John Henry, Space Alien

Vulture.com has a really terrific New York Magazine piece interviewing Damon Lindelof about writing blockbusters. Lindelof has some interesting things to say about his work on WORLD WAR Z, where he took an over-the-top third act and brought it back to something human. One of the interesting things he says is that, if he'd been the previous writer, he would almost certainly have written an over-the-top third act, and he explains why. "

"It’s hard not to do it, especially because a movie, if properly executed, feels like it’s escalating ... Once you spend more than $100 million on a movie, you have to save the world. And when you start there, and basically say, I have to construct a MacGuffin based on if they shut off this, or they close this portal, or they deactivate this bomb, or they come up with this cure, it will save the world—you are very limited in terms of how you execute that. And in many ways, you can become a slave to it and, again, I make no excuses, I’m just saying you kind of have to start there.

“It sounds sort of hacky and defensive to say, [but it’s] almost inescapable,” he continues. “It’s almost impossible to, for example, not have a final set piece where the fate of the free world is at stake. You basically work your way backward and say, ‘Well, the Avengers aren’t going to save Guam, they’ve got to save the world.’ Did Star Trek Into Darkness need to have a gigantic starship crashing into San ­Francisco? I’ll never know. But it sure felt like it did."

Where it gets really interesting is when the interviewer proposes he Hollywood up the legend of John Henry, Steel Drivin' Man. Of course John Henry has to be childhood friends with the inventor of the steam hammer. Of course they have to be in love with the same woman. But if it's a blockbuster, there have to be stakes. What is John Henry driving the steel for? Lindelof starts small, but by the end of it -- say he's channeling Writer C in the eventual arbitration -- well, read the article.

Andrew O writes:

What are your thoughts on crowd sourcing and crowd funding, especially with regard to TV? Is it good, bad, the future of the industry? Are crowd funded Web series a good launching pad for TV writing careers? 

I'm curious because I'm working with some friends on the Web's first full length, multi-camera, shot in front of a live audience sitcom. We taped the pilot last month at a theater in Hollywood and we're getting ready to launch our fundraising campaign soon. Are we blazing a trail or trying to push a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll all the way down at the end?

"It's hard making predictions, especially about the future," said Yogi Berra. Time will tell if he was right. It's impossible to say whether crowd funding will be a flash in the pan (probably not) or the Next Big Thing (probably not). It is becoming clear what works well in crowd funding, though. If the principals are famous people, more citizens are likely to chip in money for their projects. If the designer of a well-loved computer game puts out a call for his passion project, he'll probably get money. After all, people want to play his game and they know he can execute. I think Felicia Day would be able to crowd fund a Guild Wars-like project easily enough.

It's harder for someone to crowdfund something that's a stretch for them. Jane Espenson was able to raise $60,000 for HUSBANDS; I think she could have raised more for something more Whedonesque.

If you're not a known quantity, then I think crowd funding becomes a more official way for you to hit up your friends for money. If you have a lot of rich friends, that could work.

You can crowdfund for other reasons than funding your project, though. You can crowdfund to prove to a distributor that there are people who want your movie. You can crowdfund to develop a cadre of supporters for the project who will talk it up on social media once it's made.

Regardless, crowdfunding is a huge amount of work. Count on spending a month prepping your Kickstarter, and then figure the month of your Kickstarter you are doing nothing but pushing your project on Kickstarter by any means necessary. So you're hoping you can raise more money doing than than you could, say, doing your day job.

As for crowd sourcing TV, I'm not even sure what that would mean. Are you looking for 1000 people to help you do punch up? I'm not sure how many good jokes you'll get. Writing talent and skill are rarer than many people realize. But why not? Try it and see.

UPDATE:

Thanks. Most of us are gung-ho about going all out and raising the funds to do at least two more full length episodes. But, a few people think we should hold back, put the pilot on the Web and see if we can build a following before going to Kickstarter or Indi-gogo.

Absolutely put the pilot up first. If it's a hit -- ideally if it goes viral -- then you start your crowdfunding with a bunch of people already interested in your show. If it's a flop, you can then decide not to spend a couple of months crowdfunding more of it.

As with most financing, the more you have, if it's good, the easier it is to get the rest.

Ah, the Intricacies of Co-Writing

Q. If I wrote a script, then invited a friend to come cowrite and fix it up, he changed everything, can I go back to my original and take it back? They were all my characters and concepts. He will not talk to me at all now. Is the script dead in the water or can I take it back? I registered it WGA after I wrote it. Then reregistered the second version with both our names on it. I do have proof the first one though was MINE. Help.

