It's your option

So, an indie director wants to option one of my feature comedies. Yay! That's a good thing. But reading the option, holy moly, not such a good thing. I felt like understanding Calculus in college was easier to do. So this is a post on how I handled my option, in case you get to this point in your career someday too.

First thing I did after trying to read it a few times and still not understanding 99% of it was I reached out to a few friends to see how much their entertainment lawyer would charge to read it. Oh, yeah, it was a LOT! Why didn't I go into law again? So that seemed like a dead-end. The option was not worth me paying for a high-paid lawyer. But I also wasn't willing to sign something I did not understand. It's 8 pages of a document that doesn't make sense to me. No way could I sign that without someone's help.

So I started asking around to some other writer and producer friends. One writer friend I asked, he's had some pretty nicely paid options, well, he reads his options himself and doesn't even use a lawyer. Hmm...interesting. Okay. He sent me a couple of his options to see if that would help make reading mine easier to understand. It didn't. It just confused me more. I did learn that there are so many ways to write an option by reading his. So some of his points weren't in mine, and visa versa.

So then I reached out to even a few more producer friends, and got names from them. But they were pretty sure their friends would charge a lot too, but not as much as the ones they use. Great, that didn't help. Luckily for me, I had written a writer friend just to say hi and see how things were in her career and mentioned this option dilemma I had. Her husband is a manager and she suggested he could rep me on the deal. So that meant I wouldn't pay him out of the option, but pay him a percentage once the funding is raised. And that would be perfect!

So he and I spoke after he read the option, we went over it in explicit detail. He made all of it make sense! Imagine that! He told me what parts we needed, what we could leave out, what wasn't right for what my script was. He's going to mark it up so that it works for my needs and send to the director. Voila! I'm so relieved I finally found someone to help me with the option, and that I didn't have to pay out of pocket up front for.

If you're ever in a similar situation, please cover your butt and find a way to get a lawyer or a manager to help you through your option. You never want to sign on that dotted line till you know what you're signing.