Film Utopia

Sunday Movie Blog: The Last Post

Thanks for reading.

Now go find something else to read... because there isn't any more of this to be read. I need to use the time I spend doing this, writing screenplays and learning to play the banjo.

(I am not really learning to play the banjo)

Clive x

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog

Sunday Movie Blog: Why We Should Destroy the Spec Script Market

photo by walter parenteau

I was reading an article by Ted Hope this week, called Ten Things to Do Before You Submit a Script 

It was reading it because I wanted a producer’s perspective on the spec screenplay market. Recently, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the working relationship between producers and writers. My take: the traditional relationship between writers and producers, the spec script market, that particular method for developing projects, just isn’t working.

Ted Hope’s article supported and confirmed my overall view of how things stand at the moment. His company receives in excess of three-thousand spec scripts a year. A process he tries to filter by preferring agent submitted scripts. Just in terms of time management, three-thousand scripts a year means that either his staff would each have to constantly devote a couple of hours in every working day to reading specs, or they have to rapidly weed that pile of three-thousand down to a manageable size.

Although Ted doesn’t describe how his team handles that problem in his article, I would put good money on those piles of scripts getting a rapid and efficient filtering.

Given the same problem, I would skim the first ten pages from the pile of scripts and toss every script that obviously wasn’t well written and which didn’t immediately draw me into the story. The remaining scripts I would then filter based on the loglines. I would even bother to read anything where the core premise didn’t fascinate me and which also hit areas and genres I knew worked for my business; unless I was reading it as a calling card script. Now, this method of filtering is designed to firstly identify who can write and then looks at ideas... it's a writer's approach. My guess is that most producers approach this the other way around: they filter ideas and then filter writing, a process that is more likely to filter out good writers. On top of that, I'm also going to suggest that in most production companies the filtering process is delegated to the office junior.

However, the core of what I'm saying is that, given the same problem, it wouldn’t be that hard for me to reduce that pile of three-thousand scripts to thirty. Thirty scripts a year that were worth reading properly. Thirty scripts that I would be prepared to give two hours reading time to. Sixty hours a year seems about the right amount of time a year to put into looking for new projects, as opposed to six-thousand. And, I can pretty much guarantee that most of the slots in that pile of thirty scripts, would be filled by writers I already had an interest in. I may be wrong about this, but I believe this is a fairly accurate snapshot of the gritty day-to-day realities of the spec script market. Producers, swamped by material, streamline the process down to 1% of submissions and largely read scripts from people they know or have been referred to them by a trusted contact. Actually, I suspect that very few producers read anywhere near as much as 1% of the spec scripts they are sent. 

It seems to me that this way of working doesn’t really serve anyone well. Every producer I have ever met sees spec scripts as a burden. And every year writers are committing thousands of hours to projects that will only be given cursory reads, at best. It is a process that the industry seem locked into, which really only causes frustration for everyone and which generates huge amounts of unproductive work. 

Every spec script written represents about one-hundred-and-fifty hours of work. Which means that the three-thousand specs submitted to Ted Hope alone, represent in excess of at least four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand hours of labour. And, lets be honest, in terms of putting movies into production, the vast majority of that time is wasted time. Any way you look at it, the spec market as a project development process is insane.

So, the real question is, how can we alter this?

Well, personally I believe writers need to stop writing spec scripts... and producers need to stop reading them. Instead of writers using scripts as their preferred method of slinging ideas at producers, we need to build an industry that revolves around relationships. Writers and producers have to start thinking in terms of collaborating on the development of scripts, where the producer provides a clear brief about what they need for their business, and the writer then writes to that brief. Sure, the writing can still be speculative, but at least by entering into a working relationship with a writer, the producer knows that they only have to read scripts that meet their specific brief, and writers know they’re only writing scripts that will be read.

In order to get to this point, writers and producers need to interrupt the spec script market. Writers, in particular, need to get out of their knee-jerk desire to pitch ideas, in the hope that an idea will stick, and instead they need to ask producers for a clear explanation of what they need before developing ideas. Basically, the producer/writer relationship needs to grow up. No sane or profitable business in the world develops products or talent in the puerile way the movie industry does.

