This is a common question here. I thought I’d share my day.
New location. We are moving from Boston to Newark. New set, means new choreography in the script and what was done one way needs rewriting.
New character. The producer wants to work with an actor. I’ve been asked to write a scene that has that person in it.
New time. It was meant to happen during the day all internal for budget. It is now night with a large part happening outside the primary location.
I love me a challenge. So a rewrite is kicked off. 48 hours is the turn around in the location change and time difference. New scene a week. I know where I can put it. But there will be collateral damage to other scenes later in the story.
There will be a few more weeks of this. We shoot in October. I am getting videos and pics of the locations in a regular basis. So little should change in the day.
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I got involved with pretty much everything with the last completed feature from choosing locations to going through reels/auditions to picking a speedboat to buy and then there was all the stuff on the shoot from shopping for craft services, to jump starting said speedboat, to going on shake downs with the stunt performers, and hauling ass down the 405 chasing a grip truck at 2am behind the wheel of an old Suburban with a mostly missing roof and an alternator that liked to catch fire. And thats like, 1/100th of it all.
For the latest projects, as a co-producer, I've been getting much more involved in budgeting and scheduling until lockdown hit.
If you've proven to be a good decision maker and a hard worker who's loyal and fun to work with, you'll get included in more and more.
That's the beauty of low budget indie stuff if you're willing to get your hands dirty and go out of your comfort zone. Some of the most rewarding adventures and team building experiences of my life.
Makes me very happy to see Craig D Griffiths going through a similar experience. Well deserved.
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When I sell a script; It's theirs to do with whatever they want. Then too, I've been on set during the shoot - tidying up the script as we go. I know a couple of Directors who do not allow the writer on set. There is no specific answer to your question.
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Thanks CJ. I know where my influence stops and I work like a madman within those borders.
Like you say if the team sees you have their back, you are fun to work with and you work hard. You are invited to be more involved.
The reason I posted this is because I have seen posts asking “as the writer can I stop them from changing my movie?”. This is a team effort.
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A writer can’t stop anything. It is true it is a team effort, but the producer is the one who decides who is going to be on the team.
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People. I weeded my front garden at 8:30pm last night to avoid people.
Big business and small business are vastly different. I made all my money in Government and real estate.
But Apple, Amazon and Cisco started as home businesses ran by smart people. The only difference between success and failure, smart people.
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I really enjoy this thread, most here agree that particularly with Indie, its a needs must situation. @CJ Congrats on your feature. Some real life insights above should be in your next script, EG jump starting boats, shake downs and chasing big trucks down 405 with own car on fire. @Craig So right smart will out all. I even read the owner of Virgin began making business calls from a public phone booth cos at time had no office yet. Did you cheat with your weeds and pour killer or pull em all out brute force? Heh heh. I'm currently avoiding people aswell and doing Pennine Way walk across England. @All Stay Safe!
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Debbie Croysdale would have done the poison. But my wife was toughing it out, I couldn’t take a short cut ..lol
There are so many myths and preconceptions. Everyone in the industry wants you to be great. The truth most of us aren’t. So that fact gets morphed into “it is so hard. It is a big horrible machine going to chew you up and spit you out... “ blah blah blah.
Perhaps it is because I have spent years in Government watching politics play out in real time that I see this as a walk in the park.
This is like every other business on earth. Present value to people and remove their pain. They will never let you out of their sight.
If they already have someone that does that, move on. Find someone you can help.
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Craig D Griffiths interesting post...I would be good to match US/UK (and Australia for that matter) views with Europe ones...here, especially in Balkans most of directors write their own screenplays so they are pretty much in control over their own scripts...another thing - the money comes from governments and public film funds so it's basically people's money you're spending, not Weinstein's you know what I mean...
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Kiril Maksimoski Like in Aus. We produce mostly writer/directors (George Miller for instance). We also rely on Gov cash for a lot of the production cost. But they tend to be a boring bunch of bastards funding the same type of film over and over.
I like directing, I have done a few shorts. But my strength is story. So writing is my focus as I is my strongest skill. But 100% writers down here don’t do as well. Hence I work with overseas producers.
Doug Nelson It seems we writers are treated worse than extras (no offence to anyone who's actually done both).
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As a script supervisor, the writers are sometimes never there, sometimes always there with maximum input, sometimes there with no say, or asked to do what you’re doing on a daily basis. It truly depends each project. For film. On tv it’s all about the writers and the directors don’t really deal with anything but the actors and visuals.
Brandon Lohstreter I recently heard Craig Mazin say that as well. In TV writers are king. In features it is up to the director.
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Debbie Croysdale, always good to hear from you. Yes, every day on the production of Break Even was an adventure and it was a great to share a lot of if on the Stage 32 blog and social media. That's before getting into the hijinks off set. It was hard work too though, constantly fraught with issues brought on by bad luck. Losing power in the motor yacht in the Pacific and thus having no stabilisers during a storm was interesting to say the least. We still shot scenes though LOL.
Craig D Griffiths, it's interesting about your background. Mine's in business development (Public and private sector, mostly entirely B2B) and I feel that's been a huge advantage. I'm most comfortable in the boardroom. Being able to understand filmmaking (and the break in industry) as a business and how screenwriting fits into that puzzle really changed everything for me.
Brandon Lohstreter and Craig D Griffiths, absolutely true about writers rarely being on set and often there to be seen and not heard when they are. Many of us are too precious and problematic, and that's before we even get into those desperately trying to hawk their scripts to known talent during lunch. My experience was highly unusual and that's due to the nature and size of the production. It also put a lot of responsibility and decision making onto me that some writers would find terrifying. Regarding the comments TV and Film, it's the showrunners who are held aloft, not the writers in general.
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Craig, same here...I've "quit" directing after two years of participation in a multi-national collab project...the hustle was simply too much...however I still pitch here, domestically as well as US market is sill kinda far-fetched for me not being native speaker....