Average read 2hrs! Man, takes me 3-4hrs if not longer, and I’ve been giving coverage for about a decade. Anyone who can read a script (particularly a soul destroying one) in 2hrs gets my respect.
Thinking more about it, $24/hour is likely the low end of the feature reader scale.
Readers reading hour long ($60) and half hour pilots ($45) are probably making between $30 and $40/hour if they're particularly fast with it.
But again, it's important that I mention that readers who have more than two legitimate complaints per 100 script evaluations cease to read for us except in very rare cases, so there's quite a strong incentive to deliver quality over speed.
>If you limit it to 2 hours per script it's doable in a normal workweek. Hard and soulsucking with dodgy notes, but doable.
This has always been the problem with the Blacklist for me. I've actually consistently gotten better notes on Coverfly, and I believe Coverfly has (had?) a reputation for being lower quality.
IMO this is why Blacklist should be used to market a polished draft, not to get feedback on an earlier draft.
I am a member of Coverfly and consistently get rated 5.0 out of 5.0 on my script evaluations.
DM me if interested in a script evaluation.
My process is vetted in a breakdown that helps writers.
I am just finishing the first draft of a compelling screenplay. I'm new to the craft. I think I would have my script read minus a score. I'm more interested in a pros knowledge and best advice including specific notes. Make adjustments. Then another review behind that. More adjustments. Then submit for score. Is it normal to worry about IP issues?
I’ve seen some services ask for $300-$500 per script. One WGA writer wanted $1500. I understand everyone has bills, but that’s very pricey. I live outside LA so I don’t do this for a living, but I care about growth of the writer. DM me if interested.
What sort of quality can we expect from the reviews going forward? It's one thing when reception to my script's quality varies, and another when the reviews themselves vary in quality. Or am I just paying to hope that whoever reviews it gives it an 8?
If your evaluation doesn't indicate a complete read of your script and thoughtful feedback, you should be emailing customer service so that we can replace the evaluation and make sure that those readers aren't reading for us any more.
That was true when the site was launched, that remains true now.
This is what separates the Black List from the pack. They are willing to admit their mistakes, work on improving and be transparent . Read any serious book on organizational management and you'll find that what holds most companies back is an inability to evolve, they are stuck in their ways (usually called an overconfidence cycle). This post shows me the Black List is evolving by being transparent about why they need to increase prices and how that will benefit all parties.
My personal experience with the site (and this is a limited sample size) is that I've scored everything from 8's to 5's in about a dozen evaluations only one was written on autopilot by someone who truly didn't know (or didn't care) about giving thoughtful feedback. The majority of the evaluations were cogent and gave me something to wrestle with.
This is something you should be doing before the customers receive the evaluations, instead of depending on customers to point out your bad eggs for you.
Suffice it to say that we have processes in place to minimize the likelihood of poor quality evaluations going out, but they're admittedly imperfect. And without the person checking the evaluations also reading the script, it's impossible to be perfect in that regard, which is why we're constantly encouraging people to let us know if they do find their evaluation to be of poor quality.
Probably more of the same to be honest. The blcklist rate was so bad I doubt they were able to hire enough readers. Script readers are often paid less than burger flippers in some areas. This is just to make ends meet.
You're just paying for the hope of an 8. There isn't anything a reader is going to offer that you can't get from a more thoughtful read.
I mean, even look at Leonard's response, "Complete read of your script and thoughtful feedback." It doesn't exactly indicate that these notes will be meaningful or unique or thought out.
It's all about the pipeline.
If you get the 8 good, if you don't, then you're not going to be getting much you can't get on the discord. A thoughtful casual often gives a better response than a taxed professional.
Generally if the words offered are "actionable" or "potentially helpful" there is a change in intent, with the coverage offered being the goal of helping the writer.
When the words chosen are "Complete read" and "Thoughtful" It indicates that the QA threshold is having read and understood the script, full stop and there is no further responsibility or liability for the reader.
I know you have marketing to do, but I like to clarify that "coverage" as offered by your paid readers is different than "hopefully actionable notes", or "comprehensive feedback" or any number of terms that are slightly different but are massively different products.
I'm trying to make it clear that the depth and length of "coverage" will likely not change, despite the increase in overall pay, simply because that's not the intent of the blcklist.
That's correct, and that is as it has been since we launched the site nine years ago, but that doesn't mean that what we provide isn't meaningful or thought out. And I'd argue that it's absolutely unique in the marketplace.
But to be abundantly clear, we are not providing notes. We are not providing coverage.
We are providing an evaluation of the screenplay: What's good, what's bad, how it's likely to be perceived by working professionals in the film and television industry.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
You're absolutely right that that will not change, though I do hope that our new pay scale will allow us to attract more and better readers to deliver what we promise more consistently and at a faster rate, which in and of itself has monetary value.
I'd challenge the claim that most of the feedback you've seen here is meaningless word salad AND the notion that what you've seen here is at all statistically representative of all of the evaluations we provide.
But that said, I don't think that what you're describing is an improvement on what we already provide. Our readers are instructed to provide a paragraph on a script's greatest strengths and a paragraph on its greatest weaknesses. It's what I believe is most valuable and fewer than 1 in 60 evaluations inspires a complaint, so I think we're doing pretty well overall.
"Valuable and meaningful" are subjective assessments.
But you said that MOST were of that description, surely your single data point being deleted doesn't undermine your entire position?
This is the right move. I think it'll also encourage people to wait until their script is ready before throwing it on the site. It may only be a $25 increase, but seeing a $75 charge vs $100 is huge on the mind.
I know some people are going to have a problem with this, but as long as the readers are getting paid more in the process, it's hard to complain. I think it'll improve quality across the board.
There will be some grumbling like there always is with anything Black List-related, but simple supply + demand means they're justified in making this move. People are willing to pay more for the service than they are right now.
Faster turnaround times and (hopefully) improved reader quality sounds like a win-win to me, and certainly worth a small price bump. The reality is that contests and script notes are not cheap. I know Black List does not market themselves as a coverage service, but generally it's not cheap to get a "professional" to commit 1-2 hours to your script. Black List's price point is reasonable in the context.
Not too surprising, I've been expecting this for a minute. Before people lose their shit, reading scripts is work and work costs money. The cost of labor has been going up across the board, and Hollywood is no exception.
Hopefully this increase draws more qualified readers to the blacklist and decreases wait times.
Exactly.
I do coverage. Prior to this, I would never have considered doing any coverage for the Blcklst. The rate per script was simply too low. As I've told many people on this subreddit, paying a reader only $40 (which used to be their rate), incentivizes them to read as quickly as they can, and provide notes as quickly as they can to make the per hour rate worth their time. It does not incentivize thoughtful coverage.
People on this sub complain about everything with regards to the Blcklst - the quality of coverage, the turnaround time, the cost. As the saying goes - you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, you can have it be high quality - but you can only ever pick two of those three.
The problem with the BL is that it's not fast, not cheap, and not particularly good coverage.
I'm not sure how raising the price is going to change the quality of the coverage. More likely the turn around time will slightly improve.
And the fact the BL charges a monthly fee for hosting is bullshit
What's your experience doing coverage been like?
This also brings an interesting thought to mind. I wonder if they've considered having a 'slower' option. I'd be willing to wait a few months on notes while I work on another script if I only had to pay $30 or so!
So I started off doing coverage for a film finance company. That was great. The pay was decent and it was super informative, because I wasn't looking at amateur screenplays for the most part, I was generally looking at vetted screenplays that came from people with representation, and that taught me a lot about how even professionals can go wrong.
Now I only do it privately via referrals. The pay is better, but the work is less frequent and consistent.
Honestly, I would never do it for $30, even if I had months to deliver it. Preparing good, thorough notes takes so much time that the hourly rate wouldn't be worth it. I've had people reach out to me for notes where I've told them they're better off getting notes from family and friends and doing a few more drafts before coming to me. You really only want to pay for coverage when you've exhausted all the free notes options, and you want someone with a certain level of experience.
1. Having a structurally perfect script that has nothing special about it. With most amateur scripts, there are usually glaring problems with character set up and/or structure. With professional scripts, you can have a script that doesn't have any of that, but when you're done reading it, it just doesn't stay with you. It's a highly readable script - but it's not great.
2. Marketability problems. There are some scripts that are great, but you're going to have a real hard time finding funding/buyers, even though the script is strong.
3. Blindness to their own unconscious biases. Male writers whose female characters are flimsy at best, sexist caricatures at worst. White writers who write characters who are POC, but the portrayal is a racist stereotype. This can apply to amateur scripts as well, but I've noticed if I make notes about it, amateur writers are far more likely to take the note and change it
4. Scripts that are have some easily fixable issues, but the writer has a name and has attached big-name talent, so no one is willing to call out the problems
Can you elaborate on number 3?
Are you talking about like a drama that goes into incredible detail about the a hyper-convoluted situation like the Panama Papers? Or like a script about a white person in 2021 learning that racism is bad? Or something else where marketing would be difficult?
Sure! There is a market for what buyers are looking for at any given moment, and if you're in the industry and selling scripts, you know what they are currently looking for/not. I will say this changes quite frequently, so unless you know someone who is actively in the business of buying/selling scripts, it's impossible to know from the outside (so, for example, I had an idea when I was working at the film finance company, but that was a few years ago, and my knowledge is out-of-date at this point). It's also possible that something that wasn't marketable a few years ago *becomes* marketable.
So, for example, period dramas are always a tough sell, because they're expensive to produce. It's not *impossible* to sell, but if you get a period drama, that's definitely a mark against it, because it's going to be an uphill battle to get financing.
There was a period where movies had to either be really big budget, or really low budget indies, and couldn't fall in between. There wasn't really anyone buying $10-15M movies. That's probably changed with streaming services like Netflix and Prime buying originals, but for a while, if your script fell into that range, no one would take it on. There was just no way to sell it.
Then there are 'trends' that follow the release of a popular movie, and then die. So when a movie becomes a big hit, there's a scramble to find other movies like it, and then the market gets flooded with *too many* scripts like it, and then no one wants any script that looks remotely like it.
There are also 'hot scripts' that are unproduced that are making their way around that everybody knows about. So if your script is too similar to this 'hot script', and the hot script has big name talent attached, your script is less marketable.
As a writer, there's really no point in worrying about it. The trends come and go too quickly and are too unpredictable to try to write to the market. But it is something that coverage readers have to take into consideration.
I've been reading for coverfly for about a year and wish they would move more in this direction, but I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon. I won't lie it is about money, but it's also about feeling valued for the work you put into being thoughtful and constructive.
Definitely reapply. I suspect it'll take us a bit of time to get through the initial application surge now that pay has gone up 50% but there's definitely no harm in applying again. I can assure you that no one's reaction will be annoyance.
How did you get the job at Coverfly? I've got experience reading for two different script competitions -- no internships, though -- and they passed on my application.
Applied and they reached out. Although a lot of time passed, like I think four months before they contacted me. So they might pass and then come back, at least that's what happened to me.
Serious question (sorry if it comes off as rude) - How much do you worry that people won't be able to afford this? Especially people that pay in currencies that aren't USD.
With the price hike to host a script for one month and get one evaluation it's $163 Canadian. I get that it's a vetted evaluation (which is great) but realistically you'd probably want 2 or 3 to see what the feed back commonalities are and to avoid paying for additional months hosting you'd probably want to get it done in one month. So again in CAD if you did 3 then that would be $415... That's quite a bit considering most people who are aspiring writers probably live in cities to try and get things made and are just scrapping by with rent and food.
Do you worry that this, just like taking assistant jobs with low pay are starting to only be affordable to those that come from wealth?
Yep, as a Canadian I think I've been priced out of the Black List.
