John August

Film Industry

The Odd Joy of the Wizard/Paladin

Film Industry, First Person, Random Advice, Television

On Scriptnotes 541, Craig and I discussed which of the classic D&D attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity and Charisma) were most important for an aspiring film and TV writer. We ranked intelligence first, while acknowledging that charisma was important for the social aspects of the job. We felt wisdom was gained through experience — which it is, in the real world.

Our discussion generated a lot of listener emails. Nick Roth’s response felt like it deserved its own post. So here it is in full.

Sometimes, as a writer earlier in your career, and especially in the context of tv writing (my background is as a lower level writer on a network sitcom), it feels like you can’t just be a wizard who has maximized intelligence with secondary emphases on charisma and wisdom.

It feels like you have to multi-class as a Wizard/Paladin.

It’s a stupid multiclass. You have to approach your work like you’re on a holy quest, and everyone expects you to be a melee tank, but all you really want is to cast spells from the shadows. You have to have intelligence and charisma, and you have to have both strength and constitution to survive in a writers’ room, where you need thicker skin than mage armor can provide. And you also need to get yourself into the right place at the right time, so you can’t even take dexterity for granted, because there are barbarians out there with advantage on initiative rolls who will beat you to opportunities.

You have literally no dump stat. And, in this campaign setting, there are famously OP Backgrounds you probably don’t have access to — like having famous parents or being literally Malia Obama.

The point is it can feel impossible to roll this character. But here’s the thing: the best characters and the best campaigns aren’t made by rolling great attributes and min-maxing your abilities. They are made by figuring out the most hilarious and surprising and heartwarming ways of interpreting your critical successes and your critical fails. Okay, so you’ve insanely chosen to be a wizard-paladin and you rolled three negative modifiers. Big whoop. You can still have the best time saving the multiverse with this zany School of Police Procedurals Wizard who has taken an Oath of Musical Comedy. Maybe you fight a dragon, or maybe you reboot Cop Rock!

I feel like I lost the thread there, but you get the idea. Just like we must imagine Sisyphus happy, we have to love all the parts of being a screenwriter, no matter how absurd a multi-class it requires, even when we roll a 1 and had -3 to the check to begin with.

Is a class in script coverage worth it?

Film Industry, QandA, So-Called Experts

Ethan in Northridge writes:

Recently I was searching online on how to write script coverage and become a script reader as I felt I didn’t have a full understanding of those topics. In my search I found a website offering a free class that would “share the details of what it takes to become a reader.”

Since the class was free I decided to attend. It started out fine. The instructor was nice and eased us into talking about script coverage and their own background.

Then about halfway through the class, when the instructor promised to get more into the details about becoming a reader, the class clearly turned into an advertisement for their paid courses. The remainder of the class was largely them listing off how different parts of their courses have a $400, $2,000, or $11,000 value.

Most people in the class chat were praising this and saying it was a great deal, but I personally just felt uneasy about the whole thing.

Do you think I am correct in feeling uneasy about this? Or am I being judgmental and unfair to a legitimate business?

Something can both be a legitimate business and make you feel uneasy. For example, pawns shops are legitimate businesses. So are gun ranges, drug paraphernalia stores and strip mall psychics. That doesn’t mean you need to give them any of your money.

Don’t get hung up whether something is legit or a scam. If a business doesn’t feel right for you, trust your gut and move on.

Let’s talk a little about script coverage, and whether it’s ever worth paying to study it.

I first learned how to write script coverage while in graduate school at USC, in a class taught by uber-producer Laura Ziskin. She showed us examples of good coverage and then told us to write some. For several weeks, we’d take home a script from her library and write up coverage on it. (You can read some of this early coverage in my 1996 site, although I can’t find any with proper top sheets intact.) Laura or one of her execs would mark it up and offer feedback.

How much did I pay to learn coverage in Ziskin’s class? And how much was it worth?

Since that was only a small part of the class, it’s hard to break it out to exact dollars. But I’d guess it was less than $500. As part of a class designed to teach us to think critically about script development, the section on coverage was definitely worth it. In fact, a few months later I started working as a paid freelance reader at TriStar.

Do you, Ethan, want to work as a reader? If so, a short, structured program focused on writing coverage might be worth it, assuming it’s taught by someone who does it for a living. You’d want something like what I had with Laura Ziskin: a look at what executives want to see in coverage, and then a few cracks at writing it, with good feedback on what you wrote.

But that’s if you want to be a reader. It’s much more likely you want to work as a screenwriter.

In that case, your time is better spent reading as many scripts as possible and writing just your reaction to the scripts. What worked for you? What didn’t — and why didn’t it work? Most importantly, what did you learn?

If you can find a group of peers to regularly discuss the scripts you’re reading, all the better. But I don’t think you need to do it as part of a class.

Why I changed my mind on end credits

Film Industry, News, WGA

This week, the WGA announced an upcoming referendum on a proposal to create an “Additional Literary Material” end credit for feature films.

I was part of the committee that drafted the proposal, and took the lead in writing up the exhaustive explainer and FAQ.1

Outside of my role on the committee, I want to talk through how and why my thinking about end credits has evolved over my 20+ years as a screenwriter, and why I think members should vote yes on the proposal.

The way it’s always been

Going back decades, the WGA has had a process for determining who gets credit for writing on a movie. These are the familiar “by” credits: written by, screenplay by, story by, etc.

These credits denote authorship. Whether a film uses opening titles or end titles, the writing credit always comes right next to the director. They answer the question, “Who wrote that?”

But they don’t tell the whole story. In many cases, other writers worked on the project. If they didn’t meet the threshold for receiving this “by” credit, all record of their employment is erased.

