John August

First Person

Is screenwriting dead?

Film Industry, First Person

On the (http://johnaugust.com/podcast), Craig and I have discussed how much the career of screenwriting has changed over the past few years, and how it’s gotten harder for many feature writers to actually make a living at it.

In episode 35, a veteran screenwriter named Biff wrote in to vent about how grim studio development had become:

> I had a president of production ask for a free rewrite before he gave it to his chairman. Not a polish. He had notes. True multi-week notes. That doesn’t strike me as a producer’s polish. That strikes me as flat-out abusive.

> Has the landscape changed that much? Has the douchiness pervaded every level of the business? Have I turned into Clint Eastwood shouting get off my lawn?

A reader named Cordy wrote in to share his experience.

—

first personI’m a fairly new working writer. Screenwriting is paying my bills. I have a big-three agent, a name manager, many meetings, all the things I used to think would make it possible, if not easy, for me to have a career.

When I heard John reading Biff’s letter, my heart sank. I have to admit that I was secretly hoping you guys would be more like “Quit yer whinin’!” because then I could be stern with myself and like “Craig Mazin thinks my intensity is for shit. Win, Andrew, win!” but… this is pretty grim stuff.

I’ve seen Craig speak at the Guild, and he really inspired me to stop seeing myself as a victim of the capriciousness of people who control the pursestrings, and to try to be more upbeat and proactive about my career. So that’s cool. Not so cool is that even with my new attitude, I still run into some pretty tough roadblocks.

One example: At a pitch meeting at the studio I previously sold something to, I pitched out literally every scene, every arc, every relationship, specific jokes and set pieces, acting out whole chunks of dialog. This was for a remake of a movie that would cost the studio peanuts to make. I am not a business guy, but I think the risk level here was relatively low.
When I was finished pitching, the executive frowned at me and said “But why would people go see this movie instead of staying home? What makes this movie a big hit? You have to understand, that’s what my boss will ask me if I pitch this to him.”

So that project just died on the vine. I didn’t lose the job to anyone, they just killed it. I have struggled to frame this kind of thing for myself as an opportunity.

But I keep bumping against that executive’s question: how can I guarantee that what I’m pitching will be a big hit? I don’t think that I can, but that seems to be what people want. If I can’t magically say, “Yes, here is my crystal ball, it outperforms THE HUNGER GAMES, don’t worry about it,” they just shut me down.

It reminds me of that apocryphal story of the early days of Sony, when the Japanese executives were like, “Your problem is that you keep making bombs. From now on, we’re only going to make the hit movies.”

As a screenwriter, it feels like I am being asked to perform an impossible feat, and it’s easy to slip into bitterness.

But I don’t want to be bitter. I do want to do decent work and do okay financially and be able to support my family. Is there still a way for young screenwriters to build semi-steady careers, or is that paradigm gone forever? I know a lot of young writers in my general boat, and to be honest I think all of us are trying to get out of features and into TV.

There’s also a lot of dazed talk about how screenwriting as a job is just dead, Jim.

I don’t want to believe that. I want to believe that this thing I’ve spent my young adult life getting good at — and I am good at it — can still be made to pay a modest living if I work hard and make smart choices.

Should I act more as a “producer” of my own career? I write specs, and recently optioned some material. I am trying to get into TV.

Should I try to get involved with directors, and write him or her a project for free, in hopes that having a filmmaker attached will help? I have explored this a bit and found that there’s a roadblock here, too: directors who mean something as attachments can get brand-name writers to work for them. I know several writers, more established than I am, who are doing free work for A/B list directors right now.

There must be a way to break in to that. (I can’t believe I am scheming to do free fauxssignment work, but here I am.)

I do discuss all these things with my reps, who are smart people I trust. But I don’t think they have the answers. They just encourage me to write specs.

It seems like this seismic shift has happened so quickly and has left so many people behind that we’re all paddling frantically against the undertow.

Spending a year on Ringer

First Person, Follow Up, Television

Last year, Jay Faerber wrote a First Person post on [his experience in the Warner Bros TV Writers Workshop](http://johnaugust.com/2011/transitioning-from-comics-to-tv). At that time, he was just finishing up the workshop and staffing season was underway. I asked him for an update.

