Also, we used presales to secure the funds for 9.6 Mega-Tsunami… . The way presales work on the financial side is that each country or region has a generalized economic value and is therefore responsible for contributing a certain percentage of the film’s anticipated budget. Each regional distributor contributes proportionally to what they are likely to make back based on the currency in which they’re working. So for example, India’s rupee is weak compared to the dollar. For India to pay us a large amount in dollars, they would have to be able to collect a much greater number of rupees from their clients—even though they have a greater population to sell to than, say, Germany, this is more difficult because of the relative weakness of the rupee. So whereas Germany might have to pay 12–15 percent of the film’s budget to acquire the rights, India might only need to pay 2–5 percent.
9.6 Mega-Tsunami cost our company $450,000 in verifiable out-of-pocket expenses. We told our international clients the budget was $1.2 million (so that we had to presell fewer countries to secure the funds), during production we said it was in the $350,000 zone to prevent being taken advantage of by contractors, and later told U.S. broadcasters it was $2.5 million (and that was the number later reported online).
This procedure isn’t sneaky or cheap; all parties involved know the game, buyers and sellers alike. And, as a novice screenwriter, so should you. When, in the future, you are commissioned to write a script for a low flat fee and later find out the budget was astronomically high, keep calm. It’s much more likely the rate you were paid was in line with the legit out-of-pocket expenses actually spent by the company to make the film.
Stress Relief
A quick comment on Sherman: he was new to our company at that time. 9.6 Mega-Tsunami was certainly not the first Direct-to-TV movie he’d been EP on, but it was the first he would be producing for us. So you can imagine the stress he probably felt at that moment. When he woke up that morning, he had no clue that before lunch he’d be handed a $450,000 disaster movie with nothing but a poster and the instruction direct from the CEO’s mouth of “get me a script ASAP.” He knew he had a rushed production before him with very limited money. But before he could make intelligent decisions about how to allocate that money, he first needed to lock down a writer who could deliver a ready-to-go script—and fast.
This is a real world scenario. The clock is ticking and Sherman doesn’t have time for games. Simple as that.
Now our company, as with many production/distribution companies in Hollywood, literally had stacks of screenplays lining the walls. The Production team received dozens of blindly submitted spec scripts daily, most of which were neatly filed into a back storage room. I’m certain that many of those scripts, and their authors, showed real promise… . But do you think Sherman had time to go in there and start reading? No. Do you think he had time to call several agents and make a request for disaster film spec scripts? No. Instead, Sherman picked up the phone and called a buddy of his in Burbank—a writer he’d worked with before, and who Sherman trusted, for a quality script that would be both mindful of budget and quickly turned around.
Sherman didn’t care whether this writer’s previous scripts had ever won any awards (none of them had). He didn’t care whether this writer graduated from film school, or if he’d attended seminars with bigwigs like Robert McKee (he hadn’t). Sherman hired the writer he did because it made his job easier. All Sherman cared about was that this writer could deliver what he needed, when he needed it. He could trust this writer to take the pressure off his shoulders so he could get to work on all the other elements required of him to produce the film.
I remember in film school being encouraged to take as much time as needed to perfectly map out the script, scene-by-scene, from beginning to end. Do you think Sherman expressed that to his writer friend? “Take as much time as you need to perfect your vision, we’ll wait for you.” Nope … his writer had six weeks after hanging up the phone to turn in a final draft. That’s reality.
Understanding the Catch-22
Producers and development executives are extremely busy people, generally with multiple projects on their plates in various stages of progression. They know what they need and have little time for anything else. But this “to-the-point” approach they usually use does not in any way imply they are somehow mean or aggressive; most producers and development execs I know are wonderful people (get rid of those Tropic Thunder stereotypes, they’re few and far between). They truly love what they do and are completely willing to offer help to a young novice looking for a break… . But they have limited time. They cannot read ten scripts per day while producing two films back-to-back (and don’t forget they have families and personal lives to manage as well).
Just as Hollywood is interested in working with any project that aids its goal in potentially making more money and beating out its competition, producers and development execs are always open to working with writers who can make their job easier by simply delivering what they need when they ask for it (on time, under budget, and requiring little adjustment).
This is why there’s that old catch-22. Writers who’ve already written scripts get hired over newbies because they’ve already proven they can be trusted to get the job done. When a producer or development executive is in a pinch, they’re going to call upon the person they know gets it and can deliver. Before you say this is somehow unfair or frustrating, you do the same thing in your life too… . If your car needs maintenance, you’ll go to the same old reliable mechanic because you can depend on them to fix your car, without ripping you off, in a timely manner, rather than blindly trusting the new one just around the corner promising he can get it done cheaper. All of us just want the job done correctly and effectively the first time—with as little stress as possible.
