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Getting your unsolicited script made, or at least read by a production company is about the toughest way to break into the industry, but lots of people still ask me about it so here’s my two-pennies-worth…

If I go back only ten years I could have written a list here of nearly a hundred film and television production companies who would accept scripts submitted by new writers (writers they didn’t know, and who didn’t have an agent).  I know because I made a living reading for about twenty of them.  Sadly, that is no longer the case. It costs money to employ readers to plough through tens of thousands of scripts each year.  The reality is that of those thousands of spec scripts, only a handful will be good enough for the production company to want to develop it and try to get it made.  In essence the return on the money invested in reading unsolicited scripts is too small to make it viable for most companies.

However, maybe you are that one in ten thousand whose script is pretty much perfect but you don’t yet have an agent or any credits to your name.  So how do you get a production company to read your script if you don’t have an agent?  Well, there are still a handful of places accepting unsolicited submissions.  The two biggies are BBC Writersroom (for television drama) and the UK Film Council (for feature films).  These are two large organisations with the structure and funding to read huge numbers of scripts and take forward any projects they come across that really excite them.

I’ve listed below all the places I’ve found that do still accept unsolicited script submissions.  Check out their website and follow their submission guidelines. If in doubt, contact them and ask what their policy is.

BBC Writersroom

BabyJane Productions

Bona Broadcasting

Ipso Facto Films

Phantom Pictures

Panther Pictures

Picture Palace

Red Production Company

Red Planet Pictures

RS Productions

Achilles Entertainments

Shooting People – online pitching available.  Subscription required.

UK Film Council

Do bear in mind that I’m not recommending these production companies, I’m just pulling together information that’s already in the public domain.  It’s up to you to do your homework.  The production companies I’ve listed range from the very well established like Red Productions and Red Planet to the brand new, 2-people outfits like Achilles Entertainments.

If you know of any others, please let me know and I’ll update the list.

Good luck!

Since Tony Garnett’s article in The Guardian bemoaning the state of drama commissioning at the BBC (and Ben Stephenson’s response to it), there have been numerous articles written taking opposing sides. Many fear that the lack of authored drama, and indeed in ITV’s case a reduction in the number of hours of original drama across the board, sounds the genre’s death-knell.

Hang-on, haven’t we all got rather short memories?  Rewind to 1998 and there’s uproar –  ITV gives its Wednesday 20:00 slot, traditionally the home of ‘The Bill’, to ‘Airline’ a new docu-soap designed to help ITV catch-up with the BBC’s dominant position in this genre.  Indeed, by 1999 the following docu-soaps are strewn across our television channels:

Airport (1996), Driving School (1997), Hotel (1997), Vets in Practice (1997), Airline (1998), Cop Shop (1998), The Cruise (1998), The Clampers (1998), Pleasure Beach (1998), Superstore (1998), Lakesiders (1998), The Zoo Keepers (1998), Battersea Dogs Home (1998), The Builders (1998), Paddington Green (1999), Children’s Hospital (1999), Mersey Blues (1999)

Drama has always been one of the (if not the) most expensive genres and it’s no great surprise that in tough economic times our television commissioners cut back on it.  Channel controllers remember (again) that they can schedule something much cheaper (reality tv) which delivers ratings that aren’t too far off those achieved by the average drama.  Of course, as ITV1 is discovering, cheaper, reality-based shows might not deliver the same demographic (ABC1s are deserting ITV at the moment) and it won’t win you many awards.

Ten years ago, as quickly as this obsession (audiences’ and commissioners’) with cheap, reality television came, so it went.  By 2000 BBC1 had a major injection of cash and most of these docu-soaps disappeared from our screens, to be replaced with…. yes, you’ve guessed it, drama.

So we’ve been here before and we know that before long audiences will switch off from great volumes of docu-soaps and channel controllers will start to invest in great dramas again.  And I don’t just mean more hours of the soaps and continuing drama series which deliver good ratings at a fraction of the hourly cost of a one-off or period costume serial.  No, I mean they’ll invest in bold, brave, authored dramas, just as they have always done.  The numbers of hours of such dramas may go up and down as our economy booms and busts but they’re always there.  In the last twelve months we’ve had ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and ‘Occupation’ (BBC1), ‘Five Minutes of Heaven’ and ‘Freefall’ (BBC2) ‘Unforgiven’ and ‘Affinity’ (ITV), ‘Red Riding’ and ‘The Devil’s Whore’ (C4), to name just some of my personal favourites.

However tough the commissioning process looks, however despondent I might be when I look at the current television schedules, I know that it’ll all come right again (if indeed it’s wrong to begin with?) and I’ll continue to have the pleasure of watching some great television dramas and, I hope, the pleasure of making some.

That’s the question I’m most often asked by writers just starting out.  Here are my top tips:

1) Put it away.  Let it gather dust for a few weeks, then take it out, brush it off and get your red pen ready.  Do that several times until you can’t make it any better yourself (or you’re going barmy, whichever comes first).

2) Ask an expert.  Get the opinion of someone else, family and friends don’t count, unless they’re experienced writers, directors, producers or script editors.  If you don’t know anyone in the industry, then have a look online at some of the experienced industry professionals offering script feedback (Script Angel and others).  Don’t be lured in by the one with the jazziest website or the lowest rates, but do your homework.

