The dollar option receives undue stick. At the very least, it gets you a meeting (with light refreshments), a brief insight into the industry and, best of all, a contact. It shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.
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I now see it this way. if you wrote a screenplay and the film people thought it was the dogs bollocks, and say the budget for the film was 10 million. then I am quite sure you would make a pretty penny even at 2.3%.
I would defo take the chance on a option agreement. it would be a foot in the door and lead to agents and opportunities,which at the moment I do not have.
and I think the worst you can be in front of producers/directors is a greedy paranoid feck arse.
Quote: Nigel Ball @ September 20 2012, 5:35 PM BSTand I think the worst you can be in front of producers/directors is a greedy paranoid feck arse.
Again, that's your agent's job. But also you don't want to undersell yourself. Show business is exactly that - a business. People get shafted left right and centre all the time by unscrupulous toerags. Of course there's nothing to be gained from coming over as the 'Big I Am' (unless you're Ricky Gervais), but you don't want to be a pushover either.
Quote: don rushmore @ September 20 2012, 4:03 PM BSTThe dollar option receives undue stick. At the very least, it gets you a meeting (with light refreshments), a brief insight into the industry and, best of all, a contact. It shouldn't be dismissed out of hand.
How many story boards or modelling billboards do you do for a dollar Don?
Ha - I'm a professional; the OP isn't. He's an amateur trying to establish himself in a buyer's market. The prod-co has all the leverage, so they set the price. If that price is a quid, then so be it. Accept the deal or walk away. Money shouldn't be an issue at this stage, anyway.
Unfortunately money is ALWAYS an issue. On both sides.
Whether a writer has just started out or not, surely they should get paid a fair rate. If a prodco wants to hold onto a script exclusively for 12 or 18 months, then they must have a lot of faith in it.
On that subject, I'm increasingly concerned about the number of production companies calling for scripts on places like mandy.com but offering zilch for them. Not a good thing.
If a builder had just set up a business, they'd give a huge middle finger if their first client offered them a pound to build a conservatory.
A new off licence has just opened down my street. If I offered them £1 for the £9.99 crate of beer, they'd tell me to piss off.
The trouble with "the arts" is that people think creatives shouldn't be paid, as if what they write/create is just a hobby.
Writers have to pay rent/mortgage and other bills, just like everybody else.
***EDIT*** I wrote off license instead of off licence. Groan. Face-palm.
How much did Screenplay used to option scripts for?
Ah, good point.
I was new to the scene and figured at the time it would help get my foot in the proverbial door, as SP was the middle man between myself and the fortress of Radio 4.
But if every writer ends up shaking hands on dollar options, (or free options) it will eventually become the norm. Not a good thing.
Writing is just as much a profession than any other media job, and as such should be rewarded fairly.
Get what you're saying - and I'm the first to come down on writers who work at below the going rate - they're cutting their own throats and the throats of other writers.
BUT I think there's a fundamental difference between an option on a piece of spec work and a commission.
Let's take an 'artisan' analogy.
If you're a carpenter and someone asks you to make them a chair - you charge the going rate.
If on the other had you decide to make a chair - a rather esoteric chair maybe , not to everyones taste - and you ask a guy to sell it for you, stick it in his esoteric furniture shop window, you don't ask him to give you a few bob for the privilege - even though you know that, should it sell, he'll make a tidy packet - more than you maybe.
The option fee was designed to grant the producer exclusivity - so that he can work in confidence in a business with excruciatingly long lead times - and to be honest, the need for exclusivity is only really relevant if more than one person wants the script - in which case you can probably talk the option up anyway.
When I look at an option, first and foremost I look at the producers ability to make something happen - the money doesn't come into it.
Two years soon flies by and if, at the end of it, your script is dead in the water, that long spent £2k option starts to look a little silly.
I'd happily sign a zero option with the right person.
I'd never write a Draft for less than £7.5 k, though.
That analogy makes a lot of sense. 
Mind you, on the commission note, there is an increasing "black cloud" of prodcos setting themselves up and advertising on places like mandy.com, asking for actual scripts to be written without any payment.
I'm not talking about the film students posting on there with their grand plan of "we'll whore it round all the festivals."
I'm talking actual companies.
Quote: Mikey Jackson @ September 23 2012, 2:57 PM BSTThat analogy makes a lot of sense.
Mind you, on the commission note, there is an increasing "black cloud" of prodcos setting themselves up and advertising on places like mandy.com, asking for actual scripts to be written without any payment.
I'm not talking about the film students posting on there with their grand plan of "we'll whore it round all the festivals."
I'm talking actual companies.
That I am totally against and will shout "scab!" very loudly at a writer that takes up that kind of offer.
Quote: Mikey Jackson @ September 21 2012, 8:03 PM BSTWhether a writer has just started out or not, surely they should get paid a fair rate.
What's a fair rate though - £50? £500? A weekend away with the producer's missus? What happened to working for peanuts to get a foot in the door, or writing purely for the love of the craft?
Lose the ego.
Money can come from all sorts of sources unrelated to writing, but credibility/contacts/recognition (etc.) are much harder to come by.
A writer with no credits is a bitch, and a nobody. An inconsequential speck in the industry. He's swimming against the tide in a buyer's market and a "who you know" industry.
IMO, no financial considerations should ever compromise the #1 goal to "get something made" - even if they're making money off your back.
I can't imagine any starting writer giving it the old "you need me more than I need you, so pay me fair" will get very far.
In response to the thread title:
mmmMmmm... I do, I do, I doo-ooo.