Screenplay Security: The Conversation
It was interesting to read Steve Pond’s take on screenplay security, spurred on by Mike Fleming’s take on Deadline. (Note: Is Fleming using more and more on Nikki’s catch phrases… or is it my imagination?)
Starting with the surface read, there is Fleming speaking for the agents, as Deadline tends to, and Pond seeming to sell a company called Scenechronize’s services as The Solution. You had to get to Page 2 (aka more than 500 words in) to get the sales pitch on the watermarking service. And you had to get to graph 3 of the 4 graph Fleming story to get to the real issue in “script security,” aka the agencies are the source of the leaks, they have done nothing about them for more than a decade, and now, those same agencies are complaining about studio paranoia.
I have always believed that the underground screenplay world, which has manifested on the web for a long time now, is a kind of theft. Others disagree… strongly. But these scripts were not meant to be made public while production was going on. The old argument used to be that pundits – mostly geek pundits – could help the studios see the error of their ways. But that has not proven out to be true. Mostly, it’s turned out to be a hassle for studios and filmmakers… another leak to plug.
On the other hand, there is no indication that a single movie has lost a single dime to a script floating around the web. I am even loathe to say “leaked script” because it makes it sound so cloak and dagger. It’s not.
But Hollywood is a town of egos and every leak is the end of the world to someone, somewhere. I have always argued that information about process belongs to the studio and filmmakers… that it is not something for a bunch of excited people to make public and obsess on just because the information isn’t being treated like it’s in a bank vault.
It reminds me a lot of the tabloid game. 90% of the material is in the public eye because the powers that be want it there. The other 10% is the stuff that sells magazines… and that material is too valuable to treat respectfully… or ever honestly. So you end up with four magazine covers, each with a different version of the Brad and Angelina story, every week, even if nothing has really changed in their lives. And Jennifer Aniston and reality show idiots and the kids from Twilight and The Kardashians, etc.
I would say that publicists spend 90% of their time on the 10% that is out of control. But unlike tabloid junk, in the film business, they get an actual product to sell in the end. A movie. And it will be marketed. And it won’t really matter what happened on the web or anywhere else in the 2 years prior. But again… egos are easily bruised. Anything negative that comes up, from any shithole or from any major outlet, can get magnified and becomes “a problem” that requires a lot of handling/hand holding.
Anyway, I found the aforementioned third graph of the Fleming story to be very instructive:
It’s no mystery why this is happening: security. Producers and studio executives claim that if they email or messenger even one copy to an agency, it goes into that tenpercentery’s library — and then becomes fodder for low-level employees who trade the content of those scripts like currency. Suddenly, that copyrighted document is on the Internet. Disturbing but not illegal is having the script picked apart in a forum, or presented as a blog scoop that gives away story reveals. “I doubt a blogger with 60 readers will ruin a movie even if they publish a script or rip it apart,” said one dealmaker who considers the increased secrecy “ridiculous” but acknowledges the bigger problem. “What is more important is the number of movies that are being leaked onto the internet before they are released.”
I don’t like grabbing a full graph of any story, but he wrote this one to perfection. It is tight and every sentence is loaded with informational goodness.
1. The screenplays are coming, almost always, from agencies. Mostly from assistants and temps.
2. The shoulder shrug about a “blogger with 60 readers” is not factually inaccurate, but seems to intentionally miss the point. If the owner of the material – the organization that paid for its existence – doesn’t want it to be a public document, the ultimate significance of the breech is not the point. Your lack of care and disrespect for someone else’s property is the point.
3. “What is more important is the number of movies that are being leaked onto the internet before they are released.” Utter bullshit. A con artist’s argument. There has not been a studio movie on the web before release in over a year. Piracy is a real issue. But that does not make other bad behavior irrelevant.
I have – forever, it feels like – said that the idea that information is somehow public domain just because someone can get their hands on it is not an issue of free speech, it’s an issue of respect and the balance of human nature. And I am a First Amendment absolutist.
