Complications Ensue: The Crafty TV and Screenwriting Blog

Communicating with the Gods

2008-08-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

Q. Is it completely insane to contact the president of a major network studio to ask her to read a TV spec script if I met with her once (in an amicable, academic-professional capacity) a few years ago?

It's an extreme long shot. Can't hurt though, can it? At worst you get ignored.

I wouldn't ask her to read it. I'd ask her to pass it along to someone to read. If she wants to read it she will, but really, she's too busy. Whichever one she is.

Q. I was going to send along a little basket with the letter. Thoughtful gesture, or weird?

A sacrifice to the gods is unnecessary. And, anyway, she gets bigger baskets all the time. Probably gives them to her assistants.

Canadian N00b Questions

2008-08-19T09:53:00.000-04:00

Q. I have been studying/writing screenplays on my own for close to ten years now, and I'm returning to Canada after a stint teaching English overseas. What I want to know is, do I need to live in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver to be "in the industry?" How close-knit is the Canadian screenwriting community?

I'm considering taking a scriptwriting course at a college in Ottawa. Am I going to be removing myself from the industry and the jobs by living there? The main reason I'm thinking about going to school is to build relationships and network, but if I'm completely cut off from everyone else geographically, it won't do me a whole lot of good.

I know that if you're writing for the U.S. market you pretty much have to be in L.A., but is there a Canadian equivalent?

Toronto is far and away the center of anglo showbiz in Canada, as Montreal is the hub of francophone showbiz. The networks are guilds are all Toronto-based. At least a plurality of Canadian shows are staffed and cast out of Toronto. There is a good deal of production in Vancouver, and to a lesser extent Montreal, but many of those shows originate in Toronto. 18 TO LIFE, SOPHIE and DAD'S IN THE ATTIC are all Montreal productions with Toronto prodcos; BLOOD TIES, which shot in Vancouver, was largely a Toronto creation as well. (Weirdly, they shot Vancouver for Toronto, which seems a huge waste of production value.)

I live in Montreal, because it's the best city in the world to live in. But I make a point of visiting Toronto regularly. Maybe every 6-8 weeks. My pay cable series is set up with a Toronto production company. Montreal producers are, collectively, terrible at reading people's material.

I also have feature writing friends who live here, who work with producers in LA, New York, England, even Mongolia. But their agents are in Toronto or LA, or they have networks of producers who know and love and think of them.

In Canada there is support for regional production, which means that an Edmonton-based writer will occasionally get a gig because he's the best available Alberta writer. But I wouldn't advise anyone to stay in Edmonton and wait for that to happen.

Anyone who's serious about working in the Canadian biz should make it a priority to go to the Canadian Film Centre. A shockingly high percentage of working screenwriters and development execs and network execs are alumni of the Prime Time Television Program or the Film Resident Program. They're both only six months long.

The Last Word on Pestering

2008-08-18T09:29:00.003-04:00

Apropos "how often should I call my agent / the producer I sent my script to?" Rouge Wave writes:

The best thing you can do is to treat this like dating: you call once, twice, maybe three times, and if you don't get a response, move on. When you make it big, we'll totally be sorry.

And, let's be honest. That third time? You know what the answer is. Have you ever called that third time and heard, "Oh, snap! We've been meaning to call you!"

(Whereas I have called a second time, on occasion, and heard, "Thanks for calling, I lost your number," and gone on to have a productive conversation that suggested that the other party really did unintentionally lose my number.)

Via

Talk Amongst Yourselves

2008-08-17T10:27:00.001-04:00

A pro writer friend of mine is trying to resolve an issue with a producer, and writes

Ugh. Maybe I'll try another nice email ...

Y'all love email, don't you? You can gather your thoughts. You send it off into the blue. No real face to face confrontation.

Email is great when two people are more or less on the same page. Where email sucks is resolving confrontation. Email just generally exacerbates problems. Someone who is mad at you will take an email the wrong way no matter how you write it. If it's nice it'll come off smarmy. If it's not nice it'll come off pissy.

More importantly, it is extremely easy to say "no" by email. In fact, you just don't respond.

People, if you want a "yes" from someone, or even part of a yes, then you can't do it in prose. You have to call. On the phone. Even better, get a face to face meeting. People are much, much nicer in person than they are on the Internet. They tend to see your point of view. It's hardwired in us as human beings to cut the other person some slack when she's right there and we can see she's upset.

When you meet people in person, they become your friends.

People write email because they don't want to expose themselves. They don't want to be vulnerable. Yet being vulnerable is what gets the other person to be nice to you. If you are, for example, trying to get a producer to give you a project back, what are they odds they're going to do it because you sent an email? Not very good. But if you take your producer out for a nice cocktail and, after a few drinks, say, "Hey, are you gonna do anything with that project? Because I put a lot of love into that, and I would really love to do something with it" Then they might say, "Sure, go for it."

Of course, meeting with people means that you will have to see their point of view, and you'll have to swallow your anger yourself. That's another reason people like to use email -- they get to stay angry. It is also another reason why you need a meeting. Don't you want to see the other person's point of view?

Negotiating without seeing the other person's point of view is like playing stud poker without being able to see the other guy's "up" cards. It's bad enough you can't see their hole cards. It's impossible without seeing their up cards.

