Just Effing Entertain Me

From Networking to Netgiving

Networking is a critical part of a writer’s life. In fact, networking is part of everybody’s life, when it comes down to it. We all need favors, we do them in return, we borrow an egg or recommend a gardener or drive someone to the hospital. It takes a village.

But in the business world and specifically in the world of creatives, networking can sometimes take on a different, darker connotation. I seek you out and meet you because you can DO something for me. Primarily something to do with money or jobs or status.

Can you read my script?
Can you introduce me to someone you know who seems important?
Can you get my script to your agent?
Or your friend’s agent?
Or your manager/lawyer/celebrity friend?
Can you have coffee with me so I can take up your time for free?

Networking. Working the net. Climbing upward.

For some, it’s distastefull, full stop, and opportunities are passed by. For others, it’s POWER networking, or The Gimme Game and connections are not only not formed, they are strained and desperate. GIMME.

But what if we change the definition of networking to something entirely different? What if we were to call it netgiving? Ah! A different beast! What if a networking event were an event at which you ask the object of your networking what you can do for them? Is there something you can offer to trade for their services? Are you an artisan, or do you have a skill that is unusual or valuable? How about just offering a polite, sincere, intelligent conversation? How about asking for nothing at all? You’re more likely to elicit a friendly, genuine response and you can make effort to stay in touch.

My crazily gifted Australian web designer just had his excellent sci-fi script handed to a director I know who is looking for a good writer. He’s now interviewed and brainstormed to get a job writing a treatment for the director. Why? Because he met me at a party and ingratiated himself aggressively? No. Because he offered to convert a document for me several years ago and did so quickly and cheerfully. Then he began doing work on my website. Cheerfully and quickly. We became friends. And now it’s my turn to pay him back. And so I am.

A couple of years ago I was picking up a number of heavy boxes from the printer to bring to the CS Expo. As I struggled with the boxes, a young man offered to help me to my car. He, as it turns out, was a writer. He loaded up the boxes and said he’d see me at Expo. Which he did. He never asked one thing from me. He just offered to help. Fast forward and we email frequently, stay in touch, and if there is ever anything I can do for the kid, you know I will in a heartbeat, whether that means giving him feedback on a script, making an introduction for him or recommending him as a candidate for an assistant or PA job.

Do not ask what other writers can do for you – ask what you can do for them. It’s a steep climb, and we’re all standing in the rain waiting for lightning to strike. Why not toss the rope down to the next guy so we all scale this wall together?

By shifting the paradigm, networking becomes netgiving; rather than asking for someone’s energy, you are giving of your own. Do we all know what happens when we do things with that intentionality? That’s right. Comes back tenfold. All in due time.

Seen through a different lens, giving, not getting is what networking is all about.

Spec Market Round Up

While generally The Rouge Wave is more ruminative, reflective, instructive and wrist-slappy rather than industry-newsy, today I am blatantly cutting and pasting from a blog that you should absolutely be reading, Wavers, called Life On The Bubble. Jason is a friend of a friend (how Hollywood is that?) and hereby receives my “I’m not worthy” genuflection.

This is information that applies directly to you, Wavers. The spec market is where you want to be, right? Well, read this carefully because doing so will disabuse you of any pie-in-the-sky fantasies that selling a script is a cake walk. And I just have to take a moment to high-five myself for mixing my pastry metaphors. Wow. Monday morning, too. Ahhh-booyah!

Sorry. Back to Serious Things. I know this is a bit of a depressing read but you need to be aware of this stuff. While it may feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to even bother sending a script to rep in hopes of hitting the spec market, you have to remember that the market will not always be this flat and that he who was busy building more, newer, better deck chairs is the one who’ll be on top when the market does open up. And it will. At some point. Who knows, is it possible that there will be a gold rush of crazy spec sales in a year or two? Will you be ready for that possibility?

Anyway, many thanks to Jason Scoggins for such a terrific, informative blog. It’s the sour to go with the sweet of The Rouge Wave. It’s the salt to the pepper. It’s the cinnamon on top of the…all right, anyway, you get my point. It’s not pretty but you need to have an awareness of the realities of the market:

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Spec Market Roundup: May 2009
by Jason Scoggins
June 1, 2009

Thanks to the feedback we received from last month’s Spec Market Roundup, we refined our methodology in a couple of ways this month:

* We’re now differentiating between sales of specs that went out widely and those that did not appear in the marketplace prior to selling. Not only does this provide another lens through which to view the state of the marketplace, it keeps those hand-sold projects from skewing the data for the scripts that go out wide (since we’re not in a position to know about every script that gets slipped to just a couple of buyers).
* We’ve broken Buyers into two categories: “Studios” (for lack of a better term), which we think of as the Majors, Mini-Majors and their various studio labels; and “Other,” for everyone else.
* We’ve also broken Sellers into two categories as well: “Agents,” and “Managers” (for obvious reasons).

