John August

QandA

Help! I’m getting screwed on my own series

QandA, Rights and Copyright, Television

[questionmark]A year and a half ago I pitched a scripted series to a cable network and it was optioned for development.

I was contracted for and completed a series bible, and script (plus polish). Based on programming issues they were having, they decided they wanted to change the direction and tone of the series. So I was contracted for and wrote another script (plus polish) under the new creative. All of this was without a series deal in place. I worked only with contracts for the scripts. Those contracts stated “good faith” negotiations if/when they decided to go to pilot/series. Terminating me from project reverts rights to me.

They loved it, they said. A surefire hit, they said. Let’s find a showrunner, they said.

Perhaps I should have begun to sweat right then and there. But I was excited about a showrunner, especially since they were reaching out to high caliber people. Every showrunner (supposedly) said the same thing. “This is a franchise.”

I was asked to choose one of the suggested names and was excited by the options. They told us they were skipping the pilot — going straight to series.

And then came the series negotiations, and the hell I am currently in. The money offered is despicable. (As this is cable, I use peer standards, not even industry. And it was worse than bad.) My highly reputable lawyer is disrespectful and rude to me and promised numbers that he didn’t run by me first. And all credits (Creator and Producer) are subject to either WGA or CAVCO. They will not lock for life, only one cycle. The ONLY thing guaranteed is 2 out of 12 episodes written. They have made it clear that the high profile showrunner is the priority.

Is there any way to salvage this situation? How does one determine when to walk away? I am well aware of how many people would do anything to get their ideas on screen. Without a guarantee of credits or money, is it worth it?

Full rights do revert back to me, but not for approximately 2 years.

— M
Los Angeles

Get a new lawyer. Fast.

You’ll have no trouble finding one. Assuming you have an agent/manager, get them on the hunt. If you don’t, start calling the major entertainment law firms (they’re all in Beverly Hills or Century City) and say this:

“Hi. My name is Mary Writer, I have a series commitment over at Comedy Central (or wherever). I’m looking for a new attorney to close the deal.”

You’ll get someone. Trust me.

Are you in jeopardy of getting pushed off the show you created? Absolutely. But the Big Showrunner is no doubt WGA, which means “created by” credit will be handled by the WGA. Which means you’re almost certainly going to get credit. Ask Jeffrey Lieber from Lost.

Now, stop reading and start dialing. You need a better attorney, stat.

Chicago: The Musical. No, not that one.

Formatting, Genres, News, Projects

I spent a few days in ChicagoTechnically, Evanston, which is north of Chicago. Apparently, confusing the two is annoying to actual Chicagoans, on par with saying “Los Angeles” when one means “Orange County.” My apologies to anyone offended. to see the premiere of my friends’ new musical Asphalt Beach, which is workshopping at Northwestern University. The show was terrific, and vindication for my decade of belief in my friends’ talent.

I took advantage of being away from L.A. to start writing something brand new. That’s my modus operandi; I generally barricade myself in a hotel room for a few days to crank through pages when starting a new project. I write longhand and quickly — first a scribble draft of a scene, then a more legible (but still handwritten) version. I fax pages back to Los Angeles and don’t let myself edit.

Since a writer can only stare at the same four walls for so long, I try to pick someplace interesting for my sequestration. Vegas is a good choice. When one doesn’t drink or gamble, it’s basically a giant, noisy food court. That’s where I started both Charlie’s Angels scripts and The Movie. I wrote Fury in San Diego, and Tarzan on a 23-hour train ride from Los Angeles to Seattle. I wrote Fantasy Island and Jurassic Park III in Hawaii, though the latter was more “forced labor” than a writing vacation.

It’s been six months since I’ve written something new, which is my longest hiatus by far. So I was happy to find that I could still string words together in a non-blog environment. After months of dealing with actors and vehicles and visual effects, it’s liberating to deal with only words.

This time, I wrote a play. An honest-to-Baal, curtain-comes-up stage play. The story sort of demanded it: it’s necessarily talky, less about What Happens as much as What It’s About. The lack of easy CUT TO:’s is more than made up for by the luxury of scene length. In a stage play, you can do things that are unwieldy in films:

TOM: Let me make Point One.
MARY: Sure, we’ll talk about Point One.
TOM: Now let me tie that in to Point Two.
MARY: Really? Well, here’s Point Three.
(Steve ENTERS)
STEVE: What are we talking about?
MARY: Point Three.
STEVE: That sounds a lot like Point Four, which Tom and I were talking about in the previous scene, only from the opposite perspective.
TOM: Unlike a movie, we don’t have to simplify arguments down to postage-stamp sized thought nuggets. Ambiguity and uncertainty are a-okay.
MARY: We can also assume a much higher level of audience sophistication, since only rich, educated people bother seeing plays.
STEVE: And no unnecessary car chases!

On the downside, stage play formatting seriously blows. Dialogue stretches from margin to margin, and stage directions are surrounded by completely unnecessary parentheses. But one can’t have everything.

Depression on film

Genres, Psych 101

Steve Peterson points out you rarely see clinical depression 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 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.

Movies look nothing like reality

Directors, Projects, Rave, The Nines

While at Austin, I caught a screening of Susannah Grant’s new movie CATCH AND RELEASE. Since I sorta-know and definitely admire half the people in it (Jennifer Garner, Tim Olyphant, Kevin Smith), not to mention producer Jenno Topping, I’m hardly an unbiased viewer. So I’ll leave the reviews to more neutral eyes.

But what I do feel justified discussing is the movie’s setting: Boulder, Colorado. My home town.

My very first script was set in Boulder, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how it would look on film. Watching CATCH AND RELEASE, I saw many of my chosen locations (The Hill, the Pearl Street Mall, various Flatirons) yet felt almost no recognition that this was actually Boulder.

It’s not the film’s fault. It’s just that movies look nothing like reality.

For instance, a scene set at the Pearl Street Mall is shot in mostly mediums and close-ups. Without a big wide establishing shot, you don’t get a sense of a street that’s been converted to a pedestrian mall. Of course, the movie doesn’t need the wide shot. The scene would probably be worse for its inclusion. It’s only Boulderites who miss the sense of geography.

If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. The movie is a postcard and valentine for Boulder, and its brand of earnest happiness and liberal optimism. Characters attend the opening of a “peace garden” without a trace of snarkiness to be found — and this in a movie featuring Kevin Smith.

Yes, much of the movie was shot on soundstages and locations far from Boulder. But it wasn’t the geographic differences that hurt the verisimilitude; it was the movie magic. In real life, the sun doesn’t dapple, clutter isn’t charming, and a wall painted “Tampax blue” wouldn’t merit discussion.

I have first-hand experience with the disorienting effects of movie magic, since a portion of The Movie I just directed was shot at my own house. For the last four months, I’ve been staring at footage of my kitchen, yet I barely connect it as being the same place I eat breakfast every morning.

Light, film and lenses change the colors and geometry of the room. The camera watches from places a human wouldn’t, constant and undistracted.

After a friends-and-family of The Movie, I got word back from a friend who lamented that her own house seemed less grown-up after seeing mine on film. She’s overlooking the fact we packed up all the baby toys, the dog beds, the stacks of unread mail, and the dishes in the sink. My house looks grown-up the same way houses in magazine shoots look: perfect, because no one has to live there.

In every scene, in every shot, there are lights and flags and twenty crew members just off the edge of frame, all working really hard to make it look nothing like reality.