Seriously. Texting and emailing is great to arrange a hookup. To negotiate anything substantive, get as much contact as you possibly can. Phone good, meeting better. Email won't get you what you want.

The exception to the rule is if you email someone and then immediately call them. I like to lay out my concerns clearly. But leave the email open ended. Just lay out your concerns. Your point of view. Don't take the other side to task. Don't ask questions you can ask on the phone. You only want the email to frame the phone call. Not to substitute it.

Human contact, people! There's no substitute for it.

Noonan at the Reagan Revolution

2008-08-16T13:50:00.002-04:00

As research for my political thriller, I've been reading Peggy Noonan's WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION. I'm on the other side politically, but Noonan is one of the great speechwriters of our epoch. She writes a heck of a book.

It's striking how similar speechwriters and screenwriters seem to be. I guess writers are writers. Speechwriters get no respect from the bureaucrats, of course, yet speeches are essential to governing; how else do people know the direction to go? Noonan wandering around the Washington Monument in the middle of the day searching for inspiration will seem pretty familiar to all of you.

Washington sounds a good deal like Hollywood.

At a party there were rules. One is that people are allowed to quickly turn away from you once they've determined you do not have any clear utility to them. If you cannot help them in their rise, if you are not famous or influential or important, or if you're important but not in their field, they will simply turn away.

And, like Hollywood, DC is a town that people break their balls to get into because they're passionate about things. But once they're in, they discover that it is considered uncool to stand up for those things. Yes, we want your passion. But we don't want you to disagree with our notes. We don't want controversy. Talking about a man who broke the rule of dispassionate vagueness in conversation:

Once he was invited to a dinner party with people of high repute in a splendid house with fine food. These people were the permanent Washington, Potomac royalty, the unchanging inside; they lived in a world of tacit assumptions and assumed understandings, a world in which it is de rigueur to talk about left-wing fanatics and right-wing fanatics, a world in whch when you call to RSVP, the person who answers always somehow makes you feel like a total yahoo. He wanted to be liked. The talk was of the day's events. Someone mentioned the big demonstration that had held up traffic for what seemed like hours, and a woman with pale hair explaimed, Oh those anti-abortion people, they're so awful!

And the man who was controversial said, Yeah, well, abortion's pretty awful too, don't you think, the ending of a life?

And as he finished that sentence he looked at her, and her eyes went mmmmmm-nice-to-see-you, and she looked away. He wasn't invited back.

Replace abortion, say, with "the theme of my movie is the tragedy of war, so no, he can't miraculously recover from his wounds," and you have the reaction of a bunch of studio types to a young, passionate director who will never be asked back.

And,

Only the amateurs stay mad.

True in Ho'wood, too, with a twist. Only amateurs stay mad at people they worked on a hit with.

(Though you're not obliged to work with anyone whose knife is still in your back.)

Both worlds have new people showing up every day, of uncertain pull and power, that has to be constantly weighed and reweighed. You are only as valuable as your last hit movie; you are only as valuable as your last won election. Maybe, too, both politics and showbiz are about playing to an audience, and sometimes only a bit of the audience, only to a slice of a demographic. It is said that politicians all want to be movie stars and vice versa; maybe it's because they understand each other all too well. And that's how the Senator from Tennessee winds up on Law & Order, and the Terminator becomes the Gubernator.

Read the Pictures

2008-08-15T05:00:00.000-04:00

The McCain campaign has been running a bunch of negative ads slamming Obama:

Here's why these might not work. Watch them with the sound off. What do you get?

Right. Obama smiling. Obama waving to enormous crowds. Obama looking calm and serene and presidential.

By contrast, McCain looks kinda uncomfortable.

Oh, sure, there are words on the screen, too. Those say negative things.

But people don't tend to read words on their TV screen. TV is famously "radio with pictures."

There's also an announcer saying negative things about Obama. That's going to be a little more effective. But not that effective. The audience doesn't like to be lectured. It doesn't like you to "push" plot at it.

What it likes is to be pulled into a story. Look at this ad with the sound off:

There's potatoes in someone's hands. And people working. And wind power.

What's this about? we wanna know.

And then -- oh, hey, it's that Obama guy! I guess he's for people working. And for windmills and stuff. And solar panels.

In the McCain ads, the visuals make Obama seem like a good guy and a big leader. (I mean, why not use the footage from the ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW of him dancing ... ohhh, right, that would look racist. Ok, how about showing him playing basketball ... whoops, that just makes him look young. Damn! Doesn't he ever look stupid?)

In the Obama ad, the visuals make him look like a good guy, and tell a visual story where he's part of a movement towards new kinds of jobs.

One frustrating thing about writing for TV is that the audience is not paying attention half the time. You can't count on onscreen text to carry the weight. You can't dump the whole thing into dialog. You really have to craft something coherent. Or trick the audience -- by, e.g. not telling them what the ad is about until the end.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the McCain ad is trying to do too much. Slam Obama and build up McCain. You really only want to try to do one of those things in your thirty seconds. This is what advertisers call the Unique Selling Proposition -- you're supposed to hammer it home.

Just sayin.

Necessary Reading. No Answers.

2008-08-14T00:12:00.006-04:00

Two important WIRED articles Bill Cunningham insisted I read, and you should, too:

Fitting Network TV For a Toe Tag.

Hollywood Has Figured Out How to Make Web Pay (Though the article seems to say the reverse.)

