Not what you'd call a conscientious poster, am I? Quality not quantity, that's what I'm after - feel the luxuriant nap of my blogging cloth, go on - touch it.
Anyhow...
Another thing I would have liked a little understanding of when starting out is just how incredibly long it takes to get things to PP*, SO, here begins a wee timeline of 2 projects as they develop. I'll give occasional updates whenever anything significant happens, so you can see for yourself how long these projects take to bloom or, as is much more likely, wither and die.
DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS
September 2006 - I meet with producer, who I first encountered at a read through for a show for which he was one of the execs. We chat around a bit, connect, fumble towards a few ideas that get us both excited, and agree to meet again to work out which of the amorphous blobs we fumbled with might be shaped into a viable dramatic story.
October 2006 - meet again, pick three ideas to work on, get excited, I bounce around like an over-enthusiastic puppy. I'm never sure whether or not this a good idea in meetings, but can't seem to help myself.
November 2006 - e-mails bounce back and forth a few times, we have a phone conversation, Producer says I must pay you something, I say, nah, wait till I've got it on a page and see if it'll work before we get to that stage.** I send him a one pager on one of the ideas, which is for a series. Producer takes it to his boss, it gets a cautious 'we like it'. It will move on to treatment stage. However, as it will involve a considerable amount of research, we decide to push on the 2nd project first. Also, the 2nd project depends to a certain extent on the consent of a 3d party, so it makes sense to find out whether or not we're going to get it.
December 2006 - producer contacts 3rd party re. 2nd project, who say they want an outline before they'll talk further.
January 2007 - I send a one pager on the 2nd project to producer, who forwards it to the 3rd party. We wait.
Four months have gone by already.
More news as it happens, newshounds.
*That would be PP for Principal Photography, a hallowed day in every writer's calendar, because not only is it the first day of real oh-my-god-they're-actually-going-to-make-it-why-did-I-ever-think-that line-would-be-even-intelligible-let-alone-dramatically-significant shooting, but signals the release of the Subsequent Use Advance, which is basically a repeat fee upfront. Most important.
**Might seem odd, but at that moment the ideas didn't really exist in a concrete form, and my tortuous reasoning was that I don't want to get paid for an idea unless I really think it's going to work, and at the company concerned, because once you're paid for an idea it no longer belongs to you, and I needed it to feel like mine to make it concrete. Does that make any sense at all...?
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2 comments:
So have you left the first project in limbo?
Last time I bounced around like an over-enthusiastic puppy they had to put newspaper down.
While I'm happy to feel the cloth, now way am I kissing any rings. Let's just make that clear.
Hope you don't have to wait too long to hear from the party of the third part.
It was when I started licking his face that I noticed real anxiety creep into his expression.
First project is waiting for me to get round to doing a treatment - I need to do a lot more reading before I can conjure the world (it's period), and I'm fitting the development stuff around the definitely will get made stuff, of which an ep has reached beat sheet stage and has a preliminary shoot date, which does add impetus...
I'll be sure to inform parties of the fourth part when the party of the third part responds to the communication initiated by the party of the second par , the results of which will be passed in turn to the party of the first part.
Lawyers. Weird.
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