For a movie, scripts are the basis of everything. Without scripts means no story and no movie. This principle is very simple and very important. However, Hollywood's emphasis on screenwriters is never as good as directors, actors, or even photographers. The importance of screenwriters in the film production process has always been underestimated.

On the one hand, it is because the directors and actors are in the spotlight, and their bright and beautiful appearance has more topicality, which is also the inevitable result of the commodity society; on the other hand, it is also because script investment is the most basic part of the film industry and the least investment.

In special circumstances, script creation can be completed by one person and a computer - or a typewriter. The entire creative process can be said to be almost zero cost, and anyone can complete this task. As long as they have ideas and can type, they can create scripts. This also means that the uneven script quality is very common, and the uneven screenwriter quality is also very normal.

Therefore, major film companies cannot give screenwriters more attention. But this does not mean that screenwriters are not competitive. On the contrary, due to the lack of threshold restrictions, the competition in the Hollywood script creation market is much more intense than that of actors and directors. According to data provided by the American Screenwriters Union, 50,000 different types of scripts are created every year - this number does not include the works of students, enthusiasts, and amateur screenwriters who are not registered.

There are many excellent works among them, but only two thousand movies can be filmed every year - most of them cannot be on the large screen of the theater, which is also one of the important reasons why the Sundance Film Festival is so popular.

For film companies, finding a suitable script and excellent script is also a headache for many years. In every film company, a position called the pre-production development manager of film and television will be arranged, and reading scripts is one of their important tasks.

The early managers each had to submit a certain number of scripts to the producers every year. They thought they were worth shooting, but this was a very heavy and boring job. "This is a bookstore full of books. You know there is excellent content in it, but each book has a white cover, bound and format. It is only arranged in alphabetical order, and I can't go home if I can't find the best one."

Due to the competition and coexistence between major film companies, many scripts will be circulated among major production companies, but will not be cross-read. This has led to the early managers who work behind closed doors to read a considerable degree of repeated scripts, which consumes energy, manpower and time, but has little effect.

Generally speaking, early managers have certain standards for selecting scripts, because before these scripts enter the hands of producers, they will conduct a second round of screening. The length of the work, subject matter, dialogue, plot, turning point, etc. will be reviewed and checked by a dedicated person. Simply put, the script needs to be controlled between 90 and 120 pages, and on average, each page can be shot into a minute of the movie. Every five pages - that is, every five minutes - requires a small climax. The dialogue needs to conform to the character's personality and suitable for the classification standards of the American Film Association, and the subject matter must be in line with the trends.

After screening and being recognized by the producer, it is possible to enter the production stage - just "possible".

However, such screening can only bring qualified commercial scripts. Those niche, neither popular nor mainstream scripts are often left behind. This creates a huge amount of reading, but low efficiency, and no results for good scripts can be found.

In addition, due to the particularity of script creation, most screenwriters cannot find agents to act as agents, which also makes it impossible for production companies to identify the originality of writing materials. In order to avoid plagiarism and lawsuits caused by plagiarism, they often refuse to have further negotiations with these screenwriters who are unagreed.

On the one hand, Hollywood film production companies complained that they could not find excellent scripts, so that sequel movies were popular; on the other hand, those talented newcomer screenwriters were depressed because their works were not appreciated.

Since genre films appeared on the historical stage in the 1980s, Hollywood film production companies have faced such an embarrassing dilemma and reached their peak after entering the 21st century, which has ushered in a sequel frenzy, as well as a craze for comic adaptations, novel adaptations, and even mythological adaptations. Previously, Lance designed to use epic movies as bait to let Diorama film "Troy", which is to use such a wave of influence.

This situation continued until the rebirth of Reims, and it never changed drastically; but at least after 2005, it was relieved to some extent. A small object called the "Blacklist" set off a small Hollywood revolution, dedicated a large number of classic works, and indirectly promoted the pace of independent films on the stage of history.

