Okay, here's the deal;
About 18 months ago, some fellow local filmmakers approached me and asked if I'd like to contribute a short script for an anthology they were putting together. I knocked something together that I thought wasn't half bad and gave it to them. Stupidly, as these were guys I know and had worked with, I didn't worry about any sort of paperwork.
After only making a couple of films for the anthology (not mine), the project fell apart, and I didn't really think much more about it until the last couple of months, when, looking for something to shoot in the second half of the year, I came across the anthology script. Since the anthology had fallen apart, I figured I'd do it myself. I hadn't actually gotten into the production stage.
Then, a few days ago, I get a call from the anthology director. At a filmmaking workshop he'd pitched the idea in my script as something to be made as part of the workshop later this month. Fine, I thought, the script well get made even though it's not me doing it.
Then he mentions that he'd actually lost the file of the script, and had pitched it based on what he remembered of it. I offered to resend the file. "That's okay" he says, "We've written our own version of it."
I wasn't too sure how to react to this at the time. I was told I would be getting a "Based on" credit. I did suggest that I might shoot my own version of the script if they weren't going to use it, which he didn't sound very thrilled about.
Yesterday I tracked down a copy of their version of the script. While the setup and a couple of key points are the same, the script (obviously) contains not a single line of my dialogue, the characterisations have been utterly changed as has the ending. And I honestly don't feel that the changes have been for the better. What started out as a simple story has become ham-fisted and over-complicated.
But, since they're about to go into production, and a number of people involved in the workshop are people I'm likely to want to work with in the future (it's not a huge filmmaking community here), I'd rather not make trouble by trying to stop them from making it, and I doubt the director will be open to doing my version of the script as he's the one that did the "rewrite".
So, should I just let it lie with their version, or should I still push ahead with producing my script, which I really like? If I do that, it means that there'll be two films with essentially the same plot doing the festival circuit.
I know rewrites to this degree happen in Hollywood all the time, but there's paperwork and financial compensation giving the producers the right to do pretty much whatever they want.
I think if they'd actually done a rewrite of my script it wouldn't bother me so much. But the writing their own version based on what they remember of reading my script 18 months previously bothers me a bit.
Thoughts?
About 18 months ago, some fellow local filmmakers approached me and asked if I'd like to contribute a short script for an anthology they were putting together. I knocked something together that I thought wasn't half bad and gave it to them. Stupidly, as these were guys I know and had worked with, I didn't worry about any sort of paperwork.
After only making a couple of films for the anthology (not mine), the project fell apart, and I didn't really think much more about it until the last couple of months, when, looking for something to shoot in the second half of the year, I came across the anthology script. Since the anthology had fallen apart, I figured I'd do it myself. I hadn't actually gotten into the production stage.
Then, a few days ago, I get a call from the anthology director. At a filmmaking workshop he'd pitched the idea in my script as something to be made as part of the workshop later this month. Fine, I thought, the script well get made even though it's not me doing it.
Then he mentions that he'd actually lost the file of the script, and had pitched it based on what he remembered of it. I offered to resend the file. "That's okay" he says, "We've written our own version of it."
I wasn't too sure how to react to this at the time. I was told I would be getting a "Based on" credit. I did suggest that I might shoot my own version of the script if they weren't going to use it, which he didn't sound very thrilled about.
Yesterday I tracked down a copy of their version of the script. While the setup and a couple of key points are the same, the script (obviously) contains not a single line of my dialogue, the characterisations have been utterly changed as has the ending. And I honestly don't feel that the changes have been for the better. What started out as a simple story has become ham-fisted and over-complicated.
But, since they're about to go into production, and a number of people involved in the workshop are people I'm likely to want to work with in the future (it's not a huge filmmaking community here), I'd rather not make trouble by trying to stop them from making it, and I doubt the director will be open to doing my version of the script as he's the one that did the "rewrite".
So, should I just let it lie with their version, or should I still push ahead with producing my script, which I really like? If I do that, it means that there'll be two films with essentially the same plot doing the festival circuit.
I know rewrites to this degree happen in Hollywood all the time, but there's paperwork and financial compensation giving the producers the right to do pretty much whatever they want.
I think if they'd actually done a rewrite of my script it wouldn't bother me so much. But the writing their own version based on what they remember of reading my script 18 months previously bothers me a bit.
Thoughts?
