David is a hip talent agent's assistant with three scripts circulating around town. He's plugged into "young Hollywood" - and when he's not working or writing, he's usually hanging out at the beach.

Joe is a middle-aged family man who has split time over the last three years between caring for his autistic daughter and writing what he believes could be the Great American screenplay.

And Deborah is trying to become one of the few African-American women to ever write and direct a feature film, though she's struggling just to pay her bills while she searches for money to produce her script.

These poignant portraits are intercut with wisdom from a “Greek Chorus” of superstar screenwriters like James L. Brooks, Nora Ephron, Gary Ross, Carrie Fisher, Ed Solomon, Larry Karaszewski, Scott Alexander, Paul Guay, and Dennis Palumbo to forge a funny and compelling look at inspiration, creativity, and solitude in Hollywood.

REVIEWS

"As an insider's guide for screenwriters trying to crash the gates, 'Dreams on Spec' is - pardon the expression - pitch perfect."
--Steven E. de Souza, Screenwriter, DIE HARD & LARA CROFT

"I think this is fascinating and extremely well-articulated stuff.”
--Ed Solomon, Screenwriter, MEN IN BLACK & CHARLIE'S ANGELS

"The interviews with the WGA veterans are especially wonderful. Film lore treasures. The film segments with the Gotta-be screenwriters is grist for the tyro writer's mind."
--Lew Hunter, Screenwriting Guru

“The end result is a film that is educational for screenwriters at all levels, while being entertaining and universal enough to appeal to viewers who don't know their INT. from the EXT."
--Creative Screenwriting Magazine

Dreams on Spec takes an intimate look at how far people will go – and how much they will sacrifice – to pursue their dreams. This feature-length documentary follows three screenwriters as they struggle against overwhelming odds – and often their families’ disapproval – to turn their scripts into movies.

BEHIND THE SCENES

When DREAMS ON SPEC’s director Daniel Snyder was attending UCLA, he worked alongside aspiring writer/directors Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary in the famed Video Archives video store in Manhattan Beach, California.

From Quentin and Roger, Snyder learned the passion that filmmakers must have for their screenplays – and how much work it requires to get them made into films. Tarantino, for example, doggedly pitched his screenplays for True Romance, Natural Born Killers, and Reservoir Dogs for more than four years before he hit pay dirt.

By 2004, Snyder was an experienced documentary filmmaker looking around for his next project. He decided to focus what he’d seen back in his video store days, the passion and the perseverance required to succeed in Hollywood. With tens of thousands of scripts written every year in the United States and so few produced, why do so many people spend so much time working on something that has so little chance of ever being realized?

To find the answer to this question, he spent a year following three aspiring screenwriters as they pursued their dreams. He then interviewed nearly a dozen fabulously successful Hollywood scribes. The result is a rare look at why and how so many people these days sacrifice so much to write the great American screenplay.