—

first personThe great thing about the Warner Bros workshop (in addition to what I learned in the program itself) is that it creates a strong incentive for any Warner Bros show that wants to hire a workshopper: the workshop will pay your salary for about the first 13 episodes. So it really gives workshop people a leg up when going out on meetings and competing against other lower-level writers.

Despite that, as any writer will tell you, staffing season is enormously stressful.

While I had that great Warner Bros backing, I was still competing with the seven other drama writers from my workshop. I ended up going on meetings for two bubble shows, plus another pilot. Then upfronts happened, and the two bubble shows were cancelled and the pilot didn’t get picked up.

At this point, I think most of my workshop colleagues had already been staffed, so I was starting to sweat a little. Then Ringer, which had been developed for CBS, got picked up by The CW, which made it a Warner Bros show and therefore a viable option for workshop graduates. I got a meeting on Ringer and was able to get a meeting on another Warner Bros pilot that had been picked up, and if I remember correctly, I got an offer to join the Ringer staff the evening after I had my meeting.

I accepted the offer and started work the Wednesday after Memorial Day.

Getting down to work
—-

jay faerber ringerThat first day at Ringer had a kind of first-day-of-school feeling, as all the writers got to know each other. It became apparent pretty quickly that I had lucked out — everyone on the writing staff was really cool.

One of the things that really stuck with me from the workshop was the importance of determining what’s expected of the staff writer. Some writers’ rooms adhere to a strict hierarchy and the staff writer is expected to only speak when spoken to (if that!). Others take an all-writers-are-created-equal approach, and everyone’s encouraged to chime in.

But it can get even more complicated than that.

I heard a story of a staff writer who’d been told by a higher level writer to keep his mouth shut and sit back and learn, but then the showrunner declined to pick up the staff writer’s option (after the 13th episode) because the staff writer never contributed. Whether this was a misunderstanding or deliberate sabotage by the higher level writer is up for debate. But I made it a point on that first day to simply ask our showrunner what she expected of me. She made it clear that all of us were expected to contribute.

On Ringer, all the stories were broken collectively by the writers in the room. Once we had the story fully boarded (all of the beats up on the white board), the writer of that episode would go off to write the story arena (or story area — different shows call them different things), then the outline, and then the script.

I’ve been a comic book writer for a long time, so this collaborative way of breaking stories was new to me, but I think I took to it pretty well. And my background helped in other ways. Serialized shows like Ringer have a lot of plot threads to keep track of, as do comics, so my brain was automatically wired for that.

Learning to love the white board
—-

Our writers’ room was lined on three walls with white boards. On the fourth wall was a TV. There were no windows. As the season progressed, two whole walls were taken up with charting the plot developments for each of the main characters in each episode. This helped us keep track of the various plot threads. The remaining third wall was what we used to break the story for each episode.

We’d start out by breaking each character’s story in a linear fashion. Bridget was usually the “A” story, then maybe a Machado or Andrew or Juliet “B” story, then a Siobhan “C” story, then sometimes a Flashback story. Once we had all these stories broken to our satisfaction, we’d start “blending” them — weaving the various stories together and figuring out where they fit into each act.

I quickly became the go-to guy to write on the white board throughout this process. I have good handwriting, and I didn’t mind doing it. It gave me a clear role in the room, and let me feel like I was contributing something even when I wasn’t pitching ideas.

I was also the only writer on staff with an active Twitter account (you can follow me [@JayFaerber](http://twitter.com/JayFaerber)), so I would sometimes Tweet about the show. It was an interesting experience. I wasn’t the “official” spokesman for the show by any means, but I tried to be accessible to fans. Most of my answers were probably vague and unsatisfying, since so many of them were of the “You’ll find out…” or “That’s not my department” variety. And because I was just a staff writer, I didn’t have the authority to be as forthcoming as Shawn Ryan or Jeff Eastin when they’re tweeting about their shows. But it was still fun (for the most part) to interact with the fans.

As is standard in TV, all the writers had initial contracts for the first thirteen episodes, and after that the showrunner could chose to pick up our option…or not. I was kept on, and over the course of the first season I got three scripts: one solo, and two that I co-wrote.

We shot Ringer in LA, and the writers were on set for the entire production of their episodes, which means I got a chair with my name on it and everything.