My predictions:

a. If you are fiction writer, in the future you will likely be writing for more cheaply made, niche-ier shows with smaller staffs. That's bad if you want to get rich. Good if you like to write. More niches means more scripts. Someone's got to write them.

b. If you can think outside of the narrative box, thank your lucky stars. There will be more hunger for docs of various flavors. The article references ICE ROAD TRUCKERS, History Channel's surprise hit about, wait for it, ice road truckers. There will be more hunger for reality and lifestyle shows. If you can think of fresh new formats other people haven't thought of, you have a future in TV. It may not be a glamorous and creatively fulfilling future, however; it will be a future producing cheesy reality shows.

c. The whole frakking TV industry may still come to a crashing stop. People will always want to be told stories, but it's going to be a problem getting them to pay for them. The current business model relies on people watching ads. They keep telling us that people with TiVo's still watch the ads, but I find that incredibly hard to believe. Once people get used to hitting the SKIP button, ad-supported TV is doomed. Subscription channels may work for a while, but you get an entirely different show on subscription TV, and a different audience. Ultimately I think we'll need to move to a pay-per-view streaming model, I think, which will be a game-changer not only in terms of financing, but creatively. I bet you we'll see fewer 22 ep seasons, more serialized shows, more minis, more experiments.

But first, people will have to get used to the idea that they can't watch TV for free. This may be less of a leap than some suppose. TV never really was free. You always had to pay for the hardware. And for the past 30 years, we've been paying for cable or satellite. But if people think they can get away with piracy, they will; just look at any torrent site. Will people fork out the dough? I sure hope so, or I really will have to become a speechwriter.

UPDATE: DMc thinks I can keep my job.

Blow Up and the Opaque Character

2008-08-13T09:00:00.004-04:00

Lisa and I watched Antonioni's BLOW UP last night. This is a quietly spectacular movie -- quietly because very little happens from a plot point of view, and there are no chases or explosions. Mostly the hero wanders through Swinging London of 1966.

But after you see the movie, the world looks slightly different to your eyes, which is a spectacular thing for a movie to do.

(The following has spoilers, though they probably won't affect the movie much.)

What struck me this time is how David Hemmings' photographer character Thomas curiously fails to do something normal in the middle of the picture. He finds a dead body in a park. He goes home. He visits his neighbor. He goes back home. The photographs he took that led him to the body are gone. His neighbor's wife visit. She asks if he should call the police. He changes the subject. He goes to a rave. He goes to a party. In the morning, he goes back to the park.

Any normal person finding a dead body in a park would call the police. Hell, he's got a radio in his car. He doesn't.

What's interesting about this from a craft point of view is that there's no explanation given. His neighbor's wife asks him if he shouldn't call the police. He changes the subject.

The question is addressed but it's never answered. We have to make our own explanations for his behavior.

In a way, the strangeness of his behavior becomes the point of the film. Maybe to Thomas, only the unreal is real; the dead body is so real, it's hardly there at all. But if you were to have Thomas or antoher character put that in words, the movie probably wouldn't work; it would reduce the thematic mystery to a sound bite.

I'm working on an odd political thriller, where the motivation of the main character is at odds with normal. There have been a lot of calls to make clear exactly why he's behaving that way. But I wonder if I should, instead, simply commit to what he's doing, to create a strong portrait of a man who is doing that, and not explain. Like a locked box, there is something fascinating about an opaque character. CAT scan it, and you run the risk of ruining the mystery.

Co-Creating with Producers

2008-08-12T09:11:00.004-04:00

Some times ago, a Pro Writer (let's call her PW) called me to discuss her situation. PW created a show for a producer a few years ago. The contract agreed that this producer (who contributed some ideas, but maybe didn't do the heavy lifting) would be a "co-creator." Nothing has happened with the show lately. What can PW do?

Legally, PW can't do anything without the original producer's okay. He has co-ownership of the copyright from the ideas he may have contributed.

In order for PW to take the show out and sell it, she needs to make a deal with OP. You can't sell a show that someone else owns or controls. So PW has to get OP to agree to take a step back.

What's a fair deal to offer?

Whether or now PW did the heavy lifting is irrelevant because the deal was a co-creating deal, and the producer did contribute ideas. He probably won't take less than shared Created By credit of the TV show. He'll want a share of the Purchase Price and any royalty. He'll want an appropriate courtesy producer credit -- maybe Co-Producer, or Co-Exec Producer, or (you want to avoid this) a guaranteed Exec Producer credit.

The same deal works for movies. When you see Bigname Director taking an Executive Producer position on a movie he didn't direct, odds are good that he was on the movie as the director during development, and the studio bought him out for some reason or another for money and a courtesy credit.

PW should have OP sign an agreement that puts control of the show in PW's hand, and acknowledges that he doesn't have any right to share in PW's further involvement in the series. So PW would be free to negotiate her own status on the show if goes: showrunner or Head Writer or whatever she can get. She would get paid for any scripts she'd write. Her salary on the show would not be shared. (Remember, "an oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on.")

Likewise in the movies, PW would have to share the purchase price of the original script, and the credit accorded the original script, but not anything she'd get paid for a later rewrite.

That's a reasonable deal for everyone. There is still plenty of money in the deal for PW, and enough for OP that he has an incentive to let it go get made elsewhere.

