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EXCLUSIVE: In a move that has writers and their reps buzzing, Warner Bros has just put out word that it will start to enforce delivery dates on first screenplay drafts. That means writers who signed contracts had better deliver on time, or risk the wrath of the studio. Deadlines are rarely enforced by studios, under the “better late and great” rationale. Writers function better under deadline, but scribes say procrastination isn’t the reason they fall behind on delivery dates. Low to mid-level writers are double-booking to make ends meet in an age when studios routinely slash writer quotes and offer one-step deals that leave scribes wondering if they’ll be jobless in three months. Some writers saw the Warner Bros move as another example of a studio imposing its leverage over writers, wondering how long before they return to the days when scribes reported to writer’s rooms on studio lots, turning in a day’s worth of pages when they clocked out.
Warner Bros said the new mandate isn’t nearly as bad as writers might fear. It is part of the studio’s campaign to streamline the development process and fix a fractured system. Warner Bros needs movies. Execs would pitch projects to stars and directors, only to see the screenplays turned in months late. The move came out of recent meetings that production chief Greg Silverman and his exec team took with agents and writers, and not all the results are bad. Based on a litany of complaints from writers and reps, Warner Bros is moving away from the one-step deals that have caught on like wildfire at most studios.
Studios turned to the one-step deals as a way to avoid having to invest more time and money in second drafts from writers who’ve gone off the rails on the first draft. Writers hate the deals because it puts tremendous pressure to get it right the first time, and some need the rewrite process to find the movie. The writers feel that one-steps are promulgating parades of writers, robbing a sense of authorship and contributing to a lack of originality, character development and depth evident in many films that are not performing at the box office.
The one-step deals have also pressured writers into doing free rewrites that violates WGA rules. Scripts are first turned in to producers, who give notes to the scribes. Writers feel compelled to address those in a second pass, done for free, before the script is formally submitted to a studio. Top scribes say no, but low and mid-level writers fear that alienating the producer is a good way to not be brought back.
Insiders at the studio said Warner Bros wanted transparency in its development system, but denied that 12-week deadlines were being given out uniformly. Time lines will be agreed upon upfront by the studio, producer and the writer. Scribes doing research-intensive projects will be given more rope. But the script better be there when the due date arrives.
Writers and their reps say they can live with the Warner Bros system, that this could be positive if one-step deals go by the wayside. Their concern: other studios will emulate deadline enforcement, and keep the one-step deals now so common all over town. One-step deals force writers to keep one eye on the next job. Assignments are harder to come by, and there can be 20 scribes pitching takes in vying for the same job. Writers who don’t take the time to prepare don’t stand a chance.
Warner Bros has another motive for the delivery deadline crackdown. The studio wants producers to move more quickly when they receive script drafts. One producer said that could actually could cost Warner Bros more money, because it won’t leave time for producers to squeeze out that free rewrite that has become all to common.
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I’m happy to deliver scripts on time if studios will pay on time.
I agree, studios need to be timely with the paychecks and I’ll be happy to turn in a draft super-quick. I sold a high-profile spec to a major studio and didn’t get paid for six months. I went broke while working on the rewrites. Ridiculous.
How long does it take your agency to turn the money around? That might be part of the problem. And if the studio is late, just remind the or “reading time and obligations” and the 1.5% they can be fined per month. That usually gets the money flowing.
The guild and working writers need to band together and say no to the producers pass! Writers will find themselves doing more and more work for free if we don’t collectively fight this abusive practice.
Can we also eliminate multiple free outlines while we’re at it?
Producers– when you request multiple free treatments, you’re ultimately F-ing yourself and your project, as you’re killing the writer’s interest in writing the actual script.
An outline will never be a script. Trying to make it so WILL kill the actual screenplay.
So stop it.
Yes yes yes. I just finished a treatment that’s heavily laden with flashbacks I’ll never use in the script because the producer can’t accept that anything can come out in dialog.
yeah and don’t forget about the FREE STUDIO rewrites so many executives are now asking for… this kind of shit does not happen in any other guild but ours. it’s time we take a stand.
WHAT???? As soon as studios pay their writers, they will deliver!! Ha! I have so many friends who have gone into debt waiting to be paid for their hard work! These big conglomerates are so fucking arrogant! They are big bullies with no respect for artists and the creative process!!!
As long as writers regard studios as sugar daddies, studios are going to treat writers like whores.
So basically the studios want more crap? Someday, SOMEDAY – screenwriters will band together in a cooperative, pool their money with investor money and fund their OWN projects and hire everyone else. ONLY THEN will the movies become great again. SOMEDAY.
and then they will become… producers, ironically.
That act makes them producers (too).
Isn’t this called independent film?
I’ve never in my career handed in a draft past my deadline (and, c’mon. We all do the free producer’s pass. That’s been part of the deal for many years). How common is a late delivery?
