One Scene

The AVClub talks about how David Mamet added exactly one scene when he adapted GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS from the stage to the screen.

You guessed it. "Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is, you're fired."

Unfaithful

I wrote a free adaptation for a short story back in university and I'd like to rewrite it, in order to make something that would be all my own, beause I really like the story I ended up with. The fact is that I really didn't stick to the written text and invented many new details. I really liked the themes and setting, which I'd like to keep in a new story, and I am afraid that it might be seen as some form of copyright infringement. Would "Inspired by a story from..." or something like that be a possible course of action? Should I try to get the authorization from the rights owners instead?

Unless it's a selling point that you're adapting a specific book or property, I'd stay away from writing anything that requires rights. By the time you finish adapting most material into a movie, it's not the same material any more. If you haven't talked to the rights owner at that point, you're free and clear. If you have, you're in a bind, and if you have a contract, you're stuck.

The reason to get the rights would be that the property itself is a major selling point (e.g. GAME OF THRONES, a best-selling series of novels); or if the material is so unique and so cinematic that anything but a faithful adaptation would make a worse movie, not a better one. For example, John Grisham writes novels that are already so made-for-features that even if they weren't best-sellers, you'd be crazy to adapt one loosely.

I can't, of course, answer the question "is my adaptation loose enough that I can steal the idea?" That requires a copyright lawyer, and even there, the answer is probably "if you have to ask, then you can't." If someone reading your screenplay would say, "Hmm, this reminds me vaguely of X, did you ever read it?" then you're probably okay. But I am not a lawyer, nor is this legal advice...

I Write the Film

The Onion AV Club has a whole slew of articles comparing the book and the film. Check'em out.

Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

I'm pondering the differences between a great video game and a great action movie.

My hypothesis is it's in the flaws of the hero. A video game hero has no flaws -- only the mistakes of the player. A great action story has the hero make decisions not just because of the situation but because of his character. His mistakes, his hesitation, his reluctance, are what make him human and make us care about him.

Whereas in a video game, you have to force the player to make errors, by failing to give him enough information, or by simply doing it in a cut-scene. And few players will make a mistake out of sentimentality, because they're trying to win.

What would you say are the great video game adaptations? What did they do differently to make a great movie?

What would you say are the great action movies that could easily have been video game adaptations? E.g. PREDATOR. What differentiated them from a video game?

Faithless Adaptations Are the Best

Kevin Miller (XI) speculates about Hitch's habit of adapting trashy novels instead of great, literary ones. The idea is that great novels depend on their language, while trash novels depend on their plot. Since the language isn't going to make it into the movie, the idea is, great novels don't adapt as well as bad ones.

I don't think it's that simple. I think the danger with great novels is that you'll try to adapt them faithfully. The only novels safe to adapt "faithfully" are those which are pretty much already written with a movie in mind -- anything by John Grisham or Tom Clancy, say. If you try to adapt even a page-turner like WAR AND PEACE faithfully, you'll get lost in the subplots. But you can make a pretty good movie out of it if you don't care what readers of the book think.

When you're adapting THE BIRDS, though, you're not going to worry about jettisoning scenes that don't help the movie.

The Hitch technique for adapting a novel is to read the book once, and then not look at it again. Whatever you remember is the movie. If there's something you don't remember, it isn't memorable enough for the movie. I've adapted books that way and it works pretty well. I usually go back and skim the novel after I've written a draft, to see if there's anything I really ought to have remembered, but there usually isn't.

I think it might have been Neil Gaiman who pointed out that you can't "ruin" a book by unfaithfully adapting it to the screen. The book is still there. But a movie has to be its own thing. Hopefully you can retain the tone and the theme, but ultimately your responsibility is to make a good movie, not a faithful one.

Packaging a Book

Q. If I found a book that I thought would make a great movie, and I bought the rights, on what basis could I then hawk it around? Am I still a spec writer? Or am I a production company looking for partners/backers?

Realistically if you're looking to write it, you're a writer, and if you're looking to set it up, you're producing it.

As a writer you'd be expected to have a "take" on how you'd adapt the book: basically pitch the story as you see it on screen. As a producer you'd want to write up a short and snappy pitch on why the book is a great property to adapt, but you wouldn't have to explain how you'd adapt it.

Only a successful book really adds commercial value to the project; only a bestseller is really a bankable element. If no one's heard of the book, then it might actually be a strike against the project: the book already flopped, who is gonna want to see a movie about it?

(In Canada, though, the mere fact of a book being Canadian is a plus when you go to Telefilm for development money.)

