In Other Words

Japanese Script

Alright, so lets mumble about something incoherent. Shazam recently gave me an assignment, where he wanted me to write a script for a possible short story that he is keen on doing. He gave me three pages of incomplete sentences and concepts, including the introduction to the Japanese constitution, which is quite a decent read.

I asked him ‘that’s it?’ and he said ‘yes’ and I said ‘that’s not much’ and he said ‘well, that’s what I’m hiring you for, isn’t it?’

So there we go.

I’ve started in on putting together some ideas and concepts (though I have admittedly not put a pen on paper) even though I haven’t even quoted him a price. Truth be told, I don’t know what price to quote. The basic problem is that I’m looking at a script of thirty pages, but I don’t know how much work will go into that. It seems a bit strange to quote a per word basis, so I’m left a bit perplexed as to what I should do.

How much do scriptwriters get paid for a short story script? Nothing, normally, I imagine. Normally people write short story scripts so as to get people to think they are worthy of being paid for long story scripts.

I’m anticipating that this would be about a month’s steady work, so should I ask for a month’s pay? I truly have no real idea. I guess I’ll have to do some research in that department.

I’ll also have to do some research on Japan. True, the mangaesque (a new word) feeling that he wants to the piece is familiar to me, but I don’t speak a word of Japanese. Do I even want to use Japanese? Where will I find somebody who speaks good English, good Japanese and has a flare for movie scripts (without paying buckets of money)? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck would chuck wood? When does he want the script anyway? What is the underlying message he wants conveyed?

I don’t know, but I imagine in the next couple of months I’ll find out.

posted by Symbol @ 11.8.04