• Act 1 (the first 1/4 of your screenplay 25 – 30 pages) – This is the setup of your story where your characters are introduced along with the basic direction of the story. This first Act must contain a Hook in the Set-Up to keep the reader, whether it’s a literary agent or producer, riveted to your screenplay.   In particular, the first 5 pages of a screenplay should totally hook the Hollywood movie executive.  If it doesn’t, they will read no more than 10 pages hoping it will get better and will then toss it in the trash.

• Act 2 (the middle half — roughly pages 27 to 87) –  Now that the story is Set-Up with the basic characters and the challenge of the story, you have to focus on creating lots of Conflict and Increasingly Difficult Obstacles for your main charactet to overcome. This is typically the hardest part to write because you have to makes sure that it builds upon itself and doesn’t become repetitive.

• Act 3 (the final quarter of your screenplay – roughly 85 or so to page 100 or so, and up to 120).  Your Third Act starts with a turning point and builds to the Climax of the story with the big confrontation between your main character and their opposition.  This is where your character either achieves his or her goal or fails — usually it’s best to have them win.  After the climax, then you have the Resolution to show how it all works out and things get back to a basic, simple life again.

Your plot is essentially how you put the basic pieces of your story together to make it interesting.  You should write out the basic beats of it at some point in your writing, whether it’s to do it before you start or at some point after you get some of your story down on paper.  The main thing is that while writing itself is often a right brain/creative process, working out the plot itself requires you to sit and think about it at some point and to really structure it for maximum effect.

This will be one of the biggest challenges you have, so stay at it, study it, and work on it till you feel in your bones that it is as good as it can be.

Proofread again. It’s important to make sure that there are no errors in your screenplay.   A literary agent will get a very bad impression if your script has errors, so before sending it out, proofread it one more time.  If you know your grammar or formatting has problems, hire a professional proofreader to review your screenplay.  Be sure it is someone who knows proper Hollywood script formatting.

Once it’s ready to go, you must learn to pitch your script.  As I like to say, “If you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it.”   Whether you write a query letter or pitch verbally, you have to develop a pitch of your story, which is simply telling a very short version of it to get someone interested.

When you pitch verbally to a literary agent, you have only a few seconds to hook them, so make the most of it. Practice pitching to your friends and family, or even in the mirror. It doesn’t matter where you practice, just keep at it.  See if their eyes glaze over or if they light up.  That should be your feedback.  You can also work with a professional pitch coach in Hollywood to help you prepare it. 

It can be challenging to get a chance to pitch verbally, so another option is to write a query letter to sell a screenplay. It will most likely be the first thing seen by a literary agent so it’s imperative that you impress them. This is your only chance to convince them that your screenplay is unique and great, so be sure that your query letter presents your script in the best possible light.

If you aren’t sure about the query letter part, that is another area that you can get a professional to help you.  Or even if you simply don’t have the time to mess with it and would rather work on the script itself, then you may want to hire someone to help you with the pitching and marketing.  Some possible places to get help are QueryLetterMailing.com and The Great American Pitchfest.  At the query letter mailing site, they will help you put together a query letter to go out to production companies and literary agents.  The Great American Pitchfest is an event that happens once a year where you can pitch in person to your choice of as many as 100 different Hollywood professionals. 

The main thing after you write your screenplay is to make an effort to sell it.  Don’t hold back and sit on it for years like some aspiring screenwriters do, get a pitch ready.  Then try to get your screenplay read by Literary Agents, Literary Managers, and Producers in Hollywood — any way you can!

On the other hand, when you write a great query letter, you will make a good impression, and you can get the surprise benefit that even if they aren’t interested in the idea of this script, you can start to build a relationship with them and come back to them in the future with other scripts that might suit them.

Here are some basics tips for writing your query letter.

• Stick to the point.

Tell them just a little bit about you and also give them the pitch of your screenplay.  End with a thank you.  That’s it.  No irrelevant information, that rambles on about how you really need to sell a screenplay in a hurry or you’ll get kicked out of your apartment – that would be seen as unprofessional.