If the book isn't a hit, then ask yourself how closely you're going to adapt it. If the characters and plot are very clever indeed, then you'll need to option the book. If what you really like is the concept, then you might be better off considering the book "inspiration." No one can copyright a concept. So long as you don't use the original characters or plot, you are free to steal the book's concept -- that is, until you sign an option agreement with the author. Then the book is attached permanently to the project.

Filthy Lucre

Q. I've optioned a book with the goal of turning it into a $10 million animated feature and I had a friend adapt it into a screenplay with the promise that he would be one of the first paid when we actually secured funding. We want to properly compensate him without breaking the budget. Is there a range that we should be looking at?

Okay, I'll bite. Bear in mind, I'm not an agent or a producer, and either of those will have differing opinions about what's "fair." This is a deal I would have felt good offering a first time screenwriter when I was a development exec.

"Funding" can mean two things. There's development funding, and production funding.

I would say $15,000-$20,000 payable out of the first development funding would be fair compensation for a first-time screenwriter who's written for nothing up front.

It should be agreed now that, should you get production financing, the deal will immediately be upgraded to a standard WGA deal. Your friend should get a production bonus of 2% of budget, capped at $250,000, reducible to 1% if your friend shares credit (or 0% if the writer doesn't get any credit). (Credit is arbitrated by the WGA in the case of disputes.) A 5% share of your gross revenues after recoupment of your expenses (5% of producers adjusted gross) would also be fair if your friend is making the project happen and investing his time on the if-come.

You're right to get the numbers negotiated now. Right now you can argue about slices of a hypothetical pie, and no one has cause to get mad. Once there's money coming in, you can destroy a friendship easily if one friend feels the other is taking advantage of a situation; and that can go either way. Maybe a great movie is worth losing a friend over. A development deal never is.

Spec City

I just got word that Telefilm has approved funding for me to adapt David Layton's novel THE BIRD FACTORY. It's a comedy -- "About a Boy, with infertility," if you will. I actually agreed to do the adaptation last year, but we had to get all our ducks in a row, and then Telefilm had to have a good gander at them. Um.

I think this will be a funny, funny movie, and I'm looking forward to writing the script -- just as soon as I write two more scripts for my pay cable series.

Fortunately, I broke the story and wrote the outline last month, so I'm ahead of the game. This is a violation of my own rules, really. I have always been extremely wary of doing any free work on projects before the financing comes through, in case financing doesn't come through, or the deal doesn't close, and I'm stuck with pages I don't actually own and can't sell. Also, the Guild bans spec writing.

I've broken my rule three times over the past six months or so, for a combination of reasons. One, the projects looked very likely to go (into development, that is), so I didn't think I was taking a big risk with my time. (Not having to treat every project as extremely unlikely until it actually closes is a real blessing.)

Second, two of the projects were original ideas of mine that I had optioned, meaning I owned the underlying material. Rewriting my own feature on spec means that at worst, if the development deal falls through and the option expires, I still own the project, and now it's better written. Writing the pilot to my own series on spec means that at worst, I have a spec pilot I can take somewhere else.

That still leaves the novel adaptation. If Telefilm hadn't approved the development, I would have been stuck with an outline based on a novel the rights to which I don't control. So why work on it? The calculation had to do with scheduling. I wanted to do as much as I could for the feature before the series deal kicked in. (I'd already written the pilot for the series, so I couldn't write more before getting network notes.) I wound up an outline and 35 rough pages into the adaptation before the series closed. I may not get back to the feature until the Fall, but my producers won't feel they're being ignored.

And emotionally, having figured out what the story is, I know it's just a matter of X weeks of writing to take the outline to a first draft. The point in a project that makes me the most nervous is before I know what the story is. After I've broken the story it's just a matter of time and love.

Bear in mind, I didn't tell the producers I'd specced anything, and had they asked me to do it, I would have refused, with a bit of resentment thrown in for flavor. This all came from me.

Not speccing the commissioned work would have definitely been the more prudent approach. But I wasn't about to go looking for more commissioned work in case it all closed at the same time. And I already had as many TV pitches and spec features in my portfolio as my agents could really handle. So I asked myself, "Is there something better I could be doing?" And since taking a vacation is simply not in my bone structure, I went ahead and outlined.

And then I stopped as soon as I got funding for an outline on another project. Because there was something better I could be doing.

My point is time management. It's always good to have irons in the fire, because you never know what will go. Moreover, It's good to have at least two projects in motion, so when you send a draft to your producer and you're waiting for notes, you can jump to your other project. But you don't want to be all over the place creatively, either. And you never want to be in a situation where you have to write faster than you can write your best. So I chose to focus on the deals I had rather than looking for new ones. And that meant writing without total confidence I would get paid.

