Craft Lectures

The WGA is hosting a series of writing craft lectures.

Writers taking part will include John August (Big Fish, Go), Robert Eisele (The Great Debaters), Diane English(Murphy Brown; The Women), Bruce Evans & Raynold Gideon (Stand by Me, Mr. Brooks), Michael Brandt & Derek Haas (3:10 To Yuma, Wanted), Jon Lucas & Scott Moore (Four Christmases; The Hangover), Winnie Holzman (My So-Called Life, Wicked), Jack Epps, Jr. (Top Gun; Dick Tracy), Nick Kazan (Reversal of Fortune; Fallen), Jim Kouf (Rush Hour; National Treasure) Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek, The Human Stain, Elegy), Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter, Twilight), Thomas Rickman (Coal Miners Daughter, Tuesdays with Morrie), Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost; The Time Traveler’s Wife), Margaret Nagle (Warm Springs; Side Order of Life), Robin Swicord(Little Women; The Jane Austen Book Club), Robert Nelson Jacobs (Chocolat; Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep) and more. Check here regularly for updates.

Held Tuesdays at the WGF/WGA offices - 7000 W 3rd St, LA 90048
7:30 pm to about 9:00 pm.

Via Go Into the Story.

Spongebob Scripts?

Can anyone direct me to some downloadable SPONGEBOB scripts? Thanks!

Reprints

I've seen various bloggers put up reprints of articles when they don't feel much like blogging. My assumption has always been that if you like the blog, and you haven't read the archives, and I'm not writing enough for you, you'll read into the archives. After all, this isn't a daily paper, you can access the whole thing any time you like. I generally try to avoid repeating myself, for the same reason.

What do you think? Do you guys want me to reprint stuff from time to time? Do you ever browse the now ridiculously deep archives?

How Many Irons?

Here's an interesting question, from NO PANTS ISLAND:

Q. You sell your first script (or series concept, in my case).

But what if it stagnates? What if nothing happens to Series A, and the option fee rolls in every year for the next four, and that's it? Today, as I mulled over other projects I've sketched out or brainstormed, I wondered: just how many other ideas should I be trying to get out there? How many other things should I be working on?

The moment I sell or option something, or finish something on commission, the moment it's off my plate, I start working on the next thing. Or the thing I was working on before.

(I get grumpy when I'm not working on something or other.)

I generally try to work on our most commercial idea, i.e. whatever idea will most quickly result in my getting a check, adjusted for how big that paycheck might be if it comes.

Assuming I'm not being paid to write something, the next project I write might be, in order.

a. write up a 3-5 page TV pitch or 6-10 TV pitch bible from an idea

This generally takes priority because it doesn't take much time, and because getting a TV series set up is a much bigger deal than getting an indie film set up. In my case, indie feature: $50-70K script fee against potential $80-250K payday. Series: $20K pilot script+bible up to $120K of development fees, against potential $300K+ per year income stream.

If Lisa has a good idea (it's almost always Lisa), we'll suspend other spec work for a week or so to bang out the pitch bible. Nail those concepts down before they flit out of your mind. Don't let them escape!

b. write up a feature pitch from an idea

The market is currently terrible for indie features, and it's hard to get producers excited about a pitch -- even though, in Canada, they can take the pitch to Telefilm and get most of the money to have me write it.

I can also submit a feature pitch to a few Canadian government programs that pay writers to spec their own scripts.

If the feature "writes itself," the pitch might take a week.

c. spec a TV pilot

In the US, you usually have to go out with a spec pilot if you want to option or sell your series concept.

In Canada I can option a pitch bible to producers, who will look for development money from a network. But if I have a pitch bible that didn't get set up, but I still believe in the show, or if I have a concept I think won't pitch well, I'll write a spec pilot. That's what I'm in the middle of now.

I'm going to spend a couple months on a pilot, so I try to write all the pitches and get them out there before I invest that kind of time.

d. spec a feature

In the US, you almost always have to spec a feature as a first step; pitches won't get you anywhere unless you're a major name as a writer. Also, if you want to get on the lists of studio approved rewriters, you probably have to make a big spec sale.

