Speaker 1: Film Courage What's the difference between a professional level script and one that's written by an amateur?

Speaker 2: Mark Sanderson Professional level script can I would say compete in the professional marketplace where someone could receive a screenplay and read it and not go this has too many problems that this person probably isn't…they're not writing at a professional level meaning that somebody would say oh my gosh we could make this. It's not plagued with the problems I think we spoke about before about the first time overwriting the script and the structure doesn't really work and it's confusing and the ending doesn't wrap it up. If you were to read that and also as we mentioned before format too. You look at the script and if it's all over the place where it's kind of clunky and like I've never…it's going to be…it's not professionally written, professionally written.

Speaker 1: Film Courage How soon into reading a screenplay do you know that it's bad?

Speaker 2: Mark Sanderson Well it's usually in the beginning but many times you're fooled because the beginning is easy to set up so you're like oh this is great and then the longer it goes on it runs out of steam and then it just really is like okay…or that it's too long, it's like too many pages and there's a whole other story and a half there that shows that it needs to have a lot of editing. If it was a first draft, it's a script and a half almost, a script and a third let's say which is overwriting.

Speaker 1: Film Courage So then a reader will know fairly quickly?

Speaker 2: Mark Sanderson A reader will probably know in the first page or two if it's the format giveaway or it's just the style giveaway where it's…you know what I mean? I mean people all the time post one page on the internet, they put up a page of their script and you can see it and go okay, it's a giveaway, it's a clear giveaway. Or you can see another page and go wow, it's so clear like you're seeing what they're writing, not uh…it bumped and was that who got out of the car? And that goes back to format and what you're going to put in and what you're not based upon the story.

Speaker 1: Film Courage What do you think about 99% of screenplays being rejected after the first page?

Speaker 2: Mark Sanderson I don't know if…well I think they would be read, they're not thrown in the garbage after page one. I think a script is given a chance, I mean I would hope from a reader and then it's the overall feeling of it. But like we were discussing before if there's too many bumps and the famous thing is oh this bumps for me, it's like it bumps, okay? It means…I mean I know what they mean but it's probably like boom, it sort of bumped in a not a good way where it was confusing or the story was like why did it go that way and I didn't understand it was this and that and a lot of times sadly it's because of skimming where someone just literally…I read one time that some people just read the dialogue or some producer just reads the dialogue, he doesn't read the directions, he just reads the dialogue. I don't know, it's not really reading the script but I think as we were discussing before you can tell in the first few pages if it's going to be one of those scripts or if it's going to be like wow this is a page turner, I can already see that. It's hard to hide that if you're not writing at a particular level. So that will be a dead giveaway which is not good.

Speaker 1: Film Courage So you think though people give it more than just a scene? Oh sure. Oh you do?

Speaker 2: Okay. You know the old adage is like well it doesn't happen within the first 10 pages, it used to be the first 20 but now it's shrunken down. If it doesn't happen if I'm reading and it doesn't happen for me you sort of have to know what we're getting into but again these aren't rules not coming from me I'm just saying that some movies like European films take longer to happen and I'm talking about Hollywood if you want to work in that system it better happen, the reader has got to go 10 pages I still don't know what's happening. You've got to get an idea like oh we see this and that, that's what they're talking about is happening and they'll read through the script but if you're plagued with typos 3 or 4 pages it means you don't care enough to proofread your script and you don't care about enough for the person who is reading it's time so right away there's a disrespect there like well I just wanted to blow through it because my idea is so good I don't have to proofread the script. These are attitudes that won't serve you well in the long run.