• Proofread for errors, make sure your letter really sells your idea, and in general, rewrite it until overall, it has a very a good quality feel to it.

If your query letter stinks or if you have too many errors, then the literary agent will assume the quality of your screenplay is even worse, and there’s no way they will read it.  It goes back to your query letter being critical in making that first impression.

• Always address your query letter to one individual literary agent (or manager or producer).

Do not  send “To Whom It May Concern.” If you want them to represent you in a big money world, then you better at least be resourceful enough find out their name and address the letter to them.

Those are a few basic ideas to get you pointed in the right direction on writing a query letter. If you feel you would rather focus on the screenwriting itself than on marketing your screenplay, or if you are not sure you will be able to give it your best shot, then you might want to check out having a professional Query Letter Mailing created for you by Smart Girls Productions.

Smart Girls Productions has helped hundreds of screenwriters get their scripts read by real Hollywood producers, literary agents, and managers, and they pick out the people who are best suited to your specific script.  In addition to query letters for your screenplay, they also offer a variety of other screenwriter services that might be of interest to you, such as typing scripts and script critiques.

When I saw this, it got me thinking about my actor and screenwriter clients who want to be paid for their services – presumably all of them! 

So I have a question for you:  How much would someone pay for your acting or screenwriting talents?  Or anything else you do for that matter? 

For the most part, the most difficult part of an acting or screenwriting career is getting paid for doing it.  It’s easy enough to act in a play, a student film, or a no-budget film, but to be HIRED to do it is a different story. 

Same with writing.  You can get a video camera and shoot a few no-budget scenes, edit them with free software, and then post them on YouTube for the world to see.  Doing the thing itself is not so hard.  It’s getting paid to do it that is the hard part. 

So the question is, what is it that makes someone PAY for what you do?  And a lot of money at that?

Here’s the answer:  The reason they pay you (your audience, that is) is that they perceive a particular and unique value in what you do.  Someone pays for a Madonna record because they perceive what she delivers as being unique AND they like it. 

Someone pays to have you act in their film because they perceive that you will deliver something unique that’s worthy of paying for.  They also think that, in turn, others will also perceive it as being unique and worth paying for.

Said another way:  You have to be unique in some way, or more accurately, perceived to be delivering something unique that is valuable enough that the buyer will pay for it.

Let me break it down.  First, for actors:  Most actors fall in the category of what’s called a “commodity.”  A commodity is something that can be easily replaced with another similar item.

For screenwriters, it’s the same thing.  Most scripts that I’ve critiqued are actually okay, not bad.  But most of them could be classified as commodities, meaning easily replaced with a similar one. 

The problem with being a commodity when it comes to marketing is that you have little leverage in getting someone to pay money for what you are selling over another commodity, unless you are a name brand (meaning a star name actor or proven screenwriter).  Think of computers:  they are now commodity products.  The main difference is the name brand.  Most people prefer to buy a name brand over a no-name brand, even when they could get more for their money with a no-namer.  

There is more perceived value in the name brand commodity than the actual product itself, therefore most people stick with the name brands.  And on top of that, even the name brand companies are very competitive with each other, trying to separate themselves from the others in a sea of commodities.

As an actor or screenwriter, you are a commodity until you have a name.  It’s the chicken-egg story.  How to you get to have a name if they won’t hire you so you can build your name? Well, you have to do one thing.

 I’ll put it very simply: 

If you want to be paid to do your acting or screenwriting, you have to go to work on increasing your perceived value in the Hollywood market place.

It’s not about your real value or your worth as a person.  It’s not about how much money your movie would make if we could see into the future and really know.  It’s about how much the Hollywood marketplace perceives that you or your script is worth.  So you have to work on increasing the perceived value of what you provide.

