Screenwriter and author John August

Answer: You are an American male in his twenties

April 28, 2005 General

Thanks to the 470 of you who were gracious enough to fill out the not-especially-scientific [survey](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/who-are-you-where-do-you-come-from), I can now state with confidence that the typical reader of johnaugust.com is a North American college graduate in his 20’s who has a Y chromosome, but no WGA card.

Now, before anyone protests, I should point out that not all readers are typical. Some are women in their 30’s from South Africa with graduate degrees; others are older, younger, or more international. And one could easily fault the methodology: it relied completely on self-reporting, with no particular incentive for readers to click the link to take the survey.

Yet the trends in the data are so clear that there’s not a lot of point keeping the survey running any longer. If you don’t believe me, maybe some charts will prove the point:

chart: male/female

The vast majority of readers are men. That’s no surprise, but I wasn’t expecting almost 90%. I don’t know whether this reflects the reality of the male/female split among screenwriters or not. Regardless, I try to vary to my pronouns, so that I’m not always talking about “a screenwriter and his script.”

chart: age

Readers are a little older than I thought. Had I known that the under-20 categories would be so sparsely populated, I would have broken up the age groups differently. Given the average age, I may feel a little more liberty to swear.

Taking a meeting without an agent or manager

April 26, 2005 Film Industry, QandA

I’m developing a script with a writer/director who has
already finished his first feature. The film we are
writing now aligns directly with the kind of films
that Lion’s Gate has been producing in their new
genre devision. Fortunately I have a contact with one
of their staff producers (which explains why I’m
attached).

My question is this: The writer has no
agent or manager and I’m wondering if that will be a
hindrance when approaching the studio. We’re very
confident in the story, but I was wondering if there
is some sort of protocol to follow when approaching a
studio, even if the contact is a friend of mine.
We’re not sure if we should attempt to pitch before
submitting the script or if it’s necessary to get third
party representation before doing so.

— Chris
New York

You’re fine. Don’t let the lack of an agent and/or manager slow down your process at this point. Use your contact, get your meeting, and pitch the project. Particularly at a genre division, they’re used to working with unsigned writers. Embrace your outsider status.

If they want to buy your project, you’ll need to get an entertainment lawyer involved to help figure out the contracts. The writer/director might already have one, but if not, you’ll be able to find one within a few days — particularly in New York or Los Angeles.

Where do you find an entertainment lawyer? Well, you could start by asking the company. If they want your project, they’re likely to want the deal done right. They’ll understand that it’s in their best interest to see that you have a good lawyer. But of course, don’t stop there. Make sure you meet with several attornies at different companies. You want someone you feel you can trust.

Who are you? Where do you come from?

April 25, 2005 News

[ survey ](http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=290091028219)On Sunday, I had lunch with Mary Edrington, my former marketing professor from [Drake](http://www.drake.edu). She was one of the best teachers I ever had, because she did the near-impossible: she made me care about boring numbers. Even though I was much more attuned to the creative side of marketing, I always appreciated her zeal for research. It wasn’t enough to come up with a clever slogan for some product; you had to prove that there was actually a customer out there to buy it.

At lunch, she asked me who the average reader of johnaugust.com was. I confessed that I didn’t really know. I can speculate about education level of some readers based on the comments. Checking the logs, I can tell you [what browser](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/why-does-anyone-still-use-internet-explorer) he or she uses. But my actual demographic data is an empty set.

So if you don’t mind, would you be willing to answer 10 really simple questions? I’ve timed it — it only takes 35 seconds, unless you write a big essay in the (optional) final comment box.

You can take the survey here. (**Update March 2011:** Link removed, outdated.)

After a week or two, I’ll put up the results.

LA Times story on DVD sales

April 24, 2005 Film Industry

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a good piece about the studios’ reluctance to disclose exactly how much money they really make on DVDs. They’re happy to tell you that home video is absolutely crucial to profitability, particularly when it comes to the threat of piracy. But ask how much money they made from DVDs on, say, [Shrek](http://imdb.com/title/tt0126029/combined?fr=c2l0ZT1kZnxteD0yMHxsbT01MDB8dHQ9b258ZmI9dXxwbj0wfHE9c2hyZWt8aHRtbD0xfG5tPW9u;fc=1;ft=21;fm=1), and they whistle a tune while rocking back and forth on their heels.

Of course, knowing a precise figure is not idle curiosity. Peter Jackson, for instance, is suing over [Lord of the Rings](http://imdb.com/title/tt0120737/combined), suspecting he was shortchanged somewhere in the tens of millions of dollars for DVD payments.

You can read the whole story [here](http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/la-et-dvdmoney17apr17,1,213056.story?ctrack=1&cset=true). (Free registration required.)