I have registered it with WGA & am submitting it to several producers, but would like to get peoples reaction. It's a tragedy but more realistic depiction of humanities extinction. Plot: can be modern or in the future: doesn't matter. The protagonist, lets call him John, works for the gov., is a single father, knows the president. He's on vacation abroad & out of nowhere a massive earthquake flattens the city he is in [earthquake resistant buildings fall], while escaping a massive shockwave flattens a massive region the size of the USA, shortly after he hears a deafening boom. Our man survives. Fire rains down. He makes it out, fly's back to the USA. By now it's all over the news, a meteorite similar to Chicxulub made impact, no one saw it [like no one sees far larger meteorites that pass by us every year, maybe put in an explanation on how radar is inefficient in space so we can only rely on what little we can see]. Following the impact many volcanoes erupt globally, the sky gets dark, days after stores run out of food, chaos ensues. Our man visits his friend the president. White house is grim, president addresses the nation shortly after John arrives: the gov. will be mailing out sedatives for euthanization: explains how there isn't enough food in the world for the coming 10 year nuclear winter, prays everyone remains calm. Off air prepares himself and his family for euthanization. Our protagonist refuses to give up, he has a kid. Speaks with a military friend who...
2020-10-02T07:39:39Z
''knows a place'' prepared for his during his job as a contractor. A journey begins to this bunker few people know about [this takes up the majority of the movie], they meet looters, killers, desperate people on their way, and go through hunger. They get there, it's secluded, autonomous security but they solve the problem and break in. Inside are young harmless specialist, not soldiers, but the specialist scold them telling them they have doomed humanity [protagonist secures our extinction]...
2020-10-02T07:47:26Z
Food inside was meant to last years, now it lasts a few months. Front forward food runs out, they venture out to the dark, all vegetation/animals are gone, a few cannibals remain in the chaos of the world, son is shot dead, dad kills man who did it. Weeps but in hunger eats the man, then buries his son. Weeks later, thin dad collapses & dies. Front forward a few years, show a ghost city, light shines on a museum where we see a rat come out of a human skull, and a pigeon sitting on a trex fossil
Anonymous2020-10-02T09:23:13Z
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Quote: "am submitting it to several producers"
Highly unlikely. I doubt you even have a literary agent to do that, much less an editor or writing advisor that could help turn it into a viable story. And, no serious and talented writer would turn to a 3rd rate forum overrun by teens and trolls to get their work critiqued. But it's your fantasy world and I wish you luck anyway.
I'm going to give you a little reality check and then some feedback. And I'm going to be quite blunt, if that's okay, because you've got this all wrong.
First of all, you've wasted your money. Ideas by themselves are worthless. It's the execution that counts and that's also the hard part. -Writing the scripts. Ideas are by far the easiest part. There's no shortage of those, literally every other person around you has ideas for movies, TV shows, video games, books, etc. It's like trying to sell air. So there's no market for ideas, no matter how fleshed-out they are, and no producer is interested in any, let alone would pay you if you're not already a proven, big name in the industry and you've already sold fully-written scripts for successful franchises.
Secondly, serious places (all studios and most production companies) do not accept unsolicited submissions of any kind. They won't even open your mail, it'll go straight to the garbage bin/folder. That policy is meant to protect both parties in case the company has been developing something similar to what you've written and you file a lawsuit claiming they stole your idea or parts of it. Also, FYI, ripping off of ideas is beyond rare. What's not rare is people assuming their ideas have been stolen. Either way, registering your material (or idea) does not cover your *** in any way. You can't prevent someone from stealing your ideas for the same reason you can't prevent someone from stealing your thoughts. That's what ideas are, at the end of the day. Thoughts. You need a fully-developed franchise, at the very least. And your registration is only useful in court, if and after you've (allegedly) been ripped off. It's just a piece of evidence, one of many you'd have to provide to (try and) prove authorship. Those cases, by the way, are hard to win. So being paranoid about someone stealing your ideas is pointless and, moreover, is considered amateurish.
Third, like I said, you can't just pitch to serious companies. You need a gatekeeper. As in an agent, a manager or a connection within the company. Thing is, no rep would sign you if all you have is ideas. Reps don't represent "idea-generators." And your connection would have nothing to refer you for either. Nothing to show their boss. You need scripts. Fully-written and at professional standards, which takes YEARS of hard work to accomplish. Most people don't get that far. And then most don't land representation because reps are hard to land. IF you land one, you'll need to do writing assignment, and if you're very lucky and have one of the best reps in town you might pitch to those companies at some point using your screenplays. But for the most part, as opposed to the common misconception, you will use your screenplays as writing samples to sell YOU, the writer, to land those kind of gigs. Like calling cards that showcase your skills, talent, knowledge of the craft and the biz, and your personal voice and style. The more experience (and connections) you have, the better your chances are to pitch for real and even sell. As a non-professional, unrepped, inexperienced random person with nothing but an idea, you don't have that access. This is not a service for anyone and everyone to use to get movies made. This is a business like any other business, and companies can't afford wasting their time on just anyone who sees their contact info. You can, however, query indie and small companies that do take unsolicited submissions. You don't need a rep or a connection for that... But you still need a script. Scripts are currency.
