John August

Film Industry

Working as a freelance reader

Film Industry, First Person, Follow Up

On this week’s Scriptnotes, we talked about professional readers and the challenge of making a living as a freelancer. We got several great emails from listeners, like this one from “Zeke.”

Like most people outside LA, I had no idea that people are actually getting paid to read scripts or that coverage even existed. That changed when I took a story analysis course that specifically taught us how to read, analyze, and write professional coverage.

From there I started doing unpaid reading at a couple of places around town as an intern and with the Austin Film Festival. My first paying gigs were with some popular script competitions such as Screencraft and obscure ones such as the Canadian Wildsound. The pay ranged from decent ($30-$40 a script) to downright embarrassing ($15 per script).

My first “real” reading for a company was Paradigm talent agency, and then UTA, who pay more but also require more extensive work (additional character breakdown, etc.). From there, and for the past few years, I’ve been focusing on reading for production companies and, most recently, for premium cable and streamers.

Consistency is the bane of the freelance reader’s existence. I always make sure I’m reading for at least 4-5 places simultaneously, and even then, there are slow weeks with little to no work (especially around the holidays). As for rates, I started with lower rates and had to fight for raises. And that’s a big issue: unless you push the companies to pay more and ask more than a few times, you will stay at the same rate you started with years earlier. I know that for a fact by asking other readers who just didn’t know they could ask for more money.

Being a reader for multiple companies, I have to be on call essentially all the time, including nights and weekends. For example, just this week, I got a request to read a script at 11 PM on a weekday, and the requested turnaround was for the following morning. This is not a rare incident.

Technically, you don’t have to accept the work. If you turn down one script or one book, maybe it won’t change much. But the second time you do it, you risk losing the gig with that company, no matter how good your working relationship is with them. Needless to say, sick or vacation days do not exist. I go to Israel every year to visit family, and I work from there as well. Again, I was never forced to do so, but I have no choice since this is my main source of income.

As for the union, we’ve been having a discourse about organizing as freelance readers, but it’s still quite vague on what steps we could take. A union reading job is much-coveted since it not only provides you with stability, but also a respectable salary, excellent health insurance, and paid days off. I would note that Netflix is probably the company that offers the best pay and terms of all non-union companies who work with freelancer readers.

Finally, I believe that a major problem in this field is the fact that many of us, including veteran story analysts at the studios, often feel somewhat inconsequential. Intellectually, we know this work is essential to the development process of any production company/studio/agency. But it doesn’t often feel that way. And that problem translates to everything else: if readers don’t respect themselves, why should companies?

It’s hard to convince employers to offer better rates or better conditions when most places in town use assistants or interns to read their projects. No matter how good a given reader might be, free labor is hard to compete with.

How accurate is the page-per-minute rule?

Film Industry, Follow Up, Formatting, QandA, Rant

Back in 2006, I answered a reader question about page counts:

Every screenwriting book I’ve read, class I took, and basically the first rule I learned says:

ONE PAGE OF A PROPERLY FORMATTED SCRIPT = APPROX. A MINUTE OF SCREEN TIME.

I know one page of say a battle can last five minutes whereas one page of quick dialogue my last ten seconds if the actors talk fast. So my question is, is this rule true?

I replied that the page-per-minute rule of thumb didn’t hold up to much scrutiny, and offered examples from my own work.

Then a few weeks ago, I started thinking about this question again, and realized there was an opportunity to reframe the question in a more concrete way:

For screenplays, what is the correlation between screenplay length and running time?

I asked data scientist Stephen Follows if he’d be up for tackling this question. He jumped into action, gathering 761 feature screenplays and comparing them to the running times of their finished films. Today, he published his findings.

The results largely match what I expected, and what I wrote in 2006:

The one-page-per-minute rule of thumb doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. True, most screenplays are about 120 pages, and true, most movies are around two hours. But the conversion rate between paper and celluloid is rarely one-to-one.1

While Follows finds there is some obvious correlation between page count and running time, the rule of thumb barely works in aggregate but isn’t very predictive for any given project.

Why does it matter? Because too many folks in the film and television industry have internalized one-page-per-minute as an axiomatic truth rather than a crude estimate. Any script that is longer than 120 pages is perceived as being too long. Indeed, some studios’ contracts specify that the writer may not deliver a script longer than 120 pages.2

In order to bring their scripts under this artificial limit, screenwriters waste time making tiny edits with the goal of moving page breaks. It’s pointless busy work.

