Saturday, December 27, 2008

Fade In On...2009

As we FADE UP ON 2009 and many people are stating their new year's resolution, the Scriptsages are also taking stock. What are our writing goals for 2009? We'll lay some of them out and be pleased to know what you'd like to see happen in 2009 with your writing.

We've always said we aim to write two to three spec screenplays a year. In the past, we've been sidetracked sometimes: family events, career changes, and writing projects for others (the subject of a future post) can often get in the way, but two or three new screenplays a year is not unreasonable. Of course, churning out a first draft of something and having a strong, polished script ready for the marketplace are very different things. As the old adage goes, "typing is not writing," and we'd rather have one top notch script than three sub-standard (though technically finished) screenplays.

Of course, the goal of every writer is to make his or her work pay off. Naturally, we'd like paid work or to sell or option a script for money.

Currently, we are at work on a screenplay that we wrote about in the post "an epic decision." We are working on this script with the guidance of a Los Angeles management company. We aim to submit a draft to this company in mid-to-late January. If they like what they see and wish to work with us further, then we are off to the races. But we haven't put all our eggs in one company's basket and have back up plans in case their interest wanes.

And after that script is complete and seeking buyers, it will be time to begin another script. We feel confident we can meet our goal of two to three scripts in 2009, and we hope to sell or option one of them for a significant sum.

The Sages will report on their progress and many other topics throughout 2009.

FADE OUT ON: Joe and Randy raising champagne glasses!!!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Nicholl for Your Thoughts

It was at the bar of the Driskill Hotel in Austin that Randy and I rubbed shoulders with screenwriter Brian Helgeland (LA CONFIDENTIAL) who regaled festival goers at the Austin Film Festival's (AFF) Screenwriting sidebar with tales of working with Hollywood icons like Clint Eastwood. After one memorable panel, we chatted with Hollywood screenwriter and BU alum Scott Rosenberg. It was, in general, a heady experience to meet established screenwriters when we traved to the Austin Film Festival in October of 2003.

But, after attending the AFF, the Script Sages were also a bit disenchanted. There was something dispiriting about the large number of would-be writers in the audience waiting on pearls of wisdom from the lucky few on the dais. Some of the events seemed designed to make breaking into the business seem like a pipe dream. After getting home, I think we resolved that we would return to Austin only if we won the contest or were someday invited to sit on a panel.

Do not misunderstand me: film festivals and screenwriting contests can be terrific places to network and make important contacts. Festivals like Austin that showcase the screenwriter are especially worthwhile for aspiring writers to get the lay of the land. The year the Sages went to Texas, we had not even entered one of our scripts. It was more about being there and soaking up the atmosphere.

As far as the many, many screenwriting contests we have entered our scripts in since taking that trip to Austin, I can say that the discipline of getting a script "contest-ready" is a good dry run for submitting it to agents and producers. However, we learned through hard experience that many screenwriting contests -or conference organizers- will make specious claims about where winning scripts will go. An agency a read might bestowed upon a contest winner, only to find out it's the third assistant (a college intern sometimes) of an agent reading your script.

The Sages have had their scripts place in contests such as the Hollywood Next Success and the Telluride Indie Festival's Screenplay Competition (and even in the Austin competition). Each time one of our scripts was recognized, it felt like a feather in the cap. However, more often than not, the conference organizers would not have the werewithal to follow through on promises of getting a writer's work recognized at the next level... It is therefore not hard to plateau with a solid writing sample that has placed in - or even won - one or more of the top contests.

Then what? If it's not sold or optioned, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Therein lies the rub.

The Sages do still enter contests, but with ONE caveat: they are contests where there is a tangible prize for winning- a light at the end of the tunnel. These are professional screenwriting fellowship contests such as the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship or the Disney-ABC Writing Fellowship. Winning the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship - offered in conjunction with the Academy - equates to an actual industry job for which the screenwriter and/or screenwriting team earn a competitive salary for doing their writing in LA for a year. The Disney Fellowship is a similar prize whereby the successful screenwriter and/or screenwriting team wins a slot in Disney's stable that year (each Disney Program Fellow earns a $50,000 per annum salary and the program has launched the careers of many established, successful writers).

