Word: scripting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...himself; one read simply, "MTV cops." Tartikoff presented the notion to Anthony Yerkovich, 34, formerly a writer and producer for Hill Street Blues, who related a movie idea he had been mulling, about a pair of vice cops in Miami. Yerkovich went to the typewriter and turned out the script for a two-hour pilot, originally called Gold Coast and later Miami Vice...
...definite attempt to give the show a particular look," says Bobby Roth, who directed a Miami Vice episode last season and is now executive producer of the new ABC series The Insiders. "There are certain colors you are not allowed to shoot, such as red and brown. If the script says 'A Mercedes pulls up here,' the car people will show you three or four different Mercedes. One will be white, one will be black, one will be silver. You will not get a red one or a brown one. Michael knows how things are going to look on camera...
...budget film ($2.5 million or less) and $42,000 for a more expensive film. A rewrite and a "polish" can bring the high-budget price to $61,548, but a writer who has been around commands a good deal more, and fees can rise steadily with each unproduced script. Says a New York author who has sold three scripts: "If you write five a year--I get more offers than that--you can make close to $700,000." If you are at the top of the profession, you can get $850,000 for a single unused screenplay, as William Goldman...
Once written, even the best script may die for a variety of reasons. Material developed for a star like Dustin Hoffman will be dead if the bankable name is not interested. Heads of studios change, and so do Hollywood fashions. Current trends favor movies about teens in turmoil and Clint Eastwood films without Clint Eastwood (Code of Silence, Witness). Writers who are fashioning clones of these movies may finish just in time to see their work outmoded by a new trend. "It's like a slot machine," observes Writer Howard Franklin. "You can have done your job well...
Lucrative rejection usually brings a surge of pride, followed by a sense of resignation and an attempt to cope with Hollywood's odd system. Before making it big with Breaking Away, Steve Tesich, 42, wrote six scripts that missed. To deal with the rejection, he would start a new script before sending a finished one in. "That way I could rationalize that the really good script was in the typewriter," he notes. Ephron says she tries to salvage some of her old scripts. "I keep moving my favorite jokes from one movie to another in hopes that someone will finally...