field. Robert McKee story, even, you know, save the cat. So yeah, I just for us all. It’s really about story, you know. So, from a writing point of view, and I know that’s why Beth likes working with because even as a director, everything I’ve directed, it’s always about story. Structure certainly helps. Yeah.
Ashley
So, then talk about, okay, so you guys had a script, you’ve gotten some notes from people, you polish it up, you’re happy with your script. What were those next steps to actually getting this thing produced? How did you raise the money? How did you put this project together?
David
So yeah, after that, so that was 2016, we started writing, and that was about two years, that process and then 2018, I was like, this is the year we’re going to make it, make it happen. And I just started off by, I met with a bunch of people in Melbourne who’ve made films in this way just for their advice, you know, so different writer directors, or producers and just want to go about, you know, how did you go about making your film and one of those meetings was just, it was one of those by chance. The composer on the film, Mark Byers had said he was teaching a course he said, a student of mine, her husband produced some horror films in Indonesia, even though they’re Melbourne based, and Indonesia has got a really thriving horror community. So, I said, could you organize a coffee meeting with him for me. He lined that up. And I thought, you know, I’ve gone there for advice. And it turned out that he was an executive producer who’d financed these films. And it was one of those I hadn’t gone into pitch. But then he said, oh, what’s yours about? No, I ran the pitch by him. And he said; It sounds really interesting. Can you send me the screenplay? So, I sent him the screenplay. And then he sent me a message that night saying, you know, let’s meet up again next week. And he was really taken by the story, he’s a really big fan of ring and grudge as well, which were influences on Surrogate and so he ended up being, you know, one of the, the financier on the film, and, but I met with a bunch of other producers and people beforehand, so we’d had that false start where we had a producer who was on board. And then they pulled out, all that goes to this – No pun intended. And so, it was really about meeting a lot of those people like that until you get those people who can, you know, jump on board and get interested in the project.
Ashley
I’m curious, in actors like Jane Badler, you know, bringing her on to the project. At what point did she come on? Did you have the money raised or was that, did you get her assigned in the debt help you get the money? We’re I’m always sort of curious how filmmakers actually work those because it always seems like the common, frankly, a misconception that, oh, if you just get your name actor, the money is going to come rolling in. And it usually doesn’t work that way, either. It’s not as easy as that. But how did this go down for you? How did you get Jane? And then ultimately, did that affect raising the money or not?
David
Yeah, so yeah, Jane getting on board. It didn’t actually, we’d already had it financed at that stage. And again, it was just, I guess my overall thing is how you get a film made is it’s just, it’s lots of work, lots of meetings, and you’re just pushing and pushing and pushing until you find all of those elements that will put the puzzle together for you. So, I’m really when I said I was just started 2018, we didn’t start shooting the film to 2020. So, it’s nearly two years of me people to get financing get them involved, and how Jane got involved is, so conference was the executive producer. He was already on board with the film and we’re starting to cast that film and he’s on a, we’ve got the Victorian College of the Arts. So, it’s the local main art school in Melbourne. And he’s on the creative board of that through the philanthropic arm. And Jane Badler is actually, she’s been living in Melbourne for, I think, the 20 odd years. So, she was also on the same board meeting. Yeah, and he actually said, he said, I look, you know, executive producer on this horror films you want to read the screenplay? And she said; Yeah, and it was one of those things, she read it and then I met her for coffee, I thought she’d be really good for the role. It was one of the few people that didn’t audition for the role. I just, you know, gave it to her. And so, she came on board that way. So, it was really, it was after that it didn’t affect the finance, but so it wasn’t that mechanism to get. So, we’d already had Kirsty Morassi who played the lead on it. And so she obviously knew her from Wolf Creek. And she knew that I wanted to get a really good cast together for the film. And that appealed to her as well. So, it was one of those really kind of coincidental meetings, if confirmed, not at that meeting, he probably doesn’t bump into her.
Ashley
But it sounds like you’re very good at networking, because there’s a number of sort of stories, you’ve now told us where it sort of was this networking, like the guy that financed it, you’ve made a lot of connections through your teaching and just film in general, you just seem to be putting yourself out there. And then you know, you’re friendly. And eventually some of these things actually work out.
David
Yeah, yeah. I mean, networking, is that that biggest part in you, because you just don’t know what’s going to come from where, you know, that’s my attitude. And like, I had a lot of coffee meetings, and I go to these meetings to ask for people’s advice. And I think that’s one of the things I learned, early meetings with people weren’t, you know, I need to get this from you. Or can you play this function? It’s really just like, what’s the best way to go about this. And, you know, it helped that the screenplay, people were reacting really strongly to it. And I think that that was the other big calling card that, you know, people reading this screenplay, they want to be involved in the film. And as I always say, it’s like, you know, you can either get, you know, you’ve got great money or a great project. And it’s ideal if you get both, but it’s very rare. You know, you either go great money, or great project, you know, putting those two things together, I’m sure, you know, if you get $30 million, doing the 10th Marvel film you’ve been in, that’s great money, but maybe you’re not satisfied. And so, what we had to offer was really great screenplay. And, you know, Jane’s character in the film, you know, it’s really interesting function at plays in a story and a lot of depth with her character and same with a lot of you know, the actors were, when I’m right back on that writing part that always kind of thinking about, you know, not just have a character to the story, but what will it give the actor to be able to do like, why will someone want to play this this role? And so, each character try and give them give them something in their mind rather than just a pure function.
