For those of you who may not yet have heard, April 29th
was a very special day for me. Many of
you have already received the announcement of the completion of my screenplay,
“Ash Wednesday,” a project on which I’ve labored for 23 years, June 1993 to be
exact. At the beginning of this year, I
had a banker box full of research, notes, and a nearly 400 page first draft,
plus a separate box containing a 450 page second draft. I had to reduce this all to a 120 page third
draft that I could then share with industry professionals to initiate the
process of a final polish. My baby had
become roughly 15 pounds of paper that I had to squeeze into a space a fraction
of that size.
I had been writing in earnest since
February and by the time I had reduced the first 140 pages to 50 and was only
one-quarter of the way home, I knew I couldn’t get it done in 120 anymore, at
least not with this draft. My new goal
became 150 pages and at 2 a.m. in the wee hours of April 29th, I
finally wrote “The End” (really “Fade Out, End Credits” the film equivalent of
“The End”) on page 148. I knew there was
still more rewriting in my future. I
knew it was still a work-in-progress.
But the good news is that it was done insofar as it was now ready to
share with professionals to finally receive feedback after 23 years. The really good news is that I was actually
quite happy with it. For the first time
in 23 years, I could actually now legitimately say that the script exists. For 23 years, I had had my doubts that I still
had it in me. Maybe I do and maybe I
don’t. That verdict will only come with
time. But of this much I am certain –
even if I don’t yet have it in me, as of April 29th I had journeyed
a quantum leap closer.
Until about two weeks ago, the
manuscript has been with a screenplay consultant in Kansas City receiving my
first-ever critique from an industry professional, a woman named Elizabeth Stevens
with decades of experience working for major studios to whom I was referred by
my mentor Tim Jeffrey here in Detroit. I
intentionally chose not to polish it further yet, as I felt it was critical to
find out whether I was even remotely on the right track. Some have questioned whether it was wise for
me to send it in before it was down to 120 pages since the industry has a
pretty strict rule about that page limit.
Unless you’re Spielberg or this is an epic like “Star Wars,” nobody
wants to read anything longer than 120 pages.
Screenplay format, which is extremely technically specific, is designed
for the movie to play out at one page per minute. Therefore, a 120 page script equates to a
two-hour film, which is the maximum any studio’s going to approve.
But (1) this wasn’t going to an
agent or producer, it was going to a consultant and (2) I made it very clear
before I sent it that it was still in work-in-progress and I had every
intention of ultimately getting it down to 120 pages. But all my instincts told me that I now
needed guidance and if I continued polishing without that, I’d likely be
barking up the wrong tree.
Those instincts proved to be
completely correct. Everyone has
different ideas about the script’s strengths and weaknesses so it would have
done me little good to try rewriting without this feedback. Some of the weaknesses I had planned to address
were not even on others’ radar and problems I had never even considered have
been brought to my attention. There are
roughly a half dozen of my closest colleagues with whom I’ll be sharing and
soliciting criticism before I attempt the next draft. The good news is that, so far at least, the
strengths do seem to quite substantially outweigh the weaknesses. There does seem to be a good deal of
consensus about the strengths, but not so much about the weaknesses. I’m hoping that by the time I’ve collected
these half dozen reports that there might be some commonality regarding the
problems so that I can then proceed to try to fix them and take this to the
next level.
Some of you have already approached
me with the question about the next level.
How do I get there? What am I
going to do with this? Who is this lady
in Kansas City and how might she be helping me?
Am I paying her or will she be working with me on the rewrites and then
representing me to the studios? The
process of taking this from Final Draft to final screen is the subject of this
post.
****************************************************
Let me just begin by saying that
when I was writing screenplays in L.A. back in the 1970s and 80s, things were
very different. With the rise of personal
computers in the 90s, everything changed.
By the time I took my screenwriting class in Detroit from Tim in 2002, I
got an education as to just how much more difficult it is to sell screenplays
now that it was 25 years ago.
When I graduated from film school
in 1975, it was really quite a straight-forward process. The Writers Guild was even kind enough that,
for the beneficent sum of two dollars, they would mail you a list of all the
agencies in town that were willing to read unsolicited manuscripts. Then you simply sent them query letters with
a brief description of your script and they would then invite you to submit the
full manuscript. Sometimes you heard
back from them, sometimes you didn’t.