Together, we think these refinements help provide a clearer picture of the spec marketplace as a whole.

At first glance, May’s spec script sales numbers seem to be yet another month-over-month improvement: 10 out of 39 specs sold in May, compared to 9 in April and 8 each in February and March, for a sales percentage of 26%. That’s the highest number of monthly sales so far this year, and easily the highest percentage.

However, 9 out of May’s 10 sales were scripts that went directly to buyers, as opposed to going out wide to producers in the usual spec fashion. In other words, just 1 of the 30 spec scripts that went out wide in May sold (“The Gunslinger,” out from UTA & Benderspink, which sold to Warner Bros. for Andrew Lazar’s Mad Chance). That’s a shockingly low sales rate of 3%. In this month’s Spec Market Scorecard we’ll be breaking out the numbers for previous months and rolling them up for the year-to-date figures. Suffice it to say here, though, that the state of the marketplace is not pretty: Just 6% of specs that have gone out wide this year have sold. We wish we had access to the total number of scripts that went out narrowly last month for comparison.

Here are May’s raw numbers:

* 30 specs went out wide;
* 1 of those sold; and
* 9 additional spec sales were reported

Weekly Breakdown:
Week of May 4:

* 8 specs went wide, 1 of which sold
* 3 additional sales were reported

Week of May 11:

* 10 specs went wide, none sold
* 1 additional sale was reported

Week of May 18:

* 9 specs went wide, none sold
* 2 additional sales were reported

Week of May 25:

* 3 specs went wide, none sold
* 3 additional sales were reported

May 25 was Memorial Day, which helped make the last week in May the slowest of 2009 since Sundance. We’d bet the impending completion of the William Morris/Endeavor merger was a factor as well (see below). In any case, since that last week of May was such an outlier, the weekly average number of new scripts (7.5) is meaningless.

Genre Breakdown, Attachments, Etc.

Collectively, the Buyers seem to have bought their fill of Comedies over the past several months, since not one sold in May. Instead, they switched to Dramas, a genre in which not a single spec had sold in the first four months of the year. Here’s the breakdown:
1 – Action
4 – Drama
2 – Sci-Fi/Fantasy (including one animation project)
3 – Thriller

On the attachment front, four of the 10 sales had significant filmmaker or actor elements attached. Two of those four had Hugh Jackman on board as producer and/or star, one had Jim Carrey as producer and star, and the fourth had John Lee Hancock writing and directing (plus Overbrook producing). None of this month’s sales reported multiple bidders, and only one was a reported preemptive purchase (Intrepid’s purchase of “Childhood Heroes” from Abstract Entertainment).

Buyers and Sellers

Warner Bros. was the big spender of the Studios in May, purchasing 3 of the month’s 10 scripts. The other two studio buyers were Fox and Sony, with one each. Among the Other buyers, each of the following companies bought one script each: Beloved, Intrepid, Relativity, Reliance and Starz Media Animation.

Of the agencies, CAA had the best month, with 3 sales; the firm also took 2 scripts out wide, neither of which had sold as of this writing. UTA was in second position in May with two sales, one of which was the sole sale in May that went out wide, out of 3 wide attempts last month. Endeavor, Gersh and William Morris each sold a spec script as well, none of which went out wide.

Eight management companies were involved in the ten spec sales in May: Abstract Entertainment, Anonymous Content, Benderspink, Category 5, The Gotham Group, Kaplan/Perrone, The Radmin Co. and Marty Shapiro Management. Of those, two sold their projects without agency involvement: Abstract Entertainment (“Childhood Heroes,” to Intrepid); and Marty Shapiro Management (“Umbra,” to Relativity).

On a side note, neither WMA nor Endeavor sold a spec in May after the 5th, just as the rumors of WMA’s layoffs began to mount in earnest. In fact, all of WMA’s and Endeavor’s sales from mid-April to the end of May fall into the “direct to buyers” category, where the scripts did not appear widely in the marketplace prior to the announcement of their sale. It’s a safe bet that those sales got started well before the merger was confirmed and the writing was on the wall about which agents would be joining WME and which would not. Regardless, there’s no doubt that the merger has been a distraction for both companies and an opportunity for their competitors. We wonder how badly the situation affected WMA’s and Endeavor’s TV Lit staffing efforts over the past few weeks as well.

