So let’s say I’m writing a movie, but only writing it. This is my first screenplay so I am not directing it, or producing it, or really anything else except for writing it and sitting on set watching it made. It’s a good movie. A hella good movie. My movie gets made and the academy loved it (told you it was good), so the movie is nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. We won! Yay! My question is…do I get a statue for writing it?
I mean, the movie is my idea and in a sense it’s my baby. Obviously if the movie is good and wins for best movie of the year I would feel responsibility for that, and I would want a statue, so do I get one? Is that even my call? Who’s call is that then?
Also, since animated movies aren’t split up into categories (director, writer, actor etc.) how do they decide who gets a statue? The same argument I wrote above would still prevail…if I write the best animated movie of the year (not too hard, as long as there isn’t a Pixar movie that year) do I get a statue??
No, writers don’t get the Best Picture Oscar. The producers of the movie get that – they are the ones who pulled together the resources and got it made. Writers get the Best Writing (original or adaptation) award, directors get Best Director, etc.
With Best Animated, the same prevails – the producers get the award.
P.S. Writers are considered a necessary evil by most producers/directors.
Interesting.
So then just to play devil’s advocate on the whole matter…Producers are generally an “anybody” type of position right? Actors have to be in SAG, writers in WGA, directors in DGA, but there isn’t anything for producers (to my knowledge). So if the company is nice enough (or whatever) if I could lobby them to make me a producer, without having any REAL responsibilities, I could get a statue?
A film producer is, more or less, the business manager of the film:
As a writer, it’s your job to get the best deal when you sell the script. You get as much money upfront as possible. You get as big a cut from the money the movie makes as possible. You get as much creative control as possible. Naturally, the more well regarded you are as a screenwriter, the more of all of those you get. It helps if you are a writer-director or even a writer-director-actor. It helps if you’re doing it as a small-budget independent film. You might be able to have complete creative control in that case, especially if it’s so small a budget that you’re acting as producer yourself.
In more standard cases, where you are a first-time screenwriter and you’re negotiating with a big-time producer, you’re not going to get much of anything. You won’t have any cut of the money the film takes in or any creative control. The best you can hope for is a lot of money upfront.
If your movie is really good and people think that it’s because your writing is good, you have a chance of winning Oscars and other awards for best writer. What makes you so sure that if it is good that it’s because of your writing? Filmmaking is a collaborative process. Perhaps it’s good because of the director or the actors or the special effects or any of dozens of other things. Like it or not, the producer is the one who picks up the Best Picture Oscar.
If it makes a difference I’m not actually writing a movie (it seems like I’m using the “this friend of mine…”) I was just wondering since I enjoy writing and don’t like it when a writer gets shafted.
Note that in most cases, your script will have have had massive changes made to it during production. It’s not a case of just filming the script; producers, directors, and actors have input into the finished product and what’s on the screen will most likely be much different from what you wrote.
People tend to think that screenplays are just shot as is – but that’s extremely rare.
Yes, and often a script is formally or informally rewritten before it is even shot, sometimes multiple times. The Writers Guild determines who gets final credit on the completed film. Maybe you wrote the original script and sold it, but your name may not even wind up on the movie in the end.
Normally, the AMPAS only allows three names to be submitted as producers of films in competition, even if there are more names in the credits. (They made an exception this year for the film The Reader, where they allowed four names, partly because Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack died during the process.)
The producer’s job is to produce the movie. If you somehow convinced a company to give you the job of being a producer and then sat back, reveling in your supposed lack of responsibilities, you’re in for a rude awakening when the company executives show up a few months later and want to know where the movie is. It was your job to get it made. And that means finding a script, hiring a director, getting a cast and crew, and getting film in the can.
Technically in the case I was mentioning it would be more like I wrote it and was around enough of the production to convince the ACTUAL producers just to list me as a producer for the sake of awards
This is actually a fairly recent rule, largely attributed to the everyone-&-the-kitchen-sink group that accepted the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. Since then, they’ve forced the studio submitting the film to decide who the slate of 3 are.
Huh? Sure they are. Check any list of credits. Here’s the credits page for Up. It looks exactly like every other credits page on IMDb.
If you mean that animated movies aren’t eligible for the other Oscar categories, that’s wrong too. They’re just as eligible for every other category as any live action movie. There’s a Best Animated Feature but that doesn’t limit it.
But since there’s both a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award and a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award, you could walk away with a statue for yourself regardless of what happens in Best Picture.
So? Your getting a producer credit can happen. (In a writer’s wildest dreams.) There can be more than a dozen people listed as some subspecies of producer. As the others have said, if you don’t do the ACTUAL work of a producer, the Academy won’t recognize you as one.
For this I was talking strictly in the “Best Animated Movie” category. Since there isn’t a best animated director, writer etc.
This is true as well (especially if it’s as good as I said it was). Although it didn’t translate at all in my words I was again thinking of animation when I wrote about just being named a producer, which was my fault because I didn’t make any reference to that in the statement.
There is a Producers Guild of America (PGA). Their annual awards, while not a sure-fire precursor (they picked 5 of the last 9 Best Picture winners), are still very closely watched. A producer doesn’t HAVE to be in the PGA to have their picture be nominated for or win an Oscar, but neither do actors have to be in SAG or writers have to be in the WGA to be nominated for or win an Oscar. Regarding regular work, not necessarily awards, actors and writers can get work without belonging to the unions, but it’s easier if you belong (someone like Robert Rodriguez who gave up his membership in the WGA and is still sailing along just fine notwithstanding). I’d imagine that real Producers would be proud to belong to the PGA. Not that someone isn’t a real Producer if they don’t belong, but fake producers (got a credit because they’re sleeping with the director, ponied up some cash) wouldn’t care if they belonged or not.
The question’s already been answered, but my observations have been that fake producers would never get anywhere near an Oscar podium. Real Producers who do the actual work rightly get the kudos and awards.
I believe that was the “Guild” in Team America (“Fuck Yeah!”) that Matt Damon, George Clooney and the rest belonged to.
Right, plus benefits such as health insurance. And you can get into screenings, get screeners, and vote on your Guild’s awards. Call me shallow, but that’s why *I’d *want to belong to a Guild.
But the Guilds put limits on what you can do with your script/your film.
Everything from “How many people can share a writing credit?” to restrictions on the title sequences (eg George Lucas’ disagreement over the opening of Star Wars). It is up to you as to whether this is good or bad, but some people feel they have been screwed by the guilds, or at least made to endure some additional level of bureaucracy.
