The Indie Auteur Musings on filmmaking by Stephan Vladimir Bugaj.

Notes on Notes, pt. 4: Who to ask for notes.

This post is mainly for independent writers and directors.  If you’re working for someone on a project, it’s usually quite obvious who you should ask for notes (and if it isn’t, ask the director or producer).  Independents, on the other hand, may have a very hard time finding people to give them a “fresh set of eyes”.

For starters, don’t ask Josh Olson for notes.  In fact, don’t ask anyone for notes that is unlikely to give them to you (especially if they’re prone to ranting at you).  That category includes everyone you’ve ever heard of in the business, unless either (1) they explicitly ask you to send them a copy of your script or film cut, or (2) you are somebody (i.e. a peer) in the business.  Even if the well known person is an actual friend, it’s usually best to wait for them to ask to read or view something you’re working on based on your telling them about what the project is.  (This is called pitching, and it’s the primary way many scripts get read and films get funded or picked-up — by generating active interest in the story via a short synopsis.)  If you pester someone into giving you feedback, expect the harshest criticism since they didn’t want to do it in the first place and will therefore be sensitive to every flaw in your work.

Getting feedback, however, is not that hard if you know how to go about it.  From the suggestions below, you want to cast about for note givers whose notes you respect and can learn from, until you find a pool of people large enough that you can ask about five of them for notes on any given project (how many people that means depends on how prolific you are — don’t ask any one person for notes more than once every 2 – 3 months, unless you’ve got a very long term friendship or a very close working relationship with them).

Ask your friends

Some of them are going to be too nice to you, others too harsh out of jealousy, but you might as well ask for notes from the one or two of your friends that you think can be the most straightforward.  The idea that asking your friends for feedback is a bad idea because they may not be experts has one clear flaw: Your friends are your audience.  Most people who go see moves do not know how to write or make them, yet they are going to critique your work anyway.  It’s not a bad idea to get some feedback from people like that up-front.  You will have to guide them, and you’ll probably get a lot of terrible notes from your friends, but hearing about where they are bored or confused is especially helpful since that’s where a general audience may also be bored or confused.  Just don’t take your friends notes too seriously, they are indeed biased, after all.

As time goes on, you’ll make friends with other writers or directors, professional readers, producers, and other industry professionals and well trained aspirants who will both be your friends and also be excellent sources of knowledable notes. These are likely to be your most consistently available source of actually helpful notes, provided you return the favor for them when needed.  But keep at least one reader in your pool who isn’t a pro, because knowing how the average person responds is helpful, even through all the bad notes you’ll get.  (NOTE: Your non-pro friends being a poor audience is mainly true of screenplays, anyway, as those can be confusing and difficult to read for non-experts.  Those friends who aren’t pros are actually a great audience for edits of actual films, because they’re the closest you’re going to get to a public test audience without paying for one.)

Take classes

Even some very experienced writers and filmmakers (usually ones who haven’t broken into the A-list yet) still take workshop classes like those offered by the UCLA Professional Program, or labs like CineStory or Sundance.   Classes serve three major purposes: (1) providing you with deadlines, (2) providing you with a group of people who are obligated to give you notes, and (3) meeting people with whom you may later exchange notes and perhaps even collaborate with on projects.  Classes are the best way to meet people and build relationships that may go from exchanging notes to something more concrete later on.

You may get some terrible notes from classmates, but you’ll also get some very good notes if you pick classes that are at serious places for serious people. Since UCLA offers online classes, there’s no reason to stay in an awful class, but don’t completely discount local courses (especially those at city and state colleges).  Be cautious when considering for-profit adult education programs.  They rarely offer anything that city and state colleges don’t, and are often overpriced for the quality of teachers and students you’ll be working with.

Getting an MFA is also a way to get a lot of critique of your work.  In the U.S., there are the Big Three film schools (UCLA, USC, NYU) and the AFI.  But if you can’t go to any of those, there are also other decent programs out there like Columbia, UT, and various others.  In the UK, there is NFTS, and other countries have major film schools as well.

