percent of green-light budget on his film, he or she can make forty thousand or so out of a small British art-house project, never mind a Hollywood picture. But, again, the writer is often getting considerably less than the other principle talents involved, and has to suffer all the indignities of the endless rewrites and studio and star interventions. Perhaps the screenwriters wreak their revenge creatively - the best directors and actors in the world have been sunk (or at least compromised) by a bad script.

When the Writer's Guild of America was recently on strike for better pay and conditions, one of its stipulations was that the 'vanity credit' should be abolished. This is the one that allows a director to put 'A film by...' at the very beginning of the movie as well as taking the standard director's credit. The writers' very legitimate beef was that if much of the film, including even details of how particular scenes are to be shot, is in the script, then a director's claim on sole authorship is tenuous at best. Needless to say, the demand to abolish it wasn't acquiesced to, and the fact remains that a writer's name will simply not sell a film. To be brutally honest, there are only a handful of directors - the likes of Hitchcock, Kubrick, Spielberg, and Cameron - whose name up-front will sell a film either. No, as we all know, it is the stars in the lead roles that put bums on seats. The paying public couldn't care less who wrote or directed their movie. Charlie's Angels was directed by a first-time lenser known simply as McQ. Perhaps he was just too ashamed to put his real name on it. Whatever his reason, nobody really noticed his style, or lack of it - they were all too busy looking at Cameron Diaz's backside. And when the film premiered, again it was her posterior getting the attention and not McQ's. Even if I really had been one of the highest paid and most successful screenwriters in the world walking up that Cannes carpet, no one would have cared much anyhow. It still would have been just as fake. The fact that I got a close-up on that video wall was probably down to my director friend's girlfriend. He's not famous and neither is she, but maybe she looked like she could be. Maybe the cameraman was hedging his bets: with so many celebrities around these days, he couldn't afford to let one slip through his televisual net just because he didn't recognise her.

Which is where my own hypocrisy kicks in. I am, of course, delighted that a well- know American actor is currently considering my script (no, I'm not going to tempt fate by saying who), because I know that people do recognise him - in name and in person. I know that his name will increase the chances of raising funding and the chances of making some of it back. I know that in the long run, working with him would be good for my little-known name. And should any of the things that happen to those celeb- authors happen to me, I'm unlikely to protest too loudly. This is the problem with it all: it appeals to the baser instincts in people like me - our egos and our wallets. More marketing should mean higher sales should mean more money for the author. Those obscene advances may paralyse creatively, but they do great things for big TVs and fast cars. If sending in a half-decent photograph of myself got me published, I wouldn't complain. Yes, I still want to be where Amis was at Hay. Yes, I'd love to do that red carpet thing if it was real.

....Where do I sign?