“Hollywood” has had a pretty consistent record in dealing with stuff like this. First it gets angry… then it tries (almost always successfully) to bring the offenders under the tent and to control the situation with honey instead of vinegar. I think what’s changing at the moment is that the “blogger with 60 readers” is ending up in the LA Times or NY Times or NY Mag or whatever Mainstream outlet more and more often. And then, it is perceived as a much bigger problem.
Personally, I blame those outlets for not adhering to their own journalistic standards. They are scraping around in the mud, reducing their values to those of “a blogger with 60 readers” in order to get attention in a media marketplace that has created enormous paranoia.
There is also a new culture of forgetfulness. Getting a story wrong doesn’t seem to matter much to outlets these days… they just print the next version of the story when it comes out and kinda pretend the earlier version never existed. And people let them get away with this. So when a reporter jumps all over a version of a screenplay they got from “somewhere,” and the reporter tries to weave a story around something they perceive as problematic in the screenplay while the film is still in production – see: Sharon Waxman & Kingdom of Heaven – and they get it really wrong, it pisses off a lot of people, many of whom have given years of their lives to a project. And still, in the end, is forgotten by most people… because it wasn’t their blood, sweat, and tears… and because, in the end, it’s the marketing that drives box office..
What studios and individuals don’t want is to be tagged with something – ANYTHING – negative from early on that they then have to explain away in virtually every public conversation until after the movie is released. It doesn’t really matter if it’s true or not. In the end, there will be a movie and that movie will speak for itself. But until then – and the movie really can’t speak for itself until a week or two after release – having that millstone around your neck is no fun. And if you are explaining, some will always take that as “making excuses,” no matter what the truth is. A publicist is not happy if they are responding. They want the media to be responding to them, not the other way around.
Thing is… after a decade of pretending it’s not happening, it’s really hard to secure the perimeter. People will tell you that they agree that “no means no.” But when they are faced with it in action, every small judgment suddenly takes on a different hue. “Well, she said, ‘no,’ but she wore that mini-skirt and you could see her thong and she was drinking shots and she smiled at me in a dirty way and she stuck her tongue down my throat in front of everyone in the bar and she came into the bathroom to snort the coke I offered her… so when she said ‘no’ when I started pulling off the skirt, well, what was she expecting?”
Well, maybe she was expecting to have fun, get kissed, to have her drinks paid for, and to do some coke. Maybe had you not raped her in a bathroom, you could have had great sex in your bedroom. Maybe she wanted what she wanted and you wanted what you wanted and when those two things stopped matching up, you decided that what she wanted didn’t matter anymore because you wanted what you wanted.
In my experience, very few people set out to be rapists… or thieves… or to steal movies on the web… or to upset people by reviewing screenplays (or test screenings) on the web… or to do harm in any way. But we compromise our integrity, bit by bit, and then compromising the integrity of others not only doesn’t seem really wrong, we start to believe that others have it coming, because why should they get away with not compromising when we “had” to.
I don’t think that people who trade scripts or comment on them, online and off, are evil. Many times, they are the most aggressive positive supporters of films.
But simply put, in an old fashioned notion, it’s none of their fucking business.
And I mean this literally and figuratively, because it is too often forgotten that every studio movie is a $100 million or more investment (with P&A) on an individual entity that has its own often-fragile ecosystem. Or maybe it’s not forgotten by some and the lure of being able to have some sense of influence over someone else’s $100m investment without doing anything more than reading a screenplay and crapping out an opinion is just too tempting.
Anyway…
I am completely sympathetic to the agents who are finding themselves unable to fully do their work because of the paranoia that they helped to create by being so inattentive to the privacy wishes of those they share an industry with.
When push comes to shove, everyone just wants to do their damned jobs. No one wants to live in a police state. It’s not fun. It’s not creative. And it should not be necessary.
But the respectful boundaries have become nearly invisible. And We are all to blame. Every time we just shrug our shoulders and say, “Well, that’s just the way the game is played. I didn’t make the rules,” we bury ourselves a little deeper. Every time we indulge what we know to be wrong just because it’s expedient, we bury ourselves a little deeper. Every time we take an action, knowing it’s not right, but also knowing we can get away with it, we bury ourselves a little deeper.