The major complaint I always heard from fellow writers is that they
never heard back.
I must have been a lot luckier than
most. I heard back from them more often
than not. When I did hear back, it was
usually, “You’re a good writer, I think we can sell this but it needs
work. Let’s get together on rewrites.” Or they might say, “You’re a good writer but
we can’t use this one. Come on in and
let’s talk about other projects we might do together.” That’s the way it went for the thirteen years
I was there. I never did sell anything
but at least I got a few writing assignments and a whole lot of meetings and encouragement. As Jack, an executive at Columbia Pictures
who was my mentor for most of the time I was there often reminded me – they’re
very busy people. They wouldn’t be
spending time with me if they didn’t think I had something.
This is why when I went into a
meeting I had no problem at all convincing them to make me an Associate
Producer if they made my script so that I could learn the business. An associate producer was a nebulous job title
that could mean anything from an errand boy (otherwise known as a gofer) to the
guy who was actually in charge of all the administrative functions of making the
film. The difference between a gofer and producer
was simply your own chutzpah and demonstrating strong organizational and
managerial skills, which I had in abundance.
That was going to be my path to the
top. Sell a few scripts, be an associate
producer on them, then gradually work my way into producing and eventually
directing. Even though it represented a
long and difficult process, it was quite straight-forward. And it all began with simply sending out
query letters and then waiting for the phone to ring. For some reason or another, my phone usually
rang. And you did not even have to limit
yourself to agents. In the 70's and 80's
it was still perfectly acceptable to submit screenplays directly to
producers. And, once again, just wait
for the phone to ring.
*******************************************************
But when I took the class from Tim
in 2002, I was informed that had completely changed. When I was in L.A., an agency or a production
company might get 50 screenplays a week sent to them unsolicited. With the advent of word processing, they were
now receiving 50 per day. They were
overwhelmed. Thus, they were forced to
reinvent themselves. When I was there,
each company had its own in-house staff of readers. These people would vet the scripts and then
send a one-page report to their producer-boss with “Recommend” or “Consider.” (They simply returned the ones with a “Pass”
to the writer with a standard form rejection slip.) Their ability to keep their jobs depended on
whether the boss agreed with the evaluation once they read the script
themselves. Believe it or not, readers
actually got into more trouble if they did a “Pass” on a script that sold to
another studio the next week than if they recommended a loser. That was the good old days.
With the proliferation of
screenplays in the past 25 years, studios and agencies have more or less very
much scaled down or outright eliminated their reading staffs. This made way for a whole new service called
the Coverage Industry, peopled mostly by former staffers of reading
departments. Agencies and studios now
will no longer consider screenplays unless they come recommended by a reputable
coverage agency. But unlike the old days
when you simply submitted your script and, if they liked you, they would offer
to work with you for free against commissions, now you have to pay for these
services. Such fees range wildly from
less than $100 to several thousand.
However, most of these agencies will give you basic coverage for between
100 and 200. The advantage, of course,
is that you actually get extensive comments back and a willingness to work with
you on rewrites until the script is ready.
In the old days, you’d just get a standard rejection slip. If they really liked you, you might get one
or two lines of feedback.
It’s been a continuing debate for
as long as I can remember. Should you
pay someone to read your script? If they
think you have enough talent to sell, shouldn’t they be willing to work with
you for free? 25 years ago with 50
scripts a week, the latter was certainly the case. Today with 50 scripts per day, I’m not so
sure anymore. Tim certainly has no
qualms about it. He’s very happy to pay
industry professionals for their opinions of his scripts and he’s been writing
professionally his entire life, starting in his 20's writing and publishing
short stories, novels and plays and, at the ripe old age of 40, moving into
screenplays.
*****************************************************
For most of my lifetime,
screenplays have been the new gold rush.
There has never before been an occupation where you can literally sit
down at your computer for as little as a few weeks or a few months and crank
out something that can potentially sell for seven figures. Even though Writers Guild minimum is
something like $80,000 dollars for a screenplay, it is almost unheard of that a
script will actually sell for that little.