Someone once said that being a writer on set is like being a fireman — you sit around for long periods of time, and occasionally someone needs you. And that’s a pretty apt description. Most television directors are basically hired guns — they come in, direct an episode, and move on to the next gig on another show. As talented as these directors can be, they don’t always know the show, so it’s important for one of the writers to be there to make sure what’s being shot captures what we intended.

Not every show sends their writers to set. I have friends who wrote on shows that shot out of town, and they never got to be involved in production. And while these friends have been TV writers longer than I have, I feel like I have a leg up on them when it comes to production.

Back on the market
—

Ratings on Ringer haven’t been great and as we ended the season we were very much a “bubble show.” We might get renewed, we might not. The powers-that-be at The CW are probably waiting to see how their pilots turn out before they make any decisions.

This means that I’m going out for staffing season again. It’s a different experience now, since I’m not fresh out of the workshop. I’m competing with every other staff writer and story editor out there — not to mention this year’s new workshop graduates. But I’ve also got a year of experience under my belt, including three produced scripts.

I’m discovering staffing season requires you to be in a weird emotional space.

I want Ringer to come back because I love working with the writers and I really enjoy the world we spent the past year building. It’s a good job, and I’d like it to continue.

But in order to go out and meet with the showrunners of other shows, I have to sort of emotionally disconnect from Ringer so that I can allow myself to get excited about the idea of working on something else.

This isn’t a unique situation I’m in — a lot of shows end their season not knowing if they’re going to renewed. This type of emotional disconnect seems to be something worth developing if you’re going to have a career in TV.

I’ve spent the past couple months reading pilots and going on meetings for new shows, but I’m also still in touch with all the writers from Ringer. Hopefully we’ll be back in our writers’ room next season, and if not, I can only hope my next job is as great as my first one.

Confessions of a trust-fund screenwriter

Film Industry, First Person, Follow Up, Psych 101

In response to [the podcast discusson](http://johnaugust.com/2012/professional-screenwriting-and-why-no-one-really-breaks-in) Craig and I recently had about the perceptions of nepotism and wealth in the film industry, a listener wrote in to share his experience.

—

first personI am a trust fund screenwriter. Or was. I moved out here with a lot of family backing (though no real connections). For my first two years in LA, I sat in my apartment all day, trying to make myself write, as I could afford it and thought it the best use of my time.

But the key word there is ‘trying.’

Having a trust fund is nice, but it didn’t help me become a writer. It’s very hard to sit down and force yourself to write for eight hours a day when there’s nothing else in your life.

Even when I did write, it didn’t make me a screenwriter; there’s still the whole business side of the business I needed to learn.

And when I didn’t write (because of writer’s block or whatever) the thought of “I’m wasting my time” crept into my head, and made it even harder. That’s not the only issue, though.

The issue is one of access. Yes, I have some family money (enough to live on for a while, but not enough for reality TV), but I don’t have family connections in LA. And so, while spending two years in my apartment trying to write all day, I met no one — no executives, no agents, no managers — assuming that once I’d completed my perfect script, they’d come flocking to me.

And that was wrong on two counts.

One, they wouldn’t have come flocking. From my couch, I didn’t meet anyone willing to read my script and help my career.

Second, I couldn’t write a perfect script, or even a very good one. While I was wasting time in my apartment, I wasn’t learning. I wasn’t living. I didn’t grow as a person, and the stagnancy I felt in my life was reflected in my scripts. They were interesting ideas, but, like me, had no life.

I’d never leap in from the outside. I’d never write anything great by staying on my couch. I wouldn’t meet the right people, learn the way things work. I still needed talent. I needed to know the industry outside and in before I could expect to fully be a part of it.

Staying at home, living off my trust fund and writing didn’t work.

My father, who unlike me worked himself up from nothing to the point where he could give his children trust funds, always said the thing that drove him was the knowledge that he didn’t have any other options. And for me, the trust fund is always another option. I’ve always had a safety net. Which isn’t to blame the trust fund or to imply in any way that having a trust fund isn’t a good problem to have. I’m not that blind.

But my money couldn’t buy connections, and reveling in my financial comfort didn’t breed creativity.

Getting off the golden couch
—-

I started going out more. Because I have enough to live on, I could afford to work internships, which I did for a year. That’s an advantage I have. But I don’t think most of the other interns at my level had that advantage.

