Tag Archives: Screenplays

So it’s 2015 and it’s starting with a bang and a boom. Already had my first 2015 trip to LA, a two day whirlwind of meetings that saw me come home today with a GREAT job that I can’t talk about yet. But I am happy. Like really really really happy. And maybe, just maybe, an adaptation job on top of that one. It’s looking, knock wood, thank You God, like it may be a good year.

Plus... I got to hang with a really fun, genuinely nice, intelligent group of writers. Drinks and a little pizza and talking and networking and learning. I always come away from talking to writers with a little more knowledge than I had before we talked. I enjoyed it more than I can say.

On to the subject at hand. I read a LOT of scripts. I trade with some people to get and give notes. Writers ask me to read their stuff. My manager sends me scripts he’s been sent for me to read. Sometimes production execs or development execs send them directly to me to read. I love my Ipad. I can download and read most of them there, only printing out the ones I have to take serious notes on. Even then, my wife asked me to do something about the stacks of scripts in my office. I’m not looking like a hoarder yet, but the opportunity awaits.

Lately (thank you Mac & T.A.) some scripts I have read are really good. Scripts that show imagination, skill, and care.

But:

Most of the scripts I read are, to be polite and we should always try to be polite, are... lacking. Some in big ways. Some in huge ways. It’s hard to tell someone their subject matter won’t sell tickets or cause someone to hit the button on their remote to watch ever. To tell someone their script has enough plot holes in it to fill the Albert Hall. (A Beatles reference for you to look up if you don’t know) But damn... even if your story sucks, you shouldn’t be making glaring technical errors. Some of these errors are so bad I think the writer never really read what they wrote. Some of these errors are pet peeves of mine and because it’s my Blog and no one but Enzo the Dog is here with me, and he agrees with everything I think and say, I WILL talk about one of them now.

At or near the top of my peeve list is the subject of REAL TIME. Movies, TV, take place in real time. Unless you use some story device to suspend real time, what you write that happens in a scene is supposed to happen in the time you describe... Ok. Let me give you an example:

EXT. OLDER OFFICE BUILDING -- DAY

Chester and Harry emerge from the building. Chester holds Harry by the ear and pulls him.

HARRY

Owww. Okay, okay. I said I'd go.

(Hey. My Blog isn't letting me format this right and I'm pissed, but what's new about that?)

That’s the whole scene. 1/8 of a page. Let’s break it down. Chester and Harry emerge from an office building door. Chester firmly gripping Harry by the ear, pulls him along. Harry says one line of dialogue.

If you saw this in real life on the street it would take, what, maybe 15 - 20 seconds at the longest to watch it. You saw it in real time. That 15 – 20 seconds it could/should really happen in is real time. Just like it’s described.

Now, an example of something I just read with major changes to protect the writer, but the gist of the scene is THE SAME:

INT. RESTAURANT - DINING AREA -- DAY

Bob and Bobette take their seats at the table. Bob reaches out his hand and takes hers in it.

 BOB

Wanna do the salad bar? I know you're on a diet and I'm trying to be more sensitive.

Bobette pulls her hand away.

BOBETTE

You trying to tell me I'm fat? I wore my skinny jeans.

BOB

No. Of course not. C'mon. Let's get a salad.

They stand and walk to the salad bar and make their salads, returning to their table, sitting down and eating.

BOBETTE

You know, this really is a good salad. Thank you for suggesting it.

Bob smiles triumphantly.

Let’s break this scene down. An unfeeling jerk tells his girlfriend she’s fat. She reacts, he brushes it off. I just timed it on the clock in my office. 10 seconds. Real time.

Then they get up, walk to the salad bar, and MAKE THEIR SALADS. I don’t know about you, but I don't want to take 4 or 5 minutes of my time to watch these clowns make a salad and take it back to their table and then EAT IT. That’s exactly what's described in the action line. It looks like the writer wants the audience to sit in silence watching these characters build a salad then take it back to the table and stuff their faces. Oh... the suspense of what dressing they choose. Will they like it or not? Is that arugula in her teeth?

Ok, we know that’s not what the writer wants, unless he’s insane or Andy Warhol, but that’s exactly what's described in the scene. Exactly. In real time.

Another example. I once got a script where an action line read something like this:

Billy stands by the side of the road and hitchhikes for an hour, watching cars pass him by, before a white Limousine pulls up.

I laughed. I called my friend Jeff Willis and read it to him and he laughed and said, “Man, that’s one long scene.” Yeah, as described even though it’s not what the writer meant, that scene as written uses an hour of screen time. With NOTHING going on. Action lines are literal. They happen in real time.

Good readers, pro readers, notice this stuff. They KNOW that’s not what the writer meant. They recognize the technical errors. But it IS what the writer wrote. It’s right there on the page. They know if you’re not on the ball enough to see these things, it’s gonna be a long read. It colors the way they look at your script from that point on. You need to pay attention to every word you write. They mean things.

Look back at your old scripts. I hope you don’t find these things. You might though. And from this day forward, think in real time. How long is exactly what I am describing going to take?