There's a creative advantage, too, to writing before you close a deal. They can't really give you notes when they haven't paid you anything. So you can pursue your creative bent freely. Later they can pay you to make it something else. But you've taken it that much further, and a better draft always sells your concept better. Even if later there are notes that take the project in a new direction, you've tried some things and you know your story better. You may have to rip up the whole thing and rethink it. But you'll be creatively ahead.

I think, actually, a lot of this goes on. Marc Cherry rewrote and rewrote Desperate Housewives until the network finally got it. He couldn't sell the concept. We know, because he didn't sell the concept. Had he not written the pilot over and over on his own dime, he wouldn't have his name on a monster hit show. I don't see the WGA squawking.

I think to be a writer at a certain level these days, you have to think like a producer. You might have to take financial risks. You might have to find a network and then find a producer. Or at least take your producer in to meet execs that you know. You have to leverage your representatives too. My agents and manager have at least as strong relationships with the network execs, both US and Canadian, as all but a few big producers up here. So I'm not just selling a concept and a piece of material. I'm offering a package.

I'm not sure how this helps the spec monkey, except this thought: a tv writer is not an artist in a garret. You are a creative flame, sure. But you are also your network of relationships. If you spend half your time developing your relationships, you will not be as good a writer, at first, as the guy who's spending all his time writing. But you will get on the air faster. And seeing your pages transformed into pixels is a better education in practical screenwriting than asking your friends what they thought of your pages. And all screenwriting is practical.

In the end, all three projects got financed and went ahead. So I guessed right. And now instead of having spent my summer wondering what else to write, I'm a pilot, a rewrite and an outline ahead of schedule. Nice.

Interview with Me, Part 5

More of my guest lecture:

CS: How do you choose your projects?
AE: I write whatever I love that I think I can sell. I think, "Do I wanna write that?" Then I think, "Can I sell that?" Then I think, "Aw, crap. Well, what CAN I sell?"
CS: Have you ever adapted a short story?
AE: Sarah Polley apparently did a nice job with Away from Her.
CS: Brokeback Mountain, too.
AE: In a way I think a short story might be better fitted for adaptation into a novel. You'd have to throw less stuff out. A movie is fundamentally a short story, not a long story.
CL: I would like to know if you can have more than one POV in a script.
AE: Multiple POV's are novelistic. I’d try to keep to one POV unless there’s a specific reason. For example, a big exception I would say would be romantic comedies Then you normally have two POV's, of the two lovers. Example, SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. And then there are movies like TRAFFIC, BABEL, with multiple story lines. Obviously that requires multiple POVs. But within the one story ... I wouldn't go there. Unless your story REQUIRES it, e.g. to impart one bit of info the hero doesn’t know.
CL: Are there rules you can't break?
AE: "There are no rules. But you break them at your peril." The best art films only use art techniques (i.e. techniques that break the “rules”) because they are justified ... required by the story.
JM: Alex, you mention that the age of the writer does play a role in being hired for rewrites. How about tv?
AE: TV is a young man's world, but mostly because of the hours ...
AE: TV staff writers work really long hours. Older guys wanna get back to their kids. A dear friend of mine once jumped off a show because she wasn't seeing her daughter enough. I think most of the age discrimination is really self selection. The older you are, for example, the less crap you're willing to swallow from idiots.
CL: Is the movie biz really in trouble and how can they get out of trouble?
AE: Oh, Lordy, if I knew the answer to that ... The much bigger question is what will happen to broadcast TV. Check out my interview with Tom Fontana on my blog.

Interview with Alex Epstein, Part One

A UCLA novel writing class interviewed me via chat. I thought you might find some of the interview interesting.


