Is this arrangement common in screenwriting?

December 19, 2006 8:46 PM

Can a barebones film concept be shopped to screenwriters?

How common is it for one individual to have all the rough ideas and outlines for films and collaborate with a writer who "fleshes" these ideas out? Is this an arrangement even found in the industry and do newbies with concepts (like a first time director) ever end up working with established screenwriters who do this or do these "teams" form before "breaking in"?

posted by swiffa to media & arts (14 comments total)

Usually you would have a finished script with the good ideas/outline and some crummy "fleshing out", if you aren't a very good writer. You sell this script on the basis of the ideas, and then the studio has pros do rewrites, usually without your input.
posted by smackfu at 8:51 PM on December 19, 2006

The arrangement is extremely common in the industry, with fledgling screenwriters so desperate for work that they'll do it for little money (or alleged back-end money).

It's also extremely common, with established screenwriters and established producers and development executives who come up with story ideas.

What doesn't happen at all, and what I think you're asking about, is for someone outside the industry with a vague idea to collaborate with an established screenwriter. The reason being that the screenwriter has no motivation to do it.

Having been the screenwriter in the first scenario, I can tell you that it's extremely frustrating for the writer. The process of 'fleshing out' someone else's half-baked idea is often much more difficult than creating your own from scratch.

Of course, if you have millions of dollars to invest, anything is possible.
posted by bingo at 8:53 PM on December 19, 2006

And your ideas are not protected under copyright law, only the tangible expression of those ideas. So there's little to stop someone from listening to your ideas for screenplay, writing the screenplay, and turning it into a film. (This happens)
posted by Brian James at 9:10 PM on December 19, 2006

Let me break this down into English, perhaps?

"I have an idea for a movie, but I can't write. How can I make some money?"

Basically, you have a pitch. A pitch is an idea packaged for presentation. A pitch is what established screenwriters or producers often use to get work. It's just like the opening of The Player -- sitting in an office with an executive, possibly with a partner to riff off of, saying things like, "So there's this guy. Rugged, handsome, lonely. He works in the mountains ..."

The hitch with the pitch approach is that ideas are so cheap -- literally given away as bingo said -- that there's no incentive for an executive to invite you in, because 99% of the time your pitch will not lead to a movie, and if you had pitched it -- and a movie were made -- well, hel-lo expropriation lawsuit!

So only producers and writers with strong reputations and track records get in there, partly because they're held in check from lawsuits by whatever else they've got going on in the industry. They don't want to be shunned as lawsuit-friendly. Most of the lawsuits come from outsiders (like Art Buchwald -- look it up).

Do screenwriters ever team up with idea guys? I suppose every team is different, but I wouldn't expect a team where the workload is unequal. If things don't work out, they've put a lot of sweat equity into something, while you ... No, usually teams will consist of someone who's good at dialog and somebody good at action, or that sort of thing.

Screenwriters are not looking for this sort of work, because they would much rather look for the sort of work that can get them paid. If they're at all capable of writing, they can come up with the ideas themselves, you know. Most good scriptwriting comes down to story mechanics, not ideas.

If you want to get into the field, I think about the only way to really do it, short of sleeping with someone, is to write a decent screenplay that gets optioned. The thing is, that's enough to get you past the first gatekeeping apparatus, even if it never gets made. There are so many first screenplays floating around Hollywood it's ridiculous. If somebody's second or third or fourth is a hit, suddenly somebody else is sitting on a goldmine. (That's what the option is for, dummy.)
posted by dhartung at 9:36 PM on December 19, 2006

The Pitch (part 1 of 6) -- a doco about their experience from Kenny Hotz and Spencer Rice of Kenny and Spenny fame (in Canada at least) -- about pitching their script may possibly be relevant, but will certainly be amusing if nothing else.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:31 PM on December 19, 2006

people do sell "pitches" to studios/production companies, but usually it helps to be someone like Steve Bing, who already had experience being rich and impregnating Liz Hurley.

