PITCHING CLOSED UNTIL NEXT WEEKEND!
Big announcement today, everyone.
I had so much fun with the showdown that it got me thinking about the fact that I have a direct line to, arguably, the biggest person in horror in all of Hollywood. And this person trusts my taste implicitly. If I send him a script, he’ll literally start reading it within 10 minutes.
And I thought, why aren’t we taking advantage of this on the site? He’s wanted us to work together forever assuming I can find a script he likes. But that’s the catch. He’s also known as the toughest grader in Hollywood. If you think I’m tough, this man is like the Stanford professor who’s never given an A before. But when he really likes something, HE MAKES IT. He’s one of the few people in Hollywood who can ensure a movie will get made.
That’s where my idea for the Blood and Ink Showdown stemmed from. The blood is the script. You got to come up with a great horror script. The ink is when you sign on the dotted line of that spec script sale contract.
How is this going to go down? We’re playing the long game here, folks. This showdown will happen on Friday February 26th. Which gives you six months to write the script. And you will be writing it. You’re not going to be able to enter an already written script. Why?
Heh heh heh.
Let me explain.
One of the things I realized with these showdowns is that 90% of the contestants take themselves out of the running before they write a word of their script. Their concepts are insanely weak. I already know this person won’t look at a script if the concept isn’t good. So I have to make sure the concept is worth writing in the first place.
Hence, you have to EARN your way into the showdown. How do you do this? You have to pitch me a horror script idea that I approve of. For the next four weekends, you will pitch, in the comments, your title and logline for a horror script. I will answer “yes” or “no.” I will occasionally answer “maybe” if the idea has potential but needs to be tweaked. In that case, you’re going to want to keep pitching different versions of that idea. If I keep saying “Maybe,” you can keep going. But if I feel the idea is toast, I’ll “no” it. You are allowed to pitch as many ideas as you want.
BUT!
If I feel like you’re spamming concepts in the comments or just running over to ChatGPT and copy-and-pasting whatever it comes up with, I will stop responding to your pitches, which I’ll first warn you about, then confirm. I need to feel like these are genuine pitches that you’ve thought about in good faith. I suggest you privately vet your loglines with friends from the site and only pitch the best ones. Again, if I see someone just mindlessly pitching garbage, they’re out.
If you want more of a conversation about your logline pitches, rather than just a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ or you want to pitch your ideas in private, you can order my logline service. It’s $25 for a logline analysis (along with a yes or no) and $50 for unlimited e-mails where we potentially workshop a weak logline into something that is contest worthy. There are no guarantees though. You can’t put lipstick on a pig. If you want to use this service, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com.
Once we get through the four weekends, that’s it. Whoever makes the cut is in. From there, you’re going to write the script over the next five months. I will be integrating that process into the site occasionally. For example, we may have a First Scene Showdown for the Horror contestants. And I’ll be setting some checkpoints for you along the way to make sure your script is ready come showdown time.
Obviously, the pool of entrants is going to be much smaller. But, since every entry will be a good movie idea, the chances of finding something worthy of being produced will be much higher. There’s an off-chance that if someone comes up with a gangbusters mega-awesome horror idea that this person might fall in love with it and buy it off the idea alone.
I’m also trying to promote good screenwriting practices overall. Too many writers spend years on a script that they never idea-tested. It’s insane to me. You just wasted two years of your life working on a terrible idea, making the writing of the screenplay pointless. What I’m asking you to do here is how you should do it. Get your ideas out there in front of people and test them to see if they’re any good! Only write something when you get good responses from it.
To be clear, I’m not sending this guy an okay script. I’ve sent him scripts before that I thought were good but not great. He responds, in a polite way, with “Don’t waste my time.” So, you have to deliver. It’s not a foregone conclusion that I’m sending this if the winning script is just the best of a bunch of okay screenplays.
The good news is, even if he doesn’t like it, there are other people I can send it to *if I like it*.
So, when does this experiment start?
RIGHT NOW!
You can start pitching horror script loglines in the comments immediately. I will be checking in periodically. Don’t worry if I don’t respond to your idea right away. I *will* get to it by the end of the weekend.
All right. Let’s rock’n’roll!