CL: You've done adaptations of novels--can you talk about what you usually end up cutting out--how the shape might differ?
AE: I'm adapting a novel right now. The shape is going to be different because they are different media. The novel, for instance, isn't just about the A story. It's about [hook deleted] ...
CL: The A story? Do you mean the main story?
AE: ... but the novel is also about his childhood, and this odd assortment of people he's accumulated at his workshop ... a second family really. I cut almost all the past out. I cut lots of the quirky characters out, too.
CL: Ah, I see. So you picked out the storyline that is the most movie like.
AE: A novel can be many stories interwoven. A movie USUALLY wants to be one story told straight ahead.
AE: I try to figure out WHAT IS THE MOVIE? The movie is about [hook deleted]. I cut anything that wasn't that movie. Really cut out isn't what I did. What I did was to re-construct a movie story using the novel as source material... I thought "what are the characters I need to tell this story?" A lot of characters didn't make the cut, because they weren't about that story. In other words you rethink it for the new medium. Now that I’ve streamlined the story, though, I’m finding it a bit too streamlined, and some of those quirky characters and some of that past that didn’t seem to belong at first are working their way back in. But not because they were in the novel; because I need them for the story I think we’re trying to tell in the movie. You look at the novel, figure out what the story you want to tell is, and from that, figure out what movie tells that story. In other words you take a step away from the novel and then take a step towards the movie, you don’t go straight from the novel to the movie.
CL: Do you follow a three act structure, or a Truby structure? Or is this the wrong question?
AE: Personally, I don't use a three act structure any more. I find three act structure is not useful because how can a story not have a beginning, middle and end? I used a 7 act structure on this one. I find that if you can fill seven acts with twists and turns you have a movie... Possibly this is because of my TV writing experience of late, where I'm writing 5 acts. And it’s easier to keep 1/7 of a movie in your head than 1/3 of one. Check my book CRAFTY TV WRITING for how acts work on TV.
RG: Alex, when you are adapting a move from a novel how long does it usually take to write the screenplay? How many revisions do you usually do?
AE: I like to spend 6 weeks working up the story outline, and 6 weeks writing the first draft... then tinker tinker tinker. I’ve got something that looks like a treatment now, after only two weeks, but I'm working on it and pitching it and testing it and showing it to a few cronies and the director and the producer, to see if that really is the absolute best treatment I can do. If it takes too little time, I'm suspicious I can do better.

Adaptation by Amazon

I had a nice chat with Karen Walton, whose Ginger Snaps is one of the best Canadian movies of the past decade or so. (A girl matures sexually just about when she's bitten by a werewolf. What's with the strange urges? And the body hair in odd places?)

We talked about adapting novels. Karen offers the Amazon technique. Check out what Amazon says about it. What reviewers -- both amateur and pro -- say about a book is probably what the book is essentially about, in plot, characters and theme. Certainly it's what readers are interested in the book for. Once you know the basic plot, characters and theme, the book itself can become something of a distraction. There are scenes you like that would be out of place in a movie, or fail to translate. You're not trying to faithfully replicate the experience of reading the novel; unless the novel is practically written for the screen, like those of Tom Clancy or John Grisham, that's not a good idea. Your mission is to re-imagine the story for the screen.

Hitchcock famously recommended reading a book once, then adapting it from there. Anything you can't remember from reading the book once probably doesn't belong in the script.

Obviously Karen reads the book, too, but I the Amazon technique is a nifty tool fo your adaptation toolbox.

Elements

Q. Recently I finished a screenplay based up a book that I optioned. The book was written in the late seventies by a well-know author and had some decent success. Would you recommend I include this information when sending out my query letters to potential producers or agents?

There are two reasons you'd option a novel. One, it has a great plot and wonderful characters. Two, it sold a million copies. That is, it is a bankable element in its own right. (If it has merely a great concept, you can always steal the concept. Copyright doesn't cover ideas, only the expression of ideas.)

"Decent success" makes me nervous, as does the age of the novel. Hollywood's reaction is going to be: if this book is so great, why hasn't anyone made it into a movie yet? And why did it sell so poorly?

I would only mention the novel if you can say it was a bestseller. (The term does leave some room for interpretation.) Otherwise I'd just put the name of the book on the script and not in the cover letter. That way you're being honest without drawing attention to it. And I wouldn't mention the age of the novel at all.

The "Take" Meeting

Q. [A high level exec at a studio has sent me] a novel they've optioned, with a view to me adapting it into a screenplay.

I've read the novel, I love it, it's very me, and I feel like I know how to adapt it. I'm meeting with the next week to "discuss my take" on it. And that meeting is my shot at the big time. That's my chance to get a Hollywood commission.

So how should I play the meeting?

Should I write up a treatment, or notes on how I'd like to adapt the novel, *before* the meeting? Would that paint me into a corner? Or should I keep an open mind, stay flexible, and sound them out about *their* take on the novel first? Would that sound wishy-washy, like I don't know my own mind or trust my own opinions?

How much of "discussing my take on the material" should be me justifying my choices, and how much of it should be me listening to how *they* think it should be done? What are they chances they've even read the novel at all, rather than just coverage from some reader?

I really don't want to blow it, but I'm not sure exactly what's expected of me at this stage. I know I can write the screenplay to a professional level; I just want a chance to prove it!

First of all, relax. Half the time you've either got the job walking in the door, or they're just jerking your chain. Which they do all the time, by the way. Having meeting with additional writers when they've already decided who's getting the job is something that studio development execs do in order to look like they're working hard.

