Amazing Article on the Economics of "Time Risk" for Screenwriters (and everyone else)

kohl-sudduth

kohl-sudduth

Well-known member
Amazing Article on the Economics of "Time Risk" for Screenwriters (and everyone else)

Thought I'd share a painfully honest article from one of the most successful writers in the industry (Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean): http://wordplayer.com/columns/wp55.Time.Risk.html

For those who may not know, 'Time Risk' is an industry term that is often tossed around. To quote the article, it is basically: "...to avoid getting on the wrong end of the time risk curve...Spend as much time as you can making films rather than trying to get films made."

As a screenwriter (and actor), I spent the bulk of my decades long career trying to get films made - the wrong end of the time risk curve. Though I've been fortunate enough to earn a reasonable living in narrative Film/TV, for which I'm very grateful, I can say this article is brutally true.

Bottom Line: Write, Direct, and Make your own stuff and get it out there any way you can. A lesson I've been slow to learn because of the seductive lure of potentially lucrative budgets or paydays.

Hope the article inspires anyone struggling to face the blank page, get a crew together to shoot your film, or whatever...Do whatever it takes to make your movie. Do not wait for the calvary, because as Mr Duplass says "The Calvary Is NOT Coming": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZeWOAliA6Y
 
The message is clear: stop trying to sell your scripts, get a camera and go make some movies.
 
KurtF said:
The message is clear: stop trying to sell your scripts, get a camera and go make some movies.
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No doubt, man. No doubt.

It's an interesting bind. If the goal is to make movies, selling specs, doing work-for-hire (just turned in the draft for a book adaptation - which is why I'm probably thinking about this stuff) is a distinct Catch-22. On one hand, it takes a ton of time and almost guarantees the script won't get made. The ground beneath my feet and my close friends/colleagues feet is littered with excellent scripts ready to shoot. On the other hand, it pays the mortgage, provides health-care, etc...

Thinking the way forward is to do both. Keep the day job AND make some movies. Which means a lot less sleep...
 
Kohl said:
No doubt, man. No doubt.

It's an interesting bind. If the goal is to make movies, selling specs, doing work-for-hire (just turned in the draft for a book adaptation - which is why I'm probably thinking about this stuff) is a distinct Catch-22. On one hand, it takes a ton of time and almost guarantees the script won't get made. The ground beneath my feet and my close friends/colleagues feet is littered with excellent scripts ready to shoot. On the other hand, it pays the mortgage, provides health-care, etc...

Thinking the way forward is to do both. Keep the day job AND make some movies. Which means a lot less sleep...
Click to expand...

Yes, if you can write, it makes sense to do both - absolutely. Not just because of paying bills, but because you build relationships when you write a successful script. At the same time, indeed, making the film yourself is the only way forward if you have the ambition to get films made. So I agree with everything you said... except this:

Kohl said:
The ground beneath my feet and my close friends/colleagues feet is littered with excellent scripts ready to shoot.
Click to expand...

This just isn't true - demonstrably. Look at how many hopeless, worthless films get made, utter trash you never even hear about because it's straight to video (at best) - films made by professional production companies big and small. Clearly, clearly there is a desperate demand for scripts - almost any script - to shoot. They'll even settle for the trash that I mentioned - a whole river, a whole ocean of trash. Now you're telling me that the ground beneath your feet (and those of your close friends/colleagues!) is littered with excellent scripts ready to shoot? Something doesn't add up. And having worked at a talent agency for several years, and headed the story department where I did nothing but read and covered scripts and supervised other readers, I can tell you what is wrong with that situation. Your statement is divorced from reality. Of those three parts, only one is true: littered. Yep, lots of scripts - and all litter (sorry for the pun). Not "excellent". Not "ready to shoot". Yes "litter". Tons, and tons and tons of litter. Here is the terrifying truth - the vast majority of all those "excellent" scripts you speak of, are even worse than the trash that gets made. Because that trash that gets made is mostly the sorry cream of the sorry crop.

If you have a half-way decent script, it'll get made. The problem is in getting a half-way decent script. Because during the time I worked at the agency, and read all those scripts, I mostly dealt with - 90% - scripts written by working screenwriters, often with credits. So I was really dealing with the cream of the cream. And guess what - about 99.999% of them were just plain bad or unmakeable. Now you're telling me that the piles and piles of unrepped submissions are actually buckets of treasure? That's true - but in an alternate universe, called Opposite World.

The reality is that the vast, vast, overwhelming majority of scripts can barely be even called screenplays. It's not writing. It's typing - and even that poorly.

