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Don't recommend. James hooks you for a 6 month contract, from which he's the only one who benefits for sure. The best case scenario, your songs would show as "kept" by the studio (and you have no solid proof at all), and it could drag on for a year/longer, and it would have been enough to check the songs status just once in 3 months, logically speaking, but Jame invents the way to milk you monthly.
A typical "around the arts" scam: a sucker born every minute. Stay away.
This review includes both; my original review from 2018 and an update from 2021.
I'm a Stage32 "success" story. Everything and everyone on Stage32 to paraphrase a rear-view mirror, "appear larger than they actually are." I was thrilled when a Stage32's "exec" loved my TV project and offered to give me "free development notes, and when my project's sold, the buyer would pay her to do the same." I could have easily afforded to pay for her notes, and I ended up paying for her notes anyway since she wouldn't do anything until paid. I also ended up paying other professionals for their notes because hers were erratic, and I wasted time and creative energy writing in circles. Her "free notes" turned out very expensive to me. Not having the proper industry connections to set up my project, she used my project to benefit herself by pulling me into Hollywood's underbelly, trying to hijack my project through secret meetings with shady producers behind my back. I'm a high-grade professional in my field and I'm used to the high-pressure/stakes professional environment, but I've never come across someone so unprofessional in my entire life. Something was fundamentally wrong with this "exec". When you see her smiling during her webinars, you'd never phantom that she would go from "0" to "60" in seconds, flying into verbally abusive rages, tantrums, erratic calling me at 5 & 7 am to keep me off-kilter, to strong-arm me to sign the rights to my work away. To keep me under her thumb, she constantly threatened to "tell everybody I was impossible to work with." Her weapon of choice is to "spread the word." Since she didn't have worthy industry contacts, she couldn't even find me an agent or manager, because by that time she was afraid that if any normal professional would step in, they could see immediately what she was doing. So, this so-called "exec" did exactly what any newbie does; found a shady producer on Stage32, who trawls this platform to grab free writing, and strong-armed me to sign with him for her own advantage. The irony was that she strongly advised Stage32 staff not to have any business with this very producer for his shadiness, but forced me to sign with him. And this producer, to continue leeching to my project, made legal misrepresentations to his equivalent from Europe about what kind of deal he got with me, and he did the same to another writer he found at Stage32. And when I thought I finally lucked out, and this European producer is a good guy, he began "impressing" me with his "long ties with influential Russian investors, to whom he wanted to bring my work," and only a cretin doesn't know that these are Russian oligarchs. It was the last straw for me.
I wasted years on Stage32, thousands of dollars, and creative energy. I can prove everything I state and even more about Stage32. If you like someone's notes, pay for them to improve your writing but don't get into any kind of "deals" or sign with anybody you found on Stage32.
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Hello and thanks for taking time to provide feedback. I'm sorry to hear you were disappointed with your review. I'd love to address the concern regarding value and experience.
As you indicated, the $297 price gets customers three reads from our story team. Each story team member spends about 5-6 hours reading the script and writing the analysis (It can be as low as 3-4 hours for an original pilot versus a feature). In your case, the team that read your script has read over 2,100 scripts at Spec Scout alone.
After each of the three story team members reads and submits their collective 12+ pages of comments, our story supervisor reviews the work before delivering everything. For TV pilots, we can deliver that in 10 days (currently running a promotion).
So, collectively, we spend about 18+ hours (or 12+ for pilots) on every submission that comes in. Every team member has been with us for a number of years and each has a proven track record of selecting great scripts that went on to be signed, sold, and made. You can see some of our successes at http://www.specscout.com/screenwriters/#successStories.
In addition to providing coverage to newer writers, our team also actively provides notes directly to some of the most active producer, reps, and financiers in the business. Although we can't guarantee a given submission will get high scores, we pride ourselves on having a positive, constructive outlook, and on rooting for every writer who submits to succeed -- including you!
We are the only site for writers who offers a score that investors on Slated will consider. Because of the amount of time we spend on every submission and the real results we've been able to achieve since we opened in 2012, we feel very good about the value proposition we offer, and I'm sorry that didn't translate int his case. We wish you the very best of luck.
For any questions -- please feel free to email me directly! g@specscout.com