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IFH 759: Top 10 Screenwriting Scams to Avoid · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hussle
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  Podcast, Episode number seven fifty nine. Never forget there are three types of
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  people in your life. People who helped you during difficult times, people who
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  left you during difficult times, and people who put you in difficult times.
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  Anonymous broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast,
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  where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in
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  the jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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  Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am
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  your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the
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  Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder
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  today than ever before for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
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  head over to www dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com.
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  Today, we're going to talk about the top ten screenwriting scams to avoid
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  now on the Indie Film Hustle podcast. I've talked at nauseum about scams in
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  the distribution space, in the production space, but I've never spoken about the
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  scams in the screenwriting space, and my god, they're a lot of them.
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  I was talking to a professional screenwriter the other day and he mentioned one
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  of these scams that we're going to talk about, and it kind of got
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  me. Got me thinking. I was like, I can't First of all,
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  I can't believe that that's a thing. He's like, Oh, yeah,
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  it's a thing, all right, And I got taken by it.
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  When I first started out, I was like, Holy cow. So I
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  started doing research and found so many scams that you can avoid as a screenwriter.
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  So let's start off with number one, the free option. That's when
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  you option your screenplay to a producer quote, and I'm going to use that
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  term quote producer for free. You're basically just giving your rights to your screenplay
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  for twelve months or so. If you have to do that. Generally speaking,
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  if they can't afford to pay you some sort of option a fee up
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  front, then they probably can't produce your film. That's a general statement.
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  Now. With that said, though, I'm going to be having a guest
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  coming on in the next few weeks who tells a story. He's a professional
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  screenwriter, and he tells a story of how he did give a free option,
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  but it was to a very repuable producer who had big, big credits
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  and had worked with big stars and it wasn't a free option. It was
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  a development deal, so they would not pay him for the idea of the
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  screenplay, but they would develop the screenplay together, and if they didn't produce
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  it, the screenwriter had all the rights back to him and he can go
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  and shop it around else. So for him, that story worked out very
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  well because he got a masterclass on how to work at a much higher level
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  than he had been working with this professional producer and producer teams, dealing with
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  notes, working out characters, dealing with production costs, and like you know,
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  just because you write the man gets thrown out the building out the window,
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  you don't understand what that cost is, and things like that that he
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  learned during that process. So in that case it made a lot of sense.
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  But generally speaking, if you give away a free option to your screenplay,
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  that is not something that you should be doing. Next. Number two,
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  agent reading fees. This is where an agent and or manager charges you
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  to read your script. Now, I want to make this very clear.
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  There is no reputable agent or manager that will ever ask you for money to
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  read a script. It is not something that is done in the business,
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  in the professional side of the business. It is also illegal for agents to
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  charge upfront fees in the state of California, so be very very careful.
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  A lot of new screenwriters will not know the difference, and they'll say,
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  oh, well, you know, I'm really busy, but if you want
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  me to read it, I charge fifty dollars just to read your screenplay and
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  that's it. And you don't even have a guarantee that they're actually going to
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  even read it or do anything with it. So please avoid that at all
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  costs as well. Number three script consultants that demand a back end cut.
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  Now, there's a lot of script consultants out there. Some of them are
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  very scammy, many of them are very good. I recommend a bunch on
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  my site that are very reputable and are actually there to help screenwriters work through
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  their their process, their script, their story. Scripts consultants and script doctors,
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  I feel are an excellent resource if you find the right ones. But
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  some of these scammers will ask for back end participation on a script. So
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  it means that if I am a script consultant and you hire me to consult
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  on your script, that I demand as part of our agreement that I get
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  back and participation on that script. If it's ever sold in or produced,
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  and even some of them go farther to ask for partial credit if they work
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  on the script with you, to be a co writer with you on it.
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  If anything like this happens when you're dealing with a script consultant, please
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  run away. Number four screenwriting marketing services. There's a lot of these little
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  companies and guys who have popped up in this kind of cottage industry of marketing
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  services for screen And when I say that marketing services for screenwriters, I'm not
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  talking about branding yourself as a screenwriter or anything like that, but talking about
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  selling your screenplay, marketing your screenplay to the industry. So some of the
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  things that they do is their last payment to send log lines to hundreds of
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  producers on their email list. And they very might well send these log lines
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  to the hundred producers, but there's no guarantee that anyone will ever look at
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  that log line and or act upon that log line meaning request anything. There
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  are no guarantees. There's also no need for storyboards for your unproduced screenplay.
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  If you're trying to sell a screenplay to a production company or get a director
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  attached, do not spend money or marketing services for storyboard creation for this project.
