Tue, 2020-Sep-22 01:34 (BST)
I've tried a number of subscription services, most recently Screenwriting Staffing, and I'm wondering if any of you have had success with getting paying work by either paying a membership fee or subscribing to a service. Granted, most of the work is low-paying, adaptations, polishes and treatments but it's still getting paid to write -- Please share some sources where you've had any success.
I sold a script from Inktip - it was a fair amount based on a percentage on the budget, and I sold another here on Script Revolution, also for a % of the budget. I haven't had luck with Screenwriting Staffing, BUT they have some good leads and I've had a few script requests. I was on Inktip for about 5 years before I made a sale.
I'm a big time speculator. I'm happy to dig ditches with people I trust to deliver. I'll write on spec until funding is secured and I'll offset upfront payment for participation. Basically, I approach things more like a producer than a writer for hire and leverage my position to learn more and have greater creative control. I live a very lean lifestyle which means I can survive on less than minimum wage and effectively take on more risk.
What I'm always looking for are routinely successful producers who need more/better material or investors looking for reliable production teams.
I feel we're shifting from a gig-economy to an entrepreneurial economy. Very few people can afford to pay screenwriters even so much as an option never mind a fair fee for an assignment. Everything has become contingent on getting funding, an MG, or sales which leaves this chicken and egg situation - you need a script to get the money but you need the money to get the script.
Sure it gets better the higher up the industry you go but those up there have writers they want to work with already. With the spec effectively being dead, it's almost impossible to leap frog into a sustainable career and it's naive to believe an agent/manager can make it happen for you.
My advice is to get on IMDb and LinkedIn and start breaking the industry down while building up contacts. Get on the radar of people who regularly find finance and secure distribution deals. You have to do all the leg work yourself now to remain competitive. You have to become a writer-producer-agent-manager in your own right.
CJ and I are on the same page here. Most producers are out doing what they can to get the capitol together to get a film made. Why torpedo the project with your up front cost if you can secure a good deal on the success of the film. It's a way of saying you believe in the project as much as they believe in your script.
I won't take a dime up front if they agree to producer points for me. I don't want useless back end points after everyone else has been paid. I think if you are putting your script up for collateral against a producers passion for an excellent final project, then you should both win when the final product pops and gets distribution or a sale.
Unfortunately, so many writers are so desperate to simply get their work made and on the big screen, they miss the opportunity and get screwed over. then, (if - when) the project goes large, they are left with a credit... and nothing more.
Shawn.......><
I think a lot of writers are kept in the dark over how things are in the indie world and how the numbers work. Everything pushed by the sites selling services is Hollywood, Hollywood, Hollyood and WGA, WGA, WGA. Long-term projects greenlit off the back of distribution deals. Part of the issue is that the WGA is not supportive of indie film due to their minimums in relation to budget. SAG/AFRA for example, with their low-budget and ultra-low-budget tiers are far better at acknowledging that many films are made for under a million and half a million. The result of this is 99.9% of writers being left on their own when it comes to any idea of their worth.
More screenwriters need to know that the gap between typical indie film productions and studio productions is a chasm and that's because we now live in a world where studio movies take the lion's share of everything.
Many indie film producers know that making anything over a $1m is really dangerous territory because it can be so hard to make that back even globally via limited theatrical releases, some physical, and lots of streaming. You need to try and get every cent on screen and it disappears fast. It's far safer to stay in the sub $500k zone but then paying a writer $75K for a script just isn't possible, especially if you're shooting somewhere expensive like LA. So you end with productions who are offering $10k to writers and those are the generous ones.
That appears to be a bad deal on the surface but people miss the bigger picture. A competent writer can easily churn out a better than average indie level script in four weeks. That's $10k for a month's work and for a production (assuming the producers are established) where funding, production, and release should happen relatively fast. This is where non-WGA writers are making a killing. They are churning out a script every other month for TV or straight to DVD movies while WGA writers are lucky to get a project every few years and can't work outside the studio system without going FICORE and being seen as a pariah. I know of WGA writers who've written for the likes of Bruce Willis in this position and not because of Covid either.
One you go into ultra-low budget, I can't see any setup that can work without the writer becoming an owner and, even then, a substantial owner. Plus, this is only really worth doing on a project with clear commercial prospects. Relying on having a "festival darling" is completely deluded (yet all too common).
Guilds such as the WGA are letting 99.9% of screenwriters down because they are, in reality, an elitist clique with little interest in unionizing the average working writer, and why should they when they stand to make so little in fees and would have to take on so much more work?
What's needed is better guidance and a more realistic shared outlook by writers trying to break-in and build careers.
@ Jerry Robbins Way to go cowboy! I was on Inktips for several years and got nada from it. Guess it's all in the timing and having the right stuff! Kudos!
Rick.
wondering if any of you have had success with getting paying work by either paying a membership fee or subscribing to a service. I'd be skeptical to pay some one to pay me. I don't think the saying: It takes money to make money. Quite works here.
Best of luck bud.
Worth noting that Jerry has also recently optioned another feature via Script Revolution. Pay attention to what he says and follow what he does.
Also, start get used to the idea of having to speculate to accumulate when it comes to getting noticed as a writer. Just know the difference between investing and gambling. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow and Script Revolution has to be switched off, there's very few free alternatives.
After finishing my first feature-script ($25-$50m budget estimated) I posted it on InkTip. Wonder why that didn't sell? LOL
LOL! Clearly should have been a $100m budget.
CJ - Fo Sho! I'm gonna need to update my in-script writer notes to include George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence and my brother as Thug #2, Thug #3 and Thug #1! jk