The Artful Writer recently posted about Amazon Studios, an opportunity that seems too good to be true. Because it is. Check out what the post had to say:
Recently, Amazon launched “Amazon Studios,” a strange mashup of contest/development/crowd-sourcing designed to help filmmakers “break in” by getting noticed, winning money and even having their movies released by Warner Brothers.
It’s a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad deal.
Well, let me amend that.
It’s a GREAT deal if your script stinks and your movie shouldn’t get made. Under those circumstances, someone’s reading your crap, maybe even helping you with your crap, and perhaps as a result of human fallibility, you might even get some money for your crap.
But if your script is GOOD? If you’re actually talented? If you have real potential as a writer, director or filmmaker?
Bad, bad, bad, bad deal.
How is it bad? Let us count the ways.
CREATIVE
I can’t say it better than John August did, so I’ll just summarize. Works of authorship are special because they’re not crowd-sourced. It’s a ridiculous misapplication of new thinking. I like progress, but crowd-sourcing is a tool, and you need the right tool for the right job.
FINANCIAL
Here’s where Amazon kind of disgusts me. They put this whole “Hollywood is old and lame, and we’re the new hotness” vibe out there. In their intro video, their hip spokesman with the spiky haircut is an inclusive, welcoming voice. Hollywood is represented by a fat old Jew at a desk.
Funny thing, though. The actual terms of Amazon’s “studio” are so much worse than those offered by Hollywood studios, it’s grotesque.
First off, forget about unions. Amazon ain’t into it. Not the WGA, not the DGA.
Next, let’s talk about their option. When you submit material to Amazon–say, a script–they have an exclusive option on the script for 18 months. During that 18 months, they can do whatever they want with your script. They can change it, smash it together with other scripts… and of course, make a movie from it, or commission a book, or any other derivative work.
You know what else they get to do? They get to sell your material. They can sell your script to customers. If you submit a movie, they can sell that too. Oh, but that’s not just for 18 months.
That’s FOREVER. They have a permanent right to sell that stuff. After 18 months it’s not an exclusive right, but good luck competing with Amazon, friend-o.
And if you’re not American, you have to waive your droit moral anyway, so don’t think about gettin’ fancy with copyright, foreigners!
But okay… what do you GET for all of this?
NOTHING.
You get nothing. The option is frickin’ FREE, and the upside is capped. In Hollywood, if you option a script, it’s hopefully for something. Even a dollar. But the good news is that if the script sells to a studio, the marketplace sets the ceiling. You could get a hundred grand… or four million dollars.
Not in Amazon-ville. In Amazon-ville, you option your script for NOTHING, and the option buy-out is $200K. And when you get that 200K, my brothers and sisters, Amazon owns that script lock-stock-and-barrel for ever, just the way a studio would.
Read more at The Artful Writer.
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