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Getting a visa as a writer

August 19, 2021 Film Industry, First Person, International

Many foreign-born writers work on American films and TV shows. Give them a cocktail and they will tell you horror stories of how hard/frustrating/nerve-wracking it was to get their visas allowing them to work legally in the US.

In preparation for an upcoming Scriptnotes conversation, we reached out to several to get their tips for international writers hoping to work in the US. What follows is their advice, gently edited with some identifying details removed.


First – get a lawyer.
Anyone thinking about getting a work visa absolutely needs to consult an immigration lawyer. The visa system is constantly changing, and lawyers know the most-up-to-date info. Hell, even some of the things I’m talking about below may have changed since the last time I heard about them/dealt with them.

The absolute biggest misconception about acquiring a work visa is that people think that you get a job, and boom, you can get a visa. It doesn’t work like that. Having a job offer is only the beginning of the process, and even then, only sometimes. Not every job can put you on the visa path.

Most Americans have no idea what it takes to get a work visa, and that includes many employers.
This is why it’s important to consult a lawyer. Most Americans have no idea how their own immigration system works. It’s very possible to get jobs you don’t qualify for or can’t get you a visa, which only ends in disappointment for both parties.

The most popular work visa doesn’t typically apply to Hollywood writers.
The most common work-sponsored visa is the H1-B. It’s a lottery program that opens only once a year, in April. If you have an employer willing to sponsor you, your application gets put into a giant lottery, and if you don’t win the lottery, they throw it out, without even opening it. You could be an accountant with a $250k a year job offer – doesn’t matter if you don’t win the lottery. The lottery, last I heard, gets twice as many applications as it has open spots. So half of the applications are tossed out without even reviewing the merits of the application.

The H1-B ties you to one employer, and if you lose your job with that employer, you have a very, very short amount of time to find someone else to sponsor you. Given that most working Hollywood writers jump from one assignment to another with different production companies/studios, sometimes with months in between assignments, this visa really doesn’t work for most writers.

There are some people who think they can get an entry-level job (for example, at a production company) and get this visa, but it doesn’t work that way. First, the employer has to cover the legal costs for the H1-B, which they’re not going to do for an entry-level employee. Second, the company has to prove why they need to hire someone from abroad. For an entry-level job, that’s impossible to prove.

If you’re a foreign writer, entry-level Hollywood jobs are off-limits to you.
An entry-level job can’t (and won’t) get you a visa. So if your plan is to be a PA or work in the mailroom, sorry to say, but these aren’t visa-qualifying jobs. So the path of ‘start at the bottom and work your way up’ is not really a path that exists for foreign writers, unfortunately. I’ve seen many well-meaning Americans give this advice to foreign writers, not realizing that it’s impossible. I’ve also seen many foreigners think that this path is open to them, only to find out it’s not.

Although if you start as as student, there may be a way. I went to film school on an F1 Student visa. With this visa, after you graduate you get one year called Optional Practical Training (OPT) to stay in the States. I used that year to go to LA. With OPT, you can essentially work any job (there may be restrictions that it needs to have something to do with your degree but from my understanding it’s quite loose). Your OPT year is HUGE. You basically have one year to “make it.” At least, that’s how I saw it and here’s why: after that OPT year you need to apply for a real visa (I call it my big girl visa) and with it you need “evidence” that you are “extraordinary” in your field in order to qualify.

You’re probably looking for an O1 visa.
The O1 is for ‘artists of extraordinary ability.’ That’s you! This is a visa that’s great for writers, but you have to be established already to get it, and it costs time and money. A big advantage is that you can apply for it year-round, and there’s no lottery.

The caveat, though, is that you have to be able to prove that you are already an established artist – an ‘artist of extraordinary ability.’ The way you do that is by fulfilling a certain number of criteria. This could include being the lead on major productions, commanding a high salary, having won awards, garnered press, etc. This visa also allows you to work for multiple employers. You do have to have one primary sponsor (e.g. a business manager, agent, manager, etc), but they can hire you out for jobs. So if you’re a TV writer and you are moving from a Netflix show to an Amazon Prime show, this is the visa that will allow you to do that.