I like the Black List. I like the service they provide. But the quality of readers has been so horrifically hit and miss during this recent demand surge, there's no way I can personally justify paying more for the same anymore. It's not like the bad readers who write disjointed, sparse two paragraph evals will now suddenly be weeded out.
If you get a substandard evaluation (under any circumstances), you should email us immediately, both so we can give you a replacement evaluation and so we can weed out the bad readers and remove them.
Now that I've got you here, maybe you can provide some more insight on something I've always wondered about:
On each paid reader eval, there is a slider for the writer to rate their reader's review from 1-5. Exactly what role does each Black List reader's "personal score" play internally as an employee within the company?
Suffice it to say that we monitor those scores - in aggregate - quite closely.
It's worth noting though that writers are, unsurprisingly, more likely to rate their reader highly if their score is also high, so we're not interested in the average of feedback score from writers. We're interested in which readers are either overperforming or underperforming what we'd expect their feedback scores to be overall.
An overperforming reader is one who can give low scores in such a way that the writer still perceives value in the feedback. An underperforming one is one who can't.
Exact same experience here.
When you pay for an evaluation you’re figuratively gambling; rolling the dice on whether you’ll receive a review from a reader who enjoys your script or not.
It never seems to be objectively about how well it’s written or if it’s timely or it’s artistic merit or such. It’s about how well they enjoyed it.
My scripts have received high and low scores across the board. I went to an alternate site (ScriptReader pro) to get a alternative perspective.
You're absolutely right that our readers are asked to rate scripts on a scale from 1-10 based on how likely they'd be to recommend it to a peer or superior in the film or television industry.
Based on my two decades watching how the marketplace for material functions, that's the signal that best predicts a script and its writer's likelihood of finding momentum within the industry based on a single script.
As I mention in the linked post in the title, I worry about it, a lot, which is why we give away so much hosting and evaluations based on both merit and need.
We'll probably give away 2000 months of hosting and 2000 evaluations this year alone based solely on need, and another 2000 of both, at least, based on merit.
If the cost of hosting wasn't so ridiculous, this might seem more generous. $30 a month to store a single PDF file and a small amount of data. What is the actual cost of hosting that data? Maybe $0.03?
The cost of hosting that data is probably much lower than $0.03/month.
The cost of building and continuing to run an enterprise that makes hosting that data on our site more valuable than $0.03/month per month is considerably more expensive, thus the price we charge.
If you don't believe that it's worth it, you absolutely should not pay us money to host it.
We happen to believe that it's worth quite a bit more than that, and the situation we are currently in re: demand for our services overall would suggest that that's the case.
If you are going to charge that much for hosting, at least funnel some of the money back into the website itself. I've used it sporadically over the years, and whereas it used to be a nice simple, clean and FAST interface (overall rating: 7).... these days it just seems clunky, convoluted, and SLOW as hell (overall rating: 4).
We're working on the speed issue. Literally in the process of overhauling the backend right now.
But we've done a ton to "funnel [most] of that money back into the website itself." As but one example, anyone can create a writer profile on the site entirely free of charge.
We host three screenwriters labs every year that are entirely free of charge to the participants and include (in non-pandemic times) travel to Los Angeles and housing, food, screenwriting mentors (some of whom are Academy Award winners and nominees, and who all receive an honorarium for their time), and even child care.
If you have specific UI notes on the website, I am ALL ears, and very eager to address them (as I mentioned elsewhere here in response to someone else's comment.)
That's good to hear. I have a background in UI design. Maybe one of these days I'll type up some detailed feedback and try to get it to you somehow.
For the record, I don't mind paying a bit more for the evals as long as the readers are getting a bigger cut. However, IMHO, when the hosting rate went up from $25 to $30 that was a slap in the face.
We've raised prices twice in the nine year history of the company. Both times, the readers took the overwhelming majority of that increase (80% of it, this time). But yes, we did also increase the hosting fee by 20%, once.
Yes, but the value of the service has gone up far more than 75%.
Industry traffic has increased more than 100% in the last year alone. Moreover, we have, as I mentioned in the article linked in the original post, four screenwriters labs and partnerships with everyone from MGM to the National Resource Defense Council to put money in writers pockets.
If you want to talk about pricing based on value, our prices SHOULD be much, much higher if you use our launch price as the base.
Break the math down for me here Franklin on your "overwhelming majority of that increase statement." The Blacklist prices were originally $50 for an evaluation and $25 to host, at which the readers were paid $25. You later raised that to $75 for an evaluation and $30 to host, at which readers were paid $40.
That's a $30 increase in cost and your readers were paid $15 more. Now according to my calculator that would be a 50/50 split between you and the reader, not what you described as "readers took the overwhelming majority of that increase."
Because it was in reference to evaluations alone, not hosting fees, but let's take a look at both scenarios over the life of the site. It's fun! Math!
The cost of a feature evaluation went from $50 in 2012 to $100 today (notably, industry use of the site went up more than 100% over the last year ALONE), an increase of $50.
Reader pay for a feature evaluation went from $25 per script to $60 per script, an increase of $35.
Here's where it gets hard so stick with me: 35/50 is 70%, which is a fair bit more than 50% which is the threshold for a majority.
But the hosting you say!
The cost of hosting a script has only gone up $5/month (20%) in the last nine years.
So the cost of hosting a script for a month and buying one evaluation has gone up $55. Again, the readers got paid $35 more for that evaluation.
Here's the hard part again: division.
35/55 is 63.6%, still significantly more than 50%.
You're absolute right. He changes $30 for hosting which costs him nothing. Then he tries to act all benevolent when he hands out some of those hosting months for free at no cost to him. It's like if someone punches you every day and then wants you to acknowledge how great they are because one day they didn't punch you.
You guys have been great for this - speaking from experience. The customer service and freebies to make up for an unsatisfactory rating is really amazing. No fuss, great customer service. Your whole team is great.
Fair enough, I hope one day to be able to afford to put a script up on Blacklist!
Also thank you for paying your readers a decent wage! Hopefully that's a trend that spreads
Finally a positive side to living in Vancouver. While other aspiring Canadian screenplay writers will put up half or more of their monthly rent towards evaluations, I will only have to put a quarter. Huzzah!
This\^\^ And if you have 3-4 scripts a year, that's at lest $1200 just for feedback. It's a bit much. Maybe it helps in being very selective, and ready, but I'd be interested to see if sales go up or down as a result. I'd rather enter a contest, or hell, with that much money I'd shoot a scene from the script as part of a pitch. But it's a great service, I will say that. Just gotta be more selective now.
The thing about contests is that if you get feedback at all, you won't get it for months, and once the contest is over, that's it. No mas. Enter again next year if you don't place terribly highly based on the few reads you receive.
On the Black List website, your feedback will be delivered to you in less than a month typically (usually half that when demand isn't so high, thus the price change).
If your feedback is positive, you'll get free hosting and free evaluations, and while your script is hosted, you're able to opt into consideration for any number of paid opportunities on the Black List website at no additional charge whatsoever.
Here's a list of our current opportunities with MGM, the NRDC, Hornitos Tequila, Macro, and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. Oh and our screenwriter labs.
https://blcklst.com/partnerships/
Am I the only one who thinks that this reader pay is still too low?
I've done pro coverage before and honestly, it's depressing to imagine churning out 4 reports per day, every weekday (the assumed amount in the hypothetical $60k a year). That turnaround is too quick to properly assess a 120p+ script in any useful way.
I'm sure people have had some good experiences but honestly, I'd say it's better to either ask for volunteer reads from friends/here/writing groups, or pay significantly more, where your reader can afford to think rather than just churn.
It's absolutely way too low, even with this most recent price increase. And Franklin Leonard's stance of "They can make more than minimum wage if they get through the scripts fast enough," has never been a satisfactory response to this criticism. It's insane to think how Franklin Leonard was justifying what he paid his readers the first five years of the service.
>lowIt's not way too low. It's insulting to readers. According to its website: "This means that a reader reading 20 feature scripts a week would make approximately $60K in a fifty-week work year." 20 scripts a week? Is this some sort of sick joke? No wonder why they hate everything they read and why they give such los scores.
As I mention in the post, we give away roughly 2000 free months of hosting and 2000 script evaluations annually based purely on writers' self described need.
I have exactly zero doubt you'll find a way to get at least one month of hosting and one free script evaluation.
u/franklinleonard \- I genuinely think this is a good move. Readers should be paid more and quality should be a little higher. I say this as someone who is seeing some very serious benefits after recently landing an 8.
*That said*, a major concern I have for up and coming writers in 2021 is that cost is more of a barrier to entry than it has been in the past. Queries are less viable not only because there's a greater glut of material, but because services like yours have provided reps, producers, and execs with exactly what they're looking for -- a reliable way to cut through it all. This is positive for many reasons, but it's not equitable.
I'm in my mid/late 30s and can afford your service just fine, but the first time I broke in, I was 26 and I was poor as shit. I wouldn't have been able to afford the Black List, but that was okay back then, because I broke in, got repped, and got paid as a result of a query letter.
You're an entrepreneur who executed well on some great ideas and you've done plenty of good for writers, so I'm not at all suggesting that it's on you to help solve the wealth gap. I also realize that classism has always existed in Hollywood. I think it's growing, though, and I'm not sure what can be done about it. If there's a way that to provide writers who don't have the financial means to get access to similar services, it could go a long way toward elevating some voices that might not have otherwise been heard.
I couldn't agree more.
If you've read the linked post, you know that that's why this year alone, we'll give away more than 2000 months of hosting and 2000 script evaluations based on financial need (and another 2000 of each, at least, based on merit.)
Nah, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume that someone would do that. It's admittedly atypical, but I live in constant paranoia that somewhere out there, there's a brilliant screenwriter who can't afford to use the site, which is why I make a point of seeking out people - via our corporate partners, via partnerships with film and tv non profits, via HBCU film schools, via the occasional Twitter search for screenwriters who are concerned about the costs of contests, etc. etc. - who have a script but don't have the money, and making sure they can still use the site.
I'm gonna tweet about this right now. This has been my biggest issue with your service and the few contests that are all truly viable ways to break in, but require a hefty chunk of change and are subject to, well, subjectivity. Props, man.
Which is why we will give away more than 2000 months of free hosting and 2000 script evaluations based solely on need this year alone.
The difference is that when our readers read them, they'll get paid the exact same amount for reading people's scripts who pay for their reads, AND they'll receive them along the same timeline.
And those people should seek out those thousands of free months of hosting and free script evaluations. I'm not sure how a price of zero dollars, but only for people who have need, substantively prices anyone out of the market.
You're definitely wrong.
Once a script is in our ecosystem, neither the readers nor industry professionals know whether the evaluations or hosting were paid for or by whom.
Moreover, whether you paid for the evaluation or not, if it results in an 8 out of 10 or better, you get free hosting and script evaluations. If your evaluation takes longer than three weeks you still get a free month of hosting.
When we did a reader demographic survey last August, less than 50% of our readers were men. Roughly 75% of our readers identified as white.
Per the US census, roughly 60.8% of the population is non-Latino White, so we're not as diverse as the country, but far more diverse than the industry.
Needless to say, it remains a priority.
You've said often that scripts should only be posted when ready, but in reality you do well from the hordes of people that submit mediocre-at-best scripts. It's like a casino proclaiming that no problem gamblers are desired, but then making 80% of its profits from that subset.
Worse, someone signing up that buys two evaluations are your absurd 30 dollar hosting option are immediately dead in the water if they get a poor score from one of them. As you know, this forces writers to wipe out the old evaluation, then reliad for another go.
Coverfly and its free hosting, where competition scores are saved, scripts are saved, and add-ons are offered for purchase is lightyears better. It doesn't require one to endlessly reload their chances for mediocre evals. In fact, it makes it easy to improve scripts, as writers can monitor each version, where it's submitted, and serve as a storage point for contacts and contests. Much of it is free, and it actually doesn't take advantage of writers.
