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The Screenwriter in Cyberspace
By Charles Deemer

Mr. Deemer is an award-winning playwright, a screenwriter, an editor and writer. He is the webmaster of The Screenwriters & Playwrights Home Page and author of the book Screenwright: the Craft of Screenwriting. For more information on Mr. Deemer and his work, please click here. This column is a guide to using the Internet to a writer's advantage in matters of craft and marketing.

Listen to Charles Deemer's RealAudio Screenwriting Tips

Column #19: About Producers

I've dealt with producers I've grown to admire and I've dealt with producers who were crooks.

Beginning screenwriters can be overly impressed by the moniker "producer." Just remember this: anyone can call him/herself a producer! In fact, you can become a producer, right now. Just give yourself a company name, like Peanut Butter Films, put an invitation for scripts out on the net, and before you know it your mail box will be filled with screenplays from unsuspecting writers who have no idea that your have no producing experience, no Hollywood connections, no money, zilch.

So what's a beginning screenwriter to do?

Doing your homework
Before you query a producer, check his/her credentials. The Hollywood Creative Directory is the bible for this sort of thing, listing some of the credits that a prodco has. A lack of credits, of course, doesn't necessarily mean the producer is a flake - s/he may just be new on the block, and everyone starts out new. So you may want to phone and chat and get an impression about the producer's drive and ambition.

The best experience I've had with a producer, in fact, has been with a first timer.

PP, as I'll call her, bought the film rights to a stage play of mine about seven years ago. Working together, we adapted what was a 3-character, 1-location play into a movie set all around a small western town. Among the characters we added were competing love interests for the female protagonist.

PP has a superb sense of film story, and my experience working with her to convert the play WAITRESSES into the screenplay RUBY'S TUNE was the best "on the job training" I've ever received. We ended up with a script we both felt proud of, and PP raced off to raise money for her budget.

This is where her "on the job training" began. Despite several close calls along the way - Sally Field took an interest in the script, and Jennifer O'Neill wanted to play the lead - PP couldn't raise the budget, not in one, two or three years of trying (renewing the option each time). Finally, she quit.

A few months ago, PP renewed the script once again. Full of fresh energy and new ideas for finding her budget, she again is racing off full of enthusiasm and belief - in fact, she has more "belief" in this project than I do. After all, I've written a dozen scripts since the first option, optioning four of them, and I no longer think of RUBY'S TUNE as my best work. But PP is more committed to the project than ever before: she totally believes in this story.

And that, I submit, is the kind of indie producer you want to find (though hopefully one with more connections into the central power structure of the film industry).

Collaboration: Bend Over!
David Mamet has said that collaboration in Hollywood is easy to define: "Bend over!"

Another experience with a producer gave me this experience first-hand.

Let me call this producer BS. Not his initials but describes him to a tee. Actually it was PP who recommended me when BS came looking for a writer to do a script for a project to which he had the rights. Based on a true story stuff.

From the beginning, BS and I didn't hit it off personally. He reminded me of a car salesman, a shady one at that; he was full of himself and a great name-dropper. Before I had written a word, BS had it figured out that Glenn Close was going to play our lead, and she already was waiting for the script! Right, I think now. At the time, however, I was less experienced and my eyes widened at the news.

To make a long story short, we signed a step contract and I got an advance and started writing. First, I had research to do, much of which BS provided, sharing things from the historic he already had uncovered. My first writing assignment was to do a short treatment.

I don't like to write treatments; in fact, the only ones I've ever written I've been paid to do.

But I wrote it, and BS loved it. That's what he said. I swear to the gods he did.

So I started the script with some enthusiasm since we seemed to be on the same wave length. I even put up better with BS's sexist and racist jokes.

The first draft of the script was also loved. I collected another installment, jotted the few notes for changes that BS presented, and went off to rewrite.

Then something happened. I'm not sure of the details but the first visible clue was that BS now had a partner, a woman. She hated the treatment and she hated the script. I wasn't told this, however, until I appeared for the meeting on the first rewrite.

Remember that BS loved the treatment and first draft - but now this new woman was calling the shots, and she hated everything about everything, most of all about me and about my writing.

I defended the story in the sense that I thought BS shared my approach, and in the meeting BS did make some effort to defend this against the woman, and in fact some compromises were reached for another rewrite. We'd meet in a week. By the way, BS "forgot" to write my check for the rewrite but he'd have it next week, plus something for the new rewrite.

I went to the meeting - and was stood up. I called BS and his phone had been disconnected. There was no trace of him or of the woman in town any more.

The first thing I did was register the previous draft of the script and the current one both. But there was no point, apparently. BS and the woman have disappeared, I've found no trace of them anywhere, nor found any storyline close to the historically-based one we were developing.

Well, the first couple of checks cleared. File this one away in the "it could be worse" folder.

Conclusion
I have many writer friends with horror stories of their own. There are many sharks in the producer waters. Be careful.

At the same time, the experience with PP, a first-time producer, is something I'll treasure forever. Not only did I learn much from her, her checks were always right on time.

I recently turned down an offer to buy a script from an indie producer because talking to him on the phone left a funny feeling in my gut. I have to trust those instincts. It was a recent script, one that hadn't been sufficiently shopped yet; maybe with an older script, I would have taken the money and run. But I didn't close the deal, and I feel very good about not doing so.

In the school of hard knocks, you'll have your own experiences with producers. Some will be good, and some will be bad. Along the way, you'll clarify your goals and your dreams. You'll know when to go for it and take a risk and when to turn around and run like hell.

Thanks to PP, I have profound respect for the producer's difficult job. Thanks to BS, I have my guard up whenever I begin a relationship with a new producer. I'd love to find another PP. I don't plan to have anything to do with the BS's of the world.

--Charles Deemer



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Originally appeared at the Hollywood Network.