How to post 10-page torture tests

[Pitchpatch]

• STEP 1
  
  Before you begin, be sure you have the author's permission to post the ten pages here.
  
  Some okay situations:
  
  
  • The sole author or sole owner of the work gave you permission to post it
  • You have permission from all authors/co-owners of the work
  • The script is in the public domain
  • The author/owner made the script publicly available on the web and you believe 'fair use' permission applies. See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html.  Importantly, see here why you shouldn't assume Fair Use shields you from copyright claims.
  
  Some not-okay situations:
  
  
  • You didn't get permission from all the work's authors/owners
  • You want to 10PTT an in-development, publicly-unavailable script you got from script trading
  
  
  
• STEP 2
  
  Create your 10PTT.  Originally I produced the final marked-up page images in Gimp. Now my preferred mark-up tool is the free PDFXchange Viewer. This tool offers all the basic PDF mark-up features you'll need.  When finished, you can take a screenshot of each page for use in your 10PTT review.
  
  
  
• STEP 3
  
  Create a new topic for your 10PTT in the 10PTT area.  First post can be an introduction or jump right into analyzing the first page. Post the remaining pages separately as replies to your new topic.
  
  You can attach your page images to your post, and they'll be stored on this site.  However, there are file size limits.
  
  An alternative is to host the page image files on another site, like tinypic.com, and link to them in your post.  A good solution is opening a wordpress.com account, adding the page files in the media section, and linking to them in your post.  That way you can be sure the page images won't get deleted by a third-party image hosting site. See here how I linked an image to my wordpress.com blog.
  

[Elisa]

All the threads here are started by Pitchpatch and already marked up.  If I want to post my own script to be reviewed, do I just start a thread and post the 10 pages, each as its own post?

[Pitchpatch]

Hi, Elisa.

The idea is not to post pages for review but post pages you've reviewed, 10PTT style.  You correctly point out, so far I'm the only goon posting 10PTTs.  I'd love for others to give it a try, but I understand it can be time consuming to mark up the pages for presentation here.  That's my guess why I'm the sole contributor so far.

Being considerably lazy myself, I post 10PTTs only occasionally and only when the planets align.  Once I tuck into a 10PTT I enjoy the heck out of the process and tell myself I should do one a month -- nay, one a week.  But that euphoria cools quickly after page 10 goes up.

Back to you.  One thing we forum operators do when a new member joins is turn to the creepy stalking machine that is Google, to gauge if the new member is genuine or a potential spammer.  If we don't do this early cursory check, later our forums pay for it when 'rjM0007x32 at secretmail.com' starts flooding the boards with strangely-out-of-context replies containing obviously spammy links.

A quick web scan for your name easily demonstrated you're a legit pre-pro screenwriter, with your five-page scene entry titled A CRY IN THE DARK on public view at http://cyberspaceopen.com/ (a screenwriting competition site).

I read the pages. Your writing is industry ready.  That means I believe I could slip your work randomly into the pre-screened stack of scripts on a professional reader's desk and the reader would not stop to wonder if it got there by mistake, if maybe colleague reader Suzy slipped her eccentric neighbor's screenplay into your vetted pile just for giggles.

I did spot one comma behavior that invites correction, and story-wise I'm not sure the angel pays off in any meaningful way -- inside that scene, anyway.  But clearly you're a long way up the professional hill, and now it mostly comes down to herding the story cats into an impressive controlled stampede through Hollywood's corridors.  (Worst/best metaphor ever.)

If you still want somebody to 10PTT your pages (no more than ten of 'em) then email a PDF to tenpagetorturetest at gmail.com and I'll take a look.

Oh, and welcome to the site!