Top sheet
Department-level budget with day count, rate year and every assumption printed.
The greenlight room
A bible for investors, studios and casting — priced off your own pages.
Upload the script (Final Draft, PDF, DOCX, Fountain or plain text) or paste it, and the room reads it the way a line producer does: scenes, locations, night work, stunts, water, crowds, minors, VFX. It builds a production top sheet against current guild and market rates, tells you what the picture really costs, then answers the questions financiers ask — with the exact figures, not adjectives. If the number is bigger than the money you have, it tells you what to change in the script, what each change saves, and what it costs the story. Build the development bible first if the characters aren't locked yet.
11
Desks in the room
Top sheet through casting
2026
Guild rate year
SAG-AFTRA · IATSE · WGA
4-pass
Script cost sweep
Every flag carries evidence
minutes
Not months
A budget pass in one sitting
1 · The project
Your words, your facts. Anything you leave blank is reported as outstanding in the package — nothing here gets invented for you.
2 · The pages
Upload the script or paste it in standard format — INT./EXT. slug lines, character cues in caps. The sweep reads scenes, locations, night work, speaking roles and every element that costs money.
- 1Bring in the pages
- 2Check the read
- 3Run the sweep
Drop your script here
PDF, Word (.doc/.docx), Pages, OpenDocument, EPUB, Final Draft, Fountain, RTF, HTML, Markdown or .txt — up to 25 MB.
No scene headings found. Paste properly formatted pages (INT./EXT. slug lines) or the sweep can only guess.
3 · The money you actually have
Moderate Low Budget: Day $449 / week $1,560 from 1 July 2026.
Was “Greenlight Room” useful?
How the room runs
Four stages, one sitting.
The same order a line producer, a financier and a studio executive work in — so nothing gets priced before it gets read.
- 01
Log the project
Title, logline, genre, honest comparables, real attachments, territory and the incentive jurisdiction you can actually claim.
A one-page project fact sheet
- 02
Sweep the pages
Upload Final Draft, PDF, DOCX, Fountain or paste the text. The room reads scenes, locations, night work, stunts, water, crowds, minors and VFX the way a line producer does.
Flagged elements with the evidence line
- 03
Price it
A top sheet built against current guild and market rates — above the line, below the line, post, contingency, bond and insurance — each line traceable to its source.
Production top sheet + cost drivers
- 04
Make the ask
If the number is bigger than the money in the room, you get a cost-down plan ordered by story cost, then the investor Q&A, studio memo and casting breakdown to take out.
Printable investor package
What you leave with
Eleven desks in one room.
Cost drivers
The scenes and elements doing the most damage, sorted by dollars.
Cost-down plan
What to change, what each change saves, what it costs the story.
Script analysis
Scene, location, cast-day and page maths pulled straight from your pages.
Finance & risk
Soft money, gap, equity, bond and insurance position in one view.
Scenarios
Floor, base and upside cases with the recoupment waterfall behind each.
Evidence trail
Every flag links back to the line in the script that triggered it.
Investor Q&A
The fourteen questions financiers ask, answered with figures, not adjectives.
Studio memo
The internal note a development executive would write about your project.
Casting breakdown
Role sizes, cast days and the band each part realistically sits in.
Sources
Guild and market citations for every rate the room used.
Producer's reference kit
Walk in prepared.
Bring this to the room
- A locked-enough draft — page count moves the budget more than any other input.
- Your real ceiling: the money you have, not the money you want.
- Honest comparables — titles in your budget band, released the way you'd be released.
- Attachments you can prove. Anything unattached gets stated as unattached.
- The state or country whose incentive you can actually qualify for.
Budget killers the sweep hunts for
- Night exteriors stacked in the back half of the schedule.
- Minors in scenes that run past their permitted hours.
- Water, fire, animals or driving process with no stunt line budgeted.
- Crowd sizes written as adjectives instead of numbers.
- Needle-drop music written into the action with no clearance plan.
- A VFX count discovered in post instead of in the sweep.
The vocabulary financiers use
Rooms that feed this one
The work that comes before the money.
Story bible
Lock characters, world and continuity before anything gets priced.
Script grading
Four-pass structural sweep and beat map on the same pages.
Script room
Build or repair the draft, scene by scene.
Table read
Hear the pacing before you defend the schedule.
Concept films
Storyboards and a proof-of-look reel for the pitch.
Rights & IP
Chain of title, clearances and the contracts behind them.
Before you ask
Straight answers.
Next step
Price it, then go get the money.
Run the sweep, print the package, and take it out. If you want to see how a finished raise is presented, the house investor room is built the same way.
Related lessons and rooms
Learn the screenwriting methodThe screenwriting guide — the full walkthrough.Script deskWrite scenes in proper format.Script graderBeat-mapped notes on your draft.Virtual table readHear the pages performed.Story bible studioBuild characters, world and season arcs.Live teacherStructural analysis of your sides.Screenwriter membershipThe 12-week screenwriter program.