Managers and Development

[nojustice]

Originally Posted by jtwg50

NoJustice: It's not just wanna-be's and beginners that are doing free work. Even some well established pros are being forced to jump through more hoops and do a lot more work on pitches and "free" rewrites characterized as "producer's passes" to get around the normal step structure and WGA rules. It's all just a testament to how incredibly difficult it is now for all concerned since the business (and discretionary money and development funding) is shrinking rather than growing.

I don't really see extended pitches and free rewrites on paid assignments, as being the same as unpaid assignments. Not that any of it is desirable, but I can't imagine established pros writing up someone's script for free.

Unpaid means write an entire script, or rewrite someone else's script in its entirety, for no money, unless it sells. There's nothing professional about it. That's pure exploitation. And any manager who participates in that is not managing the situation.

They're cuckoo birds who have dropped an egg in someone else's nest, and they simply don't care, because for them it will either pay off or it won't, they're not the ones doing the work, and in orchestrating this they demonstrate that they have absolutely no regard for the well-being of the writer.

And if they don't have any regard for the writer, they shouldn't be let loose to manage them.

[Twofingeredtypist]

Originally Posted by JeffLowell

It's not 360.

To me, managers are supposed to have fewer clients than agents, and work with the writers in developing their careers. Careers, not a live or die spec.

Giving notes every few months (and only sending out the script if it meets their standards) isn't managing, IMO. Managers are supposed to set up meetings with studios and producers and agents, get you in on assignments and pitches, etc.

This is my seemingly naive concept of what a manager is. The sort of person I hope to sign me when I begin querying.

This thread is revelatory and terrifying... and I have no clue as to the ID of the management firm with the suspect practices.

[spacefarer]

Originally Posted by SBScript

Not Zero Gravity?!

Zero Gravity.

[UnequalProductions]

Again, I do not see the problem with this.

They're writing scripts and not getting paid for them? I do that every day. They're getting feedback from a manager trying to develop the scripts into something they can sell? Egad! The horrors! The company is working with more than one unestablished writer? Where do we sign up for the angry mob taking them out and hanging them?

What I seem to be missing here is exactly how these managers are exploiting anyone. Are they taking credit away from the writers and passing the work off as someone else's? Are they stealing ideas from one writer and passing them on to another?

The responses here make it seem like this company is doing something akin to slavery, and I simply do not see it. Can someone explain this to me?

[mikejc]

Originally Posted by UnequalProductions

Again, I do not see the problem with this.

They're writing scripts and not getting paid for them? I do that every day. They're getting feedback from a manager trying to develop the scripts into something they can sell? Egad! The horrors! The company is working with more than one unestablished writer? Where do we sign up for the angry mob taking them out and hanging them?

What I seem to be missing here is exactly how these managers are exploiting anyone. Are they taking credit away from the writers and passing the work off as someone else's? Are they stealing ideas from one writer and passing them on to another?

The responses here make it seem like this company is doing something akin to slavery, and I simply do not see it. Can someone explain this to me?

I'm not a manager, so I wouldn't presume to tell a manager what to do.

But, Unequal, you're talking on a micro level, what is being done with one writer of one agent at the firm. If the same is being done with a majority of the writers, which is how it was described, then, something is wrong. And, if nobody is really getting their stuff sent out, then the "manager" is acting like a production company, reading, reading, reading and looking for that ONE script to make some dough on.

And, if a manager takes on a writer and then, for some time, only gets him to write treatments, specs, etc. and never takes any of them out, then, I'd say they made a bad judgment on that writer. If they can't get him up to speed to take anything out in that amount of time, that would call into question the manager's judgment--couldn't he judge whether the person and their material was ready or reasonably close to it??

I doubt that describes any but a very small percentage of managers.

[UnequalProductions]

Originally Posted by mikejc

I'm not a manager, so I wouldn't presume to tell a manager what to do.

