From spec to release

Most films start one of two ways. A writer writes a script nobody has paid for, a spec, and tries to sell it. Or a producer or a studio hires a writer for an assignment: adapting a book, rewriting someone else's draft, or writing an idea the company already owns.

Assignments mostly go to writers whose earlier work got them noticed, so a new writer's spec does two jobs. It can sell, and it is the sample that gets them hired for other work. Many specs that never sell still start careers.

If the script is based on something else, such as a book, an article, or a real person's life, the writer needs the rights before a producer can buy the script. The producer will ask for the chain of title: the documents that show who owns what.

On Tycoon: A script written or uploaded here is private to you until you list it.

A finished spec goes out to be read by managers and agents, producers, and development executives. Most companies do not read unsolicited scripts, for legal reasons. They take them through a representative or a referral, or with a signed release.

At a company, a script is often read first by a reader or an assistant, who writes coverage: a synopsis, a short assessment, and a verdict of pass, consider, or recommend. An executive reads the ones that come back consider or recommend.

Writers usually send a logline and a short query first, and the script if asked. A script someone liked often leads to a general meeting with no particular project in mind, even when they pass on the script itself.

On Tycoon: Listing a script puts it in producers' matrix, where they read it against its comps and its breakdown. A producer who wants the file asks for it, and you accept or decline from your desk. Producers keep private coverage here with the same three verdicts.

A producer who wants a script but does not yet have the money to make it usually options it. The producer pays for the exclusive right to buy the script during a set period while they try to set it up. If the option runs out, the rights go back to the writer, who keeps the fee.

A studio, or a producer who already has financing, may buy the script outright. A purchase transfers the copyright. The writer keeps what the contract reserves, and under the WGA agreement the writer of an original script keeps certain separated rights.

The money and terms for both are in How the writer is paid.

Development is everything between buying a script and deciding to make it: notes, rewrites, polishes, and often other writers. If the buyer wants changes the writer cannot or will not make, they can hire someone else. On a Guild film, the final credit is decided under the WGA's credit rules, not by the company.

It can take years, and many projects never leave it. If a studio decides not to go ahead, it can put the project in turnaround, which lets another company take it over by repaying what the studio spent developing it, usually with interest.

Under the WGA agreement, the writer of an original script that a company bought and then left out of active development for five years may, under specific conditions, buy it back. The Guild explains the details.

Before anyone pays for a film, they want to know who will make it and who is in it. Packaging is attaching those people: usually a director first, then cast. Agencies often build packages from their own clients.

An attachment can be informal interest, a letter of intent, or a pay-or-play offer, which commits to paying the person whether or not the film is made. Financiers and foreign distributors read the cast list before the script, because a known actor is what sells a film in territories where nobody has read it.

This is where a script's comps are argued hardest. "This meets that, made for this much, with these people" is the sentence the package has to support.

At a studio, a film is greenlit when executives approve a budget, a start date, and usually the director and the lead cast. At an independent company there is no single meeting. The film is effectively greenlit when the financing closes, the money is committed, and the completion bond is in place. How a film is paid for explains where that money comes from.

The start of shooting is the date most writers' contracts care about. The purchase price, if it has not been paid already, and the production bonus are usually due then.

Pre-production runs from the greenlight to the first day of shooting, often two or three months on a feature. The line producer and the first assistant director break the script into a schedule and a budget, which What the pages cost describes. Departments hire crew, scout and lock locations, cast the smaller roles, and design sets and costumes. There is a table read.

Once pre-production starts, the script is locked. Scenes keep their numbers, and a scene added between 12 and 13 becomes 12A. Changes go out as revised pages on a new color each time, in a set order: white, then blue, pink, yellow, green, goldenrod, and on. Everyone can tell which version they are holding.

Principal photography is the shoot itself. On most features the writer is not on set, while in television the writer often is. Writers may be asked for production rewrites as locations, cast, or the schedule change.

On Tycoon: The PDF export can number scenes, so a locked draft carries the numbers the schedule will use.

The editor assembles footage while the shoot is still going. Afterwards the director has a set period for a director's cut, and then the producers and financiers weigh in. Sound, music, visual effects, and color follow once the picture is locked.

Films are often test-screened, and additional photography is common enough to be budgeted for. The film that comes out of the edit may be built differently from the script. The writing credit is still decided from the script's history.

A studio film already has a distributor: the studio. An independent film is sold by a sales agent, territory by territory, and often premieres at a festival such as Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, Cannes, or Venice in the hope of a US buyer.

A release runs through windows: theaters, then digital rental and purchase, then subscription streaming and television. The order and length of each window has shortened and varies by distributor.

Before release, the WGA determines the writing credit on a Guild film. "Written by" means the writers wrote both the story and the screenplay. "Story by" and "Screenplay by" split the two. An ampersand joins a writing team, and "and" joins writers who worked separately.

Television works differently. A pilot is sold as a pitch or a script to a studio, often one owned by the same company as the network or streamer. The network or streamer then orders a pilot episode, or orders the series outright, and many shows now skip the pilot.

A spec pilot is mainly a writing sample. It is how writers get staffed in a writers' room on someone else's show. A first-time writer selling a spec pilot is rare, and when it happens, an experienced showrunner is often brought on to run the series.

This guide describes common practice in the US and international film business. Terms vary by deal, country, and year. It is not legal advice.