Earl Newton.com » The Business

The End of the Screenwriter

Earl Newton — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:49:31 +0000

Just read this post about Elizabeth Knox and her unhappy experience with the movie adaptation process. Here’s the article:

Author cried over film of Vintner’s Luck

I don’t want to address the merits of Ms. Knox’s story as I think it’s irrelevant to my point here. My point is: it’s time for the role of a screenwriter to come to an end.

I’m not sure if I have a resounding thesis statement to make, as much as an expression of anger. I’m very tired of the idea that the director’s vision trumps the screenplay. I’m saying this as a director myself. Having a great visual imagination doesn’t qualify you to weigh in on story. Yet it’s not uncommon for a script to be tossed out and completely reworked by a director, sometimes at the last minute, to support their “vision.” Is there any other industry where a leader can come in, completely shred years of work and research, and “follow his vision?”

Something has to change. We already know screenwriters have no power in the industry. It’s gone from a joke to a cliché to a fact of life. Leading with, “I’m a screenwriter” is like saying, “I’m not in charge. I just do the words.”

Screenwriters are so focused on “breaking in” to screenwriting. Dozens of questions about the right formatting, the best techniques, the right way to get an agent. Nobody is asking how to find a decent director for their work, and their career could hinge on that more than anything.

Unless they take responsibility for themselves, learn to direct, and actually create something consumable.

I think screenwriters have to stop being screenwriters. We have to become “people who also write.” We have to stop fighting battles from positions of weakness, and establish ourselves in territory where we have a greater advantage. If that means becoming writer/directors and writer/producers, then so be it.

Do what it takes. Learn the skills you need. Find people to help you. But don’t resign behind the laptop with a cappuccino while a questionably-competent interpreter “finds his vision” amidst the ruins of your life’s work.

Are Awards Worth It?

Earl Newton — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:59:37 +0000

Real problems from fake people.

Dear Earl,

We just received an email announcing the open entry period for a big media award/film festival, and we’re going to enter!

Awesome, congrats. Why are you entering?

When you win, the trophy is amazing, it’s made of crystal and golden butterflies — wait, what? What do you mean, ‘why?’ It’s a big award/film festival!

How much is the entry fee?

Huh? I don’t know. It’s somewhere around ($50/$100/$200).

Maybe it’s just me, but if someone is asking for more than lunch money, I like to know why I’m doing it.

INT. GRAND BALLROOM – NIGHT

Easily fifty tables filled with the world’s most beautiful people, every one holding their breath. Nerves on edge. Somewhere, a media darling bites her lip in anticipation.

Every pair of eyes turned to the host, delicately holding an envelope.

HOST

And the winner is...

The RIP of the envelope is a thunderclap across the heavy silence.

HOST

You!

The collective breath EXPLODES into applause, screaming, people rising to their feet --

-- Tears in your eyes, you’re standing, and everywhere, hands awkwardly slapping your back, shoulders, grabbing to shake your hand --

-- You take the stage, and the roar leaps another level --

-- You grasp the award and it’s so REAL, so much heavier than it looked --

-- and as the noise dwindles, you step to the mic, and begin to speak.

YOU

God, there’s so many people to thank...

Everyone born after 1953 has imagined this for themselves at some point. And when you finally commit to being a professional creative, you’re hit with so much hard reality (disappointment, compromise, and poverty) it can seem like the last bit of magic left.

And it is. For one night.

But after the champagne is all gone and the press has gone home, a new day dawns and you’re left with a clunky conversation piece. And not much more. There is no honor in winning awards.

You’re depressing me.

That’s because, as an audience member, you have always admired awards. That admiration is what you’re going to count on now, as a creative professional, when you realize that awards are really only good for marketing purposes.

Awards are something you wow the audience with. Awards get you jobs, get you access to higher-caliber collaborators. In a marketplace glutted with competing talent, awards give you the benefit of the doubt.

Isn’t that the same thing as honor?

It is and it isn’t. Honor is an ambiguous idea that floats wherever we place it. What I’m talking about is credibility, and that has a very concrete value.

So I shouldn’t try to win awards?

You should absolutely consider it. But be discerning. Like anything creative, you should take into account your audience first.