That’s unique to the film industry. In television, members of a writing staff receive an employment credit (e.g. staff writer, story editor) in addition to a writing credit on episodes they write.

The idea of listing every writer who worked on a movie is not new. It’s always seemed absurd that a catering truck driver who worked one day on a film has their name in the credits, while a screenwriter who spent a year on the project and wrote major scenes goes uncredited.

And yet! Screenwriters are not drivers. Our work is fundamentally different. Authorship means something, both for the individual project and for the status of screenwriters as a profession. That’s why in the case of projects with multiple writers, the Guild has an arbitration process to determine the official writer(s) of the script.

But what about listing the other writers in the end credits, away from the “by” credits?

For at least 20 years, I’ve been able to argue both sides of the end credits question. Pro: Listing all the writers better reflects the reality of who worked on a movie. Con: Listing all the writers undercuts the purpose of the WGA determining credits in the first place. Like a high school debater, I knew the arguments and was ready to engage on either side of the debate.

I didn’t want to pick a side — but of course, I was picking a side. When the status quo is no end credits, doing nothing means perpetuating the current system.

During my year working on the committee, a few things got me to change my mind.

Recognizing survivorship bias

I’ve received credit on films I wrote, and lost credits I thought I deserved. On the whole, it’s worked out. My resume looks pretty full, particularly in those crucial early years of my career (Go, Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish).

Even on movies where I didn’t get credit, “the town” knew I did the work. I kept getting hired and increasing my quote.

Talking with many of my screenwriting peers — writers in their 40s and 50s — that’s largely been their experience as well. It’s not surprising given the phenomenon of survivorship bias. If you’re only looking at the screenwriters who made it, you’re going to assume the system is working well.

But what about the screenwriters who aren’t getting credit? What’s happening to them?

Talking with members currently at the early stages of their screenwriting careers, they describe a very different universe than I experienced, one with month-long writers rooms, simultaneous drafts and cultural sensitivity passes. Their missing credits are not because of bad luck, but rather because of an environment that makes it much less likely they could ever receive credit.

That sense that “the town” knows who really wrote something? There is no town anymore. Instead of six studios, there are countless production entities, many of them not based in LA. Netflix is so giant that one team has no idea what another team is making.

In 2021, when a screenwriter receives no credit on a film, it truly is like they never worked on it.

When thinking about missing screenwriting credits, I mistakenly assumed that my experience in the early 2000s matched screenwriters’ experiences today. It doesn’t.

Comparing imagined harm to actual harm

Most of the status quo arguments I’ve heard for the past twenty years foretell grave consequences if additional writers were listed in the end credits. Some common predictions:

  • It will devalue the worth of the “by” credits
  • Studios or producers will hire friends just to get their names in the end credits
  • It will hurt newer writers if a big-name writer showed up in the end credits

All I can say is, maybe! We’re screenwriters; it’s our job to imagine scenarios.

But it’s also important to check the facts. Earlier this year, the WGA examined over a thousand feature contracts to look at trends in compensation. One finding: credit matters a lot.

Chart showing that a feature writer with no credit earns median $100,000 while one with a single credit earns $140,000

The median guaranteed payment for a screenwriter with no credits was $140,000. The median guaranteed payment for a screenwriter with one credit was $400,000.

A single feature credit more than doubled a screenwriter’s pay.

Would receiving an “Additional Literary Material” credit result in the same bump? Likely not to the same degree. But it would show that a screenwriter worked on a film that got made. I strongly believe that’s going to be worth real dollars to that writer. In my discussions with newer writers, agents and executives, most of them agree.

This impacts quite a few writers. In 2020, 185 participating writers wrote on produced features for which they ultimately received no credit.

I should also note here the Guild’s Inclusion & Equity Group’s concern that the status quo disproportionately affects women and writers of color, for whom these resume gaps can be a substantial barrier to future employment.

When comparing the theoretical harms of end credits to the actual harms of doing nothing, I think it’s better to solve the real problems members are having.

Finding a middle path

Even after acknowledging my survivorship bias and the actual harms screenwriters are facing, I wouldn’t have supported many of the more aggressive proposed changes to the credit system. For example, I don’t believe in changing the thresholds for the “by” credits, expanding the definition to include non-writing roundtable participants, or having all participating writers share in the residuals pool.

Instead, what the committee came up with after a year of sometimes-heated debate was a proposal that narrowly addresses the “resume problem” of missing employment credits without changing anything about the traditional writing credits. The result closely mirrors the system used in television for decades, where writers are credited for both their employment and their authorship.

The term “Additional Literary Material” is incredibly dull, but it’s also accurate. It reflects the reality that the people listed wrote material for the film without passing any judgement. It clearly delineates actual writing — words on paper — from participating in a roundtable.

Rather than diluting the authorship credit of the “by” writers, I’d argue the “Additional Literary Material” credit reinforces it. By definition, any writer listed it this block did not meet the thresholds for receiving “by” credit. (And if a writer chooses not to be included in “Additional Literary Material,” it’s their decision alone.)

In summary, I changed my mind on end credits because I realized I wasn’t looking at the reality experienced by many screenwriters in 2021. This proposal addresses a specific problem with minimal disruption to long-established screen credit processes.

Voting on the referendum begins November 2nd. I urge you to vote yes.

Supporters of the proposal are gathering signatures for a Pro statement. You can read it here.

WGA members can sign on by sending an email to yesonendcredits@gmail.com with the subject line “PLEASE ADD MY NAME TO THE CREDITS PRO STATEMENT. Please include your name and preferred email address.

  1. I beg you, please read the explainer. We really tried to answer every question you might ask. ↩

Getting a visa as a writer

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.