SeanPaulMurphyVille: Writer Tip #27: The Ampersand and The And

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Writer Tip #27: The Ampersand and The And

Yours truly with Jennifer Healy Gloeb

Writing credits can be confusing to the casual filmgoer. Some films are written by Tom Smith and Fred Jones. Other films are written by Tom Smith & Fred Jones. To make things even more confusing, some films are written by Tom Smith & Fred Jones and William Danville. So who did what?

The Writers Guild of America, west, has a very complex set of rules determining screenwriting credits. We're not going to get into all of them now. Just the basics. When you see the Ampersand, i.e., Tom Smith & Fred Jones, it means the two writers worked together as a team. When you see an And, i.e., Tom Smith and Fred Jones, it means the writers worked separately.

I have a lot of experience with both the Ampersand and the And. Most of my produced feature credits were written as collaborations. Those are my Ampersands. I have also had scripts re-written after I handed them over to the producers. Those are my Ands.

Recently someone asked me what were the two best things about collaborating and the two worst things. In regard to my Ampersand scripts, there is only one bad thing: Splitting the money. I never had a bad experience writing with someone of my own choosing. I only work with people whose company I enjoy and whose talent I respect. Both are necessary. It is career suicide to work with someone without the talent or knowledge to enhance a project. However, no amount of talent makes it worthwhile to work with someone you can't stand. I have tried working with people who had a fundamentally different mindset than me or an unwillingness to compromise, but I have always bowed out of those "partnerships" before the words Fade In were typed.

What do I seek most in a writing partner? A lack of ego. I can't work with someone who feels the need to defend every word they type. Good work only arises from an environment of total creative trust. You must feel free to explore any thought or idea, and speak your mind without fear of getting into an argument. You must also have the wisdom to know when you're wrong.

The most valuable lesson I learned about collaboration came from Lee Bonner, who co-wrote and directed my first produced film 21 Eyes. I can't remember what script we were working on, but he wrote a scene I did not like. I proposed an alternative one, which he shot down. I thought for a moment, and then I said we could go with his original scene. He said, "No. If you don't like it, that means it has a problem. We have to work this out until we have a scene we both like." In other words, he wouldn't take yes for an answer. With Lee, it was never about ego. It was always about writing the best script.

Here's a trailer for our film 21 Eyes:

To succeed as a collaborator, you must be a team player, and I've always been one. When I was a busboy working at Thompson's Sea Girt House during college, I believed I was working in the best restaurant in Baltimore. (They did have the best crab cake.) After college I committed myself totally to the advertising agency Smith Burke & Azzam. I would do anything for them. More than once I volunteered to dive into the dumpster of a rival agency to see what ideas they were pitching. When I was writing films for PureFlix, I truly believed we were saving the world. I would have walked in front of a bullet for David A.R. White. Today, I believe I am working on the best (or at least the most absurd) reality shows on television.

Can I write a script on my own? Certainly. The scripts that got me agents were all solo ones. The script that won me the Kairos Prize was a solo project. My films that won Emmys were all solo writing credits. I don't need a collaborator. However, I have had many. Why? For me, it was only natural. I like working with people.

Here's me on stage at the MovieGuide Awards receiving the Kairos Prize:

My first screenwriting collaborator was David H. Butler. We were partners in film class at Towson State University, where I now teach writing. (See our final project here: The Lunch.) After college we both got jobs in the broadcast department of Smith Burke & Azzam, which cemented our friendship. We worked on a few scripts together, but he was always more interested in directing than writing. I don't think we ever had an argument about writing. Or anything else. Wanna a see one of the first commercials David produced, which was directed by the legendary Academy Award winner Vilmos Zsignmond? (Pretty cool for a guy just out of college.)

My next major screenwriting collaborator was Lee Bonner. I knew Lee from my earliest days in advertising because he was the top commercial director in the mid-Atlantic area before he turned to episodic television. (He had an earlier career in the music business and wrote a song called Nobody But You that the Beatles used to cover during their club days.) Lee Bonner sought me out as a partner after I received the seal of approval from the Academy Award winning writer/director Barry Levinson for my script The Long Drive. We wrote a number of wonderful, funny scripts at Xanadu, Lee's palatial pleasure dome overlooking Spa Creek in Annapolis, Maryland. (We also wrote a script sitting around Barry Levinson's pool, but that's another story.) Only one of our scripts were produced, but I believe they were all of professional quality. The problem was that Lee loved mysteries. That's practically all we wrote, and it is not a popular genre. I still believe some of the scripts are viable, so who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Click below to see Lee's old episodic directing reel:

From my earliest days as a writer, I always believed comedy was best written in teams. When David A.R. White asked me to write a comedy for him, I asked if I could bring Timothy Ratajczak along on the project. Tim was also an old friend from my college days at Towson State. (Here's his final project: The Stardust Kid.) Tim, like myself, was a committed writer. We critiqued each other's scripts throughout the 1990s. Tim specialized in comedies. Therefore, when I was offered an assignment writing a comedy, I immediately thought of him. Together, we wrote a ton of films. Eventually, he stopped working for PureFlix. I continued. Then he came back. At that point, we started working separately. It was strictly a financial decision. We were paid the same amount for the scripts whether we wrote them separately or together. Since we both had the formula down pat, we decided to double our income by writing separately.

