Breakfast with Sharks Page 10

  What’s important here is price (how much will be paid) and time (how long the option period will last). Options normally range from $1 up to $20,000, with $2,500 to $5,000 paid to the writer for an option period of twelve months being most typical. Note that even if your contract is for one dollar, you should pay a lawyer a few hundred dollars to run through it for you, since the cost will be a write-off on your taxes, and the healthy development of your career is the true objective. The whys and wherefores of options will be discussed in greater detail further on, but note here that producers typically use the option contract when attempting to package the project with director or talent elements. Time is a crucial consideration, since your script will be off limits to competitors while the option holder tries to develop the project.

  Remember that you must live with the terms you set during the initial eager-puppy excitement. It’s also important to believe your purchaser has the ability to get your script produced. If you’re desperate, but have a nagging suspicion you’re dealing with someone who couldn’t sell sandwiches to the Donner Party, don’t short-sheet yourself on price, or extend the option time period to what will seem like a death sentence for your project.

  3. Deal memo for a writing assignment. On the high end, writing assignments fall into the highly lucrative areas of rewrites for projects in studio development, and script doctoring for projects in preproduction that are in need of a quick punching up. Remember that assignments tend to go to established writers because they’re easier to pitch to the studio, where politics are an integral part of the deal-making process. Sometimes a producer with a studio deal who wants to give a new scribe a shot can circumvent the popularity contest by using a discretionary fund to hire the writer. In the workaday world of most writers on smaller-budget or direct-to-video projects, a deal memo agreement is typical for a modest four- or five-figure fee writing assignment that doesn’t necessitate lengthy negotiation (translation: lawyers). A deal memo lays out specific terms of the project: you will write x project or x scenes by x date for x amount of dollars (partial payment up front upon commencement and remaining amount upon completion and delivery is typical). Purchaser retains rights to x in exchange for x credit (if applicable). Usually, it’s that simple.

  Much of the writing in Hollywood is commissioned via deal memos. The prospective purchaser may ask you to submit an outline or sample scene for the project on spec before agreeing to hire you. Sometimes the terms are worked out earlier. In one of my own cases, a deal memo was presented to me by the producer at a pitch meeting after I had been brought on board by the director. We discussed the listed terms, and made changes by marking up the memo right there. I signed it, accepted a check, and started working that day.

  Writers who have landed studio and production company assignments often ask about structuring the deal. The payment terms for an assignment contract may occur as percentages of the overall contract, as per the following step form:

  1. Treatment (an outline the writer provides for the work they will do): 10 pecent of the overall contract.

  2. Commencement of draft (beginning to write or complete the script after you have approved the treatment): 25 percent.

  3. Completion of draft (paid upon delivery of the script): 25 percent.

  4. Commencement of rewrite (based upon your notes for changes): 20 percent.

  5. Completion of rewrite (paid upon delivery of the rewritten script): 20 percent.

  6. Polish (final revisions of the script based upon your final notes): an additional amount that is usually 10–15 percent of steps 1–5.

  Be aware that a smart producer will negotiate all of these steps even if he or she plans on only using steps 1–3. The advantage of such a contract for the producer is enormous, since he or she can exit at any time—in other words, fire the writer after treatment (usually occurring on Christmas Day or during the funeral of the writer’s loved one). Meanwhile, the not-yet-fired writer cannot hold the producer hostage later on. Say, for example, only steps 1–3 have been agreed upon, but then a director, star, or studio becomes interested in the project if certain changes to the script are made. The writer would be in a good position to ask for double or triple the earlier amount, while the penny-pinching producer will be faced with either ponying up the dough or starting over with another writer. Writers opting for security of employment over the gamble of a big payday later on will seek a deal that addresses all steps of the process.

  4. Oral contract. Producers use such handshake arrangements to take a project from point A (the producer) to point B (the potential developing partner or studio). Oral contracts are used for setting such specific goals, and are an important part of producers’ development process where the intention with the oral contract is always very clear and supported by letters back and forth communicating what the intent is. As stated above, it is crucial for the writer to limit a project’s exposure to the industry—particularly when no money has changed hands.

  Some advice: for a writer who has made an oral agreement, paper trails are the essential footprints in the sand. Therefore, if the prospect of marching into Producer X’s office and demanding a contract seems particularly daunting (it often is), you should state during the meeting that it’s your understanding you are there for the purposes of developing your project for purchase by this producer at some point. If Producer X doesn’t agree that this is the case, leave. Now. If Producer X does agree (most will), follow up with a letter stating that it was a pleasure to speak with him regarding your project (be sure to include the title), then repeat your understanding regarding eventual purchase. Such a step will ensure that you have legal recourse should things go awry.

