Could It Be a Movie

by Christina Hamlett

  On stage, the size of the physical cast is dictated by the dimensions of the theater. Even if a large number of people were supposedly present at a designated event in the storyline, their presence is distilled, out of necessity, to a core handful. Theater audiences not only accept this downsizing but are also accepting of double-casting, the practice of assigning those characters in subordinate (and sometimes nameless) roles to appear in multiple parts.

  A particularly stellar example of this is the musical version of Titanic, which opened in New York at roughly the same time James Cameron’s version hit the movie theaters. In an innovative twist of staging, there are two sequential dining room scenes in which we see, respectively, the first class salon and steerage. Those dining in first class are accustomed to luxury and their enviable stations in life. Below decks, however, are the huddled masses that can’t wait to start pursuing their dreams in this magical destination called America.

  Listen carefully to the lyrics — and to the individual voices. You’ll discover that they are being sung by the same actors -- a device that not only utilizes a cast of several dozen to represent the ship’s 2,000 passengers and crew, but poignantly illustrates just how thin the line is between the haves and have nots.

  SELF-TEST

  How many people does it take to effectively tell your story?

  How many of them are expendable?

  Which characters will your audience most strongly relate to on a personal level?

  AUTHOR INVOLVEMENT

  Once your idea is written down and sold to someone, how much participation do you want to have in it thereafter? If you’re someone who has a hard time letting go, this is a question you’re really going to need to consider. Ironically, whether you say “yes” or “no” to being a further part of the development process, that decision is oftentimes vested with the buyer and not the seller.

  As you’ll see in the chapter on the realities of revision, it’s rare for another person to love every word of your project exactly as much as you do and not want to change a single thing. In each of the three target markets we’ve been exploring, there are varying levels of author engagement. How you would respond to each scenario, of course, is dependent upon the underlying reason you wrote the book, play, or film to begin with.

  For novelists (unless you go the self-publishing route), you’ll be at the mercy of editors who want to tweak a character here and drop a paragraph there. While your idea has the strongest chance of staying intact if it’s going to be released in print — as well as the fewest number of cooks interfering with the broth — it’s nevertheless a one-shot venture. Just because you don’t like the version that got released, you can’t turn around and sell the same manuscript to a different publisher.

  For theatrical works, your breadth of involvement in production is a factor of the rapport you’ve established with the director. Maybe you’ll choose to go the workshop route, attending various staged readings and soliciting feedback from the cast and the audience members. Perhaps you’ll even try your hand at directing the play yourself or entering a co-production arrangement with the resident director. Unlike books, of course, theater is an ever-evolving beast, courtesy of diversified casts and diversified audiences. Just because a show falls flat in Buffalo doesn’t mean that it won’t garner rave reviews in San Diego.

  Screenplays — another one-shot venture — are subject to the most outside interference. If you don’t believe that, just take a look at the list of credits at the end of any given film. More likely than not, your role in the process will end shortly after the ink has dried on the contract. Because the script’s outcome is dependent on such a high number of variables, there simply isn’t any way that your input as the original author could cover all the bases. What makes its way to the silver screen may, in fact, bear little resemblance to your own vision. It also may have a much shorter shelf-life than you hoped for, owing to the competitive bid for audience dollars and the proliferation of new films that come out every weekend.

  What ultimately matters, however, is that — because or in spite of your level of involvement — it still got made.

  A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

  This is a favorite exercise I do with students in my workshops.

  Make a list of your 10 favorite movies.

  Scratch any movie off of this list that, to your knowledge, also exists as a stage play or as a novel.

  For whichever movies still remain on your list, identify whether or not they could effectively work as stage plays or as novels.

  Now take a look at your own movie idea. Could it work as a novel? Why or why not? Could it work as a stage play? Why or why not? Even though you may still come back to your original concept of developing it as a screenplay, this process enables you to view your plot from different perspectives and feel comfortable that you have chosen the best method of delivery.

  CHAPTER 3: PRE-EXISTING INSPIRATIONS

  In the chapter on Page, Stage, or Cinema, we examined the characteristics of each as an aid to determining which medium would work best for your original idea. In this chapter, we’ll look at the legal, structural, and interpretive components involved in adapting an existing work to a feature screenplay or short.

