Assignment work

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  • Assignment work

    Hey all

    I'm at an agency and I am generating all my own opportunities, which has resulted in paid gigs (via my own contacts). I have not received a single open writing assignment in the time I have been with the agency.

    Naturally I am starting to feel like the agency is either sitting back because I am doing all the heavy lifting, or (worse) not throwing me any bones because of their own internal politics and priorities. There was mention recently of finding me more work but nada.

    Is it gauche to outright request more assignments - or at least remind them to get some stuff sent over to me?

    Trying to figure out what the best approach would be that would result in a positive outcome ...
    Last edited by TravisPickle; 03-30-2017, 03:58 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Assignment work

    It's perfectly fine to ask that more open writing assignments be sent your way. They need to hear that it's important to you.

    Having said that, every writing assignment I've gotten originated from generals (where I ask what's in their pipeline that they haven't cracked yet), not from OWAs sent from my agents. They do send me those from time to time, but they're usually from producers casting out wide nets and you're part of a cattle call. If you want those, you can certainly ask. But as long as they're getting you into rooms at all, I find that's a better way to discover the OWAs that others may not know about.
    https://twitter.com/DavidCoggeshall
    http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1548597/

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    • #3
      Re: Assignment work

      Interesting!

      I actually have the opposite experience... (just to make this fun screenwriting game even more impossibly unpredictable)

      My "favorite" gigs have been financier/producers who have a great project, development funds, and need a writer- but they are not yet super established so they can't go after Aaron Sorkin or Tom Gilroy. So they get a smaller writer for less. These have come through agents.

      The generals usually feel like a tornado of ideas, thrown around randomly, that 99% of the time don't go anywhere.
      Example: I met with someone last week. Great meeting. Jumped from topic to topic, idea to idea. I wrote a follow-up email, and as I was listing the projects we had discussed, it just felt like two people with ADHD had decided to out-battle each other and see who could come up with more stuff in a 36 minute time span.

      And the other thing I have noticed is that sometimes during a general the exec will blow dust off of a project that has been lingering for YEARS, bluff their way into a free take/treatment (by saying it's an OWA and they're excited excited excited) and then when they pass it up the chain it is confirmed to be a dead end assignment. So... we work for free, get paid nothing, and then get shafted. Fun times.

      The life of the mind...

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      • #4
        Re: Assignment work

        Totally agree - 90% of generals lead to jack sh*t, and I certainly know the feeling of having 5 dusty ideas rattled off to me, leading nowhere. I guess what I mean is my assignment work tends to come from those other 10% of generals as opposed to getting those "For your consideration to write" letters from agents. After all, a lot of those OWAs are just those same dusty old ideas. God knows how many times I've been sent the "hot open writing assignment" of the WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE remake, and no one ever seems to get hired for it. My point is that OWAs aren't necessarily open, they're often just execs trying to light a fire under a pet idea.
        Last edited by ProfessorChomp; 03-30-2017, 03:41 PM.
        https://twitter.com/DavidCoggeshall
        http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1548597/

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