It's no joke: Germans seek sitcom writers

By REBECCA LIEB

Wanted: English speakers who want to write sitcoms in Germany. Fluency in German unnecessary.

Germany's private webs and indie producers are clamoring for talent and willing to give all comers a try. A tidal wave of local TV production -- from soaps and sitcoms to made-fors and formats -- has jolted German producers and program chiefs. It's extremely tough to find people to write all those scripts or come up with sorely needed new ideas.

A dearth of local talent means that Yanks, Brits and Aussies are being ardently courted for their expertise and ideas and to teach native talent the tricks of the trade.

As TV here becomes big business, attitudes toward scriptwriting get more businesslike. Producers want real talent -- and believe it's to be found on foreign shores.

But many English-speaking writers and producers familiar with the German media scene believe Germany also needs fewer auteurs.

"Germany still has an auteur mentality," British agent Conrad Williams said. "There's a schism between writers who think of themselves as filmmakers and those who think of themselves as commercial writers. The anticommercial instincts of Germans are more deeply entrenched than here," he said.

"They have to realize there's no such thing as auteur TV," said a Berlin-based New Yorker who doesn't consider herself a scriptwriter, but who is deluged with requests to write dialogue and pitch concepts for series.

"Germans have an inferiority complex about not being funny. They'll hire anyone who's English or American. They beg me to write in German, which isn't even my native language."

"They're all auteurs," said L.A. indie prod Sascha Schneider of German scribes. Schneider has spent the a year in Berlin lensing U.S.-German co-production "Berlin Break" for RTL and Columbia/TriStar. "We came here looking for

nine (native) writers and hired zero."

That's where the English speakers come in, often as part of a formatting package. Adam Bowen, who worked on Grundy soaps in Sydney for three years, has been shipped over "to teach Germans how to storyline."

"There are very few German writers who can write a soap," the non-German speaker proclaims after only a few weeks on the job. German writers, Bowen said, tend to change characters, and to eliminate humor, melodrama and lightness.

Looking on the bright side, Bowen said, "German writers are treated with a great deal of respect and paid a lot more money."

Said London agent Linda Seifert: "Germans are looking for both new formats and the writers to write them. Germans have money. No one else does right now."

Following Grundy's lead, Col/TriStar recently roped in an American scribe to salvage the German formats of "Married ... With Children" and "Who's the Boss?"-- both dangerously dipping in the ratings in German versions.

Briton John Delbridge got into the writing game via directing for a German pubcaster. "The scripts were so bad I had to do rewrites."

Now Delbridge pens 52 "Sesame Street" episodes a year, plus other kid fare. He works in collaboration with a German colleague, who helps him with his grammar.

Director Manuel Siebenmann, who is Berlin-based but boasts L.A. contacts, said he's setting up an L.A. office to locate U.S. scripts for German producers, especially for RTL's movie arm.

"Our screenwriters simply have another way of thinking. RTL is looking for American formulas that are adaptable from the U.S. market. I don't want to be an agent," he said.