How many good films can you think of from last year? One? Ten? Fifty Five? A Thousand? Almost any number you pick, I can tell you there are multiples - multiples - of others that were made all over the world, mediocre films, bad films, atrocious films, unwatchable films. That's true by definition - good films - and very good films - are always going to be a tiny minority. So where do you think all those other films come from, what scripts? Why not pick one of those "excellent" scripts that are "ready to shoot" instead, and have the universe invert itself and in Opposite World, you'd have majority excellent films and tiny minority of atrocious films. Alas, we live in this imperfect world. Where the devastating truth is that those unmade scripts are even worse than the atrocious films that do get made. That's what's littering peoples floors and that gets trampled underfoot - though these days, thankfully, many don't get printed out, and only haunt people's email inboxes, where they sit like an evil weight, draining the energy of the unfortunate readers tasked with wading through that trash.

On the other hand, good news: take an excellent script (even the one underfoot), and you'll get to make an excellent film! Easy peasy!
 
Not entirely true, Old Corpse. Partly, just not entirely. There are a few variables at play that keep really good, ready-to-shoot scripts littering the floor - or desks or email inboxes.

One is effective self promotion. Lots of your arty-fartsy types just can't do it, or are clumsy about it, or rely on old meathods that just don't work anymore - and one of many reasons screenwritng as a whole needs an enema. I have read some really top-notch screenplays that should be made. And the opposite is true as well: just junk that does get produced cluttering up the movie screens and DVDs. Somebody knew somebody. Maybe it's closer to 80% junk, 20% good to really good. Shootable-as-written or with minor tweaks.

Issue two is to define shootable. The story might be solid and very visual, but for whatever reason it just won't atttract the bucks. If one has been hired to write on assignment for a producer/director that is somewhat inept at marketing and/or fundraising, that really good script will die on a shelf. Also, some of these producers/directors give up after just a few doors are closed. They lose confidence on the screenplay to attract talent and money. Varying feedback will confuse them. Budget's to high, to low, too many locations, locations are fine, but distance between them is to costly, and on and on. Shootable is subjective, and depends a lot on which production company is considering it - which is why the writer (or whoever is represent the screenplay) must do their homework and match script to producer. Good, shootable script, bad marketing.

Another scenario is, not all good or great screenplays end up in able hands. They strip it down, add and delete sccenes willy-nilly, add pet scenes, hire editors that have no business touching a screenplay - ever (and then give that editor a 50% writing credit in exchange for F'n up the screenplay for no pay).

Based on what I have read over the years, there are plenty of tragedies mascerading as screenplays, but there are lots of good to great ones. I wish there were more. Lots more, but it is probably in synch with how roughly 80% of the world wants to skate by on minimal input no matter what profession they do.

Mediocre cooks, fashion designers, car salespersons, builders, exotic dancers, wedding videographers and on down the line. Get in, do it, and cash the check. Nothing to it.



Then again - stacks of 'em?

We have run across a lot of scripts. As a matter of fact we have stacks of them at the office. The one thing we can guarentee is that format and structure of this script are better than any one of those. Throughout the entier script it is very obvious that you guys have put a considerable amount of time and effort into this particular script. The script has great flow and was a very easy read. Your ability to paint a very visual pictuer with words was incredible. Congatulations on job well done.

And yet, it never got produced.

He or she did not say that the others were bad, or unshootable. Just not as good?
 
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Here's what I can readily agree with: the good/great/deserving script that can not find its market. In another thread, I gave the example of a script that centers around the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in WWII. A film that would demand a very big budget. The script could be fantastic, well-written, profound, etc. - but the market for such a movie about that subject matter is too small to make a profit on the budget this would require. A brilliant script, but never getting made. Yes, such situations exist. But I claim, that they are relatively rare. How can I claim that? Well, there is this list, updated occasionally, that has existed from pretty much the beginning of the film industry: "the great unproduced scripts". If you google around, you can find 'em - of course, by now there are many such lists, some of dubious provenance. But, take a look at the "legit" lists, the kind that circulate around hollywood offices. Have you taken a look? I have. And while there will be a script or two that falls into the category I outlined above (brilliant, but not enough of a market), the vast majority of the scripts on that list are very obvious in why it is that they remain unproduced - they plain don't deserve it for a variety of reasons, most often because they are vanity projects that scratch a few people's itches, or stuff that's supposed to be "worthy" or socially/politically "noble" and the like. Real merit? Rare as hen's teeth.

I can also agree to the fact that scripts are often butchered by the production process. Not for no reason, the concept exists of "development hell", where good scripts go to die by a death of a thousand bungles. But... that's almost the entirety of film history. That process is one which almost all scripts are subject to. It's the waste inherent in the process. But this does not mean that we should project an ideal world where no script is subject to unjust pressures. Such a world does not, and cannot exist, except in Utopia. Think of it this way: in any production run of widgets, there will be some wastage - a few widgets that get stamped wrong. That's how the world works. It would be unrealistic to then proclaim: wow, we're knee deep in waste! All scripts are subject to the same pressures - some don't survive. It doesn't mean there's a surfeit of great scripts that are sadly killed.