As a strategic matter, I believe that once you've had a screenplay place in one of the many screenwriting contests out there, then the cost-benefit analysis of paying the $30 entrance fee for another small bore screenwriting contest no longer makes sense. In the final analysis, screenwriting contests proliferate like mushrooms... The established screenwriting fellowships are another matter entirely. There's not a screenwriter alive who would not like to earn a weekly paycheck practicing his or her mojo!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

On Conceiving New Projects or Every Action Has an Equal and Opposite Reaction

Making a decision as to what a next project should be is indeed a difficult one. The Script Sages have never started a writing project that took LESS time than what we intended. Everyday responsibilities crowd in on straight writing time, etc. Creatively, every situation is different and, often, the next project is a reaction creatively to the previous one.

Any writer worth his salt must weigh commercial considerations as well. It's true that 'epics', by definition almost, are splashier and more expensive and therefore harder to sell. On the other hand, all the movies that have ever really moved me - really moved me in a deep way - were 'epics' in that splashy, historically spot-on sense... I think of REDS or CHARIOTS OF FIRE or GANDHI (in my high school mystic days, I think I may have watched the movie GANDHI thirty times!).

"My dear fellow," Watson was reminded by Sherlock Holmes in one memorable exchange, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent." Holmes had it right in that exchange... When the 'truth' of an real-life historical epic shines through and we feel for the characters in their time and place...wow, that's a cathartic experience because we suddenly have a deeper sense of our our history and sense of responsibility. We are truly 'transported' to another time and place and subsequently learn how to take responsibility for our own times.

All that said, there is another reason to write something that is as 'weighty' and 'substantive' as an epic. In our case, the seed of our current project had been germinating for five years. It was somewhat haphazardly 'pitched' to us as novice screenwriters. It died on the vine at the time. Then, after writing a 'contained action thriller' on spec, that old epic project that was still knocking around in our heads suddenly seemed like a welcome change of pace.

The previous six months we had been 'living' in the little world of our contained action thriller. It was not the kind of project that we would have chosen on our own, however, it was 'pitched' to us as a commercially viable spec piece by a producer type we met in Los Angeles. Fair enough. We rolled up our sleeves, labored on the rewrites, and voila: after six months writing and as many shopping it around with our producer contact, we basically had a project that was dead in the water....what's worse it was not very original and certainly hadn't been fun to labor on.

I think the decision to take on a historical project felt like a reaction to the fact that artistically the previous project had been a stretch (It wasn't the kind of writing for which you go to an 'auteur' film school such as BU or NYU). So, what next? Write a screenplay about bats? That wasn't our thing either. Then, Randy remembered the epic project we'd been pitched on those many moons ago. We both relish the research. We both are avid students of history. The thought of a 'contained action thriller' turned my stomach at the time. Neither one of us at the time had an idea for the next SHREK.

So, voila, we resurrected the historical project!

-Joe

Monday, December 15, 2008

An "Epic" Decision

For every screenwriter, deciding what project to tackle next can be difficult. Assessing what story to spend the next three or six months (even upwards of a year or two) working on is no small task. The stakes are even higher if you decide to go the epic route.

Why? Simply put: epics are harder to sell. They are almost always huge in scope and almost just as often period pieces. In short, they are expensive to produce, and studios and production companies understandably don't want to shell out tens of millions for something that historically offers limited returns.

If you are beyond the point of having a good writing sample and targeting buyers only, it's a very tough decision. You could be looking at only a handful of buyers when you are finished writing. These would be studio level folks, and you'd be pretty much ruling out any indy or smaller production companies who work with budgets of $10 million and under. Granted you could earn great fans of your work and become eligible for assignments based on your ability to craft an epic, but very few people want to spend a year on something they don't think has a chance in the marketplace. And if they do, they could be considered masochistic.