Amen, big sigh… Every day the studios are late with the check for their one draft, add another 20 grand onto the check. That should be a WGA rule. All script assignments go through the WGA when they are turned in, if a check hasn’t arrived in two weeks, bam! FINE ‘EM. Fair is fair in a business where the cards are stacked and the table is slanted.
WGA should have negotiated that in the last contract negotiation w/ the AMPTP. Unfortunately, they didnt and now they’re fucked on it until the next time. WGA add it to the list for, what? 2011 is it? or 2012?
Actually, there is a WGA rule imposing penalties (in the form of interest) for late payment. Enforcement isn’t great, but the rule is in the agreement
Here it is:
http://www.wga.org/subpage_writersresources.aspx?id=1361
I work at a studio and your guild is not on your side.
But the studios are? The only ones on our side are ourselves. We learned that a long time ago.
“Low to mid-level writers are double-booking to make ends meet in an age when studios routinely slash writer quotes and offer one-step deals that leave scribes wondering if they’ll be jobless in three months.” I’m finding it hard to feel badly for writers who do that. One-step deals suck, but if a writer has “gone off the rails completely” why should the onus be on the studio to give that writer another chance? And don’t double-book yourself if you can’t take the pressure. Nobody takes responsibility in this town!
As others have pointed out, the deal/practice should be prompt screenplays for prompt payment. Both should be industry standards.
“Low to mid-level writers are double-booking to make ends meet in an age when studios routinely slash writer quotes and offer one-step deals that leave scribes wondering if they’ll be jobless in three months.”
Sorry Mike Fleming, but while I usually find your posts incredibly knowledgeable, this analysis is slightly misinformed. (I was going to say ignorant, but you deserve better.) Mid level writers are booking two or three jobs at a time? Not in 2010. Any writer is lucky to be working at all. And all but for a few ‘flavors of the year’, nobody has jobs stacked up anymore.
I know this for a fact to be untrue. I have a non-”flavor of the year” writer friend who is juggling multiple scripts at once.
Congratulations on knowing “one” who is juggling multiple scripts. Good for him, or her.
But I know dozens in the 300k to 650k category who are out of work. Ask any literary agent or lawyer about this, and they’ll confirm it, as will the WGA’s dues receipts.
Either way, this isn’t to totally dismiss your observation, or start a flame war.
Rather, it’s to point out that in the grand scheme of things – specifically, Warner’s deadline issues – the number of writers who are late because they’re juggling multiple projects is so small as to be insignificant.
If I ever get paid 300k to 650k to write a screenplay — ever — my life will be a massive success.
I love the idea of being in “the 300k to 650k category.” Like it’s just your standard fee. For us aspiring writers out there, it sounds more like a one-time lotto jackpot. I could live for a decade on 650k.
the anomaly doesn’t count… i rep several A- list writers and a few A list writers and very few have jobs stacked on top of each other…
Amen, I hate it when these articles describe the “low to mid level” writer who’s booking jobs up the wazoo. Makes me feel like a failure for getting a low-paying job I was actually pretty f’in happy to get.
I’ve been a freelance writer for a long time, and I’ve always understood that the first rule is: deadlines are sacred. Is meeting a deadline really such a problem in Hollywood?
agree… pay on time… deliver on time. both ends should be held up.
Good for Warner. If the pay is guaranteed, then the timeframe should be as well (including execution). This is not the remodeling business where completion dates are essentially a joke. The writers can thank themselves for this Warner correction, as this is clearly indicative of many industry corrections resulting from the writer’s strike. It’s part of the blowback (not payback, there is a difference).
The writers’ strike was also responsible for the Gulf Coast oil spill.
And the economic meltdown.
and the volcano in iceland
and Katrina
And Firefly getting cancelled.
Firefly? Really? Haven’t we all moved past that?
As soon as a show that is better than Firefly gets cancelled we will move past it. You know, I started that sentence as a joke and am a little embarrassed to come to the end of it in complete earnestness.
I’m fine with deadlines if they apply to all parties. A commencement check is paid in order for me to COMMENCE work. Completion checks are paid upon completion, not months later. And a draft means 1 draft, not the draft, the producer pass, the d person pass, and the midlevel exec pass before it’s and “official” draft to then be read by the big cheese. If the studios wanna commit to that, then all will be good!
I’m glad you’re bringing to light the “producer’s pass” most of us writers are forced to do.
I always have turned my scripts in early and I always get slammed with notes from the producer and his minions.
One of the most objectionable things I ever went through was with one of the bigger producers on the Universal lot who had his 2 “creative” (and I use the term loosely) execs get on the phone with me hours before delivering the draft to the studio.
They proceeded to dictate dialogue and script changes to me over the telephone before we delivered the draft to the studio.