The challenges to getting it, though, are significant:

  1. If you’re a writer looking to break in, this visa is off-limits to you. You need to have established yourself already in your home country. If you have no track record, it isn’t possible to acquire.

  2. It’s expensive. The cost to get a lawyer to do an O-1 application ranges anywhere from $3,500 to $7,500, which doesn’t include the filing fees with US immigration (which are around $2k).

  3. It is possible to find a sponsor who will pay for your O1, so you don’t have to cover the cost yourself. For example, for some working writers, their agents will sponsor their O1 and cover the cost. However, if that relationship gets severed, it voids the visa. So during the ATA dispute, foreign writers who had been sponsored by their agents had to get special dispensation from the WGA to not have to fire their agents, since firing them would have meant losing their visas. Conversely, if their agent fires them, it also voids the visa. You have to maintain a working relationship with your sponsor to keep up your visa, but if you pay for it yourself, you usually work with a business manager who isn’t your agent, but someone whose services you employ to manage your business who is unlikely to fire you. There’s definitely a way to avoid the expense of the O1, but it comes with more risk.

Here are some of the items you need to collect:

  • 10 letters of recommendation from top members of your industry
  • 6 additional letters confirming your employment for the next three years (difficult in an industry that is largely freelance)
  • Evidence of your outstanding achievement in your home country. This is largely done with newspaper articles. If you won an award, it better have been written about in a major newspaper. Also if you won an award, it should be an internationally recognized and prestigious award. You could also be asked to be on a jury of a prestigious organization. Membership in an internationally recognized union helps (like the WGA).
  • An “Agent” to act as your employer or essentially your sponsor. Some people will go through an accountant, some will go through their talent agency. It all depends on the company, on you, on your lawyer and how savvy they are. It’s a mess.

Basically, it’s really hard for someone just starting out to qualify for an O-1 visa. But it can be done.

Here’s how I got my O-1.
At first I tried to apply for an O-1 visa for writing, acting, and directing. Between my first and second year at film school I went back to my home country for the summer and put on a play that I wrote and directed in my hometown’s Fringe Festival, which won a major award in theatre and was reviewed by several major newspapers. It got picked up for another big festival and again was reviewed by several major newspapers. All of this contributed to the “evidence” that I was noteworthy in my home country. Without this, I would not have gotten my O-1.

Because of that play, I got noticed by all the top theatre artistic directors in my hometown (who were prominent in my home country) and formed relationships with many over the next two years (during my final year at film school and my OPT year) and three or four of them wrote recommendation letters. Again, huge get for me!

My other recommendations included two teachers from college with major credits to their name, and two showrunners of major shows. (I found one of them through the university’s alumni mentor network and the other was my thesis crit panelist.) I didn’t know I’d need them all to sign these letters so I’m lowkey very proud of myself for maintaining these professional relationships, especially with the showrunners. I’m not particularly good at networking but in this instance, wow, it really paid off to put myself out there.

Next issue was compiling all the evidence. And this I need to thank my obsessive and meticulous father. He kept every single press clipping for my plays, screenplay competition wins, every interview I gave, every review, every write up, every program big or small. I brought this huge binder to my lawyer who beamed and said “You owe your father a HUGE thank you!” He basically did all the work for them.

Then comes the really tedious filling out of forms. With details like “list every flight you have ever taken in the last ten years.” I now make sure that every time I fly I put it in my calendar. I mark every itinerary email in my inbox. I put it on a list in my Notes app. It’s surprisingly hard to remember, especially since as a student I had flown back and forth so many times.

Random things like “expected financial compensation for visa duration” – WHAT? How can you predict how much money you’ll make in a freelance-based industry?

The cost came to over $10,000, including the lawyer fees and all the USCIS fees for the application (which are about $2,500 alone). You could do it without a lawyer but it would be next to impossible. The full application is hundreds of pages. The lawyers have to write up bios and summaries for every single person or organization you mention. It’s so much work.

Which brings me to why it’s so intense: the amount of work. I cannot express enough how grueling the process is. If you haven’t gone through it you’d think oh it’s just emailing people and pulling research off the internet. But the amount of time it takes and how meticulous the process is painstaking slow.

