ghostwriting

it's been said more than once, and now paul guyot has said it again:

"One thing that ALL successful writers - be it screen or prose - have in common is a very disciplined work ethic. At least ALL the ones I've spoken to, or heard speak. Every single one of them."

it's a well-known oft-quoted general self-help principle: whatever you want to do or be, imagine yourself already doing/being it and act accordingly. if you want to be a writer, act like one. be disciplined. write everyday.

i agree, but i've had a hell of a time trying to be that disciplined writer. i've been trying on and off for years to write. in the past 20 years (im 38), i've written a total of:

8 short screenplays
4 short stories
3 feature screenplays
1 teleplay

in addition, i'm in the 30-60 page range on three other feature scripts, in various stages of development for countless other ideas and made 1 short film in 1999.

although obviously there have been long streches where i didn't write at all, i've worked late at night, early in the morning (very briefly, because unless it involves post witching hour im not a morning person), and locations far and wide. i've written on typewriters, legal pads and computers - my own, my girlfriends, those at the college lab, kinkos, internet cafes and libraries.

and it's been a fight every step of the way. a fight against insecurity, against ego, against writer's blocks that confound and frustrate me. which is why now im finally seriously considering the idea that i might not be a writer.

this isn't to be dramatic. i've collected many ideas throughout life and one of them is this: why waste time making yourself just average in things you're not good at? instead of trying to be 'rounded' and generally good at many things, why not concentrate on the things you're already good at? emphasize your strengths. the best defense is a good offense.

so at some point, if you're banging your head against a wall, you have to wonder: am i trying to shore up a weakness or enhance a strength?

enter: ghostwriting.

until now my only concept of ghostwriting was understanding that often screenwriters on hollywood movies did rewrites that they weren't credited for. heck, i've even ghostwrited myself! back in 98/99 i did some music-video treatments and a rewrite on a d2dvd feature film for a recently a-listed director friend from high-school.

but it never occurred to me that out there, available to all, were ghostwriting services. folks who will take your idea, treatment, outline, script and turn it into a finished screenplay. although i've recently made contact with some fellow writers to attempt collaborations, i have to say at first blush this looks like heaven to me!

putting aside the fact that i probably can't afford their services (one site quoted a basic rate of $50/page for screenplays, $100/page for the premium rate!), the idea of being able to craft an idea, flesh it out and then hand it off to another to actually write the script? perfect!

i always considered myself a filmmaker, not a screenwriter. i want to make films. i have ideas that i want to turn into films. i've never wanted to only be a screenwriter. in fact, if i could find material i liked, and someone who would entrust me with their baby, i'd make films from other folks scripts. and i may still do that. but being an independently minded filmmaker with plenty of my own ideas, the most efficient way to go seemed to be to write your own screenplay. and don't get me wrong, as my blog and friends can attest to, i like to write. i love to express myself in the written word. however, translating that into a screenplay has been a major struggle.

so ghostwriting, at least in my honeymoon phase of considering it - seems like an excellent option. and of course when it's done, since i retain complete ownership, authoring and control rights to the property, i can then make any adjustments or polish i desire. how incredible! now i just need to be independently wealthy enough to pull this off.

so...does this make me not a writer? or just a lazy one? what are your thoughts and/or experiences with ghostwriting?

one page

on december 6th, mat at red right hand issued a challenge to post one page of your work. any page, it doesn't matter.

“I issue a challenge to the other spec monkeys that read this. It’s simple enough. Any of you can do it. Post one page from a script you wrote on your website.”

so i give you a page from 'black and white in a gray world,' my sci-fi epic about a rag-tag team of five police officers with extraordinary abilities in the futuristic megalopolis of los angeles. enjoy!

media state

as anyone in the industry can attest to, there's been a lot of wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth about the decline in box office. the central debate my friends and i have been having surrounds these two ideas: quality and diversity.

some would argue (william goldman prominent amongst them), that movies today suck. i don't disagree, i just disagree that they haven't always sucked. like anything else proliferated throughout our culture, film quality follows a general bell curve. there's a lot of mediocre stuff in the middle and a little bit of truly great and abysmally awful stuff on the edges. the question might be - has the overall quality the curve represents changed? were the mediocre films of our hallowed past better than today's equivalent? or is the current film market just more saturated and over-analyzed than before?

quality aside, feature theatrical release films face a bigger challenge: diversity. for me, this breaks down into two components; the inevitable decline of monopoly and the rise of short-form entertainment.

we're witnessing the inevitable decline in media share that every dominant mass medium faces. it's happened to newspapers, radio, and network television. as each new technology takes hold in the mediasphere, the others shift to make room and inevitably give up some of their piece of the pie. the result: consumers today have more choices than ever as to how to entertain and distract themselves.

although this has been happening for years (first the vcr, then cable, then dvds, etc.), the worry about this has been masked by ever-increasing box office reciepts. hollywood only cares about money, and up until now it's been getting sweeter every year - and like good little capitalists, rather than notice the lack of attendance growth despite the explosion in theatre installations, hollywood has simply slapped on the rose-colored gels and enjoyed the party.

here's the box office totals of the top ten grossing films each year since 1970. the listed films are the top grossing films of that year:1970 brought in $468,470,341. 2004 brought in $2,670,397,768. currently the top films of 2005 total $2,151,511,752 - well below 2004, though kong and narnia haven't factored in yet.

was 2004 our apex year for box office reciepts? only a few more years will tell. however, as you can see from the graph we've rarely had more than one down year in a row, so any extended decline will be quickly apparent. up until now you can almost draw a perfectly diagonal growth line for feature film income.
which brings us to the rise of short-form entertainment. the key here is time-compression: most newer technologies that take hold have allowed us faster access to more. but no technology has increased the amount of hours in a day, so the amount of time available for any particular media event has been compressed. for instance, video games are the ultimate short-form entertainment. the 'story' changes from moment to moment, and can be started and stopped at any time. and most technologies developing today are based around mobile-access, which by definition is short-form centric and designed to be so.

case in point: me and my girlfriend. two months ago we finally got around to getting a dvr. the result? in that time we have yet to watch any of the five netflix movies we currently have out. not one. all of a sudden a new technology provides instant access to short-form favorites (we record everything and rarely watch live television now), and we don't have time to watch films on dvd.

as an avid fan of the short film it's my hope that dvrs, vod and video ipods will bring about a new market for short form features. or perhaps films will be released in various formats, much like music (the 1hr hit single, the 2hr extended remix, the 3hr director's trance mix, etc.).

in conclusion: it's entirely possible that growth in the outlying suburbs, digital projection, population density, viral marketing and a host of other factors will contribute to film's continued revenue growth for some time to come, and that the mediasphere will expand to encompass moblogging, im'ing, video streaming and who knows what else. if anything we're usually guilty of thinking too small when it comes to imagining the impact of media.

but it's also possible that we're witnessing a paradigm shift in media-consumerism from static public-based consumption (theatres, concerts, sporting events), to individual-based mobile dynamic consumption (where, when and how you want it). and the affects of that would be immense and far-reaching.

if nothing else, it'll definitely make for an interesting show.