And stuff that gets made - again, I agree, tons are the result of "whom you know", not merit, and "contractual obligation" and "vanity project of a powerful hollywood big-wig" and so on. But that doesn't prevent good scripts from getting made, it just means there are plenty of bad scripts that do get made. If anything, that should raise the spirits of bad writers everywhere - you too have a chance to wrench you wretched project into the realm of produced films.

Incompetent directors/actors etc., delivering a terrible film from a good script - yes, happens all the time. But that doesn't mean they'd take a poor script and make a good film out of it. It just means that a good script is not enough - even when a good script is rare.

If this was an abstract discussion, one would be hard pressed to pick which is the accurate picture of reality. But I have had the advantage of having read tons - and tons - and tons of screenplays, and not just bottom-feeder junk, but majority from working writers. And speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that great - or even good - scripts are rare. And I have been highly motivated to find good scripts - not merely out of boredom (there is nothing more painful than having to write coverage on a terrible screenplay), but for the sheer joy (and occasional glory) of finding good material! Now, I have read scripts that I immediately knew would be great. And they were. But they were rare. And that's the overwhelming takeaway. Now, if you think that somehow this is a really isolated experience, ask around - not just screenplay readers, but readers who have to go through book submissions, or film submissions or music submissions or whatnot - real gems are rare, by definition, and even good product is rare.

The reason I think this article is valuable is because this pressure has existed for a long time now, but we at present have more tools to do something about it: if you have a script that you think is good, for heavens sake, go make it! Don't sit around! If you think all those hollywood readers and agents and execs and directors are a bunch of unqualified, unappreciative and clueless dummies who are not capable of discerning the brilliance of your screenplay, well, here is your chance to shame them all. And you know what - I say this without a scintilla of snark, and in utter sincerity - I am very, very supportive of people launching their own projects without waiting for the discernment or largess of the industry. More power to you - the creator - and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And guess what - genuinely great films will come of such efforts... and a sea of mediocrity and worse, same as it ever was (Sturgeons Law)... but those few gems justify - more than justify - the effort and redeem the whole process.
 
I do think writers need to stop putting a sale above all else. Stop considering that a sale means success. It does not.

What writers need in today's market (in constant flux - it ain't what it was five years ago) is a body of work that shows that their words on the page CAN translate into images. That body of work, in theory, will open doors for assigned work. Not necassarily paid, or even a livable wage, but you have to get something rolling. You, for your own good and growth, need to see more than anyone else that what you write is filmable.

These damn writer's forums just rehash and regurgitate the same 'ol dysfuntional meathods. What good is a sale - assuming it ever comes - if the film is not produced, or even partially produced and abandoned? If you don't even have a single grab to show for it, then you got NUTHIN'!

That is not success. Unless of course you gauge a sale above all else. Certainly valid. Just not my valid.
 
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Things must be getting progresively worse ...



First this ...

A similar adage appears in Rudyard Kipling's The Light that Failed, published in 1890. "Four–fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake"

80%, which is my take.


Then this ...

Sturgeon's law, is an adage commonly cited as "ninety percent of everything is crap


And now this ...

And guess what - about 99.999% of them were just plain bad or unmakeable.


Not much room left to suck at what you do :)
 
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Ha, ha, you're right Alex! But fortunately, the world is a complicated place and there's more than one way to separate a feline from its dermis. I saw a film last night - actually, re-saw, but for the first time in a movie theater rather than at home. A pretty fantastic film. But I thought about it a lot, because it goes so much against everything that is "conventional wisdom", and really understanding how it works is highly illuminating about the whole conceptual framework of what makes a film work. I hope to find some time soon, and I'll write it up in the Film Discussion section. It happens to be highly relevant to this thread, and holds what I regard as profound lessons for all filmmakers who want to strike out on their own, outside of the hollywood establishment industry.
 
OldCorpse said:
Here's what I can readily agree with: the good/great/deserving script that can not find its market. In another thread, I gave the example of a script that centers around the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in WWII. A film that would demand a very big budget. The script could be fantastic, well-written, profound, etc. - but the market for such a movie about that subject matter is too small to make a profit on the budget this would require. A brilliant script, but never getting made...
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Over the last decade or so, the Russians made several big budget - well, big budget for them - films about WWII. An Oscar winner Nikita Mikhalkov made arguably the worst film a famed director with a lot of money could make with his "Burnt by the Sun" sequels (really, they were so bad, they were hilarious). Fedor Bondarchuk's "Stalingrad" was simply no good. The best WWII themed projects were a miniseries called "Shtrafbat" (Penal Battalion) and an alternate reality/fantasy flick a la "Final Countdown" "We're from the future".

