A Couple of Formatting Questions

Q. The more screenplays I read, the more I realize that, while there are conventions and trends, there is no single way to make formatting decisions. One thing, I have noticed is that transitions like 'cut to:' are rarely in scripts nowadays. Do you use them regularly or just to emphasize a cut or specify a certain kind of transition? I've used them, but only out of convention--scripts seem much more readable without them.

Also, most of the scripts available are shooting scripts, sometimes even with omitted scene markers in them. Frustrating when you want to see a writer's original intent, obviously. Other than that, what are some other principle differences between a shooting script and a writer's final draft?

Is the process different in movies and television?

CUT TO: seems to have gone out of fashion, because it is, strictly speaking, redundant. Of course you cut from one scene to the next. I used to use CUT TO: to indicate a big jump (in time, or characters), as opposed to following one character continuously from an interior to an exterior. But I don't do that any more because no one else does.

Shooting scripts have scene numbers. Later drafts have changed lines indicated by asterisks on the right hand side of the page. Scenes that have been cut are indicated by OMITTED. I would be too put out about that. The writer's "original intent" isn't as important as his final intent. A good writer is trying to tell his story as effectively and efficiently as possible. That often means cutting scenes when you realize you don't need them any more.

The only way that movie and TV scripts differ are the act breaks. TV has act outs (see my book CRAFTY TV WRITING for an extensive discussion), and each new act goes on a new page.

Alberta Minister of Culture Discovers He Can't Censor!

The Alberta Minister of Culture discovered to his surprise that he has no way of denying funds to films whose political opinions he disagrees with. He was miffed to find out he'd signed off on an Oscar-nominated documentary showing some of the environmental problems with the exploitation of Alberta's vast oil sands (pollution, toxic waste, etc.). Now he's looking to change the laws.

Canada has pretty strong government support for culture, combined with a strong attitude that politicians shouldn't try to dictate culture. I don't know what the situation is like in other Western countries. But I'd be surprised to see the Texas Ministry of Culture getting in a twist about a documentary they supported because there is no Texas Ministry of Culture. (Google "Texas" and "Ministry" and you get an entirely different kind of ministry.) I'm not sure there's any governmental support for culture in Texas.

On the face of it, it does seem odd to ask a provincial government to support a documentary criticizing what's going on in the province. In a democratic society, we believe criticism is good. If something's wrong at the tar sands, Albertans ought to have a chance to know about it.

It's interesting that the very same Conservatives who object to government telling the oil industry what to do, want to tell the culture industry what to do. I don't think it's a good idea for government to be in the business of picking which movies to support, any more than you want government tell oil companies where to drill or which drill bits to use. Government has a role in saying where not to drill, and what you can't put on television before kids go to bed.

I definitely don't think government should pick which stories to tell. Let's let the audience weigh in on that. I'm a little more on the fence on the question of whether government should have to fund, say, a Michael Moore-style propaganda piece, or, let's say, a wingnut documentary about how immigrants are ruining our sacred national identity.

What do y'all think?

Another Doubtful Contest

Q. This contest makes some enticing promises, but I'm not sure it's worth a $40 ENTRY FEE ...

There are very few contests I'd consider legit. The Nicholls, the ABC Fellowship ... competitions sponsored by major showbiz organizations (AMPTP, DGA, WGA), or networks, or studios. Agents take the winners seriously. The fellowships practically set you up with a career.

The rest are, I feel, junk. The economics of script competitions are just too good for the people organizing them. With a $40 entry fees and awards in the low thousands, how many entries do you need to break even? How much does it cost to get someone to skim a script and decide it's not going on the short list? I think a lot of people are organizing script competitions to make money.

I also find script competitions suspicious in general because what's the point? There already is a script competition. It's called "getting your movie made." There are no entry fees to this competition, and the prize is, you get your movie made. (That should mean at least $100,000 in cash and offers to write other stuff, not to mention you get your movie made.) Producers deciding whether to invest two years in getting your movie made are making a hard, honest judgment. Juries are deciding, in the abstract, which are the "best" or "best-written" scripts. That's not an honest judgment.

