We finally got John's repspone to our proposal. I met with Tom after work today, to review it. He didn't provide any comps, which was disappointing.

The writers fee he proposed was well under our initial contract, and also under WGA minimums. However, that wasn't the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise was that he would prepare the outline from which the first draft (which Paul and I would write) would be written.

I don't think so.

It's clear now that John as a big issue with the talent associated with the project (namely, me and Paul). Not the "talent" as in the "writers" but "talent" as in the quality of material we can provide to him. It's also fairly clear that he's not up on WGA minimums, practices or proceedures. There is a reason that the outline (aka treatment) is valued at the same amount as the first draft. The outline is where you do all the work in creating the story that will eventually be told. That's the hard part of the writer's job.

I don't think John's a writer.

By John presenting an outline to us, he firstly omits any story conference where we would get together an all provide input to the story's shape and form. Secondly, he would then be able to put his name on the screenplay and quite possibly receive "written by" credit. It would certainly go to arbitration at the WGA -- and the arbitration board considers the first written material as the foundation of the story -- therefore the first writer very rarely gets knocked off of the script credits.

I have one writing partner already. Two is right out.

So, after talking back and forth a bit, I convinced Tom to let me call a contact I'd made at another production company, and he decided to contact someone he knows as well. We'll probably meet with John once, to address the talent issue, but my guess is that we're going to move on to the next dance partner.