It was humiliating and I objected to it. Still, they pushed and told me I had to do it and I would get to address these issues with them on the 2nd step of the deal which they, of course, did not exercise.
Blame the writer’s guild for rolling over after putting us through a debilitating strike. They caved and we’re paying for it.
This needs to become a win-win situation not a lose-lose. Writers should not be held hostage for their paychecks and reputations, and producers should not have to push crap because they don’t want to pay for rewrites.
Ironically, writers’ rooms of the past produced some of the greatest scripts of all time. When writers work from home or office or coffee shop, they lose the face-to-face time with producers and the whole relationship loses a lot of compassion and commitment.
Now excuse me while I buy $15 Toy Story 3 in 3D tickets for my kids : /
Doesn’t Pixar do the same thing? In the Golden Age, writers worked on the lot. What would you call this age?
Fine by me. Let’s all play by the rules.
Payment is due under the MBA within 48 hours. There’s a 7 grace period including the initial 48 hours. After that 18% interest starts. I can’t find an investment that pays 18%. I laugh now when they pay me late.
You don’t have to talk to your agent, you don’t have to hire a lawyer. It’s already in the contracts you both signed. The Guild will enforce it for you. You’ve already paid for their legal department out of your union dues. And the whole thing goes to automatic arbitration if they argue. And there’s not much to argue. If you have the dates you turned in the draft (email these days will show the pdf delivery), the check stubs from the studio prove the dates they paid; it’s pretty much cut and dried.
I’ve done it. They’re shocked. They pay.
You have an 18 month window in which to file this in features. 2 years in TV. (I have no idea why it’s different)
If the same CE who “forgot” to sign the form to get you paid while asking you to do just a couple more notes gets 4 or 5 of his or her projects fined because of behavior like this, Business Affairs at the studio will ding them hard.
If I’m going to be held responsible, so are you.
So here is the question: have you been hired again by the same studio/production company after having the WGA litigate the late payment? The fear of not being hired again is the one I hear from writers who comply with endless producer drafts (which are particularly problematic when the producer and the studio don’t agree on what the script needs to look like).
So you can live on your feet or work on your knees?
Let the talent be the judge of employment.
Rules are rules.
Yup. Cause here is where most folks lose the thread. And I’ve had my agents beg me not to go to war with the studio more than once. But what it comes down to over and over is anyone who is incompetent or arrogant and foolish enough to treat writers this way — doesn’t keep the job. I was told by one studio president that if I continued a certain course not only would I not work at his studio again, I’d never work in the business again. I did it anyhow. He was a producer 6 months later. He’s right, I’m never going to work for him again.
The players change. The rules do not. If you don’t play by them, you get bit. You make relationships with people who you respect who treat you with respect. And you work with and for them for decades as they cycle in and out of the studio and up and down the ladder. The studio itself has little or no corporate memory.
Big Daddy wants you scared. But he’s has to speak loud cause he doesn’t actually have a large stick. All he’s got is that scowl and he’s hoping you cower. Bullies don’t last. Not in elementary school, and not out here. They prosper only a little while. Don’t worry about them. Play by the rules, do your best work; hold yourself accountable, hold them accountable and all will be fine. Really.
Speak truth to power. And always spellcheck.
Good for you– I for one am not in a position to alienate Warner Brothers.
I’ll say it again then go back to work . Warner Bros. as a entity to alienate does not exist. It’s a bunch of people who for a little while get to have those jobs. When they’re gone — and they will be, because that is the nature of those jobs — other people who have no idea what went on before them will have the exact same offices and the exact same jobs. And a frankly lot of the exact same furniture. The pyramid gets narrower at the top. Very few get to stay. The people who mistreated you will more than likely be out of the business. Each studio has a building full of dead presidents making believe they’re producers. Most fail. Each time when a studio kills the king, the next president does his best to insure there’s a impressive severance package for the outgoing president because he knows at heart he is negotiating his own future. Don’t worry about these guys. The good ones who you want to work for stay. The rest get washed away. Some of them later write bad checks. Some commit suicide. Really. And it’s sad. But it is.
In the meantime it is important for you to a) to be able to pay for your life as you develop your craft with the money that is legally and contractually due to you and b) have a enough self-respect to know you are worth what you have negotiated for.
No one can devalue you if you refuse to devalue yourself. You are in a position to stand up for yourself always.
In my experience, the mere threat of going to the Guild to enforce payment — or the gentlemanly “I have no choice” suggestion — usually gets the check in the mail.
I will happily do my drafts in twelve weeks, so long as the clock doesn’t start ticking until the commencement check arrives. Technically speaking, THAT’S in the basic contract, too, but the studios always manage to forget that pertinent fact.
The producers pass – you idiot – is not to abuse the writer but to help put something in as good shape as possible before presenting to the buyer who will make a brutal and final judgement once they read the first draft you hand in. In short, if everyone knocked it out of the park the first time we wouldn’t have to slave producers passes which are never summer nights on the beach for anyone. But go ahead, blow off getting it right unless you’re getting paid. I’m sure those producers will hire you again.