Now, finally, after almost a year of working for nearly nothing, things are happening. I’ve met lots of people who are able and willing to help me, whether by reading my scripts or making introductions for me. I’m working now—for actual, cash money—as a script reader, as an administrator for a screenplay contest, and as a freelance video producer.

And I’m still writing. Better than ever before.

I’ve grown as a writer exponentially more while working than I grew in the two years I spent just writing. There’s nothing like reading 400 scripts as a contest judge to teach you what not to do in a screenplay.

I’m not a professional writer yet. And it’s possible that if I’d had to work to support myself, I’d have found myself so stressed and overworked that I’d have given up long ago. But I don’t think so. I’m working now, and I’m writing just as much as before.

Maybe the money held me back. It’s possible that if I’d been working in the industry, supporting myself and meeting people while writing in my free time, I’d be much farther along than I am now. I’d have experienced failure and hardship in my career sooner, and maybe I’d have learned sooner how to translate that into a truly great screenplay.

And maybe I’d have written that screenplay in my spare time instead of the crap I wrote from my couch. And maybe one of my friends and connections and mentors — which I never had from my apartment — would have read that script and passed it on, and I’d be a professional writer right now.

Maybe they’d pay me millions of dollars to write the next big movie. I’d spend all day by the pool in my Beverly Hills mansion, trying to write for eight hours because it’d be my full-time job.

I still probably couldn’t do it.

Not for eight hours a day. Not from home. Not by myself.

My trust fund is a blessing, and I recognize that. Many things are easier for me than other people. Being a screenwriter is not one of them.

What does a reality producer do?

First Person, Television

According to Google Analytics, one of the most popular articles on this site is one I was hardly qualified to write: [Formatting a reality show proposal](http://johnaugust.com/2004/formatting-a-reality-show-proposal). There appears an underserved need for good information about how reality shows are pitched and produced.

And with reality TV having become one of the stepping stone jobs in the film/TV industry, I’ve made it a goal to write more about it this year.

I asked my friend Matthew Watts to write up an overview of what a reality producer does. A Columbia film school grad, he served as a producer on both The First 48 and Swamp People.

—

first personFirst, a word about reality television. I like to think of reality television as an adaptation of reality. Essentially these shows take real events and manipulate them, often to extremes, so they fit into three or five acts of thirty or sixty minutes of thrilling dramatic television.

And here’s a fair warning: this post is laced with spoiler alerts about reality shows.

The first little-known secret about reality TV? Not much of it is really real. Okay, maybe that’s not a big secret, but it never ceases to amaze me how many people, even the critically savvy, believe everything they see on reality TV.

In truth, these shows are all “produced.”

matthew wattsTake [Swamp People](http://www.history.com/shows/swamp-people) on History Channel. Due to the treachery that is quite skillfully built into each episode, viewers are led to believe that alligator hunting is a dangerous, even deadly occupation. The truth is that in the history of alligator hunting there have been very few human deaths. (I haven’t found an account of a single serious injury — if you do, let me know.)

Alligator hunting is not a dangerous occupation. It’s a sport, like fishing. And alligators are very easy to catch. In fact, if the tightly regulated hunting season didn’t protect the prehistoric beasts to the extent it does, alligators would be extinct within a few years.

Don’t get me wrong. Alligators are dangerous and potentially deadly. If you scare one and it’s cornered or if you shoot it with a paintball gun or something, it can attack and do incredible damage to a human. An alligator can be deadly, but the fidelity between the reality of a random isolated incident every year or two and the adaptation of reality where these hunters can literally be eaten alive at any second, is incredibly low.

Of course, each show has a subtly different approach to how far the limit of adaptation can go.

If you’ve ever seen the opening credits to [Ice Road Truckers](http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers), you might be concerned that at any given moment an 18-wheeler will crash through one of the ice-covered lakes it is carrying vital supplies over. But in the history of ice road trucking, it’s never happened (again, if you can find an incident please share). Yet it’s the genius of the opening credit sequence — an impressive computer animated graphic shows an 18-wheeler sinking through ice and into the oblivion — that sets the stage for a gut wrenching hour-long trek through the most harrowing frozen paths on Earth.

It’s tricks like these and the ability of the producers to utilize storytelling to its maximum capacity that eke every bit of drama from reality. While these men are certainly doing extraordinary things, the events are not always as death defying as they may seem.