  IN RETROSPECT

  During the infancy of cinema, it’s not surprising that the bulk of material was adapted from works that were originally written for the stage. The physical theatricality of melodramas and vaudeville skits didn’t require sound in order for the plot to be understood. As title cards and onstage “ambiance” piano players gradually gave way to the first talkies, fledgling writers began to adapt more material from novels and short stories gleaned from magazines such as Collier’s and the popular Saturday Evening Post.

  During the 1960s and 1970s, adaptations of novels accounted for nearly a third of all movies produced in the United States. Today, that total has dropped to roughly 12% and is concentrated on power-house authors such as Michael Crichton, Tom Clancy, and that master of horror, Stephen King.

  Novels and plays, however, haven’t been the only sources of inspiration for screen material. Consider the following:

  Diaries and journals. The most famous of these, of course, was The Diary Of Anne Frank.

  Comic strips. Superman, Spider-man, Dick Tracy…need we say more?

  Games, both board and electronic. Examples: Clue and Lara Croft, Tomb Raider.

  Vintage photography. E.J. Bellocq’s images of Storyville prostitutes in 1917 Louisiana were the inspiration for Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby.

  Psychological case studies. The demonically possessed girl in The Exorcist was actually a boy in the real-life plot that came to William Peter Blatty’s attention.

  Details at 11. Pick any story that’s made the day’s headlines and the odds are that it’ll be a movie of the week within six months.

  While current statistics suggest that nearly 75 percent of current film fare is original, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to observe that the definition of “original” is murky at best. Do remakes of prior films such as Sabrina count as new? What about adaptations of foreign flicks; do translations and Americanized interpretations of their content constitute a fresh story or just a different spin? And where does one draw the originality line with Star Trek spoofs like Galaxy Quest or the similarities between Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars?

  Inspiration comes in all shapes, sizes, and genres. It’s how much of it you can claim as an original concept that makes the difference between a good day at the box office or a bad day in court.

  IS IT YOURS FOR THE TAKING?

  Let’s say that it’s three o’clock in the morning and you’ve just finished reading an absolutely breathtaking book. In your mind’s eye, you already know whom you’d cast in the lead roles, what kinds of witty things they’d say to one another, and where you’d want to film it if it were a movie.

  If it were a movie….

  A light bulb clicks on your head. Why not wri
te that script yourself? After all, you love the plot, you’ve bonded with the characters, and you even recognize — from reading this book — what it takes to deliver a visually compelling piece of cinema. And hey, the author of the book—some woman in Great Britain named J.K. Rowling—might be so impressed that she’ll write you a lovely thank you letter.

  That’s the fantasy.

  The reality is that she’ll have her attorney send you a not-so-lovely letter suing you for infringement of copyright.

  Even if she had no desire whatsoever to turn Harry Potter and his adventures into a box-office blockbuster, it’s illegal for you to steal the concept and turn it into something else. Just as you wouldn’t want your own works “borrowed” by another writer, the rules of registration and copyright exist to protect those whose brilliance has preceded you. While that’s not to say they wouldn’t be flattered or even intrigued by your enthusiasm to reframe their masterpiece, you need to observe the proper protocol in acquiring permission.

  Specifically, that procedure is:

  Find out whether the book, play, or short story is in the public domain.

  If the work is not in the public domain, determine what rights are available for option.

  Consult an attorney and get your agreement in writing.

  When William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet or Louisa Mae Alcott wrote Little Women, neither one was concerned about someone coming along and turning their plots into movies. In the first place, movies hadn’t been invented yet. Nor, for that matter, was there a regulatory agency to assign and monitor subsidiary rights.

  Creative works that have fallen into what is called “public domain” are a gold mine for screenwriters who want to try their hand at modifying someone else’s material. Specifically, the term applies to those works which were either published prior to 1923 or those which were published between 1923 and 1963 and were not renewed.

  Today’s copyright laws, by comparison, protect the work for the life of the author plus 70 years or until December 2047, whichever is greater. For collaborative works, this term is measured by whichever author lives longer. In addition, the United States has reciprocal copyright relations with most countries of the world.

  Because public domain properties are no longer protected by copyright, they may be freely used by anyone who wants to do something with them. In addition to literary and performance art properties, public domain also applies to published works by the government and its agents and to autobiographical records and journals which have been granted or donated by their originator for the enlightenment of subsequent generations.