About The Spec Market Roundup:
The Spec Market Roundup is a terribly unscientific analysis of the feature film spec script market based on information culled from a variety of public and non-public sources. It does not include pitch sales nor the film rights to underlying material. These are by no means official numbers, merely a fairly complete summary.

About Jason Scoggins:
Jason Scoggins is a manager and partner at Protocol, a Beverly Hills-adjacent literary management and production company. He represents writers, directors and producers of film and TV alongside Protocol’s founding partners Brian Inerfeld and John Ufland. After getting his start in the entertainment business as an assistant at ICM, Scoggins became a TV Literary Agent at The Gersh Agency, followed by a stint at Writers & Artists Agency and then several years in the wilderness. He returned to the business in 2007, just in time to be impacted by the run-up to the WGA strike.

So You Think You Can Read?

Since I started teaching the I Want To Be A Reader course, a number of students have signed up and completed it. But none with the enthusiasm and insight of Rouge Waver Michael Brownlee, who whipped up a frothy blog post about his experience:

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Rouge Wave Pictures presents a new workplace thriller –

I WANT TO BE A READER

“Selfless coverage pro, Julie Gray, with only a computer, an internet connection and her vast knowledge of the craft, has only four weeks to turn a know-it-all screenwriter into a professional reader without losing her sanity or her professional credibility.”

Can she do it? Is four weeks enough? Can a know-it-all screenwriter be taught anything?

Spoiler Alert: Yes. Yes. And, thank god, Yes.

When I learned that studios hire people to read and cover screenplays I thought – How hard can it be? I know how to read. Besides, it’s got to be a better “industry job” than cleaning some junior executive’s cat litter box. Right? But after signing up for Julie’s I Want To Be A Reader course I discovered that there’s more to doing coverage than just reading a script.

The very first week I was blown away by how many elements a reader has to be on the lookout for. I quickly realized that reading a script for coverage would be nothing like reading one for pleasure. To start with I’d have to turn off my inner critic. One of the first assignments was a screenplay written with a dialect, where the words were phonetically spelled out. I loathe reading these. To be a professional reader you have to keep a certain distance and leave your personal feelings at the door. You read only what’s on the pages. That was probably the hardest and most valuable lesson I learned. (And one that’s actually helped me with my own screenwriting.)

As I read the scripts for homework, I felt like I was trying to keep a dozen plates spinning at once. Are the characters fleshed out? Does the structure work? Is the dialogue believable? With each week more plates were added. Writer’s voice. Synopsis writing. Reader comments. Trying to keep track of everything took constant focus. I struggled not to stop and jot down notes as I went along. After all, speed and efficiency are the reader’s two chief allies.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself when I finished reading a screenplay in under two hours. Then Week Three rolled around I learned that this probably wouldn’t cut it. Because a pro can read a screenplay and cover it in about two hours. Not only that, but she’ll do it three times a day five days in a row. What the what? I had been using every minute of the week between assignments to go back over my comments. Tinker with the synopsis a little. Even re-read parts of the screenplay to make sure I had all my ducks in a row. And we hadn’t even put all the elements of coverage together yet.

But when Week Four finally rolled around, and I had to write full coverage of three scripts, I was actually looking forward to the challenge. Because of the way the course is structured, learning one or two elements a week, I never felt overwhelmed. Challenged, yes. It felt good to get through those final screenplays, knowing what needed to be done and that I had been given all the tools to properly complete the job. It also felt good to have solved the mystery of what coverage is. Sure, there’s a lot more work than just reading a script, but now there’s also pride in being able to say “I can do that.”

Over four weeks, Julie walked me through all the steps needed to become a professional reader; from writing a synopsis that faithfully represents the script to keeping comments professional and on point to where to look for work. I highly recommend this course to anyone who’s thinking about becoming a professional reader. Now I have three samples and a letter of recommendation from Julie – a major foot in the door. And even if you aren’t looking to become a reader, but are constantly looking for ways to improve your screenwriting, I would suggest you take it as well. After completing the course, I can honestly say that I’ll never look at a screenplay, my own or someone else’s, the same way again. It’s like having new eyes. And that is worth the price of admission alone.

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I am proud to say that Michael graduated with flying colors. Take advantage of my Economic Stimulus Discount, pay as you go and change the way you read scripts forever. Whether you’re looking for work as a pro reader or just want to learn how to read scripts the way readers do, I promise you, you’ll improve your own writing a thousand-fold. For more information, click HERE.

Secret to Your Success REVEALED

Flip through your most recent copy of Creative Screenwriting or Script Magazine and focus on the ads. Yeah – that’s mine, very good, thank you. Nice artwork, I know.

