Screenwriting in a Project-Based Industry: KNOW YOUR VALUE

 

What is a Project Based Industry

Screenwriters work in a project-based industry.  What is a project-based industry?  It's an industry where you get paid to work on a project, and the project is over once the work is done.  This is why unions (WGA-E & WGA-W) were created to help screenwriters en masse.  

As screenwriters, we work from one movie, series, or commercial to another.  We have unions, managers, and agents who lend their services to help smooth the transition from project to project.

Why work in a project-based industry?

This business of screenwriting is one of the most overlooked careers in the film industry.  Anyone can write a screenplay, but to be a professional screenwriter requires a certain amount of enhanced research skills, knowledge-based understanding of the screenplay language, and crazy effort to be shrewdly relentless when doing a rewrite.  

Screenwriters work in this industry for various different reasons.  Here are a few:

• Screenwriters love to see their names on the big screen.
• Screenwriters love to see their work go from page to screen.
• Screenwriters love to win awards and get the accolades.
• Screenwriters love to conquer the "new story" mountain.
• Screenwriters love sharing their beliefs, values, and perspectives on a particular subject.
• Screenwriters love to write screenplays.  

As screenwriters, whatever the reason or motivation is to work in this industry, the most rewarding is when your peers don't objectify you as some weirdo who only pushes words for a living.  It's when your peers can identify the number of hours/days/months/years it took you to labor on a project to get it right.  If it's only for a short time, at least they understand.

How do you work in a project-based industry?

Some screenwriters get paid, and some get paid less if they get paid at all.  To work as a screenwriter in the film industry, you must know that the work entails creating deadlines and goals.  Albeit the screenwriting process is usually a solo-one-man-band type of gig, it still operates synergistically.  Once the screenwriter is done, the script goes to the different departments to bring the 2D page literary imagery to an exciting visual cascade of characters, dialogue, emotion, and conflict.  

BUT WAIT!  None of this should be done without a contract.  Contracts are a big blazé-hum-bug-of-a-waah-waah, and most screenwriters feel they shouldn't have to haggle over writer's credit, but they do.

Whether you work for the studio or as a freelance screenwriter, contracts are essential in this project-based industry.  A screenwriting union, personal manager, literary agent, or entertainment lawyer can help to negotiate the best deal with you.

What to expect from a project-based industry?

As extensive as the process is to write a screenplay, finding a project compatible with the screenwriter's skills is just as comprehensive.  Producers like to pigeonhole screenwriters into genre-defining boxes, which can be helpful in some instances and hindrances in others.

The expectation that a screenwriter will walk onto a studio lot, signal the first producer they see, and inform them of their job title,  and they'll get a job writing award-winning screenplays is blasphemous.  The fears, doubts, and skepticism that most screenwriters feel are real, and the expectation that a screenwriter can get any job they want is ludicrous.  

Working in this industry requires talent, connections, luck, vision, and a goal-oriented plan.  Here are three things that you can do to prepare yourself for a screenwriting career:
1) Write.
2) Know your value.
3) Enjoy the journey because films make money.