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If you're like most aspiring screenwriters, you need a "day job" to support your creative writing habit.
We've all read the grim statistics on how the flood of scripts to producers and agents results in only a trickle of completed motion pictures each year. And how even fewer of these films result from spec script sales by unknown writers. Even established writers for the big screen, those with bona fide agents and credits, suffer dry spells and draughts.
Sure, a spec script sale can mean big bucks-but so can winning the lottery and sometimes I think the odds are better with the lottery.
So, the question remains: what do you do for a day job?
In my case, my day job allows me to write. I like that. It also allows me to write for the screen. That's even better. Granted-it's not the big screen. It's a smaller canvass: corporate and educational media.
There's a huge market out there for video and interactive media scripts on a seemingly endless range of subjects. Business can be found almost anywhere you find a corporate headquarters, hospitals, financial institutions, advertising agencies and PR firms, or colleges and universities. These media writing assignments are paying gigs. Okay, so it's not a low against a mid-six-figure deal. Still there's money to be made.
If you're skilled at it, you can make a decent living while honing writing skills. You can take on as much or as little work as you want and set your own hours. That can mean more time for writing your spec script than you might get with a traditional nine-to-five job where you're stuck in a cubicle all day.
So-I'll be contributing to Hollywoodlitsales by explaining the opportunities in the corporate/educational media market, helping you find work, and discussing how the craft involved in this writing is both similar and different from screenplay writing. Some of the topics will include: the marketplace and finding work, research and concept development, writing the treatment, script formats, interactive projects, media writing techniques and tools as well as the generic writing process. All these topics will be addressed from the perspective of writing corporate and educational media programming.
It might prove profitable for you--while serving as a tool for honing your writing skills. |
