Friday, January 15, 2010

Kindle Lightens Load for Screenwriters, Agents

Sit down here by the fire with me kids.  Yes, settle in now...
Back in the old days we pulp screenwriters had to send out our work on...paper!
Yes, we had to actually buy reams and reams of paper and and print out our screenplays... I know, crazy right?  Then we had to punch three holes along the spine and put in two brass brads, only two, with brass washers.

Then we had to put our cover letters and scripts in to envelopes and send them out via the mail.  Shocking! The agents would get these scripts and have to log them in and lug them home to read every night. 

But finally, we got smart and the internet and the Kindle changed things for everyone.
(courtesy Variety)


2 comments:

Jon Molly said...

Now that is interesting. The barriers just keep coming down, don't they? My first thought was that this is going to mean that producers will be recieving a lot more scripts, and the average quality of those scripts will be falling.

I expect that a lot of writers have scripts that they don't feel justify the risk of printing and posting. Why risk your money on something you don't think will sell? But if you can submit teh thing with "zero risk", why wouldn't you?

In that respect, I almost feel bad for the poor readers who are going to have more to read and less worth reading.

Cunningham said...

Here's another aspect to it that might just happen:

People sell there scripts through Kindle or another online device and develop enough of an audience that someone takes notice and gets the script.

While I don't think it will be anything permanent, it's intriguing to ponder the possibilities.