This catch-22 of Hollywood is not a defined rule, meaning it’s not something that has to be seen as an obstacle. It’s just a fact of life (and by accepting this reality, you can use this perspective to help you reach your first green light). A novice will learn to accept and understand why writers with track records have a high chance of getting rehired and will tweak their own writing habits and style to improve their chances. Overcoming this catch-22 is possible. Just as there’s a first time for that auto mechanic to prove his or her skills fixing your car on schedule, and there was a first time for me to prove I could effectively close presales of movies, there too is a first time for a newbie screenwriter to be seen as trustworthy and effective.
To get there is as much about personality and reputation as it is about talent and skill. You need both. Not only will you need the right kind of script to prove you understand your role in the Hollywood system, you’ll also need to pitch yourself as the writer who can deliver. Think a pitch meeting is just about the screenplay? It’s also about proving you’re the one to write it!
That’s the key to overcoming the catch-22 and to be the kind of writer Sherman calls when in need (and not getting your work filed in the back storage room). It’s about being able to deliver the “package” of both talent and understanding of the process that gets writers into the minds of producers and development executives.
Hollywood Buys Writers, Not Scripts
The true point for screenwriters regarding the 9.6 Mega-Tsunami adventure is that the writer who got the job was hired after the film was already presold, funded, and green-lit; he was essentially told what to write and he simply delivered. This writer had written other projects too, ones which he had much more input on the development aspects, but he also understood that sometimes development execs are just in a crunch.
This writer secured this position because he had a strong and proven reputation of delivering what development executives needed on time and worked hard to deliver a script they could work with—meaning one that was mindful of budget and production requirements. (Incidentally, he also came up with a pretty wicked plot structure to explain why the airplane on the poster was getting attacked by lightning … )
T
he spec script he had written years before was never sold, but it did showcase his ability to write what Hollywood needed. It’s what secured him his first writing gig (which was actually a rewriting of someone else’s script), which eventually secured him with steady work. He was successful with his spec script because he wrote a genre rarely written by non-professionals (meaning he wrote a script that would be seen as potentially helping a Hollywood production company make money). Finishing a halfway decent script was enough to secure him the talent quota, but it was his choice of genre and the approach he used when pitching his work—and himself—that proved his business understanding of how to work professionally in Hollywood.
He proved he could write what Hollywood needed and that he could deliver that work in a timely manner. Because of this, his name ended up on the speed-dial of a Hollywood development executive, rather than being just another wannabe stacked amongst the others, in a dusty pile of scripts that would never be read or produced.
Many writers approach their spec scripts in a terrified state, believing that this is their one true shot at Hollywood and that they must write something of such beauty and scope that no producer or development executive could ever look beyond their talents… . This approach is doomed to failure because it goes against delivering what Hollywood needs and instead is focused on what the writer assumes Hollywood wants.
No script is ever truly realized as it is, and no film is ever fully faithful to its original script. The script is an outline to principally keep the cast and crew on schedule and the project from going over budget. And the film is the best attempt to match that “blueprint” while allowing for all the craziness that takes place during the entire production and post-production process. Although you should certainly focus on writing your spec script well, the more important point behind writing the spec script is simply showing off the point that you have the talent and the business acumen to feed the Hollywood animal what it needs.
Just as a poster or trailer is more about convincing you to watch the film rather than being true to the film’s theme, so too your spec script must be more about convincing producers and development executives to commission your writing talents. Your real challenge is being seen by producers and development executives as a person they can rely on. They’re not reading your script to see how well you nailed your formatting or how deeply symbolic your character names are; they want to know that if they call you out of the blue for a TV movie to be written in three weeks that you’ll be able to deliver the goods.
How To Be the Writer Sherman Hired
Now that you “get” what Hollywood needs to stay afloat, we’ll spend the rest of this book explaining in a step-by-step manner how to become the kind of writer development executives call when they’re in a 9.6 Mega-Tsunami-type jam (which is your first step in building a long-term and professional writing career).
No two stories of screenwriter success are the same, but they certainly all involve the same principles, and those are the points we’ll be focusing on in Writing for the Green Light.
Two
“So, What’s It About?”
In this chapter we’ll go over the most important aspect of your spec script: What it’s about (also known as its genre). We’ll zero in on which genres grab the attention of producers and development executives, which genres don’t, and why. From here, we’ll go into the six best genre types for novice screenwriters and what plot points each requires so that you can master the unwritten rules of this system to get your first screenplay green-lit.
