“Hollywood Goes High-Tech for Script Security”

From TheWrap:

If you’re Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay for David Fincher’s upcoming “The Social Network,” or Diablo Cody, who wrote Jason Reitman’s next movie, “Young Adult,” you can’t be very happy with the internet lately.

“Social Network” and “Young Adult” are only two of the upcoming scripts that have been leaked recenlty and can be found on the web — where snap judgments can be rendered, surprises spoiled and secrets revealed.

The problem, of course, has existed for years; what’s new is how the internet has accelerated the spread of leaked material.

What’s also new is how high-tech solutions are becoming available to keep the work under wraps.

One security process that used to take days, in fact, now can be done in hours. The question is whether studios will be willing to adopt it.

And what is this “security process?”

To heighten security at this stage, more and more scripts are being watermarked — each script being distributed with a number or name so that leaks can be instantly traced.

Banking on the threat of public humiliation. That confuses me. I thought it was impossible to humiliate oneself in Hollywood. Unless you’re Mel Gibson.

Watermarking is hardly new. Scripts for the James Bond films, for instance, have been individually numbered for at least the last decade. But until recently it has been a labor-intensive, time-consuming process.

“It takes gazillions of hours,” said “Breaking Bad’s” Kravetz, which began watermarking after its near-leak. “You have to get another person, get another computer, get another copier … ”

“It’s about seven hours to watermark every script with names manually, and hours just to do it with numbers,” said Scenechronize producer Rhys Ryan.

But Scenechronize now offers a way to label scripts more easily — through an automated, server-based two-click system that prints out personalized scripts or PDF files that can’t be copied and pasted or altered in any way:

I guess it’s better than tagging each script with one of those exploding security deelybobs they clamp onto clothes at Target.

One seeming drawback, said Scenechronize’s COO Ehlers, is that his process requires placing the script on a server located in San Francisco.

“The studios and the networks are not used to this kind of cloud-based solution,” Ehlers told TheWrap. “If they don’t know what we do, they are like, Hold on, you’re going to put our scripts on the internet?”

Those scripts, he said, are protected with “bank-level” security in a building renovated to withstand a magnitude-9 earthquake. And with the company’s security services passing five separate security audits, including an extensive four-day one recently conducted by a TV network, they’re finding more clients willing to cautiously part with those valuable screenplays.

“Bank-level” security. Earthquake-proof building. Security audits. All that time and expense to guard scripts, while squeezing blood out of the writers who actually create those same scripts.

It’s almost… ironic.

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