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Thanks for coming to http://www.plotsa.com (the “Site”). This is the official site of PLOTSA Entertainment, LLC (“PLOTSA,” “we,” “us,” etc.). This Privacy Policy is to help you understand generally how the Site collects your personally identifiable information, and how we use and disclose that personal information. This Privacy Policy is part of and incorporated into the Site’s Terms of Use ("Terms of Use"), which is the agreement between you and PLOTSA governing your use of the Site. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will post any changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice on the Site. By your continued use of the Site, you agree that this Privacy Policy amends and replaces any previous policy.
It is always your choice, or the choice of anyone acting for you, whether to provide personal information. However, some must be provided to participate in certain functions of the Site. The information you provide is up to your good judgment, and you do not provide personal information about others without their permission. The kinds of personal information we may request about you or others include but are not limited to your name, email address, experience, education, equipment, organization name, job title, city, state / province, region, age, locations for internet access and devices used.
We may collect information about how you use the Site, like when you interact with our ads or content. This information includes: location information (information about your actual location); device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number); log information (including details of how you used our Site, internet protocol address, device event information such as crashes, system activity, hardware settings, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and referral URL, and cookies that may uniquely identify your browser); local storage (information stored on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage and application data caches); and cookies.
In general, we use your personal information to pursue our mission and to engage in the activity (and related activities) for which we collect it. For example (and without limitation), if you sign up for a newsletter, we will send the newsletter and put you on our mailing list or even the list of a third party who we think has a similar mission. We may also provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us.
We use information collected from cookies and other technologies, like pixel tags, to improve your user experience and the overall quality of the Site.
We use all the information we collect from the Site to provide, maintain, protect and improve it, to develop new functions, and to protect us and our affiliates.
We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – like publishers, advertisers, or affiliate sites. For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of the Site.
We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of PLOTSA if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to: meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request; enforce applicable terms of use, including investigation of potential violations; detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of the PLOTSA site, our visitors, or the public as required or permitted by law.
We will ask for your permission before using your information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.
Though PLOTSA makes a best effort to protect content as explained in the submission agreement, we do not guarantee the security of personal information or other information in any form.
We do not want to collect information from children. Do not provide any personal information unless you are at least 18 years of age, and please caution your younger children not to provide any. If a visitor under 18 has provided personal information, a parent or guardian may so inform us by privacy@plotsa.com and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to remove it from our database, subject to applicable law and this Privacy Policy.
We love your suggestions for improving the Site. Please send them to suggestionbox@plotsa.com. However, you may not supply suggestions that infringe or violate the rights of others, and for those suggestions you hereby grant a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to us to exercise now or later existing intellectual property rights or other rights of yours or others in the suggestions, for purposes of supporting our purposes (as determined by us in our discretion from time to time) in full or in part and in all possible media (now known or later developed). You agree that we have no obligation to pay you or anyone else for suggestions or for our license to use those suggestions.
PLOTSA collects and stores information from visitors of the Site. Please review our Privacy Policy for more details. Our Privacy Policy is incorporated as part of these terms. In general, PLOTSA and its affiliates use personal information we collect to pursue our mission and operations and to engage in the activity (and related activities) for which we collect it. We will only share your personally identifiable information outside of PLOTSA with your consent or as required by law.
We do not guarantee the security of personal information or other information.
Intellectual property rights are important to PLOTSA and our content providers. We may terminate accounts of repeat copyright infringers. If you see anything on the Site that you believe may infringe your intellectual property rights, please contact us at dmca@plotsa.com.
Welcome to plotsa.com (the "Site"). This is the official site of PLOTSA Entertainment, LLC ("PLOTSA," "us," "we," etc.). By using the Site and setting up a member account, you are agreeing to these terms. These terms, along with our Privacy Policy, and other agreements referenced in these terms, govern your use of the Site and your relationship with us. Please read these terms carefully.
Plotsa is a cooperative online movie studio, for producing, distributing, and exhibiting movies curated by filmmakers, according to proven industry standards, for a wide audience of 13+. Filmmakers keep all rights to materials they submit to the site, except those explicitly granted to us in this and our submission agreement, until they sign a contract with PLOTSA for producing, distributing, or exhibiting their movies. We collect site review fees, and we collect funds for online distribution and exhibition of movies that pass our review process ("Movie Revenue"). Filmmakers cooperatively share 70% of Movie Revenue, subject to our standard distribution agreements, which spell out details of creating a movie on the site and sharing proceeds with cast, crew, investors, and distributors.
Peer reviewers of movies, or stages of movies, submitted to the site are paid "Credits" for their reviews. Filmmakers use these Credits to pay for peer reviews for their own submissions and to pay for a percent of their pay-per-view watching of PLOTSA streaming movies. Credits can also be lost for those whose reviews are deemed to have been done in bad-faith. But there can be no negative balance of Credits.
Staff reviewers of movies, or stages of movies, submitted to the site are paid "Plotsa Bucks" for their reviews. Plotsa Bucks are paid for by writers and filmmakers seeking staff reviews. Plotsa Bucks can be paid for and redeemed in cash through PayPal.
You must be 18 years of age or older to create a member account. You are responsible for all use tied to any account you create, so please keep your password confidential. If you learn of any unauthorized use of your account, contact accounts@plotsa.com.
You must keep your payment information updated in your Paypal account.
Do not misuse the Site. Do not interfere with, hack, or covertly access our servers or the Site. Don’t misuse, copy, or misappropriate our intellectual property. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, or reverse engineer any part of the Site, our software, or any intellectual property on the Site. We may suspend your account or your access to the Site if you do not comply with our terms or policies or if we are investigating suspected misconduct. You agree to pay for all damages caused by your misuse of our Site.
Using the Site does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights or licenses in our services or the content you access. You may not use content from the Site except as outlined in these terms. On the Site, you may have access to view scripts and movies in production on the Site. You agree to not work on or produce scripts or movies as your own with the same subject matter or plot as any script or movie in production on the Site.
The Site displays some content that is posted by Members or other visitors. Members and other third parties control their content on the Site. PLOTSA is not responsible for third-party content.
Nationwide, over 70% of all revenue comes to movies with less than R ratings. PLOTSA focuses on these movies for mass audiences. Therefore, when you submit any content, make sure that your content would not likely be rated R or more restrictive by the Motion Picture Association of America if made into a movie, and so would be appropriate for the mass audience of 13-year olds and older. You may, however, submit R-rated completed movies if they are currently carried by filtering sites like ClearPlay. And you may submit an R-rated movie if you can still make a good case that it is fitting for ages 13+.
We may add or remove functionalities or features, and we may suspend or cancel our services altogether without prior notice.
Other than as expressly set out in these terms, PLOTSA does not make any commitments about the content on the Site, the specific functions of the Site, or the reliability, availability, or ability of the Site to meet your needs.
To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties.
When permitted by law, PLOTSA, and its affiliates, will not be responsible for lost profits, revenues, or data, financial losses or indirect, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages.
To the extent permitted by law, the total liability of PLOTSA, and its affiliates, for any claim arising under or relating to these terms, including for any implied warranties, is limited to Credits for peer review fees, Plotsa Bucks for Site review fees, or Movie Revenue.
You agree that we may, at our discretion, send you any required notices, including (without limitation) legal notices, notice of subpoenas or other legal process, by email to the most recent address that you provide in your account information. Please keep your email address up to date.
Send us legal notices at:
PLOTSA
Attn.: legal
141 Wolverine Creek
Elk Ridge, UTAH 84651
We may modify these terms from time to time. We will post notification on the Site when changes are made to these terms. Changes will not apply retroactively and will become effective no sooner than fourteen days after we first post notification.
However, changes addressing new functions of the Site or changes made for legal reasons will be effective immediately. If you do not agree to the modified terms, discontinue using the Site. By your continued use of the Site, you agree that these terms amend and replace any previous agreements and that you agree to the new terms.
These terms, along with the agreements and policies referenced herein, are the entire agreement between you and PLOTSA concerning the subject matter. This is a fully integrated contract. These terms cannot be modified except as provided for in the previous paragraph, even by PLOTSA employees.
If there is any conflict between these terms and any other written agreement entered into between PLOTSA and a particular Member, including (without limitation) the standard agreements referenced herein, or any other agreements for a particular screenplay or movie, the conflicting terms of that other agreement will govern.