The timeline is another issue. I graduated in May. I moved to LA that July. My OPT year would expire the next July. And it took about six months to compile all the documents. So I sought out my lawyer in November – only FOUR months after I moved to LA. I barely had my first job at that point and I already had to start the process of applying for my O-1.

That first O-1 nearly killed my drive to be in this business.

It has to be renewed every 3 years.
You’re basically paying $5-$10k every three years to renew.

The US has a lot of types of work visas, but all of them have restrictions. Some are limited to certain countries. Some are limited to certain job functions. Some visas are only available to employees of certain companies. This is again why it’s so important to consult a lawyer.

You can try your luck with the green card lottery.
There is a green card lottery (though it may have been paused due to COVID). Only certain countries are eligible, and only a small number are given out, but if you get lucky, it’s one way to get work approval to the US. Just know that if you return to your home country, even if you give up your green card, you will have to file taxes in the US for ten years.

The bottom line: foreign writers have to be a lot more conscientious if they want to work in Hollywood.
There are lots of international writers working in Hollywood, so it’s not impossible to do! But you’re going to have to be a lot more focused and dedicated than those who are American citizens.

Professionalism in the Age of the Influencer

November 20, 2019 Film Industry, Follow Up, General, International, Random Advice

On October 24, 2019, I presented the Hawley Foundation Lecture at Drake University. It was an update and reexamination of a 2006 speech on professionalism I originally gave at Trinity University, and later that year at Drake.

What follows is a pretty close approximation of my speech, but hardly a transcript. It’s long, around 14,000 words. My presentation originally had slides. I’ve included many of them, and swapped out others for links or embedded posts.

If you’re familiar with the earlier speech and want to jump to the new stuff, you can click here.


Back in 2006, I gave a speech here at Drake entitled “Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amateur.” In it, I presented my observations and arguments about how the emergence of the internet had made the old distinctions between amateurs and professionals largely irrelevant. Tonight I want to revisit that speech and look at what still makes sense in 2019, and more importantly, what I got wrong.

To do that, we need to start with a bit of time travel so we can all remember what 2006 looked like.

Here’s Facebook:

facebook 2006

Here’s Twitter:

twitter 2006

Here’s Netflix:

netflix home screen 2006

Here’s Reddit:

reddit 2006

Here’s Instagram:

instagram debuted in 2010

Oh, 2006 was a simpler time. The internet existed, but it wasn’t as all-consuming as it is now. We had blogs. We had MySpace. But we didn’t have the internet on our iPhones. Because iPhones wouldn’t come out for another year.

However, even in this innocent age, issues would arise that would feel very familiar today. We had fake news and trolls and pile-ons.

For example, back in 2006, I started my speech with this anecdote:

> On March 21, 2004, at about nine in the morning, I got an email from my friend James, saying, “Hey, congrats on the great review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Ain’t It Cool News!”

Let’s start by answering, What is Ain’t It Cool News? It was a movie website started by a guy named Harry Knowles. It looked like this:

aicn 2006

Ain’t It Cool News billed itself as a fan site. I’d argue that it was an incredibly significant step towards today’s fan-centered nerd culture, for better and for worse. Online fandom has brought forth the Avengers and fixed Sonic the Hedgehog’s teeth, but it’s also unleashed digital mobs upon actors and journalists, women in particular.

Back in 2006, the nexus of movie fandom was Ain’t It Cool News. It wasn’t just a barometer of what a certain class of movie fan would like; it could set expectations and buzz. Studio publicity departments checked it constantly.

So, back to my email from James. He’d written:

> “Hey, congrats on the great review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Ain’t It Cool News!”

This was troubling for a couple of reasons.

First off, the movie hadn’t been shot yet. We weren’t in production. So the review was actually a review of the script. Studios and filmmakers really, really don’t like it when scripts leak out and get reviewed on the internet, because it starts this cycle of conjecture and fuss about things that may or may not ever be shot. So I knew that no matter what, I was going to get panicked phone calls from Warner Bros.