Fourth, writers are part business people. You need to know what you're doing. You need to know how this business works. You can't just pitch an idea. Pitching is a whole craft by itself, a tough one. Also querying. -I can tell you now that regardless of the mistakes I've mentioned so far (and probably some more) no producer... or, more likely, their assistant or an intern, is going to read that letter. Queries are short and simple. They don't include a whole pitch (which is not written properly either, so I wouldn't call it a pitch actually). Queries have a certain, though rough, format. And you haven't even taken the time to learn how to do that. Companies don't even waste time getting back to you to reject you if they see there's no point. In this case, your letter screams "I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING" - and it only takes a quick glance to see that. None of those places will read a single word because it's that easy to tell where you stand.
Fifth, speaking of not reading your letter, I couldn't either. -It's muddled, you don't seem to know your own story inside out, you include almost exclusively irrelevant details while leaving out important ones, and your language skills are poor. It's also way too long... Cut this whole thing down to approx. 30 words. Into a LOGLINE, aka an elevator pitch. This whole thing you've written is not a movie idea, as far as I could tell it's just random scenes. Look into loglines to understand what a movie idea is and why they're called an "elevator pitch." Some places do want a synopsis - but that's not it either. Aside from the fact that you need a finished script to get all the plot points for the synopsis, you also need to learn screenwriting in order to understand movie/script structure in the first place. As well as the business aspect. Otherwise it's going to show in your scripts, your pitch, your queries, your questions... anywhere, really. And that's an automatic "no." You see the problem? But again, it's not worth it if you don't plan on writing screenplays for your ideas or pursing a screenwriting career to begin or, worst, if you're too lazy to do your research.
As for the "idea" itself, from what I was able to gather I like the setting, but there really isn't more to it. By that I mean there's no story. What does the protagonist want, what's his goal? And why? What journey does he take to achieve it? Why is he the best person for the job (if he works for the government, how does he use that? And what about his personality or background - how does it serve him or the story?) What/who stands in his way, who's the antagonist? Or what's the obstacle (and no, random looters and killers is not it, you need something more specific)? What's at stake, what will happen if he does or doesn't achieve his goal? I'm referring you again to loglines. Master writing them. Loglines are also a useful tool to pin down the core of your story, without all the irrelevant fluff. I also have to say I'm not crazy about ANOTHER post-apocalyptic. It's not original enough for me. That said, another reason why ideas are worthless is because it's so subjective. Just because one person doesn't like the idea doesn't mean another person won't. If you're looking for feedback, then that's more than fine. But you can't rely on people's taste, if that's why you're asking about.
From a business point of view (which is something you should always take into account!), this is a very-high-budget and therefore a very tough sell (theoretically, if we ignore everything I told you above). This is something big studios produce - but don't really buy on spec. Something with tons of special effects, A-list stars, plenty of outdoor scenes, etc. Another thing you need to know is that studios nowadays mostly do it all in-house. Meaning, they hire screenwriters to write the screenplays for them from scratch. Plus, nowadays they mostly prefer to use existing, well-known and successful franchises. Selling original material on spec is quite rare in today's market. Even experienced, repped, professional writers struggle. So from a business POV, this makes no sense. You could use the screenplay for it as a writing sample, but even then the budget is a major problem. Reps want something they could at least potentially sell and producers want something they could potentially make cheaply but still profit. Therefore, your (script) is not something I'd query. That, too, screams that you don't know what you're doing and that you don't have business sense or how this business works.
To sum up, you're wasting your time, dude. Sorry. I'm not saying this to discourage you but rather to point you in the right direction if you choose to take it. If you do, the above is just the gist of it(!) The rest is YOUR job to learn. Get serious, is my final advice.
It's highly unlikely that anyone will even read your writing. Production companies are swamped with 'ideas' from rank amateurs who haven't even taken the time or made the effort to write a proper screenplay or novel. Also, if it's badly written, with bad spelling, punctuation and sentence structure, it will be thrown out/deleted almost immediately. Your question is full of errors, so unless your 'idea' was proofread and corrected thoroughly before you sent it, no-one would read it.