John August

QandA

Being rewritten

Film Industry, QandA

I have written a script for a producer who says he will produce the film this
year. How exciting for me until I found out he has brought on another writer,
whose re-write is terrible. This would be my first credit, and wondered if
my chances at having a career are better with a produced script I don’t like,
or should I change my name for this one?

–B.U.

What a horrible situation. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through this. If
it’s any consolation, even more experienced writers with multiple credits find
themselves rewritten badly at times.

[Ahem.]

First and foremost, I don’t think you should take your name off the movie
until you see how it turns out. I speak from experience when I say that many
movies which seem doomed to suckdom somehow turn out better than expected.
A writing credit on a decent movie is better than no credit at all.

Also, a quick search through IMDb will reveal that many of today’s most respected
filmmakers have less-than-respectable credits. Ron Howard directed GRAND THEFT
AUTO. James Cameron directed PIRANHA II. They won Oscars,
eventually.

Since I don’t know all the details, I’m going to make some assumptions about
your situation. I’m guessing you’re not a member of the Writers Guild, and
that the producer is not a WGA signatory. (A signatory means that the producer
has signed an agreement with the WGA promising to abide by certain rules of
conduct.)

There are two reasons the WGA could be important here. First, the WGA guarantees
its members the right to use a pseudonym. Theoretically, this producer could
decide to use your name even if you didn’t want him to. Second, the WGA determines
final writing credits for movies under its jurisdiction. Since you were rewritten,
the issue of who deserves credit could come up. If the WGA is not involved
in the movie, the producer often determines credit by himself.

For now, assuming your relationship with the producer is decent, I’d hold
tight and see how the movie turns out.

Rewriting an old movie

QandA, Rights and Copyright

I have an old movie that I’d absolutely love to rewrite. I was wondering how
you go about doing it. How do you find out who has the rights to the original
screenplay, and is there anything else I would need to do?

–John

Start by looking for what
company made the picture. On IMDb, look up the movie’s page, then click on "Company
Credits." The top entity listed is usually the place to start.

If the studio still exists, such as Columbia Pictures, there’s a very good
chance that they still own the remake rights to that movie. Call information
in Los Angeles to get their main phone number, then call it and ask for the
rights department. (It may have a different name, or be a subset of the legal
department, but every studio has somebody who handles exactly these kind of
rights.) Whoever you end up speaking with will probably have you fax over your
information request, then promptly lose that fax until you call them back and
pester them some more.

At this point, all you probably want to know is whether the company owns the
remake rights for that picture. If they do, it’s up to you to figure out your
next step, be that approaching the studio with your idea, or buying the studio’s
remake rights (with your money or someone else’s).

If the studio doesn’t own the remake rights, hopefully they know who does.
Repeat the process of calling/faxing/waiting until you find out exactly who
controls these rights.

What if the company who produced the original movie no longer exists? If the
movie is available on videotape or DVD, start with whatever company distributed
it. Call their home video department (very likely based in Los Angeles) and
ask to speak with somebody in their rights department. In order to distribute
the movie, they had to secure rights from somebody. Find out who that was.

If you’re at a dead end, with no more numbers to call, start going through
the names in the credit block. You can track down contact information for writers
through the WGA, directors through the DGA, and producers (sometimes) through
the Producers Guild of America. Of these three, producers are most likely to
have information about who controls the rights for their movies.

Keep in mind that just because someone says they own the remake rights, doesn’t
mean it’s necessarily true. You’ll need to have an experienced entertainment
lawyer review the chain of title to make sure all the i’s are dotted and all
the t’s crossed.

How much research does it take?

QandA, Writing Process

1. When you are working on characters or bits of plot, how
much do you research them? For example, if a character’s profession
played a major
role, would you feel compelled to learn everything you can about profession?

2. How far should a writer try to flesh out a character? I feel like in order
for my characters to be real (at least to me), I need whole life stories on
them. Is that necessary or even useful?

–Andrea Hammond

Your questions are very timely, because I’m currently deciding whether to
take on a project set in a very dangerous part of Africa. I love the idea of
the movie and the filmmakers involved, so the focus of my decision process
is whether I feel I could write the movie without physically going to the region.
I would classify myself as moderately adventurous, but I have no interest in
catching malaria or being shot in the head, both of which would be (remote)
possibilities if I were to travel there. And yet I love to write on location,
so I would probably go if given the chance.

On one hand, the idea of first-hand experience is a little silly. George Lucas
has never been in space, and even though James Cameron became an expert on
the Titanic, his movie was much more concerned with the love story he invented.

But there’s a lot to be said for research in pursuit of verisimilitude. Imagine
if Dr. Carter on E.R. referred to "that tube thing-y." Most of the
show’s writers aren’t medical doctors, just as the "Sopranos" writers
aren’t Mafia, but they’ve all learned enough of the appropriate lingo so that
we believe the characters really know what they’re talking about.

When fleshing out your characters, that level of detail should be your goal.
You don’t need to know everything, just enough to firmly place them in the
world.

MPAA numbers

Film Industry, QandA

I know about WGA and Library of Congress copyright registration, but someone
told me that films also get MPAA numbers on the scripts? Is this true?

–V. Thomas

You don’t need to worry about this. Really. Ever. At all. I’ve made a couple
of big studio movies, and I’ve never seen an MPAA number on anything.
But since you’re curious, I’ll tell you a bit about the the magic numbers.

The MPAA is a trade organization made up of
the seven major film studios: Fox, Warner Bros., Sony, MGM, Disney, Universal
and Paramount. While these studios compete fiercely with each other, they work
together through the MPAA on issues of common interest, such as preventing
piracy, maintaining copyright, and establishing ratings. The MPAA — specifically
its president, Jack Valenti — is the "face" of the film industry
to Congress.

Way down on the list of MPAA responsibilities is the job of keeping track
of its members’ movies, for all sorts of internal reasons. That’s when a movie
is assigned a number, which is probably the same "MPAA number" your
friend saw on a script.

It’s nothing a screenwriter ever needs to worry about, but now you know.