Every producer’s pass I’ve worked on for the past several years (and there have been many) has incorporated notes from the Studio VP to whom the producer has “unofficially” slipped the script, and often from the President of Production and/or Chairman.
This enabled the studio to get several revisions without paying for them.
The producer’s pass is about getting something for nothing.
Bingo.
“In short, if everyone knocked it out of the park the first time we wouldn’t have to slave producers passes which are never summer nights on the beach for anyone.”
“slave producers passes”?
Was that a Freudian slip or did you really mean to write that?
The point, YOU IDIOT, is that the whole “good shape” process you’re talking about is to be completed after the 1st draft is completed, not secreted in at the tail end of the first 1st draft writing process. If that’s what you and your ilk are doing, then you are abusing the legally agreed upon rights of the writer per the WGA and studios. Sure, it’s a necessary and integral part of the process to take and enact the notes of the studio, but when you pay for a draft, you’re not paying for a finalized, retooled script. It’s a draft and just that. You want to give notes? A second draft? That’s part two. Pay us for it.
Okay, so do we hire you based entirely on your sample and not give the time and effort into discerning why you might have more to offer than your sample indicates?
When I was running a high-profile production company on the Paramount lot in the 2000-2003 era, not only did we routinely give rewrite notes to writers before “submitting it to the studio,” we frequently had already given the draft to the production exec, so that our notes reflected what the exec wanted on the page before the exec showed it to the production president.
It’s all justifiable. Nobody wants a pass, right?
So I can assume that when you were running this company, you frequently went into work for several weeks on end without getting paid because you were trying to develop projects that might not sell to Paramount?
Work without pay three…four…ten times a year, then come back and tell me it’s all justifiable.
Best line in this entire thing: “Writers hate the deals because it puts tremendous pressure to get it right the first time, and some need the rewrite process to find the movie.” God forbid you do the hard work to “get it right the first time.” Remember that the next time your auto mechanic doesn’t fix your car right and your brakes fail. Or your contractor screws up your remodel and your house falls down. Such a bunch of lazy whiners. The rest of us with real jobs don’t have this luxury. We get it right the first time or we get fired. Shouldn’t you have “found” the movie before you started writing?? How about not going to Starbucks today? Or maybe don’t take the pitch meeting for your next project and stay in your office and write. All of these writing contracts are exclusive. Meaning you (the beleaguered writer) is supposed to focus your energy on the job you were paid for and nothing else. 3 months to write a first draft and you can’t get it right the first time? Ridiculous. Ernest Lehmann and Paddy Chavesky are laughing at all of you.
Dear Benny,
Writing is not the same as auto repair or house contracting, or whatever it is you do for a living. While everyone likes to get it right the first time, most of history’s best writing, including that of Ernest Lehmann and Paddy Chayevsky, has required revisions on the part of the writer. Writing is rewriting, as the saying goes.
Now get back to work and finish my kitchen cabinets already.
Benny, you are a moron. Yes, Ernest Lehmann and Paddy Chavesky were great writers, but I wonder how many drafts it took to get it right. You’ll never know because you never read those drafts. It’s all a big machine. Writers don’t always get it right the first time because they are working with a number of producers or execs who pollute the process. You spend three months writing something, you get close to the material and need objective eyes. NO FIRST DRAFT is perfect. I don’t care who you are.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Then don’t bitch and moan when a real professional is brought in to fix your crappy first effort. 3 months. To write a script. Jesus Christ. Forget Lehmann and Chavesky, the folks in TV are writing better stuff in a week than you hack feature writers do in 12. Look at Lost. Mad Men. Modern Family. Sons of Anarchy. The Wire. Somehow the writers in TV manage to “get it right” in a fraction of the time. Writing is a job. And the true professionals approach it like that, apply themselves every day, and realize they are getting well paid. And “writer”, I actually work on the crew and have been working consistently for 27 years. When you have that track record (or even a produced credit), I’ll be glad to come finish your kitchen cabinets. But then again, you are probably a “writer” in name only – with that great “Will & Grace” sample you are at Coffee Bean rewriting right now. And I’m sure you can figure out the Ikea instructions for your new cabinets in your studio apartment in Eagle Rock. They were “written” by someone, too.
To be fair, television writers aren’t having to create the characters or the world of the show in every script. A lot of the ground work is done for them. It takes me about two weeks to write an episode for a show that already exists. A pilot can take me a year.
More importantly, in TV, writers are IN CHARGE. That’s why stuff gets done quickly and is really good. There aren’t layers and layers of jr. exec morons with a copy of Syd Field on the desk telling a writer what they think the studio might want, only to find out that the studio had something entirely different in mind.
