How I got my first "for hire" screenwriting job

And the creative constraints that come with non-spec writing

First, I can’t give the full scoop on what this job is. The details are still confidential at this stage. What I can say for now is: I got hired for my first paid screenwriting job, and it’s a feature screenplay for a really incredible and prolific producer. And I can vaguely tell the wild story of how it landed in my lap. Hopefully, in a few months, the details will be public.

I thought this moment, if it ever came, would still be many years away. Feature film writing gigs are maybe the hardest jobs to get in the film industry: there’s not much demand for new writers, there’s a ton of competing talent, and there’s still no efficient way to sift through all these writers and their scripts (even with ChatGPT).

I expected I’d need to self-produce a few zero-budget indie films, and maybe get a TV gig before I could float my name for a feature film. But stars aligned, I saw an opening, put my name out there (pretty aggressively), and got very lucky, all at the same time. Also, I did produce one low-budget indie to get here. Hopefully, I can share all the details in a future post if the project goes public. For now, at least I have a paid writing gig, and a very real shot at getting a second movie out there.

The purpose of this post is to share briefly how this happened, and then provide some insight into how writing “for hire” differs so much from writing original content on spec. In particular, this sheds some light on why film and tv genres are so formulaic and how casting and plot stereotypes endure…

How I got this writing gig…

When I finished production on my first feature film (now titled “Burning Rain” - IMDB), I had a bunch of stills and proxy footage that I quickly assembled into a brief pitch package. I was using this primarily to fundraise for postproduction, but I also sent it to a bunch of international producers to solicit advice on our distribution possibilities. I figured, best case scenario, I’d hear back from one of these producers. That’s exactly what happened.

The guy who got back to me (I’ll leave him unnamed for now) was a career indie producer & director with over 50 feature film credits. He had a solid track record for distributing indie films, and he sympathetically told me, “if you don’t have any movie stars in your film I don’t think I can help you.” Encouraging.

I followed up with a polite thank you, and also… “if you’re ever interested in producing anything in Thailand, I’m happy to consult on budget, crews, locations, script, and anything else for no charge.” And as it turns out, he did have a script that he was trying to produce and direct in a cheap, tropical location.

We started working together on a production plan and budget for this script he had. I gave him notes on the script, but he wasn’t interested in a rewrite. I didn’t push the subject. I was excited just to be producing something again. And I liked him - honest, down-to-earth, knowledgeable, but humble. Plus he seemed to think I wasn’t totally useless. Big plus. It all felt like a strike of good luck, or maybe the payoff of sending all those unanswered emails. At least I found this one guy I like working with. And then, the second stroke of good luck…

One day, this producer/director I liked working with so much was asked to direct an action film…in Thailand. It was a big-name producer trying to hire him - a guy I’d heard of, whose films I’d watched multiple times…and he asked the director if he knew any producers in Thailand. “Well, as a matter of fact, I just started working with one.”

That simple case of right place right time is how I got in the room with a major Hollywood producer, who told me he wanted to make an action genre film in Thailand. He wanted to make it for 3-4 million dollars, and he had already had a script. He hadn’t read the script yet, but he asked me to look at it and budget the project for him.

I read the script. It was a mess. Not just terribly-written, but unproducible. There were action scenes that made so little sense that I couldn’t budget them. I questioned at times if it was an action film or an action-parody film. But this was an opportunity: clearly, this producer needed a new writer.

I knew he wouldn’t want to hire someone new. It would cost time and money. It would mean firing the first writer, which no decent person likes to do. And if I were going to pitch myself as the new writer, it would mean him taking a huge bet on me - gambling time and money that I could deliver a producible action script (something I’ve never done before), and do it on a tight schedule.

I made my case: you know fifty other writers who are safer bets than me. All I can promise is this: (1) I’ll do it for almost no money up front, and (2) the rough draft will be done before the end of the month. You have no reason to believe I can do this job, but this way, even if the script sucks, you’ll waste almost no money, and, at most, one month of time. If my rough draft isn’t something you know you want to produce, you still have money and time to find someone else, and I’ll help you produce it either way.

He gave me the month to write a draft. I worked on the script every day, cranked through a few outlines, and then two full drafts. I watched over a dozen action films. I cut scenes, trying to keep the length to a tight 90 pages. It was hard, but the constraints of the genre at least made the task more straightforward (more on that below). I sent the script over, and then tried to get a solid night’s sleep while waiting for his response.