Competitions have all these "quarterfinals" and "semi-finals" so the max number of competitors have something to put on their resumes. It's like getting three out of four strawberries on a one-armed bandit. It gets your hopes up, but it doesn't get you where you want to be.

I suppose getting an award at a competition gives your script a bit of an advantage if it's something that's hard to describe in a few words. An agent might be more willing to read your script if it's a finalist somewhere. But how many winning scripts would have got picked up anyway, without winning a contest?

But I'd rather you focus your energies on coming up with great hooks. Any agent, and any good producer, will read a script with a great hook, for free.

Truth Hurts, Avoid It

Q. One of my screenplays is set during a political and news-covered movement. The story is fictional as are the characters and their plot in this story.

However, certain events in the story did occur in true life. For example municipal, provincial and supreme court involvement with a political action which is all public record. Also police actions and political group actions which are not public record - are seen throughout this part of the script. The story is about fictional characters living out their plot around and during these real life events.

I am using the accurate dates to reflect the times of the Supreme Court hearings and the public record events, but do I use their names? (the judge the prominent lawyer?) These people are not characters in the script, although they are relevant to the story line and to the setting.

Another example within the story is a bank manager who exhorts money. I use the name of an actual Bank to suit the setting - although no such extortion ever happened there in real life. Is there jeopardy for using the Bank's name within a film that has in part some true life events?

This is tricky ground. I'm not a lawyer, but I know that you would not, for example, use a real bank's name, because you are saying that some of their bank managers are corrupt. That tends to bring them into disrepute, and they will sue. (Actually the insurer's Errors and Omissions lawyers will tell you to change the bank name before it gets that far.)

On the other hand, you can refer to real events that happened in the past. You can make a movie about a bunch of kids going to Woodstock, or going on the various Marches on Washington, or getting into trouble at the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, and you can probably show Mayor Daley saying "I'm going to make Attila the Hun look like a faggot," 'cause he's a political figure (not a private person) and it's well enough documented that he said that.

Ordinary people have rights of privacy and reputation. You can't put me in your movie without my permission. Public figures have little right of privacy but you still aren't allowed slander them. In other words you can make a movie about Nixon, but it better all be true. Dead people have very few rights. If you notice in the movie BACKBEAT, only John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe do nasty things. They're dead and can't sue. Paul and George and Ringo are sort of genial people. Either McCartney approved the script, or the film's lawyers decided that there was nothing for him to sue about, since he's a public figure (appearing onstage in front of hundreds of thousands of fans will do that) and the movie didn't say anything nasty about him. You can make a movie about Marilyn Monroe and Jack and Robert Kennedy, and you're probably on safe ground.

I say "probably" because there are other rights, like likeness rights, and brands and trademarks, which I don't begin to understand. And even movie stars have some privacy rights. I wouldn't try making a movie about Brad and Angelina and Jennifer, at least until they're all dead. In general, as I understand it, you're on safe ground so long as you stick to events that appear in the newspaper and in books and in court documents (anything said in court is part of the public record), so long as you make up fictional individuals and corporations to populate them.

Why We Don't Live In New York, For Example

Our loft is in Apartment Therapy.

I'm very proud of Lisa, who has done an amazing job of turning our loft into an Old Hollywood Craftsman bungalow.

Now if we could just figure out where to put the palm tree and the barbecue.

Back It Up

I recently upgraded to Mac OS system 10.5 for one killer app. Time Machine is Apple's built-in backup program. You hook up a suitably massive storage device, and it backs up your computer -- your entire computer -- every hour. It keeps archived versions of everything on your computer for every hour in the day, then every day in the week, and then every week until it runs out of storage and starts deleting old archives.

Apple also makes a hard drive called a Time Capsule. It's also a wireless router. You install it, and now your laptop (we only have laptops) can back itself up wirelessly no matter what room of the house it's in. Our Time Capsule is 500GB but they make one that's a full terabyte.