It’s really simple. I’m happy to share my bicycle with you because I know you and you need to go to the store to get some milk so we can all have breakfast tomorrow. But if you give my bike to some stranger instead of giving it back to me or you don’t bother locking up the bike when you go into the store, so it gets stolen (or “borrowed”), I’m not going to be so quick to lend you my bike the next time.
7-year-old stuff.
Can’t we all just pretend to act like grownups?
Agreed. Imagine if a novelist’s working draft were put out there/if a musician’s unfinished album were put out there/a designers sketches revealed before the dresses were even cut/or if someone were to review a Broadway show on what they had only seen in rehearsal. It’s not a question of lost revenue but rather, as you say respect for the work and boundaries of the property… WHICH IS NOT OURS.
I remember reading about the rumpus caused by Pauline Kael when she went ahead and reviewed Apocalypse Now even though it was not yet completed and someone responded by asking, what was she going to review next, a script?
Of course, that is what Kael did for a while. Shortly thereafter she went to Paramount to serve as some sort of consultant… all of which, as far as I know, resulted in nothing.
Excellent post Dave. You seem to take a lot of flack for these kinds of posts, but I always appreciate when you attempt to call out low standards and encourage others to integrity. In a related way, I can’t tell you how many close friends are shocked that I’ve never downloaded a film or burned a friend’s stuff. As you say, it’s not really about what the ultimate economic impact, it’s essentially about respect and integrity.
Gotta admit, as a teen it was pretty cool to find a Xeroxed copy of Pulp Fiction for sale at the JV Mall 6 months before it was actually released…
Two things:
#1: Yes, most screenplay “leaks” are coming from agencies, but there’s a bunch that come from foreign sales companies that hire freelance readers who haven’t signed confidentiality clauses.
#2: In this day and age where development execs are fired/laid off as fast as screenwriters, I have personally witnessed a lot of attention being paid to script reviews online where things are reconsidered and re-thought based on what an online critic said in much the same way as an AICN review of a test screening.
Yes, and I have to admit that with these online script-sites, there are times when I will read a script in advance. Like SALT which, as we know, went through many incarnations. Coincidentally, I saw it last night and watching Liev Schreiber, could not help but feel a case of deja vu all over again. The Manchurian Candidate, anyone?
SJRubinstein you are an asshole and have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. Go back to ScriptShadow and die.
Don, can I have some money?
That was harsh, Don.
SJR is one of the few people who post in here who I actually know and I am quite sure that he does know what he’s talking about and doesn’t talk a lot about what he does not have personal experience with.
Or maybe you know him too and are just f-ing with him.
Anybody that thinks that Hollywood reads the script sites and then adjusts accordingly is an arrogant asshole.
Hard to disagree with don. The sites would love to believe they have influence over the process. The only.script review that felt like it sandbagged a production was mcweenies review of the proposed jj abrams superman script.
The massive shift from abrams to singer seemed to be expedited after the massive online backlash to that script review.
Perm won’t get a dime.
he didn’t say Please!
I met someone called christopher lambert today but he wasn’t the totally awesome Highlander.
script sites = spam
(most of em)
Don’t forget, though, that McWeeny’s script review of ANCHORMAN has been credited by Adam McKay as getting the film out of development hell and into production.
I was startled by what I saw in the “Vanishing on 7th Avenue” trailer because it contained a lot of the major plot points of my novel that was published in 2003 called “Where Faintest Sunlights Flee.” As I am a poor individual, and did not make a killing of this book, I don’t know what I can do especially since it could have been repackaged into their film, or it could be a coincidence or even have nothing really in common at all. I won’t know until I see the movie, but I was royally pissed off when I watched the trailer. I can never catch a break.