The facts that fit
—-

On crime shows where the subjects are homicide investigations, like [The First 48](http://www.aetv.com/the_first_48/) on A&E or [The Shift](http://investigation.discovery.com/tv/the-shift/the-shift.html) on Investigative Discovery, the producers do not change facts. It would be unethical, as these cases are literally about people’s lives and deaths. It could also lead to a lawsuit that could take down a show.

So the producing part comes with figuring out the best way to tell the story, and in exploring and highlighting compelling character traits in the homicide detectives and the other characters involved.

The goal in these types of programs is to hone down the actual events into their clearest, most concise and compelling form. It is a process and a skill to whittle down what can sometimes amount to hundreds of hours of footage into a straightforward 44 minutes of storytelling.

A friend of mine — a Series Producer — explains it like this: the goal of reality television is to “simplify and delay.” Tell the stories clearly and hold off on the resolutions for as long as possible. ((Maybe that’s the goal of storytelling in general? Please discuss and submit your answers.))

So, what does a reality producer do? There are a few types of reality producers, and of course quite a few genres as well. I’ll stick with Field Producers, Post Producers and Story Producers. And my experience is mainly in “docu-drama” or “reality/doc.” Depending on which coast one is on, job titles can vary, but the functions are fairly straightforward.

A **Field Producer** (aka Shooter/Producer or Director/Producer) is out in the field, either shooting or overseeing the shooting of the material.

With the less intrusive, vérité-style, fly-on-the-wall approach, the field producer is often a one-man-band, armed with a camera affixed with a shotgun microphone, and a wireless microphone affixed to the subject.

The field producer’s main job is to cover all the action on camera while identifying scenes and storylines as they’re occurring. It can get intense and takes a solid set of time management skills. These folks need to know when to shoot on-the-fly interviews (OTF’s), when to break away and roll on establishing shots of locations and B-roll, and when to get signed appearance releases from every person who may potentially wind up in the program — all while not disrupting the routine of the main characters.

Field producers often have discretion regarding what is suitable for a potential scene.

There’s a saying in the field: “If it didn’t happen on camera, it didn’t happen,” meaning if you missed something, it’s not worth regretting what you don’t have and will never be able to go back and get.

For a field producer, it’s exhilarating to be shooting a scene knowing without a doubt that what’s happening in your viewfinder is definitely going to be in the show (90% of shot material usually winds up on the cutting room floor). So it’s all about getting the coverage that the editors will need to eventually build out scenes in the most compelling ways.

A lot of repetition happens in normal everyday conversations, so a field producer needs to pay attention and be aware when to utilize these moments to get reaction shots. It’s as important to cover the person listening as it is to cover the person talking. Reality shows, you’ll start to notice, are built as much on reaction shots as they are on shots of people speaking. Reactions shots cue the watcher to what they should understand about the information they have just been given.

Concerned face on the detective? Must be some trouble. Excited face? The dude confessed.

On a crime show, a field producer must set up the investigative chronology on camera — that is, the beginning, middle and end of the case, which is the seed of the structure.

Who are the most interesting characters? Why do I care about what is happening here? At this point, the field producer should focus interview questions around those details and ask the detectives (in opportune times only) to clarify what is going on: “Tell me about such and such detail…” “What can you tell from this piece of evidence?” “What does that rap sheet tell us?”

More importantly for narrative purposes is considering these real people as characters in the story being told — setting up and tracking Hope vs Fear. “What’s the best thing that can happen right now?” “What’s worst case scenario?” “Tell me why it’s so important for you to…”

What makes reality shows work is getting answers to these questions on camera in the words of the characters in the moment. It’s the insider’s edge.

Creating stories out of events
—-

After the tapes are shot, field producers summarize their footage on paper. In some cases, these summaries are nothing more than tape logs, simply describing the factual elements of what’s occurred. A phone call with a Story Producer, Series Producer or Executive Producer back in the office can determine potential interesting story angles and plot points to follow up on.

The footage is sent to the post-production office where the **Story Producer** ((I’m using the east coast definition of Story Producer: the person who oversees the field and determines which stories are worthy of post-production.)) will read the summaries, screen various pieces of footage to see how well the outlines match the coverage.

Remember: “If it didn’t happen on camera, it didn’t happen” — so don’t include it in the summary.