Ashley
And as an example, like, what did you give Jane’s character? What was it that Colonel that you thought an actor would kind of gravitate towards?
David
Well, there was a couple of things. At an early scene in the screenplay, and this is an example of mine and Beth’s collaboration with writing is when she’s working in child protection services, and there’s a scene when she’s in a hospital. And they’ve got to find out what’s going on with this child. And Beth had written the scene and it was well written, but it kind of gave away the game a little bit early and when I watched crime films and interrogation when they kind of walk in straightaway and slap the knife down on them go we know you did it. So, I wrote the scene, it’s like just going to ask the general questions like I’m friendly and try and get you to first of all, like give yourself up but confused so it’s in the person’s being interrogated. confused as to what’s this actually about? Because if you straight away I go, I know you did it, then if they did it, then go; No, I didn’t. Well, then you can start … life. This scene she I think was appealing because you play it out in a way that it’s like, Ah, you think I’m approaching you this way. And you don’t even know I’m interrogating you yet. And then, it turns out she has a very strong agenda for why she’s there to talk to this person. The other part also is that she would. She’s sort of a secondary antagonist in the story. You know, in horror films work best when you’ve got a grounded antagonist as well. Like, have you seen alien, the original, obviously?
Ashley
Yeah, yeah.
David
Yeah. You know, it’s like, you got the alien monster. But then you’ve also got the Android. So, you’ve got that, that more grounded reality horror, that’s not an immediate, obvious horror. And so, Jane plays that a little bit the story where she’s an antagonist to the protagonist, and what I said to her, well, I didn’t say exactly, you know, the audience is going to see you as the baddie. But I just said, you can’t see yourself as that. You’re there for pure noble motives. You’re here to protect children. I think, you know, actors like playing scenes, you know, in that regard, where it’s like, you know, I’m here for really good reason. The audience might not think that.
Ashley
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So interesting. So, how can people see Surrogate, do you know what the release schedule is going to be like?
David
Yes. So, it’ll be out on Amazon Prime on the 2nd, which is this Friday in America, I believe it’ll be Saturday in Australia. And then on the 16th of September on Tubi. TV. And then over the next couple of months, or rollout, but if people want more information, a website we’ve got as surrogatefilm.com.
Ashley
Okay, and perfect. And my last question is always, what’s the best way for people to keep up with what you’re doing? And if you have a URL or Twitter for the movie, you can mention that now. But your own personal one as well. And I round all this stuff up, and I’ll put it in the show notes so people can click over there. But it sounds like yeah, so you have maybe Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well.
David
Yes. So yeah, so the website is surrogatefilm.com. And that will have links to Instagram and Facebook. And also, my writer director one is David Willing – writer director. So, that will have links to all of these productions. And on the Surrogate website, for people who are interested, if you put your email address, we don’t spam you. But we just send a notification out when it’s going to be available on a link so people can find it through there.
Ashley
Perfect. Perfect. Well, David, I really appreciate you coming on and talking with me today. Good luck with this film. And good luck with all your feature films as well.
David
Thank you very much for having me. I’m really appreciate it.
Ashley
Thank you. We’ll talk to you later. Bye.
A quick plug for the SYS screenwriting analysis service, it’s a really economical way to get a high-quality professional evaluation on your screenplay. When you buy our three pack, you get evaluations at just $67 per script for feature films, and just $55 for teleplays. All the readers have professional experience reading for studios, production companies, contests and agencies. You can read a short bio on each reader on our website, and you can pick the reader who you think is the best fit for your script. Turnaround time is usually just a few days, but rarely more than a week. The readers will evaluate your script on six key factors Concept, Character, Structure, Marketability, Tone, and Overall Craft which includes Formatting, Spelling and Grammar. Every script will get a great pass, consider or recommend, which should help you roughly understand where your script might rank if you were to submit it to a production company or agency. We can provide an analysis on features or television scripts. We also do proofreading without any analysis. We will also look at a treatment or outline and give you the same analysis on it. So, if you’re looking to vet some of your project ideas, this is a great way to do it. We will also write your logline and synopsis for you. You can add this logline and synopsis writing service to an analysis or you can simply purchase this service as a standalone product. As a bonus, if your screenplay gets a recommend or a consider from one of our readers, you get to list the screenplay in the SYS select database, which is a database for producers to find screenplays and a big part of our SYS select program. Producers are in the database searching for material on a daily basis, so it’s another great way to get your material in front of them. As a further bonus, if your script gets a recommend from one of our readers, your screenplay will get included in our monthly best of newsletter. Each month we send out a newsletter that highlights the best screenplays that have come through our script analysis service. This is monthly newsletter that goes out to our list of over 400 producers who are actively looking for material. So again, this is another great way to get your material out there. So, if you want a professional evaluation of your screenplay at a very reasonable price, check out www.sellingyourscreenplay.com/consultants. Again, that’s sellingyourscreenplay.com/consultants. On the next episode of the podcast, I’m going to be interviewing Daniel Dignan and Josh Stiffler, who just did a horror film called Grey Woods Plot. It’s another great example of two guys just getting out there and making things happen for themselves. Daniel and Josh wear many hats on this film. They wrote it together, Josh directed it and actually starred in it as well. Daniel was one of the leads, so really, it’s just two guys is getting together and really making something happen for themselves they did it all far from Hollywood so keep an eye out for that episode next week. That’s the show. Thank you for listening.