So,some time ago, I said I'd talk about my experiences as a screenwriter, as I have a very long history, and some options to show for it. Here's m'story...
A friend of mine was an actress, and had been in many sitcoms (she was Sharon in Please Sir and The Fenn Street Gang - Carole Hawkins) and I'm sure those of a certain age would recognise her if they saw her.
In about 1995 I made a comment about some rubbish I'd been watching and said I could do better than that, and she challenged me to do just that. So I set to, armed with a copy of 'Writing for Televison in the 70s' written by Malcolm Hulke (A Doctor Who writer), which I'd been given by a friend some years before. I'd dabbled trying to write scripts, but never finished one, but I completed a 30 minute script for a sitcom, based around Carole. I showed it to her and she said she really liked it, and showed it to a BBC producer she'd worked a lot with. He wrote me a letter saying he'd quite liked it, and if that it needed work because it wasn't what television was looking for at the moment. It seems incredible to me that I thought this was an out-and-out rejection, and didn't do any more with it... Well, it was my first foray, and if I look at the letter now, I can see that he was actually wanting me to work on it, and get back to him. Oh, the naivety of inexperience. In the meantime, I'd written some articles that had been published in motorcyle magazines and health magazines, so after writing six episodes of said sitcom, I concentrated on articles and had some minor sucesses. Years passed.
So anyway, someone pointed out the Orange Prize for Screenwriting in 1999, and I entered a full-length script I'd written in about a month. Naturally, I didn't win it, but I got incredibly positive feedback, and then a letter in the post from Raindance. If you've had anything to do with screenwriting, you should have heard of them. They must have bought the list of enterees from Orange, because they were pitching a 'write the hot script' weekend, and it sounded good. So I went on it, and it was good. Elliot Grove had been running Raindance almost single-handedly back then, and he was an inspiration. Google him, if you haven't heard of him. I took a few more masterclasses, and then a whole evening course with Raindance, spread over ten weeks (I think... it might have been eight, and it was many years ago!)
I bought books on screenwriting, and joined the screenwriter's workshop in London. I'm not sure the original organisation is still running, but they had great lectures and small workshops, and it was a brilliant place to swap ideas, get feedback, and listen to industry professionals. In 2002, a friend let me down on a planned holiday, so I splurged out and took David Freeman's 'Beyond Structure' course in LA... I won the prize for the 'person-who's-travelled-the-furthest-to-get-here' - a shooting script of Jerry Maguire. And all the time I was writing my ideas, and turning them into feature length scripts.
The writer's workshop held a competition called 'Match'. You entered the first 30 pages of your script, and the ten judged good enough would then be selected to come and meet up with ten independent film producers. Mine was deemed one of the ten. Over two meetings we pitched to each other and tried to decide who we'd like to work with, and who we wouldn't. I teamed up with a young, ambitious producer, who had a degree in film studies, who'd already made a few advertisements, and short films and one had been nominated for a Bafta, missing out on winning very narrowly. Over the next two weeks we worked on a pitch to industry professionals, and I think the prize was development help and a small amount of cash. A much better script than mine won, but the producer really believed in my script and wanted to continue working on it. He had plans to make feature-length films, and seemed ambitious and knowledgable about the industry.
So we worked on the script, tossing ideas back and forth, and I continued to go on courses, trying to improve my writing. I took great courses with Arista Development, including one that was residential in Italy, working with an industry professional on a-one-to-one basis, and my script got better and better. A couple of small cracks appeared in the relationship with the producer; he'd wanted to option the script, offering a small amount of money up front, and a larger amount after 18 months, so we'd be tied together for three years, giving him exclusive rights to the script. When the larger amount was due, he didn't have it - he'd not been paid for work he'd done on on editing a film for someone else, and he was going through a tough time. So the option ran out. I pitched it to a couple of film companies, and had excellent feedback, but no offers.
Then the producer got in touch again, offering another option - same deal: small payment up front, larger payment in a year. He thought we needed a professional script developer, and it seemed a good idea. He was going to pay for it, and we met a few, and settled on one. She was a disaster, and we dispensed with her after one meeting. We met another who we clicked with, and she had great ideas how to get the script up to 'professional' standard and money became an issue again, so I paid for it. She was terrific, and her background in the industry was excellent. The script developer and I decided to meet separately from the producer: a) because I was paying for it, and b) because the producer's input was slowing the process down so much. He wasn't happy with this, but accepted it. After five or six meetings, the script was different, and a lot better, even the producer admitted it, so he began hawking it around, at the same time as trying to get stars 'attached' to it. This basically means that if the film gets the go-ahead, and finance, they'll appear in it. Naturally, going to a film company with some good stars attached can swing a deal.
By a coincidence, (through Friends Reunited!) I met up with a friend I hadn't seen for years, and he informed me a good friend of his was head of development for a film and TV company. He told said friend about my script and the upshot was that the producer was invited to go and pitch the script. The producer did exactly this and I waited to hear the outcome (you can see this isn't going to end well, can't you?). That evening, my friend phoned me and told me the producer had gone to the meeting and pitched his own script, and never mentioned the one we'd been working on for three years. I was the tiniest bit livid with this, and when I got hold of the producer, he said that "they wouldn't have been interested in my script as it hasn't got anyone attached to it", which was complete bo****ks. To try to make amends, the producer phoned the film company and tried to do a phone pitch, which failed. The option came up for renewal and guess what? He didn't have the money, so we went our separate ways, and not amicably, either.
For a while I pitched the script to two other film companies, through contacts I'd made, and one said that the script was excellent and deserved to be made into a movie, but there was just no money for film-making. The other company actually phoned me, which nearly gave me a heart attack, but he wanted to say how good he felt the script was and that he would have taken it, if they'd had the money, but their slate of films was full, and they couldn't take a chance on another at the moment. He said he hoped he'd live to regret the decision, because he felt it should be made. So far, he hasn't had cause.
I'd written other scripts and about this time an independent film company contacted me with an offer to option another script. I'd posted it on Inktip and they'd seen it, and liked it a lot. The contract was signed and I got the first option, but when the (you've guessed it!) second, bigger payment was due, they prevaricated and said "we will be paying you, we really believe in this script" but after a few of these emails I never heard from them again. And they have had a big hit with a couple of their films, so I'm assuming the personnel has changed, and my script dropped off their radar.
Then I got the idea for a fantasy trilogy... I keep thinking I'll go back to the scripts, but I'm engrossed in writing the novels at the moment.
I use Final Draft 6 for my screenwriting, and it's great.
Oh yeah, at one stage we went to the Lottery that funds films, and they gave us £112.50 towards development. The panel that decided to bestow this largesse was a whole other story...
ps: The sitcom scripts (6 episodes, thirty minutes long) were updated a year or so ago, and are 'sort-of' under consideration by a new Zealand TV company. ie the man is really interested, and periodically emails to say this... The last one was May 2011, so who knows???
