Dreams On Spec

[alunmook]

Has anyone seen this? I watched it last night on hulu.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/118172/dreams-on-spec

I don't really know how true it is, but common sense tells me it's pretty accurate. I didn't realize that once-if-you sell a script, it gets rewritten and edited so much, almost to the point where you may barely recognize it. From this doc, it seems like the screenplay is the baby you give up for adoption.

Is that how it usually goes?

[Mark Somers]

Re: Dreams On Spec

Good documentary. The interviews with James L. Brooks, Steven E. de Souza, Ed Solomon, Nora Ephron, Paul Guay, the writing team of Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, et al are great.



http://www.dreamsonspec.com/

[wcmartell]

Re: Dreams On Spec

Have you also seen TALES FROM THE SCRIPT? Another doc on screenwriters filled with great stories.

And selling a script is just like selling your car - they can paint it day-glow orange if they want because it's their car, now... and what's more, your contract will probably include some rewrite, so *you* may be the person painting it day-glow orange. Sweeeet!

- Bill

[Laura Reyna]

Re: Dreams On Spec

TALES FROM THE SCRIPT-- I currently have this checked out from Netflix. It's a good one too.

Haven't seen DREAMS ON SPEC yet.

[alunmook]

Re: Dreams On Spec

Have you also seen TALES FROM THE SCRIPT? Another doc on screenwriters filled with great stories.

And selling a script is just like selling your car - they can paint it day-glow orange if they want because it's their car, now... and what's more, your contract will probably include some rewrite, so *you* may be the person painting it day-glow orange. Sweeeet!

- Bill

I'll have to watch TALES.

In DREAMS, it seemed to that most of the time you end up only getting a co-writing credit, unless like you said, your contract includes rewrites. The one guy who sold a script didn't have much control over rewrites. Does this happen regularly until one establishes a name for themselves?


Carrie Fischer was saying how she felt kind of bad for the original writer when she was handed scripts to rewrite. I didn't realize that people were hired solely for rewriting a script, as opposed to just editing it.

[TheKeenGuy]

Re: Dreams On Spec

The interviews of pros on the extras of the DVD are as illuminating (if not more) as the film itself.

[jcgary]

Re: Dreams On Spec

I didn't realize that once-if-you sell a script, it gets rewritten and edited so much, almost to the point where you may barely recognize it. From this doc, it seems like the screenplay is the baby you give up for adoption.

Is that how it usually goes?

Yes, this is exactly how it goes. (And it's not editing -- it's just rewriting. Novels get edited. Scripts get rewritten.)

It's been more than ten years since Josh told me this story, so I hope I have the details right:

Josh Friedman sells a spec for a shedload of money. It's called DEAD DROP and it's fantastic. He's just out of USC, everyone reads it, everyone loves it, he suddenly has a career. A few years later, 1996, Josh is in a meeting, the exec says "Hey, whatever happened to DEAD DROP? I loved that script. That thing was amazing."

"Oh, it's been made. It just came out, actually."

"What? No way! How did I miss it? That's crazy."

"Yeah, starring Keanu Reeves. New title though: Chain Reaction."

"Oh. Sorry."

"S'ok."

[wcmartell]

Re: Dreams On Spec

I know the DEAD DROP story from a different angle - a reader I knew (their company didn't win the bidding war) loved the script, knows I'm an action guy, and told me all about it. Cool concept - what if the CIA version of Q from ther Bond movies discovered that the CIA was using his gadgets to assassinate democratically elected 3rd world leaders... and now the CIA's top assassins are chasing him (and I think his daughter) using the gadgets *he* created.

And that became a movie about a welder who rides a motorcycle faster than a nuclear fusion explosion and then has people trying to kill him because he survived and knows too much.

The other great one like this Robert Roy Poole told me - he wrote this script called PREMONITION about the guy in the gov't who writes reports on reports. He reads all of the reports, writes up a quick summary to brief the Pres, etc. He sees these freaky connections in the reports - an Indian Tribe wants to move their reservation because their shaman believes a meteor will hit where they are now. An observatory has spotted a meteor entering out atmosphere, etc. No one on the gov't will listen to him... so he goes into the field to check the reports, then kidnaps his ex-wife and estranged son and robs a grocery store of a truckload of canned food (canned food was the key to survival - and the food heist was the big scene in the script) and finds a cave to live in... as the surface world is destroyed by the meteor.

That became ARMAGEDDON.

"Last one I wrote was about Okies in the Dust Bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat."

That's why you can't judge a script by its movie.

- Bill