These days, I just won’t pitch to a producer unless they can tell me what the buying profile of their distributor is. I won’t do it, because any producer who can’t tell me their distributor profile isn’t going to be able to secure pre-sales, and therefore isn’t going to get production investment, and therefore isn’t going to be able to pay me. Any producer who’d rather have me guess at what they really need, instead of talking to me about their business, is actually telling me that they’re quite happy for me to commit to one-hundred-and-fifty hours of unpaid work, to produce a script, that they’ll more than likely reject or want rewritten, because it doesn’t meet their current needs. There is a word for that kind of person... wanker. There really isn't any point at all in writing for producers who don't understand, value or appreciate the labour that goes into writing a script. And, unfortunately what the spec script market has created, is a industry full of producers who believe that writers should be prepared to parade endless ideas and scripts in front of them, until they stumble across one that takes their fancy... well, providing they can delegate the filtering process to other people: agents, unpaid interns, their PA etc etc. 

However, the only way we’ll ever change the way producers work, is if writers are prepared to stop feeding the spec script market. Yes, every writer needs a calling card script. But beyond that, I strongly believe the way forward is to form relationships with producers, find out what they really need and then offer to develop the concept with them. If we've got project we just have to write regardless... well, in that case we should also have the stones to self-produce. 

I know I keep on banging on about this, but if you bring together a producer who knows what they want to take to the market, a screenwriter capable of developing creative cinematic ideas, and a good script editor... that is the way to develop movies. A team of people getting the core idea right, before the actual scripting process takes place... instead of asking writer to develop and write a script, which the development team then re-writes to fix all the problems that could have been avoided by a proper brief.

I have never submitted a script to Ted Hope’s company, even though he is a producer I admire and would love to work with. But, I respect his time and the value of my own work too much, to ever add my script to a pile of three-thousand others. 

And, actually, that is the real point of this week’s article. Screenwriters need to have a hell of a lot more respect for the work that we do. That one-hundred-and-fifty hours of labour has to treated with respect by ourselves in the first place, if we are ever to expect producers to do the same. 

I have one more thing to add to Ted Hope's list of things to do before you submit a script

11) DON'T. Just say No to spec scripts.

keep writing, respect the work, and viva la revolution

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog

Sunday Movie Blog: The Holy Grail of the Perfect, Commercial Script

There is a commonly held myth that "a good script will always sell."

This is not even remotely true.

A good script will NOT always sell

And...

a bad script will NOT always fail.

In reality there is a genuine schism between being a good screenwriter
and being a successful one. Actually, it's more of a chasm than a
schism. A gaping chasm. Not the sort to be leapt in a single bound by
a brave lad and his dog. Oh, no! This is more of the "Oh, no, oh, no,
I'm falling to my impending and eternal doom" kind of chasm.

Of course it could be argued, by definition, that a good screenwriter
is one who gets paid. I know a lot of people who believe that. And,
when I say people, of course I mean idiots. I've read many scripts
written by writers whose screenplays were so amateurish and
unaccomplished they defied belief, despite the fact that their
previous movies had done good business, to know that it's not even
remotely true that sales are made on the quality of the script. It's a
sad fact, but there is and always has been a viable market for badly
written, badly directed films. A market that has flourished since the
digital revolution, simply because it is now possible to shoot a
distributable movie for less than a fifth of what it would have cost
twelve years ago. The entry level for a professional movie is now
somewhere near the £200K mark.

However, what is less understood, is that the market in which badly
written movies turn a profit, do not turn a profit because the movies
are badly written, they turn a profit despite the fact that they are
badly written. This is an important distinction. A distinction I want
to write about today.

So, why do these badly written, badly produced movies perform so well
in the market?

Well, they perform because they are supported by an existing
distribution infrastructure that knows it can turn a profit on
concepts which tick the right boxes. Yes, despite the constant moaning
about the death of distribution and the minuscule ember of hope that
is self-distribution, there are still a lot of legitimate distributors
out there, with existing, profitable markets... and, a growing number
of producers who are servicing those markets. What is important to
these distributors is that they can sell DVD's solely on the
information they can stuff onto a cover and into a poster. In this
market, it is the core concept and the artwork that are the key
components. The quality of the product is a secondary component.

As a screenwriter, I see these markets as soft markets. Basically, all
it would take would be a few smart producers working with a few smart
screenwriters, to obliterate the teams who are currently profiting
because of the hunger for product rather than any particular skills as
film-makers. However, the difficulty for any screenwriter in taking on
these markets, is finding producers who are smart enough to see the
wisdom of producing high-quality movies which still tick the all the
boxes, as opposed to films that just tick the boxes.

