At Industrial Scripts we believe strongly in both the significant subjectivity in play when readers assess a screenplay and, equally, attempting to mirror as close as possible industry norms and scenarios.
Therefore, unless a writer can demonstrably prove that the coverage matches the following criteria, no refunds or fresh sets of coverage will be offered:
- coverage was repeatedly and persistently inaccurate on a factual level (ie character names are referred to incorrectly, plot points are mistaken again and again and referred to inaccurately)
- coverage was repeatedly and persistently riddled with spelling errors and typos and grammatical issues and could generally be considered very unprofessional and very poorly presented
- coverage did not satisfy minimum stated word counts
- coverage where broader screenwriting theories are essentially rewritten or repurposed at great length in order to lecture to the reader and pad out the word count of the report
However, in such an endlessly subjective arena, we do not consider differences of creative opinion whereby a writer is unimpressed by the coverage of a reader, or the creative angle from which the reader wrote the coverage, or came at the material, as reason to auto-label the coverage as sub-standard or unacceptable.
So, for example, the following situations (including but not limited to) do not qualify under IS policy for a refund or fresh set of notes:
- situations where the reader has elected to heavily concentrate on one key area of the script
- situations where the reader's view of the quality of the material (could be plot point, character motivation, pacing, anything) conflicts with that of the writer
- situations where the writer's knowledge of the arena in which the script takes place is far superior (readers in the main industry are professional filters, there is not the time or resource in either that area or this for readers to upskill on a subject matter prior or even after reading a script) and they are critical, therefore, of the reader's lack of understanding
- situations whereby a writer has written in a tradition of certain movies or shows, believing that because they have followed certain genre or sub-genre conventions, this insulates their screenplay from specific criticism in that area (or similar)
- situations whereby a reader's presumed or assumed or suspected political or sociological bias has resulted in the reader not assessing the screenplay fairly - per other support articles, all industry readers are human too, and so to attempt to micro manage or control this process from the outset is futile. Good writing is bias-proof.
This is a firmly non-exhaustive list of situations whereby a difference of creative opinion has occurred between writer and reader.
However for clarity and the avoidance of doubt we will only consider a refund or fresh set of notes in the event that our coverage matches the first set of criteria listed above.