I try to avoid speccing a feature because producers in Canada are so spectacularly uninterested in spec features. They seem to want to develop their own ideas from scratch, perhaps because that way they can share in Telefilm's development largesse. But if I love a concept enough, I might spec a feature, and that has sometimes paid off.

Speccing a feature might take a couple of months from concept to first draft, but it probably will take more time, and more drafts, to get it where it needs to be.

If you spec a feature, you won't get paid for it until the movie actually shoots. But you might get an option fee plus a rewrite out of it.

e. spec a series script

If you're not a known TV writer, particularly in the States, you need to bang out spec scripts as often as you can. I'd spend a month on a spec, probably; you could reasonably spend one or two.

(See other blog posts for why you shouldn't just write spec pilots if you're an emerging writer.)

Personally, I haven't written a spec episode since Sorkin was writing WEST WING. But most of the people who could hire me in this country already know me, my writing or my rep, well enough that they'll take my various (spec or commissioned) pilots as samples.


I tend to write a project to whatever point I think it's good to go out to producers. If it's a TV series idea that really depends on the writing, I'll go out with a pilot. If it's a concept-driven series idea that, really, any network exec can make a decision on at the bible stage, I go out at the bible stage.

So: how many projects should you have circulating? As many as you can, so long as they're all as good as you can reasonably make them. It's better to have a superb 6 page pitch out than a half-assed pilot. It's better to have one superb TV pitch and a spec feature you've rewritten the hell out of than one great idea, two uninspiring ideas, and three first draft features.

The number of projects you have out there will depend on (a) how fast you come up with new, good ideas (b) how fast you can write them up and (c) how long it takes the market to reject them or pick them up.

The more credits you have, the higher level access you have, the quicker they can reject you. I can take shows straight to the network and get my rejections right away. That tends to reduce my number of free-floating projects.

(I often don't, because I want to develop relationships with producers; and let's be honest, I hate those quickie rejections.)

Getting shows set up also reduces the number of free-floating projects.

We went out with literally a dozen ideas in the first six months of the year. Currently, one is optioned, one I'm speccing a pilot for, two are waiting on feature-writing grants, and the others are pinin' for the fjords. Some got close, some no one sparked to, a couple we pulled after we got lukewarm reactions, because we decided we hadn't quite nailed them after all. We'll go out with them again if we can figure out what they're missing. The pilot was something I wasn't feeling the heat from at the bible stage, so I pulled it and decided to spec it.

So the answer to the question is: as many as you are capable of getting out there... but don't send anything out that you can't be really proud of.

Q. Additionally, should I be giving the company I'm now building a relationship with first crack at whatever tidbits come out of my brain? Or should I be saving tidbits, putting them aside, and working on building Series A and only Series A, until such time as it becomes clear that Series A ain't going anywhere?

I rarely give the same company two things at once.

First, I want to create lots of relationships. When companies are looking for writers, they start with writers they're already in business with. I've got two series because I had something else optioned to the company.

Second, if they like one better, they'll focus on that, and backburner the one they like less. I don't want anything backburnered.

Third, it makes them feel I haven't given them something special. It makes them take me for granted.

Spread the love, baby!

If You're Wondering Why Roman Polanski Was Arrested in Switzerland

... this transcript from The Smoking Gun should make it clear. Warning: NSFW, graphic testimony from a thirteen-year-old who was raped. Polanski jumped bail after being convicted because he felt 42 days was quite enough for this particular offense.

I don't think being an artist entitles you to behave any worse than anyone else. Be a human being first. What's pernicious about Hollywood is it tells you that the rules don't apply in general, because many specific rules do have to be bent. And so a lot of people get lost along the way.

UPDATE: This Salon article demolishes the recent documentary that paints Polanski as some sort of victim.