How do you do that?  It’s not just one thing, there are lots of things that you can do.  Everything from being great at your craft, to being unique, to getting fans of your work, to being great to work with, and much more.  It includes all the steps in the process of branding yourself and making a career — and it’s not as elusive as you might think.  (Stay tuned for more insights on how to do this or check out Smart Girls Productions services for marketing actors and screenwriters as a starting point.)

To bring the point home, let’s go back to the $600,000 Mastiff… was that dog really worth that much money?  Who knows?  How do you even tell?  It’s a made up number.  The bottomline is that the buyer thought that he was worth it and she paid it. 

What is the perceived value of your talent in the market place?  How will you increase it?

If you are pursuing an acting career, you will very likely, eventually, find yourself wondering what you should do next to try to break through because it seems so hard.

One of the possible actions you can take, a possibility which arose only a couple decades ago and was conceived of by a company called One-On-One Productions, is to pay to audition for casting directors.

Anyway, what they did, which many other companies have since done, is to create paid workshops that actors can attend, a “class” type thing, where a casting director teaches you how to audition.  So you get to meet with them in this “class,” and you learn their little quirks about what they like and don’t like.  That way, if you should ever get called in to officially audition for them, you know what to do. 

The fact is that these “workshops” are basically paid auditions, and some people object to this whole idea.  It goes against the grain of everyone who’s ever held an office in SAG and every died-in-the-wool artiste actor.   But I, on the other hand, coming from a perspective of success and a marketing background, believe that if that will help you begin a relationship with a casting director which could later get you cast in your dream role, you might as well fork over the $45 or $50 bucks they’re asking for.

I’ve worked with literally thousands of actors who would love to be able to audition for certain TV shows.  And if they could get in the game, then they would feel an inner sense of peace knowing that they at least have a shot!  Many are upset because they don’t even get that chance.

One of my clients who started doing these paid “workshops” way back when put it very well when he said, “Hey, whether I like it or not, if that’s how the game is played, then that’s how I’ll play it.  If it helps me get seen by the casting directors, bring it on.”  He met dozens of casting directors at these workshops, followed up by keeping in touch with them through postcards, and went on to be a consistently working actor.

The bottom line is that in most competitive businesses, it is common to wine-and-dine and to try to buy someone’s business, so to speak.  When someone else has the upper hand and you want to do business with them, you need to put out a little bit more.  You need to somehow get the attention of that person so that they look your way. 

If that means that you shell out a little bit for a one-night stand – a paid casting director workshop – then so be it.  That is not too bad considering that you are then known to that person and can be considered for being cast on that show.

 When you compare the $50 bucks or so that that you spend for that against the fact that acting classes in L.A. run an average of $200 minimum to $300 bucks a month, I would definitely recommend that periodically skipping class to meet four casting directors or even their assistants might be a good idea

So are Casting Director Workshops good or no good?  I say go for it.  In marketing, you MUST get yourself known, even if it is to be known by the second banana at the office.  That’s better than never having any chance at all.  But then, I’m all about the marketing and having you work as an actor, not just practice your craft. 

If you want to work, you definitely need to be trained, but just make sure that you also start getting yourself out to the market.  Don’t get super comfortable in your acting class where it feels so good and safe.  Get yourself out there.

Once you meet these casting directors, make sure that you keep in touch with them on a regular basis by getting your photo postcard in front of them so they remember you when they have a role you’re right for.

Meanwhile, happy trails in your marketing.

If you’re like most of the thousands of actors and screenwriters I’ve worked with, you probably agree that networking is a key to success in Hollywood, but it probably lives more as a concept in your head than as a real thing that you do. In fact, my guess is that you probably wish it were not necessary, and there’s a good chance that it feels “fake” to you. Bottomline, it may seem like networking is really just trying to sell yourself and get what you want. But if you think of it that way, you are making a big mistake. Relating to networking like that will work against you because you’re going in the wrong way. How do you do it right, you ask?

Here are the Five Golden Keys to be successful at networking.

First Key: Change your relationship to networking itself. Instead of focusing on getting what you want, focus on getting to know people.