I click through to Ain’t It Cool and read this “review.” And it’s immediately clear that it’s a complete work of fiction.

aicn article 2006

The author of the article, “Michael Marker,” claims to have read the script, but he definitely hasn’t. He’s just making it up. It is literally fake news.

Fortunately, back in 2004, I knew exactly one person at Ain’t It Cool News. His name was Jeremy, but he went by the handle “Mr. Beaks.” So I emailed him, and say, hey, that review of the Charlie script is bullshit.

Actually, I don’t say that. I say, “That guy is bullshitting you.” It’s not that I’m wronged, no. It’s that that guy, Michael Marker, is besmirching the good name of Ain’t It Cool News by trying to pass off his deluded ramblings as truth. How dare he!

And it works. Mr. Beaks talks to Harry Knowles, and Harry posts a new article saying that the review was bogus.

aicn article screenshot

They don’t pull the original article, but oh well. It’s basically resolved.

I can’t help but think — this article was wrong, but it was really, really positive. What if it had been negative? Would Mr. Beaks or Harry Knowles have believed me? Probably not. They would have said, “Oh, sour grapes.” My complaining would have made the readers believe the bogus review even more.

It might have led to the Streisand effect, where complaining about something just brings more attention to it.

Back in 2006, if you tried to really go after any of these film-related sites, criticizing them for say, running a review of a test screening or just outright making shit up, you’d get one standard response:

> Hey, we’re not professional journalists. We’re just a bunch of guys who really love movies.

Their defense is that they’re amateurs, so they can’t be held to the same standards of the New York Times or NBC.

That became the topic of my speech in 2006: the eroding distinction between professionals and amateurs.

The classic, easy distinction is that the professional gets paid for it, while the amateur doesn’t. For a lot of things, that works. You have a professional boxer versus an amateur. You have a professional astronomer versus an amateur — some guy with a telescope in his back yard.

[Read more…] about Professionalism in the Age of the Influencer

The Chinese Box Office is Huge

February 11, 2019 International

Writing for Forbes, Scott Mendelson notes that the biggest movie in China is bigger than even the biggest US movies:

The Wandering Earth wrapped up its first week of release in China with a record-breaking $349 million. That’s the biggest one-week total ever in China, besting the $338m debut of Detective Chinatown 2 last year and the $307m launch of Wolf Warrior 2 in the summer of 2017. It was the second-biggest seven day total for any release in any territory save for the $390m seven-day cume of Walt Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.

Yes, Wandering Earth earned more in its first week in China than Disney’s Avengers: Infinity War earned in North America ($338m) last April.

Yes: it’s complicated because China controls which movies can be released, and how wide they can expand, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. But it’s clear that the Chinese box office is simply massive.

Hollywood movies have long been one of the America’s most reliable exports, because you simply couldn’t make a certain kind of movie anywhere else. That’s not true anymore.

Changing the Defaults

Episode - 346

Go to Archive

April 17, 2018 Film Industry, International, News, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, WGA

John sits down with screenwriter Christina Hodson to discuss race, gender, and representation in Hollywood, and how screenwriters can help correct the status quo with the one thing they can control: the words on the page.

We tackle the nuances of designating race for open-ethnicity characters, the assumption of whiteness, the pros and cons of feature writers rooms and the promise of inclusion riders.

We also answer a listener question about why some movies are timeless and some feel dated as soon as they premiere.

Links:

  • Thanks for joining us, Christina Hodson. Her upcoming movies include Bumblebee of the Transformers franchise and Batgirl.
  • The Pudding’s Film Dialogue from 2,000 screenplays, Broken Down by Gender and Age
  • Premium subscribers can listen to the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend bonus episode with Aline Brosh McKenna and Rachel Bloom here.
  • A pilot announcement that includes this character description: “a girl-next-door type but also with a behind-the-ear tattoo. She can just as easily bro out with the guys as she can be the girliest girl.”
  • A guide to WGA dues, courtesy of Stuart!
  • Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies
  • Female writer friends, like Frances Marion
  • The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!
  • The USB drives!
  • John August on Twitter
  • Craig Mazin on Twitter
  • John on Instagram
  • Find past episodes
  • Outro by Hunter Christensen (send us yours!)

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 4-19-18: The transcript of this episode can be found here.

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