Take Two

Why set pieces are the most important part of your take.

Many people who want to be screenwriters have no idea what the day-to-day of the job actually entails. I didn’t, when I first started out. 

But what I’ve learned over my last decade in the industry is that the job of a working screenwriter is rarely about having a great idea for your own original TV show or movie. 

The job of a working screenwriter is primarily having a great idea for someone else’s TV show or movie. 

Over the past four years, I’ve either sold or been hired to write one thing per year. Of those four projects, only one was an original. (A grounded sci-fi show I sold to Freeform.)

One was a movie based on a premise that the studio liked. (This became Buzzfeed’s “1UP.”) One, was an adaptation of a short story. And one was an American remake of a foreign film. 

Now, we can talk about what that means for the current state of filmmaking or argue about the ramifications of an overreliance on IP, but the truth is, this is how the business has worked for a very long time. (And if you don’t believe me, check out the Rewatchables episode about BACK TO THE FUTURE.)

Sure, as a working screenwriter, people come to you and say, “What are YOUR ideas?”

But the way you actually tend to make money as a working writer is when those people come to you and say, “Here’s MY idea. How would you make this?”

That is, primarily, the job. 

Even if you’re a TV writer in a writer’s room; unless you are running the show, you are there to provide takes that help execute the showrunner’s vision.

So… how exactly do you construct a “take?”