If you can't afford a lawyer to draft the agreement, then write something up in a couple of pages that spells everything out. You'll eventually have to sign something written by lawyers, but most people, having agreed on the substantive points, won't be too much of a dick about the legalese. Just be aware that when it comes to the Big Legal Agreement, any ambiguities you've left in the document will probably be negotiated in favor of the party that has the least to lose.

This is why you want to be clear what rights you're giving up. You might be focused on the up front payment now, figuring what's the odds it will actually go? And I really need to fix my bike. But eventually something does go, and you might be kicking yourself later for a too-generous deal you made long ago.

On the other hand, don't be too proud. If I originated the project, or even if a producer brings me in to adapt something from another medium (e.g. producer has optioned a book), I am unlikely to share my created-by credit. But if it's the producer's idea, then I might co-create with him. I'd just evaluate the rest of the deal. I recently wrote up a pitch based on a producer's concept. I share co-created by credit. I agreed to come on board because his concept was good; it was easy to see how to develop it into a show. I got paid appropriately to do it. It was a short time commitment. The producer is a heavy hitter with good credits. He can get something made. I had the time. Why not do it and put another iron in the fire? I'm not proud about sharing credit when there's an argument for it.

With a less heavy producer, I might have been less interested in doing a co-create. Or with a producer who likes to keep picking things apart and rethinking them. Or if it wasn't obvious how to turn the concept into a show. You have to consider all the factors. And then, of course, get everything on paper.

Obama Fundraiser in Montreal

2008-08-11T09:40:00.004-04:00

If you are an American in Montreal, and you dig Barack Obama... then please let me know and I'll invite you to my August 28th fundraiser in the Old Port. (Only US citizens can contribute to US races.)

Things I'd Like A Certain Candidate to Say

2008-08-09T18:48:00.006-04:00

As someone whose job it is to put words in people's mouths, it irks me when the people trying to run the free world fail to explain themselves in a simple, convincing way. If I were a speechwriter, here's a couple soundbites for Barack Obama:

The Republicans haven't lowered your taxes. They've just put off paying them. When you cut taxes and raise spending, it's like telling people you're saving money because you're putting everything on your charge card. You know you're gonna have to pay it sooner or later... with interest.
The frightening thing is, the credit card company we owe all that money to ... is China.
I don't see where I'm the elitist in this race. I'm not the guy who lives in eight houses.
I can't even figure out how you live in eight houses. Do you keep one just for barbecues? Do you only like to tidy up once a year? Does a guy with eight houses really need the White House too?

I just thought of a good one-liner for the other guy, but I think I'll keep it to myself.

Pestering Your Agent

2008-08-08T09:50:00.004-04:00

Q. How often are your periodic conversations with your agent? Weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or bi-monthly. Is there such a thing as engaging with your agent too much (or producers and development people for that matter)? What happens if you pester them so much they won't take your calls, let alone work with you?

Then they won't take your calls or work with you.

It depends where your career is and how much you have to talk about. I never call Amy to chat. If I have info for her, I email her. When I have questions, I call. If I'm busy writing, that might not be more than once a week. If I'm actively trying to round up business, or forward my own projects, that could be several times a week. If we're in a contract negotiation, that's several times a day.

Even if I'm hunkered down in the middle of a script, I'll usually send her a weekly "roundup" email of all my current projects, where they stand, ideas for things I'd like her to do (what about sending script X to guy Y?), and questions about new avenues to pursue. Then I call to go over the roundup email. That way we don't forget anything current. Nothing focuses a meeting like an agenda.

I try to be very sparing of her time. The point of the call is to determine (a) what I should be doing (b) what I'd like her to do. It's all about the doing. Neither of you make any money from her talking to you.

I let her know where I would like her to focus her energies. Sometimes, I'm overloaded and I can't take on any more work; then I would like her to push my finished material. Sometimes I'm running low on work and I'd like her to find me a rewrite or a free lance script or a commission.

You can usually tell if you're calling too much, or if your agent has lost interest, because the time to return your call starts to deteriorate. I fired my last agent after a couple of phone calls went unanswered within a week. (There was a hostile email, too!) Amy almost always responds within 24 hours. If you're a newbie, response time may be closer to a week than a day; but if it gets to be much over a week, your agent may not be beating the bushes for you. Is that because you haven't provided her with fresh material? Write something new and brilliant. But if you've sent in a new spec and you haven't even had an acknowledgment, time to quietly reach out and start looking for a new agent.

Give your agent time to read new material. At least two weeks to read anything longer than six pages.

Don't call to nag. If you haven't heard back in a reasonable while, send an email. If that goes unanswered, don't send a follow-up. Wait until you have fresh info or a fresh question.

Yes, it's agonizing to wait. But keep the relationship professional. She has other clients. If you're not getting served the way you want, figure out what you're doing wrong, or move on.

Agents like to hear from their clients. But they like to hear positive, useful things from their clients. They want to hear "I have a fresh spec." Or, "I met a development guy at a party and I wanted to chat with you what to send to him." Or "I have two great ideas, which should I write first?"

They don't want to hear, in essence, "I'm lonely and sad and you're the only one who'll talk to me."

(If you're lonely and sad, volunteer.)

Like all relationships, put yourself in your agent's shoes and ask: "would I want to be on the other end of this phone call?" That should tell you whether to call.