They will then organize the stories into what’s suitable for potential episodes. When a storyline is deemed worthy of an episode, the Story Producer will construct a broad outline of how that storyline might potentially play out.

Outlines vary a lot from show to show, but on ours, the broad outline is usually written in Word as two to three pages of prose. We keep it fairly vague, and often base it more on conversations with field producers than actually watching all the footage. Transcription and time code are rare in these. Tape numbers are more common.

The Story Producer then hands the footage and the broad outline to a Post Producer, who will work directly with an Editor in producing the episode.

The **Post Producer** screens every piece of footage and writes a detailed outline of the episode. For our shows, detailed outlines can be five to seven pages with dialogue (sound bites with timecode) and act breaks (including cliffhangers).

These are signed off on by the exec producers, and if it’s the first season of a show sometimes the network needs to sign off on these outlines as well.

Scripts are often done as Excel sheets, with one column for audio (narration, vérité sound bites) and the other for video/text (subtitles, chyrons). We also use index cards to break down stories — on the grander series sense, and on each episode so post producers and editors can track characters and scenes.

Getting it on the page
—

The script writing process is where the different styles of reality shows become evident.

In shows where the goal is to stick closer to reality, narration is used sparingly, to either clarify events, state pure facts or bridge scenes. Generally, the more narration there is in a show, the more liberty the producers are taking with the footage. (The post producer generally writes the narration.)

For example, Swamp People contains quite a bit of narration. If the show were a hunk of Swiss cheese, the narration would be the cheese and the vérité sound bites (dialogue the characters actually uttered, unprompted, in the moment) would be the holes.

For example, a post producer locates a nice bit of vérité footage of one character yelling to another, “Look out…!” A piece of narration can be written that leads into the line like, “TROY NOTICES AN 800 POUND GATOR HEADING TOWARD THE BOAT.”

The editor can find a shot of a gator, cut it into the sequence and voila! Danger.

In actuality, Troy may have been referring to his son’s lunch pail falling into a puddle. The rest of that vérité line may have been, “Look out…your lunch is about to get wet!” But it plays so well regarding a gator. So why not adapt the line into a more dramatic fashion?

My example may be a bit extreme, but it’s not far off. Conversely, in a show that sticks closer to reality, you could say that the hunk of Swiss cheese is the vérité footage and the narration is the holes filling in the blanks. Either way, stories are being told. It’s just a matter of how much adaptation.

One of the more clever devices for hiding narration in reality shows is the video testimonial style in MTV’s godfather of reality television series, The Real World.

In a soundproof room somewhere near set, characters speak to the camera as if it’s a close friend or therapist. Most of the frothier shows use this format (Rachel Ray, Kardashians, etc). What is elegantly kept from viewers is that these testimonials are actually serving as narration. We’re hearing answers to written questions (and sometimes written answers) that the post producers have created to tell these stories in a clear and compelling way. We are not, as it may seem, hearing spontaneous reactions from the character’s deepest pools of forethought.

Sometimes the field producers do these interviews as they see a story developing. Other times, the interviews are filmed during post production when a story develops and needs to be filled in with the characters’ commentary. The genius of the reality testimonial is that they play to the idea that these events are all just happening, and the cameras are lucky to be there at the right time.

Ever notice how on The Real World, when one of the characters with a boyfriend or girlfriend back home starts sleeping with one his/her cast-mates, the boyfriend or girlfriend from back home flies in for a weekend visit? Drama inevitably ensues. Who do you think bought the ticket?

Humans love to be told stories. And Reality TV is a great medium for the storyteller. For all the “producing” and highlighting and editorializing, at the core these shows are just telling tales — tales with narrative arcs and heroes and journeys that scare us and thrill us and make us feel something. Which is why I think so many people are eager to believe what they are seeing.

Do people care that Troy may have been warning his son about his lunch getting wet and not an 800-lb gator? Probably not. People want to be told a story. They want to be entertained, to identify, to live vicariously.

It’s also why, despite the constructiveness of the tales, there is always something interesting to be found, something curious and/or beautiful about the people who have agreed to let us travel with them.

—

*Matthew Watts is now in post on the indie feature [Mutual Friends](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2112209/), his feature directorial debut. Photo from the set by Michael Seto.*