My last deal was for a big star who was producing it as well. Her people gave me notes constantly. “Make it funnier. No one realizes how good she is at comedy. Lose the scene where she’s a bitch.”
We turned it in and guess what? The studio had no desire to put this person in a comedy, and bought the whole property for her because of the scene where she’s a bitch.
They told me they weren’t going to pay for that draft and gave me one week to turn it into what they wanted, which I did, and she pulled out of the project because it wasn’t what she wanted to do.
At least I got paid for the second step, but believe me, having a project die after the first draft is turned in because the star who hired you dropped out is career murder. (Can’t call it carer suicide because there was nothing I did to kill it).
Benny, if you’ve really worked in this town for 27 years, then you know the truth. If studios want scripts to be good and turned in on time, fire 2/3 of the development execs.
In point of fact, IKEA instructions contain no words at all. Just sayin’.
Benny, I’m sorry you don’t get the creative process. Go watch “Barton Fink” (which, incidentally, is where Fleming got the photo). It’s about a writer who can’t get past page 1 of a B-movie. Anyone can punch out 100 pages of shit in 3 months, no fucking problem. I’ll write you 100 pages of shit blowing up, stock characters with stock dialog, and turn it in. But writers, CREATE. And they want to get it right. And they might not do that in 3 months.
I once read a description of writing as: lock yourself in a room. Pour your heart and soul for a year into a script. Don’t show it to anyone till you’re finished. Let someone read it. They will hate it. Take notes. Start over. Repeat 3-4 times until it’s passable.
And I didn’t realize that studio execs, producers, and apparently you, oh mighty crew man of 27 years, are…”real professionals brought in to fix your crappy script.” Funny, you would think these execs, being professionals, wouldn’t waste the time and money on hiring piece of shit hack writers who are only good for complaining, pissing and moaning, lazy sons of bitches who don’t do anything and turn in bad material when they do get off their couch and try to write, and just do it themselves. I mean, my God, the fact that you aren’t head of a studio yet, or an A-list writer yourself, since you can just print fucking Oscar material in a matter of weeks without being asked or needing notes from anyone – it frankly boggles the mind.
Here’s looking forward to the next slew (since you seem to be so quick at it) of Oscar nominated scripts written by the illustrious Benny.
i hear will and grace is a real hot spec this year!
OK Benny. Here’s 1 million dollars. You have 12 weeks to go cure cancer. GO! I’ll wait…
The reason your argument doesn’t work is because most jobs are an exact science. There’s one, two, maybe three ways to do it. You pick one and it is done.
Screenwriters create from scratch. There are 1 million ways to execute the next beat of the story… all legitimate… all valid. The key to writing is to find the most interesting way to execute that beat, then the most interesting way to get to the next beat after that.
In the law of possibilities, if there is 1 million ways to do beat A, then 1 million ways to do the beat afterward, beat B, just those two beats alone give you 1 quadrillion ways to tell that story. It takes a long time to sort through and pick the best, most interesting of the 1 quadrillion ways.
In other words, it’s really, really, really hard.
Much harder than you picking up my coffee from Starbucks this morning, which you brought to me cold.
Hope that helps your understanding.
no, it doesn’t. for several reasons. First, you aren’t curing cancer. Sorry to ruin your delusion, but you aren’t. It’s an insult to everybody to even make that analogy. You are a highly paid (compared to the rest of the population) creative person who gets to do something most people only dream of. Second, like I said originally, all the critical thinking about the story should have been worked out before commencement. There would have been numerous meetings, calls, emails, etc for the writer to work through the details in the story before going to script. Every truly professional writer does. So, 12 weeks is more than enough time to execute those ideas. Third, you fail completely to address how and why the writers in TV manage to figure out all these issues and plot incredibly intricate, character-driven stories week after week. Rather than just sling mud, or compare yourself to Jonas Salk, why don’t you address that legitimate critique?
The writers in TV and the writers in features are frequently the same people, genius. Feature writers write for TV. TV writers get feature assignments. Writers are writers. It’s the same pool of talent.
What’s different is that in TV, the writers are in control of the script. In features, everybody but the writer is in control of the script. Hence the discrepancy between the quality of what you see in theaters and what you see on TV.
TV writers get the job done in a short amount of time usually because of the TV Series Bible for reference and the story editor over seeing things from my understanding.
Second, like I said originally, all the critical thinking about the story should have been worked out before commencement. There would have been numerous meetings, calls, emails, etc for the writer to work through the details in the story before going to script
yes, this is the problem isn’t it?
Third, you fail completely to address how and why the writers in TV manage to figure out all these issues and plot incredibly intricate, character-driven stories week after week.