Join a writing and/or filmmaking group

Many writing and filmmaking critique groups form out of class or retreat relationships, so the two suggestions are compatible.  But even if you haven’t taken any classes, you may find a group in your area through friends, a local college or library, or an online message board.  Some regions may also have film organizations (like San Francisco’s now defunct Film Arts Foundation) that have bulletin boards where you can post looking for a group, and which also host events where you can go meet in-person and try to form a group that way.

There are also online sites which function as virtual critique groups.  Some are just bulletin board forums, such as those at Save The Cat, where you can discuss craft, meet people virtually,  and post requests for critique.  But there are also a couple sites, Trigger Street and Zoetrope, which are specifically critique communities in which you must give critiques in order to receive them.  The whole purpose of those sites is to have users give each other notes, both to help each other, and so that the highest reviewed projects on the sites can be considered by production companies.  Since Trigger Street and Zoetrope are organized forums for exchanging notes, if you give notes, you will also get them.

Only under very particular circumstances — pay someone

Sometimes you’d like notes from a professional reader — the very sort of person who may read your work for a company you sendit to.  Surprisingly, this is quite difficult to find, and even more difficult to find at a fair price.  The only paid notes I’ve found thus far that are worth the price is Scott The Reader’s $60 notes offer, and sometimes the notes I get back from Wildsound and Austin Film Festival.  My general rule is that I will not pay more than about $80 for notes (not consulting, mind you, but a single read and one-time delivery of a packet of notes), unless they are exceptionally amazing and detailed notes.  And I’ve not yet found a notes giver that I’d pay more than $80 for.  Honestly, in terms of disinterested third-party readers that give decent or better notes, I’ve only found the three mentioned above at all.

Also, many people selling note services are not professional readers, they’re professional consultants.  Most professional readers only resell their services outside the studios through festivals (I’ve only found one so far that offers direct service — Scott).  Consultants can occasionally be worth working with — even some A-listers work with story and script consultants — if you have developed a personal relationship with them.  Most of the successful writers who work with a consultant at all usually work with someone that was a professor or mentor of theirs in their MFA or professional program, or at a retreat, workshop or festival.  It’s meeting the person and hitting it off with them that’s most important, though vetting their credits and credentials is also important (con artistry works because those people seem nice and helpful at first, so do your homework when meeting someone new).

For example I always take classes with, and get script notes from, the same professor: Tim Albaugh.  I wouldn’t have worked with him as a consultant, though, if I’d just stumbled upon his website.  It’s the personal relationship that’s important, because otherwise your chances of feeling ripped-off by a consultant are very high (because many — perhaps most — of them are worse than useless, and those that are good can seem terrible if your styles are incompatible).

Get representation and/or work with a producer

All of these recommendations are especially relevant before you manage to get a manager or develop a relationship with a producer who wants to take an active role in developing you and/or some of your work.  Once you do manage to secure one or both of those relationships, your primary notes will come from your manager and/or producer.  Most producers and managers will give you excellent, detailed notes and work with you to see your way through implementing them.  Their notes will be geared towards making your work sellable by them, and may conflict with your vision for the project.  Your job will be to persuade them to stay as close to your vision as possible, while recognizing the issues they’re raising with your material and addressing them in a way that gets at the core underlying problems which may genuinely cause problems for an audience.  That’s your job as a writer or director — to understand the material, and address issues with it in order to make it the best implementation of that material possible.

Working with a manager and/or producer will take your notes to the next level — but you’ll also still want to get notes from about five people for each major draft of each project.  So keep those friends, mentors and hired readers handy, because you’ll always want a group of people you can trust who will give you notes about your work that are as agenda-free as humanly possible.

Notes on Notes, pt. 3: How to give notes.

Part of being in the industry is giving notes as well as getting them.  If you’re a screenwriter, you’re going to wind up trading notes with other writers whose feedback you want on your own work (especially early on).  If you’re a producer or director, giving notes is pretty much your entire job description during certain phases of production.  Bad note givers will find themselves getting suboptimal results from the people they work with, because if you can’t communicate what you want, how can anyone give it to you?