His response pinged on my phone the next day…

“Great script!” And then seven paragraphs of notes. They were good notes, too. Mostly, I was just thrilled to be hired for the next draft. And not just as a writer, but as a producer as well.

Writing a work for hire…

Writing this script was a masterclass in genre stereotypes - why they exist, why they endure, and how to operate within their constraints.

One of the first things I did when getting the writing assignment was ask the director and the producer what they each needed and wanted from the script. Did they have actors in mind? Knowing we’re on a budget, what kinds of stunts would they like to avoid? Most telling, what action movies do they like, and are there any films that they think capture the feel or narrative archetype that they want from this film? Obviously we’re not making a Mission Impossible for $3-4M, but something like Rambo or Man on Fire could be achievable in a place like Thailand.

Casting was the most important constraint. I used to think that directors just choose the best talent from auditions. In fact, this is relatively rare. Because of the way films get financed through pre-sales, actors play a huge part in how much money you can raise for your film. (I won’t detail this process here, but many good articles have been written about it.) In other words, big-name actors add commercial viability to the film. These actors are called “bankable.”

This gets a bit complicated, but in short, distributors (not producers) decide which actors are “bankable.” So when the producer is trying to secure funding for the film, they have to go to distributors and essentially ask “which actors are bankable right now?” The distributor uses “comps” and sales models to project how much audience different actors will bring in in different territories, given the genre of your film. Maybe your action film is projected to make $5M dollars in Germany if Tom Cruise is the lead, but if you replace Tom Cruise with that guy you saw playing Cop #2 on NCIS, your distributor will only promise you $100. Actually, they won’t even respond to your email. I would know. For that reason, developing and financing a film, even deciding your budget, depends largely on what star cast you can afford (or entice) to perform for you.

Given that, when starting my script, I had to talk to the director and producer about what “bankable” cast we could get at our budget, and they gave me pretty specific guidelines. (Maybe I can say more on this in another article - it was particularly disheartening to see how race and gender get monetized by distributors and end up reinforcing inequality in the industry.) Also, there are genre conventions we have to satisfy in order to be considered a “safe enough” bet by distributors to warrant making presales. This means being comparable to previously successful films. “Is this film more like Extraction or more like John Wick?” For a $3-4M budget, probably neither.

In the grand scheme of things, I got a lot of creative liberty with this script. Some producers/studios give a lot more guidelines and notes than I received. And on a “for hire” writing job, you have to do as you’re told. There is no “but I’m the writer and I have a creative vision” nonsense. If the producer says “I want a scene-for-scene copy of this Hallmark movie with different character names and slightly different jokes,” then your job is to deliver that, with exactly as much Hallmark verve as the producer wants. Luckily for me, I got a reasonably long leash outside of the genre, budgetary, and distribution constraints I mentioned before.

“Formulaic, but elevated” was the main input I was given. Both the director and producer sent me some movie titles that they said I should use as reference points. “Not anything too derivative.” Fortunately, making the film unique to Thailand would guarantee a certain level of originality on its own. In the end, I’d describe the script I wrote as 90% formulaic, and 10% original. Like a good old-fashioned cheese pizza with a fluffy crust, oregano on top, and just a hint of…lemongrass?

Given our budget, I set some ground rules for the film: no car chases, no urban (i.e. Bangkok) locations, no fight scenes with more than five people on screen, only two small explosions in the film, do as much off-screen as possible (i.e. using suspense in place of explicit on-screen violence), and keep the on-screen fight choreography simple.

To sum up: how is this different from writing an original film on spec (with almost complete creative freedom)? On the for-hire project, everything from the character design to story structure is heavily constrained by commercial genre demands (and in this case, a pre-determined budget). A lot of that comes more from the distributor than the producer. The producer adds some creative vision on top of that. So does the director.

Remember the 90%/10%? The way I see it, it’s not that the 90% is written from an instruction manual. It’s not that I think an elevated ChatGPT could churn that out in my place. It’s more like I have to take a lot of inputs (subjective and objective) from different people/sources and weave those inputs seamlessly with something that hasn’t been seen (or at least felt) before…just the right amount of originality to be distinct and surprising, while also feeling familiar. The audience has to basically get what they want, while also getting something extra that they didn’t bargain for.

I’m not sure if I’m delivering that in the script. But with any luck, in a few months time, that will be the director’s problem, not mine :)

For now, I’m just feeling very lucky that I’ve had the chance to take an honest shot at this project. Hopefully more to come on that…