Review of The Scriptwriter Profession Features

Scriptwriters work with script editors to make the script the best it could possibly be. They iron out all the kinks to create an effective and compelling story. Script editors also help the scriptwriter meet all production company’s requirements. Most scriptwriters are freelance and pitch to production companies, others use agents that help them find work and get noticed but take a percentage of the royalties, a percentage of money paid to the author for each copy sold. Scriptwriters can also be commissioned to make a script. If a company likes the script they may take it on and give you development money to allow you to work on your script uninterrupted as most scriptwriters have a job and writing isn’t their main source of income.

Pitching is an important part of being a scriptwriter. As it is where you take your ideas to a production company and you have to tell them why your idea should be made and why they should spend money on your idea. You have to be compelling but concise in your ideas as to not bore them.

Writers work must be original so they don’t breach copyright. Before you start writing you should make sure you have permission to write your script. Within your writing you need to make sure you aren’t too biased against a group of people as that could just be classed as discrimination. You can do this however if you are writing something that is educational or meant show people what not to do to others. Stereotyping is done to tell you the background of a character quickly. Writers shouldn’t write false malicious statements about people. Unless it’s a fictional character and has a point to the plot. Plagiarism is when someone takes someone else’s work and passes it off as their own. This is very unethical as writers should never steal work from a fellow writer.

Censorship guidelines involves discrimination, drugs, imitable behaviour, language, nudity, sex, threat and violence. These guidelines are there to protect the children of the nation and writers should abide by these guide lines to help protect the fragile minds of our youth. The watershed is the divide between family friendly tv and mature or adult tv. The watershed in the UK is from 9:00pm to 5:30am.

Other than fictional tv and films other things need scripts. Mostly all broadcasting media needs scripting and some online forms need scripting as well some examples of scripted media are radio, news, podcasts and YouTube videos. Each need scripting in different ways and some need to be more flexible like radio if they take a call from the public.

Woody Allen was born on the 1st of December 1935. He started out as a comedy writer, he wrote short jokes when he was 15 and then he sent them to Broadway writers to see if they wanted to buy them. By 19 he joined the NBC Writer’s Development Program. He was a stand-up comedian from 1960 to 1969 where he told his jokes. His jokes were usually not topical, political or socially relevant. He then wrote scripts for shows for example the tonight show. He started writing short stories and cartoon captions for magazines.