I have never got a job by doing an elaborate "take." I know one guy who did this once, but he wasn't going to be able to take the meeting in person. An elaborate take is risky. One, they could disagree with you; but because you've put it all on paper, now they think you can't take it in a different direction. Two, they could fail to understand that the "take" is not intended to be a polished document. They might criticize it as a treatment, rather than as a take. And of course it won't be as good as a treatment that you'd do, because you don't have the job and you're not going to spend 6 weeks on a take.

What I do is go in planning to show them that I'm going to be easy to work with. They already have an opinion about my writing. I want to show them I'm agreeable.

I come in with, at most, an opinion about what the movie is -- theme, hook, and the five elements of the story. (Which are, as you know, dear readers, character, his opportunity/problem/goal, obstacles/antagonist, stakes, jeopardy.) I might sketch out the premise or setup, the sort of complications, and then the ending we're heading towards. At that point they have enough to hire me on, but not so much that they feel I'm tied to one approach.

You might also give them a few really cool visuals, or one particularly memorable scene, if you've got'em.

Don't assume they've read the novel. It might have been bought by the studio head on his summer vacation and dumped in their lap; and who has time to read a 300 page novel? That's what readers are for. On the other hand, do tell them why this novel is a great idea to develop into a movie.

And by the way, if you haven't figured that out by the meeting, you haven't done your homework. Sometimes they will have told your agent what the book is about, which is a good tip-off; or if they called you in on their own, they might have pitched it. There's no harm in giving them back their pitch, elaborated a bit. But if they haven't given you a hint, you still ought to be able to identify what the movie is in any material, whether it's schlock, or incoherent, or derivative, or actually is a good idea. Some of the best movies have been adapted from terrible books, so the quality of the material is no excuse!

What if they don't like your take? Then draw them out as subtly as you can. You can't ask them point blank what they think the movie is, but you can get them talking about the theme and it will usually become obvious.

And after you've listened a bit, start agreeing. Do you want to be right, or hired? Unless your career is in very, very good shape, you're there to get a job.

Remember, as in any interview: they already know your credentials. They want to meet you. Sell yourself as a person above all.

Talent Borrows

Q. I want to write a modern version of an old movie. Should I just worry about writing that script, or are there hurdles like rights?

If all you want to do is steal the concept, you're okay. Copyright does not protect an idea, only an expression of that idea. So if you want to write a movie about a guy who meets the girl of his dreams online, and she's someone he already knows and hates ... you don't need the rights from You've Got Mail. After all, they stole the idea from The Shop Around the Corner, where it was the same idea by regular mail.

But if your lonelyhearts are a publisher and a bookstore owner... you're getting into trouble. Sergio Leone should have got the rights to Yojimbo when he made A Fistful of Dollars, because the plot is virtually beat for beat the same. I guess copyright in Italy was a tad shakey in those days, and anyway, Yojimbo was apparently lifted from a Dashiell Hammett story, Red Harvest...

Siriusly

Marc Librescu writes to let me know he is blogging about how he's adapting a book about a dog with human intelligence into a screenplay...

True Crime

Q. I've come across what I believe to be a fantastic true crime story with a built in narrative and many interesting details to work with. Is it possible to tell a true crime story in screenplay or comic book form and not get buried under a mountain of lawsuits?

My understanding is that you can use anything that appears in the public record. Trial transcripts are public domain, and as I understand it, one has no right of privacy as regards things that have already appeared in public.

If you are using someone's reportage -- say you're basing your screenplay on a series of articles by a reporter -- you're on shakier ground. Usually the studio will want to see that you've optioned the rights to the reporter's work. I believe that if you've based your screenplay on many reporter's stories, you might not need the rights. If a story element has appeared in two reporters' stories, then neither of them can be sure you took your information from them.

However, why not finesse the whole thing and adapt the truth? I doubt there are many true crime stories so compelling they can't be improved on. A knife becomes an ice pick. An SUV becomes a Hummer. An immigrant from Mali becomes a refugee from Rwanda. Your job in adapting true events for the screen is to distill what is cinematic and personal, what supports the story you want to tell, and to fill in the gaps. Unless the notoriety of the crime (Zodiac) or the reporter (Capote) is part of the attraction of the story, you may be better off without the rights. That will force you to judge each scene not by whether it happened, but whether it is necessary to the story. It will force you to ask yourself if you can't do better. (Should the playwright's lover bludgeon him to death with his award statue? Or with a hammer, and then bemoan how he should have done it with the statue?)

Then you can slap an "Inspired by a true story" on the script and you're off to the races.