When you submit a feature or pilot to an agency, manager, or producer, that script will likely be covered — or read and rated by someone at that company. They’re scored on this scale: Pass, Low Consider or Consider with Reservations, Consider, Strong Consider, or Recommend – for both Script and for Writer. The vast majority of submissions will be a pass, which may not be a judgment call – it often just means “not for us.” A consider or strong consider is the gold standard. You probably won’t ever get a recommend.
Let’s look at the numbers. Here’s how it breaks down (for SCRIPT):
PASS: 83%
CONSIDER WITH RESERVATIONS: 15%
CONSIDER: 2-3%
RECOMMEND: 0
Zero? Yeah. The reason there are so few recommends is because everyone in the biz knows that a “recommend” sounds the alarm bell. It says “read this asap, it’s hot.” And if the boss doesn’t agree with that assessment, they become resentful and the reader’s job may be on the line. Readers learn quickly not to stick their neck out.
A “soft consider” or “consider with reservations” is the safe way to say the script gets a lot of things right – but there are concerns.
A “consider” generally means there may be a few issues that could use some TLC, but it’s pretty much ready to shop, or has a great premise/hook – it’s great, but no need to drop everything and read it asap.
Recommends are sometimes one in a thousand, depending on the company (some are less cutthroat than others) – or even less. Here at Coverage Ink, we can count the number of true recommends we’ve seen in our 22 years on three hands.
So how does a reader make the call? A lot of it comes down to experience and being able to weigh things from both an industry perspective as well as making sure all the component parts are firing on all thrusters. It’s easy to get blindsided when a writer spins great dialogue, for example, and to overlook that, say, the structure is iffy, or the character work is thin, etc. Savvy industry readers usually have a film or screenwriting degree and a good sense of what the biz – and their company is looking for.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that every script is a pass – until it isn’t. You can do ten or twenty drafts and the script might still be a pass. That doesn’t mean it sucks. That just means it’s not there yet, in the opinion of the reader. But you may be just one more draft away from a consider. And that is what you need to get interest from the biz.
