Nov 10
19
This week Amazon launched Amazon Studios, a crowd-sourced approach to creative collaboration and movie making. Writers and filmmakers are invited to post their scripts and “test films”, with the potential to have others work on them, win money, and possibly have their film produced.
There are going to be a hundred blog posts complaining about this venture and, as the service exists now, I don’t plan on using it.
But, let’s look at this constructively. First, we should acknowledge that Amazon is a company, not a charity. It would be unfair to suggest that everything they do here need solely be for the benefit of art and culture. They are going to invest time and money into this project, so it needs to benefit them also. Knowing this, let’s see if there’s a way to make this thing work. Not as is, mind you. We’ll need to pull out our red pen and make some edits. But if Amazon is inviting the world to critique and edit our creations, the least they can do is be open-minded to subjecting their own philosophy to the same feedback.
Contests. Contests sound great. People win money. But when it comes to a studio who is going to work with writers and filmmakers to produce content, I don’t think the participants are winning anything. I think they’re earning it. Let’s say “earn money”, stick with the production deals, and drop the contests. I’ll suggest other places to spend that prize money below.
The Free 18-Month Option. My understanding of the option system is that it gives a film production company an exclusive head-start to try to bring resources together to get a film made: actors, directors, and (most importantly) other financiers. Having a screenplay optioned seems to me like a good thing for a fledgling writer. It’s one of the steps on the road to being produced and it says that someone took an interest in something you wrote. And, while options can often mean the writer gets some compensation for their work, it’s probably true that many options are bought quite cheaply.
When an option is given away for free, and given away on every piece uploaded to the service, I don’t think it carries the same value. Nothing obligates Amazon Studios to spend any time working to secure resources for a project, even read it, because the rights were obtained for free and won’t expire for 18-months.
So let’s red-line this.
Let’s make the “License Period” 3 months. Three months of free exclusivity for Amazon to sift through the mountains of projects and proposals they receive and see what’s really worth working on. Amazon Studios wants an 18-month option. Let’s make that extension $1,000. Each month, Amazon Studios is talking about giving away $140,000 in prize money. Let’s turn that cash into 140 writers or film-makers who get paid for an option. This way, Amazon has some “skin in the game”. They need to get serious about the projects they’ve bought into and not shackle or give false hope to creators whose projects still need work. And they get what they want, 140 new projects each month that could turn into something special.
What’s missing entirely here is the collaborative crowd-sourcing element. I have thoughts on that also, but I’ll save it for Part 2.