Agent Your Agent

2008-08-07T12:11:00.003-04:00

Q. What do you mean, "agent your agent"?

Many people come into the biz thinking that "an agent gets you work."

It is true that the best agents will beat the bushes looking for work for you. They will send out your samples. They'll keep their ear to the ground to hear of upcoming jobs, and put you up for them.

But no agent is perfect, and no agent has unlimited brain cells available for you. They have other clients, y'know.

So you have to agent your agent.

At a basic level, that means not only providing a steady stream of new material to sell, or sell you with: spec scripts, spec pilots, spec features. It means also suggesting places that you'd like her to send your stuff. Ideally, people with whom you have relationships, or at least people who've read you before and liked you, and maybe even met you. Keep lists of those people, and when you send in your latest new thing, have a chat with your agent about where she should focus her energies.

You should be reading the trades and talking to people about upcoming shows and upcoming projects. Is one right for you? Drop your agent an email, or call.

Engage with your agent as if you were another agent representing you. Consider yourself as a product. Where should we send my stuff?

I have periodic conversations with my agent, Amy, who may possibly be the best agent in Canada. I remind her of each of my current and available projects. We discuss: what's the next step with each of them?

Agenting your agent also means being involved in the deals. You always want your agent to negotiate for you. But you should be right behind the scenes discussing the deal terms with her. What do you want? What are you willing to settle for? How willing are you to walk away if the deal's not right? How important is money up front? How important are guaranteed scripts or rewrites? My philosophy is to push hardest for money that won't affect the budget -- e.g. guaranteed scripts that someone will have to be paid for -- and least hard for things like option payments that come directly out of the producer's pocket. Essentially I just want enough to know the production company is serious.

I almost always leave the pure money points to Amy. I want as much as she can get me, of course. But we discuss issues like creative control, continued involvement, print rights (I try to keep them), etc.

Amy reads every contract looking for language that needs to be negotiated. I also send her memos listing my concerns.

A successful writer is a businessperson, not just a creative. You never want to negotiate on your own behalf; but you are the key figure in the negotiating team. You will not get the best deal if you drop the whole problem in your agent's lap and head to the beach.

Agenting your agent really means continuing what you were doing to support your career before you had an agent. Only now you've got a partner who shares many of your goals. Give your partner the information and support she needs to succeed.

People Don't Listen Very Well

2008-08-06T11:38:00.001-04:00

Interesting piece about Lesley Stahl, who did a "hard-hitting" piece on Ronald Reagan in 1984. Unfortunately the footage was Reagan smiling and waving to crowds. The campaign called to thank her. She ran the footage for a focus group, and 75% thought the piece was positive about Reagan.

Think about that when you're crafting your screenplay. Or your attack ad.

Deal Terms

2008-08-05T10:57:00.002-04:00

Q. I have just received a contract offering to option a pilot and bible I've been working on. [Long list of deal terms follows.] Is that a fair deal?

Probably not. Producers write contracts to give themselves loopholes and outs. They lowball their offer a bit. Even if they're honest, they figure you'll want to negotiate, and so they give themselves a little room to negotiate.

If someone is offering you an option deal, it should not be hard to find an agent to negotiate it for you. They'll take 10% of what is likely a small upfront fee with a bigger back end. They will almost certainly boost your deal by at least 10%, so they cost you nothing. In return you get their knowledge of what a fair deal is, and you won't piss off the producer by asking for more than they offered.

Q. I am a 45 year old first-time writer (ridiculous, I know), so I'm willing to take a less than industry standard offer.

Nothing ridiculous about you if you have a property someone wants to option!

But more importantly: don't negotiate against yourself. You want your agent to get you as much money as you can without pissing the producer off. The more he pays, the more he'll value the property and you.

You don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.

Where your being a newbie comes in is what you want to struggle for and what you'll give up. Obviously you're not going to be the showrunner. On the other hand you should insist on being on staff and writing as many scripts as they'll let you have. Ask for 25% and settle for 20%. You won't get control but you can insist on involvement. In a TV deal, it costs the producer very little to guarantee you scripts. Someone will have to be paid Guild scale for them; and the writing staff can always rewrite you if you suck.

Producer will use Producer’s reasonable best efforts to have Owner engaged as a writer on the Series on terms and conditions as generally prevail in the television industry comparable to those of Owner’s experience as a writer.

This is why you need an agent who knows how to read a contract, or failing that, a lawyer. You want "best efforts," which is a term of art, not "reasonable best efforts" which doesn't mean anything. "Terms and conditions ... comparable to Owner's experience" is useless if you have no experience. You want "Owner shall have the right of first refusal to write the first draft of the series pilot. Owner shall right of first refusal to be hired to write no fewer than 20% of all scripts commissioned during the first season of the Series." That is an enforceable right. The language you've got can easily circumvented. ("We asked the network, and they said no.")

Remember the legal axiom: "a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client." Never negotiate on your own behalf if you can avoid it.

This rule is even more important where the people with whom you're negotiating are friends or family. You will either piss them off (don't you understand what a big favor they're doing you???) or seriously undervalue yourself. Or both.

The correlary to this is: don't abandon the negotiations to your agent. Discuss the terms and the language in depth. Ask questions. Insist on what you need to get. Explain what you're willing to give up. Go over the contract yourself. Your agent fronts you, but the decision is yours.