  Personal experience: Back in the early days, I had more than a dozen oral agreements. None resulted in a deal. However, I was also never “burned” (had my script or its concepts or story line stolen) in the manner that many writers fear. Instead, I learned that at the very least, long after the “handshake agreement” expired, I still had someone to nod to in restaurants or just before screenings. More important, I earned the right to submit additional projects, whenever I created them, to those with whom I had oral agreements.

  Many writers believe in the infectious powers of their passion, and like to build the writer-producer relationship by working together first and then making a deal. In fact, established producers like opportunities to work with new writers from time to time because they’re eager to prove themselves. Producers like discovering new writers and helping to shape their careers. Remember that in all contract cases, it is important that your would-be producer has such a track record and is well regarded in deal-making circles. Such track records are verifiable through the indispensable HollywoodCreative Directory (www.hcdonline.com) or via the Producer Link (www.producerlink.com). If the producing entity doesn’t have a verifiable track record beyond his passion for your work, remember that you will never have as clean and unencumbered a relationship as you do right at the beginning. The time to agree to terms for option or oral contract is during that initial honeymoon period.

  Writers often wonder why producers don’t purchase their scripts outright. The explanation is that the amount the producer or studio has committed to a given project is referred to as being “on the hook.” The logic is simple: The more on the hook the producer or studio is, the more they stand to lose if they don’t make your script into a film. In practical terms, since many producers have as many as thirty projects in development at a given time, they cannot afford to be on the hook financially or time-wise for more than a few of those projects. Your own long-term objective is to develop the script and give the project a lineage, while building the relationships that will ideally move you up on the producer’s priority list. True contractually verifiable lineage is of great importance, since the next interested party will look at a script that was optioned for one dollar from a known entity with much more interest than they’ll listen to the sordid tale of “some big-time guys who were once very interes
ted, but all I got was this T-shirt.”

  FINAL THOUGHTS

  There is a value → no value → value evolutionary quality to the business side of screenwriting. During its evolution, a finished script represents great achievement and therefore great value for the writer. In the marketing process that follows, it may seem as though all the cards are held by producers or the studio and the newly minted script is little more than a drink coaster for some would-be producer. Writers may be tempted to cede their entire position just to make something happen. They shouldn’t. The simple truth is that the industry is dependent upon the art. Everything else—the dealmaking, the casting, the producing, and the marketing—is in service to the writer’s story. Without the story, all the other elements are hollow. Meanwhile, with every experience a writer learns something vital that propels him to a new level. Like a lobster who must shed its old shell, the writer is for a time soft, vulnerable, and untested. Hardening of the shell comes quickly when the writer takes responsibility for his or her own career. Having the passion to write and take chances, while pushing for the contract or agreement with inherent legal steps to protect yourself, is the best way to ensure that “the process” works for you.

  PART THREE

  The Hollywood Game and Its Players

  8

  SECTION 301: HOW TO DEAL WITH MOVIE STUDIOS

  A Crash Course in the Studio Development Process

  The First-Look Deal

  What Kinds of Projects Do Studios Like?

  Studio Development Buzzwords

  Studio Notes: What They Are and How to Handle Them

  EXTRA CREDIT READING:

  The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters by Karl Iglesias

  Which is the most reasonable, and does his duty best: he who stands aloof from the struggle of life, calmly contemplating it, or he who descends to the ground, and takes his part in the contest?

  —THACKERAY, PENDENNIS

  A CRASH COURSE IN THE STUDIO DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

  Let’s jump right into the cool stuff first. Say you’ve completed your script, which you describe as “Gone With the Wind in outer space,” and your agent LOVES it. What can you anticipate happening next? Well, your spec (or the property) is sent by the agent to prospective production companies. Even if the producers are as enthusiastic as your agent, they may or may not feel that additional changes are necessary to prepare your script for the marketplace, in which case you sit down to hear their take (notes), then huddle with your agent to see if you agree that going back to the keyboard is warranted. But let’s assume no changes are requested right now. Depending on where relationships are strongest, producers at prodcos fan out to the various studios, called territories, to submit the property.

  Producers will first go where they have their first-look studio deal (a type of deal a prodco may have, which I’ll explain in the next section), then move on to places where they’ve heard that a particular executive is looking to acquire a certain kind of movie, or one that can be made for a particular budget. Obviously, if your would-be producer already has the proper relationships in place, the process is streamlined enormously. If more than one studio exec at competing studios responds “Wahoo!” to the material, you’ve hit the jackpot and a bidding war will ensue that will be orchestrated by the writer’s agent.

  Once they have acquired it, the studio sets out to develop the material. This is the time you will go in to meet the development or creative executive in charge of developing the project. After a few pleasantries whereby the lead exec (and perhaps members of his team) congratulates you on your success and expresses his enthusiasm for the project, the exec usually collects himself and wades into the substance of the meeting. Notes, usually lots and lots of notes, are the real reason for this sit-down. Notes are changes the studio deems necessary for the transition from page to screen.