Also, while notes sessions are different from on-set direction (which will be discussed in other posts), there are similarities, and many of these principles apply to direction: be polite, clear and concise, give the kind of direction you’d like to receive, etc.

Be professional and polite

Successful critiques are ones that are phrased in such a way that you describe the flaws in the work that need correcting in a way that is as positive as you can be without “blowing smoke” and coming off as a phony.  Genuine positive reinforcement in a notes session is easy to come by if you let yourself recognize the hard work that already went in to the work, and acknowledge it even as you observe flaws and make recommendations for improvements.

Nobody likes to be told that they are stupid, or that their work sucks, and hearing that in those terms will cause the note recipient to ignore the notes.  Giving unnecessarily harsh notes is counterproductive.  If you think the person is beyond help simply decline to give them feedback, and if they’re working under you on a production, terminate them.  There is never a good reason to belittle or degrade a colleague or subordinate.

Yes, there are assholes in the industry.  But most of the ones who are successful are not successful because they are assholes, but in spite of it.  Filmmaking is an industry of relationships, and you have to be quite amazing at what you do (or a marketing commodity, i.e. a “star”) for people to be willing to have a relationship with you even though you’re a jerk.  Even then, those who are professionals get the best results from people.  I know a number of prominent directors, writers, and producers through my work, professional associations, and the festivals and conferences circuit, and very few of them are assholes.

Give notes you’d want to receive

When giving notes, even if the person doesn’t ask, give them the notes you’d ask for if you wanted their feedback.  Be as brief as you can with each particular note, while still conveying the point you want to get across.  And give as many details as you feel the recipient deserves.  For example, when I give notes on friends’ feature screenplays, I usually give about four to ten pages of notes (unless they’re pretty far along, and don’t need it), all of them as precise as I can make them, organized more or less follows:

General Notes

• Overall feeling about the piece
• What I think the theme is, what I think the plot is, and whether or not they are coming together successfully
• Overall feeling about the main character, and what I think his or her arc is, and whether or not its working
• 1 – 3 major moments of confusion, if any
• Any points of confusion that run through the whole script
• 1 – 3 major moments of boredom / being less interested, if any
• Any boring elements that run through the whole script
• Fix suggestions for any of the above

Page-by-page notes

• What I think the scene is about, or should be about, and whether or not it’s working
• Anything in the scene that’s especially confusing
• Anything in the scene that’s especially boring
• Anything in the scene that’s just not working for me (even if it’s not confusing or boring)
• Fix suggestions for any of the above

That structure of note giving — general overview of what works and what doesn’t, followed by specific critiques on each element scene-by-scene — can also apply to notes to directors from producers, notes to editors from directors, and so on.  And it applies just as well to shorts, TV shows, and even stage plays as it does to feature film work.

Make your comments clear and concise

When giving notes you should be as precise as possible while still saying what you need to say.  Don’t bog down your point with unnecessary details, don’t make tangential comparisons, and don’t make suggestions that are so antithetical to what the writer or filmmaker is trying to do that they’ll just shut it out.

Make the exact point you’re trying to make, even if it seems too direct.  Usually clear and concise is not only more useful, but also less painful to the notes recipient than dancing around something thinking you’re trying to soften the blow.  Rambling notes often wind up sounding like you think the person is soft or an idiot and couldn’t deal with it if you just made your point, which is insulting.

And definitely use correct filmmaking terminology whenever appropriate — technical language is a shorthand that lets experts exchange ideas about a topic more clearly.

A note like:

The protagonist’s character arc is unfulfilled.  You set up his flaw as needing to grow up, but he is just as immature at the end as at the beginning.  It may also be hard for an audience to empathize with him, as he never makes amends to the people he’s hurt with his childish stunts.

Is much better than one like:

You set up your protagonist as this whiny, immature dude who’s always messing around with chicks and getting high.  I hate people like that.  It remind me of my ex-boyfriend, who is a total loser douchebag, and nobody would ever in a million years like a character that’s like that.  I mean, come on.  He’s like that the whole film.  Nothing but weed and chicks the whole time, and he never learns anything about anything.  He treats all these girls like they’re nothing but hoes, and in the end, he still treats them like hoes and is high all the time.  What a total jerk.  Guys like that are just gross.  Why’d you have to make it like that, anyway?  Who’s going to want to see that kind of crap, where some guy is just acting like a teenager the whole time and we’re supposed to like this twit and what’s that all about?  I’d make him a choir boy, who loves puppies and is a complete gentleman tea-totaler, and then people will like him better than the creep you’ve got now.

