Three secrets to being a good screenwriter

If you’re considering becoming a screenwriter…stop. No I don’t mean that you shouldn’t try and be a screenwriter. I mean stop considering and start doing. The difference between a screenwriter and a non-writer is just the decision to write. The difference between a great screenwriter and average screenwriter can be found in these three tips.

Write everyday
We humans are creatures of habit. So there is no better habit to get into for screenwriters than to write every single day. I recommend you write for at least ten minutes, but no longer than thirty. Sure you could write longer, but when you go to write again tomorrow, your subconscious is going to bring up memories of yesterdays two hour writing spree and say “No way…I’m not getting into that mess again”. Thirty minutes is the absolute max. If you have more to write, then that’s just a good starting point for tomorrow.

It’s also a good idea to write at a specific time everyday. Get up a little early, go to sleep a little later, or maybe just write for part of your lunch break.

Your plot affects the characters not the other way around.
The characters are the vital element of your story. The plot is only there to illustrate who your characters are. You should never make your character do something out of character simply to further the plot. At first this may seem difficult. There is something you may want very badly to happen, but if there isn’t a character in the story that could both make it happen and want to make it happen, then you’ve written the wrong story for the wrong characters.

Write fast and sloppy
Don’t try to right the perfect first draft. No one cares about the first draft. You’re screenplay may start out as an animated short about a lovable bear, and turn into a fierce suspense about hikers being chased by bears. There is no reason that anything you write be coherent, logical, or especially good, until you finish the first draft. There are only two requirements for the first draft:

1. It’s finished
2. It contains real words (mostly)

The desire for perfection is the cause of all writers block. You start to think “What should happen next…maybe the hikers could find an abandoned cabin…no that’s been done already”, when you should have just written “The hikers find an abandoned cabin”, and moved on. It doesn’t matter…write something….the hikers get hit by a bus…it doesn’t matter. You can always fix it. But just writing without judgment opens up the flow of creative juices. Who knows you may even mistype something, and the typo itself spawns a whole scene…but that won’t happen if you are staring at the blank screen.

In fact, I started this article with the title “The secret to being a good screenwriter”, and I only had one tip. Then I thought of two more, edited it a few times, and then fixed the title. There is a good chance I may even edit this article a bit after I published (followers of the site who pay close attention may have noticed I do that from time to time.)

I don’t know just who said it first, but its a common saying that “Good screenplays aren’t written, they’re rewritten”.

How options work.

If you are an indie producer, director, or screen writer, you absolutely have to understand the power of options. It’s rare that movies get made these days without the script first being optioned.

So what is an option exactly? Well, an option is simply a type of contract that says “I want to buy something”. You can have options in real estate, stock, writing, or just about any type of property that could be classified as unique and illiquid (meaning it isn’t easy to buy and sell). The basic idea is you “lease” the exclusive right to buy the property for a period of time. In other words, you haven’t bought it, but no one else can buy it for as long as your option exists. When it comes to filmmaking we usually speak of options in terms of either literary or script options.

A literary option is for licensing books, comic books, graphic novels, etc. Here, you are basically buying the right to be the first person to license an author’s work, and adapt it into a screenplay. Steven King often lets indie filmmakers option his short stories for as little as a dollar. However, aside from an indie friendly author such as King, usually literary options are out of the grasp of indie budgets.

For indies, the more important form of option to understand is a script option. Here you are optioning the right to take a screenplay and produce a film. The beautiful thing about an option for indie producers is that it essentially gives you the right to use the script to find financing. The great thing about options for writers is that its often just free money, because the option doesn’t get exercised (bought), because the producer fails to find the budget in time. It also always seems to work out that the producer, while shopping the script around, drums up interest in the script from some other producer or studio, thus making it possible for the writer to option the script a second time.

How it works
An option basically has three major components:

• What is being sold
• The price to option it
• The price and agreements to be made in order to buy - called exercising the option

An option usually turns out to be the contract before the contract. What I mean by that is that, if you leave out something in the option, or fail to have some sort of “catch all” clause…then theoretically you don’t have an option. If there is something left to be negotiated, then the writer can refuse to let you exercise the option. This is why its really important to have a lawyer draw up this kind of paper work. A properly written option, is nearly the exact same contract as a literary purchase agreement, because the option will spell out every single part of the deal.