Worse, the page-per-minute rule of thumb puts too much focus on arbitrary sheets of never-printed paper rather than the words they contain. If we’re worried about the length of anything, it should be scenes and sequences. But in 2020 we continue to treat screenplays as if they’re hand-typed on dead trees, forgoing digital tools that would allow for better security, collaboration and version control.

As an industry, we’re afraid to move to new formats for screenplays because we’re worried it’ll break the page-per-minute standard. But we don’t need to worry, because the rule of thumb was never really true.

Doing what makes sense

Is it appropriate to try to estimate a project’s running time based on the script? Absolutely.

Before a project goes into production, the script supervisor — an experienced professional who works beside the director on set — generally performs a “script timing” by estimating the time for each scene. It’s not perfect, but it better reflects reality. If a script times out to three hours, better to know it before production, so you’re not shooting scenes that won’t make it into the film.

Is there an opportunity for computer-generated running time estimates? Probably.

With machine learning, I can imagine systems that better predict how words on the page will reflect minutes on screen. But I wonder if it’s a false goal. Ultimately, running time is a factor of film editing. Scenes get dropped in post, and it’s very hard to anticipate these changes when looking at a script in preproduction.

This analysis was done on feature films, but every TV show faces similar issues. However, long-running shows have the advantage of knowing how their specific show works. My hunch is that every NCIS script falls in a narrow range of scenes and pages because they know what they need.

Big thanks to Stephen Follows for accepting this challenge and myth-busting this rule of thumb. Be sure to read, share and comment on his post.

  1. Celluloid! It truly was a different age in 2006. ↩
  2. On a recent project, my contract limited delivery to 130 pages. Such decadence! ↩

Professionalism in the Age of the Influencer

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.

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Hollywood assistants have always been underpaid, but this is different

Assistants, Film Industry, Television

One of my first jobs in Hollywood was as an assistant. It was 1994. I was just finishing film school, and felt lucky to get a job working for two busy producers. I spent my days answering phones, reading scripts and making copies. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was exactly the position I knew I needed, learning how the business works.

My assistant salary1 was enough to pay rent, buy groceries, and see all the movies I could. I wrote on nights and weekends. Like every assistant I knew, I aspired to bigger things. I managed to get an agent, get some meetings, and eventually get hired to write a feature. In all, I spent about two years in assistant-dom.

Since then, I’ve had nine incredible assistants — all of them aspiring writers — so I want to believe I still have a connection to what that experience is like. But my sample size is obviously limited.

On a recent episode of Scriptnotes, we asked listeners to write in with their experiences as assistants, focusing on the impact of their low wages. To my surprise, we got by far the most mail we’ve ever received on a topic — more than 100 emails at last count. Scriptnotes producer Megana Rao made a 26-page reading packet for us that covered the highlights, from which we excerpted sections for the podcast.

In this post, I want to go into deeper depth on a few issues. As on the show, we’ve changed names and identifying characteristics in these emails.

Barry writes:

There is a widespread assumption that assistant jobs are for those “right out of college.” But in 2019, this is fundamentally not true.

Most of my friends who are getting their first staff writer jobs right now logged at least a decade in assistant positions. I became a WGA member and still had to keep taking assistant jobs for years after that, and so did many of my peers. Now of course, some folks get big breaks quicker than others, and move out of assistant jobs much faster — that’s always been the case. But for the vast majority of us right now, the days of being a writers’ assistant for one year and then getting a staff job are mostly over.

A staff writer job used to be viewed as an apprentice job (hence staff writers not getting script fees). Nowadays, showrunners are increasingly wanting experienced writers in those positions, often with multiple episodic credits already. There’s so much more competition now that showrunners can afford to set the bar that high.

However, if assistant jobs are still being paid like they’re for people who are “right out of college,” this becomes an enormous problem as assistants get older. It’s one thing to make such a paltry salary at 22, when you’re living the Ramen lifestyle, and have roommates, and are on your parents’ health insurance, and you’re maybe still driving their car, etc. But if you’re making basically the same amount at 32, when your financial needs have changed significantly, these jobs actually become MORE unsustainable the longer you’re in the industry and the more experience you have.