Because the production and directing of movies is highly specialized work, you may not assign or delegate any right or obligation in these terms.
These terms do not create any third party beneficiary rights.
Our failure to take action in response to a violation of these terms does not mean that we are giving up any rights that we may have (such as taking action in the future).
If a particular term is not enforceable, this will not affect any other terms.
The laws of Utah, excluding Utah’s conflict of laws rules, will apply to any disputes arising out of or relating to these terms or the Site. All conflicts between you and PLOTSA must be resolved in the State of Utah. You and PLOTSA agree to exclusive personal jurisdiction in Utah.
We value your patronage and prefer to settle disputes. You have the right to seek arbitration if you feel that we have violated these terms. All claims arising out of or relating to these terms are subject to final and binding arbitration governed by the rules set forth by the American Arbitration Association. Both you and PLOTSA will pay your own share of arbitration for non-frivolous claims. You will pay all arbitration costs, including our attorney’s fees, for frivolous claims. If the total claim is less than $5,000, you may choose to arbitrate by paper or by phone. You explicitly waive your right to class arbitration. In the event that a claim is for less than $1,000, it may be brought in small claims court in lieu of arbitration.
By submitting content to PLOTSA ("us, we, our, etc."), you or, if applicable, the individual, company, or other entity you represent ("you") are agreeing to these terms. This Agreement includes the terms of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. You retain all rights to the content you submit except those explicitly granted to us in these agreements. So please read these terms carefully, as they are an agreement between you and us for any screenplay, video, review, annotations, or other content ("Content") that you submit.
If you are submitting content on behalf of another person or entity, you represent that you have legal authority to enter this Agreement. If you do not have the legal authority, you must not submit Content to us for them. You may submit content only if you have exclusive rights to exploit all of the Content that you submit. Parts of the Content may be in the public domain, if they are in the public domain in every country worldwide.
You may choose three levels of availability for your submission: private, basic, or full. Writers submit stages of screenplays, and directors submit later stages of movies.
If you choose private availability, only the following have full viewing access: assignees, reviewers for the current stage selected by the Site’s algorithm, PLOTSA personnel, invitees chosen by the user during audience review, PLOTSA confirmed film festival programmers, sales agents, distributors, publishers, and investors during audience review, and PLOTSA partners granted access by PLOTSA. If you choose basic availability, then in addition to the viewing access of private availability, all Members can view the main description (or main line of action) of your submission. If you choose full availability, then in addition to the viewing access of basic availability, all Members can view the full content, including during audience reviews.
You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-terminable, sub-licensable, transferable right to copy, transfer, stream, make available for download, add captions and make other distribution-related modifications to your Submission as we desire 1) to facilitate the distribution of your Content for review or annotation or 2) to facilitate the distribution of your Content for viewing for completed movies or in-progress movies with full availability.
However, we have no obligation to make any Content available or to otherwise use it in any way. If we make any Content available or otherwise commence exploitation, we may still remove it and cease further exploitation at any time in our sole discretion.
You also grant to us the right to use user profile information in connection with your Content or otherwise.
Our users may help develop and submit scripts, movies, shows, and videos. They may also submit material that is similar to your Content. In order to prevent legal claims that may impede the ability of scripts, movies, shows and videos to be developed and released, you agree to irrevocably and forever waive any legal claim you may have under any theory of law in any territory, including, without limitation, copyright infringement or breach of implied in fact contract (idea submission), that your rights were infringed due to any similarity between your Content and any other content that is or may become available, unless there is substantial similarity of protectable expression under United States copyright law between your Content and the other content and the other content includes a verbatim copy of a material portion of your script or other written material, if your Content is a script or other written material, or a re-use of a material portion of footage from your movie, show or other video if your Content is a movie, show, or other video.
You will have no right to financial compensation in connection with the rights you grant under this Agreement.
You acknowledge that your in-progress Content is freely available for download without copy protection to all assignees, including assigned reviewers. Furthermore, if submitted with full availability, your in-progress Content is freely available for download without copy protection to all Members. Furthermore, if submitted with basic or full availability, your in-progress description is freely available for download without copy protection to all Members.
In no event will PLOTSA or any of its licensees, its sublicensees, its distributors, its producers, any party to which it assigns any of its rights hereunder, or its or their affiliates, successors or assigns, or any of their directors, officers, members, shareholders, employees, associates, agents or representatives be responsible for any reproduction, display, modification, or use of your Content or any portion thereof by you or any third party.
All remedies will be cumulative and pursuit of any one will not waive any other. Captions and headings are for convenience only and will not be used to construe meaning.
When you submit Content as your own (rather than a recommendation of existing Content), you represent and warrant that:
When permitted by law, PLOTSA, and its affiliates, will not be responsible for lost profits, revenues, or data, financial losses or indirect, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages.
You agree to indemnify PLOTSA and hold us harmless from and against any claim, loss, obligation, liability, cost or expense, including attorneys' fees and costs, which may be asserted against us or incurred by us that arise out of or in connection with your submissions or any use of the Content according to this agreement.
To the extent permitted by law, the total liability of PLOTSA, and its affiliates, for any claim arising under or relating to these terms, including for any implied warranties, is limited to Credits for peer review fees, Plotsa Bucks for site review fees, and Movie Revenue.
You will perform under this Agreement as our independent contractor. Nothing in this agreement will be deemed to constitute a joint venture or partnership between you and us. Neither party will have the right to bind the other in any manner.
All rights you grant to us may be exercised by us or by any of our affiliates, subcontractors, or sublicensees.
You will not assign any part or all of this Agreement without our prior written consent. Any attempt to assign in violation of this section is void in each instance. We may assign any or all of our rights or obligations under this Agreement to any party, and the assignment will be deemed a novation under law forever releasing us from any and all obligations and liabilities under this Agreement.
We may also, from time to time, change the terms of this Agreement. If we do, we will notify you at the email address in your profile information. If you leave your Content on our site, you will be bound by the changed terms
There is normally a fee, paid through PayPal for site reviews, or earned by doing peer reviews for others, for submitting each stage for PLOTSA review. The stage may need to be resubmitted one or more times, each time for a fee.
Once you’ve converted your script to a novella, you can offer it online as a book, generate an audience for it, and reach out for film production funding.
Download your novella in Word.
Revise your novella, fixing whatever novel formatting errors we weren’t able to fix automatically.
You or your film friends can create your book trailer, or you can send us your narration for it and we will have it built with stock footage. It can be 15 seconds long, 30 seconds long, or up to 3 minutes long. The cost to have your trailer created will be approximately $39.95. Send us your proposal and we will confirm the exact cost with our affiliate editors. Plotsa will peer and staff review your trailer.
By submitting content to PLOTSA ("us, we, our, etc."), you or, if applicable, the individual, company, or other entity you represent ("you") are agreeing to these terms. This Agreement includes the terms of our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. You retain all rights to the content you submit except those explicitly granted to us in these agreements. So please read these terms carefully, as they are an agreement between you and us for any screenplay, video, review, annotations, or other content ("Content") that you submit.
If you are submitting content on behalf of another person or entity, you represent that you have legal authority to enter this Agreement. If you do not have the legal authority, you must not submit Content to us for them. You may submit content only if you have exclusive rights to exploit all of the Content that you submit. Parts of the Content may be in the public domain, if they are in the public domain in every country worldwide.
You may choose three levels of availability for your submission: private, basic, or full. Writers submit stages of screenplays, and directors submit later stages of movies.
If you choose private availability, only the following have full viewing access: assignees, reviewers for the current stage selected by the Site’s algorithm, PLOTSA personnel, invitees chosen by the user during audience review, PLOTSA confirmed film festival programmers, sales agents, distributors, publishers, and investors during audience review, and PLOTSA partners granted access by PLOTSA. If you choose basic availability, then in addition to the viewing access of private availability, all Members can view the main description (or main line of action) of your submission. If you choose full availability, then in addition to the viewing access of basic availability, all Members can view the full content, including during audience reviews.
You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-terminable, sub-licensable, transferable right to copy, transfer, stream, make available for download, add captions and make other distribution-related modifications to your Submission as we desire 1) to facilitate the distribution of your Content for review or annotation or 2) to facilitate the distribution of your Content for viewing for completed movies or in-progress movies with full availability.