The so-called blacklist is not a very bad work, but rather an excellent work worthy of recognition but not discovered. After ten years of development, this list has quietly become a list of good movies that Hollywood production companies must browse every year, and many Oscar-winning works have even been born.

In his previous life, the person who created the blacklist was Franklin-leonard, who was the early development manager of Universal Pictures. In the early stages of his career, he always suffered from the inefficiency of screening scripts. He often wasted a lot of time and energy but was unable to achieve the expected work goals. This is really frustrating.

On the eve of Christmas in 2005, Franklin finally couldn't bear it anymore. He sent an email to more than 80 colleagues, asking them to list the best scripts they had seen back then, with the only purpose of giving him something to watch during the Christmas holiday. In exchange, he would also provide these colleagues with the "best scripts" submitted by others. He then chose the scripts that were of the best quality but had not yet been put into production from the recommendations of these colleagues, and named it "Blacklist".

Simply put, it is resource exchange and sharing, which is also a major change brought about by the Internet age.

This seemingly random move gave birth to masterpieces such as "Juno", "inflatable doll love", "queen", "explosive drummer", "imitation game", "American sniper", "escape from Tehran", "slum millionaire", "kings speech", and "social networks".

Before the blacklist was released, Hollywood's script production rate was only 0.3%, but eleven years after the blacklist was released, the script shooting rate was as high as 32%. In other words, the production rate of blacklist scripts was 100 times higher than the average level of good services.

At the beginning, the blacklist was just a list circulated among early development managers. After 2011, Franklin created a website to make the blacklist online, and the number of industry insiders participating in the selection reached 500, which was enough to represent the aesthetic taste of the entire Hollywood, which also caused the authority of the blacklist to rise sharply.

This blacklist is very popular among industry insiders. On the one hand, it is selected by industry insiders and has certain quality assurance; on the other hand, the entire list does not involve commercial interests, and it does not care about the reputation and status of the screenwriter. The only requirement for being on the list is to be recommended by at least six industry insiders.

By 2015, the blacklist website had become the leading screenwriter platform in the United States and had developed a membership system. Only if you pay $25, the author can upload his own scripts on the website for more industry insiders to see; if you pay a certain fee, the scripts can be guided by industry insiders. High-scoring scripts can be on the "blacklist" and seen by more than 10,000 movies and TV scripts on the entire website, which has become a must-have tool for many industry insiders.

Although the charging system of blacklist websites has been criticized a lot, many people believe that using money to purchase qualifications will corrupt the fairness and justice of the blacklist when paying membership fees and uploading scripts; it must be admitted that justice is always relative. With the situation where large-scale production companies are storming, blacklist has become a platform for many new screenwriters to win a glimmer of hope, which undoubtedly creates more possibilities.

In addition, the so-called membership fees are actually used to maintain the operation of the website and pay experts to review scripts, while subscriptions and browsing websites are completely free. The blacklist has not become a channel for Franklin to "sell scripts". He just provides a platform, but this move has made Hollywood work more efficient and also allowed talented newcomers to win more opportunities.

Lance thought of the blacklist at this time, not because the blacklist contains huge business opportunities, but because the blacklist hides an endless treasure house of resources.

If Chaos Pictures establishes a blacklist website, they can not only prioritize selecting appropriate scripts to invest in filming, but also establish contact with major film production companies through the blacklist. The friendship is established through repeated conversations and even cooperation.

However, compared to these additional benefits, the reputation won by the blacklist is what Lance urgently needs. On the one hand, Chaos Film has established a deeper professional image among the majority of film enthusiasts, and on the other hand, it can attract more screenwriter talents through the blacklist platform. Others are scrubbing the sand, while Chaos Film will scrubbing the gold. Using Lance's memory of the previous life, you can often find more outstanding talents.

These invisible wealth will become an important cornerstone for Chaos Film's development in the next stage.

Diorama is Chaos Pictures' biggest and most important opponent at present, but Lance's vision is not that short-short. Chaos Pictures should not be the second Diorama Pictures. Lance wants to see what height Chaos Pictures will eventually reach under his leadership.
Chapter completed!