Typically, the screenplay takes 5% of a film’s budget and with most
films costing 100 million these days, the writer gets millions. That’s why everyone’s trying to get into this
game. It’s the greatest get-rich-scheme
that’s ever been invented. The problem
you might guess is that the vast majority of those trying to get in on this
gold mine simply have no talent. In the
old days, at least most of them were weeded out by the simple mechanics of the
drudgery of typing ... and retyping ... and retyping again. But the personal computer eliminated all that
drudgery. Now companies are getting 50
scripts a day instead of a week. They
cannot even begin to read them.
So how do you rise above the
crowd? You do what Tim does, and what I
will be doing. You work very hard to
become the best writer you can, then develop your chutzpah and network like
crazy. Those are the old rules and they
still work. The new rules are that you now
pay industry professionals to educate you.
When you consider their fees, they’re not all that unreasonable. If you go to film school, the tuition for a
screenwriting class will probably be around $2,000 dollars. For that kind of money, you’ll receive a lot
of instruction but probably only about four or five lines of critique on your
script. Elizabeth, the consultant in
Kansas City, charged me $200 for a two-page critique that was much more
detailed than anything any screenwriting professor ever gave me. She also offers a six-page critique for $450
and I will be investing in that one for the next draft. This is still considerably less than taking a
class, and I’m learning more. She has
been a reader and consultant for all the major studios and is currently also a
screenwriting professor at the University of Kansas as well as a much sought
after judge for major screenplay contests.
In the past couple weeks, I have
tried to update my knowledge about how the screenplay industry works and have
found that what Tim tells me is still pretty much the case. The Writers Guild still offers the service of
donating the list of agencies that are willing to consider unsolicited
scripts. But I studied their web sites
and all of them now demand references before they will read your stuff. You need a good report from someone like
Elizabeth to get your foot in the door these days.
************************************************************
How exactly that will work is still
a mystery to me. I am hoping that Tim
can provide some clarity. I will share
the report with him and hope he can help me understand how to take this to the
next level. Obviously, what I would love
to happen is to have a qualified agent agree to take me under his or her wing
and work with me against commission to help sell my stuff. I’m hoping that is somewhere in my
future.
But at the age of 62, I don’t know
how viable that is anymore. I can only
take encouragement from the fact that both Tim and Elizabeth are older than me
and they both seem to think I have potential.
I will continue building on that.
But truth be told I have always been advised by every mentor I’ve ever
had that it’s the process, not the result, that counts. Most people fail at screenwriting for the
simple reason that they don’t really love either film or writing, they’re just
in it for the gold rush. And as Tim has
explained to me, nobody ever sells screenplays anymore. The industry doesn’t want screenplays, it
wants screenwriters. In other words, you
write scripts as calling cards to show agents and producers that you know how
to write. But they’re not going to buy
them. What they are going to do is get
you assignments writing drafts of screenplays for other producers.
That’s another major way the
industry has changed. Spec scripts like
Rocky, Good Will Hunting, and Thelma & Louise are things of the past. There was an article in Variety just last
week that reported the dismal news that, though 80,000 screenplays have been
registered this year with the Writers Guild, only eight have been sold. Eight screenplays have sold in six months? Tim is right.
You make your money by getting hired to write other people’s scripts,
but just about the only way you’re going to get your own script made is if you
produce it yourself. That seems to be
the current reality. As I get more
education on this, I’ll be reporting more.
***************************************************
And at 62, I don’t even think I’m
interested in writing other people’s scripts anymore. I wrote “Ash Wednesday” specifically as a low
budget film to make myself. I have
several more low-budget scripts that I’ll be writing next. There’s also the prospect of novelizing the
scripts. Obviously the reason this
doesn’t happen more often is because novels pay a pittance compared to
screenplays. That fact not withstanding,
I think it would be very satisfying to turn my scripts into novels.
I am just now beginning the path to
a new career as a financial planner.