(Yes, I’ve received notes like that — and even much, much worse ones — but not from professionals.)

Rambling (and, in the example above, unprofessional) notes are going to do two things: confuse and/or bore the notes recipient, and make them think you don’t know what you’re talking about since someone who can’t give coherent notes is unlikely to be seen as someone who can help make the work better.  With notes, it’s not about how many things you say, but how relevant each thing is to helping the writer or filmmaker achieve the goals they set out to.  As Robert Browning said, “less is more”.

Get the notes back as quickly as possible

The person receiving the notes from you is likely continuing to work, and also receiving notes from others, while you wait to get back to them with notes.  This is even true if the person is someone working for you on a project that you’re producing or directing.  The longer you wait, the more obsolete your notes may become, and if it’s your project, the more you may be spending to have someone go in a direction you don’t want.

When you’re giving notes as a favor, it can be more difficult to convince yourself to be quick.  But you said you’d do it, and being timely does get the responsibility off your plate sooner.

Leave on a positive note

End your notes, whether it’s a written set of notes or an in-person notes session, on something positive.  Often the easiest way to get out is a general platitude such as: “great work so far, looking forward to seeing how you make it even better” or “finishing a draft or cut is the beginning of the journey, and we’ve all been there before, so don’t sweat the notes just make them your own and you’ll find your way to a great draft or cut”.

Those will suffice, but even better is to mention something specific you actually liked about the script — a particular character or story point, the writers’ voice, the director’s vision, the editor’s style, whatever it may be — and say that once the bits you’ve given your notes on are as awesome as that, the work will be great.

Giving notes isn’t your opportunity to seem brilliant at someone else’s expense.  Rather, it’s your opportunity to seem brilliant by impressing someone with both your insights and your professionalism.  Properly given notes will further a “I’ll help you, and you’ll help me” relationship.  Improperly given notes can ruin one.

Notes On Notes, pt. 2: How to ask for notes.

How you ask for notes can be almost as essential as how you receive them.  Fortunately, asking for notes is simple — and should be kept that way.  Nobody wants to receive complex instructions on how you’d like them to give you feedback on your work.

You’re Asking, Not Demanding

Politely, is the first and foremost requirement.  Nobody is obligated to read your work or give you notes.  They’re not obligated to do so even if they already said they would, and they especially aren’t if they’re paying you (they can decide to pay you and never even read your work if they like — it’s their money).

Asking for notes from someone who is a professional (or accomplished pre-professional, such as a studious film student or avid self-producing filmmaker) is actually quite simple.  You identify people who are willing to give you notes, and then you say “will you read this and give me feedback”.  Then they say either “yes” or “no”.

What to Ask

If the person is not a writer, manager, agent, producer or director by vocation or avocation, they may not know how to give notes.  You’ll need to be more specific in what you ask them, without poisoning the well and accidentally guiding them into giving you your own notes back to you (you can also be specific in this way with more accomplished note-givers, but it’s not necessary and may annoy some).

There are two simple questions which are the core of all notes requests:

Where, if anywhere, were you confused?

and

Where, if anywhere, were you bored?

A few more advanced questions that can be asked include:

Is as many or as few words as you’d like, can you restate to me what you think the script is about, both in terms of describing the plot (what happens), and the theme (the moral of the story), and how they fit together or fail to do so?

Who is the main character, what is their problem at the beginning of the story, and how do they change at the end of the story?

Each time you encounter a new character in the script, can you please list that character by name, and tell me what you thought of them at first — and how that changes if you find yourself thinking more about them as you read on?

As you read, can you please write a rating number from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) beside each scene?

Essentially, those questions above are guiding your reader into writing development coverage of your script — or at least the closest approximation thereof that an untrained reader is going to be able to muster.