This is why people sign collaboration agreements:  to make clear what you're agreeing to when you collaborate.

In the absence of a paper agreement, the question is, what did you agree to orally, or what agreement was implied, by your collaboration?

If you don't use any of his stuff, I think you're technically, legally free to use your old material. However if any of his stuff has crept into the old stuff, then you can't. (I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.)

Generally I would not agree to co-write with a friend unless we agreed that I was permanently attached to the project. Otherwise I stand to lose all my work if my friend changes his or her mind about my creative contributions. So I completely understand why your friend is pissed off.

Is the project really more important than the friendship? I would rather lose a project than a friend.

I would distinguish between comments and writing. If I give you notes, you're free to use them or not, and I don't gain any sort of ownership over the project. It's only when you ask me to start writing things that I would expect to be part of the project as it goes forward.

In Which I Am Interviewed by the WGAe

Justin Samuels called to ask me a slew of questions. His interview with me is up on the WGAe blog.

Two Sentence Horror Stories

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.” 

From io9. More at AskReddit.

Now, you try.

Why We Pitch

I spent yesterday morning at the Fantasia Frontiėres Co-production Market listening to movie pitches, and pitching my own feature, Souvenir. There was a distinguished Polish director who told us that he couldn't pitch his movie because, as Antonioni told him, if you pitch your movie, you won't make it. I'm in the opposite camp. I think pitching is one of the most valuable creative tools in your toolkit. You can learn more about your own movie in a few hours of preparing a pitch and delivering it than you might learn in weeks staring at the outline. Prepping a pitch really forces you to think about what you want to promise the audience to get them to invest their time and money in your story. What goods are you promising to deliver? Then when you pitch it, the people you're pitching to immediately let you know if they're buying the goods. Then, you go home and rewrite, based on your pitch. As I write a story, I tend to focus on the linear aspects of the story: the plot, the revelation of the characters, the twists and turns towards the ending. I have to go back and make sure I'm taking my time with the emotion and the spectacle. In our case, they dug it. They laughed and clapped in all the right places. We're promising fast cars, a seductive djinni, and people dying in inventive, horrific ways, so we're right at home in Fantasia. Whether your script is finished or not, there's a lot to be said for pitching the hell out of it. If it's not finished, you'll know better what you want to write. If it is "finished" (if any script is ever finished until you shoot it), then you'll know better what to make sure you've written.

Basic Instinct

We re-watched BASIC INSTINCT, partly because I'm pitching an erotic horror movie at the Fantasia festival this week, and I'm hoping to sell glamor and seduction. I had not noticed how much of a tribute to Hitchcock the film is. There's Sharon Stone dressed up like Grace Kelly, but with less underwear, her hair tight and blonde. There are murderous women who look sort of like each other. There's a shot down a staircase. There's a shot of a woman in a rocking chair turned away from us. And there's the whole Bernard Herrman-esque thriller score.

I remember reading the script a while back. My memory is that Verhoeven shot Esterhas's script almost word for word -- oh, there was a rewrite, but nobody liked it. It is a tight, clever script. 

Older Intern?

Q. In CRAFTY TV WRITING, you say that working for a literary agent is the best way to learn about the industry without going to school. I would love to try this, but need to figure out how to get into an agency. Do you have any advice on how to approach getting a volunteer position to work for a literary agent?

I would say, call up agencies and ask if they could use a volunteer!

One thing that may complicate the situation is that I am not just starting out in life...I am a college instructor and a professional in a different field. I know they offer volunteer positions and internships for college kids, but I would not qualify for that type of situation. I just moved to LA, so am new to the area. I also have a lot of experience with writing and reading, so I think I have applicable skills, but I am confused as to how to get in there.

The recent lawsuit by the BLACK SWANS interns has complicated things. Used to be, anyone could offer to be an intern. Technically, interning is against minimum wage laws, but no one much paid attention to that, because everyone benefited from the system. Companies got free, if unskilled, work. Interns got to learn how to do things they didn't know how to do, like read scripts, or call agencies about actors. The BLACK SWAN interns sued, and won, because they were abused, or so I gather. The company had them doing pure office work that had nothing to do with learning showbiz, such as filing pay stubs. I think companies may now be more reluctant to hire non-students. There are actual laws, I gather, making it legal to hire students for free if it's plausibly part of their education. So some companies will have put in place protocols for hiring interns that may block non-students. On the other hand, other companies may still be happily taking all comers. Generally, smaller companies may be more willing to take on someone with no experience to do stuff for free, because they have less money. Also, in smaller companies, you will get to do more different stuff. Bottom line: call people and ask if they could use a hand.