Transferability
Options can be either transferable or nontransferable. If it is transferable, then the producer can option the script, and then sell the option itself and the writer doesn’t make a dime. All this does is transfer the right to purchase the script from one person to another. The option could be transfered several times, but until its bought or the option runs out, the writer won’t see another penny.

Sometimes studios option scripts that are similar to the script they want to write, just to avoid a similar film coming out at the same time as what they are trying to release (trying to avoid another Armageddon/Deep Impact scenario). Producers know this, and usually won’t see anything wrong with making a quick $2000 off your script selling their option to someone they know won’t ever produce it. They make $2000, and your script is officially considered a “shelved” property, making it very difficult for you to sell again.

On the other hand, sometimes a producer needs transferability for legal reasons. They may buy it under their own name, or company name, but then need to transfer it to its own separate entity in order to do specific methods of financing.

Applicability
An option can be defined as applicable or non applicable. This pretty much just means whether or not the price of purchase includes the amount of the option or not. In other words, if the purchase price is $50,000, and I payed you $5000 for the option, if my $5000 is applicable I only owe you $45,000. If not, I owe you the full $50,000.

Advice on optioning

For the producer, the object is usually to get the option as cheaply as possible, with as long of terms as possible. Remember, you’ll be spending investor money on the actual purchase of the script so you aren’t really worried about the final price, except to insure it isn’t outrageous. But the option…that’s your own money your spending. You will lose it if the option runs out. Also, if your option is too short, and you approach a studio to finance the project, if they want to do the script they’ll wait out your option and buy it out from under you.

For writers its a bit more complicated. You want as short of a term as possible, but the price is somewhat difficult to determine. You could easily option your script for a dollar, then two days later the producer call you back, ready to purchase your script at full price. Or you might take your dollar, go to the coke machine, and all your windfall profits as a professional screenwriter are shot in one transaction. May I recommend that if you are going to drink away your career, get enough for a beer…and a tip.

On the other hand, holding out for some outrageous option price isn’t going to help you much if the producer can’t afford it. Like I said above, the option is usually bought with the producers own money. If if its an indie producer, chances are they don’t have much, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have the drive and ambition to get financed and make a first class film.

My advice for writers is to only accept an amount that ensures the producer is serious. If its a very young person in college, that may be as little as $250. For someone with a job, or someone whose been in the business for over a year $1000 is probably a better number. I’m not a wealthy person to say the least, but I could easily put $1000 down on a movie if I really believed in it…but if I do you better believe I don’t intend to waste it and let that option expire without doing everything in my power to get it financed. But over $5000 is usually pushing it. I may really really love a script, but if I can’t get an option on it for less than a few thousand its just not worth the risk.

A final note for producers, wait to exercise your option until the day before production begins. Until that day, you really don’t know if your movie is really happening or not. Financing falls through, insurance papers get screwed up, permits get denied, and so on. Anything can happen, so unless your option is about to expire, don’t exercise it until the cameras start rolling.

Copyright made simple

I visit alot of message boards, and I’m always surprised at how often I see: “Hey, do I need permision to use…”. The answer is always the same…yes Billy, you do need permission to show the poster for El Mariachi in the background of your movie. And of course, this anonymous person who I’ve called Billy for no apparenet reason then asks, “But it isn’t for profit do I still need permission?”

For some reason, copyright is seen as a bit mysterious to most poeple (especially little Billy). I guess it is understandable, because copyright is essentially owning something, that isn’t really a physical thing…but it isn’t just an idea either. For example, you can’t copyright the idea of “a movie about birds attacking people”. But you could copyright the script of a movie about birds attacking people. Contrary to popular belief, copyrighting isn’t really preventing people from stealing you ideas…its about preventing theft of your hard work.

How copyright works
Note: Unless otherwise specified I’m talking about US laws and regulations. As soon as you take an idea and turn it into a tangible form, its copyrighted. As soon as a painter makes the last stroke of his brush (and you may even argue that on the first stroke of his brush) his painting is copyrighted. As soon as I write a post on this blog, its copyrighted.

The simpliest way I think of to look at copyright is that copyright is literally the right to copy something unique. If you have something with a new and unique aspect to it, then you need permission to copy or adapt it in any way.