Additionally, you can ask between one and five specific questions about the script overall (any more, and the reader will get distracted and either give up or provide you with much poorer answers to each).  You want to be careful about picking those questions, and how you phrase them — you don’t want to write your own answer (or fear) into the question.  For example, “Is this film too dialogue heavy?” is a much worse way of posing that question than “What are your thoughts about how balance between action and dialogue in the film?”

Follow-up

People are busy.  Even people outside the industry.  Even your mom and best friend.  If you don’t get your notes back right away, follow-up after somewhere between four and eight weeks.  If your reader still hasn’t responded after another four to eight weeks, ask once more — then give up.  And if they reply and say they’re busy and will get you notes in the future, then patiently wait for the future.   Someone I know got a call from a producer with not only notes, but a request to go forward on the project, one year after they sent the spec script to said producer in response to a query.  If that writer had been desperate, they would likely have alienated that producer by pestering him and never gotten either the notes or the opportunity.

Naturally, don’t just wait for the future.  Keep working on other projects and pursue other opportunities.  And if the people you asked for notes never give you any, find new readers.

Notes on Notes, pt 1: How to receive notes.

Recently I’ve been both giving and receiving a lot of notes (as part of workshops, and exchanging them with writer friends).  I’ve also been in a few workshops and talks where the subject of receiving notes was discussed, and the fact that has emerged from all the advice given by seasoned pros is this:  how you receive notes can be much more of a career-maker or career-breaker than anything having to do with creative vision, talent, or skill in your craft (whether you’re a writer, director, editor, VFX artist — you name it).

If you are passionate about your work, receiving notes can be very difficult and emotional, even when they are delivered in the nicest possibly way by someone you trust.  It is even more trying if the other person isn’t particularly professional about it.  But each person is responsible for themselves, not for changing others.  The only thing you can control is how you respond to the notes, regardless of how they’re delivered to you.

Receive Notes You Hate In A Maximum Zenlike State

Zenlike — not sullen.  Be as calm and detached from the process of receiving notes you hate as you possibly can without seeming to brood or distance yourself from the notegiver(s).  Don’t get defensive, and certainly don’t get angry.  If someone bothered to give you notes at all, they bothered to read your work.  They also bothered to care — maybe more about the project than about you, but at least 90% of all notes are given in the spirit of someone trying to make things better.

Multiple people have suggested receiving all notes with some variation of the the following response: “These are all really interesting ideas. I’ll think them through, figure out how they impact the rest of the story, and see where they lead.”

Ask Questions First, Shoot Later

Don’t start trying to consider and accept, modify, or refute difficult or unpleasant notes right there in the room.  You should ask clarifying questions, if you have any that aren’t confrontational, but otherwise it is incumbent upon you to keep things positive and moving forward until the notes session is over.   Don’t let the session bog down in long discussions (or, worst of all, arguments) about controversial notes.  Let people have their say, convince them you’ll think about their issues and address them, and move on.  Get through everything they need to say, then get the heck out of there.  Leave the room on a positive note, and make sure to thank all present.

Once you’re out of the room and have had some time to stop potentially taking the notes personally (and even seasoned pros sometimes do), then you can start to really analyze them and see what the notes are really trying to tell you.  It’s likely to not be what they say on the surface, because often people’s “bad” notes are just an indicator that they see something wrong but have no better idea how to fix it than you initially did when you wrote it in the first place.

Receive Notes You Love With Enthusiasm

Unless you’re unusually stubborn you’re unlikely to hate all the notes you get, especially on early drafts / edits.  When someone says something you really strongly agree with, let them know.  Get excited.  Thank them.  If you show someone you value their input, they are more likely to also value your input.  When you’ve received some of a person’s notes with enthusiasm, if you ultimately come back to them with a contrary idea for some of the notes you asked to think about, they’re more likely to agree that you’re right — because you haven’t just been rejecting their notes offhand, and have instead even gone so far as to openly appreciate some of what they’ve said.

