Career Questions

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  • Career Questions

    Let's say you are pursuing a screenwriting career, and are now writing feature specs to hone your craft. Your desire to write for a living outweighs format considerations - the decision of writing for TV versus the big screen is secondary to you. How do you choose?

    Question 1: Are the odds of making a career writing features and pursuing open writing assignments better than getting staffed on a show?

    Question 2: Do writers for big shows (Mad Men, Parenthood, etc.) ever get hired using a feature spec as a writing sample? Or are writers on network/cable shows always former writers on smaller shows?

    Question 3: Do TV writers make the same annual income (on average) as decent feature writers?

    Question 4: What % of TV writers would view writing features full-time as "graduating- out of TV? Is feature writing the goal of most TV writers?

  • #2
    Re: Career Questions

    Question 1: Not sure about the odds, but there are more jobs in television than in features. This includes both staffing and pitching. My agency used to have one staffing meeting per week, now they have two meetings per week because of all the work available.

    Question 2: People get staffed off feature specs, plays and even short stories. However, it's harder to get a showrunner to read a feature than a tv sample.

    Question 3: Don't know what you mean when you say decent feature writer. But a new staff writer on a network show can make $100k before taxes and rep fees. Some TV writers make more than feature writers and some make less. You can take a look at the guild minimums here: http://www.wga.org/uploadedFiles/wri...ts/min2011.pdf.

    Question 4: Actually, I've found it to be the opposite with many feature writers graduating to TV writing. One feature agent at my agency had so many clients doing TV work that he's no longer just a feature agent.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Career Questions

      1. It's a little like comparing apples and oranges but generally speaking of where both business are heading, there is probably a better chance of working in television than in features right now. Of course there is always that chance of selling a spec but it's very rare -- especially making a career out of it.

      2. Features can be used for writing samples but a lot of times showrunners want to see pilots, or maybe even a play or short story. I'm sure features have been used many times but ideally if you want to work in a certain medium you should have a sample in that medium.

      3. Too many factors to really answer. Is it a staff writer or Co-EP level TV writer? Is this a regular working writer who is hot or someone who just made a sale -- which really might be an option. Roughly a staff writer staffed will make 70-100k depending on weeks they work and all that. Mid and upper level salaries are based on number of episodes in the season and how many episodes they get to write. Feature writers have different quotes so there is no telling what you're getting paid in those steps and how many steps or even different assignments/sales you can get in a year.

      4. Used to I think TV writers wanted to get into movies but now it's reversed. Tons of feature writers are flooding to TV because it's "the golden age" of TV right now. More channels, better material, great shows, more money to be made for those who are upper echelon. Meanwhile the movie business has taken a nose dive in a sense. Everything is IP based or high budget leaving not much room for baby writers to break in. Less movies being made per year so less opportunity.
      Quack.

      Writer on a cable drama.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Career Questions

        2. Comedy writers sometimes get staffed without a sample if they happen to be a hot comedian with 10 million youtube followers. But unless you have a name for yourself already, you'll need to write an awesome pilot. And then write some specs of existing shows to enter in the network fellowships. As much as people complain about how "there's no clear path to a writing career," well... the network fellowships are a pretty consistent and clear path to a writing career.

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        • #5
          Re: Career Questions

          Looking from a career angle, your best bet would be to go back to college and get an accounting degree. Then find work as a bookkeeper.

          As for writing, I wouldn't focus so much on whether TV or feature writing is better for you financially and think more about which one sustains your passion better.

          Do you find yourself drawn to contained, large-scale stories? You'd probably work better in features.

          Do you prefer to focus on characters and their ongoing trials? Stick with television.

          Making money doing either is a long shot, so you should ask yourself which format could you see yourself spend countless hours alone working on.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Career Questions

            1. that's a question I'd say is difficult to quantify. I'd also say it's kind of the wrong question to be asking if your goal is to make a living as a writer in entertainment.

            2. Sometimes and maybe. The way you phrase the question assumes a bias that's not really a reflection of the way things are .

            3. I'd say the average working tv writer makes more than the average working screenwriter.

            4. None and no.

            You seem to have bias that tv writing is somehow lesser than film. It may have been perceived that way once, but it's not now.

            It's all writing and it's all work.

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            • #7
              Re: Career Questions

              You can find the numbers in the latest WGA annual report, but in the last several years there have been more WGA writers working in TV than in features. The TV numbers have been going up. The feature numbers have been going down.

              Do TV writers ever get hired based on feature samples? I'd never say never, but TV writing is a different animal in a variety of ways. Not having an original pilot is shooting yourself in the foot.

              Income? It depends. But an experienced TV writer doing network shows is making a boat-load of cash, even with the decline of network re-run residuals. This is a dumb question given how competitive both jobs are, but the short answer is that TV writers can make just as much, if not more money. There is probably no writing job in the industry that pays you as much as creating a hit show.

              The big difference in pay isn't so much how much you get paid but when you get paid. In TV, the big money comes from the long tail. You spend four years on staff of a sitcom and then TBS starts running two episodes of that sitcom a day (eg, The Big Bang Theory) and forgettaboutit. You sell a pilot and you don't make that much. The pilot gets picked up and you get a check for every single episode.

              Whereas feature writers get paid a lot up front for material that never, ever gets made.

              #4 is impossible to answer, but recently the movement has been the other way. The explosion of original cable material, and the freedom it gives, has had feature writers moving to TV not just because that's where the work is but because you can do things there that you can't on the big screen. Girls and Game of Thrones are being done by people who came from features. Orange is the New Black and Mad Men are being seen by far more people than would end up seeing features trying to do the same thing (we think, we don't really know how many people are watching OITNB). Heck, I don't know if anybody would know how to sell the feature equivalent of Mad Men to audiences.

              TV is not the redheaded stepchild of the screenwriting family.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Career Questions

                Originally posted by Ronaldinho View Post

                The big difference in pay isn't so much how much you get paid but when you get paid. In TV, the big money comes from the long tail. You spend four years on staff of a sitcom and then TBS starts running two episodes of that sitcom a day (eg, The Big Bang Theory) and forgettaboutit.
                not exactly. cable syndication is a buyout (i think it's called the sanchez formula. no idea why) and the check, which covers the first nine airings, is usually about half of the original script fee. If you're already on cable, or worse (financially speaking), a subscriber network like HBO, the checks get small real fast.

                the bigger money (as a percentage of income) comes just from working and being on staff consistently (as you said about network gigs). The money is guaranteed after the first year, the checks come weekly, and promptly.

                Residuals are nice but you won't make a living on them. Unless you create a show and it goes into syndication, then that's FU money.

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                • #9
                  Re: Career Questions

                  According to the WGA report, in the most recent year, 1,537 writers made a total of $343 million in features. That's an average of $223K a year.

                  3,508 TV writers made a total of $667.2 million in TV. That's an average of $190K a year.

                  So on a pure mathematical analysis, an average feature writer makes more. That being said, TV writers probably work more consistently.

                  Also, median wages (50th percentile) for writers are probably much lower as the top tier writers in both medium tend to make mid-to-high seven figures.

                  There are a total of 5,000 writers out of 300 million people in U.S. making a living as a writer each year, according to the WGA membership report. So you can draw your own conclusions on how difficult and competitive this industry is.

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