However, we have no obligation to make any Content available or to otherwise use it in any way. If we make any Content available or otherwise commence exploitation, we may still remove it and cease further exploitation at any time in our sole discretion.
You also grant to us the right to use user profile information in connection with your Content or otherwise.
Our users may help develop and submit scripts, movies, shows, and videos. They may also submit material that is similar to your Content. In order to prevent legal claims that may impede the ability of scripts, movies, shows and videos to be developed and released, you agree to irrevocably and forever waive any legal claim you may have under any theory of law in any territory, including, without limitation, copyright infringement or breach of implied in fact contract (idea submission), that your rights were infringed due to any similarity between your Content and any other content that is or may become available, unless there is substantial similarity of protectable expression under United States copyright law between your Content and the other content and the other content includes a verbatim copy of a material portion of your script or other written material, if your Content is a script or other written material, or a re-use of a material portion of footage from your movie, show or other video if your Content is a movie, show, or other video.
You will have no right to financial compensation in connection with the rights you grant under this Agreement.
You acknowledge that your in-progress Content is freely available for download without copy protection to all assignees, including assigned reviewers. Furthermore, if submitted with full availability, your in-progress Content is freely available for download without copy protection to all Members. Furthermore, if submitted with basic or full availability, your in-progress description is freely available for download without copy protection to all Members.
In no event will PLOTSA or any of its licensees, its sublicensees, its distributors, its producers, any party to which it assigns any of its rights hereunder, or its or their affiliates, successors or assigns, or any of their directors, officers, members, shareholders, employees, associates, agents or representatives be responsible for any reproduction, display, modification, or use of your Content or any portion thereof by you or any third party.
All remedies will be cumulative and pursuit of any one will not waive any other. Captions and headings are for convenience only and will not be used to construe meaning.
When you submit Content as your own (rather than a recommendation of existing Content), you represent and warrant that:
When permitted by law, PLOTSA, and its affiliates, will not be responsible for lost profits, revenues, or data, financial losses or indirect, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages.
You agree to indemnify PLOTSA and hold us harmless from and against any claim, loss, obligation, liability, cost or expense, including attorneys' fees and costs, which may be asserted against us or incurred by us that arise out of or in connection with your submissions or any use of the Content according to this agreement.
To the extent permitted by law, the total liability of PLOTSA, and its affiliates, for any claim arising under or relating to these terms, including for any implied warranties, is limited to Credits for peer review fees, Plotsa Bucks for site review fees, and Movie Revenue.
You will perform under this Agreement as our independent contractor. Nothing in this agreement will be deemed to constitute a joint venture or partnership between you and us. Neither party will have the right to bind the other in any manner.
All rights you grant to us may be exercised by us or by any of our affiliates, subcontractors, or sublicensees.
You will not assign any part or all of this Agreement without our prior written consent. Any attempt to assign in violation of this section is void in each instance. We may assign any or all of our rights or obligations under this Agreement to any party, and the assignment will be deemed a novation under law forever releasing us from any and all obligations and liabilities under this Agreement.
We may also, from time to time, change the terms of this Agreement. If we do, we will notify you at the email address in your profile information. If you leave your Content on our site, you will be bound by the changed terms
There is normally a fee, paid through PayPal for site reviews, or earned by doing peer reviews for others, for submitting each stage for PLOTSA review. The stage may need to be resubmitted one or more times, each time for a fee.
To get your film story to film distributors and investors as soon as possible, you can take just a few scenes through the script writing stages, marking your chosen scenes for filming. You can request a director to film these scenes, or you can open the filming for auditions, or you could film them yourself with friends.
1. For your Pitch, your first stage, you fill out basic information about your film--its title, genre, age appropriateness, a poster image for your film, viewers who can see your work in progress, and how much anyone else you don’t specify can see--nothing, just your logline, or what’s in each of your stages.
2. Below the logline template are text boxes for your preparatory notes about your story. These will help you and your reviewers. It's a good idea to fill these notes out, even though you may well change them along the way. In the template for a main line of action, you'll integrate plot, character development, risk, and theme. So you start with the initial character [Main character, being like this] and go to the action [tries to do this] and include the risk [and in the process risks this] and show the character development [and improves like this] and theme [bringing out a theme of this]. The action should summarize what the character is overall trying to do and start in some way in the first scene and end by being completed or abandoned in the last scene. The character development should contrast with the initial character and play a key role in whether or not the character completes or abandons the overall action. We can fill out this line of action with an example from Ken Merril’s Identity Check: Nurse, a homeless delusional, tries to stop a casino manager from harming her imaginary daughter and those caught in his powerful identity theft ring, and in the process risks her life and that of her friends helping her, and finds her own identity in the present, bringing out a theme of finding yourself by losing yourself.
3. Underneath this line-of-action template, like all templates, is the text box for notes along the way, for you to explore how you might flesh out scenes in detail later. Again, feel free to put these notes in now, though you may change them later.
4. Then below the line-of-action template, you flesh out templates for sequences, which are like acts moving toward main turning points in the story until it ends. Make sure each sequence moves forward its line of action, and each new sequence follows from the previous one, and ends with a turning point in the action. A turning point changes the direction of the main character and could be something that happens outside the main character or could be what happens between the main character and others, like holding onto or dropping a view of others as nearly impossible to work with. So let's fill this template out with what the character Nurse does and what happens in the first act: Nurse, delusionally concerned, tries to find evidence she can use to stop the manager from harming her imaginary daughter, and to her surprise she finds that the manager is running a powerful identity theft ring. To finish this pitch, you’d fill out the sequences.
5. Conclusion: If you submit your pitch for review, you'll need to first review it yourself and have it reviewed by peers (if you want) and then have it reviewed by staff. You can select your peer reviewers or request that they be assigned. Peers must have already submitted and passed a pitch by peers and staff. If you want users to peer review your pitch who haven’t yet passed a pitch, you can help them first pass theirs by going over your pitch and self-review with them and looking at theirs.
There are benefits in having your pitch peer reviewed: your rank goes up twice as much if your pitch is then passed by staff, and if staff finds your pitch close to passing, you'll receive notes on what you need to fix and staff will look over your pitch again and possibly pass it.
6. If you text us suggested changes in these stage instructions (for pitch or any other stage) and text us back and forth about them and we end up accepting the result, we will change the instructions and your rank will increase for peer reviewing and you will become eligible sooner to staff review and be paid for it.
To get your film story to film distributors and investors as soon as possible, you can take just a few scenes through the script writing stages, marking your chosen scenes for filming. You can request a director to film these scenes, or you can open the filming for auditions, or you could film them yourself with friends.
1. For your Pitch, your first stage, you fill out basic information about your film--its title, genre, age appropriateness, a poster image for your film, viewers who can see your work in progress, and how much anyone else you don’t specify can see--nothing, just your logline, or what’s in each of your stages.
2. Below the logline template are text boxes for your preparatory notes about your story. These will help you and your reviewers. It's a good idea to fill these notes out, even though you may well change them along the way. In the template for a main line of action, you'll integrate plot, character development, risk, and theme. So you start with the initial character [Main character, being like this] and go to the action [tries to do this] and include the risk [and in the process risks this] and show the character development [and improves like this] and theme [bringing out a theme of this]. The action should summarize what the character is overall trying to do and start in some way in the first scene and end by being completed or abandoned in the last scene. The character development should contrast with the initial character and play a key role in whether or not the character completes or abandons the overall action. We can fill out this line of action with an example from Ken Merril’s Identity Check: Nurse, a homeless delusional, tries to stop a casino manager from harming her imaginary daughter and those caught in his powerful identity theft ring, and in the process risks her life and that of her friends helping her, and finds her own identity in the present, bringing out a theme of finding yourself by losing yourself.
3. Underneath this line-of-action template, like all templates, is the text box for notes along the way, for you to explore how you might flesh out scenes in detail later. Again, feel free to put these notes in now, though you may change them later.
