Film Courage: How does a writer protect themselves from being taken advantage of?
Even though they have that…that they really want that thing to pay off for them…
Shane Stanley, Filmmaker/Author/Instructor: Again, I think the most important thing a
writer can do is obviously they have to copyright their material and that includes the treatments,
it includes the script, and you have to take notes of where projects go.
I look back at some of the projects I had ripped off and if I had just taken better
notes, just documented - who, what, when, where and why I could have stopped them from
being taken or at least or at least gotten to partake in its success or failure from
a producer or a creator standpoint and I just think it’s too easy to people when we’re
coming up we want so bad to have our work accepted, we want to make it so bad whether
we’re an actor or a writer.
The problem is if you’re an actor and you want to make it, you can audition, you can
go out and meet people and do your thing but your only calling card as a writer is to write
and unfortunately everything starts with the script.
You don’t have an actor attached, you don't have a producer, a director, a set, financing
until - what’s the script?
It’s all about the script.
So you are kind of kicking off the whole project and the most valuable thing that somebody
can take is a script, it’s the only thing they can take.
They can’t take an actor.
They can’t take a director.
They can’t steal a craft service person.
They’re going to steal the script.
You have to really think that you’re really the lifeblood of the project, you are the
inception of the project, and what you are is gold to some people.
So you have to protect it, you have to take are much time as you’ve taken to write your
script.
You have to think I have to copyright it.
I have to copyright every bit of intellectual property that surrounds it whether it’s
your beat sheets, your break downs, your boards, whatever it is.
You have to protect everything and then you have to really, really be clear on who you
have given it to.
Hungry writers (I can’t tell you how often I hear) well there is this producer reached
out to me on Facebook and I sent them three of my scripts and I never heard from them
again.
Well it’s like okay…did you look up who the producer was?
Well you know he had this AC credit on a film two years ago and if a real producer wants
to work with you they are not going to find you on Facebook usually…now I understand
that is a way to find people.
But how did they find you on Facebook?
Did they read something else you wrote and Facebook was the only way to find you or were
they just trolling for you in the writing forums, in the writing…what are they called…the
writing forums on Facebook and that’s where a lot of these people get taken advantage
of.
It’s really easy.
All you have to do is DM [direct message] one writer who is writing something on the
board that you think is intelligent, gullible, vulnerable and hungry enough and just say
hey hear is who I am.
I’m interested in what you’ve got.
I’d love to read your work and nine times out of nine they will probably going to send
it.
Screen cap those conversations.
Get this guy’s name, look him up.
Start a file on everybody you send stuff to.
You should have a file on every project and a file on everybody who sees whatever project
you have and that’s a big way to protect yourself.
Film Courage: A dossier.
Shane: Is that what that is?
I’ve heard new words like there’s the dossier and what’s the other one - an Op-Ed
[commonly known as "opposite the editorial page” in journalism].
I’ve heard these new words the last four years that I never knew before.
Film Courage: And in the reverse, how can someone who has been asked to read their script
vet a producer?
So seeing just like one credit on IMDB with no picture, no contact info, very little online
presence.
Is that someone who you should really be sending your work to?
Shane: I always say that it’s important for people to vet on the other side.
We’ve talked about before, the easiest thing to do if you’re a person who has a business
card who says you’re a producer but you haven’t physically produced.
The easiest thing to do is to go to something like Facebook and find a writer’s forum
and find people that are…you know all you have to do is join, it’s free to join and
you get to see the trends and habits and some of the idiosyncrasies of the people that are
on that site and you start realizing their vulnerabilities, their hopes, their fears,
their concerns and where they are careless.
I find it amazing that people will actually say here is my latest script and throw it
on a Facebook forum and you go oh my gosh.
Or they will go hey I just did these 10 pages last night.
Would love feedback, okay.
I think that’s careless but producers are predatory by nature and sorry but they are.
You have something that they want so I think that you need to protect your work.
I think you need to think twice before you just shotgun your material out.
I think you need to look up people.
There's a lot of writers that I respect that I know and I still try to collaborate with
that will say Oh I heard from a producer, I sent this guy my work, he reached out to
me and I’m looking at it and I’m going have you even…oh no I know he doesn’t
have an IMDB presence or he doesn’t even have but he’s you know and I’m like not
that IMDB is the end all be all but goodness if someone has got a history in the business
of being legitimate that’s certainly one way to vet them.
It’s mind-boggling how often people don’t take the time, they don’t want to hear the
truth so they just shotgun it hoping that this could be the one and I think that they
have to be very careful and hence getting your projects ripped off several times over
your career because you’re not careful and I gave my projects to people that were real
and legit but I didn't protect myself and they know when you don’t.
Film Courage: So even if someone is vetted it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re
safe?
Shane: Just because someone is vetted doesn’t mean that you’re safe.
The easiest thing to do is to get a script that is not copy written and then have the
power to make something and get it from somebody who has no clout or juice or voice or word
in the industry if that’s the case then what do they have to stand on if they’re
not protected?
Film Courage: What if someone says well then maybe I just shouldn’t trust anybody?
Shane: You shouldn’t.
Film Courage: Then why even bother doing this?
Shane: Well you shouldn’t…don’t trust anybody.
What you should do is protect your work as we talked about before with the United States
Copyright office.
Don’t waste your time with WA, do it with USO.
It’s the same process…kind of…it costs a little bit more but it shows people that
are in the know that you’re serious, it shows that you know how to protect your work
and take copious notes and you should have a file on each project and you should have
a file on everybody that you send it to and that should be part of it and those correspondences
and if it’s a phone call take notes “I talked to Shane Stanley today, it’s October
1st, 2020.
He said he wanted me to send a synopsis.
Emailed Shane Stanley at this email address, the synopsis for this story, waiting for a
call back or an email.”
And then when I email or phone back, print it out, put it in the file.
And that way if I go off and make that movie now the burden of proof is on me that I didn’t
rip them off.
It’s always on the writer to prove that I ripped you off but now all of the sudden
if you do your due diligence it's now on me to show that I have to now provide that I
did to develop the material and that's harder to do.
Film Courage: Do you do this in Excel or a Word or Pages document?
Shane: What I usually do is I have a back up email address like if I have my company
account whatever-it-is-dot-com I have a Yahoo account that I don’t access or give out
to anybody, all it is is my overages.
It’s every time I email a project to somebody I bcc it [blind carbon copy] and then that
way I have it safe and then when that person replies I have a folder on my main of each
project.
So every time I get a hit I’m getting…I got the send out sent somewhere else and then
I’ve got the reply in a whole different other email mass so that way gosh forbid one
crashes, one goes blank or gets hacked I at least have half the conversation saved somewhere.
That’s how I do it.
Film Courage: That’s great.
Question for the viewers: What do you think are the best ways for a screenwriter to protect
their work?