If you've always wanted to work in the exciting, creative television or film industries and have a particular gift for spotting "the next big thing" before it emerges, you may have what it takes to become a development executive. This is a high-level management position within the studio power structure, generally above creative and studio executives. A development executive (DE) is in charge of reading scripts, managing creative talent behind the scenes, and getting new movies and TV shows into production. DEs are not only expected to stay on top of the latest trends, but also must be able to identify and develop a hit before the competition beats them to the punch.
To become a development executive, you might start out as a scriptwriter or reader at the network or studio. This provides an excellent opportunity for studying film narrative and scriptwriting techniques. Reading hundreds of submissions per week is one of the most effective ways to learn what works and what doesn't. Once you've internalized the basics of a good script, you'll soon be making recommendations to your overseeing producer on stories that higher executives might find worthy of a possible new TV series or feature film. Should a show or film you pitched go on to achieve success, you'll be well-positioned for a promotion and further along on the way to DE status.
Cultivating industry connections and relationships with creative talent is critical to an aspiring development executive. A key part of this job is seeking out writers, cast members, directors, producers and staff the studio or network should be working with. Assembling the right production and creative team for a new show pilot show can make all the difference in whether the show becomes a hit. Development executives are always on the lookout for genres and show concepts that the studio or network needs to fill missing spaces in the programming lineup. For a DE, innovation and breaking new ground with a highly rated show or blockbuster film is always a goal.
As with many jobs in the entertainment field, talent, industry connections and experience are more important to potential employers than a college degree. Taking some courses inscreenplay development, film/TV production, scriptwriting, and marketing or advertising can be extremely helpful in preparing for this career, however. Your local community college or university likely offers informal and night classes where you can pick up some of the needed skills even if you do not plan to pursue a degree. Other vocational schools and technical institutes devoted to film and television production — such as the Art Institutes of America, the National Film and Television School, and the EU's Media Programme — are also viable options for study. Nearly all of these schools offer internships and job placement for any student looking to become a development executive.
The scene descriptions are usually presented after a scene heading, which is also known as a slug line. A typical slug line might look like this: "INT. Office – Day." The "INT" in this case, stands for "interior;" it could have been "EXT" for "exterior." These distinctions are mostly helpful for allowing the future filmmaker to break down scenes into those which will be shot indoors and those which will be shot outdoors, a consideration that can be important in movie production. Beneath the slug line, the screenwriter will lay out what the scene looks like; it is usually written from a third-person present tense perspective, instead of past tense like most novels.
The second part of trying to write a screenplay is to describe the action. This is also usually handled in the third-person present tense. An example of an action description might sound a little like this: "Carrie opens the drawer on her desk and removes the document, handing it across to Bill." Sometimes there will be some subtle — or specific — camera directions mixed into the action as part of the storytelling, but screenwriters who expect someone else to direct the material often avoid these to make the screenplay less distracting and easier to read.
The thing that takes up the biggest part of most screenplays is dialogue. Sometimes there are several pages of dialogue between each action or scene description, although this does depend on the kind of film being written. Dialogue is generally presented with the character's name centered on one line, and the actual lines for the character written below.
Usually, dialogue is about half as wide on the page as the action descriptions. For example, the margins may be set up so that the action and scene descriptions are 6 inches (15.24 cm) wide on the page, and the dialogue might be set up to be about 3.5 inches (8.89 cm). Sometimes there are little descriptions of the behaviors a character should be exhibiting while speaking in parenthesis on a separate line between the name and the dialogue.
Another important issue to consider when trying to write a screenplay is the question of pacing. Films are generally paced much more quickly than other forms of fiction since they are designed to tell a story in one sitting. Screenplays generally move more quickly than novels, for example, and time-compression techniques, such as montages, are used to quickly summarize things that might be dealt with in detail if someone were writing another kind of fiction.
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