Registration
In some cases, you’ll want to register a copyright with the government. Understand this key concept…you aren’t “copyrighting” when you register. The work you’ve made is copyrighted the instant it is created and put onto a tangible medium. Instead what you are doing is telling the government, “I made this, on this date”. The US government does not so much as read the title of your registration to determine if its like something else or not.

So why register? Well, registration provides you with one invaluable commodity…a time stamp. By registering your idea, you have proof that you created the idea on this date exact date. If someone tries to sue you, and they have a copyright on the exact same work…whoever has the earliest registration will usually prevail.

Using copyrighted materials - Even if you aren’t making money
Back to our original question: Do you need permission to use someone elses work, even if your using it without the intention of making a profit? Well, its not a simple yes or no answer. In general, there are two ways that you can use something for free:

• Public Domain
• Fair Use

Public Domain
In general, things over 100 years old will be public domain. That’s a big over simplification, but its usually true. Copyright laws, especially through the 70s under went some drastic changes, so something that was created in one year may be public domain now, but something created the very next year may not be public domain for another 30 years.

And don’t forget, modern adaptions of public domain material are copyrighted as well. For example, take a symphony by Bach. You could hire an orchestra and play that symphony and put it on a CD or in a movie without any issues. However, you could not take a recording of that same symphony made by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and turn it into the soundtrack of your movie. The source material may be public domain, but their are unique aspects to the performance, and as I said earlier if something has a unique aspect to it, then you need permission to copy it.

Fair Use
Fair use is the magic word that many filmmakers think is the holy grail. Well, its not…and for many of you fair use will be pretty useless. Fair use is essentially a provision in the law that allows people to use copyrighted materials without permission, and without paying provided the use falls into certain catagories:

• Education - If you teach a film class, you don’t need permission from the studio to show a film in class. For filmmakers this type of fair use is good for documentaries. Want to make a documentary about the history of an old closed down Coke bottling plant? You can probably get away with using Cokes labels without permission (see disclaimer below)
• Parody - If you want to make a parody of something, you don’t need permission for elements involved directly in parody. After all, would parodies even get made if you had to ask the person who made the work you want to parody? Be careful with parody though, because it doesn’t always cover you 100%. For example, you have the right to make a funny parody song of Brittney Spears’ latest hit…but you don’t have the right to sample the drum beat (unless it is justifiable that you can “make fun” of a drum beat simply by repeating it).
• Critique - As some of you may know, I’m also part owner of a horror review website Killer Film. Its fair use for us to use a small clip, screen shot, or part of the movies promotional materials in our articles in order to critique a film. In general, here we are talking about a small portion that is representative of a work, but contains very little of the work itself. I can’t show half of the movie on my website, and then say I’m using it as fair use for critical purposes. This is not, however, the same as the whole Kevin Smith method of making references to movies as part of your dialogue. Sorry…but you have to get permission for that.

In general, if you are making a narrative fiction film, fair use is fairly useless. Fair use is mostly for documentaries, and information sources like websites.

But what if I’m not making any money?
It really doesn’t matter at all if you are making money. When you use a copyrighted work, you are devaluing the work. Let say for example, an underground band has a new CD out. You use one of their songs in your movie without permission. Then suddenly the song is a hit (by coincidence only….your movie didn’t make it a hit).

Now Warner Bros wants to use to be the first to use this unique and cool song in their next movie…and they are going to pay them $50,000 for the right to do so. But then suddenly, someone at Warner sees your movie and goes back to the band and says “hey wait a second….someone else is already using this in their movie…its not so cool and unique anymore. And this looks like a low budget indie movie. I bet you only charged them $3000 to use your song. We won’t give you $50,000…but since we’re nice we’ll still give you $25,000.”

You just cost the band $25,000. Guess how much they can sue you for? More than $25,000…because whose to say that you haven’t hurt future revenues that they don’t even know about. Who knows how much damage you’ve done to the value of their product? No one does…but I’m sure their lawyer can make up a nice scary number.

Work for hire
Finally, the most important part of copyright law to understand is work for hire. When you are paying someone to produce any copyrighted material, you own any material which they create. This includes hiringing writers, composers, cinematographers…anyone. If you ask anyone to make any material, and pay them to do so, you are the owner of all rights to that material.

This is especially important when it comes to music. Licensing popular bands to add to a sound track can run you into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Its far cheaper, and often more effective to hire a composer for around five to ten thousand dollars to score the entire film. Of course, if you have the skill you could compose the soundtrack yourself. There are many excellent software programs out there that make creating professional sounding scores much easier than they were just a few years ago.