From an artistic point of view, not to be harsh, but someone else's "ideas" are utterly worthless to a writer. Almost every writer has enough ideas of his own that he will never live long enough to write them all. Someone else's idea is of no value.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:55 PM on December 19, 2006

there is such a thing as "story" credit, you'll see it on IMDB a lot.

But a story is an entirely different thing than an "idea." It's a lot of hard writing work, not just "I think it would be a cool movie if ____________!"
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:57 PM on December 19, 2006

This might be a little more than you are asking for, but...

What you're talking about is a pitch or a treatment.

For example, Larry David had, what he thought, was a "really great"TM idea for a movie. He called a few development executives at some studios, went around town, pitched the idea, and sold it. The studio then "developed" the idea into a movie. That movie became "Envy."

This story makes it all sound like a pretty easy process, right? Well, of course, it's the exact opposite. To get anyone who matters to sit down with you and read a treatment, some "rough ideas", "outlines" is virtually impossible. To be able to do this you have to be a Larry David.

In fact, it is actually much easier to get people who matter to read an entire screenplay. A 120-page screenplay is the standardized format story analysts, studio readers, agents, assistants, producers, development executives, etc. use to formally "pass" or "consider" a project.

Of course, when I say that it is much easier with a screenplay, that doesn't mean it's easy, that just means you are at least speaking their language. Even with a screenplay, no one will talk to you without an agent. And of course, no agency or agent accepts blind submissions.
posted by JPowers at 10:59 PM on December 19, 2006

a pitch is oral, a treatment is written. i believe (not 100% sure) that you can write a treatment and register it with the writer's guild even if you aren't a member. then you absolutely need an agent to shop it.
posted by bruce at 11:32 PM on December 19, 2006

I'm a screenwriter and I get this kind of thing all the time -- people I run into tell me "I have this idea for a movie".

Unfortunately, most of these ideas turn out to be anything but. What they usually actually turn out to be are either (1) hackneyed ideas that have been done about a thousand times ("Die Hard, in a building!") or (2) very personal ideas that might turn into an interesting movie but only if they were written with heartbreaking insight by the person who is pitching them ("the break-up of my grandfather's third marriage in Estonia").

Anyway the lesson is, if you have an idea for a movie and have no background as a producer or writer, you are going to have to write it yourself to get anywhere.

What DOES happen reasonably often is that you run into someone who is vaguely aware that what they do for a living is kind of interesting but has no idea how it could be turned into a movie. For example (from my own experience), forensic accountants, diamond miners, prison guards, and so on. These people often have a fund of interesting stories but no real idea how they could be turned into narrative form, and are very fertile ground for writers. It can be possible to get a writer interested in speccing a treatment or screenplay from a germ like this.
posted by unSane at 1:30 AM on December 20, 2006

Or you could always try and convince an established producer that you have a great pitch. One even has a site set up for this: Moviepitch.com.

According to that site, at least one pitch that someone has submitted he actually used and turned into a project.
posted by bove at 7:03 AM on December 20, 2006

The 2006 Guide to Literary Agents (which includes Script Agents) has an excellent guide to creating a synopsis. Read some book cover backs to get a feel for what a good synopsis is. A good synopsis is the key!

Here's a site that shows you what scripts sold and the synopsis and logline that was used to sell them. They have a sample marketing kit as well.
posted by wsg at 10:01 AM on December 20, 2006

What you're describing sounds similar to the (somewhat atypical) working relationship between Krzysztof Kieslowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz who are responsible for some of the greatest films ever made.

Though they both received writing credits, Piesiewicz came up with the broad concepts (lets make a ten hour film that's an hour for each of the ten commandments) and Kieslowski wrote the screenplays and directed.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:10 AM on December 20, 2006

A "story by" credit *may* indicate that one dude came up with a great idea and someone else was hired to write it, yes. Or it could mean that the studio hired nine different people to rewrite the original script and it went to WGA arbitration.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 3:23 PM on December 20, 2006