4. Then below the line-of-action template, you flesh out templates for sequences, which are like acts moving toward main turning points in the story until it ends. Make sure each sequence moves forward its line of action, and each new sequence follows from the previous one, and ends with a turning point in the action. A turning point changes the direction of the main character and could be something that happens outside the main character or could be what happens between the main character and others, like holding onto or dropping a view of others as nearly impossible to work with. So let's fill this template out with what the character Nurse does and what happens in the first act: Nurse, delusionally concerned, tries to find evidence she can use to stop the manager from harming her imaginary daughter, and to her surprise she finds that the manager is running a powerful identity theft ring. To finish this pitch, you’d fill out the sequences.
5. Conclusion: If you submit your pitch for review, you'll need to first review it yourself and have it reviewed by peers (if you want) and then have it reviewed by staff. You can select your peer reviewers or request that they be assigned. Peers must have already submitted and passed a pitch by peers and staff. If you want users to peer review your pitch who haven’t yet passed a pitch, you can help them first pass theirs by going over your pitch and self-review with them and looking at theirs.
There are benefits in having your pitch peer reviewed: your rank goes up twice as much if your pitch is then passed by staff, and if staff finds your pitch close to passing, you'll receive notes on what you need to fix and staff will look over your pitch again and possibly pass it.
6. If you text us suggested changes in these stage instructions (for pitch or any other stage) and text us back and forth about them and we end up accepting the result, we will change the instructions and your rank will increase for peer reviewing and you will become eligible sooner to staff review and be paid for it.
1. For your next stage, your Synopsis, you flesh out all your sequences with scenes, which you can add with the plus button to the right. For each scene, you say what the character tries to do and what happens, ending with a turning point. So I could fill this first scene out about Nurse like this: Nurse, delusionally concerned, tries to find evidence in a trash can that she can use to stop the manager from harming her imaginary daughter, and she finds a photo of a senator’s credit card.
2. You want to make sure you put telling details in your scene descriptions, ones that help reviewers see how they are moving forward the action of their sequences and lines of action.
3. If you find a a scene of yours depends on things happening in other lines of action, you can write it like this: This having happened, the main character (being like this) tries to do this and this reaction occurs.
4. If someone new enters a scene of yours or the subject of your scene changes, you may want to add a new scene. That is how the French write scenes. Creating French scenes like that will enable you to keep your scene descriptions short, just one sentence each, for what the main character does and for what happens.
5.To finish this Synopsis, you’d simply fill out the scene descriptions for all of your sequences from your pitch. Make sure the first and last scene of each sequence begins and ends the action of the sequence.
1. For your Scenario, you fill out templates for subplot lines of action, which you can add with buttons to the right. And you flesh out these other lines of actions with their sequences and their scenes. It helps to lay these sequences and scenes out at the beginning of your scenario and then drag them to where they fit best.
2. You can click on each line of action and go through and perfect its sequence and scenes, making sure it works as a story itself while fitting together with the stories of the other lines of action, with each scene making sense after the other. It may help to mention something about a character in the scene before moving to another plot.
3. The scenario for The Room Between is an example of a scenario filled out. You will notice how the author has clicked on and highlighted which lines of actions each scene is a part of. Some scenes are part of the first line of action. Some are part of the second. And some are part of both. By the time you complete your Scenario, you have a solid story for your film.
4. At this stage, after peer and staff review, you hold an audience review. You can fill in your dates, invitees, custom invitation message, and video conference URL for Q&A at the end of your audience review. PLOTSA may also approve an online premiere with the audience review, where distributors and investors are invited and where you will introduce yourself and present your work during the video conference. Distributors and investors, invited through email, can choose to get further updates at future premieres as your film progresses.
For your Beatscript, you flesh out your scene descriptions into one-sentence beats of what the main character of the scene does and what happens, using summarized dialogue--The main character does this (and this), and/but this happens. (You skip this stage if you are making a documentary short.)
1. Consider the first scene of Identity Check: Nurse tries to find evidence that she can use to stop a casino manager from harming her imaginary daughter, and she finds a picture of a credit card of a senator.Rebecca Lambert, known on the streets as Nurse, pushes her loaded shopping cart down the street on a hot Las Vegas night, talking to her imaginary daughter Belle she had late in life, telling her how convinced she is that Vinnie, operator of the Three Queens casino, owned by his rich uncle, has been stealing some of Belle’s toys, including her dolls, and she arrives at an alley behind the casino where for some reason posters for a senator's re-election clutter the alley.
She speaks to a poster, saying she wishes she could trust him to put Vinnie behind bars, but she’s given up on politicians--they’re all corrupt...
2. End each beat with a turning point--a change that leads the main character in the scene to change--to do something different.
3. Once your beat script scenes pass review by you, peers you invite, and staff, you move onto the Script stage, fleshing out your beats into script scenes.
She puts the photo in her pocket.
NURSE
(to her imaginary daughter)
Now this is necessary, I’m telling you...
2. Use tab and shift-tab to indent properly.For your Novella, you revise a version of your script automatically generated for you in novel format. If you didn't write your script with enough visual and aural details that readers can picture movie scenes in their heads, you will need to do that now. This is that last script scene about Nurse in novel format:
She puts the photo in her scrubby pocket.
To h1. Pitch (plot)
Submit a story at www.plotsa.com/start.
Or go to plotsa.com and the row of Apply to Shorts, click on director, pick a story you’d like to direct, and apply for it.
If you want to do one that’s anonymous, because the person didn’t want their name known, you’ll need to go a different direction: find an “actor” to deliver the lines you feed them along the way, and find appropriate b-roll online.
2. Preparing for the shoot
Become familiar with the pitch (plot)
Use your curiosity to think about questions you want answered about the story
3. The Shoot
Make friends with the person you will be interviewing. Set them at ease by engaging with them.
Look for a place with good lighting.
Don’t shoot again strong backlight, use window light or natural home lighting.
A table will be needed to place the smartphone on.
Use an iPhone version 10 to 13 or smartphone.
Set the camera to Shoot in 4K high resolution.
Use a tripod.
Use a small shotgun mic if possible. Quality audio is incredibly important to the success of any production.
Put the camera 14 to 22 inches from the subject.
Aim the Camera up at the subject, not down. Their eye should look above the lens
Use the Rule of Thirds. https://www.nfi.edu/rule-of-thirds/
Begin by having the person give their name and spell it. You will need the correct spelling.
Ask open ended questions.
Have the person rephrase your questions in their answer. https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-documentary-interview-top-interview-techniques-and-tips-for-documentary-films-and-tv#how-do-you-prepare-for-a-documentary-interview
After the interview shoot or scan still photographs and shoot b-roll video footage. Shoot video of the person you are interviewing working around the house, doing what they normally do during the day. Make it interesting and fun.
er imaginary daughter, Nurse says, 'Now this is necessary, I'm telling you.'
After you pass peer and staff review of this stage, we will create for you an account on Draft2Digital, which will get your novella out widely on a release date to book distributors, including Amazon.
You can then hold an audience review. You fill in your dates, invitees, custom invitation message, and video conference URL. You invite your friends to read a preview of your novella and to pre-order it for when it is released. PLOTSA may also approve an online premiere along with the audience review, where distributors and investors are invited and where you will introduce yourself and present your work. Distributors and investors can choose to get further updates at future premieres as your movie progresses.
1. First you post visual and aural ideas for your plot and subplots.
__________
Billy walks into his room and looks under his bed. But the ball isn’t there.
__________
He gets up and checks in his desk. Still not there.
__________
He hears his mom open the door and turns to see her.
BILLY
Where’s my basketball?
MOM
I don’t know. Haven’t seen it.
BILLY
I think you have.
__________
MOM
Why do you say that?
BILLY
Because you told me the other day to put it in the garage.
MOM
And did you?
__________
BILLY
See, you must have taken it from my room and put it in the garage.
MOM
Well then, go look there.
__________
BILLY
Okay, I will.
CAMERA MOVES.
Billy walks into his room and looks under his bed. CAMERA STOPS. But his ball isn’t there.
CAMERA MOVES.
He gets up and checks in his desk. CAMERA STOPS. Still not there.
CAMERA MOVES TO 2 SHOT.
He hears his mom open the door and turns to see her. CAMERA STOPS.
BILLY
Where’s my basketball?
MOM
I don’t know. Haven’t seen it.
BILLY
I think you have.
CAMERA MOVES TO 1 SHOT AND STOPS.
