What’s It Take To Be Number Four?
What’s It Take To Be Number Four? James Frey’s Small Army of Starving Artists
In college I wrote a Young Adult, Sci-Fi novel about aliens. It was actually a drafting I’d started at seventeen, but I did finish a novel. I started thinking about agents. About publishers. About book tours and signings and fancy interviews where I’d get to talk about all my hard work. I was ready to be a book star.
And this new term, the book star, is exactly what James Frey, author of the controversial “memoir” A Million Little Pieces, is willing to make you if you sign on with his new writing company. The company, called Full Fathom Five, is one in which Frey signs on work-for-hire writers, for little or no pay, for the chance to become the next Twilight or Harry Potter-sized author. As New York Magazine’s Suzanne Mozes, an alum of Full Fathom Five, describes it in a recent feature on the company:
In exchange for delivering a finished book within a set number of months, the writer would receive $250 (some contracts allowed for another $250 upon completion), along with a percentage of all revenue generated by the project, including television, film, and merchandise rights—30 percent if the idea was originally Frey’s, 40 percent if it was originally the writer’s. The writer would be financially responsible for any legal action brought against the book but would not own its copyright. Full Fathom Five could use the writer’s name or a pseudonym without his or her permission, even if the writer was no longer involved with the series, and the company could substitute the writer’s full name for a pseudonym at any point in the future. The writer was forbidden from signing contracts that would “conflict” with the project; what that might be wasn’t specified. The writer would not have approval over his or her publicity, pictures, or biographical materials. There was a $50,000 penalty if the writer publicly admitted to working with Full Fathom Five without permission.
Abandoned Masterpiece: Weird Gnome Animation
This was a homework assignment. And not mine. Chicago-based Artist Christine Even was going to animate a dream she’d had for a class, something like New Media Studies. I had been spending all of my free-time chain smoking and teaching myself Adobe Flash, so I assured her it would be as easy as pie. [...]
Video: Dalí and Disney’s “Destino”
Here’s something I’d never even heard of before. “Destino,” a short animated film that started as a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí in 1945. Production was eventually shut down due to financial concerns. While Walt’s nephew Roy was working on Fantasia 2000, he unearthed footage and decided to finally finish the project. It [...]
Abandoned Masterpiece: Run Away, Sally
The idea was simple enough; write a Young Adult novel and, given the timeliness of the idea, become an overnight success. I was going to be rich and famous, but more importantly, relevant.
Abandoned Masterpiece: “Mine”
An animated short film that I was going to write, produce, direct, animate, edit, and score… With my degree in Fiction Writing hot off the press, it’s no wonder that I thought I was qualified to make an animated short film. Worry not that I can’t draw to save my life, and know virtually nothing about animation. I was convinced that I could learn. And besides, it would be good for my resume.