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Development Read
Prestige isn't budget. It's what you decided to trust the audience with.
Every script is more than one film
A script is usually three or four films at once and which one it becomes comes down to a handful of choices. How bold you set out to be and how bold the draft turned out, what you leave unanswered, where the character turns. I can see each of them.
I don't only tell you what's on the page. I show you the films it could be, how each one looks and sounds, and what it sits next to. One of them is always the film you'd make if nobody was going to give you notes.
Then I ask the question your draft has most likely been avoiding: What do you want to say, undiluted?
You pick the lane because it's your vision. The document is built on that. Everything in it is there to help you see more clearly and then to make the one you chose.
What's in the
document
I start by pitching it back to you, because nothing I say after that carries weight unless you can see I've understood what you're making.
The shape comes from what your work needs. I'm reading it three ways at once: as someone who makes things, as someone who has to sell them and as someone looking for what's actually there. These are the marks I aim to hit, though your script decides which ones it needs, so there might be fewer and there might be more.
You'll get:
1 / What I see in it
Before any note, I pitch it back to you: the themes, the mechanism underneath the plot, where that same mechanism is running in the real world, and where the script stands on it. Then I set that against what you told me you were making. The gap between the two is usually the note.
2 / The story and the characters in it
I usually read this part from the audience's seat. Where I was lost, where I stopped believing someone and where I'd leave unsatisfied. What's holding it up, so you know what not to cut. Where it loses its nerve. Where the rules of the world break, what's set up and never collected and where your characters act or have things happen to them.
3 / The Writing
How it reads and how it made me feel. Your tone, the lines doing the most work, and what's on the page that's worth protecting. Where the draft takes the easier version and what the harder one was.
4 / The film / series
What I saw while I was reading. Comparisons with reasons, casting, what the camera could be doing to carry the theme.
5 / What I'd do with it
What I'd change and what I'd leave alone. Nearly everything I suggest is already in your script, you've just been using it for something else. Where there's more than one answer, I lay out the options and what each one does to the story, and the choice comes back to what you're trying to say.
6 / The producers' view
How I'd take it out. What format it wants to be, where it sits, what to lead with and what to put at the forefront. How to package it so it's attractive to financiers and production companies without compromising its true essence, and without spoon-feeding an audience.
If it doesn't fit the market as it stands, how do we create a different place in it, and how do we bring the industry with us? The creator's voice doesn't get diluted to get there, and the audience gets the truth.
What's it like to work with me
"It made the experience feel less like conventional script development and more like someone had somehow seen the finished film and come back to tell me about it. " September 2026 Alex Ryan recently did what I suppose I'm meant to call a development assessment of my screenplay, OF SOUND AND FURY. I say "I suppose" because, having read it, I'm not entirely sure there's a proper name for what Alex does. She's a bit of a unicorn in this industry. I've had scripts read, assessed, analyzed and covered. This was something else. Alex has an extraordinarily intuitive understanding of story. She identified not only the mechanics of the screenplay, but its tone, its intention, the chord it's trying to strike and, most importantly, the emotional payoff it's reaching for. She saw the film beyond the words on the page. The performances, the visual language, the tonal shifts, the audience experience. And then she articulated all of it with remarkable clarity. What was especially gratifying was that she didn't miss any of the arcs or intentions within what is a pretty multilayered script. She caught things I wasn't necessarily expecting anyone to catch and broke down the story with amazing precision. But she also knew where to challenge me. There were places where she pushed me to go further into the emotional weight of the story, and others where she felt I should pull back and trust what was already there. That distinction matters enormously to me as a writer. Alex doesn't impose herself on the material. She listens to it. She has this uncanny ability to find the frequency a story is broadcasting on and tell you where the signal is clear, where it weakens and where you might be holding something back. Her insights on OF SOUND AND FURY were intuitive, highly creative and remarkably specific. She connected story, character, tone, theme, performance, visual language and audience in a way that made the experience feel less like conventional script development and more like someone had somehow seen the finished film and come back to tell me about it. I don't encounter this particular skill set often. In fact, I'm not sure I've encountered it before. I consider Alex's perspective incredibly valuable, particularly for writers, directors and producers who know what they want to say and want someone who can see the fullest version of what the work could become without trying to turn it into something else. If I were forced to give Alex a job title, I'd probably fail. But I can give her a nickname. She's a script whisperer. Sincerely, Lance Larson Writer, OF SOUND AND FURY
Lance Larson
Film Director and Writer, ODD MAN OUT FILMS
How it works
01
30 minute call -
No Charge
A few questions about you and what you're making. I keep it light, because I like to go in blind.
02
Two weeks later
You receive a comprehensive report. Fifteen pages minimum. The report arrives with a couple of specific questions for you, the person who made it.
03
90 minutes call-
A few days later
We go through it together and decide the next steps (if any).
"I'm not entirely sure there's a proper name for what Alex does."
Lance Larson, Filmmaker ODD MAN OUT FILMS
Who's reading
Alex Ryan - Founder
I'm Alex Ryan, producer and the founder of New Hollywood Productions, where I develop original scripted television. Before that I spent more than a decade running creative production, teams and budgets.
I read as someone who understands both the creative and the commercial and how they work together without one compromising the other.
I understand story and human nature, and I see the patterns and cycles in both, but what makes the difference is who I am, and that's easier to experience than to describe. That's what the first call is for.
PRICE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT READ
£450
A script, pilot or treatment. £650 for a series bible, a novel or a full season plan.
I take on two a month, so there's sometimes a wait.
YOUR TURN NOW
Tell me what you're making
Request an introductory thirty-minute call or send me an email first if you'd rather.
Frequently Asked Questions
FOR COMPANIES
The same work for producers, production companies or indies
The same read, on your schedule. Notes on a writer's draft before it goes to a broadcaster or financier. Reading your submissions and telling you which two are worth your time and why. What an adaptation is before you commission anyone to write it. Sharpening a pitch document so that it speaks their language as fluently as your own, without giving up a word of yours.
£450 a day, in blocks of five or more. Tell me what's coming up and when it's due.