John August

QandA

Finding assistant gigs

Film Industry, QandA

Hello. Thank you for existing. Reading your answer about the job of a writer’s
assistant made me wonder: where and how do we find the feature writer who needs
an assistant?

–Sandrine

In the back of the trades (which means Variety and the Hollywood Reporter),
you’ll often find listings for "assistants wanted." Some of those
will be good jobs, a lot won’t. Personally, all the assistants I’ve hired have
been either referrals from friends, or people I worked with before. For instance,
two of my assistants worked in the production office on GO. My current assistant
came to me via my agent, who taught one of his classes at USC.

An internship, either paid or unpaid, is a great way to make contacts who
could get you a job working for a writer. If you attend any screenwriting symposiums,
it’s worth a shot talking to any writers there about the kind of job you’re
looking for. Even if the writer himself isn’t looking for an assistant, he
may have a friend who is.

Courier 12 pt. font

Formatting, QandA

Recently, I’ve begun buying published screenplays, and many of them seem to be written in Times or Times New Roman. Furthermore, the action in those scripts is italicized. Is that just for publishing purposes, or are scripts better written in Times (New Roman)? This is just something that’s been bugging me.

–Zach

“Real” scripts are still written in Courier, for no better reason than that’s how it’s always been. Publishers sometimes change the typeface to Times in order to make it more readable by the mass audience, but I honestly think it’s worse, particularly when action is italicized. (Italics are a holdover from published plays, where this is the norm. But plays have a lot less scene direction than movies.)

Several companies have recently started publishing screenplays that directly reproduce the original formatting. If you have the choice, always pick the Courier version. It’s more like the original script, and it will hopefully convince publishers to give up their reformatting.

Learn more about standard font usage in our screenplay font guide.

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More on becoming a co-producer

Go, Producers, QandA

How did you come to be a co-producer on GO?

–David Demchuk

Although Columbia Pictures ultimately released GO, they weren’t the original
buyer of the script (in fact, every studio in town had passed on it, feeling
the subject matter was too dark). A tiny company called Banner Entertainment
read the script and wanted to make the movie, but since they didn’t have a
lot of money to put up front, they offered a few things a studio normally wouldn’t.

First, they guaranteed I would be the first, last and only writer on the project.
Second, they would give me the right to buy the script back if the movie hadn’t
gone into production within 18 months. Finally, they would keep me on board
as co-producer.

The various flavors of producer credit (executive
producer, associate producer,
co-producer) are tossed around a bit too easily in Hollywood, and all too often
they’re given to people who don’t really deserve them, such as an actor’s mananger.
In my case, I actually earned my masters degree in the film producer’s program
at USC, so I was weirdly well qualified for the job.

For the first week or two, I just sat quietly in meetings, happy to be there.
But ultimately I got highly involved in every aspect of the production, from
hiring Doug Liman to direct it to scrambling for funds when our foreign financing
fell apart (I had just made a deal with Columbia’s sister studio, Tri-Star,
which is a large reason why the movie ended up there). During production, I
was on-set from call to wrap, and sat in on five months of editing. It was
an amazing experience.

In total, there were five producers on GO. The three "full" producers
were Paul Rosenberg, who had set up the script and given me my first two jobs
in the business; Mickey Liddell, who ran Banner Entertainment; and Matt Freeman,
who worked with Mickey and brought him the script. The other co-producer was
Paddy Cullen, who oversaw the physical production, including the budget, schedule
and insurance.

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine making the movie without all those people
doing their part. While GO had some unique challenges, every production needs
its good cops and bad cops, peacemakers and war-bringers. A writer can go off
and work by himself, but a producer needs to lead dozens of other people. It’s
a very different set of skills.

Since GO, I have co-executive produced a television series, and signed on
to produce a big-budget monster movie that I’m writing at Columbia. But even
on projects where I’m "just" a writer, the experience of having produced
is a tremendous advantage in anticipating the needs of the filmmakers.

Finding confidence

Psych 101, QandA

As a fledgling screenwriter/English major in college I
often feel insecure about my work. How did you get over this as a writer
and any advice for the
rest of us?

–Jeff

Alas, the flip side of Insecurity tends to be Arrogance. I highly recommend
the former over the latter.

Ideally of course, you’d find a middle ground called Confidence. Maybe you’ll
be lucky, and that will come early in your career. Until then, here are a few
pointers in no particular order of importance:

  • Remember that you’ll never please everyone with your work.
  • Seek out the opinions of people you trust and respect.
  • Don’t make changes based on opinions of those you neither trust nor respect.
  • Remember that first drafts are never perfect.
  • Strive to make every sentence as good as it can be, even if it’s just a
    character walking through a door.
  • Just because someone is more successful than you, doesn’t mean they’re
    more talented.
  • Role models are fine, but remember you’re only seeing their successes and
    not their failures.
  • Patience is a virtue, but impatience might make you work harder.
  • Most good writers weren’t popular growing up.
  • You will fail and succeed at various times for various reasons you can’t
    predict. Know this going in, and you’ll roll with it when it happens.