What prices and payment practice does Chapter XXI of Esenwein and Leeds (1919) report for photoplay scripts, how should the writer state a price, and what do Chapters XVII and XXI say or leave unsaid about the rights a sale conveys?
1919 US trade advice, not law. The authors give rough figures: minimum about $50 per reel, $100 or more at larger companies, $1,000 for a five-reel script or synopsis at leading producers, more for big names. They say to write only 'Submitted at usual rates'. A script that must be rewritten for the company's star earns little more than a bare idea. Chapters XVII and XXI say nothing about contracts, assignment or the rights a free-lance sale conveys; the only rights statement is about published fiction whose authors may reserve dramatic rights.
1919 US trade advice, not law. The authors give rough figures: minimum about $50 per reel, $100 or more at larger companies, $1,000 for a five-reel script or synopsis at leading producers, more for big names. They say to write only 'Submitted at usual rates'. A script that must be rewritten for the company's star earns little more than a bare idea. Chapters XVII and XXI say nothing about contracts, assignment or the rights a free-lance sale conveys; the only rights statement is about published fiction whose authors may reserve dramatic rights.
Curator qualifications: Prices are the authors' unsourced rough figures; the $200-per-reel arithmetic is the worker's. The rights negative is scoped to Ch. XXI; the 'dramatic rights' practice sits at L8736 in Ch. XVII.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
{
"citations": [
{
"url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17903/pg17903.txt",
"note": "Ch. XXI price passage"
}
]
}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] 1919 US trade advice, not law. The authors give rough figures: minimum about $50 per reel, $100 or more at larger companies, $1,000 for a five-reel script or synopsis at leading producers, more for big names. They say to write only 'Submitted at usual rates'. A script that must be rewritten for the company's star earns little more than a bare idea. Chapters XVII and XXI say nothing about contracts, assignment or the rights a free-lance sale conveys; the only rights statement is about published fiction whose authors may reserve dramatic rights. · locator: Ch. XXI price passage source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |