I’ve script-edited plenty of open door satirical sketch shows and I would definitely want this waiver in place. People get obsessed about their “ideas getting stolen”, and it almost never happens, because the process of writing this sort of material leads to convergent evolution all the time. - ThreadSky

gralefrit.bsky.social • 13 days ago

I’ve script-edited plenty of open door satirical sketch shows and I would definitely want this waiver in place.

People get obsessed about their “ideas getting stolen”, and it almost never happens, because the process of writing this sort of material leads to convergent evolution all the time.

Reposted from Count Mysterioso

from the PopBitch mail out - jesus wept

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edmorrish.bsky.social•13 days ago

yeah, I’ve found popbitch’s stories on snl slightly off, because “asking people to submit sketches for free” and “indemnifying snl against using a similar ideal” are both fairly standard practices…

edmorrish.bsky.social•13 days ago

*submit packets for free in order to be evaluated and potentially hired, that is. i don’t believe snluk will be an open-door show

andreamann.bsky.social•13 days ago

Also the fact that writers can submit, full stop - ie like actors/performers sending in tapes - is pretty refreshing given how British TV comedy is very performer-writer driven.

edmorrish.bsky.social•13 days ago

yes, it would have been very easy for them to hire the people who are always hired when this sort of thing gets made; it’s to their credit that they’re asking around a bit more

andreamann.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yep. And no doubt (per SNL US) most of the performers will be good writers too. But it’s great they’re looking for writers in this way.

ohhiralphjones.bsky.social•13 days ago

Quite.

alexbuchanan.bsky.social•13 days ago

I thought writers could only submit via an agent? (Which I guess is still fairly open)

andreamann.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yep but my point is writers don’t have to be performers too. As Ed says, it’s not an open door show but they’ve done an open call (whether or not it’s via agents it’s still that?) to find writers for it, which is refreshing.

nickabadzis.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yes. If I had a quid for every time “convergent evolution” caused some ideas I’d had once to turn up on TV/in-a-film/Someone-else’s-comic, I’d be a millionaire.
That’s a great phrase. I’m gonna steal it.

rkemb.bsky.social•13 days ago

I want a quid for every time someone posts a similar tweet to one of my own which goes viral because it's better worded.

mysteriosox.bsky.social•13 days ago

That's very interesting, thank you

gralefrit.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yeah. It’s endemic in the form, as they say.

Same input, similar processes, similar outcomes.

daveyjones.bsky.social•13 days ago

Ages ago in the Viz office we thought of a cartoon called Robin Hood & Richard Littlejohn. After it was published we were going through a pile of unopened submissions dating back months, and one was a script for Robin Hood & Richard Littlejohn. Coincidence, but we paid him out of embarrassment.

hotlegs.bsky.social•13 days ago

Very decent of you. Most wouldn't have done it.

gralefrit.bsky.social•13 days ago

Also, the paid skillset of writing is mainly about what happens after you submit an idea. Craft and structure. Pitching. Rewrites, notes. That sort of thing. And that’s what open door sketch shows are meant to teach new writers. The ideas are a small part of it.

pintofsimilar.bsky.social•13 days ago

When I was a student back in the early 90s, I sketched out the idea for a sci fi novel. I forget the exact UST (unique selling Technology) I'd used for it but was rather perplexed when a book came out using something identical less than a year later. Convergent evolution really happens a lot.

gralefrit.bsky.social•13 days ago

Dealing with people claiming their sketch got nicked would be most of their workload otherwise.

moogal.bsky.social•13 days ago

And I imagine that with topical stuff it's even more likely as everyone's starting from the same news stories.

richardawkward.bsky.social•13 days ago

I once sent about a dozen sketches, unsolicited, to the BBC Script Unit on the off-chance. They wrote back saying "come back when you've got 6*30 minutes' worth of material. In the meantime, don't be upset if something very similar to what you wrote ends up on screen."

richardawkward.bsky.social•13 days ago

Non-topical material, btw. No idea if they ever showed up wearing a hat and sunglasses. I can't watch *everything*. Even if they did they can't have been very good, I guess, as nothing similar ever became the talk of the nation.

voodooroy.bsky.social•13 days ago

Sketch idea for waiting room full of people who submitted an idea about Keir Starmer accidentally turning into Hitler/Farage/Trump.

jennyainsworth.com•13 days ago

I’m fascinated by the response over here to Lorne. There seems to be an absolute determination for him to fail, for it to be an absolute shit show. I don’t doubt the enormous differences (and budget) between how SNL operates in the US and how it’ll be approached here, but 🤷🏼‍♀️

angusmain.bsky.social•13 days ago

I remember the Secret History of Hollywood episode where Val Lewton got sued over Ghost Ship, and sort of assumed something like this would have been industry standard since then.

lukewhiston.bsky.social•13 days ago

I got my annual BBC WR rejection this week, and was reminded of a few years ago, a guy going off at them on twitter saying he was going to use a FoI request to find out the reader's names. People.

mattleys.bsky.social•13 days ago

I think it's not uncommon with US studios and prodcos to head off the vexatious claims they inevitably get otherwise?

suw.bsky.social•13 days ago

I remember 20 or so years ago being a member of the Zoetrope form, and there was a woman convinced her script had been ripped off because some movie had a tambourine in it and so did her script. 100% bonkers.

That's not to say some arseholes don't nick ideas, but ideas aren't copyrightable.

suw.bsky.social•13 days ago

Back when I was trying to be a music journalist, I pitched five ideas to a magazine. They rejected them, but months later I saw one of them, which was very specific, had been written by someone else. Sucks, but people can be dicks, and music journalism was very, very sexist.

suw.bsky.social•13 days ago

Now I'm on the other side – every interview I do for Fieldwork comes with a permissions form and IP waiver. There's just no way now that I'd do interviews for background without that in place.

jonathancresswell.co.uk•13 days ago

I was listening to a podcast recently and they discussed how there's a similar clause for prod companies pitching for producing a UK adaptation of an international format. (Maybe Destination X). Same deal, prodcos unhappy but more about legal arse covering in case of similar challenge ideas.

jacklyttle.bsky.social•13 days ago

Fenner mentioned the perils of Newsjack, and receiving the same joke from 200 different people. Which was then a joke that they definitely couldn't use. Comedy Boggle.

kateweb.bsky.social•13 days ago

I feel like I've seen this on every BBC submission scheme ever; legal boilerplate so the producers don't have to deal with paying ads of claims over (as you say) convergent evolution.

casmilus.bsky.social•13 days ago

"A conference of world leaders... and they're all like Robin Hood..."

jodb.bsky.social•13 days ago

I bow to no-one in my lack of regard for SNL, but the sheer effort people are putting in to make it fail before it’s started is so interesting to me.

gralefrit.bsky.social•13 days ago

My take is that SNL’s shape and flavour is a natural consequence of American’s factory television system, and you would need that system in place before you tried to make it over here, and we simply don’t have the money.

connolly-lg.bsky.social•13 days ago

Allowing for some artistic licence, it's why I've found watching this season of Hacks to be so instructive - to see exactly how much of a hyper-controlled sausage line the process is and how joyless and unpleasant the working environment is for the writers.

gralefrit.bsky.social•13 days ago

It’s like saying we’ll be making the Model T Ford in the American way and cutting to a picture of a man in a shed with a kit car.

rossmc11.bsky.social•13 days ago

That's a problem, unless the man in that shed is Roy Clarke.

jodb.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yes, like building anything: if the infrastructure isn’t there p, it won’t succeed. Interesting, thanks.

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