Don Winslow: Top 10 Things Studios, Networks and Streamers Could Do To Treat Authors Better
*Editor’s Be aware: Don Winslow has spent the week writing a sequence of columns on his adventures in Hollywood for Deadline, at the same time as navigated the launch of his new William Morrow novella assortment Damaged with a digital e book tour. The response to those columns — a number of the finest writing we’ve seen on Deadline — has been inspiring, and fortunately the writer too likes the match. Whereas he received’t proceed to work ever day for no pay (past the demoralization of me having to put on the identical New England Pats shirt for the entire week), Winslow will proceed to write down the occasional column for us. He’s obtained extra deliberate, together with some that may talk about newer of his books which are on the drafting board as sequence and movies. He has not mentioned what I should undergo to get these columns, however this week was certain value it. Closing hostage pic is beneath. * – MF
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COPYRIGHT_BP: Published on https://bingepost.com/don-winslow-top-10-things-studios-networks-and-streamers-could-do-to-treat-authors-better/92999/ by Cecilia Jones on 2020-04-10T20:21:41.000Z
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High 10 Issues Studios, Networks and Streamers May Do To Deal with Authors Higher
By Don Winslow
1. Keep in mind what number of nice movies started with nice books.
Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Schindler’s Listing, Goodfellas, Forest Gump, The Exorcist, Video games of Thrones, Hen Field and It. What do all these nice movies and tv reveals have in widespread? They had been all nice books first. Likewise No Nation For Outdated Males, The Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs, Jaws, The Agency, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Need to have some enjoyable? Take a look at the forty years of Finest Image winners and see what number of of them had been tailored from books.
I do know that you simply love franchises – Harry Potter, James Bond, Lord of the Rings, Jason Bourne and Starvation Video games all began as books.
And keep in mind, each single Marvel film started as a Marvel comedian e book.
2. Name the writer.
Whenever you first purchase a e book, decide up the cellphone and name the writer. Behind the property you obtain – and subsequently theoretically cherished – is a particular person, who typically labored years, if not a lifetime, on the e book. So giving them a name isn’t solely the fitting factor to do, it’s the stylish factor. Take a second to inform them how a lot you appreciated their work and share your plans for creating and producing. Authors aren’t the vestigial bone on the physique cinema, in some ways we’re its coronary heart and blood.
3. Set up a relationship with the writer.
Too many studios assume that after the contracts are signed their relationship with the writer is over. You are able to do it that approach, but it surely’s a mistake, a chance blown. Fort Rock fashioned and maintained an actual relationship with Stephen King and have a look at the consequence -he saved giving them books and collectively they made phenomenal movies just like the aforementioned Shawshank Redemption, Distress, Stand By Me and others. By the way, two of these movies had been directed by the identical particular person, Rob Reiner, leading to hit after hit. Relationships matter, authors matter.
4. Encourage dialogue between the writer and the screenwriter and director.
Too typically, the director and screenwriter see the writer as a hindrance fairly than a assist and by no means contact us. However keep in mind, a number of the issues you’re going through are challenges that we struggled with years earlier than. Whereas books and movies are completely different media, the structural points are sometimes an identical. I keep in mind an expertise the place a e book of mine was optioned and I heard nothing for months. After I lastly referred to as to test in, I realized that they had been having story and character issues, the identical points I’d had in early drafts of the e book, which was why I went a distinct route. I instructed an answer and it labored. Had we been speaking regularly, I might have saved them two years, two screenwriters, and a number of other million {dollars} in growth.
5. Present the writer each draft, not simply the one you want.
I typically inform movie individuals, “Two thousand years earlier than you had been enhancing, we had been enhancing.” We get it, we perceive the method. We all know trial and error as a result of it’s the stuff of our every day lives. So please don’t disguise it from us. Allow us to ship notes and strategies. You don’t must comply with them, however even the Supreme Courtroom hears arguments earlier than they render a verdict. Once more, we could be belongings and never liabilities; allies, not enemies. Authors like J.Ok. Rowling and Stephen King have made essential contributions to the movie variations of their works. Keep in mind, Godfather writer Mario Puzo co-wrote the screenplays to some fairly good movies.
