Unit 24, Assignment 1 Podcast Script

Ammendments highlighted in red.

1. HOW DO YOU BECOME A WRITER & WHATS IT LIKE TO WORK AS ONE?

You can become a writer by firstly creating something, you need a group of people you can trust to give you feedback on your work before you put it out there. If you get a green light off everyone or you believe in your work that much, send it to places like the BBC Newsroom or other studios and production companies that welcome scripts off writers.

Chuck Wendig who owns an all about writing and being a novelist blog, terrible minds, describes how there are misconceptions about what the job entails. "You go up into your room, you hide yourself away for hours everyday hunkering over your computer until your spine crackles and your fingers buckle from carpal tunnel" or that it's not a "real job"? He begs to differ by saying although the process can be slow and gruelling it is a real job that is accomplishing when you get your end result.

2. WHAT IS A STAFF WRITER?

Staff writer is a position that you could say is at the bottom of the ladder. They provide a standard content and congregate with a group of other writers to develop characters, a narrative and so on, to get themselves more credit this is an opportunity to input their ideas into a project as ideas are being thrown back and forth. Being one is

Staff writers are under instruction from executive producers so are on their beck and call. Examples of them are Bronwyn Barnes, Nick Charles and Anthony Cabrera who all reside in New York City, the job role can receive whacky requests like "make this 10% funnier" and deliver this pitch to my dog while i'm gone... It sounds better than brewing up but still has it's strains.

3. WHAT IS THE COMMISSIONING PROCESS, HOW DO YOU GET AN IDEA 'COMMISSIONED'?

The commissioning process is all about getting your idea pitched, and picked up by a TV channel. If ideas are liked by the genre, you will be contacted by the company and if needed they will ask you yo develop your idea further and then when finalised taken to the Channel Controller to get a final green light.

The way a show is commissioned depends on the channel, all proposals are confidential. 
When you have an idea that you want commissioning, on a studios website there's somewhere you can submit work, or there'll be an email for you to send your work. In the written proposal you need to include the premise, why it's different, the hook and why it should be made and more so you can prove to the producer why they should commision your script. 

Agents, the script writer, script editor and development executive all work hard to get the script commissioned.

On the BBC and ITV websites there will be a page specifically for submitting work in the hope of being commissioned. The BBC created "BBC Pitch" where users log in and submit/manage proposals. ITV on the other hand provide an email for where you should send your idea to.  

BBC will ask you to subject proposals and ideas by genre, get back to you will a decision within 2 weeks, update you monthly if you're successful, treat you as a partner and if it does get picked up will be managed by the genre commissioning editor. 

ITV accept proposals via email and contact you within 6 weeks, only production companies can submit. They look to commission ideas that will be ideal for Saturday night prime time or a comedy that will slot in at the 8pm or 9pm weekday slot. If ITV commission an idea all production work will be collected by a company called Deluxe and developed by ITV Media Logistics. 

4. WHY DO YOU NEED AN AGENT AND WHAT ARE THE NAMES OF SOME SCRIPTWRITER AGENTS?

Agents are important for screenwriters as they're educated within the industry and can advise them when it comes to signing contracts as there can be loopholes that aren't obvious. Examples of some screenwriter agents based in the UK are Diversity Management, Gunn Media, Playmaker and United Authors LTD.

5. HOW DOES A SCRIPT GET CHOSEN?

When a producer likes someone’s script, they will contact the writer and will form an option agreement which is a contract which gives a producer or studio the rights to the film for a period of time whilst they’re making it, it also includes how much the writer will be paid for letting them use their idea.

6. HOW DOES A SCRIPT WRITER GET PAID?

A scriptwriter is on a contract so get paid accordingly, it could be for working on a TV series or just one episode. There is WGA’s minimum pay for a script writer hired for 6 weeks which is $3,817. When hired for longer than 6 weeks, the rate of pay decreases but it can never go below the WGA minimum.

7. WHAT LEGAL ISSUES DO YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT AS A WRITER? (PLAGIARISM/LIBEL?)

Plagarism is when you take someone else’s work and play it off as your own and libel is when someone publishes an article or pictures about a writer that can damage their reputation. Both of these are big issues for writers because if you’ve worked for ages on a piece of work and someone else takes it and gets credit, there’s nothing you can do unless you get it copywrited as soon as you’ve finished. Also because if something bad is said about a writer and a producer reads it, it might make them not want to work with them so therefore they won’t get hired by anyone.

8. WHAT EXAMPLES ARE THERE OF LEGAL ACTION INVOLVING SCRIPTWRITERS OF TV AND FILM?

The daily mail reported two women who filed a lawsuit in California against the creators of the Fox show “New Girl”. They claimed that it was a rip off of their pilot show, “Square One” which they created years before. They claimed Fox offered them a settlement offer of $10,000 which they rejected, in their 92 page complaint, the two women said that the differences are transparent and cannot be treated as original expression.

9.WHAT DO YOU THINK ARE SOME OF THE HIGH POINTS AND LOW POINTS OF WORKING AS A WRITER FOR TV OR FILM?

I think the low points of working as a writer are having your work potentially stolen, in some cases you can’t prove whether or not it’s yours/you wrote it first even if you did and to see someone else get credit for your work would be a low point. Along with this would be being a staff writer, in this industry you have to work your way up but the explanation of this job and what it entails just sounds like the stuff no one else wants to do. Another con is the amount of time and effort you have to put itn, what you put in is what you get out and sometimes writers an get writers block where they can't think of anything creative which would be a difficult place to be because you want to make something really good but nothing's coming to you. Also when you work on a team of people or editors are given the opportunity to make tweaks to your work, you may not recognise it as your own so it isn't fully all your own work.

On the reverse to this some of the high points would be getting your work recognised and getting it commissioned. Pieces of work can take months to create and perfect and it would be a really proud moment seeing it get picked up and you getting paid. Another pro would be seeing your work being bought and all the time and effort you put in paying off. This can benefit your career massively as when one person sees your work, word can get out, more people could potentially want to work with you, getting you a good reputation. You could get hired by multiple people and you can start to earn more. Also when you go through this process, you will gain a lot of experience and new contacts within the industry.

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