One of our TikTok followers recently asked: “what does ‘out with’ mean? Example: “(x management company) is out with (x script).”
Great question! When an agent or manager “takes out” or is “out with” a script or pilot, that means they are sending it out into the marketplace. Generally they’re hoping to sell it, although that happens less and less these days. When you’re “out with” something, that means the material has been deemed “good enough to shop” by your rep, and it specifically refers to the period of time while the script has been submitted to companies, awaiting reactions. The hook is baited and in the water.
How does all that work? Usually an agent or manager has a piece of material that they are hoping the industry will respond to, either to buy or option, or as a writing sample to introduce their writer client to the town. Of course, the rep is always hoping to sell the spec script, but that happens rarely. The real goal is always to get the writer meetings and to establish that writer, make new relationships, and hopefully land a writing assignment.
How a rep goes “out with” a script can depend on many factors — such as the genre of the project, the people the rep knows, whether there’s any heat on the writer, how much juice the rep has, and who may be looking for that type of material. For example, let’s say your short film burned up the festival circuit last year and you got signed by a big agency. Congrats! There’s going to be a lot of heat and expectations on your next project. And if your follow-up script is something perceived as marketable — for example, action, horror, thriller, anything genre — the agent may decide to “go wide” and send the script to a lot of buyers — sometimes 30 or more — in hopes of a slam-dunk sale.
But suppose you have no heat, but you’ve written a small but compelling little drama. People love it, but not an easy sell. Your rep might have a very different strategy. They might go out to a small handful of well-chosen producers, hoping to find that one passionate person who really responds and is willing to help package and develop it. This is the way many smaller projects get made — and fair warning, it often takes years before the rep and the producer build the right package and get the project set up somewhere. This is known as “pushing the boulder up the hill.”
One other thing to be aware of. When reps are “out with” a script, that’s when the tracking boards kick in. There is a whole network of development assistants at the various studios, agencies, and production companies, whose job it is to track all material coming into the marketplace at any “real” level — in other words, from known, established agents, managers, and producers. They all share their feedback via private tracking boards — some of which you can actually subscribe to as a fly on the wall, like TrackingB.com and tracking-board.com — very educational to do so, by the way.
In this way, projects can quickly develop a head of steam if people respond positively to the script and share their thoughts to their network. Why would they do that if they are all in competition, you ask? Because A, they’re all friends; B, they will likely be looking for a new job soon – just the way it is – and they all know it. And most importantly, C, even if a company loves a project, that doesn’t mean that’s what they’re looking for at the moment. They might have something similar in development already. They might not be interested in your vampire script because the market is oversaturated with them. Or they might be simply out of money.
Point is, the tracking boards could be a project’s best friend – or worst nightmare. A handful of negative reactions on the boards could hurt a project’s chances in short order.
But no matter what, when a rep is “out with” your script, they are looking to expose your work to the industry and hopefully get you noticed. And that is a very good thing.