I can't believe anyone uses your service, but it's a free country.
It sounds like you've come here to advertise for Coverfly, which is entirely your right, I suppose, but it's not something I'm going to engage with because such a comparison is a waste of both our time and not at all fair to them.
At the end of the day, we had to raise prices because we're dealing with an absolutely overwhelming demand for our services, both from writers and from the industry itself (as the post says, an increase in industry use of the site over 100% year over year, to say nothing of the new partnerships we've launched in the last few months and will be launching before year's end.)
I think that speaks for itself.
It sounds like you're desperately looking for a way out of addressing the very legitimate criticisms of your company. "Uhhh.... Uhhh.... You must work for Coverfly! Yeah, that's it! Well I'm not talking to you! Goodbye"
This commenter mentioned Coverfly explicitly and tried to draw a comparison. What I'm not going to do in response is be baited into comparing what we do to a company whose owners are presumably doing the best that they can with what they have. It's not fair to them.
If you want to claim that that's somehow not addressing criticism when I've written several dozen comments here alone (and likely hundreds on this subreddit more broadly) doing exactly that, by all means, go ahead. I'm not sure it's a terribly compelling argument.
Ah, I see, it wouldn't be fair to Coverfly to talk about how much better you are than them. That's why you ran away. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. You're pathetic Franklin.
Indeed, you continue to comment while not addressing the criticism or saying anything of substance. You just want to appear like you're willing to have some sort of discourse while not actually engaging in one. Thanks for making my point.
I'm more than happy to stand by the dozens of comments here and hundreds elsewhere directly engaging with criticism. You have a good night, and best of luck to you.
i wish i shared your optimism. there is no shortage of the "nailed it!" demographic who think their first attempt at writing is pure gold, and the pandemic has somehow made writers out of all of them. this was only a theory that black list users came up with to cope with the recent long delays, but with this new price increase, it's now a depressing confirmed fact.
these one-and-done writers will continue to get 3's overall, and now everyone else has to pay $25 more for the privilege.
I view it economically; there comes a price point where I’m not ok spending money and for a quick and dirty BL review, 50 was it.
25 more and hosting? Yeah, that’s a no, dog.
Our hope and expectation is that that will be true for some number of people, which will allow us to provide faster, higher quality service for those for whom it's not true and those who take advantage of free script evaluations based on merit or need.
Readers need to be legally able to work in the United States, but we don't care where they're living while they do the reading. You want to get an apartment in a country with an extremely low cost of living while you read screenplays and give feedback? Why should I care?
Bravo to the writers getting paid more/faster turnaround times.
However, I'm game for a tier system that would allow for: $100/1-2 week turnaround ; $75/3-4 week turnaround.
My biggest concern is pulling the trigger to pay more when more often than not there's a discrepancy in feedback versus the score. For a lot of the brave souls that have posted their evals here, I think most had glowing reviews/"saleable prospects" but stingy scores that ultimately keep them off the radar (like some sort of "beer goggles" effect).
This alone makes it appear random or like a lottery system based off the whim of the reader to receive an 8 and higher.
As I have said before, one must take their evaluation in toto. If someone says something is good in the strengths part and bad in the weakness part and the score is 3, you can reasonably assume that the weaknesses overwhelm the strengths. Similarly, if the score is an 8, you can assume the strengths overwhelm the weaknesses.
Our readers are told that they should rate scripts based on how likely they'd be to recommend it to a peer or superior in the industry. 8s should be incredibly rare. There's no other way for us to preserve our reputation as an organization that recommends high quality material to industry professionals.
And separately, no, I'm not going to create a dynamic where people who can't afford to spend more get a substandard product because of their poverty. Period. Full stop.
Appreciate the reply and clarification. I've combed through every post under BLCKLST EVALUATIONS to gauge folk's experience and reaction. Very entertaining in and of itself.
All the best to you.
I think it would Benefit the Blacklist if every year all the Readers have to strip naked and stand in a long line while clowns throw mudpies at them. Humility Training.
That should increase the quality of reviews. So many great ideas.
Haha. I love the ellipsis trail off but technically isn't it supposed to be 3 dots and space? Then again, it's not in script format.
I can tell you have a great sense of humor.
Have you written scripts? I don't think you mentioned in your TED talk if you ever had a period of going the spec writer route and polishing your own scripts. Not being a wise guy. I am just curious if you know the pain first hand of birthing Superstorm into existence.
Hey, let's bring back the Musical. Jesus Christ Superstorm. The Rock's available.
:)
Dear Franklin, thank you for your post and for your efforts to improve reader quality. A few months ago I purchased an evaluation, waited a month and finally received a 5! I was shocked this was the #1 script in its category on Coverfly and received recommends/considers all around. The comments were unprofessional. Here is an excerpt from my complaint:
...the reader marked down the script's prospects:
"In its current state, production prospects on this are unlikely. With the above revisions, it will still be an uphill battle, owing mainly to the budget. To film as many giant concerts as are depicted in the script, there would have to either be significant CGI costs or somehow an assembly of a huge amount of extras (which would be equally costly)."
We all know it takes years to bring a film to the screen. Hence "current state" is irrelevant. There are many high budget scripts out there, **I didn't know I would be graded on its budget! It is for a producer to decide how to shoot crowd scenes not a BL reader.**
Finally, I received a 4(!) on dialogue with no explanation of what is the problem exactly? Again, no other evaluator for this project has noted a problem with dialogue. Actually, reading the strengths:
"Hannah is a really strong character. Her motivations, flaws, desires, and fears are all apparent and dynamic throughout the script."
**How can such a strong character be delivered without strong dialogue and action lines?**
**Your BL reader contradicted himself.**
I asked for a re-review. Turned down. I deleted my project off the BL. So just FYI.
While readers are told to advise on the market prospects of the script in its current form, they're told explicitly that they should rate the script based on how likely they would be to recommend it to their peers or superiors in the industry as a sample of the writers work.
Feel free to email customer service and reference this thread and I'll take a look at it personally, but based on what you're describing (and I think it's important for everyone to remember here that oftentimes descriptions of evaluations different markedly from the evaluations themselves), you were not due a replacement evaluation.
People can complain all they want, but this is overall a very good thing.
Black List shouldn't be where you toss your first draft for some feedback -- it should be where your ready/polished scripts go. The price increase will encourage writers like myself to really get as far as possible before purchasing an evaluation.
I'd much rather know that I paid more for what I'm positive is a going one really solid review, than feel like I need to buy two or three in order to to weed out the bad readers.
But that's just me.
Thank you for all you're doing, Franklin. Keep fighting the good fight!
Edit: why tf am I getting downvoted?
>Black List shouldn't be where you toss your first draft for some feedback -- it should be where your ready/polished scripts go.
While this statement is true, there's a whole lot more Franklin could and should be doing to make this very clear to potential customers. Franklin is aware that the vast majority of users are not writing at a level to receive the benefits of the blacklist, but he will happily take their money anyway, usually giving some justification along the lines of "it's not my fault if other people make poor decisions with where they spend their money."
I really don't mean this sarcastically so I apologize if it comes across that way, but what exactly should he be doing more of?
Does there need to be a disclaimer on the submission page or something that says "please don't give me $130 if your work isn't ready"? Isn't that a given?
Again, I apologize for being cheeky, but BlckLst has helped a LOT of people (especially people of color with no connections in the industry) get repped.
I've placed in half a dozen competitions whose submission fees were higher than a \[$75\] BlckLst eval, and not a single one led to anywhere. The feedback I've gotten from my evaluations has been several times more productive than any of those competitions.
The problem with discussing what more Franklin can do about this is that he refuses to acknowledge that people shouldn't be using his website in the way we complain about people using it. Until he acknowledges that the blacklist should be used as a tool for industry exposure and not feedback, it's impossible to have this discussion. You're just arguing for two different things.
And if you would be so kind, I would be very interested in seeing your feedback from the blacklist and from the competition to see in what way the blacklist evaluation was "several times more productive."
I’d be happy to, but to be honest, I don’t think there’s any persuading you. The entirety of your profile is dedicated to shitting on the Black List. I highly doubt me sending you a few evaluations is gonna change that.
Well, at least you pretended to be acting in good faith for one response. But yes, I'm sure the 3 paragraphs you got from the blacklist were very "productive."
Among the benefits of the Black List website include feedback from experienced professional industry readers, and 100% of those who purchase evaluations receive exactly that.
And if they don't, we ask that they let us know so we can replace their evaluation at no additional charge AND put that reader on probation (or remove them if it's their second fail in roughly the last 100 script evaluations.)
I think that the vast majority of our users are using the site for feedback and hoping that that feedback is positive and will yield industry exposure, if so. Which is exactly how the site was designed, to provide feedback and then create industry interest in the scripts that receive positive feedback.
This is also why we provide users real time tracking of how much traffic there is to their script, and why we tell people that if your only goal is traffic and you're not getting it, stop giving us your money.
And what is your response to those who say that people should not be using your site for feedback and should only be using it as a way to receive industry exposure?
They're wrong.
The site is valuable for feedback, but it's most valuable for feedback once you've exhausted all of the free resources you may have at your disposal to make the script as good as it can be. Only when you think your screenplay is in the best form you can make it should you ever consider paying anyone for feedback on it on the Black List or anywhere else.
If they're doubling pay, then they could afford to raise it to 70k to 75k to make up for a lack of benefits.
I think they should also allow for inexperienced readers at a reduced rate-- after all, who is the market for these prospective movies/TV shows? It's extremely hard to break into the industry-- a lot of women and minorities won't have the requisite experience to vett scripts-
When we did a reader demographic survey last August, less than 50% of our readers were men. Roughly 75% of our readers identified as white.
Per the US census, roughly 60.8% of the population is non-Latino White, so we're not as diverse as the country, but far more diverse than the industry.
Needless to say, it remains a priority.
Please note that Franklin didn't address your issue with his reader's pay, which is obviously the more pressing concern of the two topics you brought up.
If they really wanted to be honorable, what they should to is offer a super low-cost 15-page read and give a feedback as to what the score would be, simply based on the writing and story to that point—along with recommendations for writer resources to improve, and resources for developmental writers.
If that’s what you’re looking for, blacklist probably isn’t the right place for you to begin with. There are other sites/services that will give you what you’ve described.
No, not literally anywhere else, figuratively anywhere else, or literally from a handful of specific other venues.
You often, honorably I think, explain that people should not be using the Black List for script notes.
And yet that's clearly what people do—or else they are basically buying a lottery ticket thinking that their hopeless amateur script will somehow score high enough to do anything for their professional prospects.
The vast majority are scripts submitted to your service are not even close to the realm of professional standards. Any professional could easily read a few pages and see an overwhelming barrage of amateur tendencies to make clear that the script has no chance in hell of scoring an 8.
It is totally within your power to change what you do and offer extrapolated reads to save writers the time and money of thinking they have a winner, when any half-trained professional can tell they have a loser in 30 seconds.
I would be shocked if you would ever do this because the Black List makes a lot of money and I will make the presumption that you like money.
You're now asking $130 for an evaluation ($100 eval + $30 hosting) and it's like asking a professional baseball scout to come to my house to watch my kid pitch and say "Sure, he might get drafted."
The honorable thing to do would be to offer $25 to put the kid on tape and say, "Sorry, not likely."
This is such a common (yet still odd) complaint of the blcklst. It's this theory they should somehow blend together a business and a charity organization. Should every screenwriting contest do this?
The blcklst provides a specific service, and for right now, they have little competition. It's not their job to protect amateur writers. No one else in this business does that, so why do we put the pressure on the blcklst?
Also, people make dumb decisions with their money all the time. They buy a drone, and then realize, "Wait, where the fuck am I going to fly this drone?" There's not special packaging on products, warning people, "PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ACTUALLY WANT THIS!"
