Gary: The agent said well I have good news and bad news so the good news is
that the project that you discussed with her
Film Courage:
Gary, you're a former attorney turned Hollywood producer (criminal defense attorney) correct?
Gary: Correct.
Film Courage: Okay. I’m sure you've seen some good sides of people and maybe some not so good
sides. From what you've seen, how true is it that screenplays are stolen, that ideas are stolen
or ideas really can't be stolen?
Gary: Well I wouldn't go so far as saying ideas cannot be stolen but in my experience
it's extraordinarily rare. I see a lot of writers very concerned about it and my my advice to them
is by all means protect your work your ip needs to be protected you've worked hard so at a minim
you want to put a copyright notice on it but you also want to register it for copyright
which are different right and for extra an extra layer of frosting on the cake you might
want to register it with the Writer's Guild of America after that I wouldn't worry about it.
I personally never, the kinds of things that I'm concerned about are not theft of intellectual
property so much as unfair dealings right it's a totally different beast but actual theft of
whether it's an idea or a an existing screenplay or teleplay I've never personally actually had
that experienceI've been in the business a lot of years I know it happens only because
I read about it once a decade in the in in a trade paper that someone so claims x happened
but I wouldn't be concerned about it my attitude was always when I was managing a young writer
I want the world to read this so I'm willing to I’ll make a million copies I’ll hire a
helicopter and drop it out over the city of la and let everybody read this beautiful script
because I don't believe they're going to steal it
so I think there's a difference between protecting your work and worrying about it and
on on the only thing I would add on the flip side of that is don't be too casual about
where you invest your time and thus your where you how you disseminate your script
so while I was joking about the helicopterI'm joking it's
you really want to choose wisely how you use your time who you invest your time in meeting
and if you do that well then the other becomes sort of a non-item if you're
if you're careful about who you are building as your your professional infrastructure
then I wouldn't give a second thought to it I think it's very hard to steal and get away
with stealing intellectual property it's a very close-knit business and if it were to
happen there are protections but you can't stop it so why worry about something you can't stop
well from reading the comments of some of our videos people have taken a lot of
detail and and just time to recount their stories or a story of a friend of theirs where a lot of
it sounds very similar where they go into pitch somewhere and then a very similar idea comes out
usually with names changed but sometimes people said that stuff hadn't really been
totally changed so I tend to think most of those stories were true but I have no way to personally
verify thatI'm sure that is actually more common than the theft of existing scripts
I also think people need to realize that ideas
I don't know that ideas were ever all that tremendously valuable but in today's world less so
and I would suggest I would advise people not to be so excited about their idea that they're busy
pitching as an idea all the time to everyone they encounter it's actually a bad practice if
you have an idea that's that's so exciting to you then put on the breaks and write it
and then you can protect it but ideas that if you're constantly saying oh I have this
wonderful idea let me tell you about my idea don't be surprised if somehow some version of that seeps
into someone's consciousness intentionally with malice or not and finds a life somewhere else
you've invited that I think you have your inner circle that and you trust and you
can bounce ideas with them that's fine that's different but I'm talking about people who are
I got an email from someone two days ago who had been at a meeting with these two gals in malibu
this young guy was at a meeting with these two gals and he pitched them this idea he's written
he's never written a screenplay but he's written a couple of books apparently I don't know the
details and they said oh well maybe gary and I get an email saying I have this wonderful idea
and I wrote him back and said I really am not sure what you're asking me
from what you're saying it sounds like there is no script and he wrote back he said no it's
but I thought maybe if I wrote a treatment you read I was like oh my gosh I really would would
encourage you you're a natural writer apparently you've published books write the screenplay
because this idea of disseminating ideas and and and treatments no one can grab hold of
that there's no real concrete outcome of great value that you might anticipate coming from that
so why do it so don't worry about pitching ideas if you really feel
so connected to something actually spend time with the screenplay get it registered get it
copyrighted and then go from there don't ask for permission and tiptoe around don't wait for the
universe to bless you unless there's a specific outcome where it makes sense and that happens
all the time I might want to pitch an idea in the confines of a close relationship that I might have
with let's say another producer or with a writer so here's the I want to develop here's an idea
does this excite you is this something you'd be interested in working on with me
that's one context and it makes perfect sense because it has to be birthed we all birth stories
out of thin air there's nothing and then there's a story and then there's a screenplay so along
that trajectory there are times when we want to find people that we want to draw into the process
but to pitch it just to let people know that we're excited about something and we're working on
