British Comedy Guide

A revelation about a screenplay I once wrote

Hi all, my first ever post.

I found this site after selling material to a famous comedian.
(I was looking for outlets for my other material)

Anyway what follows is the absolute truth and happened about 10 - 15 years ago (not checked the dates, just seems about that)
The only other people who know about this are my daughter (she was proofreading and an American friend) I never told anyone else as it would more than likely leave me open to scorn and mockery

I like probably most of you here have always dabbled with writing!
In the early days of the internet, I wrote a screenplay that I thought was excellent. But, I could not finish it - or at least finish it well.

So I found a writers website/forum that was run by compuserve members. (I was with compuserver in those days)
One of the admin took a liking to the outline of my story and tried suggesting fitting endings. I did not like any she (yes she) came up with.
I sent her the unfinished manuscript (email) so that she could get a better feel of the story and plot.
I never heard from her again!

A good while after, my daughter came home after a visit to the cinema and told me she could not believe what she had seen and heard on the screen.
Yep, my screenplay word for word, scene for scene until - the crappy ending. She insisted that I go with her and watch it.

I went to see the movie and I could quote dialouge in each scene before it was said.

Now, who was I going to tell this to. Who would believe me, what proof did I have. I had not submitted it anywhere and I had not finished it.

Just to finish for now, you will want to know what movie.

Well my working title was 'Thoughts'

The film starred Mel Gibson (yes Mel speaking my words lol)

And the Film was called 'What women want'

:O .... Eh? ..... Unimpressed is that true?

If you have an electronic copy that would have been timestamped by the computer/email. Then you may have a case for plagiarism. But I'm not sure?

If that's true that's rather astounding.
Eh?
Can't remember the ending of it now...

Quote: zooo @ September 9 2010, 1:06 PM BST

If that's true that's rather astounding.
Eh?
Can't remember the ending of it now...

Mel punched a baby.

Haha.

Did he change back to normal by getting struck by lightning again?

You see lol, 1st response is disbelief.

It is absolutely true. My nick on here is my actual name so I am hiding nothing.

The above story by me is an abbridged version of what exactly happened.

The woman who stole my partial script was using a nickname on the compuserve forum. She ignored anymore posts or pm's to her. I never knew her real name.

In the very early days of the internet tracing anyone was impossible (she was american, I knew that much)

And quite a time passed between this incedent and then the film hitting the screens - and I had rested my screenplay through lack of inspiration.

But I will say again; this story is TRUE

and BTW - zooo is correct, he did get struck by lightening '''again'''' crappy ending

In my script, he was struck by a bare live electrical cable on the head

Wow, that's a crazy story if it's true. Are you trying to tell me my rubbish posts will be stolen by you and turned into... more rubbish posts. :P

That's so shit if that's true though.

It happens. I've been passing off Nigerian spam email as avant garde poetry for a while now and I'm stinking rich off the proceeds!

What??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is the stuff (my) nightmares are made of. I don't even post my worst bits in critique here because of this very real problem. There is no way in the world I would have let her get away with it. It wouldn't have been that hard to trace who that woman was, she may have even been the screenwriter of the film! That's your money and career opportunity she took, nay, stole!!

My rule is that I never have ANYTHING AT ALL to do with American writer sites, comps included. Heard stories before about them. And even for British comps, I send a script that has at least been posted to myself just before.

But don't do what I did once and open your own MS envelope by mistake. It kind of invalidates the proof thing.

I'll go with the 'stinking' part :)

Actually I never persued payment or plagiarism suites. To be honest, I think I felt stupid for being taken like that.

The one good thing it did do though was give me confidence. I realised I could write a saleable screenplay - given another great idea of course.

As long as I can finish em this time though :)

Quote: Stephen Goodlad @ September 9 2010, 3:00 PM BST

I'll go with the 'stinking' part :)

Actually I never persued payment or plagiarism suites. To be honest, I think I felt stupid for being taken like that.

The one good thing it did do though was give me confidence. I realised I could write a saleable screenplay - given another great idea of course.

As long as I can finish em this time though :)

Yes it would be extremely hard to trace the person unless of course they had things like credits on films.

According to IMDB and WGA, a Diane Drake is co-credited with the story and a Cathy Yuspa is co-credited with the screenplay. In 2000 female screenwriters were a rare breed! Suspicious? I'd commence legal/ilegal proeedings right now, if it were me.

http://ezscreenwriting.com/Site/Home.html

Take a look at the submission agreement

The submission agreement makes perfect sense. A different issue.

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