And always be willing to walk away from a deal that doesn't feel right. It's almost impossible to get a fair deal unless you're willing to walk away.

No, no, no. They pay you.

2008-08-04T10:52:00.000-04:00

Q. A producer is interested in optioning my material, but asked me for a thousand bucks in order to [snip]

Gonna stop you right there.

A producer should NEVER, EVER ask you for money for ANYTHING. You bring the intellectual property. They bring the money.

An agent should NEVER, EVER ask you for money for ANYTHING. (Years ago, they sometimes wanted a newbie client to pay for copies and postage, but who mails scripts any more?)

Any producer who wants any money from you is, at best, not a real producer, and much more likely a scammer.

Canadian Politics Sites?

2008-08-04T09:49:00.004-04:00

I'm writing a thriller set in the exciting world of Canadian politics.

(Now that's not something you hear often.)

It's a little unfamiliar to me. The topic of the day on the Conservative Party's website is how we need better product labelling.

I'm way too familiar with leftie American political websites like Huffington Post, Daily Kos, FiveThirtyEight. Crafty readers: what are the best rightie Canadian political websites? (And by best: intelligent, thoughtful, not mindlessly repeating talking points.)

No Women Talking To Women About Non-Man Things

2008-08-03T10:25:00.004-04:00

Fascinating post on Jennifer Kesler's blog The Hathor Legacy about an unwritten rule that I never heard of, but which, come to think of it, I almost certainly have followed instinctively in my screenplays: women can't talk to other women about anything other than men.

Only to learn there was still something wrong with my writing, something unanticipated by my professors. My scripts had multiple women with names. Talking to each other. About something other than men. That, they explained nervously, was not okay. I asked why. Well, it would be more accurate to say I politely demanded a thorough, logical explanation that made sense for a change (I’d found the “audience won’t watch women!” argument pretty questionable, with its ever-shifting reasons and parameters).

At first I got several tentative murmurings about how it distracted from the flow or point of the story. I went through this with more than one professor, more than one industry professional. Finally, I got one blessedly telling explanation: “The audience doesn’t want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about.”

If you think about it, it's largely true. I bet you could go through even an ensemble piece like THE BIG CHILL and find guys talking about stuff other than women (business, ideals); but the women are talking about who's going to give Meg a baby.

Jennifer (whose icon makes her look disturbingly like Thessaly from A Game of You) has a parallel post about how female characters exist to promote the male leads:

The real reason, I was informed, to put women in a script was to reveal things about the men. Any other purpose I assigned to the women was secondary at best, but I could do what I wanted there as long as the women’s purposes never threatened to distract the audience from the purposes of the men.

How about it, class? Outside of WAITING TO EXHALE, are there successful mainstream movies where women talk about non-men stuff? Is this why SEX AND THE CITY flopped? (EDIT: Tim W. points out that S&TC actually was a monster hit.; but Dr. Brooklyn points out that the girls talk about little except men. And then there is the theory that S&TC is really about four gay men. Certainly, Samantha is.)

(Note: I haven't actually seen WAITING TO EXHALE, 'cause it's probably just a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about. Also, lesbian movies don't count, 'cause we know why men are watching those.)

UPDATE: Obviously this "rule" doesn't apply to TV. Mainstream studio movies are largely aimed at young men. The TV audience is much wider and (depending on the network) often skews female.

Also, Amanda, this is not a real "rule" that I think one should be following. It is more an observation. It is probably a byproduct of the plots that you see in mainstream movies. If the lead is a guy, then a conversation between two female secondary characters that isn't about the lead is a distraction from the plot -- not because they're female, but because they're secondary characters. And the lead is usually a guy because, again, movies are aimed at young men. It's not a problem with "society"; it's a function of the specific demographics of who makes the choice of what movie to see. Young women will go see movies that guys are interested in; guys won't go see movies that only the girls are interested in, unless they're sure they're going to get laid afterwards. (See LOVE STORY.)

Should I Move to Canada?

2008-08-02T08:24:00.010-04:00

Q. My Canadian wife says we should move to Canada, where there are fewer screenwriters. My career is not catching fire down here in LA. Would my writing career be better there?

I began my career in the US, and moved to Canada because of its more nurturing cultural environment. Canada supports emerging writers, established writers, producers, and production, in various ways, through various government programs and subsidies. Canada funds grants and training programs, and has a truly awesome film school (the CFC). Because of that network of support, once you establish Canadian permanent residency (the equivalent of a US green card), it could be easier to make it up here than down there.

Establishing permanent residency takes about eighteen months. Unlike the US, Canada has a fairly sane immigration policy, which encourages educated people with professional experience to come here. You're looking at spending a couple thousand bucks if you do the paperwork yourself, or about five thousand bucks if you hire an immigration lawyer. You wouldn't actually come live here until you're granted permanent residency, which is also when most of the fees come due.

There are indeed fewer screenwriters up here. Of course, there are also fewer jobs. Herman Mankiewicz lured Ben Hecht out to Hollywood with a telegram that read "There are millions to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." Nobody is making millions in Canada, and the competition includes some very smart, talented people.