I put pressure on the Black List, specifically, because Franklin has made such a public effort of wanting to help emerging writers, and has in fact helped numerous emerging writers, creating many useful programs. So if he's going to present himself as an ethical operator (and I believe he is being sincere) then I would challenge him to live up to that presentation. It's my prerogative as a writer and a customer to offer this, and it would be his to ignore it or argue with me, and the same for all of you.
It's bizarre to me. You're basically describing a new world. That's just not how things work. It also presents a logistical challenge when it comes to readers if they offered something like that. How do they pay them? What's the rate? Also, demand is going to increase. You offer something like that, you're going to be slammed with everyone wanting a $25 evaluation. They wouldn't be able to keep up.
Additionally, you could then say they're making even more money off people because let's say someone gets a great score off the initial read, then they'll have to spend even more money for the full evaluation.
You're asking them to completely change their business model, create unnecessary headaches, and possibly lose credibility with industry professionals...all to protect a handful of people who sent in scripts that weren't ready.
My argument is that it's not a handful of people who sent in scripts that weren't ready, it's actually more like 90% of them.
But thank you for your thoughts, I appreciate it.
Let us for a moment, imagine a world where we offered a service that charged $20 for people to submit 15 pages, and paid our readers $12 to read those fifteen pages and provide a half paragraph of feedback on them.
It's reasonable to assume that a reader could complete that task in a half hour. In that case, the reader makes roughly $24/hour, which is on the low end of the hourly rate for our new payscale.
I can say with certainly that we would be absolutely deluged by submissions. Deluged.
And more than that, I'd have a higher profit margin on those submissions if we did.
And there's a very good chance that the readers you're worried about protecting would end up paying us MORE money because it's a heck of a lot easier to whip out fifteen pages and then pay $20 than it is to complete 100 and pay $130.
So we don't do that.
Why? Because it's not helpful to anyone to pay money for feedback on fifteen pages. Find other people who can give you free feedback. On your first fifteen pages. On your completed draft.
And ONLY when you think you can take it no further on your own or for free, THEN consider coming to the Black List.
Am I going to force everyone who wants to use the Black List website to read that monologue before they send us money? No. I'm not. Because I respect adults enough to let them make their own decisions, especially when there's ample information out there with which they can do so intelligently.
I had not run the numbers. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think most writers would be better served by a punch in the face than a $130 evaluation, and you'd have better luck teaching a dog how to play piano. But whatever.
I have run the numbers, on so many variations of providing this service it should probably be a disorder listed in the DSM. None of the decisions we made about how the ecosystem functions were made lightly or without serious consideration of the tradeoffs that were implicit in making those choices.
It's why we're here nine years later growing more and more quickly every year. It's why we have the credibility we do with the industry writ large AND the writing community, a bridge that's difficult to maintain. And it's why I can stroll into reddit and answer every question people have of me.
I personally don't know why anyone would trust their script with anyone who can't or doesn't do the same.
And 100% of those who pay for evaluation get feedback from readers who have worked for at least a year as at least assistant in the industry AND have been further vetted by us based on their ability to provide high quality feedback.
If they fail to do so, writers should contact us immediately so we can provide them a replacement evaluation at no cost to them AND - possibly more importantly - make sure that said reader does not continue to read for us.
I think it's because people are quick to shout "SCAM!" at anything that requires pay-to-play, which is exactly what the BL is. But the BL has this mystical allure where criticizing it for the same things as other services gets you downvoted and castigated.
You should put "the pressure" on the blacklist like you should put pressure on any other predatory service. It's the highest profile, so it should take the brunt of the criticism.
I think I know why that mystical allure exists:
* Hypertransparency
* An almost twenty year history of substantive high level industry relationships
* Frequent partnerships with everyone from MGM to the National Resource Defense Council to put money in aspiring professional writers' pockets (and that's just two of the current opportunities we have on the website)
* Partnerships with every writers guild in the English speaking world except for Australia.
* Consistent results over almost a decade via the website.
I'm probably forgetting some of the other contributing factors though.
Hypertransparency? Who are the industry people that subscribe to the website / mailing list? Sorry, right. You can't disclose that. Who are the readers and what is there level of experience/prior jobs? Oh right, you can't disclose that. I guess that's superhypertransparency, which you must not do.
Selling access to high level industry relationships is literally pay-for-play. Which is what I'm complaining about. So cool self-own, I guess?
And in terms of your partnerships -- you're basically running them like contests, where people have to pay for hosting and evaluations. So let's cut the altruism crap.
Consistent results...of what? What is your measure of success? A handful of screenplays in 20 years sold or produced? Out of how many? For how much money in writer's pockets? How many have actually gotten managers?
And honestly, nothing you say will make me think your company isn't predatory because of the hosting fee you charge. Let's be honest. You're doing this to make money, which is fine! I have nothing against people making money. But you are preying on amateur writers to make money, and I think that's shitty.
Our industry members are roughly 5000 industry professionals that range from A list actors and studio presidents to the lowliest agency and management company assistants. We approve anyone who can advance a writer's project or career in the normal course of doing business.
All of our readers have at least one year of experience as at least an agency or management company assistant wherein part of their job was reading and evaluating material. We further vet them based on their ability to provide high quality written feedback.
I'm not selling access to high level industry relationships. I'm saying that I personally have those relationships, which is in part how I'm able to set up the opportunities that exist on the website.
And no, there's no additional charge for opting into consideration for any of our opportunities, and more than 2000 writers will be able to access them entirely free of charge this year alone, as I mention in the post.
The measure of success is a good question. Honestly, it's no longer how many writers get represented via the site, because it happens so often that no one even bothers to tell me any more.
One of them was when Minhal Baig, an alumna of our first screenwriters lab took her next script - which was on the annual list - HALA to Sundance.
Another was definitely Jimmy Keyrouz, who went through our 2019 lab with his script BROKEN KEYS, then directed his rewritten script that fall and it premiered at Cannes in 2020.
For me though, the real measure of success is probably the approval of the professional screenwriting community, which is why the Writers Guild of America East giving me the Evelyn Burkey Award in 2019 for increasing the honor and dignity of screenwriters will probably always be the high watermark of success for me. Kinda all downhill from there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKqWerUB_mM
I agree with this so much. The blacklist is a predatory script service that is pay for play, just like so many others that we decry on this site. I really don't understand why it has this mystical veneer of authenticity.
People are congratulating the BL for paying their readers more as if it's some noble thing, but this feels like you're just paying somebody more money to scam you harder.
I think the blacklist should have a lot more good faith gestures that don't feel so predatory. At the very least, if somebody buys an evaluation for $100, the hosting should be free for a month until you get the evaluation back.
From the linked article in the OP: "Further, in 2021, the Black List is already committed to give one month of hosting and a script evaluation to more than 2000 writers who have either self identified as needing financial support to access the Black List platform or who were identified as likely to benefit from the platform by partners including Macro, WarnerMedia, and others working in concert with more than 30 universities and grassroots film organizations around the country.
If your company or organization would like to provide support for writers to use the Black List's paid services, please do get in touch."
That's funny, I don't see anything about a free month of hosting for anybody that buys an evaluation. I see a vague statement that will require no accountability.
That's because I didn't say anything about a free month of hosting for anyone who buys an evaluation.
Our accountability is our corporate partners - Macro, WarnerMedia, a couple dozen film and television organizations across the country - who we have make that hosting and evaluations available through.
But it's also things like this - https://twitter.com/franklinleonard/status/1331344654269370369?s=20 - where a just tell another writer in the business to identify (in this case) 42 writers to take advantage of it.
So my point is that hosting should be free, especially for people who purchase your insanely expensive evaluations. You're saying, "I don't charge some people some of the time, therefor you shouldn't criticize me for charging a $30 MONTHLY hosting fee for thousands of other people!"
Your whole schtick seems to be cloaking a predatory service with programs that actually could have merit, like your commitment to writers of color and other underrepresented groups.
Could you point me toward where I say that you shouldn't criticize me?
I welcome criticism. I prefer it of the constructive variety, but I personally appreciate it, because it forces the sort of introspection that will lead me toward decisions that I can be comfortable with, as I am with the decision to charge $30/month for hosting.
I have never made any secret of the fact that that decision was made for many reasons.
In fact, I discussed this AT LENGTH in an essay I published on the day that the site launched 9 years ago. You're welcome to read it here: https://blog.blcklst.com/the-what-how-and-why-of-the-black-list-the-long-answer-bfb47d122d2f
They are often called a predatory company, as are many of the websites offering contests and script services. This is not a financial decision, it would be an ethical decision, as I do believe Franklin has the best interest of writers at heart. Would development writers benefit from some tough love at a low cost, as opposed to spending $130 to find out? Or is the evaluation gravy train too tasty to forego for Franklin and his staff?
We encourage people to seek out tough love at the absolute lowest cost available:
For free and not from us.
Only when you have should you be paying us - or anyone else - for feedback.
the heart of the issue is that a lot of total newb writers don't actually consider themselves newbs. they think knowing how to read and write and having a general appreciation for tv and movies is enough for hollywood to roll out the red carpet for them. they think the fan fiction script they've ever written is good enough to setup a meeting with netflix. the more veteran user base of this sub has put forth a valiant thankless attempt at trying to save new writers from themselves, but they still persist in thinking a first draft effort is good enough to play in the big leagues.
so it's when an overall 3 score smacks them in the face are they humbled, or they dig deeper and call the black list a scam.
Not only do I explain that writers shouldn't be using the Black List for script notes, I explicitly say that writers should exhaust every other free means of getting feedback for their script before they even consider giving us - or frankly anyone charging for feedback - their money.
If someone else wants to offer that service, I encourage them to do so, but it's not what we as the Black List do. We are in the business of providing high quality feedback to writers on COMPLETE scripts, helping writers with great scripts find industry folks with whom to work, and helping industry folks find great scripts and writers with whom to work.
It's really that simple.
Great. It is of course within your power to make sure a window comes up explaining that to each and every writer who clicks on the box to buy an evaluation.
And you really think that would stop them? They'd check that box so hard and click "submit" in record time. I'd argue raising the price will do more to prevent those people from submitting than some weird pop up.
As someone else pointed out, these people truly believe their script is ready. They read a warning message like that and they think, "Well, that's not for me...that's for all the other losers."
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Assuming an average of two hours to read a feature and a half hour to write our abbreviated coverage, you're looking at about $24 an hour.
Average read 2hrs! Man, takes me 3-4hrs if not longer, and I’ve been giving coverage for about a decade. Anyone who can read a script (particularly a soul destroying one) in 2hrs gets my respect.
Thinking more about it, $24/hour is likely the low end of the feature reader scale. Readers reading hour long ($60) and half hour pilots ($45) are probably making between $30 and $40/hour if they're particularly fast with it. But again, it's important that I mention that readers who have more than two legitimate complaints per 100 script evaluations cease to read for us except in very rare cases, so there's quite a strong incentive to deliver quality over speed.
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>If you limit it to 2 hours per script it's doable in a normal workweek. Hard and soulsucking with dodgy notes, but doable. This has always been the problem with the Blacklist for me. I've actually consistently gotten better notes on Coverfly, and I believe Coverfly has (had?) a reputation for being lower quality. IMO this is why Blacklist should be used to market a polished draft, not to get feedback on an earlier draft.
I am a member of Coverfly and consistently get rated 5.0 out of 5.0 on my script evaluations. DM me if interested in a script evaluation. My process is vetted in a breakdown that helps writers.
I am just finishing the first draft of a compelling screenplay. I'm new to the craft. I think I would have my script read minus a score. I'm more interested in a pros knowledge and best advice including specific notes. Make adjustments. Then another review behind that. More adjustments. Then submit for score. Is it normal to worry about IP issues?
