Screenwriters and Production Companies: Inktip is Changing the Way Hollywood is Making Movies

Everyone that has ever seen a movie thinks they can write a screenplay. In fact many of them have tried. It is estimated by film industry insiders that there are over 80,000 screenplays written a year. That is a lot of scripts for a relatively small number of production companies to look at. In 2000, Jerrol LeBaron created Inktip, when many of his friends and associates in the film industry could not get exposure for their screenplays. Nine years later, his creation has over 2600 registered film industry professionals that have access to Inktip's database of screenplays. Some of these companies are well known players such as Lions Gate Entertainment, the William Morris Agency, and Spring Creek Productions. Aspiring writers pay a fee of sixty dollars to have their screenplay listed with the Inktip service for six months. Writers get notified when an industry professional views their logline, synopsis, resume or script. Inktip has helped level the playing field and given several unknown writers an entry into the film business. I asked Inktip founder Jerrol LeBaron several questions about where his company is now and where it will be in the future.

1) What made you decide to start InkTip?

I actually started by dabbling in screenwriting myself. Not so much as a labor of love, but more of a passing fixation. I spent months trying to sell my first feature, finding few opportunities to even get it into the hands of an interested reader. I just knew there had to be a better way.

The thing is, there are thousands of producers looking for scripts they can be passionate about. And for all the writers out there, all it takes is one "yes." A better system had to be created to connect these people and the Internet was the obvious medium.

2) When did the company start and how many employees do you have?

I started the process of building the company in 1999. Several months were spent researching the hundreds of companies and representatives already using the Internet to search for scripts and writers. In addition, I worked with my entertainment attorney on constructing forms and agreements that encompassed the requirements of the major studios and production houses.

We finally launched in February of 2000 with only me and my wife as employees. Today we have nine employees and are looking to expand within the year.

3) How many scripts have been sold and/or optioned? Have there been any feature films to come from subscribers that use InkTip?

In the beginning it was difficult to track every sale and option, but we now confirm more than 150 options and sales per year.

We've had over 80 feature films produced since we've started, and our rate of success has been increasing steadily over the years. We've averaged 19 films produced per year for the last three years alone.

4) What are the advantages for screenwriters to use your site?

The bottom line: targeted exposure. Sending queries is much like "pitching" or "exposing" your materials to professionals who may or may not be looking for material. That's not to say that sending queries is bad, it's just not targeted. In our case however, when a producer or rep sees your material through our company, it's for one reason: they ARE looking for projects or writers.

Writers who subscribe to our Preferred Newsletter get a similar experience. They may have dozens of scripts and don't want to list all of them on our site, so they subscribe to our Preferred Newsletter. The Newsletter is a weekly update of the most recent leads and calls-for-scripts from production companies. It tells the subscriber exactly what the companies are looking for. If the writer has multiple scripts that fit one or more leads, they can submit one or all of them at no charge besides the subscription.

5) Do you see your service as being competition for many of the literary agents out there?

On the contrary, we can be a tremendous support system for a literary rep. Our Entertainment Professionals Department works exclusively with professionals to help them find whatever it is they need-a script, a teleplay or a writer. InkTip doesn't take any percentage or residual from any sale, we just help with targeted exposure.

Let's say there's a particular agent or manager looking for a comedy writer because they have every other type of writer they could need. Through InkTip, they could easily find several professional and creative writers that fit the bill. In fact, we have several agents and managers who use our services daily, and many of them encourage their writers to keep their scripts listed on our site.

Simply put, we facilitate and increase a rep's ability to make a sale.

6) Before you started InkTip, were you involved with the movie industry?

Well, as I said before, I dabbled with screenwriting for a short while. I was also acting for a period of time. Those experiences coupled with my business background developed my insight into the entertainment industry, and as a result, have helped make InkTip a success. Everything in Hollywood is based on the law of averages. How many auditions to get cast? How many submissions to get a sale? I designed InkTip to increase the front-end numbers for both the writers and the professionals in the business-as a result, the back-end numbers go up.

7) In five years, where do you see InkTip going? Are there plans to get into books and music?

Just in the past few months we've made some significant changes in our Marketing Department. A new Vice President of Marketing has been hired, in addition to new Marketing Department staff, and new strategies are currently being developed and executed in order to bump InkTip to the next level.

InkTip has a firm grip on $500K-$3M budget range films, and with our evolving company structure and marketing strategies, we will soon be making a push into the larger studios and agencies.

As for adding new content media such as books and music, we have been discussing an InkTip for books in the near future. Both the literature and music industries are very different from the film industry-new creatures entirely. We'll probably first move into books since we already have several contacts in that business, but one at a time for now.

8) Do you have any funny or interesting stories to add since InkTip has been in business?

I do! Well, it's actually a mantra, word of encouragement and an interesting story-something that I remind myself of often.

A couple years back I remember receiving this phone call from a producer who is a member of ours. He has been with us for a good amount of time and I definitely have a good relationship with him. Anyway, as many producers go, he's very opinionated; as he should be! It's hard to really make a movie unless you are passionate and opinionated about the project.

Anyway, he calls me up just to tell me that this one particular script he read on our site was the worst script he had ever read, and I was strongly advised to remove it. Well, InkTip has a policy to not do that. We don't judge scripts beyond professionalism, and here's why.

I kindly thanked him for his opinion and then helped him find something else that suited him. Back to business as usual and no joke, less than a week later, not only did that same "worst script" get optioned, but the writer also got picked up by a manager.

From that point on, I made sure to not judge anything for anyone. Everyone has different tastes, and like I said before, you can get a thousand "no's," but all it takes is one "yes."