It’s such a simple thing.

 

A while back I wrote a Blog about Expectation vs Reality when it came to what your script would look like after it’s been through the Production Company/Network development process versus what it looked like when you wrote it. I wrote about how much it would change and used as an example the film (The Right Girl) I wrote with my cherished friend and colleague Jeff Willis.

I also talked about how Jeff and I did six paid rewrites with multiple Production Company notes and made huge changes (monstrous changes) with even more notes from the Network with even more changes and even more notes from Production Execs as it got closer to production, and then finally, the director notes. To say the script was extremely different from the original script we wrote is way way too mild. It still has our stamp on it, but the movie we wanted to see originally from our idea and the movie they wanted to see were night and day. And we had to please more than a dozen people we ended up getting notes from before the film was made. All who wanted to put their stamp on it somewhere, too. And YOU, as a writer, better be ready for this and OK with it because that’s reality. Because if you’re NOT ok with it, they’ll hire someone like me to rewrite the way they want it anyway. Cold and brutal truth.

Ok... semi-old territory. Now... new territory. The Production Company sent us copies of the director’s cut of The Right Girl this week. So now we get to talk about the difference between YOUR final production script and what ends up on the screen.

Here, I make a confession. I was able to go to the set for a full day early in the shoot to watch, so I had an idea of what was coming. I had worked with the director many times before (he’d directed two of my other Cable Movies). I met him originally when he directed two episodes of Nash Bridges a lifetime ago. So I know how he works and like it and like him. I also got to meet some of the actors who were playing the characters Jeff and I had created.

Attention writers: Here is where I tell you what you don’t want to hear - - - YOU DO NOT GET TO CAST THE FILMS YOU WRITE. They may ask you who you had in mind, but when it comes to actually casting, you have ZERO SAY. None, Nada, Nyet. That’s Producer and Director Territory and YOU AREN’T ALLOWED. I know it hurts to hear, but it’s fact.

You can be happy when you hear who’s been cast, or sad, or confused, or angry, or you can say, “Who?”. But you have NO SAY. Beside the one film I wrote I’d like to disavow because of the final cut and the, in my opinion, questionable casting, I’ve been super fortunate to get wonderful actors cast in my films. This time was maybe the best.

There on set, I immediately fell in love with Anna Hutchison (Cabin in the Woods, Spartacus), who was playing our main character. Not only is she a sweet, just jaw droppingly wonderful person, she was stunning in character. She WAS our Kimberly. It was amazing and kind of an out of body experience to watch. I would use her again as an actor in a second. Add in Costas Mandylor (Who I also knew from Nash Bridges. He pointed at me and said, “Hey, I know you.”) and Gail O’Grady, who was also there that day, and I was a happy camper at what I witnessed.

I wish Jeff could have come with me, but he was in Brazil doing humanitarian work while I was hanging around the Craft Service table, showing me up once again. I’m not kidding. He was in Brazil building houses for the poor or something. An amazing man who puts his money and time where his mouth is.

So I got the film and I popped it in my computer to watch...  And once again it was a HUGE LESSON. A lesson to writers everywhere. It’s never what you expect, even when you watch it being shot.

When you as a writer have your finished written script, you see it in your head, or should. You see the scenes play out. You hear the line interpretations the way you want to hear them. But you’re not the director (unless you are, then ignore me) nor are you the actors, who bring their own skills with them. Skills, if they are good actors, you cannot fathom until you see what they do with your dialogue and action. Things you never even THOUGHT of. There were times in the film I was stunned at how wonderfully the lines were interpreted and how differently than I had heard them in my head. Better differently.

The direction was solid, but then I expected that. Some great camera use that really moved the story well. Zero problems with the way it was shot. Great sets, costumes, and production design. And the edit was good too. A little long, but it’s a director’s cut.

But since these are YOUR characters and you know them inside and out, you sit and pray for them to be what you envisioned. Good actors bring their own life to your characters you can’t anticipate. Again, Anna was a revelation in the cut. Just astonishing. The character of Kimberly, as we wrote her, is a very vain and arrogant (and funny, we hoped) person at the start of the film. We knew the actor playing her would have to be able to skate a thin line to not make her so unlikeable that the audience didn’t care about her journey. Anna did it with a classy ease that brought layers of dimension and humor we couldn’t have dreamed about. She was what I had pictured Kimberly to be and much more.

But then, a lot of the time, what you picture doesn’t happen. Costas’ interpretation of his character was nothing like we had pictured. Where our written character was lighter and more comic relief, Costas brought a serious twinge to him, too. Gravitas that we didn’t expect in the character. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. A lot. It was terrific. I never saw it in the character. He did. And Gail O’Grady was more sophisticated and urbane that we wrote her character and it worked too. Well. Dorian Harewood brought his considerable skills to his character, too, playing him exactly the way we imagined him. Overall,  all the acting in it was first class. And I thank these pros from the bottom of my heart.

A lot of the scenes were word for word what we wrote (AND THEY WORK) and I can’t tell you how exciting that is. You’d have to experience it to understand.