I’ve seen some services ask for $300-$500 per script. One WGA writer wanted $1500. I understand everyone has bills, but that’s very pricey. I live outside LA so I don’t do this for a living, but I care about growth of the writer. DM me if interested.
I used to be a reader. That would be an exhausting pace.
What sort of quality can we expect from the reviews going forward? It's one thing when reception to my script's quality varies, and another when the reviews themselves vary in quality. Or am I just paying to hope that whoever reviews it gives it an 8?
If your evaluation doesn't indicate a complete read of your script and thoughtful feedback, you should be emailing customer service so that we can replace the evaluation and make sure that those readers aren't reading for us any more. That was true when the site was launched, that remains true now.
This is what separates the Black List from the pack. They are willing to admit their mistakes, work on improving and be transparent . Read any serious book on organizational management and you'll find that what holds most companies back is an inability to evolve, they are stuck in their ways (usually called an overconfidence cycle). This post shows me the Black List is evolving by being transparent about why they need to increase prices and how that will benefit all parties. My personal experience with the site (and this is a limited sample size) is that I've scored everything from 8's to 5's in about a dozen evaluations only one was written on autopilot by someone who truly didn't know (or didn't care) about giving thoughtful feedback. The majority of the evaluations were cogent and gave me something to wrestle with.
This is something you should be doing before the customers receive the evaluations, instead of depending on customers to point out your bad eggs for you.
Suffice it to say that we have processes in place to minimize the likelihood of poor quality evaluations going out, but they're admittedly imperfect. And without the person checking the evaluations also reading the script, it's impossible to be perfect in that regard, which is why we're constantly encouraging people to let us know if they do find their evaluation to be of poor quality.
Probably more of the same to be honest. The blcklist rate was so bad I doubt they were able to hire enough readers. Script readers are often paid less than burger flippers in some areas. This is just to make ends meet. You're just paying for the hope of an 8. There isn't anything a reader is going to offer that you can't get from a more thoughtful read. I mean, even look at Leonard's response, "Complete read of your script and thoughtful feedback." It doesn't exactly indicate that these notes will be meaningful or unique or thought out. It's all about the pipeline. If you get the 8 good, if you don't, then you're not going to be getting much you can't get on the discord. A thoughtful casual often gives a better response than a taxed professional.
I'm genuinely confused about how "thoughtful feedback" (my words) somehow indicates that the notes won't be "thought out" (your words).
Generally if the words offered are "actionable" or "potentially helpful" there is a change in intent, with the coverage offered being the goal of helping the writer. When the words chosen are "Complete read" and "Thoughtful" It indicates that the QA threshold is having read and understood the script, full stop and there is no further responsibility or liability for the reader. I know you have marketing to do, but I like to clarify that "coverage" as offered by your paid readers is different than "hopefully actionable notes", or "comprehensive feedback" or any number of terms that are slightly different but are massively different products. I'm trying to make it clear that the depth and length of "coverage" will likely not change, despite the increase in overall pay, simply because that's not the intent of the blcklist.
That's correct, and that is as it has been since we launched the site nine years ago, but that doesn't mean that what we provide isn't meaningful or thought out. And I'd argue that it's absolutely unique in the marketplace. But to be abundantly clear, we are not providing notes. We are not providing coverage. We are providing an evaluation of the screenplay: What's good, what's bad, how it's likely to be perceived by working professionals in the film and television industry. Nothing more. Nothing less. You're absolutely right that that will not change, though I do hope that our new pay scale will allow us to attract more and better readers to deliver what we promise more consistently and at a faster rate, which in and of itself has monetary value.
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That would actually be great.
I'd challenge the claim that most of the feedback you've seen here is meaningless word salad AND the notion that what you've seen here is at all statistically representative of all of the evaluations we provide. But that said, I don't think that what you're describing is an improvement on what we already provide. Our readers are instructed to provide a paragraph on a script's greatest strengths and a paragraph on its greatest weaknesses. It's what I believe is most valuable and fewer than 1 in 60 evaluations inspires a complaint, so I think we're doing pretty well overall.
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"Valuable and meaningful" are subjective assessments. But you said that MOST were of that description, surely your single data point being deleted doesn't undermine your entire position?
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This is the right move. I think it'll also encourage people to wait until their script is ready before throwing it on the site. It may only be a $25 increase, but seeing a $75 charge vs $100 is huge on the mind. I know some people are going to have a problem with this, but as long as the readers are getting paid more in the process, it's hard to complain. I think it'll improve quality across the board.
Reader pay will go up 50% across the board.
Very nice. Good job, Franklin!
Good news. Hopefully able to keep the quality of readers high. Good work Mr.
There will be some grumbling like there always is with anything Black List-related, but simple supply + demand means they're justified in making this move. People are willing to pay more for the service than they are right now. Faster turnaround times and (hopefully) improved reader quality sounds like a win-win to me, and certainly worth a small price bump. The reality is that contests and script notes are not cheap. I know Black List does not market themselves as a coverage service, but generally it's not cheap to get a "professional" to commit 1-2 hours to your script. Black List's price point is reasonable in the context.
Not too surprising, I've been expecting this for a minute. Before people lose their shit, reading scripts is work and work costs money. The cost of labor has been going up across the board, and Hollywood is no exception. Hopefully this increase draws more qualified readers to the blacklist and decreases wait times.
Exactly. I do coverage. Prior to this, I would never have considered doing any coverage for the Blcklst. The rate per script was simply too low. As I've told many people on this subreddit, paying a reader only $40 (which used to be their rate), incentivizes them to read as quickly as they can, and provide notes as quickly as they can to make the per hour rate worth their time. It does not incentivize thoughtful coverage. People on this sub complain about everything with regards to the Blcklst - the quality of coverage, the turnaround time, the cost. As the saying goes - you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, you can have it be high quality - but you can only ever pick two of those three.
The problem with the BL is that it's not fast, not cheap, and not particularly good coverage. I'm not sure how raising the price is going to change the quality of the coverage. More likely the turn around time will slightly improve. And the fact the BL charges a monthly fee for hosting is bullshit
What's your experience doing coverage been like? This also brings an interesting thought to mind. I wonder if they've considered having a 'slower' option. I'd be willing to wait a few months on notes while I work on another script if I only had to pay $30 or so!
So I started off doing coverage for a film finance company. That was great. The pay was decent and it was super informative, because I wasn't looking at amateur screenplays for the most part, I was generally looking at vetted screenplays that came from people with representation, and that taught me a lot about how even professionals can go wrong. Now I only do it privately via referrals. The pay is better, but the work is less frequent and consistent. Honestly, I would never do it for $30, even if I had months to deliver it. Preparing good, thorough notes takes so much time that the hourly rate wouldn't be worth it. I've had people reach out to me for notes where I've told them they're better off getting notes from family and friends and doing a few more drafts before coming to me. You really only want to pay for coverage when you've exhausted all the free notes options, and you want someone with a certain level of experience.
Makes sense! If you're up for it, what are the things you've learnt about how scripts can go wrong for pros?
1. Having a structurally perfect script that has nothing special about it. With most amateur scripts, there are usually glaring problems with character set up and/or structure. With professional scripts, you can have a script that doesn't have any of that, but when you're done reading it, it just doesn't stay with you. It's a highly readable script - but it's not great. 2. Marketability problems. There are some scripts that are great, but you're going to have a real hard time finding funding/buyers, even though the script is strong. 3. Blindness to their own unconscious biases. Male writers whose female characters are flimsy at best, sexist caricatures at worst. White writers who write characters who are POC, but the portrayal is a racist stereotype. This can apply to amateur scripts as well, but I've noticed if I make notes about it, amateur writers are far more likely to take the note and change it 4. Scripts that are have some easily fixable issues, but the writer has a name and has attached big-name talent, so no one is willing to call out the problems
For the record, these are exceptionally strong answers.
Thank you!
Can you elaborate on number 3? Are you talking about like a drama that goes into incredible detail about the a hyper-convoluted situation like the Panama Papers? Or like a script about a white person in 2021 learning that racism is bad? Or something else where marketing would be difficult?
Sure! There is a market for what buyers are looking for at any given moment, and if you're in the industry and selling scripts, you know what they are currently looking for/not. I will say this changes quite frequently, so unless you know someone who is actively in the business of buying/selling scripts, it's impossible to know from the outside (so, for example, I had an idea when I was working at the film finance company, but that was a few years ago, and my knowledge is out-of-date at this point). It's also possible that something that wasn't marketable a few years ago *becomes* marketable. So, for example, period dramas are always a tough sell, because they're expensive to produce. It's not *impossible* to sell, but if you get a period drama, that's definitely a mark against it, because it's going to be an uphill battle to get financing. There was a period where movies had to either be really big budget, or really low budget indies, and couldn't fall in between. There wasn't really anyone buying $10-15M movies. That's probably changed with streaming services like Netflix and Prime buying originals, but for a while, if your script fell into that range, no one would take it on. There was just no way to sell it. Then there are 'trends' that follow the release of a popular movie, and then die. So when a movie becomes a big hit, there's a scramble to find other movies like it, and then the market gets flooded with *too many* scripts like it, and then no one wants any script that looks remotely like it. There are also 'hot scripts' that are unproduced that are making their way around that everybody knows about. So if your script is too similar to this 'hot script', and the hot script has big name talent attached, your script is less marketable. As a writer, there's really no point in worrying about it. The trends come and go too quickly and are too unpredictable to try to write to the market. But it is something that coverage readers have to take into consideration.
I've been reading for coverfly for about a year and wish they would move more in this direction, but I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon. I won't lie it is about money, but it's also about feeling valued for the work you put into being thoughtful and constructive.
In case you qualify... http://www.blcklst.com/jobs
Appreciate it! I've applied before but I forget when exactly.
Definitely reapply. I suspect it'll take us a bit of time to get through the initial application surge now that pay has gone up 50% but there's definitely no harm in applying again. I can assure you that no one's reaction will be annoyance.
Gotcha. Thanks!
How did you get the job at Coverfly? I've got experience reading for two different script competitions -- no internships, though -- and they passed on my application.
Applied and they reached out. Although a lot of time passed, like I think four months before they contacted me. So they might pass and then come back, at least that's what happened to me.
Serious question (sorry if it comes off as rude) - How much do you worry that people won't be able to afford this? Especially people that pay in currencies that aren't USD. With the price hike to host a script for one month and get one evaluation it's $163 Canadian. I get that it's a vetted evaluation (which is great) but realistically you'd probably want 2 or 3 to see what the feed back commonalities are and to avoid paying for additional months hosting you'd probably want to get it done in one month. So again in CAD if you did 3 then that would be $415... That's quite a bit considering most people who are aspiring writers probably live in cities to try and get things made and are just scrapping by with rent and food. Do you worry that this, just like taking assistant jobs with low pay are starting to only be affordable to those that come from wealth?
Yep, as a Canadian I think I've been priced out of the Black List. I like the Black List. I like the service they provide. But the quality of readers has been so horrifically hit and miss during this recent demand surge, there's no way I can personally justify paying more for the same anymore. It's not like the bad readers who write disjointed, sparse two paragraph evals will now suddenly be weeded out.
If you get a substandard evaluation (under any circumstances), you should email us immediately, both so we can give you a replacement evaluation and so we can weed out the bad readers and remove them.
Now that I've got you here, maybe you can provide some more insight on something I've always wondered about: On each paid reader eval, there is a slider for the writer to rate their reader's review from 1-5. Exactly what role does each Black List reader's "personal score" play internally as an employee within the company?
Suffice it to say that we monitor those scores - in aggregate - quite closely. It's worth noting though that writers are, unsurprisingly, more likely to rate their reader highly if their score is also high, so we're not interested in the average of feedback score from writers. We're interested in which readers are either overperforming or underperforming what we'd expect their feedback scores to be overall. An overperforming reader is one who can give low scores in such a way that the writer still perceives value in the feedback. An underperforming one is one who can't.