Besides the fact that I am totally fascinated by it and think I would
make a very good planner, I have an ulterior motive. I’m assuming that if I have any notable success
as a planner, that I will coming into the company of many people with deep
pockets. I’m also assuming that some of
those people might be interested in financing local low-budget films. So these two career paths might very well be
merging. If age discrimination in the
film industry is half as bad as it is everywhere else (and by all reports it’s
actually quite a lot worse), then finding investors and making these films
myself may be the only path that’s left to me.
If nothing else it will be a very
fascinating journey. For now, I’m only
interested in becoming the best writer I can be. I really could care less if I ever sell “Ash
Wednesday.” I am really quite happy just
with the accomplishment of knowing I’ve written it. But I will make an earnest effort to build on
this. I will certainly try to sell
it. And with the digital revolution, it
is really quite a lot easier these days to make films independently than it was
just fifteen years ago when we finished “Loopholes.” In addition to trying to make inroads in the
industry, I will also be pursuing the digital option quite vigorously. However, push come to shove, the
accomplishment of completing scripts (and maybe someday novels), whether they
sell or not, is really quite enough for me.
Writing and creating makes me happy.
That may have to be enough.
***********************************************************
Ever since I learned about the
Perfect Binding process at Kinko’s years ago, I have always intended to make
this screenplay into a paperback. There
has never before been a book binding process that gives you a spine you can
print on to make it look like a professional book. The Perfect Binding process looks just like a
book you’d buy at Barnes &Noble, completely slick and expert. Kinko’s had originally quoted me $12.50 per book
to make “Ash Wednesday” but when I got the bill for the actual job, it was $25
per book. I guess we had a major
miscommunication. I was very specific
with them and they were equally specific that the charge would be $10 per book
plus $2.50 for each cover.
I had made the mistake of not
asking for the quote in writing and they naturally claimed that they had never
quoted me $12.50. Well, they did quote
me $12.50 but I realize now that it was just the setup charge and did not
include the copy charges, though I felt I was very clear with them that the
quote include the copying charges. It’s
no matter, I needed to see what it was like and they did turn out beautifully
so it was worth $25. But at that price,
I have to very much limit the distribution.
Last week, Tim Smith (who has just recently published his own book of
sacred music) told me that Amazon makes books now too. When I checked it out, Amazon only charges $8
per book (and that including the copying.)
So I will try them next to see if they even come close to the same
quality as Kinko’s.
To put this in perspective, if I
had just made a straight copy the industry-standard way with just card
stock for covers and simple brass brads for binding (I’ve never thought this
was very attractive), that alone would cost $23 per copy. So $25 for a beautiful professional looking
book is really not a bad price. Prior to
Perfect Binding, there was no system for making these great looking books
except to go to a printing press and do a run of at least a hundred books for
several thousand dollars. That’s why I
have so looked forward to using Perfect Bind.
Now I am all the more curious to see what Amazon does for 8
dollars.
****************************************************************
Until I have a draft that I can
actually submit to agents and producers, here are some excerpts from the
critique that Elizabeth Stevens sent me:
Excerpts:
Elizabeth Stevens, University of Kansas at Lawrence 5-29-16
ASH WEDNESDAY gets off to a great, intriguing start with the
opening scene of Wednesday at the bottom of the pool, still barely alive and
lamenting in her thoughts about death and how she should have “listened to
Jack.” That’s a great hook for grabbing the audience’s interest and curiosity.
Wednesday is believable as someone who falls for a charmer
and makes hasty decisions to be with him. Molly is believable as a mom who
worries about her daughter. When the two band together to either confront or
reunite with Jack, they are a believable pair.
The ending is a satisfying one ...
You have created two believable female characters ... I like
the sense of humor that Wednesday displays in the early parts of the script;
I’d like to see that carry forward in the midst of her woes and troubles.
The dialogue is one of your strong points, especially in
scenes of conflict or confrontation.
RATING: A= excellent, ready for sale, B= Very good but still
needs some work, C= Okay but nothing special, D= Forget it.
ASH WEDNESDAY: B
SUBMISSION CRITERIA: Recommend, Consider, Reject
ASH WEDNESDAY: Consider
Note: The criticisms in the 6-page report were too detailed
to present here. The comments also gave away so much of the story they can't be
shared until after a first read. But there’s
lots to mull over for the next draft.
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