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  It is a useless and waste of time. It is. Unless you
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  are the director in with that screenplay and you're trying to build out a package
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  to sell the whole film, that's a different story all together. But if
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  you're just a screenwriter and trying to get your screenplay, notice, do not
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  spend money on storyboards. It does not make any sense whatsoever. Next,
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  a screenplay does not need a website. Do not create or pay anyone to
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  create a website to promote your screenplay. That is not done and it's kind
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  of ridiculous, so please don't do that. And also, do not produce
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  or pay anyone to produce a trailer for your screenplay. Again, if you're
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  the director, it's a different conversation. But if you're a screenwriter trying to
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  get your screenplay scene or optioned by a producer, production company, and or
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  director, do not have any Do not pay anyone to produce a trailer for
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  that screenplay. It does not make any sense. Number five screenwriting contest promises.
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  Now, screenwriting contests in general have a kind of you know, checkered
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  past because it all depends on the screenwriting contest you're submitting to. Some are
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  extremely reputable, some are absolute scams and money grabs, So you need to
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  do your homework. A couple of things you need to look out for to
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  kind of give you an idea that the screenwriting contest might not be on the
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  up and up is when they say that want to be producers may be looking
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  for financing for the winner of this film. That means nothing. It means
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  absolutely nothing. Possible interest from a quote unquote producer means nothing. It is
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  a promise. It is an empty promise. There is nothing tangible behind it.
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  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back
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  to the show. When they say a producer says that they'll read your screenplay
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  again, no guarantee means nothing at the end of the day. And also
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  pre production, Oh, any script that we get is going to go directly
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  into pre production. Pre Production is a very very big word that can mean
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  a thousand, if not a million things to different people. When you think
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  pre production means oh, it's a green light, we're going and that's what
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  a lot of people think. But pre production in other people's definition could be
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  development, could be in pre production for five ten years and it can never
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  go anywhere. These are empty promises, so look out for these kind of
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  empty promises in screenwriting contests. Number six. The milking technique that screenwriting contests
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  use, so or at least scam or predatory screenwriting contests use. Now,
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  this is any request for money after the initial submission fee to the contest,
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  things like, oh, you want an award, and now I'm gonna have
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  to charge you for that award. That means that they have a physical award
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  and now you want it, so we're gonna charge you for it. They're
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  gonna make money off that, and they're gonna probably make a ton of money
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  off of that, because screenwriters like filmmakers, want awards on theirselves because it
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  makes them feel good. Trust me, I've probably paid for an award or
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  two in my day, So just be careful of things like that. Also,
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  another part of the milking technique is when a contest asks for options on
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  winning screenplays. This is such an insane thing when it comes to just like
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  this is the extreme milking technique where they're just like keep asking and getting and
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  getting. So let's say you submit to your screenplay to this contest. You
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  win, You win top prize. Now they've optioned your screenplay for free.
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  They owned the IP of that screenplay. And depending on the kind of deal
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  you signed when you submitted and agreed to, they can have that for five
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  years, they can have that for ten years, they can have it in
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  perpetuity. Now, I'm gonna tell you a horror story that I know of
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  of a screenwriter submitting their script their IP to a contest and that contest blocking
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  them from being able to make a feature of their film. Now, they
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  submitted this short film short film script to this contest, and the contest part
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  of the contest rules was that they optioned the screenplay, that they own that
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  right and they had they were gonna give you all sorts of exposure. Blah
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  blah blah blah blah. Well, it ended up being that the short film
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  that this filmmaker slash screenwriter wrote and produced was excellent. It did really well
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  in the festival circuit, so good in fact, that producers came calling and
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  they wanted to produce a teacher version of this short The problem was that the
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  contest locked up those rights, and they attached themselves as producers to this project.
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  And these poor, poor filmmakers and screenwriters who finally got a shot to
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  take their career to the next level, was blocked by these predatory film contest
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  organizers that locked up their story. And because they were attaching themselves as producers,
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  the legitimate producers didn't want to deal with that, and they walked away
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  from the project. And unfortunately that movie was never made and those rights,
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  to my understanding, were never returned to the filmmakers. It is a cautionary
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  tale. Please be very very careful. Number seven ghost writing screenplays. Now,
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  there is a lot of people out there who say, oh, I'm
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  gonna just go on a ghost write a screenplayer. It kind of suckered into
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  ghost writing a screenplay where they're gonna pay you five hundred bucks a thousand bucks
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  for you to write an entire screenplay. Where you're gonna ghost write an entire
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  screenplay, where you get no credit and they get all the credit. You
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  can't attach yourself on the screenplay, you can't use it as a writing sample,
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  and again you get very little money, if at all, up front.
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  A lot of these deals are sweat equity your back end deals where they're
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  like, oh, if something happens, you'll get paid on the back end.
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  But it's kind of a losing proposition. Let's say that that script does
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  do well and gets produced, do you actually think you're gonna get paid.
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  You can't even say that you wrote it. It's so it's not a good
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  place to be as a screenwriter. You should always get some sort of credit
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  for the work that you do. In my opinion, I did a whole
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  episode on the Film Entrepreneur podcast about a filmmaker who a ghost wrote short films,
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  but he knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to generate
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  revenue to make his movie, and he did. He generated ten thousand dollars
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  ghostwriting short films. Now, those are little one offs, and the chances
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  of a short film blowing up or doing something like that is nil to none.