Who will actually read your script, what’s their name?  Look them up on IMDB to check they’ve got the credits they claim to have. What length of report will you get for your money?  Some may claim to give you a 4 page report but what you actually get are a couple of pages of synopsis (you already know what’s in your script so that’s a waste of money) and only a page or so of useful feedback.  Beware of lazy ‘reader’ reports which are generic, littering their reports with phrases like ‘naturalistic dialogue’ (or lack of), characters needing better delineation.  That’s fine if it is followed by tangible examples of what you could do to change it.  You could ask to see a sample report from several and compare them.

Ideally your script editor should be keen to keep working with you, helping you to develop as a writer.  Drop them a line and ask for a chat to see if you actually get on with them. Most good editors are approachable and helpful and don’t hide behind anonymity.

3) Rewrite. The feedback should be constructive, giving you ideas on how to make your script better (not just telling you what doesn’t work) but it will also be critical and that’s hard to take.  Develop a thick skin, remember the criticism is of the work and not you.  Take heart from the fact that the very best writers at the very top of their game still get notes. Now take your precious script, and your feedback, and rewrite your script to the very best of your ability.

4) Get it out there.  Many people think that the next step is to get an agent – after all, you can’t get your work produced until you’ve got an agent can you? Well, actually, for most writers it’s the other way around. As you’ll see from Michelle Lipton’s Q&A with agents, most of them are interested in writers who are already getting their work out there, not writers who have just written one spec script.

So, you want to get it noticed, but how?  There are three main ways that spring to mind – theatre, screenwriting competitions and production companies accepting unsolicited scripts.  I’m going to concentrate in this blog on the first of those, theatre.

Most of the successful applicants for the BBC Writers’ Academy are already writing for theatre and radio, so ignore these media at your peril.  Writing for theatre is a fantastic way to develop as a writer, and there are many theatre production companies dedicated to putting on the work of new writers.  They get exciting new talent, you get your work professionally produced – it’s a win-win situation.

Here is a list of theatres and theatre production companies specialising in new writing.

Paines Plough, London

Bush Theatre, London

Hampstead Theatre, London

Royal Court Theatre, London

Theatre Royal Stratford East, London

Soho Theatre, London

Finborough Theatre, London

Theatre503, London

Zeitgeist Theatre, London*

Tamasha Theatre Company, London (specialising in new British Asian writing)*

Talawa Theatre Company, London (specialising in Black British writing)

Kali Theatre, London (specialising in new writing from South Asian women)

Out of Joint (touring theatre company for new writing)

Sphinx Theatre Company (touring new writing, specialising in strong roles for women)

Clean Break (new writing commissions on women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system)

New Venture Theatre, Brighton

The Nuffield Theatre, Southampton*

Warehouse Theatre, Croydon

Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch

Watford Palace Theatre

Bristol Old Vic

Show of Strength Theatre Company, Bristol

Barbican Theatre, Plymouth

Northcott Theatre, Exeter

New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich

Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry

Loft Theatre, Leamington Spa

Sherman Theatre, Cardiff (joining forces with Sgript Cymru to create a new organisation ‘Contemporary Theatre & New Writing Company)*

Everyman Theatre, Liverpool

Royal Exchange, Manchester

Rocket Theatre, Manchester

Contact Theatre, Manchester*

Northern Gap, Derbyshire

New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme

Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough

Red Ladder Theatre Company, Leeds*

Theatre in the Mill, Bradford*

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

Hull Truck Theatre

Live Theatre, Newcastle*

Druid, Galway*

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

That’s just the ones I know of.  If you know of any others, please let me know via my Script Angel website and I’ll update this list.  Those marked with * have been added since the list was originally published on 30th July 2009.

In later posts I’ll look at screenwriting competitions, where to send your unsolicited script and how to get an agent.

Having set up Script Angel, my own script consultancy business, I recently decided to join The Word Cloud – a forum for experienced and aspiring writers. What struck me was how hungry for ‘insider’ knowledge the writers are. There may be information out there for aspiring writers but how do they know where to look?

Over the past ten years I’ve been lucky enough to earn my living as a professional script editor on a variety of UK television dramas. Now, taking a break from the hectic pace of script editing on dramas in production, I’ve set up my own script consultancy business. What’s struck me is how cosy it is inside the world of television professionals and how hard it is for writers on the outside to even understand how it works, let alone to break into it.

I’ve been very fortunate to work with hugely talented editorial teams and, most importantly, exceptionally talented writers. They, and I, earn our living from writing/editing drama that millions of people will watch – and it’s only now stepping outside it (albeit with my foot firmly lodged in the door to stop it closing) that I appreciate how impenetrable the whole industry must appear. The writers I work with, without exception, have earned their position as a professional writer by combining sheer creative talent with hard work and determination. But what we take for granted is the knowledge, gained after years in the industry, of what to do to turn an idea into something that will ultimately get made.

Through my blog and Script Angel I’d like to help writers find the information they need and understand how the industry works. I want to help them get their scripts into the best possible shape so that when they do decide to send it to someone in the industry (agent, production company, etc) their work is the best it can possibly be. Over the weeks I’ll blog not only on my experiences as a script editor but I’ll also try to pull together as much information as I can about what to do to become a professional screenwriter.

As well as checking out Script Angel, it’s other worth checking out Michelle Lipton’s Blog – a talented writer just starting to get her first commissions and helping others to understand the process as she goes through it.