MOM
Why do you say that?
CAMERA MOVES TO 1 SHOT AND STOPS.
BILLY
Because you told me the other day to put it in the garage.
CAMERA MOVES TO 1 SHOT AND STOPS.
MOM
And did you?
CAMERA MOVES TO 2 SHOT AND STOPS.
BILLY
See, you must have taken it from my room and put it in the garage.
MOM
Well then, go look there.
CAMERA MOVES TO 1 SHOT AND STOPS.
BILLY
Okay, I will.
2. Provide a link for a video of your shot designs with photos.
3. Get your storyboard stage reviewed. And once it passes, move onto your next stage of a production plan.
1. For your Production Plan, you present your plans for locations, cast, crew, equipment, breakdown, stripboard, rehearsals, schedule, call sheets, budget, and expected return on investment given comparable films.
2. You also prepare your BTS (behind the scenes video) with the fundamentals of your production plan, including scenes shot and actors rehearsed, as well as why this film needs to be made and as a result which investors will particularly find it appealing.
3. As a director, you can search on the site to build your cast and crew. You can even search for members nearby. You can view member's portfolios. And you can invite specific members to join your crew and cast by entering his or her email, and waiting for you to accept.
Or alternatively, you can open up various cast and crew roles to applications. If you wish to let cast and crew apply to your project, you make your project public here and click this checkbox and save. Cast and crew will see your project on the create page and can apply for a position.
4. All of this material and more you will need to take to our affiliate distributors and investment banks.
1. For your Rough Cut, you provide a link to your rough cut shot according to your Production Plan. Sounds simple. But that’s where the work occurs.
1. For your Final Cut, you provide a link to your final cut of your Rough Cut, as well as to a trailer.
2. Once your movie passes its peer, staff, and audience reviews, it goes into distribution. If you have co-produced with us, you will receive 70% of the revenue we receive for your film. Your first revenue will cover agreed upon distribution fees, like a few hundred dollars for preparing your film for streaming.
3. As soon as your film starts doing well, distributors and investors will want to know about your next film in progress.
1. For your Final Cut, you provide a link to your final cut of your Rough Cut, as well as to a trailer.
2. Once your movie passes its peer, staff, and audience reviews, it goes into distribution. If you have co-produced with us, you will receive 70% of the revenue we receive for your film. Your first revenue will cover agreed upon distribution fees, like a few hundred dollars for preparing your film for streaming.
3. As soon as your film starts doing well, distributors and investors will want to know about your next film in progress.
Hi, I’m Stephen Carter, and I’m here to give you a writer’s point of view on Plotsa. I was one of the guinea pigs when the site was going through testing, and I went through a number of learning curves that I’d like to make a little easier on you.
For me, constructing a screenplay in Plotsa was a lot like learning a new language. I got an MFA in creative writing specializing in screenplay, so I know the language of writing pretty well. But Plotsa’s approach to story has a unique, and, I think, extremely helpful focus on structuring stories. It’s a focus that has saved me a lot of time and frustration. Hopefully it will for you, too.
I do some freelance editing, and the saddest jobs I get are novels where the author has obviously poured hundreds of hours into polishing the prose to a high shine, but the novel’s structure just doesn’t hold up. They send their novel to me hoping I can spruce up the façade, and I have to tell them they need to rebuild their foundation. It’s very disheartening.
Building with Plotsa means that your structure gets built first, so that everything you build on it afterward is stable and effective.
When I was introduced to Plotsa, I decided that I was going to write a screenplay from the ground up. I wasn’t going to use any ideas I’d been working on previously so that I could see how Plotsa would affect my entire writing process.
You’ll probably notice that in the first stage, Plotsa lets you have a pretty free hand. It has boxes for characters, events, themes, etc., but no real criteria for what’s worth gathering. And I think this is the right move.
I don’t know how you come up with story ideas; I have various methods. This time around I decided that I wanted to make a puzzle-box story. Like something Krzysztof Kieslowski or Tom Tykwer might make. One of the reasons I did this was to see if Plotsa would be useful in writing a complex, art-house-type of screenplay.
And then, after thinking about themes that interest me, I decided that the interplay of the male and female aspects of a person would be an interesting tension to put at the heart of the story.
Of course, you may have a completely different way of approaching story beginnings. For example, I know that Nicolas Winding Refn often builds his stories on the juxtaposition of images that come up in his head.
The most important thing that happened in the first stage was that I collected a lot of material. A lot of possibilities.
It’s like making a documentary film. In the documentary I made … oh my gosh, almost 15 years ago … I shot more than 100 hours of footage for a movie that ended up lasting only one hour. And believe me, I was grateful for every single minute I had to choose from.
That’s a lot like the process you’ll be going through as you develop your story on Plotsa. You’ll start out with a lot of material, and then Plotsa will show you how to build the story from that material.
So, do you have some characters rolling around in your head? Write them down in the character box. Have you imagined some situations involving those characters? Write them in the events box. Are there some themes you’d like to explore? Write those down in the theme box. Collect it all!
This is the time when you don’t commit to anything; where you chase after anything shiny. This is where you create possibilities. And, unlike making a documentary film, you can make up whatever you want.
Here’s probably the most important thing I had to understand while learning to use Plotsa. Everything I write in those little gray scene boxes will be clunky and artless. There is no room in any of it for creative turns of phrase, dramatic reveals, or subtle metaphors. When you’re working on the first stages in Plotsa, you’re working with the beams and joists of your story; square, blunt, and totally utilitarian. The subtle finish work comes later.
It’s like how a magician works. A magician’s trick is a physical process that can be explained with a set of instructions—there’s nothing magical about it. But then the magician overlays that process with pieces of illusion: patter, misdirection, sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors. That unification of trick and illusion is what makes magic. The magic is nothing without the process of the trick beneath it. Plotsa helps you create the trick. The illusion comes later.
So when you start working on the pitch, this is not the pitch you will be using on movie executives in the elevator or to get your friends excited about your story. This is the absolute barest bone of your story. Its function is to remind you at every point what your journey and destination are: This character, being like this, tries to do this, risking this, and changing like this, bringing out this theme.
You would never in your life say that sentence to anyone but a fellow writer or filmmaker on Plotsa. Because it’s the very beginning of a trick whose details haven’t been worked out yet. It doesn’t have any illusion to it, and therefore no magic. But that’s OK because the reviewers and the staff at Plotsa know what you’re doing. They know that you can usefully condense any great story into exactly the same sentence structure.
Othello, being a jealous man, tries to find out the truth about his wife’s fidelity, risking his relationship with her, and falls to his jealousy which initially blinded him to the designs of Iago, bringing out a theme of trust.
Bilbo, being a timid hobbit, tries to help the dwarves reclaim their treasure from a dragon, risking his life and reputation, and learns bravery, bringing out a theme of rebuilding one’s identity.
Furiosa, being a lackey for an evil warlord, tries to liberate his wives from his compound, risking her life and the lives of the wives, and learns to trust others, bringing out a theme of human connection.
None of those sentences make us want to go see the movie. But they do give us the backbone of the story, to which we can attach other bones and eventually flesh.
So the purpose of the pitch is to show the entirety of your story in the smallest space possible—to keep its most essential parts in front of you so that you know what you’re building during every step of the story construction process.
So that’s my first piece of advice: Embrace the clunkiness in these first stages. It is your friend.
Plotsa starts from a very basic premise: There are principles for creating an effective story structure. Those principles can be learned. And thus, anyone can learn to create an effective story with a wide appeal, no matter what form it takes.
What that means is that structuring a story isn’t a mystical process. It’s more of an architectural one.
Have you ever seen Sketches of Frank Gehry? It’s a documentary by Sydney Pollack about one of our greatest contemporary architects. The last time I looked, you could find it on Vimeo. If it’s still there, go watch it.
So, this architect, Frank Gehry, designs the most out-of-the-box buildings you’ll ever see. He’s always exploring new forms and new spaces. But as you watch him do his work, you see that every step of the way, he knows that his building has to stand up, that it needs to meet code, that it needs to have a ventilation system, electricity, plumbing. It has to be a building that works.