Look, I’m a writer just like you. And I just saw an ad for a very cool looking writer’s retreat – I’ve never been to one and they appeal to me mightily. I have a lifelong dream of going to Yaddo or enrolling in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Maybe one day. A retreat strikes me as a great use of money and time. Because the rewards have legs. Teach a man to fish and all that.

But some of the other ads, the ones that promise to reveal some SECRET to success – those make me so uncomfortable. Because, Wavers, there is no big secret that someone can teach you that will magically make a sale for you. There. Just. Isn’t. Believe it.

With the economy in a tailspin, we are all forced to make tough decisions and really look at our expenses and test each one for how much it is really needed. In times past, we all had more disposable income and it was easy and fun to go to Target and spend $200 on stuff and we didn’t think twice. We need stuff, right? Take a look at your home – look at all your stuff. I bet you have a lot. I do.

And just like anyone else, I get the feeling that some new stuff will bring happiness, security, success – whatever. When I was married, I was a shopper. Because shopping alleviated boredom and stuff feathered my nest with – well, stuff. Looking back now I see that I had been the ideal consumer – stuff makes you happy! You NEED this Pottery Barn furniture because then you’ll be just like the photograph of a stuff-filled home which connotes comfort, success and classiness! Oh, and relevancy and happiness! Oh, how ridiculous. Do you know that temporary high of getting something new? Your new car, new clothes, new iPhone – it’s like a new toy and it provides entertainment – for awhile. Then it’s just more stuff you have. And you’re no happier. Or more successful. What a line of baloney we’ve all been fed.

We live in a consumer driven culture and yes, there is a lot of stuff that does enrich, educate and fulfill us. But you have to check in with yourself – am I getting this stuff because I’m bored? Am I getting this stuff because it promises me that I’ll be happier? Or more successful? But – will it really? Honestly?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all about seeking out joy and fulfillment. But when particular products or services tell screenwriters that they will learn some huge SECRET that will OPEN THE DOORS TO HOLLYWOOD I get kind of uncomfortable.

Because, and I’ll say it again – there is no big secret that everybody knows that you do not.

Wait – no – there is. I’m charging $53.99 per view of this big secret:

Ass in chair.

Okay, you can send payments to: bigsecret@thescriptdepartment.com. Go ahead. Operators are standing by.

As a service provider for aspiring screenwriters, I obviously believe that objective feedback is an important part of your development – otherwise you can write all you want and have no idea if you’re improving. If I didn’t truly believe that, if I hadn’t benefited from it myself, if I didn’t see the impact great feedback has on writers, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Because I was born with a very strong ethical-ometer [technical term --Ed.] and I can’t earn my living providing a service that writers don’t actually need and also live with myself. I’m just not built that way. From time to time the board of directors of my company considers, then scraps, ideas that would earn us money but not really benefit you demonstrably. We just don’t roll that way.

There are consumer junkies of every stripe. The techno-gadget junkies. The home furnishings and lifestyle junkies. The cosmetics and beauty supplies junkies. The DVD-buying entertainment system junkies. You name it. And for each type there is a whole industry set up to exploit the junkie and give him or her that HIGH of hope and safety and security.

Most screenwriters are pretty astute, but there are junkies in that world too. I have seen them browsing the tradeshows, snatching up armloads of books and software. I have seen them attend not one but three and four pitch fests each year. I have seen them attend not one but EVERY class and seminar. In a weird way, it’s a great way to avoid actually writing. If you keep buying STUFF about screenwriting – somehow, by accretion, magically, your writing will improve.

R-i-g-h-t.

Look, I’m as guilty as some of you are – talking about screenwriting is way more fun than doing it. We’ll do anything to avoid the terrifying quiet of sitting in front of our computers sometimes. And I really do get that.

But don’t get taken for a fool. Big secret = bullshit.

I mean, look – of course you need to spend money on your screenwriting career. You do need to attend events, go to classes, buy some books and get feedback. It’s all part of that five a day for writers I’ve spoken of before:

Write
Promote
Network
Learn
Live well

Check in with yourself before spending money on seminars, books and products. Is there a feeling there for you of desperation? Of a quick fix? If so – do NOT press “pay now.” Be careful of where you spend your money and your time when it comes to screenwriting. New, better, faster and more is a myth. Ass. In chair. That’s the only big secret. And even then, folks, even then, the odds are against you. Are you okay with that? You have to be.

