John August

Psych 101

Workshops: An invitiation to idea theft?

Psych 101, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkI was wondering how you feel about workshops. I am an aspiring screenwriter, and am about to enter a workshop of about 20 other writers. My concern was protecting my work. I don’t have a complete treatment yet, and god only knows how much my story outline will change before I really write it. I can register something, but it might be pretty different from the final work. Do I run the risk of as yet unmet peers stealing parts of my idea?

— Frank
Los Angeles

Get over it. No one wants to steal your crappy idea.

Honestly, Frank, your idea might be terrific. But the reality is, none of the other aspiring screenwriters in your workshop are going to realize it’s terrific, because they’re all busy working on their own crappy-slash-terrific ideas. They came into the workshop with the same false confidence in their genius that you did, and it’s this equity of delusion that will protect you.

Had you written in something like this…

I am an aspiring screenwriter, and am about to enter a workshop of about 20 other writers. My concern was protecting other people’s work. I’m unsure of my ethical backbone, and worry that I might poach other aspiring screenwriters’ stories. Do I run the risk of as yet unmet peers realizing that I’m a thief?

…I might be worried. But I’ve been getting a slight variation on your email every week for the last five years. “Idea poachers” are the WMD’s of newbie screenwriter angst. They’re not really there, no matter how hard you look. Just write your script, and do everything you can to help your workshop-mates.

Depression on film

Genres, Psych 101

Steve Peterson points out you [rarely see clinical depression](http://towercoda.blogspot.com/2006/10/epidemic-you-dont-see-on-film.html) in movies and TV. Which is odd, considering it’s much more common in real life than, say, retrograde amnesia.

What makes clinical depression un-cinematic is that it’s a negative affect: it’s characterized by a lack of motivation, a lack of action. Great writing can only do so much when you have a protagonist who doesn’t want to protagonate.

[Shortbus](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/i-heart-shortbus) has a clinically depressed character who goes off his meds — a decision that is as frustrating in a movie as it is in real life. While the character explains himself fairly well, he’s kind of a drag to be around. Again, realistic, but not particularly cinematic.

Rejection

Psych 101, QandA, Recycled

When you were starting out, how did you deal with rejection?
Also, what advice can you give on the proper way to send out your work?

–Alan Wojcik

I dealt with rejection the same way I deal with it now: vodka.

No, but seriously. The truth is, a screenwriter is going to face rejection
over and over again, and not just at the beginning of his career. There will
always be a job you wanted and didn’t get, or a snub you didn’t see coming.
Eventually, you learn that you can’t depend on strangers for validation.

At least, one day I hope to learn that.

If it’s any consolation, there are people who have it even worse than writers:
actors. Whereas a writer might be rejected for his work, an actor can be rejected
simply for their face. Or butt. Or voice.

Which ties into the second part of your question: how to send out your work.
Think of your script as an actor going out on an audition. You want it to look
its best: properly formatted, no typos, and two good brass brads that won’t
unbend halfway through the script. Don’t give the reader any chance to ding
your work simply for its appearance.

Oh, and your script should be really, really well-written. That’s the most
important thing.

(Originally posted September 10, 2003)

What if the movie I wrote turns out god-awful?

Directors, Psych 101, QandA

questionmarkI am a young screenwriter in Canada who has recently had the privilege of having a film made of my first screenplay.

Surprisingly, the script was financed for production and went to the boards rather quickly — 6 months to be exact. For whatever reason, I got this one right, with the type of feedback a person could only dream of, from everybody involved, including producers, distributors, the crew and cast, the financiers. I felt validated and motivated and eager to continue on, with offers and interest and such.

Here’s the problem: the film has just locked picture and one of the producers gave me a copy to screen. It’s terrible. Astonishingly bad. This isn’t an issue of opposing visions or creative difference. Despite the fact that the script has been heavily cut and rearranged, it just seems to lack life or vision.

The entire treatment is superficial. The performances are terrible, the images lack nuance, there is no sensitivity to the material, never mind entertainment.
And I’m not the only one that feels this way. The producers, the distributors — all are very disappointed. My question is, will this hurt me and my reputation? Will I be given another chance? And how do you deal with a loss of this kind? It’s pretty devastating.

Jeremy

First off, my sympathies.

This is one of the worst things about being a screenwriter: you ultimately have very little control over the movie that gets made. The director might shoot your scenes; the actors might speak your lines; the editor might assemble them in a logical manner. And yet, when it’s all done, the film may in no way resemble what you set out to accomplish when you wrote your script.

When I saw the first cut of [Go](http://imdb.com/title/tt0139239/), I nearly threw up. I’m talking physical nausea, with shortness of breath and heaviness in the arms. It was terrible. I remember thinking, “Maybe they can just never release it.”

But after a few hours, my optimism gradually returned. Because I’d been on set for every second of filming, I knew we had much better versions of everything. So I sat down and wrote eight pages of notes. (You can read them [here](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/go_notes.pdf).)

After the next cut, I wrote another [seven pages](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/go_notes2.pdf), then [three pages](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/go_notes3.pdf), and a [final three pages](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/go_notes4.pdf).

Ultimately, we went through five or six major cuts of the film, including three days of reshoots. My notes certainly didn’t save the movie. But by writing things down, I was able to get the team (the director, the editor and the producers) to focus on one set of issues, and help steer discussion on what to do next.

I’ve given notes on every film I’ve written since, sometimes with good results (c.f. [Charlie’s Angels](http://imdb.com/title/tt0160127/)), sometimes not (c.f. [Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle](http://imdb.com/title/tt0305357/)).

So my first advice, Jeremy, is ask those producers and financiers how locked the picture really is. Given a choice between a bad movie and a pissed-off director, most producers will gladly unlock the picture if they think it can really help.

Have you seen dailies? Are they significantly better than the movie? The cliché is that no movie is as good as the dailies, or as bad as the first cut. But if you were watching all the dailies and didn’t sense a train wreck, maybe your movie went off the tracks in the editing. The good movie you wrote may still be in there, hidden under bad choices.

But there’s the very real possibility your movie is just awful. If that’s the case, there’s little you can do except remember that most filmmakers have some credits that make them cringe. Hell, James Cameron directed [Piranha Part Two: The Spawning](http://imdb.com/title/tt0082910/). I’d argue that even a bad credit is better than no produced credit.

So if it ends badly, take the emotional hit. Feel it. Then move on. Your career’s not over; it just didn’t start on quite the note you wanted.