Sometimes you get really lucky... And sometimes you scratch your head... at the same film.

There's a whole big scene neither one of us wrote in the middle of the film. Smack in the middle. A scene that wasn’t in our final draft. It wasn’t bad. It just doesn’t add anything to the story. It’s there and I have no idea where it came from or why it’s there... one of those surprises you have to expect as a writer. And the choice of the producers and/or the director, because in the end it IS their choice and not yours.

And the last scene is completely different from what we wrote, too. Not a bad ending scene at all, I like it, just not close to what we wrote. A different direction yet again. A new ending that they rewrote while making the film. Something that happens every day, by the way. And as a writer you have to shrug and understand because, again, it’s not your decision to make.

Jeff called me after he saw it and we talked for quite a while. Are we happy with the film? You bet. Very happy. And our names are in the titles in BIG letters, right before the Director’s. You can’t beat that.

Is it our script the way we pictured it? Well, no. IT NEVER IS. In this case, I’m happy to say I think it is just as good and in some places better. That’s not always the case. You need to understand that, too.

I’ve watched The Right Girl three times now and get happier each time. I’m also starting an Anna Hutchison Fan Club.

 

The difference? Expectations can be anything you can imagine. Reality mostly bites you in the ass.

This Blog is courtesy of a few new writers I’ve dealt with in the past couple of weeks. I got a lot of response to my last Blog, mostly about the writing to budget part of it. I talked about writing low budget films because I said, and I do believe it, that a new writer has a much much better chance of getting traction with a low budget script than with a high budget one. And this is purely based on numbers.

I can count on my hands the number of entities who can produce a high budget script. And the truth is, they don’t buy spec scripts anymore. Look at what the big budget films of the last five years consist of if you think I’m wrong.

Maybe a couple of exceptions a year. But out of the thousands and thousands of high budget specs floating around out there, two or so exceptions a year does not offer a new writer very good odds. You have a better chance of being killed by a rhino.

The problem is most every new writer I heard from about this subject assured me that they were the exception. Their big budget epic is going to knock the studio execs off their feet and most likely a bidding war will ensue. All they have to do is get it to “fill in the blank”.

1. Spielberg

2. Jonah Hill

3. David Fincher

4. Denzel (they never say his last name)

5. You get the drift.

Expectations. Sky high. No semblance of reality.

There was a time when people did research and/or worked to find out how to do something. I’m not sure if it’s cultural or just the sheer numbers now of people writing screenplays, but those days seem to be gone for most new writers. They storm onto Internet Boards of all kinds demanding satisfaction for their monumental efforts. And when they find out the truth, they whine. “Why won’t the agents at CAA read my script? Why won’t George Clooney read my script? It’s not fair.”

That’s right. Life isn’t fair. Get used to it. You’re not living in an insular world where they don’t keep score and everyone gets to play regardless of skill anymore. Everybody is NOT a winner.

There are ways to get your scripts read by agents, managers, actors, directors, and producers. You network. You query. You use websites like the Blacklist. You enter screenwriting contests if you want (although personally I think 98% of these are worthless). You go to pitchfests. You don’t know what these things are? Go look them up. Learn to do the nose grinding work that most successful writers have done.

Now, you also have to write great scripts to get noticed and I can count the great scripts I’ve read this year on three fingers. And I’ve read quite a few. So it’s not easy.

And I’m not innocent in all of this either. I was filled with unreasonable expectations from the moment I started writing. Luckily, I learned some valuable lessons early on. Painful lessons. Extremely painful lessons. So I listened and I took those lessons and I studied the industry and I found out how to get my scripts read the way the industry expects me to.

Did it temper my expectations? Yes absolutely, except one. I lost that one a couple of weeks ago.

My last remaining expectation was that I was going to write features. Movies I could walk red carpets to see. In the theaters. It still may happen, maybe. I have some scripts optioned that if they get made might not go to VOD first.

My first credited film was for a big Cable Network. They were the only people offering me the chance to write films. It was where opportunity came first. Luckily for me, it was a huge success for the network. Sky high ratings and good reviews. And then… the next five credited films came. Also for Cable Networks. Also rating successes. The one film I thought might go and get theatrical release was postponed yet again not long ago. It still has a very good chance of being made next year, but again… expectations.

My CV says loudly… this guy writes for TV. Very successfully, thank you God, but for TV. Not what I had planned.

Then reality a couple of weeks ago. In form of a very very good friend.

Jeff Perry is an amazing actor. You all might know him as Cyrus, the President’s Chief of Staff, on the show Scandal. Jeff, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney founded The Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago right out of High School. It’s still one of the premiere theater companies in the world. If you don’t know Scandal, look Jeff up. You know his face and you know that he is uniformly excellent at anything he does on TV, film, and on stage. He is also my good friend.