I’m not a TV writer, but I imagine the reason (#1) is that every episode’s outline hasn’t been rewritten and hashed over thousands of times and picked apart by so many non-writers and their spouses. This is because (#2)– there’s no time in TV to do all that second-guessing from execs who feel their job literally depends on coming up with such second guessing. And (#3) in TV writers have actual power… and the ability to put the story’s interest above “critical thinking”– e.g., the “numerous meetings, calls, emails, etc” you referred to above. Writers are not running the show in features. The difficulty isn’t the burden of typing 120 pages of script but in trying to implement thousands of contradictory notes from a kitchen full of cooks and still not whip up a steaming batch of turd soup.
(Also-for every brilliant TV series, there are a ton of crap shows. Still, you’re right in that 12 weeks should be more than enough…)
I don’t work in TV, so this is all speculation. Not the original poster here either, so don’t dump your shit on me. Thx.
PS- Jonas Salk cured polio, not cancer.
When you are talking about the quickness of TV, you are talking about TV shows that have been picked up. Pilots have been known to take 3 months to write. HBO pilots (and many cable shows) are in development for years. Almost like movies.
The reason it takes less time to write a TV show – once it’s been picked up – is because the cast and the template (the story bibile, the character, the look of the show) are already in place. The big decisions have been made and now the machine can just roll.
As a result, 12 writers can sit in a room and work together, creating a quicker script. TV writers – and I agree TV writing is better these days but it’s a separate point – have fewer options and they are based on the framework of the pilot.
Movie writers have similar challenges to TV pilot creators… They both have to creat a world, and that’s why both do end up taking time. In the case of movies, screenwriters need to write BIG because the budgets are big… each page has to feel like the million of dollars that this production is supposedly going to cost. Big set pieces, and those are subject to constant change because of the high stakes (economics-wise) of a film production and the constantly changing egos involved.
Are TV writers more efficient? Yes, but only because of the way the system is set up and not necessarily because movie writers are inherently slow and entitled. Although I’m sure there are cases of that in both industries.
I hope that answers the question.
(And guys, let’s cut the jokes about people doing our cabinets or fetching our coffee…. we’re aren’t exactly Cleopatra out here.)
TV writers are more efficient because we write MORE. Of course, it depends on what kind of show you’re writing, but let’s say it’s the most popular type of show on television: a procedural. You’re talking about breaking a six-act episode, with an A-story comprised of brand new characters your audience has never met, who also have their own back story, motivation, etc. You also need cliff-hanging act outs, five of them, enough to keep people watching through 18 minutes commercials for T-mobile and Jack in the Box. Then you’ve got to have an intricately woven mystery, with a twist or two, and B-stories for one or more of your main characters. You’ve got to do all this in 55 pages.
You’re only going to get one or two weeks to break this baby, after which you’re going to write a long outline, 15-20 pages, which a dozen people (or more: production company, studio and network will all weigh in) will have to read and give notes on. Then, (if you’re lucky and the story doesn’t get thrown out or changed beyond recognition), you’ll get 7-10 days to churn out a script. Or, if it’s later in the season, you might only get four days.
Then more notes and revisions. Then you shoot the fucker and go right back into the room and do it again. And nobody’s going to call you an artist.
Twelve weeks to write a draft, especially after already having created an outline and most of the story beats, sounds like a vacation…
benny, babe. you just don’t get it.
you can work a story out, have all the beats, know where you’re going, know your characters before you sit down. what you’re not taking into account benny is: it can all change in the process of writing. The PROCESS is something a writer has to trust and often, in the process, things change. if you’re not open to the changes/ideas that present themselves and stick to your “outline” or your “treatment” you often get dead on the page.
not to mention all the input from execs who have no clue about story or what a dramatic element is or how the process of putting it all down on paper works.
before you keep blowing hot air all over this site about “writing” try it.
and yet somehow, a lot of feature writers manage to consistently turn in their work on time/schedule, whereas some turn in weeks, if not months, late. Please get off your high horse about the arduous process. Face it – some feature writers are just lazy and some are not. They are being very well paid for their work – it is not unreasonable to expect a script in 12 weeks.
And TV writers do not always have a bible to reference. TV shows, like all these posts about feature writing, change and evolve as the seasons go along. On the DVD of the first season if 24, the writers/producers tell how the original bible/structure was the assassination attempt on David Palmer was to occur in the last hour. As they started shooting, they ran out of story and had to movie it up to episode 6. They then had to write on the fly and rethink the entire season as they went. And somehow they managed to do it. So, the “TV writers have had so much more time to tackle these problems in the prep” argument doesn’t fly at all. TV writers are doing better work, under more pressure, and with more moving parts, than feature writers. They also have to deal with multiple studio/network notes and still manage to deliver. Feature writing used to be where the best work was getting done. Not anymore. And its not because the execs have gotten bad – they have always been there. Go read David Selznick’s book “Memo To:” if you think notes on features have gotten less intrusive.
and, yes, I know Jonas Salk cured polio. The original reply ludicrously equated writing a feature script to curing cancer. Last I checked, cancer hadn’t been cured so, to point out the absurdity of this analogy, I referenced someone who had actually cured a horrible disease.