Someone asked me the other day why I write The Rouge Wave. I thought about it for a minute. Because writing is really hard and isolating and I try to motivate you with humor and understanding. Because you need a cheerleader, a friend and a strict schoolmarm. Because sometimes you need to get over yourselves. Because somebody needs to tell the truth once in awhile. Because I want you to believe in yourselves. Honestly, I am YOUR fan, Wavers. I thank YOU for reading every day. Because writing is hard. But you’re doing it against crazy odds. Because you can’t help it. Because you have a story to tell. And because you want to express yourselves and make some sense in this crazy world. That is heroism. You are the ones who inspire me.

Somebody Got There First

Well. It finally happened. You read the trades and you see it. A script that has sold that is exactly like the script you have been working on for months. Even the title is similar. Sure, sure, some of the details are different but the premise – yeah, that was your premise. And now it’s out there and you’re done for. Right?

Well, not exactly. Look, this is not a good situation, there’s no two ways about it. If someone just SOLD a script that shares the same basic idea as yours, well, that puts you in a pretty disadvantageous position if you are a totally unknown, unrepped writer. Not quite as disadvantageous if you’re repped and a known entity. Sometimes movies are released in twos: PAUL BLART and OBSERVE AND REPORT are a recent example. Then of course, ARMAGEDDON and DEEP IMPACT is probably the most famous example.

But there’s a big difference between you, Joe Writer from Somewhere, working on a script and Joe Hollywood Writer who just sold a similar script. There’s not really going to be an arms race there to get your movie into production as well. So if that is your situation, you’re pretty much screwed. And you know what? It happens. And yes, you will cry in your soup for a few days. What an awful feeling. All that hard work for nothing.

But is it for nothing? No. It is not. Complete your script. Make it the best iteration of your take on the premise as possible. Why? Because you now have a great sample. And yes, when and if you get meetings, your script will be compared to the script that was sold – but that’s okay. You are aware of that and this is a sample. To not be aware would be the biggest sin, honestly. But you’re not going to query using this script. It’s going to be in your kit bag as a sample. That’s really the only big shift that’s going to happen for you. This script is not going to the point of the spear for you. But in the big picture, while that’s disappointing – well, let’s be honest, it’s really a blow – you still have other scripts in your arsenal.

And an arsenal is what you need to have. I know how exciting it feels to finish a script and query with it. But many writers forget that you need to have others that are also in great shape as samples of your writing. Ideally, you should have two or more really great scripts aside from the one you are querying with.

So if you find that a script quite similar to yours is out on the marketplace, just sold or even released in theaters, give yourself a minute to feel the burn of that. It’s natural. But do not give up on that script. Focus on your craft and voice and screenwriting skills. Make your script the best mall cop script you personally could write. And then add it to your stack of samples. Then move on to a new script, one that you do trust is totally unique…and start again.

There’s no way to prevent this situation from arising. We writers are all out there reading the newspaper and brainstorming and observing life and so it’s only a matter of time before someone else has an idea similar to your own. And that writer might execute the script faster, they might be repped or lucky or an alien life form – and they get their script on the market first. So while I hope this never happens to you, if it does, stay calm, hang onto your script and make sure it is a GREAT draft because when you get into a meeting in which a rep is seriously entertaining taking you on, it is still part of your body of work. Not knowing that there is a script or movie like yours already out there – now that would be embarrassing. So do read the trades and stay up on script sales.

Here are some resources for following what’s selling:

Done Deal Pro
Tracking B

-and the highly entertaining Script Girl.

So if you have been the victim of Somebody Got There First, breathe it out and do not give up on your script. You need great samples and though the issue was forced, this is a great sample. Never miss an opportunity to learn while you are on this journey. Never write a half-assed script and then let it languish in a drawer. Every script you write is potentially a great sample or, of course, in the best outcome possible, the script that got you repped – or even sold.

Networking in Los Angeles

Good morning, Wavers! A Rouge Waver (we’ll call him Pete) wrote in and asked, having just moved to Los Angeles, how on earth to meet other screenwriters and get that networking and socializing started from the ground up.

One can’t exactly walk into a cafe frequented by writers and stare meaningfully at those writers and make small clicking noises until they look up, catch your gaze and become your new best friend, mentor and super-connection. Well I mean, one could do that but then you’d wind up like my friend Bob, who got a restraining order and permanent ban from the cafe.

First of all, Pete, moving to Los Angeles to further your screenwriting career was a very smart move. So congratulations on your ability to make that happen. There’s no silver bullet, of course, you are going to have to be very proactive if you want to meet and get to know other screenwriters and industry types. But here are some resources that might be helpful:

Find your local LA screenwriting Meetup Group.

Check out special screenings and events sponsored by the American Cinemateque.

Contact Marc Zicree’s Super Mentor Group for classes and/or admission to Marc’s renowned networking group, The Table, which meets each Thursday evening in Toluca Lake.

