Thursday 11 September 2008

Factory/Warehouse

You may well have seen all the ballyhoo over on Shooting Pople regarding a script call made by someone calling themselves 'The Script Factory'. I responded to the original posting, and got this message back today, which I'm offering up below. A lot of work required over the next month! I won't be partaking, and I suspect that not many others will either, but hey ho - who am I to complain?

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Dear writers,

Thank you for your interest in these projects. My apologies for the group e-mail but as you can imagine we have had quite a response from our posting thus it would be too time consuming to do individual responses. Below is a list of several novels that currently are of interest. As stated in the posting we have contacts with a couple of high profile agents who have discussed these projects with their clients and would be keen to read any submissions that we put forward. At this stage there is, unfortunately, no development money but this is an excellent opportunity to have your work read by people at the very top of the industry who actually want to make the project that you have worked on. As long as the agent and their client agree to the project, we will be in a position to package it and offer Equity rates.

There a three projects that we are looking to start with.

These consist of the following -

1. A modern adaptation of Daphne Du Mauriers Rebecca
Feature film
Leads roles think -
Ralph Fiennes to play Max De Winter
Naomi Watts as 2nd Mrs De Winter

Rebecca modern adaptation we will need
- 10 line summary
- 10-15 page treatment
- 20-30 pages of script

2. Adaptation of John Masefields Dead Ned and Alive and Kicking Ned

12 Part mini series for TV
Dead Ned/ Alive and kicking Ned we will need:
- 10 line summary
- 10-15 page treatment
- 1st episode (To give you a feel it should be written as if a BBC period drama)

3. Adaptation of J.Meade Faulkners Moonfleet
6 Part mini series
Moonfleet we will need
- 10 line summary
- 10-15 page treatment
- 1st episode(Again the feel should be written as if a BBC period drama)

Please feel free to choose one that suits you best . If you find you would like to do more then that is entirely up to you. The deadline for the first round of submissions will be the 13th of October. Once again due to the volume it may be impossible to reply to everyone individually but we will let you know if you are offered the chance to present a full script or if what you have done is not what they are after. Once we have been though everyones ideas we will chose to work from a maximum of 3 working scripts from each film/tv project to move forward with. Your interpratation of the projects and the artistic direction you choose to go in is entirely up to you, if you chose to stay close to the stories or venture quite far from them in your adaptation that is at your discretion. The only real criteria is that the projects are exciting, innovative and well written. Not too much to ask for I am sure!

Also could all future responses be sent to the e-mail address scriptwarehouse@yahoo.co.uk as we have discovered that the script_factory e-mail address is very similar to the name of a company that we have no affiliation with, we would not like to mislead anyone. Best of luck and I look forward to reading your submissions.
Richard S

8 comments:

Jason Arnopp said...

I can't believe they're still mentioning "Equity rates", which clearly apply to performers. Doesn't fill you with confidence.

Chip Smith said...

There's a lot about this e-mail that didn't fill me with a great degree of confidence, which is why I posted it here for the entertainment value (spelling errors and all) (on reading it initially, I thought, 'Life's too short').

Jason Arnopp said...

I don't mind the spelling errors. After all, if they could write, they'd write these scripts themselves! It's the general air of asking people to run a marathon for free.

Chip Smith said...

And let's not forget that "it may be impossible to reply to everyone individually"! Zoiks! All that work and not even a pat on the head at the end of it...

Jason Arnopp said...

Indeed! Thinking about it, the point I meant to make earlier, is not so much that people are asked to write for free (it's not as if the producer should be expected to pay everyone, obviously), but that they'll end up with such a specific piece of work, which can't then be used elsewhere.

Adrian said...

I've sent Richard (which shortens to 'Dick' interestingly), this email...

Hello,

having seen your request for writers to do adaptations, I'm keen to hear more about you and the projects before I embark on doing any research or writing. After all, you're essentially asking me to work for a month for free at your behest, so I'm sure you'll be more than happy to answer a few questions:

1) who are you?
2) what else have you made?
3) are any of these projects going to go into production?
4) if so, who are your partners?
5) what money are you willing to pay for the successful writers?
6) who wrote your ad, why can't they spell, and why haven't they ever heard of The Script Factory if they're serious industry professionals?

Toodle pip, I look forward to your detailed response to these simple questions: don't spend more than a day on them; after all, you won't be paid, but it is part of your job.

-- Adrian

Chip Smith said...

These guys (be it Factory, Warehouse or Landfill), are obviously desperate for 'product', but don't want to pay anyone to get it - so count me out.

I'm sure if they were organised enough they could do a 'ten page sift' and then chosse someone to work with from there, but I guess that would entail parting with £££...

Adrian said...

Oh sure, I have zero interest in this, err, 'opportunity'...but I wanted to see if my email could draw a response. Will let you know if it does...