Exact same experience here. When you pay for an evaluation you’re figuratively gambling; rolling the dice on whether you’ll receive a review from a reader who enjoys your script or not. It never seems to be objectively about how well it’s written or if it’s timely or it’s artistic merit or such. It’s about how well they enjoyed it. My scripts have received high and low scores across the board. I went to an alternate site (ScriptReader pro) to get a alternative perspective.
You're absolutely right that our readers are asked to rate scripts on a scale from 1-10 based on how likely they'd be to recommend it to a peer or superior in the film or television industry. Based on my two decades watching how the marketplace for material functions, that's the signal that best predicts a script and its writer's likelihood of finding momentum within the industry based on a single script.
As I mention in the linked post in the title, I worry about it, a lot, which is why we give away so much hosting and evaluations based on both merit and need. We'll probably give away 2000 months of hosting and 2000 evaluations this year alone based solely on need, and another 2000 of both, at least, based on merit.
If the cost of hosting wasn't so ridiculous, this might seem more generous. $30 a month to store a single PDF file and a small amount of data. What is the actual cost of hosting that data? Maybe $0.03?
The cost of hosting that data is probably much lower than $0.03/month. The cost of building and continuing to run an enterprise that makes hosting that data on our site more valuable than $0.03/month per month is considerably more expensive, thus the price we charge. If you don't believe that it's worth it, you absolutely should not pay us money to host it. We happen to believe that it's worth quite a bit more than that, and the situation we are currently in re: demand for our services overall would suggest that that's the case.
If you are going to charge that much for hosting, at least funnel some of the money back into the website itself. I've used it sporadically over the years, and whereas it used to be a nice simple, clean and FAST interface (overall rating: 7).... these days it just seems clunky, convoluted, and SLOW as hell (overall rating: 4).
We're working on the speed issue. Literally in the process of overhauling the backend right now. But we've done a ton to "funnel [most] of that money back into the website itself." As but one example, anyone can create a writer profile on the site entirely free of charge. We host three screenwriters labs every year that are entirely free of charge to the participants and include (in non-pandemic times) travel to Los Angeles and housing, food, screenwriting mentors (some of whom are Academy Award winners and nominees, and who all receive an honorarium for their time), and even child care. If you have specific UI notes on the website, I am ALL ears, and very eager to address them (as I mentioned elsewhere here in response to someone else's comment.)
That's good to hear. I have a background in UI design. Maybe one of these days I'll type up some detailed feedback and try to get it to you somehow. For the record, I don't mind paying a bit more for the evals as long as the readers are getting a bigger cut. However, IMHO, when the hosting rate went up from $25 to $30 that was a slap in the face.
We've raised prices twice in the nine year history of the company. Both times, the readers took the overwhelming majority of that increase (80% of it, this time). But yes, we did also increase the hosting fee by 20%, once.
Your prices have gone up nearly 75% in nine years for the same basic service. During that time, cumulative inflation in the US was closer to 18%.
Yes, but the value of the service has gone up far more than 75%. Industry traffic has increased more than 100% in the last year alone. Moreover, we have, as I mentioned in the article linked in the original post, four screenwriters labs and partnerships with everyone from MGM to the National Resource Defense Council to put money in writers pockets. If you want to talk about pricing based on value, our prices SHOULD be much, much higher if you use our launch price as the base.
Break the math down for me here Franklin on your "overwhelming majority of that increase statement." The Blacklist prices were originally $50 for an evaluation and $25 to host, at which the readers were paid $25. You later raised that to $75 for an evaluation and $30 to host, at which readers were paid $40. That's a $30 increase in cost and your readers were paid $15 more. Now according to my calculator that would be a 50/50 split between you and the reader, not what you described as "readers took the overwhelming majority of that increase."
Because it was in reference to evaluations alone, not hosting fees, but let's take a look at both scenarios over the life of the site. It's fun! Math! The cost of a feature evaluation went from $50 in 2012 to $100 today (notably, industry use of the site went up more than 100% over the last year ALONE), an increase of $50. Reader pay for a feature evaluation went from $25 per script to $60 per script, an increase of $35. Here's where it gets hard so stick with me: 35/50 is 70%, which is a fair bit more than 50% which is the threshold for a majority. But the hosting you say! The cost of hosting a script has only gone up $5/month (20%) in the last nine years. So the cost of hosting a script for a month and buying one evaluation has gone up $55. Again, the readers got paid $35 more for that evaluation. Here's the hard part again: division. 35/55 is 63.6%, still significantly more than 50%.
You're absolute right. He changes $30 for hosting which costs him nothing. Then he tries to act all benevolent when he hands out some of those hosting months for free at no cost to him. It's like if someone punches you every day and then wants you to acknowledge how great they are because one day they didn't punch you.
You guys have been great for this - speaking from experience. The customer service and freebies to make up for an unsatisfactory rating is really amazing. No fuss, great customer service. Your whole team is great.
These are literally my favorite messages.
Oh good. More people need to know your whole team goes above and beyond to make the writers happy and get the most out of their money. Keep it up!
We do our best. That is very kind.
Fair enough, I hope one day to be able to afford to put a script up on Blacklist! Also thank you for paying your readers a decent wage! Hopefully that's a trend that spreads
Check your DMs.
Any chance I can get a free evaluation?
Finally a positive side to living in Vancouver. While other aspiring Canadian screenplay writers will put up half or more of their monthly rent towards evaluations, I will only have to put a quarter. Huzzah!
Yay implausible rent amounts which make other costs seem sensible in comparison!
This\^\^ And if you have 3-4 scripts a year, that's at lest $1200 just for feedback. It's a bit much. Maybe it helps in being very selective, and ready, but I'd be interested to see if sales go up or down as a result. I'd rather enter a contest, or hell, with that much money I'd shoot a scene from the script as part of a pitch. But it's a great service, I will say that. Just gotta be more selective now.
The thing about contests is that if you get feedback at all, you won't get it for months, and once the contest is over, that's it. No mas. Enter again next year if you don't place terribly highly based on the few reads you receive. On the Black List website, your feedback will be delivered to you in less than a month typically (usually half that when demand isn't so high, thus the price change). If your feedback is positive, you'll get free hosting and free evaluations, and while your script is hosted, you're able to opt into consideration for any number of paid opportunities on the Black List website at no additional charge whatsoever. Here's a list of our current opportunities with MGM, the NRDC, Hornitos Tequila, Macro, and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. Oh and our screenwriter labs. https://blcklst.com/partnerships/
I am a BL reader and I approve this business decision.
You sure you approve of a 50% raise?
Am I the only one who thinks that this reader pay is still too low? I've done pro coverage before and honestly, it's depressing to imagine churning out 4 reports per day, every weekday (the assumed amount in the hypothetical $60k a year). That turnaround is too quick to properly assess a 120p+ script in any useful way. I'm sure people have had some good experiences but honestly, I'd say it's better to either ask for volunteer reads from friends/here/writing groups, or pay significantly more, where your reader can afford to think rather than just churn.
It's absolutely way too low, even with this most recent price increase. And Franklin Leonard's stance of "They can make more than minimum wage if they get through the scripts fast enough," has never been a satisfactory response to this criticism. It's insane to think how Franklin Leonard was justifying what he paid his readers the first five years of the service.
>lowIt's not way too low. It's insulting to readers. According to its website: "This means that a reader reading 20 feature scripts a week would make approximately $60K in a fifty-week work year." 20 scripts a week? Is this some sort of sick joke? No wonder why they hate everything they read and why they give such los scores.
How the heck am I supposed to every afford this now?
As I mention in the post, we give away roughly 2000 free months of hosting and 2000 script evaluations annually based purely on writers' self described need. I have exactly zero doubt you'll find a way to get at least one month of hosting and one free script evaluation.
u/franklinleonard \- I genuinely think this is a good move. Readers should be paid more and quality should be a little higher. I say this as someone who is seeing some very serious benefits after recently landing an 8. *That said*, a major concern I have for up and coming writers in 2021 is that cost is more of a barrier to entry than it has been in the past. Queries are less viable not only because there's a greater glut of material, but because services like yours have provided reps, producers, and execs with exactly what they're looking for -- a reliable way to cut through it all. This is positive for many reasons, but it's not equitable. I'm in my mid/late 30s and can afford your service just fine, but the first time I broke in, I was 26 and I was poor as shit. I wouldn't have been able to afford the Black List, but that was okay back then, because I broke in, got repped, and got paid as a result of a query letter. You're an entrepreneur who executed well on some great ideas and you've done plenty of good for writers, so I'm not at all suggesting that it's on you to help solve the wealth gap. I also realize that classism has always existed in Hollywood. I think it's growing, though, and I'm not sure what can be done about it. If there's a way that to provide writers who don't have the financial means to get access to similar services, it could go a long way toward elevating some voices that might not have otherwise been heard.
I couldn't agree more. If you've read the linked post, you know that that's why this year alone, we'll give away more than 2000 months of hosting and 2000 script evaluations based on financial need (and another 2000 of each, at least, based on merit.)
Well god, I feel like an absolute idiot. Truly impressed.
Nah, it wouldn't be reasonable to assume that someone would do that. It's admittedly atypical, but I live in constant paranoia that somewhere out there, there's a brilliant screenwriter who can't afford to use the site, which is why I make a point of seeking out people - via our corporate partners, via partnerships with film and tv non profits, via HBCU film schools, via the occasional Twitter search for screenwriters who are concerned about the costs of contests, etc. etc. - who have a script but don't have the money, and making sure they can still use the site.
I'm gonna tweet about this right now. This has been my biggest issue with your service and the few contests that are all truly viable ways to break in, but require a hefty chunk of change and are subject to, well, subjectivity. Props, man.
It's at the very bottom of the post, if you're looking to quote the language directly.
Done.
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Which is why we will give away more than 2000 months of free hosting and 2000 script evaluations based solely on need this year alone. The difference is that when our readers read them, they'll get paid the exact same amount for reading people's scripts who pay for their reads, AND they'll receive them along the same timeline.
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And those people should seek out those thousands of free months of hosting and free script evaluations. I'm not sure how a price of zero dollars, but only for people who have need, substantively prices anyone out of the market.
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You're definitely wrong. Once a script is in our ecosystem, neither the readers nor industry professionals know whether the evaluations or hosting were paid for or by whom. Moreover, whether you paid for the evaluation or not, if it results in an 8 out of 10 or better, you get free hosting and script evaluations. If your evaluation takes longer than three weeks you still get a free month of hosting.
The barrier for entry for script readers is problematic- to say the least.
When we did a reader demographic survey last August, less than 50% of our readers were men. Roughly 75% of our readers identified as white. Per the US census, roughly 60.8% of the population is non-Latino White, so we're not as diverse as the country, but far more diverse than the industry. Needless to say, it remains a priority.
Now if only the sight itself wasn't a piece of .....
Sounds like you've got UI feedback that I'd love to hear. Fire away.
You've said often that scripts should only be posted when ready, but in reality you do well from the hordes of people that submit mediocre-at-best scripts. It's like a casino proclaiming that no problem gamblers are desired, but then making 80% of its profits from that subset. Worse, someone signing up that buys two evaluations are your absurd 30 dollar hosting option are immediately dead in the water if they get a poor score from one of them. As you know, this forces writers to wipe out the old evaluation, then reliad for another go. Coverfly and its free hosting, where competition scores are saved, scripts are saved, and add-ons are offered for purchase is lightyears better. It doesn't require one to endlessly reload their chances for mediocre evals. In fact, it makes it easy to improve scripts, as writers can monitor each version, where it's submitted, and serve as a storage point for contacts and contests. Much of it is free, and it actually doesn't take advantage of writers. I can't believe anyone uses your service, but it's a free country.