We had breakfast a couple of weeks back and were talking about my career. (His is set) I was bemoaning the lack of theatrical films on my CV. He told me, and correctly I might add, that if I was getting a reputation for being a TV guy that was great, because the future of this business was right where I am. TV, VOD, Netflicks type outlets, Cable Networks. Look at the kind of risks all these entities are taking. Look at the originality across the board. I know all these things are true, but expectations…

The more we talked seriously about it and the more I thought about it afterward, the more I came to realize that I am positioned as a writer in a pretty good spot for where the future of original writing in this business is going.

Right after that I had a general meeting with a big production company that does both theatrical and TV producing. We talked about my theatrical film scripts and they asked to see a couple of them, but they brought me in because of my TV resume. So they asked what I had there. I told them. They asked for my hour drama pilot. But… They really got jazzed when I talked about a mini-series idea I’m working on with actor/director Elise Robertson. TV mini-series. Jazzed enough to ask that Elise and I come back in for a formal pitch.

Not bad. Expectations and Reality. Sometimes, just sometimes, reality doesn’t bite you in the ass. You accept it and embrace it.

Made it through about 8 pages of a script I was sent a couple of days ago. I had to stop reading. It wasn’t the story, I don’t think. I have no idea because I couldn’t wade through the misspellings and atrocious grammar to get to it.

Maybe some of them were typos. There’s not a writer alive that can find every single typo in a script. But most of them were sheer laziness and probably based on the attitude of “If they buy it, they’ll fix it. It’s the story that counts.” I’ve actually heard more than one writer say this or something similar to me in the past.

They are wrong. Spelling and grammar matter in a script. It reflects on how serious you are taken as a writer. Making the read as smooth and mistake free as you can is essential to getting your story told. Every misspelling or massive grammatical error takes the reader out of your story and focuses them on how poor the writer is for leaving them there.

Your writing reflects you. And getting anyone, besides your family and close friends, to read your script is an accomplishment. What you want is for them to want to read more, to love what you do and your style, to get them on board with you as a writer. Bad grammar and spelling does the opposite.

Yes, scriptwriting is different. We can all acknowledge that. You can write in fragmented sentences. You can break any and all grammar rules in dialogue if you have to. You can even break some spelling rules in dialogue to get a character’s syntax across. That works. But systemic spelling problems on every page will get your script tossed, in my opinion. Ur is not a substitute for Your. Twitter speak in your action lines is not the best way to get your story across.

Every program has spellcheck, so I’m kind of amazed that the spelling errors are still so prevalent. But they are and mostly all in bad scripts.

The excellent scripts I’ve read in the past and three for sure in the past couple of months were, not surprisingly, about 99% mistake free. (Thumbs up to Mike Maples, Emily Blake, & Eliza Lee)

I’m not reading the rest of that script I got 8 pages into. I’m calling the writer and telling her why, too. If she fixes it, I will happily give it another try.

Ok. Spelling and grammar rant over. Now... let’s talk about budget.

This is one subject that really gets some people in a lather. Should you pay attention to the budget of the script you’re writing? Or... should you just write the story you want to write and to hell with how much it will cost to make?

There are compelling arguments on both sides, but I come down on the side of paying attention to it, with a BIG unless...

If you are writing your big budget script as a writing sample, using it to try to get a big budget writing job somewhere down the line, I get it. That makes sense. I have a couple of those.

To expect to sell big budget scripts is a whole different matter. The truth is that there are very few producers or production companies that can make big budget scripts anymore that are pure specs. Maybe 5 or 6, tops. Maybe. And even those will make a script based on a sequel or a well known novel or a comic book or a cancelled TV show or a video game or an iconic cartoon or an amusement park ride or a board game before they’ll make a big budget spec. Hell… they’ll remake a previously failed film before they’ll make a big budget spec.

Now, before you fill my inbox with all the exceptions, I am aware of them and also know I can count those on my fingers in the last 5 years. You don’t even have to be paying much attention at all to see this trend. And add in unproduced writer to your resume and the odds go down a lot further.

But, as a writer trying to break in, if you write your scripts, or most of your scripts, with a budget of a million dollars or so, some maybe even less, there are tons of producers and production companies that want to read what you have and they can actually buy them and make them.

I am convinced that as a new writer trying to get noticed and optioned, right now, at this time in the industry, writing a great low budget film is the way. That may change, although I doubt it, with all the studios making safe tentpole Spiderman 14’s rather than something they have to take a chance on.

A great big budget script can help you if it’s for a writing sample, so you have to weigh it. But getting a big budget script read is also harder to do, in my opinion.

Write what moves you, but think about writing something lower budget that moves you, too. There are a lot more people out there who can read and option those.

 

Sometimes, writers ask me for advice of all kinds. More lately since I started the Blog.

Anyway, this last week I heard from a writing team who had written an adaptation based on a true story that was brought to them by a producer and the person whose story it was.

These writers did research. A lot of research. Worked hard on crafting the script. Took it to their writing group, workshopped it, got a lot feedback, and used those notes to improve it to the point where they thought they had a pretty darn good script.

Sounds pretty good, huh? Now, the producer wants the script and the owner of the story wants to bring on another writer to look at their script and possibly do a rewrite. All normal things for people to do trying to get a script ready for possible production.