If nothing else…
If you take nothing else from this article, just remember this: Know who owns everything you use, ask permission, and get written documents that prove you have the right to use everything.

Disclaimer
This article should not be construed as legal advice. I am not an attorney. Always consult a qualified intellectual property attorney before making any intellectual property related decision.

The simple method to write good scripts and beat writers block

After reading countless screenwriting books I constantly come across the same mantra:Write what you know. Its both good advice and the stupidest advice you can give someone. Frankly, if I watch one more movie about a struggling filmmaker trying to get his movie produced, I may just have to hurt someone. The fact of the matter is you can create interesting stories about things with which you have no direct experience…its just that the trick to making it work involves writing what you know.

Lets say for example, you want to write a gangster movie. You know, the type that Tarintino fans salivate over…a bunch of cool guys in suits, lots of guns, and witty one liners. Now the problem is, your a college kid in film school who works part time at a snowball stand. You’ve never even seen a gun, much less fired
one while wearing cool sunglasses. How are you supposed to write a cool gangster movie, and “write what you know”, when you don’t know anything about gangsters. I guess you’ll have to just write a movie about a kid at a snowball stand who can’t figure out how to write a good movie.

When it comes to good movies the important thing to realize is that the entire plot of movie - whether its a gagster movie, an action movie, a sci-fi adventure, or just about any genere - is purely a device to create and express interesting characters. This is known as a character driven screenplay. The important thing isn’t necessarily what the characters are doing, but what their actions say about who they are.

Consider, for example, Resevoir Dogs. The plot is essentially a robbery goes wrong, and they hide in a warehouse while trying to figure out what happened. If you were to write Resevoir Dogs, you really wouldn’t have to know hardly anything about how a bank robbery takes place, how guns work, or how the police would respond. Its barely even shown in the movie. Instead, the movie builds its following around the unique and interesting characters that form the team of bank robbers. The botched robbery is really only an external stimuli to force the characters into showing who they really are.

Mr. Pink is sniviling and self-centered. Mr. Blonde is a sadistic psychopath. Mr. White is a old professional trying to hold everything together when things are at their worst.

Making good films is all about the characters. Sure Hollywood can get away with big budget extravaganzas with characters as two dimensional as the cartoon frog on your cereal box…but you can’t. And until you have the budget to fly an F-15 into a dinosaur in the middle of downtown Chicago, your movies are going to have to be character driven as well. This is a good thing.

And that brings us to the major point of this article: How do we write what we “know” but still be able to write fun action movies, gorey horror flicks, or sci-fi epics? Well, as I said earlier, good movies are about characters…and you definitely know characters…I mean you do know people don’t you? How about your Grandpa…what would he be like if he was a mobster? What if your girlfriend/boyfriend was an undercover secret agent? What if you were an intergalatic smuggler and your boss was your biggest rival?

Essentially, start with some people you know as characters and begin applying some abstract stimuli to them - aka plot points. Using this method opens up the flood gates of creativity so much that the story essentially begins to build itself. You become less concerned with trying to come up with witty one liners, and more involved in what that person would really do. Of course, feel free to take some artistic license. If you base a character on someone who says “OMG, wtf, roxxor noobs!” after every sentence, feel free to tone it down a tad.

So to summarize the method:

• Start with a really simple concept: Lets say, an assassin is offered alot of money to kill someone she doesn’t want to kill
• Now put a person you know as a character and imagine how they would react. Ask yourself: What if my girlfriend was secretly an assassin, and she suddenly got offered a million dollars to kill me…how would she react? How would I react when I found out?
• Repeat: With every character you create, try and give that character some of the qualities of your friends, family, co-workers, teachers, etc. If you need someone really cool, think about someone you know who is really cool. Have the character talk and act like them. You’ll begin to find that eventually you find something so difficult to deal with that you know your “cool” friend wouldn’t be able to handle it…as long as you stay honest to the character, this is a good thing. Too many bad action movies have characters whose wife and kids are kidnapped for pretty much no reason, and the hero reacts as a text book vigilante. Maybe your friend who is normally cool would just fall apart in this situation. Maybe your cowardly friend might actually rise to the occasion and save the day. Just make sure you keep your characters honest and interesting.

The story begins to build itself… it is character driven