PS. There's a new Christopher Nolan WWII film, "Dunkirk".

In any case, to get back to Rossio. His argument is fine on the emotional level but it ignores the economic reality and the individual pull of the various movers and shakers in this scenario. He, being one of the top feature writers in town, won't take a deal without an upfront compensation but a lot of writers will because they don't have the same list of credits, a similar level of financial independence or a big time agency representing him/her. Heck, a writer like Rossio could just walk away from a major project because of the "creative differences". Most actors/writers/directors/etc lower on the totem pole will be too afraid that such a move will forever ruin their careers. There's an accepted fee range paid by Tom Cruise's production company - scale. If an actress gets picked to be Tom's love interest, she gets scale. And she takes it because being in a Tom Cruise blockbuster can make her a star as well. And that's the nature of the beast.
 
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DLD said:
In any case, to get back to Rossio. His argument is fine on the emotional level but it ignores the economic reality and the individual pull of the various movers and shakers in this scenario. He, being one of the top feature writers in town, won't take a deal without an upfront compensation but a lot of writers will because they don't have the same list of credits, a similar level of financial independence or a big time agency representing him/her. Heck, a writer like Rossio could just walk away from a major project because of the "creative differences". Most actors/writers/directors/etc lower on the totem pole will be too afraid that such a move will forever ruin their careers. There's an accepted fee range paid by Tom Cruise's production company - scale. If an actress gets picked to be Tom's love interest, she gets scale. And she takes it because being in a Tom Cruise blockbuster can make her a star as well. And that's the nature of the beast.
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This.

Well said. And thank you for returning the thread to the Rossio article.

Sidenote: having had a friend in the final stage of the 'Tom's love interest' audition process/negotiation. What you say is very literally true. Indeed it is the nature of the beast.

To your point, personal example: My partner and I just made the decision not to sell a spec and attach a director (who just directed the finale of a hot tv show that shall remain unnamed because this is a public forum), because we would have not been attached as producers. Had we sold it in these circumstances, we would rocket to the front of a line called 'most likely to be replaced'. We didn't sell because we really want to be there if/when the movie get made.

Not selling incurs very real financial risk.

That said, in six months, I may jump at the chance to sell for qualitatively more pragmatic reasons.

So. It. Goes.
 
I think the unintended moral of Rossio's article is, "we'd all like to be in his shoes".

And to add. As connected as these various talent niches are, they are vastly different. A songwriter may sell his song right outright (in the old days, it was legal) because he needs the money and because he thinks he can come up with a dozen of similar songs in a day. A screenwriter will often think that he has put so much effort into a project that nothing but a top offer will do. An actor sells his face (or, as in case of the "Baywatch beauties", other body parts as well) and can work for cheap on a given gig because s/he'll have the same face tomorrow. A singer is much like an actor. He is selling his voice. A producer, on the other hand, is only selling his services, like a corporation would. And that's a different type of a beast too.
 
alex whitmer said:
Things must be getting progresively worse ...
First this ...

A similar adage appears in Rudyard Kipling's The Light that Failed, published in 1890. "Four–fifths of everybody's work must be bad. But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake"
80%, which is my take.

Then this ...
Sturgeon's law, is an adage commonly cited as "ninety percent of everything is crap

And now this ...
And guess what - about 99.999% of them were just plain bad or unmakeable.

Not much room left to suck at what you do :)
Click to expand...

alex whitmer said:
...Based on what I have read over the years, there are plenty of tragedies mascerading as screenplays, but there are lots of good to great ones. I wish there were more. Lots more, but it is probably in synch with how roughly 80% of the world wants to skate by on minimal input no matter what profession they do.

Mediocre cooks, fashion designers, car salespersons, builders, exotic dancers, wedding videographers and on down the line. Get in, do it, and cash the check. Nothing to it.
...
Click to expand...

Perhaps that can be applied to those who make decisions regarding scripts (real "buyers" in Rossio's article)? Which may explain at least partially why there are so many bad scripts produced and some nice ones struggle to be produced? :)
 
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One of the issues I forgot to mention ...

I think a lot of directors/producers do not really understand screenplays. A bad story might seem like a good one, or it's the kind of story/budget they can work with, so they go with it. Has scary stuff, has conflict, has naked chicks. It must be good!


If your goal is to become a film director, you must master screenwriting.
- Akira Kurosawa
 
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