Uh, Benny. I didn’t make an analogy. I gave you an impossible task. That is first.
Second. Sometimes, because writing isn’t an exact science, it takes longer than planned and is often HARDER than one might think. If you knew anything like you are purporting, you would know that. Sure execs might talk to you about what they plan to accomplish with a draft, but there are very few good execs who can give good notes. Often times, they know something is wrong, but don’t really know how to fix it. They give you a blueprint of how they THINK it should be. Then, as a writer goes off to write, they find the blueprint doesn’t work for a variety of reasons and then must figure out, ON THEIR OWN NO LESS, how to fix it before they turn it in.
Third. I AM a tv writer. That is how I currently make my money. Before one script on one of those brilliant shows is written. A group of TWELVE writers sit around a table for 3 months working out the beats for the first episode (maybe two or three eps) and an overall arc for the season. Then one writer goes off and writes it. It comes back into the office after 2 weeks and is bettered by the other writers. So the time is really not condensed… only the process. So there. If you actually did work in production on a show, you might know that.
Last, but not least, as my former showrunner boss might say to an executive, SINCE IT’S SO EASY, YOU GO WRITE THE FUCKING THING. Since it is so easy, and we make soooooo much money, I can’t imagine why someone in production like yourself wouldn’t just do it. I, for one, know production life is fucking hard. I watch our crews rip themselves apart for up to 18 hours a day to provide the shots. I would never do it. I don’t have the stamina. Perhaps you don’t like the “easy life”. I don’t know. Or maybe you’re just bullshitting for the sake of writing on a board. Or maybe you can’t do it and you are jealous. Either way. You wanted my response. Here ya go. Very happy to oblige.
I never said it was easy. Ever. What i said was that 12 weeks is not unreasonable to expect a professional writer to deliver a quality script. Many, many writers in both features and TV seem to do it every year. I don’t see why writers cannot criticize their own. Why can’t the excesses of the bad ones be called out for what they are? DHD points its spotlight on everyone else’s bad behavior in this town, why not the writers? Can you seriously say that every writer you know acts as professionally as you? If you can, then I will shut up.
“The first draft of anything is shit.” -Ernest Hemingway
Benny you sound like a clown
no. you do. Faulker never edited one thing of his. he wrote and handed in as is. Somehow he got it right the first time. Hemingway was the polar opposite. He would re-edit every punctuation mark. Pulling out a meaningless quote rather than make an intelligent point of you own is lazy and boring. This isn’t an attack on writers, its a defense of the good ones. You are too blind to see that.
Since you bring up Faulkner, here’s a quote from him:
“I think I have had about all of Hollywood I can stand. I feel bad, depressed, dreadful sense of wasting time. I imagine most of the symptoms of blow-up or collapse. I may be able to come back later, but I think I will finish this present job and return home. Feeling as I do, I am actually afraid to stay here much longer.”
– William Faulkner
Neither Faulkner nor Hemingway nor any other “good writer” needs you to “defend” them. Which writers are good or bad is not at issue here. What is at issue is an industrial standard – how Hollywood treats its writers, as a class. If you think Faulkner would be on your side of this issue, I beg to differ (re-read the above quote).
Your beliefs about rewriting vs “getting it right the first time” are beyond ridiculous. Even if you could provide proof that Faulkner blasted out his novels as “first” drafts (and I don’t think you can), using one writer – a modernist, stream-of-consciousness NOVELIST – as a template by which modern screenwriters should be measured is entirely asinine.
Benny, the fundamental problem with your argument is you’re talking about something you know nothing about.
Imagine a writer lecturing you on your job.
That’s you.
I read this article again after laughing about the foolishness of late pay. Two phrases now strike me, “enforce delivery” and “risk the wrath of the studio.” What is that contractually? What are they actually threatening to do? Correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t believe they can refuse to pay. The contract is fairly clear that they recognize my status as a professiond writer by hiring me, so they can’t call the material unprofessional and deny payment.
I don’t think there’s a fine structure if I’m slow.
So they’re gonna be really, really mad? Jeff is gonna come over and shoot my dog? If the script sucks, they’re not going to hire me again. If it’s good, they do. And if I’ve just written The Hangover, I can probably have 14 months.
The whole thing reeks of bad parenting — “You just better not or I’ll be really mad and you’ll be sorry.” Um, no. I probably will steal the car again.
Warner’s Big-Daddy attitude goes back to Steve Ross (in a more positive way — feel free to use the Aspen House) through Semel and Daly (as it became more of a nasty noblesse oblige) and now to Horn, who’s got a stick and no carrot.
