Since the subject of stealing ideas came up in the discussion about pitching projects to animation execs, I throw this out:
"The law recognizes no plagiarism except that of basic plots. ... My ideas have been plagiarized in Hollywood and I have been accused of plagiarism ... Unconscious plagiarism is widespread and inevitable ... [W]riters like Dashiell Hammet and myself have been widely and ruthlessly imitated, so closely as to amount to a moral plagiarism ... I have had lines of dialogue taken intact, bits of description also word for word. I have no recourse. The law doesn't call it plagiarism ...
-- Raymond Chandler
The problem for animation artists is the same as it was for mystery writers sixty years ago.
When you develop animation ideas, characters, and plots, studios protect themselves by having artists sign releases or go through registered agents. The last thing a conglomerate wants is to get sued, so it wraps itself in binding documents.
And sometimes similar ideas come in clusters, and overlap. And sometimes there is cribbing, but suspecting theft is one thing, and proving it is another. Artwork circulates through departments, and creative people see it and get influenced, unconsciously or otherwise. Stuff happens.
The problem is having hard evidence that thievery has taken place. More often that not, that's difficult to prove. (Difficult? Hell, 99.7% of the time, it's close to impossible.) Art Buchwald accomplished it by having paperwork, contracts and witnesses that backed up the time-line for his submitted work to Paramount pictures twenty-seven years ago, and the courts ultimately decided in his favor. But it took freaking years.
My suggestion: You go in to pitch, protect yourself to the maximum extent possible, but understand you're roling dice in the big studio crap game, and other players roll similar numbers. Long-term, your ability to succeed will hinge on your energy, enthusiasm and creative chops, not one presentation you make to Warner Bros. Animation.
Posts
5 comments:
Yes, lots of times similar ideas get thought up by different people.
I made a short film for the 48 Hour FIlm Festival that had a neat twist on a crime drama. Then I wrote a spec one-hour pilot and submitted it to a couple of contests.
A few months later, a major cable network started airing a show with the same premise, almost the same title.
There was no way I could begin to track down if any of the show developers had seen my script. It would've cost lots o' dough. Besides, the show got cancelled pretty quick, so it's not like there would have been any decent settlement.
But there is also a better chance that someone else came up with the same twist, too. After all, it popped into my head during a manic 48 hour deadline to create a short film. It wasn't so groundbreaking of an idea.
Plagiarism happens, but so does synchronicity.
Sometimes everyone does have the same idea at once. Why else does everyone start producing werewolf movies or vampire films.
Then there was the time that Disney's Beauty and Beast was being 'retooled'. I pitched a version which they thought 'interesting' but not what they wanted. My premise had the Beauty and Beast in a big library scene where he gives her the library. (Rejected because no one wants a bookworm girl.) I proposed that there be a rival for Beasts affection. (Rejected because it would be too confusing for children.) I proposed a handsome admirer for Beauty who is actually evil. (Rejected as too sinister and sexually innappropriate!) I continued work on another project that was eventually dropped. Two years later Disney's Beauty and the Beast debuted... and the film seemed vaguely familiar to me.
"Art Buchwald accomplished it by having paperwork, contracts and witnesses that backed up the time-line for his submitted work to Paramount pictures twenty-seven years ago, and the courts ultimately decided in his favor"
Wow, I had never read that. Hollywood accounting sucks. Also, 1990 was seventeen years ago.
Yes. But Buchwald sold the original treatment to Paramount twenty-seven years back. That's the time-span I was referring to.
Well, this guy just won his case.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Cartoon+animator+awarded+million+plagiarism+case+against+Cinar/1932311/story.html
Post a Comment