But, Unequal, you're talking on a micro level, what is being done with one writer of one agent at the firm. If the same is being done with a majority of the writers, which is how it was described, then, something is wrong. And, if nobody is really getting their stuff sent out, then the "manager" is acting like a production company, reading, reading, reading and looking for that ONE script to make some dough on.

And, if a manager takes on a writer and then, for some time, only gets him to write treatments, specs, etc. and never takes any of them out, then, I'd say they made a bad judgment on that writer. If they can't get him up to speed to take anything out in that amount of time, that would call into question the manager's judgment--couldn't he judge whether the person and their material was ready or reasonably close to it??

I doubt that describes any but a very small percentage of managers.

So managers should only take on writers that are ready at that moment to be sold? Managers shouldn't work with writers to get their spec scripts together? If a manager is working with more than a handful of writers to try to get them ready for the professional level, they're an evil spec farmer?

[PerpetuallyBlocked]

Originally Posted by UnequalProductions

So managers should only take on writers that are ready at that moment to be sold? Managers shouldn't work with writers to get their spec scripts together? If a manager is working with more than a handful of writers to try to get them ready for the professional level, they're an evil spec farmer?

Of course not. But as many posters in this thread have pointed out, you run the risk of working on spec with a manager who isn't 100% behind you in a situation like that. I was repped for several years by one of the companies discussed here, and I can tell you that after a year of pitching ideas, writing treatments, having those pitches and treatments shot down, rinsing and repeating over and over and over, that by the time I finally parted ways with that manager I was incredibly demoralized by the experience.

It's not that all of those rejected ideas were pure gold; far from it. But I had become so focused on making my manager and his partners happy that I had lost track of what got me excited as a writer to begin with. And if that happens and you're not even getting paid for your efforts, then what's the point?

[UnequalProductions]

Originally Posted by PerpetuallyBlocked

Of course not. But as many posters in this thread have pointed out, you run the risk of working on spec with a manager who isn't 100% behind you in a situation like that. I was repped for several years by one of the companies discussed here, and I can tell you that after a year of pitching ideas, writing treatments, having those pitches and treatments shot down, rinsing and repeating over and over and over, that by the time I finally parted ways with that manager I was incredibly demoralized by the experience.

It's not that all of those rejected ideas were pure gold; far from it. But I had become so focused on making my manager and his partners happy that I had lost track of what got me excited as a writer to begin with. And if that happens and you're not even getting paid for your efforts, then what's the point?

What's the point? How about making a sale? What you love to write and what got you into writing isn't necessarily what sells. That's where your manager comes in. Your manager has connections, but they also know what those connections are looking for.

This is a business. Managers are selling a product. If your a brand new writer with little experiene or knowledge of the industry, it's a blessing to get someone who is willing to work with you through treatments and drafts until you have a product that executives and production companies are clamoring to get their hands on.

If that's not the way you work, then don't do it. Go off and write your heartfelt indie. Find a director and pull together funding. There is more than one way to break into this industry. I still don't see anything wrong with this option.

[JeffLowell]

Originally Posted by UnequalProductions

So managers should only take on writers that are ready at that moment to be sold?

Yes?

Maybe I'm ignorant on how managers are operating with new writers now, but my understanding was always that they take on people where they'd be proud to show their work around, get them meetings, put them up for jobs, etc.

Why are managers taking on people where they're not willing to show any of their writing to anyone?

This paradigm of "manager as finishing school" is an odd one to me. Although, if that's the way it's working now, I can see why some take on so many clients - they're gambling that a percentage of clients they take on will eventually produce something worth sending out.

It feels like getting engaged to twenty women while you figure out who actually would make the best wife. That's a good deal for the man... not so much for the woman.

[ChadStrohl]

Originally Posted by JeffLowell

It feels like getting engaged to twenty women while you figure out who actually would make the best wife. That's a good deal for the man... not so much for the woman.

Sounds like there's a new reality show right around the corner.