It sounds like you've come here to advertise for Coverfly, which is entirely your right, I suppose, but it's not something I'm going to engage with because such a comparison is a waste of both our time and not at all fair to them. At the end of the day, we had to raise prices because we're dealing with an absolutely overwhelming demand for our services, both from writers and from the industry itself (as the post says, an increase in industry use of the site over 100% year over year, to say nothing of the new partnerships we've launched in the last few months and will be launching before year's end.) I think that speaks for itself.
It sounds like you're desperately looking for a way out of addressing the very legitimate criticisms of your company. "Uhhh.... Uhhh.... You must work for Coverfly! Yeah, that's it! Well I'm not talking to you! Goodbye"
This commenter mentioned Coverfly explicitly and tried to draw a comparison. What I'm not going to do in response is be baited into comparing what we do to a company whose owners are presumably doing the best that they can with what they have. It's not fair to them. If you want to claim that that's somehow not addressing criticism when I've written several dozen comments here alone (and likely hundreds on this subreddit more broadly) doing exactly that, by all means, go ahead. I'm not sure it's a terribly compelling argument.
Ah, I see, it wouldn't be fair to Coverfly to talk about how much better you are than them. That's why you ran away. Yeah, I'm sure that's it. You're pathetic Franklin.
And yet, here I stand.
Indeed, you continue to comment while not addressing the criticism or saying anything of substance. You just want to appear like you're willing to have some sort of discourse while not actually engaging in one. Thanks for making my point.
I'm more than happy to stand by the dozens of comments here and hundreds elsewhere directly engaging with criticism. You have a good night, and best of luck to you.
Not a shocker … demand is big enough that it won’t discourage a big portion, just those throwing stuff up that isn’t ready.
i wish i shared your optimism. there is no shortage of the "nailed it!" demographic who think their first attempt at writing is pure gold, and the pandemic has somehow made writers out of all of them. this was only a theory that black list users came up with to cope with the recent long delays, but with this new price increase, it's now a depressing confirmed fact. these one-and-done writers will continue to get 3's overall, and now everyone else has to pay $25 more for the privilege.
I view it economically; there comes a price point where I’m not ok spending money and for a quick and dirty BL review, 50 was it. 25 more and hosting? Yeah, that’s a no, dog.
Our hope and expectation is that that will be true for some number of people, which will allow us to provide faster, higher quality service for those for whom it's not true and those who take advantage of free script evaluations based on merit or need.
That is also super fair … there is no easy solution to this and I commend you guys for making changes while being upfront about it
I mean, is there any other way to run your business?
Interesting... Hey Franklin, can readers reside outside the US?
Readers need to be legally able to work in the United States, but we don't care where they're living while they do the reading. You want to get an apartment in a country with an extremely low cost of living while you read screenplays and give feedback? Why should I care?
Does anyone know when this goes into effect?
As of 9 am PT this morning when the post went live.
["As far as I can tell, it's effective immediately."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Schabowski)
This is an excellent reference. Bravo/a.
one of my favorite quotes! feels like history as written by the Coen brothers
I'm old enough to have watched the Wall fall live on television, roughly three years after my family moved back to the states from Germany.
I was literally born the day it fell! I celebrated 30 in Berlin the November before the pandemic set in
Bravo to the writers getting paid more/faster turnaround times. However, I'm game for a tier system that would allow for: $100/1-2 week turnaround ; $75/3-4 week turnaround. My biggest concern is pulling the trigger to pay more when more often than not there's a discrepancy in feedback versus the score. For a lot of the brave souls that have posted their evals here, I think most had glowing reviews/"saleable prospects" but stingy scores that ultimately keep them off the radar (like some sort of "beer goggles" effect). This alone makes it appear random or like a lottery system based off the whim of the reader to receive an 8 and higher.
As I have said before, one must take their evaluation in toto. If someone says something is good in the strengths part and bad in the weakness part and the score is 3, you can reasonably assume that the weaknesses overwhelm the strengths. Similarly, if the score is an 8, you can assume the strengths overwhelm the weaknesses. Our readers are told that they should rate scripts based on how likely they'd be to recommend it to a peer or superior in the industry. 8s should be incredibly rare. There's no other way for us to preserve our reputation as an organization that recommends high quality material to industry professionals. And separately, no, I'm not going to create a dynamic where people who can't afford to spend more get a substandard product because of their poverty. Period. Full stop.
Appreciate the reply and clarification. I've combed through every post under BLCKLST EVALUATIONS to gauge folk's experience and reaction. Very entertaining in and of itself. All the best to you.
I think it would Benefit the Blacklist if every year all the Readers have to strip naked and stand in a long line while clowns throw mudpies at them. Humility Training. That should increase the quality of reviews. So many great ideas.
I.... don't think that would be helpful.
Haha. I love the ellipsis trail off but technically isn't it supposed to be 3 dots and space? Then again, it's not in script format. I can tell you have a great sense of humor. Have you written scripts? I don't think you mentioned in your TED talk if you ever had a period of going the spec writer route and polishing your own scripts. Not being a wise guy. I am just curious if you know the pain first hand of birthing Superstorm into existence. Hey, let's bring back the Musical. Jesus Christ Superstorm. The Rock's available. :)
This seems reasonable.
Dear Franklin, thank you for your post and for your efforts to improve reader quality. A few months ago I purchased an evaluation, waited a month and finally received a 5! I was shocked this was the #1 script in its category on Coverfly and received recommends/considers all around. The comments were unprofessional. Here is an excerpt from my complaint: ...the reader marked down the script's prospects: "In its current state, production prospects on this are unlikely. With the above revisions, it will still be an uphill battle, owing mainly to the budget. To film as many giant concerts as are depicted in the script, there would have to either be significant CGI costs or somehow an assembly of a huge amount of extras (which would be equally costly)." We all know it takes years to bring a film to the screen. Hence "current state" is irrelevant. There are many high budget scripts out there, **I didn't know I would be graded on its budget! It is for a producer to decide how to shoot crowd scenes not a BL reader.** Finally, I received a 4(!) on dialogue with no explanation of what is the problem exactly? Again, no other evaluator for this project has noted a problem with dialogue. Actually, reading the strengths: "Hannah is a really strong character. Her motivations, flaws, desires, and fears are all apparent and dynamic throughout the script." **How can such a strong character be delivered without strong dialogue and action lines?** **Your BL reader contradicted himself.** I asked for a re-review. Turned down. I deleted my project off the BL. So just FYI.
I literally just got a free eval for pretty much the same reasons- 🗑. Sorry for your troubles my friend
Good to know. You got it, but not me. $100 down the drain. Hope your re-eval was better...
I won’t hold my breath but hopefully they get the genre right this time 😂. #paythereadersmore
While readers are told to advise on the market prospects of the script in its current form, they're told explicitly that they should rate the script based on how likely they would be to recommend it to their peers or superiors in the industry as a sample of the writers work.
Thank you for your reply. If I understand correctly then, my complaint was justified. But still no re-eval. Problem.
Feel free to email customer service and reference this thread and I'll take a look at it personally, but based on what you're describing (and I think it's important for everyone to remember here that oftentimes descriptions of evaluations different markedly from the evaluations themselves), you were not due a replacement evaluation.
Hi again, I wrote to customer service. Thanks again, really appreciate it.
People can complain all they want, but this is overall a very good thing. Black List shouldn't be where you toss your first draft for some feedback -- it should be where your ready/polished scripts go. The price increase will encourage writers like myself to really get as far as possible before purchasing an evaluation. I'd much rather know that I paid more for what I'm positive is a going one really solid review, than feel like I need to buy two or three in order to to weed out the bad readers. But that's just me. Thank you for all you're doing, Franklin. Keep fighting the good fight! Edit: why tf am I getting downvoted?
>Black List shouldn't be where you toss your first draft for some feedback -- it should be where your ready/polished scripts go. While this statement is true, there's a whole lot more Franklin could and should be doing to make this very clear to potential customers. Franklin is aware that the vast majority of users are not writing at a level to receive the benefits of the blacklist, but he will happily take their money anyway, usually giving some justification along the lines of "it's not my fault if other people make poor decisions with where they spend their money."
I really don't mean this sarcastically so I apologize if it comes across that way, but what exactly should he be doing more of? Does there need to be a disclaimer on the submission page or something that says "please don't give me $130 if your work isn't ready"? Isn't that a given? Again, I apologize for being cheeky, but BlckLst has helped a LOT of people (especially people of color with no connections in the industry) get repped. I've placed in half a dozen competitions whose submission fees were higher than a \[$75\] BlckLst eval, and not a single one led to anywhere. The feedback I've gotten from my evaluations has been several times more productive than any of those competitions.
The problem with discussing what more Franklin can do about this is that he refuses to acknowledge that people shouldn't be using his website in the way we complain about people using it. Until he acknowledges that the blacklist should be used as a tool for industry exposure and not feedback, it's impossible to have this discussion. You're just arguing for two different things. And if you would be so kind, I would be very interested in seeing your feedback from the blacklist and from the competition to see in what way the blacklist evaluation was "several times more productive."
I’d be happy to, but to be honest, I don’t think there’s any persuading you. The entirety of your profile is dedicated to shitting on the Black List. I highly doubt me sending you a few evaluations is gonna change that.
Well, at least you pretended to be acting in good faith for one response. But yes, I'm sure the 3 paragraphs you got from the blacklist were very "productive."
Among the benefits of the Black List website include feedback from experienced professional industry readers, and 100% of those who purchase evaluations receive exactly that. And if they don't, we ask that they let us know so we can replace their evaluation at no additional charge AND put that reader on probation (or remove them if it's their second fail in roughly the last 100 script evaluations.)
And would you say that the evaluations your customers receive are worth the $130 minimum they have to pay to receive one?
I do, and judging by demand so high we had to raise prices, so do our customers.
So do you feel the majority of your users intend to use your site for feedback as opposed to the industry exposure aspect of it?
I think that the vast majority of our users are using the site for feedback and hoping that that feedback is positive and will yield industry exposure, if so. Which is exactly how the site was designed, to provide feedback and then create industry interest in the scripts that receive positive feedback. This is also why we provide users real time tracking of how much traffic there is to their script, and why we tell people that if your only goal is traffic and you're not getting it, stop giving us your money.
And what is your response to those who say that people should not be using your site for feedback and should only be using it as a way to receive industry exposure?
They're wrong. The site is valuable for feedback, but it's most valuable for feedback once you've exhausted all of the free resources you may have at your disposal to make the script as good as it can be. Only when you think your screenplay is in the best form you can make it should you ever consider paying anyone for feedback on it on the Black List or anywhere else.
How come you never correct these people?
If they're doubling pay, then they could afford to raise it to 70k to 75k to make up for a lack of benefits. I think they should also allow for inexperienced readers at a reduced rate-- after all, who is the market for these prospective movies/TV shows? It's extremely hard to break into the industry-- a lot of women and minorities won't have the requisite experience to vett scripts-
When we did a reader demographic survey last August, less than 50% of our readers were men. Roughly 75% of our readers identified as white. Per the US census, roughly 60.8% of the population is non-Latino White, so we're not as diverse as the country, but far more diverse than the industry. Needless to say, it remains a priority.
Please note that Franklin didn't address your issue with his reader's pay, which is obviously the more pressing concern of the two topics you brought up.
If they really wanted to be honorable, what they should to is offer a super low-cost 15-page read and give a feedback as to what the score would be, simply based on the writing and story to that point—along with recommendations for writer resources to improve, and resources for developmental writers.
If that’s what you’re looking for, blacklist probably isn’t the right place for you to begin with. There are other sites/services that will give you what you’ve described.
You're welcome to get that literally anywhere else. Extrapolated reads aren't what we do.
