**CHECK OUT THE UPDATED LIST OF PRODUCTION COMPANIES ACCEPTING UNSOLICITED SCRIPTS**
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.
Shooting People – online pitching available. Subscription required.
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!
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This is very useful. Thank you!
Thanks for the second installment Hayley.
Great article. I’m interested, why has the situation deteriorated in the last ten years, ie why would companies read stuff then and not now? Has the slush pile got worse during that time?
Hi Griff
Glad you liked the article. I’d say that the quality of the work in the slush pile is the same as it was 10 years ago. The difference today is money. Film and television are businesses and most simply don’t have the spare cash to invest in reading unsolicited scripts. You may find a gem there but it will have cost a lot of man-hours (which don’t come cheap) to find it.
I’d also say, although it’s only my opinion, that there was also a lot of duplication 10 years ago, particularly in the BBC and ITV. The BBC had multiple points of entry for unsolicited submissions and that’s now been slimmed down to one central team (The BBC Writersroom). Similarly each ITV franchise (Yorkshire, Carlton, etc) used to each read unsolicited submissions and that has now disappeared with fewer franchisees and each one under extreme financial pressure. Reading unsolicited scripts just can’t be a priority for those businesses.
Hope that helps a bit.
Hayley
http://www.scriptangel.co.uk
hi? this is very good.good work
Thank you. This website has been very useful.
I know it’s been a while since this article was posted, but I just came across your list via Google search. You wouldn’t happen to have a similar list of production companies in the United States that are accepting submissions from new writers, would you? Thanks!
I don’t have a list of US production companies accepting unsolicited scripts but I will be working on compiling one over the coming months so do check out the blog in its new home: http://script-angel.spaces.live.com
I’m looking for an agent that accepts funny commercial scripts from unsolicited writer.
There’s a list of UK literary agents on Script Angel, although you’d have to contact them to find out if they are currently accepting scripts or nots. Agency policies on submissions change regularly. good luck.
This was very helpful. Thank you!
I think Soho theatre and Paines Plough also take unsolicited scripts, but this list is very useful, thanks so much.
EJD
Can you let me know where on the website the list of UK literary Agent are as I don’t seem to be able to find them.
Thanks
Hi, it’s on the Script Angel website (www.scriptangel.co.uk) under ‘Industry Advice/Literary Agents’. Good luck!
Thanks for this info.
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Dear Hayley
Can you advise me to which production companies I may submit comedy
sketches.
I know that BBC Writersroom do not accept. I haven’t yet looked at your list of companies. What about ITV?
Can you offer any advise as regards comedy sketches in particular.
Kind regards
Peter Hirschson
Hi Peter – do keep an eye on BBC Writersroom ‘Opportunities’ as they do sometimes have call-outs specifically for sketches. also, radio comedy shows are much more likely to accept sketch submissions, ‘Newsjack’ in particular regularly invites submissions.
Hi guys, would anyone know where I could send my most recent footage of my sitcom “Zickora the fallen” it’s already on youtube under “itaintroight”.
However, I have no idea on what production companies would be especially interested in black comedy?
Any ideas peeps?
Kind Regards
M Carter
Thanks for your advice Hayley. What about an amateur pilot film? I suppose one could put that on YouTube.
Kind regards
Peter Hirschson
Searching delicious.com I noticed your website
book-marked as: I’ve written a script, what next? Part Two.
Now i’m assuming you book marked it yourself and wanted to ask if social bookmarking gets you a bunch of traffic? I’ve been considering doing some bookmarking
for a few of my websites but wasn’t sure if it would generate any positive results. Thank you.
Hi, interesting q. I had only bookmarked it for my own ref while I was working on the post and sharing it. I don’t think it’s generated much traffic.
“I’ve written a script, what next? Part Two – Production Companies | Scriptangel’s Blog” ended up being a marvelous blog post, cannot help but wait to go through even more of your blog posts. Time to waste a bit of time on the web haha. Thanks ,Margherita