John August

QandA

My idea’s been stolen

QandA, Story and Plot

Help! Everytime I think of a cool screenplay idea, and start
developing a treatment, I find out later that practically the exact same idea
is already
in development somewhere in Hollywood! What should I do? Ditch the idea and
move on, or stick with it?

–Frustrated and slightly paranoid screenwriter

Every working screenwriter I know has been in this situation, where you flip
open Variety and find that Paramount has just bought a project that sounds
horribly similar to yours. Just remember that you’re only reading a one sentence
description, and the script itself could be completely different.

For instance, the logline might read, "The project concerns a team of
scientists who must stop an ancient evil." That storyline could be describing
THE RELIC, or just as easily be about GHOSTBUSTERS. And no one would say those
are the same idea.

In short, my advice is not to worry about it, unless (a) you find out more
details about the other project which prove it to be very similar to yours,
and (b) there’s evidence that the other movie is probably going to get made.
While occassionally two competing projects will get greenlit, such as ARMAGEDDON
and DEEP IMPACT, or VOLCANO and DANTE’S PEAK, far more often neither project
will, as happened with the multiple Janis Joplin biopics.

Just remember that a well-written script has value for a writer even if it
never gets made, in terms of its ability to showcase your talent. If you have
a great idea that can make a great script, don’t be afraid to write it.

Copyright and changes

QandA, Rights and Copyright

As a budding screenwriter,
I’ve sent something away to be copywritten. Since it’s been sent out, I’ve
made a few minor changes to it, including changing a character’s name and deleting
a scene. Is it possible to make changes to the registered screenplay, and still
have it protected without having to send in the new draft?

–Matt

"Copywritten" seems like it should be a word, but it isn’t. The
problem is the "written" part. Copyright actually has nothing to
do with the process of writing. It’s a legal protection on a piece of intellectual
property that can be transferred, sold or bartered. Columbia Pictures owns
the copyright to GO, even though they didn’t write it.

The word you’re looking for is "copyrighted." Based on the lawsuits
we all read about, in which rap stars get sued for copyright violations after
sampling three seconds of a song, it’s understandable that you want to be hyper-vigilant
about copyright.

Vigilant is not the same thing as paranoid, however, which is what you’re
being.

Copyright is actually a fairly broad protection of intellectual property;
that is, an idea and its execution. Changing a character’s name or deleting
a scene doesn’t fundamentally alter your work, and wouldn’t fundamentally alter
your ability to protect it.

How much needs to change to make re-registering your script worthwhile? That’s
obviously going to depend on the project. If you rewrote the last act so that
the big action climax takes place on the space shuttle rather than a yacht,
then sure, maybe that’s worth re-registering. But if your rewrite just changes
some dialogue and fixes typos, then forget about it. While such tweaking hopefully
makes your script better, it doesn’t change anything in the grand scheme of
things.

Getting stuck in a genre

Genres, QandA

How important is it for a writer trying to break into
the business to pick one genre and stick to it? You’ve had a lot of success
writing all sorts of
different stories, but isn’t that unusual? Isn’t it better to become a "brand
name," so to speak? I imagine the suits saying, "Let’s get that
new guy who wrote that great heist script to rewrite our Die Hard on a Carnival
Cruise
project."

–FALZONE

It’s true that some writers prefer to write in certain genres, and others
seem to have the choice made for them. Early on, I got pigeon-holed as a family
film guy, because the first two movies I was paid to write were kiddie lit
adaptations.

I have nothing against the family film genre — in fact, I think it’s one
of the most difficult genres to write well — but I didn’t want to spend the
rest of my career charting the inner turmoil of ten-year olds. My script for
GO was, on some levels, a calculated move to get producers and executives in
Hollywood to notice me as a more versatile, and hireable, writer.

So should your second script, or your third script, be the same genre as your
first? Only if that’s what you most want to write.

Writing a script is a huge commitment of time and brain-space, so you better
be sure any project you’re working on is really going to hold your attention
draft after draft. If, after finishing one broad comedy, you have a great idea
for another, don’t immediately kill it because you should "really" be
working on a thriller.

The right genre is the one that will actually get you to fire up your word
processor, rather than surf the internet.

Writer’s strikes

Film Industry, QandA

I’m beginning my first script and I plan to market
it next year. But I wonder about the writer’s strike–what’s the protocol?
I think that writers
fighting for my chosen profession can only be a good thing and I don’t want
to undermine, nor be a "scab." On the other hand, the entire Hollywood
sphere is detached from a newbie like myself. Where do the unsigned, unrepped,
first timers fit in?

–Dan Bentley

Note: This letter came a few months before the great writer’s strike of
2001–which never in fact happened, although there was a de facto production
gap since
studios rushed to get movies finished.

This is the kind of question where a dedicated journalist would call up representatives at the [WGA](http://wga.org) and get a detailed answer to your question, complete with properly attributed quotes.

Unfortunately, I’m just a screenwriter cranking out my column at the last moment. As it happens, I think I can give you some good advice anyway. First, some general background info. With few exceptions, every screenwriter working for the studios is a member of the Writers Guild, an organization that enforces minimum standards and fees, collects residual payments, and awards "written by" credit on films, among other duties.

Every few years, the WGA negotiates a contract with the studios, deciding exactly what fees and percentages will be paid to writers. The current contract is set to expire at the end of May (of 2002), and there are several issues where studios and writers are at odds, which will make coming up with a new contract difficult.

Several of the issues are creative (such as the "a film by" credit), while others are purely financial, such as the calculation of residuals on foreign broadcast television sales (really, I’m not making that up) and how to account for distribution over the Internet. Particularly when it comes to the numbers, the differences may seem trivial — a half of a percentage point here or there — but for many working writers, it can mean the difference between writing full-time or waiting tables.

The writer’s strike is not a foregone conclusion. Many things could happen between now and May 31 which would cancel or postpone a strike, and the possibility of an actor’s strike at the end of the summer (over many of the same issues) might expedite a settlement.

So what does this mean for you, Dan, a newbie writer working on a script? Not a whole lot.

Finish your script, and don’t worry about the larger labor issues of Hollywood. Once it’s done and perfect, stick your head out the door and see if there are writers marching down Melrose with picket signs. If so, the strike is happening, and the whole town has probably gone crazy. Without writers, literary agents won’t have a lot to do, so they may be unusually happy to read your script and possibly sign you on as a client. There’s nothing scab-like about getting an agent.

Where it gets weird is if your agent tries to sell your script during the strike. My instinct is that this is a bad thing. Even though you aren’t currently a member of the WGA, the assumption is that you would have to join immediately after the strike, and they wouldn’t look kindly on your actions. Fortunately, you have a resource beyond my random speculation. Check out the WGA website. It’s chock full of informational goodness, and as the strike comes closer, I’m certain they’ll have a FAQ with answers to your specific questions.

Of course, this is all moot if you don’t finish your script. So write.