  The Trail of Development from Script to Screen

  Writer → Agent → Producer → Studio Exec → Director → Movie Star → Editor → Distribution → Marketing Dept. → Movie Theater

  THE FIRST-LOOK DEAL

  There are many ways studios structure their deals with independent production companies, but the one you most often come across is called a first-look deal. Here the studio covers the upkeep of maintaining an office, employee salaries, rent, utilities, etc., in exchange for a first-look opportunity at any material the production company may choose to develop into a movie. If the studio execs decide that they are interested in a particular project, they have the opportunity to finance and distribute the resulting film. If not, then the prodco is free to shop other studios for financing and distribution. Generally, first-look deals are reserved for producers, directors with proven track records, and movie stars who want to develop projects tailored to their personal strengths or aesthetics. In order to land a first-look offer, a screenwriter must be a hybrid of writer/director like Todd Phillips ( Old School, Starsky and Hutch) or writer/producer like John Hughes ( Home Alone, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

  WHAT KINDS OF PROJECTS DO STUDIOS LIKE?

  New material not derived from prior source material is an unknown quantity. Figuring out its potential is like descending into the basement of a spooky old house. Studios and their executives love projects with track records, proven appeal, well-known actors or directors attached and notable source material. Movies adapted from other successful material generally guarantee built-in audience awareness. Realize that when someone sniffs that “the film wasn’t as good as the book,” it usually means that they paid to see the movie, which is really all that the studio cares about. Producers who choose adaptation projects must also secure rights to the original material; these are called the underlying rights.

  Because producers may have as many as thirty or forty projects in development at any given time, they are loath to commit much money to any one given property. Thus it’s paramount for them to find well-known projects (with built-in audience awareness) where the underlying rights can be secured for free. Copyright regulations and length vary from country to country, but here in the U.S., copyright protections of books last for seventy-five years. Books older than seventy-five years are said to be in the public domain and can be used as material for movies without payment to anyone. Adaptations of Shakespeare and the Bible are good examples. In other words, you, the writer, can borrow situations and characters and owe the original writer—in this example, Shakespeare or God— nothing. Recent examples of such movies are Clueless (based on Jane Austen’s Emma), Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Little Women.

  STUDIO DEVELOPMENT BUZZWORDS

  Many of the terms that studios use to describe various phases of the development can sound a bit like inside baseball and take some getting used to. You should familiarize yourself with the following:

  Coverage. Because few people really have time to read every script and book that is submitted, the entire film industry runs on a type of Cliff Notes called coverage. The form coverage takes is standard:

  Logline: a one- or two-sentence description of the concept of a script, book, or idea.

  Description: Usually one to three pages, this section summarizes the basic plot of the script.

  Comments: A one-page evaluation of the strengths and weakness of the work.

  Note that on the lower portion of the front page is a checklist with the terms Highly Recommend, Recommend or Consider, and Pass. One of these three terms will be checked. More than 90 percent of the material that arrives at the studio or production company in-boxes garners a Pass. Usually that’s the end of that.

  Turnaround. Projects that are purchased by the studio and then abandoned, usually following a period of unproductive development, are said to be in “turnaround.” Multiple drafts of a script that don’t resolve issues or problems a studio may have, or fail to attract elements—a name director or movie star committed to work on or appear in the movie—will result in turnaround. Such projects can be acquired by a competing studio for development
costs (overhead charges including rewrite, interest, and studio overhead), along with vested or rooting interest in the project. Such interest usually means 2–5 percent of net profits from the theatrical release, DVD, video, and cable sales, etc.

  Unsolicited Material. These are screenplays submitted to the studio that it did not request. All are returned to the sender unopened and unread, because the threat of a nuisance lawsuit, or a lawsuit because the similarity of material already in studio development is too great. For example, when the movie Twister came out, the studio was sued by dozens of people claiming that they were first to have the idea to make a movie about tornados. Of course, tornados aren’t particularly novel as subject matter; it’s the execution that matters. For just this reason, all movie productions carry special errors and omissions insurance, or E&O. Basically this insurance covers both the studio and the produced work from claims of idea or person similarity, or copyright infringement. Given that many movies are seen by millions of people, there are bound to be a few dozen people with varying degrees of plausibility who believe “that’s my life story up on the screen,” or “Gee, I wrote a story about a boxer. Stallone must have stolen it.” E&O insurance covers the cost up to a specified amount (usually $1 million for each occurrence) for defending against such copyright infringement lawsuits.

  Decoding Script Colors. Script pages are changed out as a script is developed. Learn the colors, and you can tell at a glance how far along they are into the development process.

  original draft—white pages

  second draft—blue

  third draft—pink

  fourth draft—green

  fifth draft—yellow