Except… The writers have no contract. They were promised one. Never got it. Wrote the entire work without a deal in writing from anyone. They also accepted payment of one dollar. That they got. They said they’ve asked for the contract on numerous occasions and have gotten the run around. They have no manager or agent to help them either. Having either or both negates this whole blog, by the way. This is for the majority out there without representation.

So... Now the writers don’t want to send the script. They asked me what I would do. I told them I wouldn’t have written a damn word without a signed deal in the first place. They said they registered the script with the WGA, wouldn’t that protect them? From what? They accepted the dollar. They don’t own it. It’s a work for hire based on someone’s life they don’t have the rights to. All they’ve done is register their version of the story, which the producer can’t use without paying them. And that’s good. But they still don’t own the story and can’t sell it to anyone else.

So I told them, if it was me, I’d say, “Be happy to send the script when I get the contract that was promised.” So they did that. They heard back from the producer first. He said that he was dropping out of the project and goodbye. Don’t contact him again.

Next came a letter from the lawyer of person whose story it was. It said, “The project is dead. Don’t contact my client again.”

So, where does it leave these writers? With a ton of hard work and sweat gone and a script they can’t do a damn thing with. Time, and I’m sure money, they could have spent on their own original scripts.

Is this an unusual story? Not at all. These are smart, capable, nice people who have a dream to write films that get made and seen. A small example of the thousands and thousands who have the same dream. Heck, it was my dream.

The lure and promises of possible production and paid jobs is hard to resist for a screenwriter with a dream. I know. When I first started, I fell for it, too. Fell hard. Promises by “producers” who couldn’t buy their own coffee, but talked a good game. Only once I wrote while waiting for a contract that never came. Learned that lesson fast.

The lure. The dream. The excitement. It’s so easy to fall into the trap these writers did. That I did.

Then I got smart. No writing without a contract. None. No writing without a paycheck of some kind. Didn’t have to be a lot, depending on the project, but money needed to change hands. If someone doesn’t have a financial investment in what you’re doing for them, they can drop it without blinking an eye. Doesn’t hurt them one bit. You’re the only one who’s out. Your valuable time and effort wasted. Do you want to be in that kind of arrangement? Too many writers get into them every day. Are there exceptions that work out? Sure. But the percentage is so incredibly small, to me, it’s not worth the risk.

Finally, I also realized you can turn people down. Really. And you have the right to check out the people you’re dealing with. To ask them who they are and what they’ve done. To ask for references. If they are legit, they won’t bat an eye.

You have the right to negotiate, in good faith, a contract you’re both happy with and walk away if you’re not. Save yourself some grief.

One of my scripts, one that’s been optioned by six different companies, taught me how to do it. One very well known producer wanted to option it for his company. He sent me the contract. Not bad, but it had two sections with what I call “pull the wool over the naïve and excited writer’s eyes” clauses. Clauses like this are in a lot of contracts because like any good business, the business is going to try and get away with all they can. I don’t get mad about stuff like this. It’s business. And not just the film business. All big business.

We sat in a nice LA restaurant with a couple of his assistants and I looked him in the eye and slid the unsigned contract back over to him said I couldn’t sign the deal with those clauses the way they were. Sorry. The assistants were shocked. Shocked. Wasn’t he doing me a favor to option my script? Nope. It’s business. And you as a writer are in BUSINESS for yourself and you need to treat it that way. The minute you get emotional about it, you lose.

The producer smiled and asked me what I would suggest the clauses say. I told him one had to go completely and how I would redo the other. He asked “Would you walk away from this deal if I didn’t do it?” I smiled and said, “Only after dinner’s over, I’m enjoying the company.” He laughed. One of his assistants asked me if I was serious. The Producer looked at me and then at his assistant and answered for me. “Yes. He is.”

The bottom line, we came to an agreement that was satisfactory to both of us and I signed the contract. Movie never got made. Not that they didn’t try hard. And they paid me well for the option and I was happy to do rewrites for them.

Now, that same film is getting made this year with one of the people I met through that deal.

You want to be a pro writer? Act like pro writers do.

Get it in writing. Get a contract before you do any job. Treat it like the business it is. And negotiate the best deal you can. Remember, people can promise you anything verbally. Make them write it down.

One of the most frustrating things about screenwriting is the time it takes for anything to happen. Anything. It takes time to figure out what to write. It takes time to research it. It takes time to write it, always longer than you think. Then come your rewrites. Time. More time.

Now you want someone to read it. It takes time to build a network of writers and trusted people in the industry to vet your work before you try to get it out to be optioned or sold. And then it takes time for them to read it and get back to you because they’re busy, too. This is if you want to do it right.

This doesn’t take in the time you need to write a bunch of scripts to get good enough to be able to maybe sell one. That’s a long time, too.

Now… You can write a script in two days and be done, have no one but your friends and family read it and then try to send it out. The chances it will not be complete crap are infinitesimally low, but you still have to sell it. And that’s where time really slows down.