High School Shows vs. College Shows

Ever noticed how few college shows there are? Apparently a high school show is mainstream, but a college show is niche. Vampires go to high school, gossips go to high school, kids go to high school in the O.C., etc. But aside from FELICITY, I can't think of a successful college show.

(Shows can move to college, e.g. GILMORE GIRLS, BUFFY. But they rarely start there.)

Lisa tells me the reason for this is that very few Americans actually go to college. 17% graduate, apparently. And who knows how many go to sleepaway colleges -- lots of people stay at home and commute to college.

I did not know that. Because, gosh, everyone I hang out with went to college, except for maybe one or two actors who went to a conservatory instead. I would guess that your average screenwriter went to college, graduated, and liked their English classes. Which is not true of most of the audience.

Gotta watch that observer bias. I've blogged before about the standard setup of high school shows. There are the jocks who beat up on the nerds. There are the hot girls who put everybody down. There's a strict hierarchy.

This wasn't my personal experience, but I went to a fancy prep school in Manhattan, with the exception of one year in Palo Alto in the then-brilliant California public school system. But I believe that most people's experience of high school didn't include a strict hierarchy, and popular girls putting down the geeks. Mostly, I think, cliques ignore each other. It may, however, be many writers' impression of high school.

History, after all, isn't written by the winners so much as by historians working for the winners. And historians, and writers, have their own biases.

That's why you often get the movie about the hot girl falling in love with the socially awkward guy who needs her to take him out of his shell. That is every socially awkward guy writer's fantasy. In real life, you generally need to get your ass out of your shell first.

That's why it's good to run your stories by some non-writer friends. See if your take on the world matches anyone else's.

Do You Know Your Rights from Your Lefts?

Q. I wrote for a producer a while ago on an indie film. It was unorthodox, the idea being that a bunch of unknowns write it (5 of us in total) for no money. Shares would then be distributed to the writers for the film's company, thus profits going to them as well as other independent investors. The producer himself was principal writer.

Now this producer has become power-hungry. Bigger names have been brought in, rewrites have been done to the script etc. I'm now down on the script as an "associate writer". I wondered if you ever came across this term before and if you know exaclty what this means? I understand that I have no 'rights' as such but I'm considering requesting some form of payment (other than film shares) and wondered what your personal opinion was on the matter.

a. There's no such thing as an "associate writer." The WGA and WGC allow credits of "Written by," "Story by" and "Screenplay by". If you were involved in creating the original story, you would normally be entitled to a shared "Story by" credit at a minimum.

The exception would be if you guys served really as story consultants. Did you and the other guys actually produce written script materials? Or did you just kick ideas around? In that case you wouldn't necessarily be entitled to a story credit, just a script or story consultant credit.

b. It is not true that you have no rights. Did you sign a contract? If so, you have whatever rights your contract gives you.

If you did NOT sign a contract, then you still own the copyright to your work, and you can prevent its being used. The producers do not own your work unless they paid you something. You can potentially stop production or distribution of the picture if they use your work without your contractual agreement.

In your case, there seems to have been some vague kind of promise. Promises are an oral contract, but no bank or completion guarantor is going to accept a producer's word for it. If you kick up a fuss, then the producers will have to get something on paper with you, because they have to sign all kinds of documents saying they own all the rights to the script, and if they don't, in fact, own all the rights to the script, they'll be in trouble.

c. I wouldn't be too excited about receiving film "shares" in a script. Most films never go into profit, even if they make money for the production company and studio. Production companies have weird definitions of profit that mostly amount to "no profit." Net profits are commonly referred to as "monkey points."

Check Out Dexter and Californication Online

If you're in Canada, The Movie Network and Movie Central are streaming the season premiere episodes of DEXTER and CALIFORNICATION a day following their network debut.

Episode 1 of Dexter (Season 4) will be available online beginning Monday, September 28 on TMN and Movie Central, while the first episode of Californication (Season 3) will be available beginning Tuesday, September 29 on TMN and Movie Central.