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  So you got to weigh the risk versus reward on that. On a
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  short film, if you can do something like that and it makes sense for
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  you to do that, it's kind of like selling short stories. Sure that
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  might make a little bit more sense, But full blown screenplays, I would
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  absolutely not do that at all. Number eight, avoid any deal that gives
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  your rights away. Now, make sure when you have a deal on the
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  table that you are going to get a credit for the screenplay, and if
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  you're WGA, you have certain protections for that. But these a lot of
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  these non union deals are very scamming. You've got to protect yourself as a
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  screenwriter. So make sure that in the contract and the agreement that you will
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  get credit for the screenplay. And if they do a bunch of rewrites and
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  it's at a point where you don't want it to be part of your you
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  don't want to have your name on it anymore, make sure you have that
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  option as well. Make sure you have the rights, the publication rights of
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  your screenplay. You have to make sure that they don't have the right to
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  publish your screenplay and sell it without your approval, and or residual payments or
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  anything like that, which brings me to the next one, future residuals.
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  A lot of times you give away the right to future residuals a buyout or
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  something along those lines. Those do happen. Be very very careful and understand
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  what you're getting into when it comes to future residuals. If you're non union
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  and they're paying you fifty grand, one hundred grand, for your screenplay and
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  it's a non union deal, that might be what you need to do,
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  but you're getting a substantial amount of money upfront plus credit. But just understand
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  that. And non union companies might insist on all rights just for you to
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  submit to them, and you've got to be very very careful. A lot
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  of these companies will in the in the agreement that you sign when you submit
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  a screenplay, you're giving them the rights to that screenplay, and not just
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  some rights, all the rights just to submit. You need to run away.
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  You need to avoid this at all costs. Be very very careful.
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  Number nine representation retainer fee. This is when a agent, manager, someone
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  along those lines say that they will rep your screenplay in town for a monthly
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  retainer in addition to an upfront retainer. So that means that I go to
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  an agent or a manager and I have a screenplay. They're like, look,
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  we're going to represent this screenplay, but we're gonna need you to pay
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  two thousand dollars up front and a five hundred dollars a month retainer, and
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  we're going to shop this around the town for you. That is not the
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  way business is done. That is a scam. You need to run away
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  and be very very careful when you see something like that. Nobody in town
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  is going to ask you for a monthly retainer to represent a screenplay. They
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  are paid on commission, So be very careful. And last but not least,
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  how to avoid scammy predatory screenwriting contests. Like I said earlier, not
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  all screenwriting contests are created equal. A couple of key things you need to
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  look for is no transparency on who the organizers are. If you can't tell
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  who's organizing, like the people the literally people behind the contest, and if
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  they have some sort of reputation, some sort of industry juice something and they're
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  hiding, runaway. Check the credits of the judges that they're going to put
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  up, like they're going to go, look, Joe Blow is gonna read
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  this for you. Well, what has Joe Blow done and does he have
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  any credits in the industry as a judge, So be very very careful with
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  that. And also check what this contest has done for writers in the past.
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  Have they helped writers? What are they offering? Are they offering a
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  cash prize? Is that the deal? Like if you win, you win
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  a thousand bucks you win five thousand bucks, you get all sorts of other
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  prizes. Is that the deal they're giving are they giving Are they promising you
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  access meaning a deal with a manager or an agent, and an actual deal
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  with a real manager, a real agent that will then bring you on as
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  a client if you win this contest, do your homework. Check out what
• 19:44
  they are offering. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 19:52
  and now back to the show and what they're offering currently and what they've done
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  for writers in the past. So just be very careful when you're dealing with
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  screenwriting contests. There's a lot of sharks out there. And a final note,
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  guys, at the end of the day, you cannot buy your way
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  into the film business when it comes to screenwriting. You can't pay someone to
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  buy your screenplay. You can't pay someone, you can't pay someone to force
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  them to do anything to give you a shot to do anything. The only
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  thing you can buy is produce your own screenplay. If you've got the money
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  to make the movie, that's the only way you're gonna buy your way in.
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  But you cannot buy representation, you cannot buy access. It doesn't work
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  that way. It has to happen organically. Anything that sounds too good to
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  be true, it probably is. So be very very careful out there and
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  see I sense that this is gonna get worse as the economy continues to kind
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  of wobble in the coming months and years following COVID. When things when the
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  pressure is applied to people, more and more scams, more and more people
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  trying to take advantage of other people, they become more desperate. So I
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  need you to be vigilant with what you do with your property and with your
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  cash. I hope this episode has been of help to you, guys.
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  If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 21:26
  please head over to the show notes at Anifilmunscole dot com forward slash seven fifty
• 21:32
  nine, and if you haven't already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot
• 21:36
  com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It really helps
• 21:41
  us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for listening.
• 21:42
  Guys. As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
• 21:45
  Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening
• 21:51
  to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I
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  N D I E F I L M h U S t l E dot
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