If you analyze your favorite stories—even the ones that don’t follow a traditional plot arc—you’ll see that they all adhere to a set of principles that makes them work. Those principles were outlined in the Development Reading section at the very beginning of your Plotsa experience. You should feel very free to go back and re-read those dialogues as well as the suggested reading again and again. It took me five years of university study to finally wrap my mind around these principles and learn to apply them.
What makes Plotsa cool is that it gives you a way to apply those principles in a very focused way. At first, the main line of action (as well as the numerous scene bars you’ll encounter afterward) may feel like fill-in-the-blank worksheet that you just have to plow through in order to get to the end, but it’s actually serving an essential function that you’ll grow to really value.
It’s laying the foundation for your story, showing where the essential supports that hold up your structure will be located.
Character
Being like this
Tries to do this
And in the process risks this
And changes like this
Bringing out this theme
Those are the six points of your foundation. As you and your reviewers go through your story structure, you’ll be able to tell if each piece is supported by one of these six points. If a piece of the story is not supported, that indicates a structural flaw.
I can hear you! It’s exactly what I said, too. “Do you mean that once the main line of action is reviewed and approved, it’s set in stone?” Absolutely not. I revised my main line of action dozens of times as I was working through the Plotsa stages. What the main line of action does is remind you at all times where the structural support is. And it helps your reviewers give you helpful insight, because they know what you want the structure to look like.
In stories, our material is characters and how they change (or refuse to change). So that’s what the main line of action focuses on. It takes your main character and has you describe the change they go through over the course of the story.
So you start with what the protagonist is like at the beginning of the story, and you show what actions they take to change (or fend off change), and what kind of person they become at the end as a result of their actions. And then you sum it all up with a theme.
Now, I’m going to tell you—I went through dozens of versions of my main line of action before I finally found one that really resonated with me. And ever after that, I kept tweaking it. And it’s very likely that you’ll go through all this, too, especially if you’re writing a story from the ground up.
If you’ve come with a script already in hand, going through this process will help you refine, or perhaps even overhaul, your story’s structure. The idea isn’t to just fill in the blanks. It’s to see if your story is both creative and functional, as Frank Gehry’s buildings are. Looking at your story in this architectural way will fix the weaknesses of your structure and build something that will more fully embody the soul of your story.
At fourteen minutes and 45 seconds into Sketches of Frank Gehry, there’s a montage of sketches that Gehry made as he conceptualized buildings. Notice that none of them are pretty. Some of them hardly look like buildings at all. They’re all exploring their way toward the final structure. That’s likely what you’ll be doing with your main line of action. You’ll be looking back over all the notes you made about your characters, conflicts, and themes and thinking about how they might interact. Because they can interact in a million ways, but you want to find the ones that, brought together, will stand up and skillfully make an intriguing, entertaining, thoughtful new space for your audience to dwell in for an hour and a half.
One hour and six minutes into Sketches of Frank Gehry, one of Gehry’s clients says, “Literally, if you go back and you take the little squiggle … that’s that!” And at the 50th second of the film, you see a sketch that fades to the building it envisioned. And you say, “Yep, that’s that!”
The main line of action is your guiding sketch, so that when the process is over and you have a full script in your hand, someone can look between your main line of action and your script and say, “Yep! That’s that!”
The best way I can explain what you’re doing in these little sequence bars is: “shin bone connected to the knee bone, knee bone connected to the thigh bone, thigh bone connected to the hip bone …”
You’re connecting the main bones of your story.
Why is this connecting of bones so important? And why must it be done according to narrative principles? It’s the same reason artists have to know human anatomy. In order to paint humans, you need to know their structure: their bones, muscles, and how the skin looks on it. If you don’t know it, your drawings look amateurish. People spend more time thinking, “That’s not quite right,” than they do interacting with your work. It takes them out of your art.
And the same thing happens when a story doesn’t have a solid narrative structure. The person watching or reading the story keeps thinking, “I know what the author is trying to do, but they aren’t quite doing it.” And it takes them out of the story.
One of the most basic principles of story structure is goal-oriented causality. A character takes an action toward a goal which causes a reaction, which causes the character to take another action, which causes a reaction, which causes the character to take another action—each of them building in dramatic strength until the intial goal is either reached or abandoned.
You’ll see causality laid out in each sequence bar. “Main character, being like this, takes this action, and this reaction occurs.”
Now, remember, embrace the clunkiness for now. No one is going to see these words except for you and trusted members of the Plotsa family. And we all know what these words are for. We’re not looking for the illusion here; we’re looking at how you’re building the trick, step by step. We’re looking for how solidly these sequences are built on your main line of action.
Each sequence bar presents the bare minimum description of the scene’s causality: the action that leads to the reaction—the story bones being connected in such a way that the body can move in the way it needs to move.
Now, notice that I didn’t say that this needs to be a specific type of body; we’re not trying to steer you toward any particular plot type. You can write whatever body you want, animal, vegetable, or mineral. You can mix bodies together or mutate them. But the bones have to work if the bodies are going to be effective at conveying your vision. Remember the creatures from the Silent Hill games? The reason they were so unsettling was because their bone structures worked.
The other thing you should know is that what we’re calling sequences here are more popularly known as acts. So usually, you’ll only use three of them to indicate what happens in the first, second, and third acts. Unless you’re going to have some real fun and bust us into four, five, or seven acts.
So, as you construct these sequences, make sure that they rest solidly on the main line of action. That’s what your reviewers and the staff will be looking for. Having the pitch solid will help a lot as you go into the synopsis and scenario stages later on.
You’ve probably noticed that when you click on a sequence bar, a white space appears that says, “Notes along the way.” For me, these were an essential part of the writing process.
I noticed that as I wrote down the bones of my story in the sequence bars, I would get interested in how the details of that bone might look, so I’d go into this white box and start imagining. It was both fun and useful, because when I got to the next stage—the synopsis—I had a bunch of notes attached to each sequence that I could draw on to start building each scene.
And then, as I wrote down the scenes under each sequence, I could write my notes into their white boxes as well. I started outlining the story in these white boxes and then watched how they affected the description in the scene bar it was attached to.
I gotta say, it was really helpful to go back and forth between the notes and the scene bar they were attached to. Each would inform the other. Maybe I’d see that some things I worked out in the notes necessitated a change in the scene bar, or that I was going off the track my scene bar had set down and needed to reimagine how the scene could play out to fit it better.
I’ll say it again: going back and forth, from the bar to the notes, was really helpful: zooming in to look at details, and then zooming out to see how it contributed—or didn’t—to the whole.
Also, notice that you can move your scene bars around by dragging and dropping them. It’s a really easy way to find different ways to tell your story.
About 19 minutes into Sketches of Frank Gehry, Gehry is showing Pollack some building models he’s working on and says, “You know, I always work on two or three scales at once … because in my head it keeps me thinking of the real building, I don’t get enamored with the object.”
That’s what Plotsa does for your story. It gives you a number of different scales to play with as you work toward your final story.
The first scale model of your story is the smallest: the main line of action and the three sequences—the overall sketch of the structure.
Then comes the synopsis, which is all the scenes in your main line of action. And finally, you get to the scenario, which is all the sequences and scenes of all the lines of action. When you get done with the scenario, you’ll have a five- or six-page summary of your story.
For me, it was absolutely essential that I work in all three.
Writing notes to imagine scenes in detail, but also actually laying in some scenes in the synopsis and scenario stages and maybe even the beatscript stage.
If a scene depends on things happening in other lines of action, you can write it as, So, this having happened, the main character (being like this) does this. And this reaction occurs.
Making sequences and scene descriptions connected to their lines of action, by bringing out telling details. In effect, making them more artistic. Like poetry. Like telling details of an architect’s framing.
Adding subplots with their sequences and scenes and making sure they each work as stories. Like Bach starting with a melody and harmonic structure (like a pitch) and adding new voices on separate staffs (like adding subplots with their sequences and scenes), making sure each one is interesting musically by itself and fits in with the others.
For the sequences and scenes, you want to aim for two sentences, what the character does and what happens. This may require chopping scenes in two, French style, when someone new enters or the main subject changes. This makes the boundaries between scenes and main beat changes more fluid--again if the persons or subjects of the events change it could be treated as a new scene. All of this is needed to indicate the main changes in filming, so the filmmaker is following the writer, not overhauling the work of the writer.
Adding dialogue for your script. For your novella, removing the script template.
