The Commissioning Process

Writers - 

A writer would need a literary agent. The literary agent would help in all aspects of the writer's career in a way that they do everything from assisting the production to presenting the work to all publishers and maybe even theatres. The agent would typically get a percentage of the earnings of the writer. If I was a writer, I would like to have an agent because it takes some of the pressure off of me and would let me concentrate on the piece of work rather than having to split time and potentially wasting a lot of time.

BBC Commissioning Editor - 

Lindsay Bradbury.

What she does - Identifies different media products in order to determine whether they should go on her publishers list. The commissioning editors earn their money by finding authors or responding to book proposal.

The BBC aren't interested. But maybe Warner Brothers are?

One of the senior members of the company would decide whether your short film will be adapted into a  movie and this would be either an important director and agents surrounding them. There may also be decisions made from agents in general because they essentially scout potentially successful films. When I researched about this, I found that the main decision maker for Warner Brothers is Kevin Tsujihara.

How does stuff at Warner Brothers get green lit?

Usually, after the pitch of the film, the senior members of the company will have 3 or 4 meetings to discuss the film and then they will make a decision. It is rare that a film gets greenlit before a few meetings to discuss.


Warners don't buy it, but an independent film company do.

Independent film companies will generally buy the rights to the film and then set up their own crew and cast. The writers and other people involved may still have involvement but they generally hire others to take their place for certain reasons. One of the main reasons that an independent film company might keep the writer employed is due to the fact that they know exactly what the idea is and the best way to execute it.

Sometimes independent film companies will be worries about errors and omissions insurance. This is when the script is covered by errors and will stop the company getting sued for not following certain guidelines such as the quality of the final product. It will generally cover court costs and a certain claims amount stated in the contract. The independent film company will want to make sure that your script is covered incase there is any issues and therefore they would not have to pay out a large sum of money that could potentially bankrupt a small company (most independent film companies are small).