Working with Producers

By Mary J. Schirmer

You should all have this problem: working with producers. Plunging voluntarily into development hell means that someone (finally) has taken an interest in your screenwriting to the extent of making noises like he/she is actually going to produce your film.

If you can get the script just right.

If.

Collaborating with another mind on an artistic venture is a little like telling a mother her baby's ugly. It's hard to find the right words to express yourself, and when you do, you'll likely get whapped with a drippy, dirty diaper.

So it is when a producer tells You the Screenwriter that he doesn't feel the opening scene, she doesn't believe that dialogue during the love scene, he thinks the chase scene is totally false, she wants you to change the ending so it isn't so Hollywood, and on and on until your head might explode like a string of firecrackers on an early July evening-- and not in a good way.

You guessed, didn't you, that this is an independent producer. Independent means he/she doesn't have enough of a war chest to mount the upcoming production battle. Independent means that he/she thinks you should labor upfront for the honor of seeing your material made into a movie and you should wait for pay until the project turns a profit.

Yeah, sure. I'm not as dumb as I look.

But so far, I haven't been smart enough to avoid sticking my head into this pre-production noose. Sigh.

Like other screenwriters, I don't write only for the satisfaction of writing. I want somebody to make these movies that I've been playing in my head. I want to go on location. I want to jet to a premiere. I want to accept an Academy Award. I want to be on Oprah!

When I query about my screenplays, the latest thing independent producers ask me is: Who's going to be in it?

Well, gee, if I knew that the producer was going to cough up a few odd millions that I could offer to a name actor, I could probably get one. A star, that is.

Yes, producers think I have attachments to my naked scripts. They want to know that somebody else is willing to take a risk on the material before they even are willing to read a logline or a synopsis.

Ahem, that's why I'm approaching a producer. If I had access to money and movie stars, I wouldn't need a producer.

But when I attach a name actor, then that will make me a writer-producer. I always wanted to be a hyphenate.

So I talk on the phone for hours (not kidding), write sample scenes (not kidding), meet at all-you-can-eat buffets (not kidding), and rewrite all year long (can't remember how many drafts) for free (really stupid).

But listen up. I'm doing this only until I break through them pearly gates at Hollywood and Vine and get a five-picture development deal at a studio.

Then they'll offer me my own limo and driver, a corner office with a never-empty dish of M&Ms, and a freezer full of Cherry Garcia ice cream.

I feel myself sliding toward the Dark Side. Somebody grab me!

Mary J. Schirmer is a professional writer who writes screenplays and teaches screenwriting. Her e-mail is awarenessprod@yahoo.com.

To read past Film Fuss columns, click here.

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