Here's the trailer for our first film Hidden Secrets:

Most recently I have been working with former journalist, and Edward R. Murrow Award winner, Jennifer Healy Gloeb. A budding faith-based screenwriter, she reached out to me through this blog. We spoke a few times. She asked me to read her first two scripts, but I was simply too busy. Fortunately, she had befriended my wife as well. Deborah read the scripts and sang their praises. When Jennifer finished her third script, Seven Slides, I read it and thought it was terrific. Then I read her earlier work and was impressed by the depth of her characters. They possessed a warmth and realism sorely missing from the faith-based genre. She came to Baltimore for a visit and we worked on the first act of her next script. Her attitude revealed she had a temperament for collaboration. While we were both at the Churches Making Movies Film Festival in New Jersey, me, as a guest speaker, her as the winner of the screenwriting contest, we agreed to write a script together. The result, and the experience, was excellent. I am looking forward to working with her again!

Here's Jennifer appearing on The X Show as a spokesmodel back in the 1990s:

Obviously, I have enjoyed all of the Ampersand collaborations listed above. What about the And collaborations? Honestly, I didn't care for any of them.

Be prepared, fellow writers. If you sell a script, someone will change it. It could be a producer, a director, an actor or another writer. Or all of the above. You will not like it. No writer likes being rewritten without any input into the process. In all of my years of writing, I only worked with one feature producer whose comments genuinely improved the script. I have also been pleased with some ad-libs that actors provided, particularly John Schneider of The Dukes of Hazard fame. (Though his best ad-libs sadly ended up on the cutting room floor.) However, I never liked any of the third party overhauls of my scripts.

The worst And collaboration involved the first Revelation Road film. Less because of the writing itself than the politics involved. I wrote the original version of the script. I handed it to the producer, David A.R. White, who handed it to the director Gabriel Sabloff. I honestly can't remember whether Gabe was instructed to rewrite the script or whether he did so on his own authority. However, one Friday night I got his rewrite and I did not like it. The next morning I got a panicked conference call from David A.R. White, and one of the executive producers. They hated the rewrite more than I did! They asked me to detail my objections. I did so. Then they asked me for my solutions. I also did so. Then they told me to send Gabe an email with our combined objections, but none of the suggestions.

I asked them why. I had no authority. My opinion didn't matter anymore. I was just the writer. Gabe was the director. They were the producers. The bosses. The money. They had the authority. Gabe had to listen to them, in theory. Here's how they explained it to me. They knew I wasn't planning on going to the shoot, so my personal relationship with Gabe didn't matter. They, on the other hand, were going to have to work hand-in-hand with him daily. They needed a good relationship with him. So, essentially, they wanted to play good cop/bad cop with him, and I had been delegated to the role of bad cop. Thanks, guys. I resented that. I knew it would burn my relationship with Gabe, whom I was genuinely excited to work with. Why? Because he had shot and edited the short superhero fan film Grayson, which I loved. (I even had a bootleg DVD of the short, which was acquired by a friend of mine at a Horror Convention.)

I sent the email. Gabe was, as expected, not pleased. Soon we were both on a conference call with the executive producer trying to mediate "our" dispute. How did he mediate it? By offering the solutions I had suggested to him in our earlier telephone call. Oh, well. I tried to mend my fences with Gabe later. I told him how I had been set-up. How I was playing an assigned role. Still, I never ended up with the friendly relationship with him that I like to have with directors. Eventually, the Revelation Road films would result in the end of my relationship with PureFlix, but it had nothing to do with Gabe and our little game of role playing.

So, there you have it. I like the Ampersand. I dislike the And.

I suppose I will always be that way.

Now let me answer the first part of the question I was asked. What are the two best things about collaborating? Well, there's more than two. First, you get to work with someone you respect. That makes it more fun, and if it's not fun, why do it? Secondly, some people have a special insight into a certain situation or type of person. For example, I am working with Patricia Schweers on a rewrite of one of my early calling card scripts, The Fourth Mrs. Jones, because I believe she has a keen insight into the female lead that I could never possess. Having that kind of partner enhances your work. Thirdly, as the Bible says iron sharpens iron. Working with a talented collaborator can push you to greater heights. Additionally, if you're like me and you have a day job you love, it's great to have someone else you can trust to handle unexpected rewrites when you are unavailable.

I could go on and on about this subject, but I have to finish up a script with my wife....