Adding shot descriptions, some of it already indicated by the details of your writing--like details of a face for a close-up, and of characters in a setting for a wide shot.
Adding blocking--bringing out the movement of your characters and what we see in our minds eye.
Adding why this film needs to be made and so why it will appeal to certain investors. And why it is likely to make some return on investment.
Adding first edit of what we see and hear, including a trailer
Adding final edit of what we see and hear and trailer
Welcome to PLOTSA, Online Studios. Here you can submit, create, and distribute great movies according to proven industry standards.
My name is Jay Packard, and I’m here to explain how you can get your feature film produced and distributed in stages on PLOTSA and how you can get helpful feedback on your stages along the way. And for those of you who stay with me, I’ll show you details about moving through each of the stages.
On the site is a Watch page and a Create page. On the Create page are movies of our members--finished movies they have posted, movies of theirs in progress, or online movies they have submitted links to. There are My Movies. There are My Reviews. There are other rows for Stories or Movies in Progress which you can apply or audition for.
When online movies or other movies pass review by our viewers, they go on to the Watch page.
Every movie on the Watch page has a logline that integrates four essential elements for an enjoyable movie: plot, character development, risk, and theme.
You can read about research showing that these elements make a movie more enjoyable for viewers. You can read about it in the FAQ at the bottom.
If you click on one of the movies on the Watch page, you go where you can stream it.
Eventually we’ll have links to every great movie streaming on the net. Gone will be the search fatigue you’ve experienced trying to find a movie worth watching. Gone will be you having to trust algorithmic recommendations of movies to watch.
On the Create page, up on the left you’ll find a list of things you can do on the site:
The heart of PLOTSA is the first option: creating a new feature film. The other three options are for completed steps toward that goal . I want to go over the first item with you: creating a new feature film.
You can create feature films on PLOTSA in stages listed on the left. The stages start with briefly summarized versions of the film and move to increasingly fleshed out versions. The end result is the last stage, a quality film with wide appeal, exhibited on the site, and distributed widely by major affiliates.
To start your film, you write its story in three stages, Pitch, Synopsis, and Scenario.
After completing your story at the Scenario stage, you flesh out your story with three detailed scene-writing stages, Beatscript, Script, and Novella.
If you choose not to write the finished scenes yourself, you can add a script writer by entering his or her email and waiting for him or her to accept.
Or you can open your story for auditions for script writers. You set the availability to public, click the audition checkbox, and indicate a deadline date. Then, you mark on the left the scenes you’d like auditioners to write. Then you save. Script writers will see your project on the create page and can audition for it. When they do, a copy of your project will be made for each auditioner. They will then complete the scenes you marked for the writing stages of Beatscript, Script, and Novella. You can then choose one of the auditioners.
You (or your script writer) can then go on to complete the writing stages.
Here is something you may want to consider. To get your film story to film distributors as soon as possible, you can take just a few scenes through the script writing stages, marking your chosen scenes for filming on the left, and indicating a partial review. And then you can get these scenes filmed in five filming stages: Shooting Script, Storyboard, Production Plan, Rough Cut, and Final Cut. Again you can request a director to film these scenes or you can open the filming for auditions. Or you could film them yourself with friends.
You (or your director) can then go on to complete the five filming stages.
I‘d like to finish my overview of how you can produce and distribute your feature film in stages on PLOTSA. If you have comments or questions, please comment below, and we’ll get back to you soon. And if you’re interested in what you’ve heard so far, I encourage you to create a free account on the site and start getting your film produced and distributed on the site.
Another game-changing thing you can do on the site is get feedback on your work from our community of writers and filmmakers and film viewers. You can get your stages reviewed by peers and staff and audiencers. Successful writers and filmmakers value feedback--after all, they are writing and filming for others, so they want to hear how others respond to their work. They appreciate feedback from fellow writers and filmmakers who can see problems and suggest solutions. They also appreciate feedback from general audiences who can see problems but not suggest reasonable solutions.
So I’d like to explain the review process. At the bottom of each stage are review questions, with comment boxes, for three required reviews: yourself, peer, and staff. These review questions are based on proven industry standards for increasing audience engagement and enjoyment. You can read about research on these standards in the FAQ at the bottom of the site.
There are audience reviews for key stages, and at some of these audience reviews, distributors are invited to see you and your work at a premiere. Distributors and their investors may well want to see your project as early as your scenario stage if you shoot a scene, or at your novella stage if you distribute your novella and start to build a reading audience. The previous tutorial explained how to get a scene shot for your scenario. To learn how to distribute your script as a novella, you can view the tutorial for the novella stage.
The cost of the peer reviews depend on how many reviews you need, two peer reviews if they agree and three to break a tie, or possibly more if significant revisions are needed that require the review process to start again.
To pay for peer reviews, you can earn PLOTSA Credit by reviewing other movies. You will need to choose on your account page the option to review and qualify to do so. Or you can pay for your peer reviews with PLOTSA Bucks.
To qualify to peer review, you need to read and pass quizzes on the reading material in the upper left on film development and production.
The readings are dialogues about the fundamental qualities of great films. You can take the two quizzes multiple times to pass them. You’ll probably pass them the first time.
To become a reviewer, you also need to submit an online movie you like and create a logline for it and have it reviewed by staff. Once your logline for the online movie you recommend is accepted by staff, it will go to the Watch page, and you will start sharing in site revenue from the movie and so will your staff reviewer, from affiliate referral programs once those are available.
As a qualified reviewer, you can earn "PLOTSA Credit” to get peer reviewed for free. You will just need to complete reviews assigned to you, which you will be notified of by email.
You can see the current breakdown of costs per stage for peer and staff review on the FAQ page.
With each accepted stage you submit or review, you increase your rank. When you achieve a total rank of 10, you can be paid for staff reviewing and perhaps consulting.
Once your production plan passes peer and staff reviews, you and your crew will present it at an audience review, which normally includes film distributors, who will present your plan to investors for funding. You can see a link to our growing list of distributors to be invited on the FAQ page.
If your film is funded and produced through Plosta, you will receive 70% of distribution return to the site. You will also be reimbursed for the cost of the initial peer and site reviews for each stage of your film. That means that when your film is distributed, the review process of your film ends up being free.
For your Pitch, your first stage, you fill out basic information about your film--its title, genre, age appropriateness, a poster image for your film, viewers who can see your work in progress, and how much anyone else you don’t specify can see--nothing, just your logline, or what’s in each of your stages.
Here are text boxes for your preparatory notes about your story. These will help you and your reviewers. Then you fill out a template for a main line of action that integrates plot, character development, risk, and theme. So you start with the initial character [Main character, being like this] and go to the action [tries to do this] and include the risk [and in the process risks this] and show the character development [and improves like this] and theme [bringing out a theme of this]. I’ll fill out this line of action with an example from Ken Merril’s Identity Check: Nurse, a homeless delusional, tries to stop a casino manager from harming her imaginary daughter and those caught in his powerful identity theft ring, and in the process risks her life and that of her friends helping her, and finds her own identity in the present, bringing out a theme of finding yourself by losing yourself.
Underneath this line-of-action template, like all templates, is another text box for notes along the way.
The notes are for you to explore your interpretations of symbolism and how you might flesh out scenes in detail later. These notes are valuable for your reviewers: They will think about their interpretations and how scenes could play out. If their ideas are just the same as yours, you are being cliche and too obvious. If they are wildly different, you are being obscure. You are getting it right if your reviewers think they could have a good conversation with you about how to interpret and flesh out the details of your scenes.
Then below the line-of-action template, you flesh out templates for sequences, which are like acts moving toward main turning points in the story until it ends. So I’ll fill this template out with what the character Nurse does and what happens in the first act: Nurse, delusionally concerned, tries to find evidence she can use to stop the manager from harming her imaginary daughter. And she finds that the manager is running a powerful identity theft ring.
To finish this pitch, you’d fill out the rest of these sequences.
Now if simply want to recommend an online film, you submit a truncated version of the pitch page. We are particularly interested in your recommendations of films you like that many others may not have seen yet. You start by including basic information for it, including a movie poster image from rottentomatoes.com or google images.
Below you write a logline for the film you’re recommending. It needs to be an integrated logline, one that includes plot, character development, risk, and theme.
