John August

News

Final Draft buys Script magazine

News, Software

Today’s Variety [reports](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117952058.html) that the makers of Final Draft have bought Script magazine and some related assets from Forum Publishing.

The deal probably makes sense for Final Draft. Rather than buy a big ad every month, why not just buy the whole magazine? Plus, Final Draft probably has a huge mailing list from its software registrations, which can help boost the circulation numbers.

Final Draft boss Marc Madnick is planning to redesign and relaunch Script in January. Given his company’s past record of upgrades — Final Draft 7.0, anyone? — here’s what I’d expect:

* It will actually ship in 2008.
* The staples will be in the wrong place.
* An errant font will crash the magazine.
* When you flip a page, the text will get jaggy.
* Each issue can only be “installed” three times.

Can’t wait. Also…

Madnick said Final Draft is on track to sell about 35,000 software licenses this year.

That’s a lot of aspiring screenwriters. It also makes me wonder about the economics of screenwriting applications.

Final Draft’s list price is $229, but you can get it from Amazon for $169. Since we don’t know what percentage of their sales come from their own site and elsewhere, I’m going to pick $150 as their per-copy profit. That’s an arbitrary number, but it’s round, and we’re only looking for ballpark figures here.

35,000 x $150 = $5,250,000

Suffice to say, Microsoft won’t be going into the screenwriting software business. But for a lot of smaller software makers, that’s probably good money. Final Draft charges for tech support, so that’s not a big cost, and with online distribution, inventory costs are minimal. There’s certainly room for competing products.

But you won’t be reading about them in Script magazine.

Austin Film Festival schedule

News

In case any readers want to see how much less articulate I am in person, I’ll be speaking on three panels at the upcoming [Austin Film Festival](http://www.austinfilmfestival.com/). Here are the descriptions the organizers sent out:

**The Art of the Pitch**
SFA Hotel, Assembly Room
Oct. 19th, 2:45 p.m. – 4 p.m.

*Pitching yourself is as important as pitching your script, and it often happens at parties, in elevators, and, of course, at festivals and conferences. Come learn how to hard pitch in a meeting and soft pitch in a casual setting and make sure your pitch leaves people wanting to get their hands on your script.*

* John August
* Jessica Bendinger
* Maggie Biggar
* Alex Smith – moderator

**Getting a Writing Job**
Driskill Hotel, Maximilian Room
Oct. 20th, 10:45 a.m. – 12 p.m.

*Inspired by John August’s Web site, this is the panel formerly known as Breaking Into the Business. Why did we change the name? Because what most writers really want to know is, “How can I get paid for my writing? How do I become a professional writer?” It’s important to know there isn’t just one path to success.*

* John August
* Brendan McDonald
* Gregg Rounds
* Greg Beal – moderator

**Tell Your Story**
Driskill Hotel, Chisolm Trail Room
Oct. 20th, 3:15 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

*Come and meet John August, writer of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, Go, and others, in a relaxed and intimate setting. Get here early and join the casual conversation on the couch.*

Two thoughts on the future of video

Film Industry, News, Rant

This morning’s paper had two interesting articles about home video.

Warners will be releasing Superman Returns on DVD in China [today](http://english.people.com.cn/200609/28/eng20060928_307068.html), two months ahead of the rest of the world, priced almost as low as the ubiquitous counterfeit versions.

How do you make money selling a DVD for 14 yuan ($1.75)? Well, the counterfeiters do. From Warner’s perspective, they’ve already sunk hundreds of millions into the film. As long as they can sell a DVD for a penny more than it cost to manufacture, it’s probably worth it. I’ve long thought that the only way to beat bootlegging in markets like China and Russia is to take away the price difference. I’ll be curious to see if the experiment pays off.

The [second article](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117950940?categoryid=18) looks at a possible deal between Wal-Mart and Apple. Not to sell iPods or Macintoshes, but movies. Which is weird, because neither Apple nor Wal-Mart makes movies.

Apparently, several studios were on board to sell downloadable movies through iTunes, but backed off because of pressure from Wal-Mart, which is by far the biggest distributor of DVDs in North America. Disney held its ground and went with iTunes, but there was the possibility that Wal-Mart would cut its orders of Disney’s movies as punishment.

Now Apple is in talks with Wal-Mart to give the giant retailer a cut of the action on downloads, in exchange for letting the other studios sell movies through iTunes.

Fuck Wal-Mart, seriously.

Their near-monopolist control of physical products is bad enough. I don’t think we should be giving them control over bits and bytes.

I think I’m going to download High School Musical just to spite them.

J.J. Abrams got a $55+ million deal

Directors, Film Industry, News, Television

Actually, it’s [two deals](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117946896?categoryid=13&cs=1): one for TV at Warners, and another for film at Paramount. Though I’ve never met the guy, I’m very happy for him. It honestly couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy. Not only has he consistently created great material in the past, he clearly has great work ahead of him.

And yet…

I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

Right now, he has three TV shows on the air: *Lost*, *What About Brian*, and *Six Degrees*. He’s prepping the next *Star Trek* movie, and is supposed to be producing other, smaller movies on top of that.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be spending this entire week working on a two-minute section of The Movie. Oh, and I have a lunch with my TV agent about a show I probably won’t do because I don’t have time. Because, you see, I operate on Mortal Time.

Godspeed, Mr. Abrams. I look forward to your work, and pray that your stretching the boundaries of the time-space continuum don’t have any grave repercussions. (But as mutual fans of science-fiction, we both know that’s unlikely.)

Fingers crossed.