To me, this is the crux of the issue. Decision-makers — people in their 40s and 50s — imagine these jobs as being filled by their younger selves. What are they complaining about? they ask. I was an underpaid assistant, too!

These decision-makers are making two fundamental mistakes. First, they’re assuming that assistants are pretty much exactly like, well, me in 1994: white Americans just out of college with no kids and little debt who often have parents that can help out with expenses.

Second, these decision-makers are ignoring how much has changed since they were assistants two decades ago. A non-exhaustive list:

  1. Los Angeles has gotten much more expensive.
  2. Assistants stay assistants longer than they used to.
  3. Owning a car is still essential, and costs more.
  4. Medical insurance is pricier.
  5. Short seasons make it harder to advance.

This last point merits a closer look. Barry again:

I currently work on a successful tv show. I worked for five months on the first season, then we took nine months off, then I worked for five months on the second season, they we took AN ENTIRE YEAR OFF before the third season started.

It should be pretty clear why the folks who make the least amount of money — and have the fewest contacts, and don’t have agents/managers repping them for other jobs — are going to be hit hardest in a scenario where the new world order is that the majority of jobs only last a couple months. This is a huge difference even from when I started in the industry, where getting a job on a hit show would AT LEAST mean that you had a few years of steady work before you had to start looking again.

In the old days of 22-episode season orders, it was not uncommon to promote a writer’s assistant to staff writer after the second or third season. At that point, the showrunner had plenty of experience seeing what that writer could do. But almost no streaming show runs for 40 or more episodes — and if they do, it would be after many years, with frequent breaks.

Christian writes:

I am a Writer’s PA (WPA). I have been working as an assistant in various executive and personal capacities for more than five years now. This is my third show as a Writer’s PA, though I’ve also been a Showrunner’s Assistant (SA) in the past.

You may be asking why I’ve been working for five years as an assistant, with SA experience, and am working as a WPA now. To keep a long story short, with streaming keeping rooms small and wrapping before production starts, there’s not a lot of growth potential for assistants on streaming shows. None of the ones I’ve worked so far have heard whether or not they’re getting renewed, and with wages so low, there’s only so long you can hold out on unemployment before having to take the next gig, even if it is a demotion.

Unintentionally or not, making sure assistants are not paid enough to build up a savings cushion between gigs is one of the ways in which the system benefits our employers. Many of us are so desperate to pay rent that we’ll accept the low-ball offer, because at least we’re getting paid. Those of us who try to negotiate are dropped from consideration for someone more desperate and ready to accept the low pay.

I’m still getting paid minimum wage. Because that is the “industry standard” for WPAs. Because being a WPA is considered an entry-level position, even when most showrunners are looking for–and receiving resumes from–assistants with experience.

What’s worse is that this production model of “room first, production later” is putting a LOT more responsibility on the Writers’ Room support staff. I’ve opened two rooms now, both without the help of a production office or production accountant. I’ve done the work of a production coordinator, office manager, and production accountant. I was the financial approver for the Writers’ offices on two of my shows, which meant any time we needed the studio lot where our offices were located to do something for us, I had to “approve” the studio charges.

The studio also made it VERY clear that they wouldn’t hire a Script Coordinator until production started (so after our rooms wrapped). Well, no surprise, there are script coordinator duties that have to be done the second writers start to write, so the burden to proof, distro, and handle contractual paperwork fell to me. Many times I found myself contemplating the ironies of being the lowest paid assistant on the show, stuck doing the highest paid assistant’s duties without title or pay bump. (Note: I was recently informed by an IATSE Union rep that this breaks union rules. I had no idea.)

Again: these are just two out of more than 100 emails we received on this topic. Then on Sunday, the #PayUpHollywood hashtag started trending with more horror stories.

I don’t know why the dam suddenly broke open, but my hope is that by engaging assistants, showrunners, agents and executives we can start to grapple with the inequities that are making assistant jobs unsurvivable for many folks who want to work in this industry. Both on the podcast and this blog we’ll be sharing more stories and solutions as they come up.

  1. I originally put this as $550/week — $952/week in 2019 dollars — but I’m now doubting my memory. Was it actually $425, or even lower? I don’t have any pay stubs or tax returns to check. Perhaps a better yardstick is rent: It was enough that I could afford to live alone in a 1-bedroom apartment in West Hollywood, which in itself seems incredible. ↩