However, as someone who's knocked around Hollywood, you might have a bit of an edge. People in the Canadian industry often have an inferiority complex about the US industry. Anyone who's worked down South gets a bit of hero worship. Some of that is undeserved, but you have probably also absorbed the LA work ethic. Many writers in Canada do not hustle much. They don't write spec scripts, because even newbie writers can get development deals. They don't agent their agent. They fail to send samples when you ask for them. They don't go to every party they conceivably could. Some of the most talented writers don't have agents.

Also, we do periodically lose some of our best and brightest to LA. We lost K-Walt years ago; she lives here but works there. DMc keeps threatening to go down to LA to test the waters.

So you would probably be welcome here. Canada is probably one of the most welcoming countries to immigrants in the world. We're a melting pot like the US, without the anti-immigrant hysteria.

And then there's the free health care. If you're free lancing, it's nice to know you can go to the hospital if something's wrong.

The major downside to working in the Canadian industry is that, if you decide to go back to La-La-Land, I don't know how transferable Canadian credits are Down South. (Otherwise we would have lost DMc long ago.) I generally tell Canadians that the only good times to move down South are when you have no credits, or when your Canadian show is getting good numbers in the US. (I hope Heaton and Barken aren't reading this.)

How do you break into the Canadian biz? Same way you break in to the US biz. One kickass spec script of a popular US show. One kickass spec pilot. And lots of networking.

So... move to Canada? It is a biiiiig step. It is another country. You will have to make new friends. You'll have to make new contacts. But it could be the break you need.

Now, would I encourage writers to move to Canada? Aren't I increasing my competition? I don't think that's how we think up here. We're mostly in competition with you down there. The more brilliant writers we have up here, the more shows we can get into the global marketplace. The more shows shoot up here, the better the crews, and the more credibility Canadian shows have overseas. What's good for FLASHPOINT is good for me.

It's a small enough community that you can get to know everyone. The weather outside is variable, but the weather inside is pretty warm.

UPDATE: Tim asks if it's harder to make a living in Canada. My response in the comments is: it's easier to make a living. It's harder to make a fortune.

UPDATE:

Q. regarding your comment that to get work you need a kick ass TV spec and a kick ass spec pilot, what about a spec feature? is it worth it to write one in Canada?

If you want to get paid to write movies, then write spec features. The Canadian English-language feature market is not strong. (The Quebecois one in French is tiny but strong.) But about half my business is writing features, so there you go.

Development Dues

2008-08-01T09:39:00.005-04:00

I had a chat yesterday with a friend of mine who's freelancing. The development guy at a company she's worked for has left. She had considered, but kind of rejected, talking to them about the job. She was concerned that it might be hard to get back into writing from being a development person.

There are a couple of legit concerns here, and some misconceptions, I feel.

A development job takes time away from your writing, true. If you aren't disciplined, you can spend your weekends and evenings reading scripts.

However, a dev job is not a network job, where you are inundated with material and spend your work days in meetings. Few independent production companies get so much readable material that it can't be read in an hour or two a day. The key is to triage. When I was a development guy, I read good scripts in half an hour. If a script wasn't grabbing me, I gave it 15 minutes. Or, if it didn't come from my boss, 5 pages. I spent my weekends and evenings -- and many lunches -- writing.

A development job may also represent a commitment. The company probably wants to know that you won't ditch them two months later for a staff job. You might need to agree not to staff for a bit. Unless you are in imminent danger of staffing -- and in August, you are not -- you can give them a six month commitment. It may not even come up.

You certainly wouldn't need to ditch a development job for a free lance script. Just write the thing at night. That's what I did.

On the other hand, you get some major benefits from a development job that will help your writing career almost as much as your writing will.

First, you make contacts. You talk to agents. You talk to network people. They get to know you. You get a sense of what they're like. You can tell the real agents who hustle for their clients from the "commissioning" agents who just take a cut of deals their clients find.

You go to lunch with people. You drink with people. You get yourself sent to Banff, or Cannes, or the AFM, or Sundance. When later on your script comes over the transom, you're not a stranger.

Second, you get a sense of the market. Unless your parents are in show business, you probably have wrong ideas about what networks and production companies and studios are looking for. After you've sent a couple dozen projects to the network, and heard back frank feedback about why they don't want them, you'll have a much better sense of what floats boats at the various networks and among the various execs. This one doesn't get speculative fiction. This one prefers execution-independent shows. This one thinks she has a sense of humor, but doesn't. This one is really smart and wants really fresh stuff. This one is really smart but has a dumb boss, poor thing, and you have to wonder how she gets up in the morning.

Their feedback will be honest because they're not worried about hurting your feelings and they want you to send them stuff they'll like. My first book, CRAFTY SCREENWRITING, came out of my observation as a development exec that my company couldn't do a thing with a "good" script; we needed a script with a hook, whether good or not.

Don't worry about there being a stigma against development people. It is understood that everyone in a development job would rather write for a living, or produce, or both. Everyone understands that people need paychecks. While being in a development job suggests to people that you aren't making a living writing, so does sitting at home not making a living writing.

Unless you're supporting yourself writing, don't be afraid to take a show business job in a different part of the equation. You could do worse than to work as an agent, a development person, or a producer, or as an assistant to any of those. Your scripts will get a little better from your exposure to other people's good and bad writing. But they'll get a lot better from your exposure to the marketplace.

Richard Porter Interviews Me at PopCritics

2008-07-30T12:48:00.003-04:00

There's some fun behind-the-scenes stuff in Richard Porter's interview with me about my experiences writing CHARLIE JADE in South Africa, at PopCritics. Check it out!