If you go to a function, you have to get to know people before you can do business with them anyway. So simply meet people and talk with them as your initial contact. Ask them questions, find out about who they are, what they do, and what they are working on at the moment. As you listen and converse with them, things you have in common will come up naturally.

Second Key: Set a goal for what you want to accomplish before you go to the networking event.

Make a plan to fulfill a goal, such as exchange three business cards with people you could do business with. Or perhaps, introduce and pitch yourself to five people whom you will also learn about what they do. Or it could be to do something like find a potential writing partner or to find a project you can be a production assistant on or an agent whose office you could assist in for a week or a month. There are many kinds of outcomes that you can set that could forward your career – it doesn’t necessarily just have to be getting someone to read your script or getting someone to let you audition for their film. One of the powerful ways that you develop connections is to work with people in other capacities first while not hiding your real aspirations.

Key Three: Make sure you have follow up system in place once you meet someone.

Once you get home, make a strong, clear choice about how and when you will keep in touch with that person and how you will approach them. Then update your contact list and put on your calendar when you will reach them again. Also set aside time for when you will prepare what you will say to them, whether it is to pitch something to them or to offer to buy them lunch or dinner. Then when the time comes, make your call to them. Key Four: Prepare and practice your pitch in advance of the meeting. You need to craft your pitch so that you come across as interesting to whomever you’re pitching to. Don’t just tell about yourself, but sell yourself by telling them something about yourself that they could be interested in.

For example, what I do, from my perspective, is I help market actors and screenwriters. But from your perspective, if you’re an actor, I help you get more auditions that you want or I help you get an agent who can get you auditions. For screenwriters, from my perspective, I help you create a Query Letter Mailing. But from your perspective, I help you get producers and agents to read your script.

When you prepare your pitch, prepare it for what is in it for the audience that you want to do business with and that you are pitching to.

Key Five: Have a strong system for ongoingly keeping in touch with everyone you meet whom you could potentially do business with, so they remember you and they think of you at the right time.

If you’re an actor, go crazy with mailing out photo postcards and messages, update people on your latest activities – whether it’s a new headshot (or just new to them) – or a play you’re doing, a new class you started, or a Guest Star Role that you just got cast in. Get creative about what you announce. If you are taking action in your career, there is always something to announce, I promise you. For Screenwriters, be prolific in coming up with ideas. You can keep in touch letting people know about a new treatment or screenplay you have. You can also contact them to let them know you love their recent project, or congratulate them on something. One surefire way to get them to remember you (favorably) is if you have a fantastic script and they read it, they will remember you for quite some time. It is really great if you also engage in optioning other writers’ scripts because that puts you in a producer role and can give you countless things to talk about to anyone. But that is a whole other ballgame, so suffice it to say that if you are thinking about doing that, it’s a great idea.

If you only want to write or if you only want to act, then you have to get creative about how you can stay in touch or make people remember you. But you must do it. You must put effort and intention in this area of your career.

So there you go. Five Keys for Successful Hollywood Networking. If you taking on mastering these keys, demonstrate patience, and not get too worried about seeing immediate results (although you might see fast results), then over time you will be blown away by the results you produce. If you would like coaching on developing your Quick Pitch for networking events or any aspect of networking, follow up, approach contacts and making requests, check out my Melody Jackson Coaching page  and call me to arrange a time.

Looking at what that “valuable something” is that the star provides, Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly wrote: “A movie star is someone whose past work enriches your experience of, and deepens your pleasure in, his or her present work.”  And as mystery blogger Stogie Joe noted, we watch as they grow up.

Identifying and relating to these stars as we do documents our own history in a way — even more readily seen with musicians.  I was a Donny Osmond fan as a child.  When I see him now, I remember what I myself was doing on my 13th birthday.  We do the same with the movies and movie stars.

I believe that Movie Stars should get every penny that they possibly can.  When actors or writers complain about their salary, I just shake my head, because if the star doesn’t get the money — the STUDIO will, not the other actors and writers who also “deserve” more money, too.

