Film Courage: Potential pitfalls or traps a screenwriter should be aware of when
trying to sell their screenplay pitfalls? Kathie Fong Yoneda: Hhmm...I think the biggest one is don't try
and make your project be one of those where you're forcing trying to force it
into being what they think the studio wants or what that production company
wants that's a big pitfall for me because then somewhere along the line I
think you sometimes will lose the heart of what your project is I know I know a
lot of times they they will ask for a request to do something to it and you
you do need to if they bought it it is their project and so I think a lot of
writers sometimes immediately are very protective of their project and they
don't and they say well yeah I'll sell it to you but you can't do this or you
know I mean that's sort of a first reaction what they have to understand is
that they've got stockholders usually that they have to answer to and and
there's when money is involved there are some changes they have to make I think
when they when you are just in the talking stages sometimes they make
writers make the biggest mistake is when they start being too too concerned about
all of that and I want them to understand it's good to listen first to
what they have to say before reacting immediately and jumping all over it I
think you should need to listen to what people have to say and then talk it over
with your agent or talking over with the creative exec who's there which is the
kind of work I used to do and a lot of times I had to explain to him the reason
why they asked for a certain change maybe it was because a budget a lot of
times it's because maybe they got a director and the director maybe didn't
like a certain aspect of it or maybe it was an actress or an actor and maybe
their acting range doesn't cover sufficiently the emotional impact of a
certain scene I mean there's a lot of reasons that
that people don't understand about it so if you are fortunate enough that
somebody is optioning or buying your project and they are asking for things
it's not because they don't like it they want to see it get made and sometimes
it's because of certain reasons and you need to sit down and talk to somebody
about it don't just immediately get you know all up in arms and just I know I'm
not gonna do that and I hate this I did you know listen to what people have to
say sometimes it's something that says a small enough thing and there's sometimes
there's this way she can compromise half of my job when I was a creative because
that was trying to find the best way to still keep the project there as the
writer's vision as well but sometimes if you have a director who's a big name you
have to waive the consequences do we do you want to keep the big are they going
to keep the big name director or the first-time writer and it's a real easy
thing for the studio it's if they figure we've already bought it we don't need
the writer to come back and do the rewrite and you want to stay in business
with people so you have to learn when to to fight and when to listen to what's
being said and when to give in you know and it doesn't mean you completely given
talk to the you talk to the creative because usually there's at least two
execs there's the the usually there's a VP and usually there's a creative exec
talk to the creative Kazaam find out their reasons why and see if there's
some way that there can be some kind of a compromise to it and a lot of times
that was that like I said that's that was a great deal of my of the work that
I did was working with the writers and I think that's why I was a successful as I
was is that the writers liked the fact that I would talk with them and I wasn't
afraid to say well okay here are some that here are some options we can do
which of these options do you think fits your story best if I would give them
options then they felt they were more in control I wanted to give that to them so
they wouldn't feel that everything was lost to them
I think sometimes executives have a way of being very to-the-point and very
Bruce and okay we need to change this scene doesn't work and sometimes they
don't explain why that's part of what a creative exec does and so I think that
that's something that you know if you're not sure if writers are not sure they
should talk to somebody and just say can you explain that to me in a little more
detail because I wasn't quite sure what it means that it doesn't work exactly
what is it about it that it didn't work so I don't know if that I hope that that
helps because I do I do feel that there have been a lot of writers who have lost
an opportunity to have their work produced because they immediately jumped
up and they just said no I won't do it because they were too precious with it
mm-hmm and they didn't even want to listen to what you know the explanations
or anything
you