There is another issue... and that is the screenwriters themselves. At
the moment, far too many screenwriters tell the story they want to
tell, the way they want to tell it, and only then start to consider
what the market is for that script. And, unfortunately this is a trend
that most producers tend to support. Many producers are simply too
lazy and opportunistic when it comes to project development. So, if a
good idea lands on their desk, on the right day, and they're in the
right mood, and their intern has some time to read it, and it ticks
all the boxes, then that becomes a go project. Contact them with the
same project on the wrong day, the day the intern is at the dentist,
and the silence will be deafening. Fundamentally, most of the
producers you meet are passive script developers, in that they wait
for projects to come to them... and, if the truth be known, most
producers also resent the time and effort it takes to read spec
scripts. All in all, the odds are always stacked against a writer
making a spec script sale.

What this means for screenwriters is that we can either continue to
play the spec lottery: write a script, and then tout a script until it
hits the right desk, on the right day. Or, alternatively, we can
develop a network of producers who have specific needs and then be
prepared to write to those needs. Where the real skill comes in, is
in understanding the needs of the producer and the distributor... but
then being able to write something wonderful to those requirements.

Ultimately, screenwriters need to ask themselves whether they really
need complete and absolute freedom to do whatever they want on the
page... or, whether they have the skills and the humility to make
great movies to a specific commercial brief?

At the same time, producers need to ask themselves whether they really
can work with writers to create great products, based on the
producer's understanding of the market, by actually collaborating with
writers, as opposed to just trawling through random spec scripts,
looking for a winner and acquiring the first dog which has the roughly
the right spots.

What is true is that regardless of how well written spec scripts are,
they rarely meet the precise needs of any particular producer or
market at that precise moment in time. Which is the reason great
scripts often remain unsold and crap scripts continue to turn a
profit.

However, what really concerns me, is that far too many writers have
decided either that "ticking the right boxes means writing shit, and
therefore I'll not tick the right boxes" or "ticking the right boxes
means writing shit and therefore I will write shit." Those are not the
only two choices. The other choice is to both tick the right boxes,
but in doing so to create something you feel proud to stand behind as
an artist.

From a business point of view, the primary advantage of getting a
great script crafted as opposed to going with a naff-script, is that
great scripts really do attach great actors. If a producer wants to
make their project stand out from the competition, they really need to
start working with writers who have a track record of attaching high
quality talent to their scripts. However to get to that point, the
point where good writing meets commercially viable movies, producers
need to rethink their approach to project development. Rather than
thinking in terms of single scripts, producers need to start thinking
in terms of ongoing relationships with writers... and about creating
proper, professional development teams. Independent producers need to
start acting like producers, instead of acting out their fantasies of
being script editors or development executives. As I've said many
times before, a producer's role should be to act as an advocate for
the product as a commercial entity; the script editor's job is to act
as an advocate for clarity of communication (to speak for the
audience); and the screenwriter's job is to write something inspiring.
Both writers and producers need to take a step back and look at the
seriously flawed nature of the spec script market, at how poorly it
performs as a vehicle for project development, and to make some
positive changes in that process.

This coming year, I have decided to not write any spec scripts for the
film market. Instead, on top of my ongoing development work for TV,
I'm going to collaborate on projects with three independent film
producers. One of whom I've already committed too. To fill the other
two slots I'm talking to four other companies, trying to figure out
who is a good fit and who is most likely to benefit from working with
me. My criteria for this audition process are: that they have to have
relationships with investors and distributors; they have to know
precisely what they want from a script, in terms of the market; and
they have to understand that I'm not doing this for laughs or for
credits. This is about chasing the holy grail... the well written,
high-quality, low budget but profitable movie. This is about bringing
to life the very thing the digital revolution promised and is only now
starting to deliver. I feel very positive about this. Mainly because
I'm talking to some genuinely interesting and productive film-makers.

I believe low-budget movies can also be both astounding and
profitable, as opposed to just exploitive and profitiable. And, that
there is actually more profit in an astounding movie, because
astounding movies generate word of mouth sales, rather than just
selling off the DVD cover or the poster. I also believe that it is
time for low budget movie making to live up to its potential as a
force to challenge international cinema. That's it's entirely possible
to have a film selling well in a traditional direct to DVD market and
still have the same film on the festival circuit.

What I'm hoping is that more good writers will do the same. Stop
writing specs scripts, and instead get out into a market that needs
servicing. Do something incredible with the available budget and the
opportunity presented by that market. That is the real future of
screenwriting in the digital age... and the sooner everyone adjusts to
that instead of trying to work outside the industry, the better.

keep writing and viva la revolution

Posted via email from Filmutopia's Sunday Morning Movie Blog