What Is The BEST Job In The Screenwriting World?
In our view, that would be Script Editing.
Why? Get to bring all your story, character, structure and industry skills to bear on helping writers go from good to great to produced. Unlike script reading, it’s not just about suggestions and feedback, it’s actual face to face collaboration and sometimes even fingers on keyboards storycrafting.
Wecome to Script Editing with Lucy V Hay aka @Bang2Write
Why Learn How To Become A Script Editor
- Roll your sleeves up on many many projects, helping you improve your own writing
- Help your friends and peers improve their projects and odds of getting produced
- Get paid to do what we all love, make stories stronger, more resonant and exciting
- Radically improve your network of contacts
When: Dates June 24th and 25th 2023
Where: Online
Tickets: £139.00
- Delegates will have access online for one year after the course also.
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What is Script Editing?
Contrary to popular belief script editing is NOT just about proofreading and fixing typos.
If you’ve been to Lucy’s ‘Breaking Into Script Reading’ class, then you’ll know script reading is about DEVELOPMENT.
But what does ‘development’ mean?
Script reading asks a reader to make a verdict: PASS, CONSIDER or RECOMMEND … but script editing is much more involved.
A good script editor facilitates a writer’s journey to the best draft they can write.
This means they will not only be juggling writing craft elements such as genre, structure, character arcs, but also…
- Production logistics
- Budget constraints
- Producer, director or network memos
Scheduling - Casting / actor requests and preferences
- Self-belief / moral support
…and lots more too.
It’s where story excellence and story craft, meets the reality of getting produced.
Editing Your Own Work
Too often, a writer feels like their hands are tied. They just don’t know how to judge their own work which can mean they are sleep-walking towards problems. Notes are a fact of (screenwriting) life, so writers who don’t know how professional development works will FREAK OUT and throw the baby out with the bathwater the moment a producer talks about potential changes.
Even worse, writers may burn their bridges altogether and come off as difficult. But…
…What if you had the tools and vocabulary to ensure your screenplay is the best it can be BEFORE you send it out?
…What if you had the confidence to understand what’s good about your writing and what needs work?
…What if you knew how to protect your writing from ‘death by a thousand notes’ so you can avoid the dreaded Development Hell?
Lucy will take you through the non-negotiables you need to ensure your own writing ROCKS … but that you’re also not precious about your writing.
(this first section will also help new Script Editors work with those challenging writers!).
‘Recommended for the networking as well as the in-depth knowledge.’
Ruth Trippitt, Script Researcher
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Editing Friends’ & Peers’ Work
Most script editors start as script readers. This means peer review (for screenplays) or beta reading (for novels) can be a fantastic gateway to this career step and job.
In addition, pathways to script editing in the industry can include lots of script reading, especially if you’re an assistant, researcher, runner or intern.
Even better: script editors frequently grow up to be producers or Development Execs!
Yet too often potentially great contacts and burgeoning relationships break down because would-be Script Editors don’t understand how to deliver notes.
During this section of the course, Lucy will take you through the most important things a script editor must juggle in order to facilitate a writer’s journey, such as (but not limited to):
- WHO the writer is (personality? Background? Challenges?)
- WHAT craft elements are ‘missing’ in our or that writers’ arsenal (Concept? Character? Structure? Something else?)
- WHERE the writer is on their journey (Newbie? Experienced? Produced?)
- WHEN we should stop & take stock as scrip[t editors (rather than take over!)
- WHY we must remember there’s more than one way to tell a story
The worst thing we can do as new script editors is think we’re ‘all that’ and THE way to write a story is OUR WAY.
Lucy will give new script editors her trademark dose of REALITY as well as tips and tricks to ensure you can build your relationships with writers without alienating them.
‘Lucy is an exceptional presenter, and has shared her passion with clarity and fizz!.’
Paul Draper
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Editing For Money
In the Zoom era, we’re just a few screens away from working with our next potential writing client … Even big production companies may do their writers’ rooms from home in the 2020s!
This means the time has never been better to set up as a script editor in the digital age … but we have to demonstrate we know what we’re talking about.
Lucy has lead training and editing workshops in numerous settings over the past ten years, including ‘Zoom rooms’ and on-site. She’s worked with numerous investors and individual production companies, writers and directors; The British Film Institute; The Exeter Phoenix Short Film Fund steering committee; London Metropolitan University; The Internationale Filmschule, Cologne on its ‘Serial Storytelling’ course; and of course London Screenwriters’ Festival.
During this section of the course, Lucy will …
- Take you through where to find script editing jobs, both IRL & online
- Show you why the REALITIES of filmmaking can change everything
- Show how to demonstrate your craft knowledge that gets you hired again & again
- Take you through utilising the online space to bring writers TO you
- Show you how to create meaningful contacts and relationships with industry pros
- Take you through how the industry works – and why there IS such a thing as ‘bad publicity’! (It’s not what you think, either)
From The Last Script Reading with Lucy V Hay… from 100 delegates…
99% would recommend to a friend
99% agreed the course was value for money
Delegates gave an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5About Lucy
Lucy V. Hay is a script editor, author and blogger who helps writers. She’s been the script editor and advisor on numerous UK features and shorts & has also been a script reader for over 15 years, providing coverage for indie prodcos, investors, screen agencies, producers, directors and individual writers. She’s also an author, publishing as both LV Hay and Lizzie Fry. Lizzie’s latest, KILL FOR IT is out now with Sphere Books and LV’s debut crime novel THE OTHER TWIN is being adapted by the Emmy-nominated Free@Last TV. Lucy’s site at www.bang2write.com has appeared in Top 100 round ups for Writer’s Digest & The Write Life, as well as been a UK Blog Awards Finalist and Feedspot’s #1 Screenwriting blog in the UK (tenth in the world!).
My Pledge To You
If your screenwriting is not taken to a whole new level during the workshop, I will give you a full refund on the spot. Remember, as an organization, we are in the trenches right beside you. We have made films, we are making films and we connect with hundreds of experienced filmmakers through the London Screenwriters’ Festival.