Check out the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. They have great classes, some of which might be right up your alley – a two day weekend intensive. Classes are always a great way to meet other writers.

The Script Department will be offering weekend classes in the next few weeks and months so stay tuned in to the Rouge Wave for those announcements – but in the interim, there are two back-to-back table reads coming up, April 1st and April 8th at the Attic Theater at 7:30pm.

And this last tip comes with a caveat. The Done Deal Message Board, largely populated by temperamental blow-hards but sometimes frequented by actual nice, intelligent people, does have members who live in the Los Angeles area so you might want to gingerly check there. Again, a caveat: Message boards are generally replete with Anonymous Hostility and Heartfelt Disinformation so go to there with great caution.

So there you go, Pete, that’s about as much as I can tell you. Give it some time, put yourself out there, take some weekend classes and read the LA Weekly for events and screenings to attend.

If any Angeleno Wavers have other or more suggestions, please leave them in the comments section.

Good luck, Pete. And welcome to LA. If I find you making small clicking noises at a cafe I’m going to have to intervene. Just FYI.

Industry News Update

All righty, Wavers. I’ve removed the voting for the short scenes as it had petered out in a cloud of our-voting-system-sucks. Congratulations to Emily, who truly did write a very worthy short scene. I will find a better way to sort out the voting in the future.

Moving on. Here is some industry news updates for this week ending March 20th, 2009:

In Development

Blacklight
Feature
Fox Atomic, Zombie Studios, Union Entertainment
P: Richard Leibowitz
W: Jason Dean Hall
Sci-fi actioner set 25 years in the future, about an elite covert ops team sent after a rogue American CIA colonel. Project will be developed simultaneously as a feature film, video game and comic book.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice
Feature
Walt Disney Pictures, Gunn Films
P: Andrew Gunn
W: Barry Blaustein, Jason Hefter
Family comedy in which a teenage couple planning to run away together is magically transported 20 years into the future, only to discover that their lives did not exactly turn out as envisioned.

Doing Da Vinci
TV pilot; ordered to series
Discovery Channel, Pilgrim Films & TV
EP: Craig Piligian, Rob Katz, Tim Pastore
Reality show in which teams try to rebuild Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions using materials from that time period.

A Ribbon of Dreams
Miniseries
HBO, Chase Films
EP: David Chase, Brad Grey
W: David Chase
Epic miniseries following two disparate men who team up to help pioneer the burgeoning movie industry through the early 20th century.

Hot Properties

The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist
Feature
Paramount Pictures, Bad Robot, Circle of Confusion
Based on the article “The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist” written by Joshua Davis and published in the April 2009 issue of Wired. J.J. Abrams produces.

This Week in Production

Talkin’ Bout Your Competition

So yesterday I had a meeting with a client, let’s call him, I don’t know – Robert – to go over three scripts and to review his overall trajectory and game plan as a writer. He is 20 years old. He is crazy talented. He is focused as hell and he is your competition. In other words, Wavers – I have seen your enemy and his name is Ambition.

First scary fact about “Robert:” he has innate talent. I have read two feature scripts of his in the past few months and while they had room for improvement, the general level of execution was quite high. I asked him how many scripts he’d completed. Just those two and a tv pilot (which I also read and which I think is not far from being presentable to a rep). My jaw dropped. He can write like this after only two scripts?

But it gets better. We talk about branding oneself and what other ideas Robert has. He opened his laptop and showed me an excel spreadsheet. Filled out, top to bottom with ideas, by genre and with status update columns next to each. And here’s the thing – several of those ideas were great. High concept, unique, fleshed out and – well – they sounded like movies.

I snapped the laptop shut and asked Robert to be very careful who he shares those ideas with. In fact, I counseled him, these ideas are valuable, please don’t share them blithely with anyone unless you are in a meeting with a somebody who is speaking seriously with you about working with you as your rep.

I asked Robert if he is willing to move to LA (he’s currently visiting from the East Coast). Yes, he is. He realizes he needs to be here in order to network, rub elbows and learn more about the business. How often do you write? Every day. How long have you been writing in one form or another? My whole life. How long does it take you to write a script? Two or three months. What about this particular idea? I have a treatment written.

We made a list of the top five projects Robert is most passionate about and that are the most realized and that serve to “brand” him as a writer. Robert will continue to add to and update his idea list but he’s organizing that list by commercial potential versus very indie, and by genre and status. So that the newest idea he just had goes way on the bottom; it’s not developed yet.