6. Be clear.
No writer ought to first discover out information concerning the growth of his personal e book within the media. That’s the worst factor that may occur, and, sadly, it occurs on a regular basis. I do know you spend months and years on these initiatives, however please remember that we frequently spend years if not many years. My ‘Cartel Trilogy’ – The Energy of the Canine, The Cartel, The Border – represents a 3rd of my life. So for us to learn within the media about an actor signing on, or a director leaving the movie for an additional venture shouldn’t be solely dismissive and offensive, however worse, undercuts the belief mandatory for a productive collaboration.
We are able to take unhealthy information, what we are able to’t deal with is silence.
Once more, decide up the cellphone.
Deal with us like companions and we can be.
7. Hold the core story and characters intact.
I do know you don’t consider this, however we do perceive that books and movies are completely different media. We all know they’ve completely different wants that mandate adjustments. (And please don’t discuss to us like we’re kids. My hand to God, I’ve been in too many conferences by which movie individuals really decelerate their speech once they’re speaking to me.) So some adjustments are mandatory, however you obtain the e book for a motive, and except that motive was simply the premise, you will have an obligation to stay to the core story and the characters. Are the Godfather movies completely different than the novel? Positive. Was Jaws modified to swimsuit the wants of movie? In fact. However all of these motion pictures retained the central story and the characters., they stayed trustworthy to the core values of the books. I might record any variety of profitable movies that did, and, sadly, much more that didn’t.
Please don’t take one thing that you simply love and switch it into one thing that nobody might love.
8. Keep in mind that a failure at one studio shouldn’t be a life sentence.
An awesome e book is all the time an incredible e book. So if it doesn’t get made at one studio, that doesn’t imply it’s not value making someplace else. I wrote a novel, The Winter of Frankie Machine, that has attracted the eye of three nice administrators – Martin Scorsese, Michael Mann and William Friedkin. Scorsese selected to make The Irishman ( movie) as an alternative, and Frankie in the end fell out of growth at Paramount. That was disappointing, but it surely’s nonetheless the identical e book that attracted these great, award-winning administrators. It’s no much less of a e book than it was the day it was revealed. I believe it could nonetheless make movie, and possibly sometime it’ll. Murderers get life with out the potential of parole, don’t condemn books to solitary confinement.
9. If a movie wins an award, please thank the writer.
Over time, I’ve watched the Academy Awards, seen movies tailored from books win Finest Image, and nobody thanked the writer.
Come on, guys – years earlier than you had been taking conferences, adapting, casting, story-boarding, filming and strolling that purple carpet, some writer was sitting alone is a few room developing with the thought and laboring to deliver it to life on the web page. More often than not, that writer was additionally struggling to pay the payments. I do know, I used to be that man. I’ve watched actors gripping that statue say that they don’t neglect their roots. All effectively and good, however please don’t neglect the roots of the work that helped you win that award. Only a easy ‘thanks’ means so much.
10. Help the e book.
It’s one world now, of us. Books, movie, tv, streaming content material, conventional media, social media – within the phrases of Lenny Bruce, “we’re all the identical cat”. When somebody sneezes in LA, somebody in New York says ‘Gezundheit’.
We want one another, and also you within the movie enterprise can achieve this a lot to assist the books that you simply’ve optioned or bought. Discuss up the e book in your social media, use your networking to get the phrase out, seem with the writer at an occasion, inform the world why you obtain the e book, what you’re keen on about it, and what your plans are for it. Acquired some thrilling casting information? Name us first, after which let everybody know. Consider me, it helps enormously, it sells books, and it’s good for you down the highway when the movie comes out.
We can assist you, too. I’m requested on a regular basis – I imply just about every day – about my expertise with movie and tv initiatives. The questions come from media, but in addition from readers – very protecting of books they love. I’ve a large alternative of how I reply, and I nearly invariably select to assist you.
We’re on this collectively.
We want one another.
Let’s assist one another.
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