This is the dilemma Joe and I faced when deciding what script to write next. We'd met a very competent management company in Los Angeles, with good clients and a track record of sales. This was definitely the kind of place we'd want to be in business with. They'd read some of our material and wanted to work with us, though we were not signed clients. We could sense we weren't their top priority, but over the period of a few months we discussed different ideas and kept coming back to one: it was an epic, period piece. We submitted an outline to the managers, and they said they'd like to see us do a draft. There wasn't much other guidance, but it was a topic we'd been itching to write so we thought why not...

But the practical considerations kept haunting us. What if we spent six months writing this and the managers didn't like it, didn't believe in it, or were busy with other things? Where would that leave us? We'd have a $50 million+ movie and only a handful of outlets to which to take it. Sure, some agents and producers might like the writing and be willing to find or extend to us work based on that sample, but we already have such samples. In fact, it's a sample that got us the attention of this management company.

I usually advise people who are mulling over several ideas to proceed with the smaller one, the more commercial one. So why did we go against our instincts and opt for the big project: the real difference is the interest of the management company. We're taking a chance (indeed, every spec effort is a chance) that this quality company will work with us and promote the script when it's complete. Are we going out on a limb? Yes, maybe way out, but it's a project we believe in and with the interest of a company that can make sales we felt it was worth the risk.

We'll let you know in the coming months if the risk paid off...

-Randy

Sunday, December 7, 2008

To Be a Screenwriter in New England - Take 2

This is the topic that Randy Steinberg and I struggled with as green-behind-the-ears writers. It reminds me of the old adage of needing both roots and wings. We felt like, as writers, we would best take flight by staying within the ambit of our families and our roots while being true to our craft.

So, we did.

My brother, Brendan Hughes, decided upon graduating Yale Drama School to do the Hollywood thing. He's enjoying it tremendously. He runs into working actors from hit series. They are like anyone else in the town - just working.Randy and I have been fortunate to have cultivated some folks in LA whose opinion we trust. If we write something that's not "there there", we trust them to let us know. As our our grad school mentor Steve Geller used to say, "Your friends will let you know."

It's also true that you need to put in an appearance once in a while. There needs to be a face to go with a name (not merely on a website). At the end of the day, the screen trade - like any business - is people dealing with people.

-Joe

Saturday, December 6, 2008

To Be a Screenwriter in New England

This topic seems appropriate for The Script Sages' inaugural blog post. Joe Hughes and Randy Steinberg (The Script Sages) graduated from Boston University's master's program in screenwriting in 1998. Having most of our family and friends in New England neither of us were tempted by the siren song of Los Angeles. We chose to keep our roots here and do our screenwriting here as well. Can it be done? Can one have a successful career in the screen trade, especially as a newcomer, living 3,000 miles from the epicenter of the movie business.

The answer: it's not easy but can be done. There are certainly some things that cannot be accomplished as easily if not living in Los Angeles. The ability to take a meeting with an agent or at a studio needs no explanation. There is no way to reproduce in Boston the ability to be in the mix in Los Angeles, but that doesn't mean you have to pack your bags and relocate.

This is the era of the PDF and overnight delivery. In fact, most managers, agents, and producers accept electronic submissions these days. A great script is a great script, and no one will turn you and your great script away if you don't reside in West Hollywood.

Living in New England maybe you can't bump into that hot Hollywood producer at a party, but there are all sorts of ways to network from distance. There are many websites and directories that can help you make contact with development personnel, agents, and managers.

But you must always keep writing. You're only as good as your last script. Distance might not matter in the screen trade, but if you only have one script to market you might as well be on the moon. Having a body of work is paramount (no pun intended) if you are to get noticed.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt to visit LA once every year or two. Make contacts from distance and send them your material, and, if you can, follow up with a week's visit to Hollywood periodically. Schedule a bunch of meetings and put a face to that great script you wrote. It's not living in LA, but it's the next best thing.

None of this mentions the growing amount of movie production in New England. There's a lot going on locally, and the opportunities for screenwriters in this area are sure to increase in the next few years. Who knows: in a short time people in LA might be asking "if I want to be a screenwriter, should I move to New England?"

Welcome to our blog. We look forward to posting and interacting with everyone in the New England filmmaking community and beyond....

-Randy