something again if it's someone and trusts fine but I wouldn't make a habit of pitching ideas
and I won't even use the word pitch because that pres es something it's a term of art but
I wouldn't necessarily be sharing hither and yon an idea that you really do are serious you
have serious intention that you're gonna actually craft that into a project and do a screenplay or
tell a play I would be a little bit i'd at least at a minim you should create a treatment and
copyright it and if you want to batten down the hatches and be pitching the idea that's okay but
really doc ent it protect it and now you have a basis for a claim should that rare occurrence
happen which is that someone actually steals your idea Gary you mentioned you were more worried
about unfair dealings what does that mean well not everybody's well behaved Hollywood's no exception
I so there are we all say we have war stories right and and certainly there have been
all right I’ll give you an example I will try not to dance around it so it's there are many versions
of it here's one version one version is an agent calls me and says I have a hip pocket client
would you meet with her absolutelyI'm delighted to meet with her I asked for a little bio
biographical material maybe anything she's written whether it's a screenplay or not just so I
welcome her she comes for a meeting and she's absolutely fascinating really funny and bright
it's hysterical her family is remarkable and she I won't get into because maybe it's identifiable
but anyway there's something very unique going on it's but the family is eccentric and brilliant and
so she's just I always ask a lot of questions so she's filling me in on this whole family history
and her personal journey after college and this and that and the other thing and I see this is
all great okay great so an hour into it I said would you mind terribly if I pitch you a story
and she's like okay and all I did was I took everything she had just told me
which she would never have conceived of as a story worthy of the big screen
and I pitched her a comedy because it was like an intelligent comedy like brilliant
and I pitched it back to her as a feature idea and you could see her eyes getting saucer wide
very excited like oh my god that's my family's story that's me and she said I love it I said
okay so here's the thing you said you're going back home for a visit so I would love to ask
not as a homework assignment but just if you would gather up the local newspaper publisher
gather up a bunch of the editorials copies of the paper bring back your yearbooks from school
bring back these a-b-c-d-e-f-g and let's dig into this this could be a lot of fun
and she was all excited like this is amazing yes I want to do this this is great I said thank you
for coming by she I said call me just be in touch when you're back she said I’ll be gone three weeks
so four weeks go by five weeks go by and I think you know I'm gonna call her agent
and I called her agent I said so-and-so was so lovely and we I did I know we talked about it and
it was such a great meeting and she was going to be gone three weeks and she said she'd be in
touch when she got back and I haven't heard from her I just want to make sure is everything okay
and the agent said well I have good news and bad news so the good news is that the project that you
discussed with her is now set up and I said let me guess that the bad news
I'm not involved and she said yeah and she gave me a reason the reason
in that instance was well I took it to a senior vice president and she has some people with
deals and she needed to feed a project to one of their people that are under contract and us no
that's lovely of you to try and find a reason to make me feel better but it doesn't because
I know the only reason I'm not involved is because you didn't want me involved had you
said there was a producer on it it never would have occurred to an executive to think otherwise
so there look these things happen and over the course of several decades you're going to have a
multiple of these stories lost opportunities people who be just exercise poor judgment
omit information omit information act what they think may be in their self-interest that may or
may not be true I've set up projects in studios on a handshake with the under verbal understanding
with an agent different from the story I just told that they wouldn't close the they wouldn't paper
the underlying rights to the script on behalf of their writer client until my producing deal
was at least codified as an email informally right andI've had that violated now you think
to yourself how would a person do that because they were going to get a commission on my fee
right a single project commission well it makes no sense that they would chop my knees off
because it's going to cut my fee in half but they do it and I'm not it's like I
still got a movie made I've still made a great fee right was I happy about it no
but you can't here's the thing I trust people and I would much rather go through life like very very
occasionally being disappointed rather than going through life mistrusting people and saying
you got a sign everything has to be buttoned down I expect you're going to behave badly no
because the truth is that I can tell you stories but they're they're they're
they're a needle in the haystack of my experience over the course of my years in the business
most people behave reasonably well and it's on us I do think it's inc bent on us to be really clear
and state aloud what we care about and what we expect and if we're uncomfortable then just do
a one-page memo I mean there is a lessonI'm too trusting I know that but there's a way not to have
that be your experience on a consistent basis it's if you stay in any business long enough
you're gonna have a couple of disappointments but they're not life-altering one hopes.
Question For The Viewers:
Do
you worry more about your idea being stolen or a bad business deal?