Professional scriptwriters do not write for free and are commonly represented by a talent agency.Ī talent agency or booking agent finds jobs for screenwriters. Most, if not all screenwriters are contracted freelance writers and may begin their careers writing on speculation, which means they might be paid little or not at all, or if the script is “picked up for production” they may be paid very well. Exclusive or pitched assignments are stories which are thought up and written by the screenwriter. Some stories are fiction and others are nonfiction based on a person’s life story or an event, which is then adapted by the screenwriter. Screenwriters turn those ideas into scripts with the intention of having them produced, made into a video game or a comic (including manga and graphic novels). Every screenplay begins with a story idea. The field has a clearly defined set of rules, methods, and parameters for achieving success, both professionally and artistically. You can read about this, and lots of other exciting stories in my new book THE RISE OF THE MEDIAVERSE.Screenwriting is a distinct art field that requires talent, practice, and training, plus an enormous level of commitment. But I did get a great education both in how to write a screenplay and also in the ways of the movie world. So the script for Prime Directive sits on my shelf along with my several novels that also no one wants to publish. The new head of SONY Tristar had his own ideas. So Prime Directive was orphaned, as they say in Hollywood. “You better take a look at the NY Post – page 6,” she said. I went home to you know who and said, “We’re going to make a movie!”Ī few days later, she called me at the office. “I’m gonna green light Prime Directive,” he said. In any event, Sagansky agreed to work with me on the screenplay, and over the course of the next year, we went back and forth, meeting in NY and LA several times to revise, rewrite and refine the script.įinally, I sent off what must have been the 100th revision. This is what in yiddish we call chutzpah… or stupidity. “Have you ever written a screenplay before?” Sagansky asked me. “Let’s hire a writer.”Īt this point, I should have said, “great idea.” But instead, I said, “I can write the screenplay.” I won’t go into details, but… well, it rocked. There was a hero, a love interest, and the climax of the story at Dealy Plaza on November 22, 1963, when JFK is assassinated. The organization then inserts people into a specific time and makes small changes that improve the human condition – stop wars, prevent plagues, stuff like that. It was called Prime Directive, and it was about an organization of time travelers in the future who go back throughout time and recruit people to join them. A paragraph became a page which became 5 pages and so. This started a dialogue with Sagansky that went on for weeks. Quite frankly, I never expected much would come out of it, but I wanted to be responsive to his kind offer… and I wanted to get you-know-who off my back. Each idea was little more than a paragraph. The next day, I fired off three ideas for movies to Jeff Sagansky. “The head of a Hollywood studio calls you up and asks if you have any ideas for movies? Do you think that happens every day? Make something up!” That evening, I told my then (and now mercifully ex) wife about the call. “We don’t do non-fiction, but if you ever have an idea for fiction, call me.” “I just met with Idei,” Sagansky told me. He was, at that time, running SONY Tristar, SONY’s movie studio. Idei, who was then Chairman and CEO of SONY, as well as a string of lectures around the country.Ī few weeks after I got back, I got a call from a guy named Jeff Sagansky. SONY was so interested in the project that they flew me to Japan for a series of meetings with Mr. Today, we pretty much only use iPhones, but Hi-8 were the smallest cameras I could find. Instead of dragging around what was then giant professional TV news cameras – betacams, the VJs worked with small, hand held Hi-8 video cameras. It was, at that time, a very radical idea, but much credit to Paul Sagan, who was running NY1, who went with the concept all in. Instead of using conventional crews, the whole 24-hour local news channel would instead use VJs, (or MMJs as they are now called) – reporters who shot, scripted, edited and produced all their own stories, on their own – no camera crews, no editors and no field producers. In 1990, I was working on my first TV station in the United States, Time/Warner’s NY1. The story of my first almost motion picture with a major studio:
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