so many scams...so where can I find a literary agent

Agents, Studios & Development Producer lists.

Agents, Studios & Development Producer lists.

It depends where you are based, UK or US? and what type of material are you
submitting, genre etc..

This site specialises in the next step and sells an eBook with that info.

Scriptflags.com

E.
 
Thanks, lockpicture


regarding the dialog argument. Actors can change what they want... but if your dialog is directly connected to the characters vernacular, style of speech, lingo, and if we're talking about some damn fine writing, then the actor playing that character better be a damn good writer.

I'm pretty sure if you looked behind the greatest, most memorable lines from the greatest films of all time, you would find the author of the screenplay with a big smile on his talented face
 
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Batutta said:
I think you have to keep in mind lambert that Bill isn't saying every line gets completely redone.
Click to expand...

I have three films (out of 19) where maybe one single line of my dialogue exists from the screenplay. But most of the *actions* and *situations* remain intact - and they tell the story.

In one film, where more than one line made it through, one of the actors changed every single line he spoke to something that killed the whole film - his character set up the theme and set up much of what the protagonist was dealing with, and this moron changed the lines to things he thought sounded better. This script had gone through numerous rewrites and was honed to as close to perfect as it was ever going to get - every *word* was gone over to see if there might be a better one. Producer, director, HBO, and everyone else signed off on that dialogue... then this actor came in and effed it up.

And that is normal on film. Unlike on stage, actors do not stick to the text at all. They often come up with a different line for every take, just to add to the confusion in the editing room.

But the actions of the characters and the situations and the story usually remain as written because you can not mess with that stuff without messing with the story itself. If the action is a guy kisses his best friend's wife, that kiss has to be in the story because everything else that follows comes from the problems of that kiss. What the characters *say* before and after the kiss can be changed without much change to the story, because actions speak louder than words... and close to 70% of your audience won't understand the words anyway - they don't speak English. Someone will dub the dialogue - and they will change the line to match the lip movements of the actors.

And if you are working for a studio, you are lucky if anything from your script exists by the time they film it. Look at NOTTINGHAM and DEAD DROP.

Though we're here in indie world, where the insanity of disposable writers hopefully doesn't exist, things still get changed for all kinds of reasons.

But actors? They love to change your dialogue with clever multiple meanings into the first thing that pops into their pretty little mostly empty heads.

- Bill
 
I hate to evoke the name of Tarantino, but no actor is changing his lines. Why? Because his dialog is original. And what about the Cohen brothers? I read somewhere that Fargo was shot exactly as written. Not a single word was changed. So there are exceptions


Did Schwarzenegger pen, "I'll be back"?
Did Eastwood pen, "Go ahead, make my day"?
Although I believe Nicholson improvised "Here's Johnny." But I'm not sure on this.

The greatest lines were written by great writers
 
It takes a 100 Aggies (if you're from the South, you'll know what this means) to change a light bulb, it takes 10 writers to rewrite a paid script in Holllywood.
Get over it quick cuz that's how it is, unless you do a lot of convincing as the writer did in "Swordfish." From what I remember he was the lone
writer on that script.
 
Do each of these "ten" writers receive credit? Sometimes I see two, maybe three writers credited on a film. Never "ten".

I normally wont watch a film if the writing is credited to a commitee. I prefer stories written by indivuduals

I also want to add Harmony Korine, Todd Solondz, Charlie Kaufman and of course David Mamet to the list of writers who's scripts more or less stay in tact. And this goes back to the beginning of their careers... back to when they were nobody's
 
"I hate to evoke the name of Tarantino, but no actor is changing his lines. Why? Because his dialog is original." I think this is mostly a function of the fact that he is directing. Oliver Stone had no problem changing lines in Natural Born Killers and dropping major scenes.
Ever see the work Ashley Judd did in that film? Major pivotal courtroom scene tossed out.
If Tarantino hadn't directed Pulp Fiction it might be a completely different film unless the producer/director/actors were so enraptured with everything in the script that they didn't want to tweak/ rewrite anything. How often does that happen? Mamet has had his share of dialogue changed when hes not directing, it comes with the territory. Now most actors,directors would see the benefit with going with Mamets dialogue instead of someone elses but not always.
I think the Flintstones movie had around fifty writers fighting for credit. That fact has made many writers want to direct or at least work closely with people in power who might want to champion their work, but at the end of the day its a business filled with egos and bottom lines which doesn't usually make a screenplay no matter how great stay in tact.
 
so why submit a script at all??? save yourself time... submit your index cards. It's all they really need to make the film, right?


and yes... Im dead serious
 
HerzogisGod said:
Do each of these "ten" writers receive credit? Sometimes I see two, maybe three writers credited on a film. Never "ten".
Click to expand...

WGA limits the number of credited writers, so you never see all of the writers who work on a film. Ten or 11 is pretty common - though there are 3 writers credited on THE A-TEAM, there were 11 writers fighting for the credits.

I normally wont watch a film if the writing is credited to a commitee. I prefer stories written by indivuduals
Click to expand...

I have no idea how you would know this. There is no way to find out how many writers worked on a script - and most films that only credit one writer have a bunch that did not get credit. Rare that a film doesn't get rewritten many times.

The problem with QT as an example is that many of the scripts with his name on them are rewrites of other people's scripts. A good example of that might be TRUE ROMANCE, where it began as Roger Avary's script that QT bought, rewrote, sold, and then was, um, replaced on... by Roger. They brought Roger in to basically return his script to its original form. But QT is the only credited writer on it.

Hey, who do you think wrote PULP FICTION?

And Mamet has been rewritten on all kinds of stuff... just not the stuff he produces and directs.

In the indie world, when you find the money and direct, you can be in control of everything. But when you sell a script, it is their's and they will have a dozen people rewrite the script and then the actors and director will do whatever they want with it when they film it. Look at NOTTINGHAM!

This has zip to do with the quality of the script. Oscar winners are frequently replaced by other writers.

- Bill
 
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FLINTSTONES - 32 actual writers, 3 credited writers.

You don't understand the very basics of how the business works: There are close to 1 million screenplays in circulation at any one time. Out of that million, they buy fewer than 100 scripts a year. That gives you an idea of the odds. They find the very best screenplays... and then "develop" them... and usually turn filet mignon into fatty hamburger. Then they film the fatty hamburger. But if they *began* with fatty hamburger? By the time they got through "developing" it, it would be crap. So they have to start with something great to get something almost watchable.

The NOTTINGHAM thing is a prime example - http://sex-in-a-sub.blogspot.com/2010/05/robbing-from-poor-writer.html

So you can't just sell your outline, because that ends up crapy crapy crap.

Answer to the original question: If you are looking for an agent or manager, you need to have something that is as good as the 100 that sold before they were turned to crap.

- Bill
 
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Writers are treated like crap in this business. Remember that scene in THE PLAYER where all of the execs are talking about how much easier making movies would be if they didn't have to deal with writers? Oh, yeah - and the executive kills a writer in the film and then sleeps with his widow!

I always hope to find that situation where we are all trying to make the same movie - have 2 films that were very close to my scripts.

- Bill
 
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