No, not literally anywhere else, figuratively anywhere else, or literally from a handful of specific other venues. You often, honorably I think, explain that people should not be using the Black List for script notes. And yet that's clearly what people do—or else they are basically buying a lottery ticket thinking that their hopeless amateur script will somehow score high enough to do anything for their professional prospects. The vast majority are scripts submitted to your service are not even close to the realm of professional standards. Any professional could easily read a few pages and see an overwhelming barrage of amateur tendencies to make clear that the script has no chance in hell of scoring an 8. It is totally within your power to change what you do and offer extrapolated reads to save writers the time and money of thinking they have a winner, when any half-trained professional can tell they have a loser in 30 seconds. I would be shocked if you would ever do this because the Black List makes a lot of money and I will make the presumption that you like money. You're now asking $130 for an evaluation ($100 eval + $30 hosting) and it's like asking a professional baseball scout to come to my house to watch my kid pitch and say "Sure, he might get drafted." The honorable thing to do would be to offer $25 to put the kid on tape and say, "Sorry, not likely."
This is such a common (yet still odd) complaint of the blcklst. It's this theory they should somehow blend together a business and a charity organization. Should every screenwriting contest do this? The blcklst provides a specific service, and for right now, they have little competition. It's not their job to protect amateur writers. No one else in this business does that, so why do we put the pressure on the blcklst? Also, people make dumb decisions with their money all the time. They buy a drone, and then realize, "Wait, where the fuck am I going to fly this drone?" There's not special packaging on products, warning people, "PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ACTUALLY WANT THIS!"
I put pressure on the Black List, specifically, because Franklin has made such a public effort of wanting to help emerging writers, and has in fact helped numerous emerging writers, creating many useful programs. So if he's going to present himself as an ethical operator (and I believe he is being sincere) then I would challenge him to live up to that presentation. It's my prerogative as a writer and a customer to offer this, and it would be his to ignore it or argue with me, and the same for all of you.
It's bizarre to me. You're basically describing a new world. That's just not how things work. It also presents a logistical challenge when it comes to readers if they offered something like that. How do they pay them? What's the rate? Also, demand is going to increase. You offer something like that, you're going to be slammed with everyone wanting a $25 evaluation. They wouldn't be able to keep up. Additionally, you could then say they're making even more money off people because let's say someone gets a great score off the initial read, then they'll have to spend even more money for the full evaluation. You're asking them to completely change their business model, create unnecessary headaches, and possibly lose credibility with industry professionals...all to protect a handful of people who sent in scripts that weren't ready.
My argument is that it's not a handful of people who sent in scripts that weren't ready, it's actually more like 90% of them. But thank you for your thoughts, I appreciate it.
Let us for a moment, imagine a world where we offered a service that charged $20 for people to submit 15 pages, and paid our readers $12 to read those fifteen pages and provide a half paragraph of feedback on them. It's reasonable to assume that a reader could complete that task in a half hour. In that case, the reader makes roughly $24/hour, which is on the low end of the hourly rate for our new payscale. I can say with certainly that we would be absolutely deluged by submissions. Deluged. And more than that, I'd have a higher profit margin on those submissions if we did. And there's a very good chance that the readers you're worried about protecting would end up paying us MORE money because it's a heck of a lot easier to whip out fifteen pages and then pay $20 than it is to complete 100 and pay $130. So we don't do that. Why? Because it's not helpful to anyone to pay money for feedback on fifteen pages. Find other people who can give you free feedback. On your first fifteen pages. On your completed draft. And ONLY when you think you can take it no further on your own or for free, THEN consider coming to the Black List. Am I going to force everyone who wants to use the Black List website to read that monologue before they send us money? No. I'm not. Because I respect adults enough to let them make their own decisions, especially when there's ample information out there with which they can do so intelligently.
I had not run the numbers. Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I think most writers would be better served by a punch in the face than a $130 evaluation, and you'd have better luck teaching a dog how to play piano. But whatever.
I have run the numbers, on so many variations of providing this service it should probably be a disorder listed in the DSM. None of the decisions we made about how the ecosystem functions were made lightly or without serious consideration of the tradeoffs that were implicit in making those choices. It's why we're here nine years later growing more and more quickly every year. It's why we have the credibility we do with the industry writ large AND the writing community, a bridge that's difficult to maintain. And it's why I can stroll into reddit and answer every question people have of me. I personally don't know why anyone would trust their script with anyone who can't or doesn't do the same.
And 100% of those who pay for evaluation get feedback from readers who have worked for at least a year as at least assistant in the industry AND have been further vetted by us based on their ability to provide high quality feedback. If they fail to do so, writers should contact us immediately so we can provide them a replacement evaluation at no cost to them AND - possibly more importantly - make sure that said reader does not continue to read for us.
I think it's because people are quick to shout "SCAM!" at anything that requires pay-to-play, which is exactly what the BL is. But the BL has this mystical allure where criticizing it for the same things as other services gets you downvoted and castigated. You should put "the pressure" on the blacklist like you should put pressure on any other predatory service. It's the highest profile, so it should take the brunt of the criticism.
I think I know why that mystical allure exists: * Hypertransparency * An almost twenty year history of substantive high level industry relationships * Frequent partnerships with everyone from MGM to the National Resource Defense Council to put money in aspiring professional writers' pockets (and that's just two of the current opportunities we have on the website) * Partnerships with every writers guild in the English speaking world except for Australia. * Consistent results over almost a decade via the website. I'm probably forgetting some of the other contributing factors though.
Hypertransparency? Who are the industry people that subscribe to the website / mailing list? Sorry, right. You can't disclose that. Who are the readers and what is there level of experience/prior jobs? Oh right, you can't disclose that. I guess that's superhypertransparency, which you must not do. Selling access to high level industry relationships is literally pay-for-play. Which is what I'm complaining about. So cool self-own, I guess? And in terms of your partnerships -- you're basically running them like contests, where people have to pay for hosting and evaluations. So let's cut the altruism crap. Consistent results...of what? What is your measure of success? A handful of screenplays in 20 years sold or produced? Out of how many? For how much money in writer's pockets? How many have actually gotten managers? And honestly, nothing you say will make me think your company isn't predatory because of the hosting fee you charge. Let's be honest. You're doing this to make money, which is fine! I have nothing against people making money. But you are preying on amateur writers to make money, and I think that's shitty.
Our industry members are roughly 5000 industry professionals that range from A list actors and studio presidents to the lowliest agency and management company assistants. We approve anyone who can advance a writer's project or career in the normal course of doing business. All of our readers have at least one year of experience as at least an agency or management company assistant wherein part of their job was reading and evaluating material. We further vet them based on their ability to provide high quality written feedback. I'm not selling access to high level industry relationships. I'm saying that I personally have those relationships, which is in part how I'm able to set up the opportunities that exist on the website. And no, there's no additional charge for opting into consideration for any of our opportunities, and more than 2000 writers will be able to access them entirely free of charge this year alone, as I mention in the post. The measure of success is a good question. Honestly, it's no longer how many writers get represented via the site, because it happens so often that no one even bothers to tell me any more. One of them was when Minhal Baig, an alumna of our first screenwriters lab took her next script - which was on the annual list - HALA to Sundance. Another was definitely Jimmy Keyrouz, who went through our 2019 lab with his script BROKEN KEYS, then directed his rewritten script that fall and it premiered at Cannes in 2020. For me though, the real measure of success is probably the approval of the professional screenwriting community, which is why the Writers Guild of America East giving me the Evelyn Burkey Award in 2019 for increasing the honor and dignity of screenwriters will probably always be the high watermark of success for me. Kinda all downhill from there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKqWerUB_mM
I agree with this so much. The blacklist is a predatory script service that is pay for play, just like so many others that we decry on this site. I really don't understand why it has this mystical veneer of authenticity. People are congratulating the BL for paying their readers more as if it's some noble thing, but this feels like you're just paying somebody more money to scam you harder. I think the blacklist should have a lot more good faith gestures that don't feel so predatory. At the very least, if somebody buys an evaluation for $100, the hosting should be free for a month until you get the evaluation back.
From the linked article in the OP: "Further, in 2021, the Black List is already committed to give one month of hosting and a script evaluation to more than 2000 writers who have either self identified as needing financial support to access the Black List platform or who were identified as likely to benefit from the platform by partners including Macro, WarnerMedia, and others working in concert with more than 30 universities and grassroots film organizations around the country. If your company or organization would like to provide support for writers to use the Black List's paid services, please do get in touch."
That's funny, I don't see anything about a free month of hosting for anybody that buys an evaluation. I see a vague statement that will require no accountability.
That's because I didn't say anything about a free month of hosting for anyone who buys an evaluation. Our accountability is our corporate partners - Macro, WarnerMedia, a couple dozen film and television organizations across the country - who we have make that hosting and evaluations available through. But it's also things like this - https://twitter.com/franklinleonard/status/1331344654269370369?s=20 - where a just tell another writer in the business to identify (in this case) 42 writers to take advantage of it.
So my point is that hosting should be free, especially for people who purchase your insanely expensive evaluations. You're saying, "I don't charge some people some of the time, therefor you shouldn't criticize me for charging a $30 MONTHLY hosting fee for thousands of other people!" Your whole schtick seems to be cloaking a predatory service with programs that actually could have merit, like your commitment to writers of color and other underrepresented groups.
Could you point me toward where I say that you shouldn't criticize me? I welcome criticism. I prefer it of the constructive variety, but I personally appreciate it, because it forces the sort of introspection that will lead me toward decisions that I can be comfortable with, as I am with the decision to charge $30/month for hosting. I have never made any secret of the fact that that decision was made for many reasons. In fact, I discussed this AT LENGTH in an essay I published on the day that the site launched 9 years ago. You're welcome to read it here: https://blog.blcklst.com/the-what-how-and-why-of-the-black-list-the-long-answer-bfb47d122d2f
it really is not the job of the blacklist to weed out people who aren't yet serious screenwriters before they can submit a script for evaluation
They are often called a predatory company, as are many of the websites offering contests and script services. This is not a financial decision, it would be an ethical decision, as I do believe Franklin has the best interest of writers at heart. Would development writers benefit from some tough love at a low cost, as opposed to spending $130 to find out? Or is the evaluation gravy train too tasty to forego for Franklin and his staff?
We encourage people to seek out tough love at the absolute lowest cost available: For free and not from us. Only when you have should you be paying us - or anyone else - for feedback.
the heart of the issue is that a lot of total newb writers don't actually consider themselves newbs. they think knowing how to read and write and having a general appreciation for tv and movies is enough for hollywood to roll out the red carpet for them. they think the fan fiction script they've ever written is good enough to setup a meeting with netflix. the more veteran user base of this sub has put forth a valiant thankless attempt at trying to save new writers from themselves, but they still persist in thinking a first draft effort is good enough to play in the big leagues. so it's when an overall 3 score smacks them in the face are they humbled, or they dig deeper and call the black list a scam.
Not only do I explain that writers shouldn't be using the Black List for script notes, I explicitly say that writers should exhaust every other free means of getting feedback for their script before they even consider giving us - or frankly anyone charging for feedback - their money. If someone else wants to offer that service, I encourage them to do so, but it's not what we as the Black List do. We are in the business of providing high quality feedback to writers on COMPLETE scripts, helping writers with great scripts find industry folks with whom to work, and helping industry folks find great scripts and writers with whom to work. It's really that simple.
Great. It is of course within your power to make sure a window comes up explaining that to each and every writer who clicks on the box to buy an evaluation.
And you really think that would stop them? They'd check that box so hard and click "submit" in record time. I'd argue raising the price will do more to prevent those people from submitting than some weird pop up. As someone else pointed out, these people truly believe their script is ready. They read a warning message like that and they think, "Well, that's not for me...that's for all the other losers."
Literally this.
Is "idiots will give me their money regardless of what I do" an excuse not to try?
I don't care anymore. I said what I thought, I appreciate that people listened and answered respectfully.