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THE REALITY OF TRUE STORIES FOR TELEVISION
If you've ever read one of the many "How To" Books available you will see chapters devoted to true stories. Generally the "how to" Author will inform you that finding a true story is a great way to break into Hollywood. All you have to do is find a compelling true story in the news or in their hometown and then sell the story to a a studio. Here is what they don't say: You are asking real people to allow you to sell what may be the most traumatic event of their lives and they will have no control of the story. And you may have to (almost always)fictionalize it to make it more marketable. Then you present them with a contract that is so full of legal terms and complicated life release rights that most people (meaning all) get fearful of what exactly they are signing. None of this is cheap. You may have to pay upfront for their rights. Especially if the story is a headline case. A professional entertainment attorney will have to be hired, generally at an hourly rate, to write a contract that protects you the writer, the studio, the producers, and anyone else that has anything to do with the project. After you get through that process you must define the story, write a killer logline and find the right producer to take it around. Meanwhile, the real people are wondering what you are doing and why isn't their movie on next week's schedule? Real people generally don't get Hollywood. It's your job to keep their trust and explain the strange business of movie making. If by a miracle the story attracts the attention of a prod. or a studio there is no guarantee that it will be made. You then try to explain that while the story has been optioned, or purchased it still has a maze of steps to go through. I had one woman whose life rights I had optioned call me on a weekly basis to tell me who she would and would not allow to protray her. Of course she picked Academy Award winning actresses, and she wanted a million dollars from the studio for her life story rights. Needless to say her story has yet to be made. It's too bad because she has a great story to tell. Then there's the sticky issue of trying to tell the real people that you may not be the writer on the project. They have poured out their story to you and sent you every scrap of information available, and you are as aware of every detail of the story as they are and personally invested in the story, but you are not the writer the studio wants. It sounds daunting, and it is, but if you find a great story that has all the elements your story could be the next "ERIN BROCKOVICH!" The cliche that applies here is - if everyone could do it they would. You're the writer and you can. |
