What is Coverage?
by Jaden
You are 45 years old and you just spent three years of your life writing a screenplay about your mother who died of toe cancer when you were eight. You put your blood, tears, and coffee splatters into it.
You are so lucky because you have a step-daughter who has a friend who knows someone who works at CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Hollywood.
Your script arrives on an agent’s desk who does not know who the heck you are or why he should care. The agent is running late to meet George Clooney for lunch to discuss one of his clients for a role in George’s next movie. The agent hands your precious script to his assistant and says, “Get me coverage on this.” The assistant hands the script off to his usual reader and requests coverage.
The reader is a 22-year old broke struggling screenwriter himself who knows everything there is to know about what is good — or so he thinks. He only likes Sci-Fi genre films and he is doing some serious text-messaging to get into the Matrix 7th Heaven Premiere Party that very night. He hates reading scripts about falling in love or death because he hasn’t experienced either.
The coverage lands back on the agent’s desk in a huge stack of broken dreams. Your script collects dust for three months until your distant connection follows up with him and asks about it. He digs it out of the Non-Priority stack (right under “Rambo, XXII”) and upon seeing “PASS” in the usual spot, he says, “Uh, oh yeah, we passed on that.”
The word comes back up the line to you. “Sorry, they’re not interested, they PASSED.”
You never see the coverage that came back from the reader to the agent. You can’t believe they passed and you wonder why. It was so good! You could see the audience getting all teary-eyed.
The agent would have actually liked your story because it would have reminded him of his recently deceased aunt. Still, had he even glanced at it, he would have passed because your formatting was all wrong; this being a red flag signaling that you, with all your unrealistic demands and inexperience, would be more trouble than you are worth. Your script wasn’t that good anyway; it was just ok.
What can you do now that CAA has you on record with a PASS script and your only avenue to Hollywood is a dead end?
RULE NUMBER ONE: If you truly believe in what you are doing and in yourself, NEVER GIVE UP!!! IF YOU HAVE THE WILL, THERE’S A WAY; it’s just a matter of finding it and taking all the right steps.
Make your script the best it can be before you get rejected. After rejection, there are other avenues you can take.
Click here for a Blank Coverage Sample.
RECOMMEND = This script is great! Let’s think about buying it.
CONSIDER = It’s pretty good, but needs a lot of work. Maybe we could use the writer on something else.
PASS = We cannot make money from this script.
LOGLINE = 1 to 3 lines, summation of story
SYNOPSIS = 1 to 2 pages, summary of story
ANALYSIS = 1 to 2 pages, comments about script’s strengths and weaknesses
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