Then you need to review your logline and answer several questions that staff reviewers will also answer.
Once you submit your logline for review, it will be reviewed by staff. There is no charge for staff reviews of your online movie recommendations.
Once your logline is accepted by peers and staff, your online movie will appear on the Watch page, and you will start sharing in site revenue from the movie and so will your staff reviewer.
For your next stage, your Synopsis, you flesh out all your sequences with scenes, which you can add with the plus button to the right. For each scene, you say what the character does and what happens. So I could fill this first scene out about Nurse like this: Nurse, delusionally concerned, tries to find evidence in a trash can that she can use to stop the manager from harming her imaginary daughter. And she finds a photo of a senator’s credit card.
You want to make sure you put telling details in your scene descriptions, ones that help reviewers see how they are moving forward the action of their sequences and lines of action.
If you find a a scene of yours depends on things happening in other lines of action, you can write it like this: So, this having happened, the main character (being like this) does this. And this reaction occurs.
If someone new enters a scene of yours or the subject of your scene changes, you may want to add a new scene. That is how the French write scenes. Creating scenes like that will enable you to keep your scene descriptions short, mostly two sentences, one for what the main character does and another for what happens.
To finish this Synopsis, you’d simply fill out the scene descriptions for all of your sequences from your pitch.
For your Scenario, you then fill out templates for subplot lines of action, which you can add with buttons to the right. And you flesh out these other lines of actions with their sequences and their scenes. You can click on each line of action and go through and perfect its sequence and scenes, making sure it works as a story itself while fitting together with the stories of the other lines of action.
The scenario for The Room Between is an example of a scenario filled out. You will notice how the author has clicked on and highlighted which lines of actions each scene is a part of. Some scenes are part of the first line of action. Some are part of the second. And some are part of both.
By the time you complete your Scenario, you have a solid story for your film.
At this stage, after peer and staff review, you hold an audience review. You can fill in your dates, invitees, custom invitation message, and video conference URL for Q&A at the end of your audience review. PLOTSA may also approve an online premiere along with the audience review, where distributors and investors are invited and where you will introduce yourself and present your work during the video conference. Distributors and investors, invited through email, can choose to get further updates at future premieres as your movie progresses.
For your Beatscript, you flesh out your scene descriptions into beats of what the main character of the scene does and what happens, using summarized dialogue. Here is the first scene of Identity Check fleshed out into seven beats:
Rebecca Lambert, known on the streets as Nurse, pushes her loaded shopping cart down the street on a hot Las Vegas night. She is talking to her imaginary daughter Belle she had late in life. She tells Belle how convinced she is that it is Vinnie, operator of the Three Queens casino, owned by his rich uncle, who has been stealing some of Belle’s toys, including her dolls.
Nurse arrives at an alley behind the casino where for some reason posters for a senator's re-election clutter the alley. She speaks to a poster, saying she wishes she could trust him to put Vinnie behind bars, but she’s given up on politicians--they’re all corrupt...
If you are auditioning for the role of a scene writer, you will flesh out the indicated scenes into beats and request a partial review, which will cost a portion of the price of the full review. Once it passes, you will move onto the Script and Novella stages, fleshing out your beats into a script scene and novella paragraphs.
For your Script, you flesh out your scene beats with dialogue in script format. Here is a beat about Nurse putting the photo of the senator’s credit card in her pocket. It defaults to description, you tab indent once for dialogue, twice for parenthetical (what happens during dialogue) and three times for the name of the speaker. To go back, you press shift-tab.
She puts the photo in her pocket.
NURSE
(to her imaginary daughter)
Now this is necessary, I’m telling you...
If you are submitting a completed script of yours, you put in your basic information about your script and you import it into PLOTSA’s format. Then you add multiple lines of action for it, highlighting the numbers at the right of your scenes to indicate which line(s) of action they are each a part of, and adding sequences if you don’t already have them, to group together scenes of acts finishing in the major turning points and the ending of the line of action. Adding scene summary information is optional.
Adding this information will enable you and your peer and staff reviewers to determine if your script is well structured, since your review questions will include questions about your lines of action and sequences. If you find in your review that it is not well structured, you will want to revise it so that it is before you submit it for peer and staff reviews. Once your reviewers see that your story is well structured, they will read your full script.
Film distributors will want to know about your script once it has passed peer and staff reviews, particularly if you shoot a scene or distribute a novella and start building a reading audience. Best of all, you can do both on the site. You can view the tutorials for Novella and Shooting Script stages for details.
For your Novella, you revise a version of your script automatically generated for you in novel format. This is that last script scene about Nurse in novel format.
After you pass peer and staff review of this stage, we will create for you an account on Draft2Digital, which will get your novella out widely on a release date to book distributors, including Amazon.
You can then hold an audience review. You fill in your dates, invitees, custom invitation message, and video conference URL. You invite your friends to read a preview of your novella and to pre-order it for when it is released. PLOTSA may also approve an online premiere along with the audience review, where distributors and investors are invited and where you will introduce yourself and present your work. Distributors and investors can choose to get further updates at future premieres as your movie progresses.
For your Shooting Script, you provide links to your initial ideas about production design, blocking design, sound design, music design, and actors auditions or rehearsals. This is where you can assign cast and crew or open the roles for auditions.
Most importantly, you add shot descriptions for your script scene, not for every beat change but for main ones, like this for that beat with Nurse pocketing the photo:
[Shot from pocket to face]
If you are auditioning for the role of director, you will flesh out the indicated scenes into shooting script scenes and request a partial review, which will cost a portion of the price of the full review. Once they pass, you will move onto the other filming stages of Storyboard, Production Plan, Rough Cut, and Final Cut, fleshing out your shooting script scenes into storyboards, indicating your production plan for the scenes, and then providing rough cuts and final cuts of the scenes.
For your Storyboard, you add to your ideas about production design more specifics, like photos of locations, costumes, and props. And most importantly you provide a link for a video of your scene with stand-in actors reading their lines, or a cartoon version of your scenes, done according to your Shooting Script.
For your Production Plan, you present your plans for locations, cast, crew, equipment, breakdown, stripboard, rehearsals, schedule, call sheets, budget, and expected return on investment given comparable films. You also prepare a BTS (behind the scenes video) with the fundamentals of your production plan, including scenes shot and actors rehearsed, as well as why this film needs to be made and as a result which investors will particularly find it appealing.
As a director, you can search on the site to build your cast and crew. You can even search for members nearby. You can view member's portfolios. And you can invite specific members to join your crew and cast by entering in his or her email, and waiting for them to accept.
Or alternatively, you can open up various cast and crew roles to applications. If you wish to let cast and crew apply to your project, you make your project public here and click this checkbox and save. Cast and crew will see your project on the create page and can apply for a position.
For your Rough Cut, you provide a link to your rough cut shot according to your Production Plan. Sounds simple. But that’s where a lot of the work occurs.
If you are submitting a completed film, we ask you to import your script and to annotate it by filling out its lines of action and sequences for each of them. You can learn more about how to do that from the site tutorials on Pitch and Scenario. If you have built previous stages on PLOTSA, you already have a script and its annotations, so there is no need to import your script.
You then need to review your script and submit it for peer and staff reviews. If it passes the reviews for story elements, peer and staff will review the filming itself.
If for some reason your movie doesn’t pass peer and staff reviews, your reviewers may still provide you with valuable ideas about how you can reshoot some scenes, or reorder some scenes, and resubmit your movie, or even present your revised script with a trailer to film distributors for production funding to shoot it again.
Once your movie passes its peer and staff reviews, it is scheduled for an audience review, during which it will premiere for film distributors to consider other distribution options for it, including getting it into theaters. They will also let their investors know about you and your promising pitches for your upcoming movies you mention at your premiere.
And once your movie is distributed by us or our affiliate distributors, you will receive 70% of the revenue we receive for your movie. Your first revenue will cover agreed upon distribution fees, like a few hundred dollars for preparing your movie for streaming.
So that is my overview of the stages of creating and distributing your feature film on PLOTSA. Now you can submit a completed script or movie if you have one, or you can start creating a movie by working on its pitch. We hope you enjoy your creative studio work on the site.
Again, welcome to our PLOTSA community. If you have questions, please contact us and we’ll get back to you soon.