  The ease with which you can ascertain who owns a particular copyright depends on the pivotal year 1978 and what part of the country you live in. Registrations, renewals, and copyright ownership transfers became available online from 1978 forward. Anything prior to that requires a manual record search of U.S. Copyright Office files.

  If the Washington D.C. facility is within reasonable commuting distance — or if you’re planning a working vacation to the national’s capital — you can do the search for free on your own. If, however, you need to press a staffer into service to do the looking for you, it will cost you approximately $75 per hour.

  Additional information on this process is available through circulars published by the U.S. Copyright Office itself; specifically, Circular 22 (“How to Investigate the Copyright Status of a Work”) and Circular 23 (“Copyright Card Catalog and the Online File.”) Both can be ordered directly from the Web site at www.copyright.gov.

  Issues covered include which rights have been granted as derivations of the original material; i.e., translations, radio, TV, film, Braille, etc. These are laid out at the time of the property’s purchase, generally as a boilerplate clause for authors and their editors who don’t have any immediate plans to spin the material into something different. The specific language regarding subsidiary venues has evolved in keeping with technology, public demand, and accessibility.

  As recently as 10 years ago, for instance, no one had thought that the electronic medium would catch on as it did. That revolution resulted in a conundrum: could authors whose novels had been published traditionally reissue those works as “e-books” on the Internet -- such extensions never were addressed in their original contracts. Nor had anyone predicted the proliferation of high-tech video games and merchandising associated with fantasy and science fiction stories.

  What this means for aspiring screenwriters is a little sleuthing to determine which permissions can be granted to take a non-public domain plot to its next level.

  The availability of film rights for existing books is contingent upon several factors. If, for instance, it was written by a well-established author and published by a major house, it’s a pretty sure bet that a movie studio already has pounced on an option, if for no other reason than to keep someone else from doing it.

  Even if film rights haven’t been delineated at the time of publication, you still need to work through professional channels of corresponding with the publishing house and/or author’s representative to ensure that they don’t already have something in the works. In the case of deceased authors, heirs may have objections to strangers tweaking with their loved ones masterpieces in any way, shape, or form.

  Smaller houses, foreign publishers, and self-published authors represent a better chance of negotiating permission for an adaptation because — in a nutshell — a film would (hopefully) promote and enhance the value of the original product. The downside, obviously, is that a prospective producer could argue, “If it hasn’t set the house afire on its own merit, what makes you think people would go pay to see this at the movies?”

  In the same vein, new plays that are produced in regional theaters or have their debuts on university stages are rich in opportunity for development. What many people don’t realize is that these productions are often “shopped” a long time before officially finding a home with a publisher. The reason is threefold:

  The more times a script can be tested on an audience, the more chances to work all the bugs out before settling on a final version.

  Playwrights, such as myself, enjoy the freedom of being able to negotiate performance fees — and participate on the fringes as a consultant — for as long as possible.

  Major theatrical publishers such as Samuel French prefer to have proof of a show’s popularity and longevity before making a commitment to aggressively market it.

  In addition, the majority of aspiring playwrights tend not to have agents jumping into the mix, largely because agents view live theater as a riskier venture than books and, thus, one which offers a lot less return for their efforts. Playwrights also recognize, realistically, that film versions of their stories will have shorter shelf lives than the original plays and, accordingly, don’t pose any long-term conflict of interest. Further, they’re savvy enough to know that movie-goers outnumber theater aficionados and that movie adaptations will enable them to share their plots with people who otherwise would not have seen them at all.

  So what happens after someone says “yes” to your proposal for an adaptation?

  In a perfect world, promises could be sealed with a handshake or — in the case of e-mail — with a smiley face. Unfortunately, issues related to intellectual property rights require that both parties put signatures to it. This is when it comes in handy to have an entertainment law professional help you memorialize your option agreement.

  In an option agreement, you are essentially “renting” the work for a specified amount of time and designating who gets what in the event of a sale. This protects your interests since the author can’t turn around and cut a deal with a writer he or she likes better. The duration of this lease (usually 1-3 years) also protects the author from being saddled with a flake in the event the screenwriter procrastinates.