Note that you can use Time Machine software with any backup device, including the ol' flash drives. But then you have to remember to hook them up to your laptop. The beauty of a router/hard drive is you don't have to do anything. The backups just happen.

Previously I was fitfully backing up my working directory to a couple of flash drives. But to restore my stuff would have involved rebuilding the system, finding all the application DVD's, and manually restoring all the preference files. That could take a day or two. With Time Machine, you just say, "Please restore my entire computer as of this date."

That's pretty good.

This Slate Article talks about what backup programs and devices are available for Windows.

There are also online services, such as Mozy and Carbonite. Offsite backup protects you from fire or theft. The problem is speed. It takes all day for a physically present device to back up your whole computer wirelessly the first time. A full backup over the Internet could take days. Also, if your internet service provider has set limits, even large ones, on your internet use, then an online backup service will put your into a higher use bracket.

But one way or another, idiot-proof backup has arrived. Might be worth setting up. We've lost two hard drives in the past two weeks. It's not fun to lose your data!

Job Applications

I am really impressed by the three dozen (!) letters I got asking to intern as a reader for me. Kudos to all y'all who wrote in.

I've contacted the people on my short list. If you're not one of them, thank you so much for volunteering, and please keep up the good work. Good attitude, guys!

I do have a couple of observations about the emails I got, which I'd like to share with you guys, since you'll probably be writing letters to other people for other jobs -- hopefully paying ones.

First, the most effective letters focused on how you can help me. I want this to be a good fit for you, but my primary focus is on what qualifies you to do the job well. What are your qualifications? What are your skills?

Second, the best letters tended to be shorter. I know this is your shot at the job, so you want to put it all in there. But a really well crafted, well-thought out half page impresses more than a page with everything in it. Anyone who's looking to hire you wants to know that you can prioritize. What's the most important thing you have to say?

Third, the most effective letters were unapologetically positive. Never diss your lack of experience or the quality of your work or talk about your doubts. Almost any letter you write to a stranger is partially a sales letter. Sell yourself to the person you're writing to. Why give me reasons to doubt you?

Finally, showing is more impressive than telling. How you respond to the posting when you don't have the job yet tells me a lot about how you'd do in the job. For example, this is a job that's all about doing work for free. A well-wrought, insightful email on which you obviously spent time and thought shows that you are comfortable doing work for free; one that shows you know me and my point of view qualifies you even better.

Content is important, but, particularly in any writing related job, presentation of content is just as important.

Again, thanks to all of you who wrote me. You're an impressive bunch of people!

Just Add Pictures

Q. I have a concept for an animated comedy series, is it best to write a spec pilot and bible - or to pitch it as a producer?

Note: I'm a former film-school type that sidetracked into the creative agency world. I'm used to making things happen myself, and I've even had the crazy idea to actually create a pilot on spec. (Does anyone do that and succeed - assuming the product is good, of course, and not a heap of amateurish junk?)

My knowledge of the animation world is not deep. I've (re)written exactly one animated feature, which hasn't come out yet. So take this answer with a handful of kosher salt.

Both routes are viable, I think. I know if I had a really great idea for an animated series, I could take a pitch bible or spec pilot to a network, without drawings, and if they loved it, they'd team me up with an animator. Or, I could find an animator, and flesh out the pitch bible with a package of key art. I've seen those around. Then I could probably take that to a production company that does animated series and ask to co-produce with them. I probably couldn't propose myself as a sole producer to the network because I have no track record as an animator, though; so while you could be a producer, you wouldn't likely be the sole producer.

With animation, as with musicals, the concept goes beyond the words. It's hard to imagine an animation series without seeing the key art. So if you can lock down the key art, you'll be ahead of the guy whose pitch doesn't have it.

That said, though, you need great key art. If you team up your great animation idea with mediocre key art, it's dead. The studio or network may have animators they already want to work with. So don't bring in an artist just for the sake of bringing in an artist. Bring in an artist who really illuminates your idea.