And here we get to the most frustrating thing about dealing with new writers. Most expect instant gratification. They have no idea about the reality of film and TV production or they think their script is so good, that even knowing how long might take, they will be the exception to the rule. Nope. Not going to happen. Not. Going. To. Happen. Either way, their thought is: I will write this script. It will sell. I will be on the red carpet at the premiere in six months. Ok, three months.

Sounds like an exaggeration, right? Yeah. Ok. It’s a pretty harsh assessment. But it's what I hear. All the time. It's the expectation. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard writers complain they haven’t heard anything from a reader and it’s been a WHOLE WEEK. Or the manager who requested it hasn't gotten back to them in a month. Or why can’t they get anyone to read their script right now? Why do I have to wait? Why is it so unfair that you can’t send an unsolicited script to anyone you want and have them read it the next day? Ok… I’m exaggerating again… but not by much.

The system is set up the way it is so that producers, production companies, agents, and managers are not so overwhelmed with product that they can’t read anything. There are hundreds of thousands of scripts out there looking for a home. And every writer of each of these believes they have the next hit film. That includes me. You should believe in your work. It’s essential to success. But the industry doesn’t believe you. Thus all the checks and balances and brick walls put up by the people in the film and TV business. It’s self protection from the avalanche of scripts that would engulf them.

And… getting through those checks and balances and brick walls takes time. A lot of time.

Want to know how long? It’s not weeks or months. It’s years. Mostly years and years. Yeah. That much time.

As a new writer who’s trying to get read by a manager or agent, if you're lucky enough to get a request based on your query, you need to know it could take weeks or months to get to the top of their pile. If you get read sooner, it’s a bonus. Once you have a manager or agent and they send your work out, it can still take weeks or months to get read. And longer after all the passes, because you have to do it all over again. I heard hundreds of no’s. Still do. You have to be patient. It hurts, but you have to.

Yes, there are fabulous sites like the Blacklist that may speed up the process, but nothing is guaranteed and it's a tough process to get through them, too. Still, I wish they'd been around when I started, but hey… c’est la vie.

But now, you hear yes. And you’ve optioned a script. Congrats.

Once you option something, even if it’s shortcutting time on the Blacklist?  Time? TIme slows to a crawl. You have no idea.

Someone has finally said, “YES”. Well, it’s not a real yes. It’s a qualified yes. They have notes and you need to rewrite your script to satisfy those. Whoops. Nice try. We need a second rewrite. More notes. Now another year has passed, good thing you gave them a renewal for another year. We might get Denzel, you need to rewrite it for him. More notes. Another three months. We didn’t get Denzel. But we have more notes. Another six months.

We have a director. He has notes and is going to do the rewrite himself. You sit and hear nothing for another six months. You email and call and they tell you to be patient. If you email and call too much, they’ll shut you out completely so you have to be careful. Then they hire another writer to rewrite it. And then they renew for the last yearly option. You’re in your third year. They tell you that they’re close to having financing. And another year passes and they say, “Sorry, we tried”. You get the rights back. To your original script. They still own all the changes you made based on their notes. You can sell the original again. And process starts once more.

This is the norm. A small percentage of scripts optioned actually get made. I optioned multiple scripts multiple times to Studios and BIG and small production companies for eighteen years and never got one film made. Made some good money, but never had an original script of mine made.

That changes this year, but that’s another blog. And yes, I have a bunch of credited films to my name. By the end of this year, I’ll have eight. Most of them are films where I rewrote the original writers so drastically that I got credited as a writer with them.

Getting a green light on a film is an amazing experience. You don’t believe it when it happens, even if it’s a script you rewrote. Seeing your storyline and characters and dialogue on screen is surreal. Why is it surreal? Lots of reasons, not the least of which is all the time it took.

There is NO instant gratification. There are no overnight successes. Everyone spent time becoming an overnight success. More time than you think.

Notes.

For the people who aren’t writers and read this, NOTES are the sometimes mandatory changes to a script you get from producers, directors, development execs, the guy who waters the plants at the production office, other writers, your friends, your ex-friends, actors, and anyone else you can think of that might have some fleeting interest in the film and TV business. Notes you can get at every stage of production. Notes you can get up to and including the day they get shot.

They can be as small as a change of a word in a sentence to changing the entire story. And all you can think of in between.

Yep. THOSE notes.

I’ve been on both sides of them. Getting them on my scripts and giving them on scripts I didn’t write, but would like to rewrite and get paid for. The giving part usually happens when a production company contacts me and wants me to read a script they’ve bought or optioned and then wants me to give them my opinion on it. This also happens, most of the time, after the original writer has been given a chance to do it but can’t or won’t change it the way they want.

For some writers this is a hard thing to do. Change their baby. Take something they slaved over to create and then have to throw out or change huge portions of it to fit what the people PAYING for it want. These writers think that their work is sacrosanct. And when I was first starting out I felt the same way. It’s perfect the way it is and shouldn’t be TOUCHED. I learned fast you can't think like that.

The only way it will stay the way you wrote it is if you put up the money to produce it yourself or lock it in a drawer and never have it see the light of day. Every script gets changed. Every one of them. And they all get changed in significant ways.

