How to be a reader

The other day, a friend told me that he’s thinking of moving to Los Angeles and that he might want to become a reader at a production company. For those of you who don’t know, a reader is someone involved in the development stage of production. Companies hire readers to *gasp* read scripts. They then write up a review of the script, highlighting all the important stuff (the good, the bad, etc.). This document is called “coverage.” Producers use this coverage in order to determine whether or not they should read a script or whether a project is worth developing. They also use it to pinpoint problems in a script or where there is room for improvement. Essentially, readers provide a knowledgeable perspective that is different from the producer’s. The material read is not just limited to scripts either. Readers can be assigned books, articles, other movies, anything with potential for development.

I wrote up a message to my friend with all the basics on being a reader. It seemed to be pretty good advice for any aspiring writer/producer, so I thought I’d share it with you guys. Here’s the excerpt:

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“In terms of being a reader, I think I mostly got by because I had done a few internships before. Also, being a writer helps too. Generally, when you apply for a reader position, an assistant will send you a script and a piece of their own sample coverage. It’s then your job to read the script and provide coverage in the same format as the sample.

A single piece of coverage consists of three parts: general details, synopsis, and comments. General details are things like genre, character descriptions, logline, etc.; all of which you’ll need to determine based on the script. The synopsis is the hardest part in my opinion. You have to write down all the major events in the story in an understandable manner. You also need to determine what parts of the story are necessary and what are not, and write your synopsis based on that. This is important in order to keep the length down. In my first few pieces of coverage, my synopsis went on for 4 pages. You generally want to keep it at 2, or 3 for a heavy script or a book.

Then there are the comments. Keep these at 1-2 pages and just make sure that you’re critical enough. I gave up talking about positive aspects of scripts a long time ago (save for a few sentences). I feel that talking about the problems is much more effective and useful for the person reading it.

Lastly, just try to be able to get through the scripts quickly without being sloppy. If a company sees that you can provide very quick turnaround for a script, it’ll make you all the better in their eyes.

Otherwise, suffice it to say that it’s a pretty simple position. I actually got mine by going for an interview for an internship. During the interview I asked about any available reader positions and the position happened to be available. They’re pretty hard to come by (a lot of companies don’t even have readers and just use their interns to write coverage) and they pay little if they pay at all. If you can’t find a reader position right away, I would suggest going for an internship. Most internships actually have you do coverage anyway, so that’s a good way to build up to being a reader.”

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Ranjit out.

~ by ranjit13 on February 14, 2009.