Look, 20 is very young. Robert has a lot of life to live and a lot of emotional depth and understanding to add to his skillset as writer and as a human being. Naturally. It’s one of the glorious upsides to aging, isn’t it? The marinating that results in wisdom, patience, empathy and humility? But sometimes I think that’s what we older writers say to comfort ourselves when we see the 20-year-olds nipping at our heels with an iPhone in one hand and a soy latte in the other. What does that kid know about life? He knows what he wants and he knows what he’s going to do to go get it. And he doesn’t have a mortgage or two kids or a career. Hollywood is indeed a very young industry. To say otherwise would be to lie to your faces, Wavers.

It’s a bitter pill, Wavers, but Robert is your competition. He’s young, he’s focused, he’s talented, he’s ambitious as hell and he’s investing in his writing career now. One of the things that impressed me the most (beyond the undeniable natural talent) is that Robert is shrewd enough to seek a mentor, which is what our meeting yesterday was all about. He knows what he doesn’t know and he sought trusted guidance.

So what are you gonna do about that, Wavers? Where’s your slate of ideas? Do you write every day? Do you network? Do you seek learning opportunities and guidance? How seriously are you taking this screenwriting thing?

You know by now that I have firmly planted in the ground here at TRW and in my life that writing should be playful, joyous and fun. That said, if you really, seriously want to compete in Hollywood, you have to do the work and you have to compete with people like Robert because for every 100 screenwriting aspirants who try it but give up a couple of years later when they quail at the negativity and rejection, or the dilettantes who try it because it sounds glamorous but don’t have the chops or the focus, there are 10 or 15 Roberts who do have the chops, who do have the focus and who also have the advantage of youth and the time to spend writing. That’s the only competition that matters. The snarky masses on the message boards don’t matter -they’re not going anywhere. But Robert is.

I don’t mean to be negative this morning – far from it – I mean to inspire you, Wavers, to take your competition seriously and to be inspired by it.

You know, about two years ago, the director of a very large script coverage company here in LA, upon learning that I had started my own company, sniffed haughtily – well, I don’t consider you competition, Julie, so good luck. That was all she had to say. It has fueled me ever since to overtake her company and while I can’t share confidential information, if I were her, I’d be looking in the rear view mirror about now. Objects are closer than they appear.

So here’s to you, kid. Because I love that Robert is determined and talented. And I love that he can inspire us all to work a little harder and reach a little further. And because his success is our success because he shows us what ambition and focus looks like.

Now get back to work.

Ping Me

So this pinging thing – how did it become part of the vernacular? Ping me! I’ll ping you! Let’s ping him! Nonetheless it is descriptive. It’s a nudge. A tinny hello down the wires. A wink. A nod. A Riiiiiicolla! (I can’t for the life of me understand why Ricola me didn’t take off as a colloquialism but then again I never thought the internal combustion engine would be a hit so color me dense.)

So where were we? Ah yes, pinging. Pinging might in another, more formal blog also be described as “following up.” You meet someone at a networking event. They agree to “have coffee” or “read your script” but when you ping them a week later, they ignore your email. I say ignore because they saw it all right. But they had post-networking-why-did-I-promise-that regrets. So you wait another week or three and ping them again. They feel bad so they at least email back with some probably semi-true story about being very “slammed.” You wait another month and ping them again.

Now this is the turning point. The fork in the road. One of two things is going at this juncture:

They are either truly, deeply annoyed and forward your email to their assistant with the note Who is this jackass? Tell him I’m having face surgery for the rest of my life!

or -

They break down some and think you know what, fine, I’ll have ONE CUP OF COFFEE with this person.

I know this because I have done it. Broken down and had a cup of coffee with someone who kept pinging me. Partly out of assuaging my own feelings that I have been perhaps rude and partly – no wait – no, that’s it. Just to not feel like a rude, cold or unfeeling person.

How can you tell if you’ve pung one too many times? Are you being persistent or are you stalking? Well, I would think that if someone SAID they’d have coffee with you or read your script, if they looked you right in the eye and said that, that you have some latitude with the pinging. Even if you feel rude or oddly persistent. Even when you’re beginning to feel like a wallflower begging for a dance. Keep pinging. Politely. Sporadically. Ask the person you’re pinging how they are. Comment on their latest hilarious blog entry, their script sale or fabulous new hair cut. Flattery will get you everywhere. Because what’s going to happen is that you might just wear the person down and because you pinged that one, last time – they will probably break down and meet you finally.