Which brings me back to notes.

When I get a script to rewrite, I get notes from the development execs and the producers to start. They’re usually very general and sweeping, otherwise they wouldn’t be hiring me. I do, mostly, what are called “page one rewrites” where I usually take the original author’s script and change it so much it's unrecognizable to them.

I don’t do this lightly and I always feel badly for the original author, but… they again, most of the time, have had their chance to do this and wouldn’t or couldn’t. Plus they’re still going to get a screen credit and paid. Often more than me.

So how do I do this?

I take their general notes, combined with the notes I gave on the script which the producers liked, and I write a draft. Then I write another one based on more notes after they read the first draft. Then another draft with more notes. And then if they don’t give it to another writer to rewrite again, I do a polish. Or rewrite it again.

Then the director might do his own draft or give me more notes to change it again to fit his vision. Then maybe another polish. Then a production draft… then… you get the drift. Any remote resemblance to the original script is a miracle.

This happens with almost every single script. Even most writer/director ones. Don’t worry about the exceptions because you know already if you’re one of them and you aren’t reading my blog.

I’ve been on the other side, too. I’ve had to rewrite my original scripts. Some more than others. A couple of times making them unrecognizable to me and I did the rewrite. Did these notes make my scripts better? In most cases I have to be honest and say they did. The notes made a few of them MUCH better. In one case, they made the script so much better I’m grateful to have worked with this director to get it to this point. And we’re on something like draft 31, I think.

And then there are the notes that make you wonder why the hell they even bought your script in the first place.

Yep. You can get notes that may turn your script into an award winner. And notes that may make you throw up in your mouth.

Again, a fact. If you option or sell a script YOU WILL GET NOTES. How you respond to them will have a great deal of influence on your career and maybe if you’ll even have one at all.

So you need to mentally set yourself before you get notes. KNOW they are not going to be what you want to hear. You have to be open minded and not instantly reactive. Give yourself time to think about them. I know when I do that, after some serious thought, I can often see how to use them to make the script better. Even when I hated them on first take.

And then if you truly hate some of them, fight for them not to be used. But don’t do it emotionally. If you do that, you lose.

One way to do this is to know your script and story and characters so well that you can intelligently and CALMLY explain why some notes will not work if they want to keep the story you wrote. How one change they want can have a ripple effect on the whole script, changing things they may not want changed. Or that the characters just wouldn’t do that and how it would affect the story. But you really do have to know your script inside and out so you can rationally explain why. This does work because I do it all the time and, more often than not, win those arguments.

BUT… if they want the changes, it’s up to you to implement them to the best of your ability, even if it hurts. And it does sometimes. You, as the writer, are one cog in a huge machine that is film and TV. You cooperate to your best ability and do the best job you can making the script the way they’ve asked for it to be and they will expand the way they use you. They will learn to trust you and might ask you for your opinion on things that may not even have to do with the script. It’s happened to me. It’s happening to me now on the script I have shooting in May.

As a screenwriter, the sooner you realize that script notes are an integral part of your job, whether pointed at you or coming from you, and realize it’s up to YOU to be cooperative and innovative in seeing those notes through, the sooner you are going to be recognized as a pro.

Writing Outside of LA, My Interview with Bob Saenz

Screen shot 2I had the pleasure of discussing screenwriting with Bob Saenz, a Bay Area local, actor, screenwriter, and all around great guy. In my quest to capture the screenwriting activities of folks in the Bay Area and prove that it can be done without living in Los Angeles, I interviewed Bob about his experience and advice for those of us trying to make our first sell. I am sure you will find his comments useful!
Justin: You have proven that you don’t have to live in Los Angeles to write screenplays. Do you feel this can be attributed to any one aspect of your career/one choice?
Bob: Yes. I don’t want to live there. Easy as that. I love the Bay Area. It’s my home and with skype and email and conference calls and Southwest Airlines at my beck and call, I’ve never had anyone blink twice that I live here instead of LA. Doesn’t mean it will always be that way, but so far so good. I’ve only had to be in LA the next day once and I made the meeting. Oh… I also wrote good scripts that people wanted and where I lived didn’t matter as long as I had those. 

Justin: That is great you have been able to make it work. Like you said, the good script is key! I understand you have acted as well. How much do you feel your acting has helped with your craft as a writer? How much has it helped with the networking to establish yourself as a writer? Did you act only in the Bay area, or did you live in Los Angeles at some point?

Bob: Yes, I started out as an actor. I’m a 20 year SAG/Aftra member. Being on sets has helped me as a writer more than being an actor (I’m not that great an actor anyway), and I’ve been lucky to have been on sets, both film and TV,  with some iconic

directors and actors and kept my mouth shut, for the most part, and my eyes open and gotten an amazing education on how film and TV operate. And yes, the networking I did on set was crucial to my writing getting seen by the right people. I’ve been fortunate to have never sent a query letter to anyone. Most of my acting jobs were here in the Bay Area, but I have been hired to act in LA films and gone there to do it. Fortunately, for the viewing public, I’m not acting much anymore. Too busy with writing jobs, thank you God.

