Martine Pagé

Grown-up life is a constant challenge, especially the part where you own things and you have to take care of them. Well, I’m happy to announce that today I went to a garage and I came out alive. I was also pretty satisfied about the whole experience, which means a lot, since I’ve always been scared of garages.

I don’t like to think of myself as a typical girl but when it comes to car motors, I know absolutely nothing. In driving school, the teacher was supposed to give us a quick explanation of motor related things. The whole class went downstairs to the parking lot, the teacher lifted the hood and started pointing at things. I got stuck at the back of the class and since all the students were taller than me, I couldn’t see a thing. By the time I made it to the front of the crowd, the teacher was putting down the hood and telling us to get back to the classroom. Oh well, I thought. I’ll get a book about it. Or something.

I’ve owned two cars in my life, both of them Corollas (I just had to go and check how it’s spelled…). The first one was a very, very used car and I drove it for 3 years through the crazy streets of San Francisco without ever going to the garage. No oil change, no inspections, no nothing. By the time I gave it to the Salvation Army, it was only starting to have problems. I knew I had pushed my luck, but the idea of walking into a testosterone filled garage with my non-existent knowledge of cars was a kind of humiliation I just didn’t want to have to deal with. I had heard horrible stories about male mechanics who sold car parts that didn’t even exist to their ignorant female clients. « Tomorrow », I would tell myself. « I’ll go tomorrow ».

Now that I live in a colder country where cars are truly put to the test, I knew I had to get over my fear. The 1999 Corolla was making some strange noise, it needed an oil change and it still had the winter tires on. My ex’s dad, who sold me the car, suggested I go to his regular garage. The young garage owner was supposed to be very reliable and he knows this Toyota well from working on it before. « And he likes pretty women », my ex’s dad told me. I tried to ignore this part and made an appointment at the said garage.

The young garage owner was indeed very cool and very pro. He quickly found what was wrong with the car (nothing too expensive) and asked his mechanic to show me the piece to change while the car was still up on the thingy. He wasn’t condescending or impatient and he was very clear about the charges. And the fact that he was pretty cute didn’t influence my positive review of his garage at all. It also has nothing to do with the fact that I’m going back on Friday to get more work done on the car, even though the garage is far from where I live. It’s just that I got over my fear of mechanics, you know, and I better take advantage of that newly found confidence while it lasts.

John August is an American screenwriter whose blog contains great info about the screenwriting craft and business. August’s latest movie, Big Fish, is now out on DVD and on his blog this week, the screenwriter revealed that he makes just under $0.05 per DVD sold. Let me do the math for you: It means that if Big Fish sells 1,000 copies, the screenwriter gets 50$.

Doesn’t seem like much, considering the fact that the screenwriter is one of the main « creative » associated with a movie. On the other hand, if you think about how much a hollywood script can sell for, this DVD business can become a nice sideline… To evaluate this fairly, we would need to know what the distributor, the producer and the director’s cuts are. According to the Writers Guild of America, « under the existing formula, the studios keep 80% of DVD revenue and put 20% on the table. Writers get less than 2% of the available 20%. »

So, how much can this screenwriter expect to make out of the total sales of Big Fish? Hard to tell. According to Video Business Online, « revenue from the purchase and rental of DVDs increased more than 40% to $16.3 billion, with the average DVD player household buying 16.5 DVDs in 2003. » (U.S. market.) That seems like a lot of DVDs to me, but then again I don’t have kids and the top sellers tend to be family oriented titles.

The two top sellers in DVD last year were Finding Nemo with 18.5 million copies sold, and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with 14.75 million sales. If we estimate that the screenwriters had the same deal as John August (0.05$ per DVD), it means that the author(s) of Finding Nemo got a nice 925,000$ just for the sale of the DVD. Not bad at all.

According to Video Business Online, Universal’s Seabiscuit sold more than 7 million copies, a number usually only achieved by movies skewed to young male audiences and kids. My Big Fat Greek Wedding sold 7.18 million DVDs. If Big Fish sells 3 million copies, like Catch Me If You Can did, the screenwriter will get 150,000$. Seems like the number of DVD sales does not always correspond to the number of movie tickets sold, which makes it even harder to predict.

The Writers Guild of America is currently negotiating with the studios over DVD residuals: « The studios aren’t giving in without a fight », writes Merissa Marr in The Wall Street Journal. « They (the studios) say DVD revenue keeps the cogs oiled in a profoundly erratic business model. With costs of making and marketing films soaring, many movies no longer cover their costs at the box office as they once did, and the studios say they need DVDs to turn a profit. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, only six in every 10 films actually make money, and DVD sales go a long way to financing the other four.

But while the studios plead poverty, DVDs have been showering them with cash since the late 1990s. These days, studios often make more from DVDs than from U.S. ticket sales. (…) The residuals formula dates back to the early 1980s, when the videocassette business was just taking off. At the time, the studios argued that the industry needed to rally behind the new format and convinced the talent to take only a small share in residuals. But now DVDs are a much bigger business and the studios are earning bigger margins on each disc. »

I think I’ll keep an eye on that issue for a while. Who knows…

Tiens, puisqu’il est question de larmes et de cin�ma, laissez-vous �mouvoir par ces images fortes tourn�es � San Francisco (gr�ce � mon appareil photo num�rique) lors de r�centes balades en d�capotable. (Blork avait insist�).

Et dire que j’ai fait l’�cole de cin�ma!

Blork roule � toute vitesse sur le Golden Gate !
Blork fait son James Bond sur Lombard St !