Zach Helm, the screenwriter behind Stranger Than Fiction and Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, is a rebel in the Hollywood screen writing community. After years of putting career ambitions and financial concerns first, he had enough of his labors of love shelved permanently in preproduction. One day, he sat down to write a code to live by, which ultimately became his manifesto. Selections from the manifesto include:
Rule No. 1:
"I will no longer allow financial need or career ambition to determine the direction of my work. I will not put myself in any position in which my work is owed to another party."
Rule No. 2:
"I won't take re-write jobs, I won't script-doctor. There's a lot of money to be had, lots of money for spending two weeks of work on a script, but I can't do it. I have a slight ethical …It would be very hypocritical of me to try to reserve all this creative power and try to hold on to my scripts as much as I can and then go take some first-time writer's script and bang it up."
Rule No. 3:
"I will not sell my work simply to the highest bidder, but instead to those parties that I feel will best represent and develop my work."
Rule No. 5:
"Any deal struck in regards to my work will forgo any immediate financial gain if it may mean the surrender of creative control or participation in the work's development."
Rule No. 6:
"I will not write for writing's sake. I will write only when inspired to write"
Also of note, Zach has two black band tattoos around his wrists. The tattoos are of a super-saturated black that took the work of a six-hour session and a nine-hour session, six months apart. When asked why, he answered, "A friend of mine who's a psychologist was talking about the idea of separation--the idea of separating my hands from the rest of my body, separating my work from me."