Sure, it’s gonna work short term for a few people, but probably not on projects that will actually get made. Warner’s is a nasty-hearted place with well-kept lawns but their money’s good. There’s a reason I post under a pseudonym.
They can find you in breach of contract, take you to court, and demand that all monies paid to you upon commencement be returned to them.
This will come in handy if you’re late and they don’t like the script.
Imagine the press on that. And the expense. And if they do get all the money back, and it’s an original, is the script mine then? Hooray.
It will never happen. The downside risk is way too high.
Thump one medium-size client at any major agency and don’t get offered the agency’s next spec. Good-bye exec.
The worst thing writers do in this town is devalue themselves. When you don’t allow it to happen, it doesn’t.
And as for all this whining about the WGA being useless, it’s only useless if you don’t use the tools that we’ve negotiated long and hard for already. It’s like complaining you can’t hammer a nail in with your fist when the toolbox is out in the garage. Grow a pair.
Deliver on time, get paid on time. WGA should go along with this if and only if the studios hold up their end.
In my experience writers are the usually the only ones that are certain to get paid on a project, whereas I as a producer may work on it for years and if it doesn’t get made, I see nothing for all my work. Even in the rare instance a project does make it into production, producers are forced to reduce their fees and take deferments. Then producers (I’m talking real producers, not “producers”) are vilified and confused with the studios. Producers have to take it more on the nose from the studios than most anyone in the business. The confusion of producers and studios when it comes to things like the WGA Strike is infuriating. Writers don’t have it as bad as they’d like everyone to believe.
So I guess you have something in common with writers, then?
Writers get paid when certain stages of their job are complete.
They deliver ideas or pitches. They deliver pages and drafts.
Producers also get paid when stages of their jobs are complete. Unfortunately they are very dependent on other people in the process. Like writers.
Because until you have a writer, all your producing doesn’t have a lot of value. Is this news? I’m not trying to be mean. But until your architect comes up with executable plans for your dreamhouse, there isn’t a contractor who will build your three level colonial.
If you’d like to get paid earlier in the process, consider becoming a writer. If you’d like to get paid much later in the process, become an editor. If you’d like the hardest job possible with the most vague ways to be paid imaginable, become a producer.
Instead of insisting everyone get paid in the same disastrous way you must suffer through, maybe start insisting that everyone get paid on-time, for services rendered, as per their contracts and agreements.
If the studios paid writers on time, and writers delivered pages on time, I’m thinking producers would also get paid a lot sooner too.
Instead of insisting everyone get paid in the same disastrous way you must suffer through, maybe start insisting that everyone get paid on-time, for services rendered, as per their contracts and agreements.
Exactly. The bitching from producers here is unbelievable.
I’m shocked by the writers on this board complaining about doing a producer’s pass. Don’t writers realize that producers do not get paid until the movie gets made? As a producer I have every reason to speed up the process but if your draft isn’t quite there yet and we turn it in just to get you paid, then my movie dies. A movie I’ve often spent months, sometimes years, working on for free. More often than not it was my idea/outline/treatment that I handed to the writer(s) who are being paid to execute it, hopefully well. I’m a huge advocate for writers, I absolutely believe you should be compensated in a timely fashion, anything less is bullshit, but complaining about doing a producers pass vexes me.
Okay, fair enuf. But that’s assuming the producer in question is doing something other than vaguely justifying his/her existence by demanding the free pass. I have, and on more than one occasion, found myself explaining changes to studios that were generated by that same pass. And then had to rewrite my way out of them to address the studio’s concern.
Guess how many times the producer said, “Oh, hey, that was my idea. My mistake.”?
JAE, you are missing the point. Typical producer. You don’t get paid before the movie gets made because you CREATE NOTHING. Printing out a NYTimes article is not a creative act. Writing the movie based on the article is. Understand the difference? Really, do you?
The problem with the producer’s draft is that it has become so commonplace it’s actually changed the way deals are written. Witness all the one-step deals currently being papered. Oh, but they’re not actually one step deals though, are they? No. Because of fuckheads like you. Every step in a writer’s contract, if they’re lucky enough to have more than one step, now equals 2 steps. Draft and a free rewrite for the first step. Draft and a free rewrite for the rewrite step. Et cetera. Which is roughly equivalent to a 50% pay cut.
AND, as another poster mentioned, it is also commonplace for the producer (yeah, you, jackass) to slip the undelivered draft to his exec as a favor so that the producer’s notes incorporate the studios notes. Are you seeing the problem yet, JAE?
Do me a favor. Sit down and actually CREATE SOMETHING for once in your life. I know you’re incapable but try. Write a screenplay. Experience what that feels like before you lecture writers on why it makes sense for us to work for free so you can get paid for optioning books and tearing pages out of a fucking magazine.
Asshole.
Peggy, there are two high profile writer cooperatives already in existence, and they’re dysfunctional and unproductive.