I Put My SCREENPLAY on the BLACK LIST

so i put my screenplay on the blacklist for those of you who don't know the blacklist is a website where you can upload your screenplay and have it evaluated by the readers you know it's kind of like a coverage service or what have you the thing about the blacklist though is that it's supposed to also be like a resource for writers and their screenplays to get discovered and it has an interesting pedigree because the blacklist actually started off as an actual list created by franklin leonard and pretty much the list it was a list of screenplays like the most liked screenplays that had been circulating the industry that year now it wasn't the best screenplays it's just the most light screenplays the ones that agents and managers and producers and whomever else enjoyed reading they enjoyed the script and then like come the end of the year some ways somehow they voted the votes were tallied and this list was put out now it's just an industry thing at first but then it kind of grew in notoriety and people you know were finding out about the blacklist and it became a thing and it became you know very prestigious as a writer to have your script on the blacklist now getting your script on the blacklist didn't guarantee that the script would get made and if it were made it didn't guarantee that the film would be a box office hit but people took notice if you as a writer landed a script on the blacklist it became a goal for for many writers and eventually the blacklist grew from just this industry insider thing into this website where anyone with screenwriting dreams could upload their script and have it evaluated and if it hit a certain score it would some way somehow be put on the radar of new writers and new scripts now the way to get on like this radar the way to get any attention was to get a score of 8 or above here is where my skepticism came into play what on earth would incentivize a blacklist reader to give a screenplay an eight why would the site do that whereas i could give you a seven you'd be like wow so close well maybe if i make the suggested changes and resubmit and pay another fee i can get that eight thing is what i kind of always thought has always seemed to jive with the stories that i hear or read about just that you know someone they get a score on the blacklist and they make changes or they do whatever and they resubmit they get different score sometimes it's higher sometimes it's lower but again they're paying the evaluation fee again and again and again and the other thing is that in order to have your script evaluated you have to have the script hosted on their website and that is yet another fee so blacklist is making decent amount of change off of aspiring screenwriters i'm i'm not knocking the hustle make that money i just did not see the blacklist as a realistic path to my screenwriting dreams having said that i decided that this was going to be the year that i was going to put myself in my work out there more which means doing things that i've kind of looked at askance such as entering contests applying for fellowships and doing things like hosting my screenplay on the blacklist and getting an evaluation the reason i put my screenplay on the blacklist well there are two reasons one reason is i've already gotten two evaluations from another service and those evaluations were pretty good i liked the feedback that i got from those readers but it was from like one service even though the feedback came from two different readers still from like the same service i wanted to get feedback from someone else as it were second reason is that while i may have skepticism about the blacklist i don't view it as a scam you get what i'm saying they have their business model it is what it is but they're also highly regarded in the industry it's founder franklin leonard you know he's worked in the industry he's well known he gives talks he's he's you know an industry powerhouse he's not someone who doesn't know what he's talking about the blacklist is a trusted name within the industry and the screenwriting community so when they partner up with other companies entities like what have you to present what does seem like viable opportunities then i feel like that's something to pay attention to that's something that i'm going to pay attention to and that's what they're currently doing it's kind of like a um they've got like this like fellowship not mentorship but it's just kind of like a thing with the studio like a real studio an actual hollywood studio where they're taking a look at screenplays focusing on diverse and underrepresented writers and it's just kind of like yeah you know if your screenplay gets chosen then perhaps you'll work with the studio and blah blah blah blah blah at the end of the day it is a real opportunity why not take the chance however in order to submit for this opportunity to apply however you want to put it you have to host your script on the blacklist and pay for an evaluation so i finally decided you know what after years of kind of looking at them just being like i don't know it's my day chappelle face [Laughter] i decided to put my script on the blacklist so i did that paying for the monthly hosting and i paid for an evaluation now satisfied the terms for entry into this contest for lack of a better word it's contest to be seen by the studio boom i was curious to see what my score would be what the evaluation would would be and well i i got i got my score i got my score back recently i did not get the esteemed score of eight it's like out of ten eight out of ten uh instead i got a six out of ten to be honest i'm not mad at that i'm actually just kind of like okay yeah it is what it is what i found interesting was uh were the differences in opinion between the blacklist reader and the readers with wii screenplay you know just in terms of feedback and everything i mostly got scores of six in in some of the categories my highest score was in setting the blacklist reader gave me a seven out of ten for the setting of my script they felt that it was the perfect environment for the story that i was trying to tell especially with this being a horror script my lowest score and this this honestly surprised me was characters i got a five out of ten they felt that some of the characters were a little samey that's fine that's that's you know that's actually fair i would say but yeah they felt that despite good chemistry between my two main characters their initial meat was a little too much they felt that some of the dialogue was a little you know weird which i felt was kind of the point i mean you know i'm trying to make this i was trying to write you know horror comedy i wanted the dialogue to be pretty silly but i guess you know the dialogue wasn't their cup of tea and that led to you know them not really caring for the characterization and why that's surprising to me is that in the previous evaluations the characters were cited as like a strong point of the script this also lets you know kids that these evaluations people's opinions like it's it's all subjective one person can can love your characters and another person can feel that they don't work overall though the feedback from the blacklist reader was positive or at least i am positively receiving the feedback because it just you know it helps me know what perhaps i should work on what i should focus on one of the things that the reader mentioned uh were like the commercial prospects for the script and they said that with some work especially the characters you know the script could be strengthened but there's always an audience for this type of material especially with the wealth of streaming platforms and all the stuff that we have now but the reader did say this story has a strong base and could see some theatrical or streaming success that made me feel good i'm i'm taking that i'm just like okay yeah now am i going to spend more money on another evaluation from the blacklist probably not probably not probably take that money and enter another contest or get an evaluation from a different service but i'm glad that i got the experience with the blacklist just so that now i can say that i did it but speak about it from experience not much has changed as far as like my feeling about it like you know i feel like there are people that they're gonna pay for evaluation after evaluation chasing that mythical eight or higher in hopes of getting on that blacklist radar so that someone can scoop in and say hey let me sign you let me rep you let me buy this and make it and i just personally don't think that that's that's going to happen the screenwriting journey is a whole lot of fun kids

Channel: Jay Fingers

Views: 13,635

Keywords: screenplay black list, vlog, vlogger, day in my life, jayfingers, vlogs, screenwriter, screenwriting, jay fingers, youtuber, older youtubers, vlogging, black youtuber, black youtubers, top black youtubers, black youtubers channels, dear black youtubers, be cool, best black youtubers, black vloggers channel, black vlogger, black vloggers, top black vlogger, the black list screenplay, blacklist screenplay, the black list, franklin leonard, the black list website, the black list 2021

Id: MeW1i4T5LnI

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021