Monday, March 30, 2009

Pay It Forward

A year or so back I was having a conversation with a reader, discussing scripts we had read and loved. I remembered a script I reviewed on Tiggerstreet.com, a fantastic monster feature with great characters, a fast unrelenting pace, and an outstanding plot.

Let me get this straight from the start, I hate horror and monster movies. I don't understand why anyone would like watching a film where stoopid students get hacked to pieces, or some monster is on the loose and a couple who were once romantically involved have to hunt it down and save the world. In other words I find these types of films dull, boring and a waste of my time.

So it was a surprise for me to read this script and find that not only did I love it, but I wanted to see it made. So I went back through seven years of emails hoping to find an email from the writer, as luck would have it I still had his address. We got chatting and it ended up with me agreeing to help with a rewrite and to find the script a home. A year later I may well have just done that. An Australian film production company of some renown have shown an interest in the script and the writer is waiting to hear from them.

If I hadn't bothered that script might have found itself on a shelf covered in dust and ignored. I used the few contacts I have to get people to look at the script and it seems to have paid off.

I know so many people, writers especially, who are so precious over their industry contacts. Why should we be? We're writers, all with the same agenda, so why not give someone a leg up by recommending a friend's script you're really passionate about. You don't have to give out those contact's details, just forward the script. You never know this act of kindness might pay off in later years and help you get something of your own made. Of course I'm not asking you to send scripts to you contacts that you don't believe in, because that would just be silly and would do your reputation no good at all.

Come on writers if there's someone out there you admire as a writer, or even better a script you think rocks, or could rock with a little close attention, then give that person a friendly hand up the writing career ladder. Be kind, pay it forward.

2 comments:

Adaddinsane said...

Yes indeedy, what goes around comes around ... etc.

Neil said...

The reason people enjoy watching those (let's face it - shit) horror movies is because said idiotic students are KILLED!! They die in supidly epic ways and that's always fun. People want to see other people die, it's as simple as that. Oh and there are big-breasted girls as well.