October 29th, 2020
Written by Adam Biederman
Adam Biederman is Copycat's co-founder and longest-tenured writer. With more than 2,000,000 words under his belt, he's a scribe-of-all-trades, but his primary focuses are on technical content, new client acquisition, and creative. He currently resides in Santa Barbara with his wife Meghan and baby girl Shiloh.
Scripts are the lifeblood of the film and television industry.
Even if you have a million dollar idea, it’s nothing without a great script to serve as the guide. As Hitchcock said, “To make a great film you need three things—the script, the script, and the script.”
Aside from telling a good story, a compelling script can:
But here’s the rub.
Everyone in the biz is trying to chase down the next Breaking Bad. And for every Breaking Bad, there are a million god-awful, cringe-inducing, overly-long scripts.
Truth be told, finding a great hit series or blockbuster is hard. You have to pan through a metric ton of shit to find that gold nugget. Reading a script takes time, too much of it. No big shot or higher up in the business has time to read one 90-page script, let alone several. At least not from a blind query.
But can you guess who does have the time?
You guessed it right... you do! You, the assistants, interns, or lower-level execs; basically, anyone who is pursuing a job in the development side of the industry.
That's one of the big reasons why assistants and interns exist—to roleplay as Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption. But, in this case, instead of wading through sewers, they get to review the countless shitty scripts and then write informal “book reports” on them.
In other words, they’re tasked with script coverage.
Script coverage is like the Sparknotes version of a script.
It’s a tool that an executive, producer, agent, or manager can use to get the gist of the story without being forced to review the whole thing. A proper coverage fits the summary, characters, and analysis into a single page or two, touching lightly upon the shortcomings and strengths. Often, a higher-up won’t even read the first five pages of a script unless the person covering it made the recommendation.
Because an executive’s time is valuable, good script coverage matters. It takes a fine eye to see a script that is a winner or even recognize one with good bones that just needs some tweaks. And from there, you have to succinctly convey all of that information in a page or two.
It’s worth noting that there are two slightly different types of script coverage:
Although they serve different purposes and approach it from a different angle, the structure used for either type of coverage will remain largely unchanged.
Despite the snarkiness of this post, it’s important to note that there’s a common mistake that many young script coverage readers make when first starting—they turn their script coverage piece into “10 Things I Hate About You[r Screenplay].”
Instead of asking questions like, “Is this right for our slate? Why or why not? What did this do well? Where was it weak?” they might turn the coverage “I didn’t personally like the story, here’s why.”
When a story isn’t good, it’s all too easy to enter the “angry movie reviewer” territory—a mentality of, you wasted 90 minutes of my time, so I’m going to demolish your story.
That’s not the right approach. That’s not script coverage. It’s a roast.
Regardless of whether or not the writer will ever read the coverage, there’s a better way to handle it. Even if you are reading a bad script (which you most assuredly will at some point) you don’t need to punch down, especially if you’ve been tasked with providing coverage which the writer will see.
Proper script coverage can undoubtedly contain criticism, but it should be constructive. There are ways to point out flaws without ripping someone’s heart out and crushing their hopes and dreams into nothing but dust and ashes. Remember, someone sunk countless hours of their life into that story; they’re putting themselves in a very vulnerable position.
So, how do you treat the material and the writer with respect?
These days, there are dozens of free script templates and script coverage examples available to you. They may vary slightly, but most everyone will include the following:
This conveys all of the scripts important information in a snapshot. Including:
The logline is a one sentence summary that states the central conflict of the story and the emotional hook. Breaking Bad's log line would be something like, “A terminal cancer diagnosis leads a broke chemistry teacher to start cooking meth in order to provide for his family.”
As for page counts, one page roughly translates to a minute of film time. The ideal script length is less than 90 pages for a comedy/horror, and less than 120 pages for a drama.
Depending on the template, it may also include the evaluation, which is a checklist that rates the material (on a scale of excellent, good, fair, or poor) based on various aspects, such as:
A synopsis recounts the main elements of the story (including main characters and plot) from beginning to end in approximately 200 words.
Some readers prefer to write out the summary as they go, others like to read the script all the way through and then summarize. How you go about it is up to you, but we at least recommend that you take notes of key plot points as the story progresses. That way you have the inciting incident, the act turn, and other key moments marked.
The more you read, the more you’ll notice which “beats” have to be hit. It will become easier to see which scripts do it right and which ones don’t.” It’s also helpful to read professional scripts by established screenwriters to get a sense of what a top-notch story looks like.
In regards to writing the synopsis, some advice to consider includes:
It’s vital that a script not only have a solid plot, but that it blends elements of storytelling together such as structure, pacing, characters, and dialogue. Although each one is important on its own, they’re often interconnected—weak characters can hurt dialogue, poor pacing is often the result of bad structure, etcetera, etcetera.
This is your chance to say what worked and what didn’t and whether or not it’s a good fit for your company. As you go about this, there are dozens of questions you’ll need to ask, including:
Although your space is limited, avoid using generic works like good or bad. Instead, point out exactly what the strengths were and where it faltered. Depending on your company or the type of coverage you’re doing, commentary may be broken down into further elements such as plot, characters, structure, etc.
If that’s the case, you’ll have more room to work with. If not, you’ll have to be succinct and focus on what matters most.
After you’ve made your commentary, your last task is to give the script your final verdict. Typically, it will be one of the following:
If you're starting as a script reader, be sparing with considers and recommendations until you have a better idea of what makes for a script. Be very sure that your boss will not only be willing to sacrifice precious minutes of their time to reading a script, but be happy that they did so.
Although it may seem like a small thing, script coverage plays a critical role in making the industry spin. It’s the filtration system that ensures good content is brought to the attention of the decision makers.
So, whether you’re on the production side or the writing side of things, the team at Copycat has extensive experience within the movie industry, particularly on the writing side of things. Having worked at production companies, major studios, and agencies, we’ve read and covered countless scripts from both the production side and the writing critique side.
Need help finding that next gold nugget? Want an unbiased opinion on your script?
We’re not only writers, we’re also readers with a fine eye for what makes quality screenwriting. We can handle any of the script coverage jobs you have.
