I’m the first person to admit that I am very excited about this project. But I have to temper that with the fact I could be blinkered in regard to the problems we could encounter?

The “‘Allo ‘Allo” v “New Play X” situation proved to me that there were other areas we need to look at to make this project a success.

Can you think of something that we need to discuss and form a strategy (I’ll never stop being military) to make this project to be proud of…?

Remember, thanks to TPTT we’ve got a chance to dismiss the faux fact that ‘Theatre is a dying form of entertainment’.

In good management speak – ‘There are no problems, just challenges waiting to be solved.”

Sorry to be boring and trad, but to get the juices going on this thread - there are six basics we need to get right;

Product - Who selects the material, and on what criteria?
Presentation - What do we look like, and who looks after our www?
Price - How much are we going to charge, and on what terms?
Promotion - Who are they and how do we reach our customers?
Placement - Where do we sell the activity? Is it solely via the www?
People - Who does what in the company? How do we get more writers!

Traditional thinking suggests that if we get those right, we win.

There are a load of issues I can think of, some of which have been addressed elsewhere, but there are 2 as yet unmentioned flaws I can see; neither 'killers' at this stage but must be considered;

1. We are, of course, assuming theatres WANT new material from unpublished writers. Anybody got any evidence of that? Real, tangible evuidence?

2. If theatres are allowed to use the material on a % of box basis, who chases the money in, how and when? That could be a nightmare.

I don't mind looking after the site if you want me to...

Thanks LML

I don't know how much visual control you want to give me over it. Is it worth starting a new thread for suggestions about the look of the website and what people think should be on it?

Charges?
Player Playrights, the group of which I'm a sometime member,
has a standard scale of charges for amateur theatre:
Full lenght play
£3-5 per script
£30-36 for up to two performances (up to 400 seats)
20% of box office 2+ performances
400+ seats to be negotiated between company and author.
Note: Player Playrights is more a writers group than conventional Amdram.

PS
I notice on amdram
there are a number of playrights offering royalty free (unpublished) plays to amateur groups

quote:

Originally posted by Lewes:
there are a number of playrights offering royalty free (unpublished) plays to amateur groups

I think writers do themselves a disservice when that do that. The trouble with offering your plays royalty free, I think it devalues your work.

By charging (even a nominal fee), you are acknowledging your time and effort, and hopefully the quality of the finished article.

With the correct promotion and marketing, we should highlight that we are a 'cut above' the rest.

It's why people want designer fashion rather than second-hand. Quality, promotion and understanding worth.

My opinion only; free is a flaw. Competitively priced, easy to access and not paid-up-front is an advantage - I think.

Further possible flaw - copyright / defamation action. We'll need a tame legal beagle to help us - anyone know one?

Any more flaws you can see, folks?

That's a good point, we'll have to come up with a good standard disclaimer for all the works.

I wish I'd befriended a few law students now. Try the CAB?

Bearing in mind how complex the law relating to intellectual property, defamation and blasphemy is (and expensive); we'll just have to be
VERY, VERY CAREFUL

Well, it's amazing what you can find on Google - http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/index.htm

Everything you ever wanted to know about Copyright and couldn't be bothered to read.

I was thinking as much about allegations of plagiarism, copyright and defamation on each and every individual play - which requires indemnity contracts with each playwright. It's a set-up legal issue only, but it's important.

Another issue (not so much a flaw, but one Societies and Writers would want) - financial transparency.

Flaw: scripts:

My original thinking was that we deliver scripts in PDF form, printable, A4 size. But I know that A5 is preferred for cast (easier to hold in rehearsals).

Anyone know a good way to get scripts into A5 size/format and make them 'holdable'?

I'll look into the A5 thing when I can get back on my computer.

Hello all,

Blimey I go away on holiday for two weeks and look whats happened! Everyones wearing suits, sitting at desks and reading legal texts!

Looks like the idea is bubbling nicely anyway.

On the A5 issue - producing a PDF thats effectively two A5 pages side by side on A4 landscape is pretty easy through word etc. Producing one that pringtsd out like a booklet is a bit more fiddly but doable. MS Publisher produces output like this quite neatly.

Producing the scripts in a standard, proffesional and well designed format will be very important I think. This will require:

1. A template / style-guide of some sort for the writers.

2. Someone centrally doing an editing, formatting, top and tailing and producing the releasable PDF.

Hi Zabriel

Nice to see you back.

I think it MUST be capable of being held in one hand - don't you agree?

I can use something like Quark Xpress to produce the scripts simply enough. Just got to figure out how to put them together.

quote:

I think it MUST be capable of being held in one hand

Rather depends what sort of play you are writing Adman! I think there are already specialist sites for that type though

I would advise against getting into Quark or other complicated DTP packages for producing the scripts. Most writers wont have the software so the conversion process could become a bit heavy.

I think if a reasonable word template is used then word can easily produce the required format.

If you plan to provide the scripts electronically then I think you have to assume that they will be printed on A4. As I said its possible to produce a PDF that will print as a booklet so if you staple it up the middle and fold it in half you get an A5 book BUT then its fiddly for the person doing the printing and it doesnt read properly on screen.

You could always offer to provide printed and bound copies for an extra fee. In which case you could print them on A5 and spiral bind them pretty cheaply.

I was thinking of getting the scripts in whatever form and putting them in Quark myself to keep it all standardised and so other people don't need to worry about the layout

I know LML - but if the site is popular (as we hope) that could turn out to be a major task and a bottleneck. If you do any substantial DTP / conversion work then you also need to send back proofs to the writer for checking (in case you introduce any mistakes etc).

I favour the simplest possible process that produces a decent quality output.

quote:

I favour the simplest possible process that produces a decent quality output.

Good, practical, sensible comment. The more complex we make the plumbing, the easier it will be for us to block up the drains (RIP Mr Doohan).

Before we start running down a rabbit hole with the script format…

There is a reason that we were asked to use the format we did for TPTT… That’s what producing theatres use!

Why? Because each page is roughly 1 minute and it leaves enough room on the page for mark ups and production notes….

This IS the professional format… And we can do it in Word as an RTF… If it’s good enough for the professionals, why isn’t it good enough for us? If they want it as an A5 booklet for the actors… Any decent print-shop can easily accomplish that – it’s what I’ve done for each of the three plays I’ve had produced…

Plus with a quick PDF conversion (but I wish I could turn the print option off), that's what I've included on my website... Once I've learnt how to do it, I'm going to turn off the print option and have a 'Not Licensed For Public Performance' visable watermark on each of the pages...

Is the co-op site to be for unpublished/unproven authors only?

If say, Jay has a play professionally performed - would he be asked to leave?

Or if one of the Co-op Authors were to be commissioned to write a piece for a pro outfit - would that Author have to remove his other plays from the site?

Sorry if this point has been raised before.