Okay, just found Deadline Hollywood 'zine (I know, if I want to be in the game, should be read all the time, but really) anyway, found this little gem: http://deadline.com/2015/09/zero-dark-thirty-movie-cia-involvemen-120151... And I have got to get my spec 'Heaven's Earth' into their hot little hands. At the very least, now I know how to tailor my re-write! 'oooh, where would we be without you, CIA!' Whaddya think, should we write for potential sponsors like this? Should we be afraid of their wrath if we write 'against' them? Most importantly, do you think ANY 'body' in the US has the clout to actually enforce the Supreme Court decision saying they would have to give a anti-CIA or anti-Pentagon script the same favour as that showed to Zero Dark Thirty producers?????
Screenwriting : CIA and Pentagon vett scripts! by Sarah Gabrielle Baron
CIA and Pentagon vett scripts!
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I've written 2 Navy Co-Op movies (for HBO) and the plus part of cooperation is that they give the production company aircraft carriers and fighter planes and submarines and all of the other toys for free. If your script has any of these "toys" in it, you can't get them with out co-operation at any price. You end up having to find some other country that rents their stuff and pay them (and it's not cheap). But what I learned between these two films (and some meetings with the Marines and the Air Force on other projects) is that you don't have to be favorable as long as you are accurate. You have to get all of the facts right. The side effect of that is that your characters must do things by the book... when that may not always happen in real life.
Okay, so how do I make these types of contacts? 'Heaven's Earth' has all kinds of bells and whistles I think the military establishment would dig in a film...but I just 'went for it', I have no real clue if I'm accurate at all! Well, that's not true, I did do research on the structure of the NSA, and the location of Fort Wayne and Fort Mead.
Just about everyone has a film office in the Federal Building in Los Angeles (Wilshire Blvd). And you need to do extensive research before they'll talk to you.
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Hi Sarah, they aren't "sponsors" who help you move the ball forward. They are typically information or communications officers who help shape the optics of the agency. In other words, they consult to be sure that there is authenticity to how they are portrayed and that they are portrayed in a positive light.
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Doesn't have to be a positive light... just an accurate one. One of my scripts had a Navy SEAL team surrender to enemy soldiers (Iran) but I wrote it accurately. They didn't want it changed... and that's the way it was filmed. But you are on your own to do the prelim research. I read a stack of books and interviewed people before writing my screenplay (just as I would for any screenplay).