Hastage Makes Wastage

2008-07-26T05:32:00.001-04:00

Q. I won the XXX TV writing competition, and now I seem to be making a lot of friends. One of them offered to send my spec along to a couple of agents. But I don't have a second spec! I've got nothing to offer and I know that if I garner some interest that'll be the first thing they ask for. I've got lots of great ideas so I know I could pump something out in a few weeks. If they ask, can I ask them to wait until the end of the month? Longer? Or do I need to just resign myself to looking like an amateur?

Geez, calm down. Who knows how long it will take for these agents to actually read your script and get back to you? It could be a month or two. They are likely to be focused on their current clients. Reading new clients is probably last on their list.

I would say, send your script in and immediately start writing that second spec. If someone likes your first spec, you can always you're just polishing it up, and get it to them in a couple of weeks.

What I wouldn't do is try to "pump something out in a few weeks." You probably wrote your competition-winning spec in more than a few weeks. You should try hard never to turn in anything that's less good than you're capable of. You will lose more opportunities by turning in second-rate work than you will by waiting until something's ready. Occasionally there will be a bona-fide opportunity ("so-and-so needs a lesbian romantic comedy set in Singapore under the Japanese") but those almost never amount to anything.

I want to stress that what makes things happen in show business is enthusiasm. A so-so script might get spread around, but only a dynamite script (or at least concept) will inspire an agent to spend a year trying to break you in, or a producer to spend a year trying to set it up. Is your script good enough for that?

Enthusiasm

2008-07-25T08:47:00.001-04:00

An Emerging Regional Writer writes

A regional director for the CBC has read the pitch bible for [my show], as well as my Lost spec. She's interested in working with me and developing me as a writer. She said that she was ready to offer me some money (she said $1500) to write a pilot for [my show], after which she would put it into the right hands in Toronto. I mentioned that there were other people also reading the pitch bible now (I sent it to Mr. X at Big Commercial Network last week), and that I would like to consult some people first before I signed anything, but that I was very excited and interested in working with her. She also proposed that I could come up with something else, any half-hour series that could be set in [my province].

My problem is, if BCN was interested in it, I would rather go with them. I don't expect to sell a series by any means, but considering the fact that CBC just did [series in similar territory], it seems even less likely that they would do it.

Should I
Wait for BCN and try to come up with a [my province]-based series for CBC; or
Go with the CBC
. Also, should I bother trying to get an agent to take care of this for me, seeing as how it would only be $1500 for a pilot script?

Should I contact the executive at BCN and tell him that CBC has made me an offer?

First of all, you need an agent. An agent can tell you whether $1500 is an appropriate amount to be paid to write a pilot. My feeling is that it is not. WGC scale for an hour drama is $14,000; pilots are paid at 150% of scale. I think you should take the money. But it should be structured as an option, not a commission. $1500 is an appropriate amount to option your pilot. Since you haven't written it yet, you would still be writing a script and getting paid $1500. But the network would not own your work; they would only have an option on it. An agent can tell you if I'm right about this.

The main reason you need an agent, though, is that the deal isn't just for the $1500. You're not selling your series for $1500 flat, are you? You're selling a pilot in order to be involved in your series if it goes. What's your job on the series? You're a newbie, so you're not the showruner. But you should be guaranteed a story editing job. What salary? How many weeks? How many scripts are you guaranteed? What's the royalty? What's your credit? ("Created by," presumably, but only if it's in your contract.) A good agent will know what deal points are appropriate, and will negotiate them without irritating your network exec.

Your agent can also let Mr. X at BCN know about the CBC offer. However, there are two reasons to go with the CBC. The CBC has a mandate to develop regional talent. BCN does not. They develop less, and they produce much less. (This is true whichever Big Commercial Network you're talking about.) Their goal is to air as much American content as they can.

Second, you have enthusiasm at the CBC. Enthusiasm is rare and fleeting. I would not let the iron cool at the CBC. I would not propose a different show if they like the show you have.

Of course, it will take weeks or months to negotiate a deal with the network. In that time, if BCN wants to come back with a serious proposal, then your agent can always let the CBC know they've got a bidding war on their hands. This usually makes everyone hotter for the project.

Watching Generation Kill?

2008-07-21T14:21:00.001-04:00

You'll want this glossary.

No, no, no. Stop that.

2008-07-21T12:37:00.001-04:00

Q. I'm writing a script for a brother director team. They're great directors but can't write. They got me involved and now I'm writing their script. There's a producer involved who has grown a liking for the brothers and wants to see them succeed. They are meeting with him next week to discuss the project. Now, the brothers are fast-paced and want me to finish a first draft in a month. Which I'm not sure I can do but I'll try. But in order for me to work that fast I have to devote full days to this project. Which is hard because then I can't make money. And I have to live. But, these guys have tossed me $500 for this week and we'll talk turkey when they get back from the producer.

Now, because this is an independent project, is it wrong for me to ask for development money?

God no.

I've answered this before in much greater length, but to boil it down: the only time you should EVER write for free is when you OWN the project.

See the section in my book CRAFTY SCREENWRITING about writing on spec. It has a formula for the minimum amount of money you should demand up front, and what you should insist on should the movie actually go.