The Genre You Choose Says a Lot About You
The stereotype about Hollywood is that it’s filled to the brim with wannabe writers (and this stereotype is completely true). But contrary to popular belief, most of these wannabes are actually good at writing and the majority of them possess the endurance to deliver a quality 100-page script. The problem is that most screenwriters consistently write the wrong type of script—choosing a genre that unintentionally turns away the very professionals they’re trying to attract.
The genre of script you choose ultimately showcases what your value is within the Hollywood system. Why? Because the genre is the first, and most clear, indicator as to whether you “get it” or not. To put it bluntly, you either understand what professional producers and development executives need and you deliver scripts they can work with, or you’re simply wasting their time and clogging up the system.
So how does one go about choosing the right genre? Or learning the difference between a good genre and a bad one? It sounds absurdly obvious, but if you want to build a writing career in the movie business then you simply need to choose the genres that producers and development executives are looking to develop.
This is where most newbie writers begin making mistakes, simply because they look to the wrong sources for insight into what these Hollywood types truly want. Your friends tell you one thing, an advisor/professor tells you another and endless IMDb research just leaves you feeling more confused than when you began.
But we’re trying to help you get your career fast-tracked, so let’s jump ahead to which genres work and which don’t so that we can bring you one step closer to your first green light.
Genre: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The Ugly
Let’s start first with what does not work: It’s easy: Drama!
There’s nothing about a drama’s story that doesn’t make it work, it’s more about the fact that in order for an indie distributor to produce a sellable drama they’re required to secure an expensive cast of big names… . And that still doesn’t account for the risk associated with this genre’s limited opportunity for VOD sales and broadcast slots. Dramas are also tough to presell internationally because most of them are dialogue heavy—meaning they’re expensive to dub and subtitle.
New writers want to move their audience at the core by writing something of such beauty and vision that their script will be held on a pedestal and admired by all. Truth is, most dramatic script submissions are so awful, poorly written, and filled with such self-absorbed pretentiousness, that the mere indication that you are trying to pitch a story anywhere near a dramatic theme will sink your career before it even gets started!
Even if you have a brilliant dramatic idea, save it! If you start your career on the drama route, you will be buried and pushed aside. Even if your script is fantastic, you will still be forced into going “the long-way around.” Wait until you’ve proven yourself and have a few credits before presenting a drama. Even if you have an agent and are getting consistent work with a production company, they’re still fearful of going to their third-party clients with news of an upcoming drama, so you need to get your career to a point where your talent cannot be disputed and those parties are willing and ready to share that risk with you.
Again: Dramas are great; just don’t start your career with one.
The Bad
Let’s move into the middle zone with a questionable genre: Comedy.
Don’t get me wrong, comedy is very high in demand and it’s successful throughout the world… . But it’s very difficult to write comedy, and it carries a very high degree of risk due to all the elements that can go wrong, so it should really be avoided except in very rare instances—especially in your first few scripts. If the old saying is true, that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, keep in mind that comedies have many more variables leaning towards the disaster zone than any other genre.
First, even if your script is laugh-out-loud funny to your reader, there’s still the problem of finding a director and cast that can nail the comedic timing elements in your script—they’ll also start adding their own ideas and jokes that can make the final production version a far cry from what was originally written—and their bad ideas and failures only fall back on you. Second, with studio-level content dominating the U.S. theatrical space, TV and VOD platforms (like Netflix) are getting more picky and selective by the minute—unfortunately for comedies, unless there’s a
unique star or run-away sleeper-hit aspect to the film (like Napoleon Dynamite (2003)), they just never find the support of U.S. acquisitions agents—for proof, note that the best reference I could think of came from 2003. There’s also much more risk around “content sensitivities” in comedy that leave broadcasters and advertisers on edge; one single scene with a “questionable attribute” can keep an otherwise flawless feature-length comedy on the shelf. And third, even if your script is executed by a great production team and some heavy-hitting U.S. platforms are exploited, comedies are very difficult in the rest of the world. They’re usually dialogue-heavy (meaning expensive dubbing and subtitling costs) and there’s also the very real fact that a majority of cultural and social references aren’t clearly understood by most viewers in the world. The very plot of the film might involve something seemingly simple/ordinary to you, but the rest of the world has no idea about it—meaning they’ll have no interest in paying to see it. Because of this, comedies that work in one region of the world rarely succeed in the others.
Keep in mind, the above is all assuming your script is top-notch too—comedies are a skill level of writing that can take years (decades even) of trial and error to master. Quality humor is such a very rare talent, that most comedy writers didn’t start their career trying to be screenwriters. They were stand-up comedians or performers who later got involved in story development and eventually fell into writing.
Writing for the Green Light Page 4