Justin: Haha, I am sure the viewing public misses you! But as someone who has acted and now writes, I completely agree that sometimes writing can be more fulfilling. I understand you have adapted fiction and non-fiction works for the screen. What is the biggest challenge of doing this? I have considered approaching one of my published friends about such an endeavor. Would you advise aspiring writers try this as another way to get their foot in the door?

Bob: It’s a fabulous experience and one that any writer hoping to do this should try at some point. I’ve adapted a non-fiction book, working with the author to make sure I did it justice and adapted a novel without the author’s help. Both times I had to learn to combine events and plot points and characters, add scenes and characters, delete subplots, you name it…. all to make a book fit a two hour viewing window and try to not lose the original material. And if you have the rights to a great book and can turn out a great script based on it, YES… it can be another way through the door. I just optioned the rights to a story that was in the newspapers all over the world last year.

Help_for_the_Holidays_-_Poster

Justin: I look forward to discussing this further, as I have some ideas in mind for books I would like to option from an author I know. It certainly seems a smart way to go. IMDB shows your movie “Help for the Holidays” came out in 2012 and “Extracurricular Activities” is in production. That is very exciting! How many scripts did you write to get to this point? Are you willing to share any particularly interesting adventures you have had along the way?

Bob: Help for the Holidays was a Hallmark Channel Christmas film in 2012. It was the number one rated original film on Hallmark in 2012 and the number 10 rated Hallmark film of all time. It did help that Summer Glau starred in it, but it was an unqualified hit for them. And didn’t hurt me much with them either.

And I just got a director’s cut last week of Cupid’s Bed & Breakfast, the next film I wrote for them. A romantic comedy/drama that’s not as cutesy as the title might make you think. It’s not even on IMDb yet, but will be soon. I am unbelievably happy with the way the film turned out.

I sold them another original script, “The Right Girl”, a romantic comedy that I wrote with my good friend (and great writer) Jeff Willis. We’re doing paid rewrites on it as we speak. It will shoot sometime in the fall. And Extracurricular Activities is scheduled to shoot about the same time. It’s a theatrical film. One that will be released to theaters. Hopefully, a lot of theaters. I’m really happy with the well-known (Oscar nominated) actors involved but can’t say anything public yet about it. It’s being packaged by CAA.

All I can say is that it wasn’t an overnight thing. It’s taken close to 20 years. Lots of rejection and lots of incredible heartbreaking moments when something almost got made but didn’t and lots of fakes and charlatans along the way who prey on new writers (luckily I got good really fast at spotting them),  and through it all I never gave up. I have a couple of dozen scripts and four original pilots all ready to go and ideas on my white board for many more scripts, including two true stories.

And this week, signed a contract to write an episode of a new hour long cable network series for the fall… can’t tell you what it is yet, but will be able to in the near future I think. And… a couple of really good and successful directors who say they have ideas for me when I come up for air.

Justin: That is wonderful! You have accomplished a great amount and I can’t wait to hear more about this cable network series. Congrats! You seem to have a talent for writing movies that are contained, meaning there are no alien’s blowing up the world or massive car chases. Is this part of your strategy? Do you have any words of wisdom to share with aspiring screenwriters regarding this?

Bob: There’s a very good reason for this. Big movies can only be sold to four or five people in the industry. Small films can be sold to a whole lot more. I’ve chosen to go after the better opportunity. I always have a budget in mind before I even start a script, so I know I have to write a great script within those numbers.  It works for me.  Producers can always make something bigger as they develop a script. I’ve found they don’t buy something with the idea of cutting it back. It’s easier to sell a lower budget film. It’s a fact. Oh… I do have a very funny massive car chase in one of my scripts, but then it’s one where I said, “To hell with the budget”. But it’s the only one of my originals with that kind of budget…. all the other ones are a lot smaller.

Justin: Finally, do you have any other advice to other screenwriters in the Bay are that want to get established here without relocating?

Bob: Keep at it. Write. Write. Write. Read good scripts and see how it’s done. Read awful scripts and see how it’s not done. Write. Write. And write. Don’t give up. And when you think you have that one great script… get a manager. Query them with it. My manager, who I got on a referral from a director, has made a world of difference to my career. And it all came from one script I wrote that everyone loves in Hollywood, “Extracurricular Activities”. And I never told people I lived in Northern California before they read it. They never asked and I never told them. Afterward, it didn’t matter. Oh and you need to have money to get back and forth to LA. I go every other month or so for a week at a time. It can be expensive.SONY DSC

There you have it, words of wisdom we can all learn from. I plan on meeting up with Bob in the near future and getting to know him better. He seems like a great guy and even plays in a band called The BSides – check them out if you get a chance, and watch some of his films! It is comforting to know we have folks working outside of Los Angeles.

 

This interview appeared word for word on Justin’s site, http://www.bayareascreenwriters.org/writing-outside-of-la-my-interview-with-bob-saenz/