So we give Drew +1 for Anchorman. And -1 for causing Superman Returns to get the go ahead. -1 for leaking the end to the Mist online. Darabont was pretty pissed about that. I know the WB folks were pissed off at the end reveal for Terminator Salvation, but that movie sucked. Though the original ending was much more interesting.
a. Rubenstein does not get his ego kicks from online script reviewing.
b. i am pretty sure Rubenstein is referring to movies he worked on and that the influence he’s mentioning is not every site or every reviewer.
c. pretty sure he would agree with you, Don, that producers who adjust to unsolicited script reviews are not doing anything smart.
but he can speak for himself, if he likes.
are you for real, johnbritt? (did you mean ‘vanishing on 7th street?’) if so, i think you need the lawblog, not the hotblog
(speaking of, i’ve been hanging out for “vanishing on…’ for what seems like ages, brad anderson is hands down my fave fledgling filmmaker, he’s the shit, interesting that he does a lot of tv between features. i worry about hayden but he managed alright in ‘life as a house’ and ‘shattered glass’, so maybe he’s tolerable in anything with a vaguely house-related title; ‘vanishing on 7th street’ contains a street address, so voila, house-related, it’s gonna be ok)
“I met someone called christopher lambert today but he wasn’t the totally awesome Highlander”. lol lota, who wants to live forever…who wants to live foreveeeeeeeeeeer?)
i’ve never even seen a script site, how weird does that make me
Anghus Houvouras – Well, maybe a -1 for letting SR go ahead, +3 for preventing Abrams’ script from going.
Rich, it would be hard to argue with you. i wasn’t blown away by the ideas i was hearing, but Superman is a boring property and taking him in a new direction might not have been a bad idea.
Abrams changed Star Trek and i thought it was great. I don’t know if his Superman would be a train wreck or not, we’ll never know. But we do know that Superman Returns was a lot of the same.
People never know what to do with Superman. They always go back to the typical bullshit Christ allegory. Sacrificing your only son, yadda yadda yadda. Predictable garbage.
Yes, Lex Luthor as a kryptonian, kryptnon not being destroyed, etc. Don’t know how it would have played, but i wouldn’t have minded seeing how it turned out. I think that’s sort of the nature of script reviews. Sometimes they can shine a light on something brilliant, but a lot of times they smother infant ideas still in the crib.
I know! We’ll have Superman fight a POLAR BEAR! And then at the end of the film, there’ll be a GIANT SPIDER!
Holy fuck! Kevin Smith posts here as Foamy Squirrel?!
Smith’s interview with Letterman about writing the Supes script was pretty entertaining. He got a ton of dough to write about Supes fighting polar bears.
Oh, missed all this. Re: Don – as David suggested, I wasn’t at all saying it was a good thing that people pay attention to script reviews online, quite the opposite. The first time I ever heard something parroted back from an online script review (luckily, it wasn’t to me), I just couldn’t believe my ears and I understood why the writer wanted to shoot either himself or the d-execs in the head.
And this from someone who used to review scripts online for AICN.
I’m in 1000% agreement with you on this issue, Poland.
As long those polar bears are wearing battle armor, I would totally pay money to see Superman fighting them.
If you’re still around, Don, could you tell me when Transformers 3 finishes shooting?
SmilingPolitely, are you suggesting a Superman/The Golden Compass crossover? …………………. I’d watch it.
Is anyone else here hoping Poland throws up a BYOB or something so we can talk about something else?
Anything else?
uh… Dave?
Very much, Not David.
Though oddly, the thing I want to talk about has been indirectly brought up in this thread.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAV0XrbEwNc
I’d say you could get a whole new thread out of this – big recording artist releases hooky new single that could NEVER be edited down to play on radio or television. This after using radio and television brilliantly to maximize the release of “Crazy” only a couple of years ago with Gnarls Barkley. If this song is successful – and I don’t mean internet/viral/Lonely Island (where the videos are half the thing) successful, I mean pushes sales in a real way, gets club play, etc. – then it’s a fascinating collision that shows Cee-Lo is ahead of the curve in a big way.
That is a great song. Can get it out of my head now.
Don – fancy dropping Lucy Mukerjee a note? (Was she your assistant? She was someone’s on Transformers…)
Tell her to hurry up and make Courtney get back to me. š