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Dangerous Releases In front of the law, it appears that general releases don't protect producers as much as they'd like to. Good for the rest of us. But it only means they end up making them longer, adding more silly clauses. I dared change a lot of releases, loosely rewriting them based on the one Inzide is currently using. Strangely enough, no one complained about that so far. As long as they had the basics (similarity, past or future, employees, etc.), it seems that they'll live with it. Then I got this nice proposal from a well-positioned literary agent who found my summary on the net. I was very happy until I read the most dreadful release I've ever read. Not only was there the usual crap about something similar possibly existing during the time-span of the universe, but they dared to add the word "identical!" The statistics of having two identical scripts by separate writers are smaller than having two persons being identical twins without having the same mother and father! Then they went on, adding that the writer "hereby acknowledges that he is familiar with Section 1542 of the Civil Code of the State of California, which reads as follows: bla bla bla, but that he willfully choose to waive forever any protection such law could grant on him." Stop! I understand that agents and/or producers are getting paranoiac about us so-called pretentious writers who dare see counterfeiting of our wonderful script about LOVE, the minute the word "love" is used in any script that hits the screen... But, gee! Give us break. Ideas aren't that dead cheap. It seems that "they" now want all of us sign a total, global, all-encompassing release for any idea that we have, will have or had had since we're born, and then only those sacro-saint powerful deciders might consider if they feel like paying us any money if at all. For they'll actually have the legal right to go and shoot the script without bothering about the author compensation (or even credit for that matter) and the latter wouldn't be able to do a thing about it. The Internet is a danger for scriptwriters, lest we find a way to stop the escalating reach of those releases. A writer's guild, a group of websites, Final Draft, someone or something should publish a fair release template, that would take into account that there are crooks on both sides, and make it available freely on all writer's sites. And then, if an agent/buyer decides that it's not good enough, it'll mean that such agent/buyer doesn't have enough respect to deserve reading any scripts. I'd be ready to do the first draft, but I'd need major support to refine it and broadcast it. (Major support, such as the biggest players ready to vouch for it and be happy with it). If we do a good job and, say, William-Morris and United Artist and InZide and some others all feel it's good enough for them, then who'll dare come up with their own little dirty pact with the Devil? Mr. Jean Bergeron studied a bit in cinema, made a living from advertising
for a while, and directed tons of 30 second spots. Meanwhile, he wrote several
scripts in French, but the restricted Quebec market always seemed too small for
the type of work he was interested in. Two years ago, he started writing in
English. He ended with a produced all-fiction Imax script (for which he also
directed the aerial footage), a (cheaply) optioned script and a third script,
the synopsis of which is drawing the attention of many. He loves commercial
movies, yet secretly works on a screenplay that he might someday accept to call
a form of artistic expression. |
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