If you read my blog you may have noticed comments by Script Doctor Eric. He offered to read one of my scripts and give me his “full service” script consultation. My writing partner and I recently finished a first draft of The Un-Natural, a baseball comedy about the most uncoordinated kid in the world who works harder than anyone to make his dream of becoming a professional baseball player a reality. Since we were really looking for notes on this script I figured this would be a good chance to put Eric’s service to use.
Overall he had a lot of great comments and if you’re looking for a good professional script consultant I highly recommend him. He had a nice mixture of comments and suggestions. A lot of people offer tons of criticism but offer very few actual suggestions. I really like suggestions, even bad ones, as it helps me to understand where the person was coming from with the criticism.
As I mentioned I have never used any service like this before but it’s hard for me to imagine that you’ll find a better value with any other script consultant. He doesn’t charge a lot of money for the service so if you’re looking for a script consultant, check out his website: http://www.scriptdoctoreric.com/. Script Doctor Eric did not pay for this promotion. He simply offered to review one of my scripts for free and I liked his notes so I’m recommending him. I’m not making any money from Eric by recommending him to my readers.
I’m very leery to recommend a specific price that I think is fair for script consultant services. When purchasing something like this it’s all about value. I did a quick Google search for “screenplay consultants” and clicked through to a few of them and found several that were charging nearly $1,000 for their “deluxe” service. While this may seem like a lot of money – and it is – it’s hard to say if it’s worth it. If it helps you get your script to where it needs to be and you end up selling it, it might be a good value.
When looking for a script consultant try and get some references from them and make an effort to call or email those references. Ask the references about the value they think they got for the price. Keep in mind that these references will be supplied by the consultant so they may not be too reliable. In this day and age it’s hard for someone to make a living offering a horrible service thanks to Google. So Google the script consultant’s name or website and see what comes up. You might find someone who’s used their services and is willing to tell you the truth about them.
Another suggestion I would have is if you find a consultant that you like you might try the cheapest service that they offer to start and see what sort of value you get for the money. If you don’t get a lot of value from their cheaper service than you probably won’t get a lot of value on the higher end either.
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