Showing posts with label contracts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contracts. Show all posts
If you missed the WGC Contracts Panel we did at McGill last month, you now have audio and video options. We have the original recording with the Powerpoint I used, and we have an edited, cleaned-up audio recording. (Anyone who wants to edit the video to match the improved audio is welcome!)
In February I moderated a WGC panel discussion on What Do I Want In My Contract? at McGill. It covered contract terms that aren't in the WGC Independent Production Agreement (the equivalent of the WGA's Minimum Basic Agreement).
The streaming audio is now available. We should be posting a downloadable MP3 pretty soon.
The IPA minimums describe two team writers sharing one script fee. Why is that? When a team writer goes to a gas station or store, does he or she fill half a tank of gas? [Snip.]Nobody has the right to earn a living writing. Earning a living by writing is an enormous privilege that you earn through getting results.
What about teams with multiple writers?
Producers are getting the benefits of two writers for the price of one. Why not pay each writer a full script fee?
With a team, a producer gets the work of two writers simultaneously, with faster delivery of a script, story editing, etc.
Bottom line, each writer whether single or in a team should have the right to earn a reasonable fee for a decent living, right?
So, working in a writing team is the writer's choice. It's not a right. If you can make it work for you, the results can be excellent, but it's not the producer's or the Guild's responsibility to make sure you get paid as much as you would if you were writing on your own. You have to earn it by being better in a writing team than you are on your own.
Writing teams aren't necessarily faster than single writers. They can be. They can also be much, much slower. I worked with another writer who questioned every creative decision. We had to analyze and discuss everything, endlessly. Hopefully the result was better scripts. But they weren't faster. They were slower.
On the other hand, I would guess that Lisa and I write about three times as fast as we would write on our own, because we have the other partner to break creative logjams. I couldn't put a number on how much better the scripts are, but oh, let's suppose that Alex & Lisa are two to three times better than Alex or Lisa. So we get many more jobs than she and I would get on our own. On a series, we could take on more episodes. We also have more flexibility. If one of us is staffing a show, or shooting, the other can take point on a screenplay that must be delivered by a certain deadline.
Typically comedy writers often work in writing teams (or "writhing teams" as they're almost never known) because writing teams are much, much better at generating jokes and evaluating them.
If your writing team really is better, you will get paid, overall, more. But it's not the individual producer's responsibility to pay you more. He's only getting one script. Why should he care how many of you there are? He's only getting one script to shoot.
Realistically, if producers had to pay a writing team $100,000 to write a script instead of $50,000, they would just never, ever hire a writing team (except if the writing team was as good as a 100% overscale writer).
I'm not really sure why writing teams get only one story editing salary, but that's the way it's always been.
As for multiple writer teams -- I've never heard of those. Two's a writing team. Three's a mess.
I'm moderating a panel discussion on contracts for features and TV in a month. If you've got questions, shoot'em to me, k?
When you sign a writing or option contract, you're asked to warrant (guarantee) that all your work is original. There is often a clause that says you are responsible for any "breach or alleged breach" of your warranty.
You need to get that "alleged breach" struck from the contract. You can't be responsible every time some idiot thinks you stole his idea. For example, some idiot is suing James Cameron because he thinks Cameron stole his story and made AVATAR:
This is particularly stupid, as everybody knows that Avatar is heavily inspired by FERN GULLY.Moore contends that he first came up with ideas that surfaced in “Avatar” in a pair of his own screenplays, “Aquatica” and “Descendants: The Pollination,” including “bioluminescent flora/plant life, unbreathable atmospheres, matriarch support of hero vs. heroine, spiritual connections to environment and reincarnation, appearance of mist in scene, sunlight to moonlight, crackling from gargantuan foliage, blue skin/green skin and battle scene on limbs/branches,” according to the gossip web site.
You should be responsible if you actually breach the contract. But you can't be on the hook if somebody takes it into their head that your movie is based on their life, or that they invented Ewoks, or whatever. Even nuisance suits are expensive to get dismissed. Movies have that kind of money. You don't.
I'm moderating a panel for the WGC in February at McGill on "What Do I Want In My Contract?"
What should you ask for when you option a feature film or a TV series? The Writers Guild’s basic contract (the Independent Producer Agreement) covers many basic terms, but others aren’t codified, including lots of ways veteran writers get paid on the back end, your right to write new material, and the crucial “Created by” credit in TV. Plus, what’s all this fine print?
We’ve invited an agent who reps writers to talk about what writers can and should ask for; a producer’s lawyer to talk about what’s easy for producers to give and what’s hard; and a representative of the Writers Guild of Canada to talk about what contract terms end up in disputes. The panel will be moderated by Alex Epstein, who’s worked both sides of the table. Audience members will be able to ask questions.
This event is aimed at professional, emerging and aspiring screenwriters, but filmmakers of all kinds may find it illuminating.
Check out the Facebook Event page.
Also, if you have questions you want me to bring up at the panel, please email me.
Q. On page 239 you mentioned that writers usually get 5% of the net profits, which is sometimes called “points”, and that points are practically never worth anything, which is why they’re sometimes dubbed monkey points. Can you tell me what you mean by points not being worth anything? Are you saying that most movies don’t make profit at the box office and therefore there’s not extra money to pay the writer this bonus? That most movies made break even at best?If you get a Net Profits definition in your contract, it is generally formulated so that you will never see a cent. Basically the studio takes a big overhead percentage, and then a big distribution fee, out of the film's revenues, and then set the remaining money against the film's cost, plus the marketing cost. (In other words, thanks to the distribution fee, they get paid twice for marketing the picture.) Many movies that obviously made money for the studio have never gone into net profit.
Q. Then what can I do?Get something better than a Net Profits definition. We generally ask for an Adjusted Gross, which means the producer recoups the cost of the movie, and then we're entitled to start seeing money.
It's all about what contract language you negotiate, which is a function of how much clout you have (how much they want you), and how clever your agent or lawyer is.
WGC members also get a "distribution royalty" as part of the IPA. I have no idea what it is, but it can add up to a very nice chunk of change if your movie gets some decent play.