Bring the passion and enthusiasm you’re supposed to bring to a pitch or general meeting to receiving “good” notes as well.  A friend once told me that in all his Hollywood experiences, generally the most (positively) passionate person “wins” the moment.  Use that to your advantage to focus the energy in the notes session on things you actually do want to do, and let the other stuff go with a mere “quite interesting, I’ll consider these ideas”.

Genuinely Consider All The Notes

When you say you’ll think about someone’s notes, actually think them through.  Especially the notes you hate the most.  Sometimes the notes you hate the most are the most useful (and sometimes they’re not).  You may discover you hate them because either you wish you’d thought of them yourself and are ashamed you didn’t, or because you did think of them yourself and discarded them because you knew it would be painful to make the necessary changes and now you’re faced with verification that you must do precisely that.  Shooting the messenger in those cases will only make problems where they never existed in the first place.

If you find yourself still disagreeing with the note, set it aside.  And if you never come back to it, it wasn’t the right note.  But if multiple people give you the same “bad” note, no matter how much you disagree it’s time to think it through again.  Maybe the notes are “bad” because the suggested corrections are way off — but then you need to find the core of what it is that multiple people are bumping on and solve it your own “good” way instead.  There is a problem if the same general issue is raised by many independent notes (i.e. notes not given in the same room or by people who are in regular discussions about the project).

Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Walk Way, Know When To Run

Once you’ve really considered a note and still disagree with it, if the notegiver insists on bringing it up again in future notes sessions rather than letting you quietly ignore it, attempt to gently persuade the person that your idea is really what they wanted all along.  Shane Black, at the Austin Film Festival, said basically this about “bad” notes in a couple different panels: “Writing is about persuading people.  So persuade them you’re right.”  You want to be passionate in your persuasion, but not confrontational.

You also don’t want to persuade someone out of all their notes.  They want to feel they have contributed something to the process, and that you value them as you expect them to value you.  A producer friend once told me a story about a writer they sent around town who came back excited that they’d persuaded everyone they met with that their notes were wrong.  This writer was not impolite, but even so within two weeks nobody would agree to meet with him anymore, and a career ended before it could even begin.

In the rare case someone is genuinely trying to merely come off as clever or derail a project they detest, you need to figure out a polite and professional way to deal with the issue.  If notegiver isn’t a stakeholder in the project, simply stop asking that person for feedback.  If they are, either find a way to bring that person over to your side, learn to armor yourself against that person’s attacks, or — if the situation is utterly intractable and you’ve got some other opportunities to move on to (and you almost always do) — politely quit the project.  But getting angry will just gird the other person for battle and make things worse, so it’s better for you to win with kindness and persuasion.

Address The Notes (And Have Good Reasons For The Ones You Don’t)

Once you’ve analyzed all the notes, and their impact on the story, your job is then to change the project in such a way that it addresses all the valid notes (and/or their underlying causes) in the way you determine is most advantageous to the story.  Whatever notes you do decide are not valid, you need a good reason for it (one that shows you thought the note through thoroughly — “it’s just not going to work” is not a good reason).   Even if nobody ever brings up a particular note ever again, you want a good reason for any notes you don’t address so you can convince yourself that your reasons for ignoring the note are valid.  Your job is to make the best possible project you can, and that means hard work, including sometimes unpleasant hard work like thinking through notes you detest.

Work At It

If you care deeply about what you’re writing, directing, editing, etc., it may not be the easiest thing in the world to follow this advice.  It certainly isn’t always so for me.  But maintaining a positive attitude during notes sessions is something that can, and must, be learned.  Review yourself after each notes session, and let yourself know what you need to improve on.  Focus on paying attention to what you’re doing in the room.  Force yourself to think before you speak.  If you find yourself getting caught up in the moment, do something that forces you to take a moment to calm down (writing down the note that’s getting me riled up, but rephrasing it in the most inoffensive possible manner often works for me).

Practice getting notes from people you really know well and trust, who will tolerate your initial amateurish, overly emotional responses to notes — and then let them critique how you received their notes.  And if you do screw up in a room with someone, apologize, and make sure you learn from your mistakes.  Becoming someone that giving notes to is a pleasant experience can mean the difference between a stellar career and no career at all.