And before you offer yourself up to be judged, be a judge yourself. This award/film festival claims to be prestigious and noteworthy: have you ever heard of it? Is it something recognized by your industry, your clients, your audience? If not, you may get better results spending your marketing budget elsewhere.

Because that’s what you’re doing, when you submit to win an award. As much as you’re putting yourself up against your peers, you’re also entering a blind bid for something to add to your press kit.

Set aside the validation of winning. If someone offered you the chance to buy this award, for the same price as the entry fee, would you do it?

That’s how you know if an award is worth it. It cannot be about validation. If you don’t already know you’re good enough to win, you probably aren’t ready to enter.

Indies Go Solo Part 2 (Video Games)

Earl Newton — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:32:52 +0000

The other day I posted a link to a New York Times article about indie filmmakers self-distributing, and erosion of the mainstream film market.

The most interesting aspect of this discussion, to me, is the lack of discussion about the role of video games in eroding the film market.

By and large, the movies that sell the most are escapist entertainment. The problem is: movies don’t have the corner on escapism any more.

I can pay

(for a movie, avg. 2 hrs)

$10 for two hours of watching a protagonist leap from one near-death to another ($5/hour)
$25 to buy the Collector’s Edition DVD at BestBuy (after waiting four months for it to release; $12.50/hr, slightly less if you include “behind the scenes,” and I don’t)
$10 to buy the Cheapie On-Sale Walmart edition ($5/hr, but I have to wait a year)

(for a video game, avg 12 hrs gameplay)

$60 to buy the game the day it comes out ($5/hr)
$30 to buy it at cheapie Wal-Mart discount prices (waiting eight months for prices to drop, $2.50/hr)

So I can buy either medium, on the first day of availability, for $5/hr. The difference with video games is: I get 6 times the entertainment at the same rate, and the longer I wait, the cheaper it becomes.

And don’t forget replay value: any game with decent replay value (anything in the Mario franchise, open sandbox games) will last you at least fifty hours. Games with multiplayer capability or ongoing storylines (Halo, the Sims) will go two hundred or beyond. (Do I have to bring up World of Warcraft?) That’s two hundred distinct, original hours of entertainment. How many times will you rewatch a movie?

Most importantly, whatever entertainment I derive from the experience is completely mine. I leap across dangerous chasms at the last minute, not Nick Cage. Any experience, large or small, takes on a larger import, because I am the protagonist.

Escapist movies are, “Hey, audience, watch me do this cool thing!”

Escapist video games are, “Here’s a gun and a map. Get out alive.”

Which sounds more dramatic to you?

NY Times: “Indies Going Solo”

Earl Newton — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:47:37 +0000

The New York Times posted this article today: Independent Filmmakers Distribute on Their Own. (Thanks to Joshua Smith for the link)

More than ever, it’s the wild west out there now. Right now, studios are less and less interested in developing new material, turning back again and again to remakes and derivatives of pre-existing properties.

As a storyteller, that scares me, not because of any artistic choice, but because once any industry stops investing in the future, they start digging their own grave.

IMAGINE THIS

Right now, fewer and fewer productions are being developed in-house. Studios have decided to sit back and purchase more films after they’ve been completed, offering low purchase deals with non-existent profit-sharing, and promising to shoulder the seemingly-daunting task of advertising and promotion.

Well, somebody drew back the curtain at the turn of the century, and independent creators are starting to realize that

Marketing isn’t magic
It isn’t nearly as expensive anymore (thanks, Internet)
mainstream media was never really especially good at it; they were just louder
as an independent, it’s becoming less financially-viable to court mainstream distribution companies anymore

I’m not predicting the end of the studio system, they are too large to disappear entirely (we still have major radio broadcasters today – how much of them are doing original narrative work any more?). But unless there is a major change in policy, I think studios in future are going to find themselves falling out of the conversation.

To put it another way: right now filmmakers are seeking the independent route because they have to; what is going to happen when that becomes precedent? “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” has already made roughly a million dollars at the box office; others can do that, too.

Filmmakers don’t choose storytelling because it’s a sound financial investment. They do it to tell their stories and keep the power bill paid. When it becomes easier to cut a new path through the marketplace instead of fording through the studio system, they will do that.