I love that we have Movie Stars.  They also represent the possibility of transcendence.  Something bigger than our mundane experience of life.  They represent magic.  While they are still individual human beings, for the rest of us, they seem to be a conduit to the magic that we wish for in our lives.  Something bigger than life.

I completely agree with Stogie Joe that stars are going nowhere — we needs our Stars more than ever.  It’s just a question of which direction the money heads. 

Almost everybody knows we need them, meaning the studio people and producers.  It’s just a matter of making sure that the team of people on the star side of the deal never buy the propaganda that the studios put out about them being overpaid.

 Long live movie stardom and may they continue to get their $25M a movie.

But thinking like this may give you a little bit of trouble.  Like with anything in life, when you resist “what is so,” it gets harder and harder to deal with.  I know that for many artists and other people who have their own business or personal service and don’t have someone else to market them, they just feel like they are no good at marketing.  And frequently, they then make a half-hearted attempt at it or they don’t do it at all.  Then business goes down, or you don’t get many auditions, and you’re left frustrated. 

To be powerful in your career, you need to shift your relationship to marketing and how you think about it.  Start by giving up resisting it and simply owning that it is a critical element of your career.  Just like staying in shape, looking well, being healthy, being friendly to your fans, and taking care of yourself overall is a critical element in your acting career, so is marketing.  Some people don’t like to work out, but if you want to stay in shape, you’ll have to do some kind of exercise.

With exercising, you can’t get someone else to do it for you — although you can get a trainer and coach.  But with marketing, fortunately you  can get someone to do a lot of it for you.  My company Smart Girls Productions has been marketing actors to Hollywood since 1992.  We’ve helped literally thousands of actors get agents and managers and also get auditions for top TV show and movies.  We work with you one on one and help you pick out headshots and write your cover letters and so forth.  And there are other companies who offer some version of coaching in helping you package yourself for the market.

But the bottomline, as I always like to get to, is this.  No matter what you want to have someone else support you in, you have to take that first step.  You are always the person responsible for making it happen.  If you don’t, I promise you no one else will.  You have to market yourself over and over and over.  You don’t have to do all the steps, but you have to take the first step to find someone esle to do it.  Then you still have to be involved.  Even when you get a talent agent or manager to represent you for the film and TV roles you want, ultimately, you will still need to keep promoting yourself.

What I’m really suggesting is that if you can change your attitude to embracing the fact that you need to market yourself, you may find that you get more creative about it.  The sooner you embrace that ongoing promotion of your career is as much a part of your acting career as auditioning, then you will leap forward in your career much more quickly.

Here’s to your success!

Then Join The More Than 7500 Actors And Writers
We’ve Helped With Marketing Their Careers Since 1992

Maybe you’re seeking a good Hollywood agent or manager. Or maybe you just want Hollywood producers and agents to read your script so they can see its amazing potential. If you’re looking for ways to move your career forward in Hollywood, then you’ve come to the right place. We offer the broadest range of marketing services available ANYWHERE for both for actors and screenwriters. We track thousands of agents, managers, producers, and casting directors in Hollywood, and we have a variety of programs to help you in your career.

Give yourself the chance to see your name in lights for real. It starts right here.

P.S. You know, a lot of actors and writers will read every word here, agree with what they see – and still do nothing. They’re the wanna-bes-who-didn’t-go-for-it. The almost-made-it crowd. Always waiting for that good ship success to sail in, but too timid to hop on board once it is at the dock! We can and do give you every tool you need to go after your desires and ambitions. But you have to take this first step in your acting or writing career. Give us a call to see how we can help you — or AT LEAST, start by getting our mini-course on marketing to Hollywood!

P.P.S. A lot of people wonder… is Smart Girls just for women? The answer? No. It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re a man or a woman! If you’re looking to make it in film or TV, we’re for you. Smart Girls (and Guys) are who we are, savvy, smart people who get the job done – and done right!

To Be Continued…