Now I know this sounds counterintuitive, you’re thinking, gosh, if I met an agent or manager at a pitch fest for example, and I ping them more than once or twice, aren’t I some kind of creepy, entitled CAPE FEAR person?? The more I ping, the more annoyed they get – it’ll have the opposite effect. Well – it can. It sure can. But that persistence could also lead to an amazing opportunity, introduction or relationship. You may just ping the object of your pinging on a day when he or she is bored and they might think you know what – FINE – I’ll meet this kid/writer for ONE beverage. And that could be your lucky day. Persistence can pay. I have met a number of people for coffee over time because they were politely persistent or because I was politely persistent. No guarantee any professional relationship will arise – but who knows, right?

So you’ve met a writer, actor, producer, agent or manager at an event. Here’s two to-ping-or-not-to-ping scenarios:

Scenario One:
The person you have met is polite but a bit distant and they do NOT agree to read your work, meet you or anything else. They don’t offer a business card either. In fact, they move backward slightly while you talk and scan the room over your shoulder. They are polite and pleasant but totally vague.

Should you ping them later? Not if they didn’t give your their business card and not if they expressed zero interest in you or your script. No random pinging, please. If they did give you their card but your experience of them was not particularly energized, ping them once, ping them twice – and definitely let it go. They’re just not that into you. You’ll get put on the “no call” list. I know of two super persistent pingers this happened to. Believe it. If you get rebuffed by silence more than three times – you’re not pinging anymore – you’re stalking.

Scenario Two:
The person you met was warm and friendly; they looked you in the eye and when you asked if they can read your script or have coffee sometime they nodded, smiled and said “sure.” They really looked at you, man, they really SAW you.

Should you ping this person? Did they mean what they said? Well, they were probably punch drunk and on auto-pilot when said they’d read your work or meet you for coffee. They said that to 10 other people too. They don’t remember your name, they don’t care that much but it was the polite thing to say. Should you ping them? Oh, of course. Ping once, ping twice, ping three times before you give up trying, in this scenario.

Pinging persistently can absolutely pay off and pay off big. You might actually get that script read, or form a new professional relationship. But do your pinging well. If you ping someone for the first time, do it about three to four days after you met them. Hey, met you at the thing with the thing, just wanted to thank you for an informative evening, love to have coffee some time. Done. You hear nothing back, so ping them again in about three to four weeks – Hey so and so, just checking in. How’s your thing with the thing? I read about your sale in the trades – congratulations! My script is coming along pretty well. In fact, I wondered if you might have time for a coffee? No accusations, no guilt-tripping, no you-never-answered-my-other-email. NO NO NO. When pinging be as obsequious the second time as you were the first time. Remind the pingee where you met. Do NOT expect them to remember you.

Persistence can be very high yield – you never know – it might just be your lucky day when you ARE able to meet up with someone in person who might be able to help you out. After three pings (at the most) please let it go.

Remember, part of the reason people agree to “read your script” or “meet you for coffee” is that they are doing a rapid-fire calculus – maybe this writer is someone I WANT to know…they never know, right? But people are busy and they do forget, so keep pinging every once in awhile until the silence or “I’m slammed” blow-offs are loud and clear to you.

There are some who would disagree with me and would champion pinging ad infinitum. I personally send those pings to my assistant with the face-surgery-into-perpetuity note. But maybe that’s just me. If you have gotten a note from my assistant with any kind of blow off, you’ve pung too much.

Now get back to work. And find somebody to ping.

Mentoring, Networking & Paying it Forward

So my friend Marc Zicree kept telling me about this amazing writer/director/producer/(add other hyphenates here) group that has met every single Thursday for 15 years in Toluca Lake. It’s an invitation only group that has swelled to 500 members (not all of whom show up to every meeting, otherwise it would be bedlam). So I went last night, brought a friend and was just amazed by the warmth and support in this amazing networking group. My friend had just moved to LA from Kentucky a few months ago and really hasn’t found a big group of like-minded creatives to connect with but I think he’s found a home now, for sure. The cool thing about this group is that some of its members are Oscar winners and Emmy winners – and we even had a Hugo Award winner there last evening. The majority, of course, are not quite at Oscar/Emmy level, which is nice, otherwise one would be frozen with awe rather than really interacting comfortably.

The best thing about this group is the premise and the intentionality: Marc goes around the room (there were probably 50 people there last evening) and you first talk about what’s going on with you and then you ask for what you need. It might be advice, it might be some editing equipment, it might be a new headshot – and then, because the group is so big and so multi-connected, someone offers to help introduce you to someone or otherwise get you what you need. It’s networking to the nth degree. And I love that it’s invitation only; it ensures that everyone in the group has been vetted by Marc and understands that this is a group interested in really, truly supporting one another.

Last night I came away with a few headshots for my table reads, the business card of an actor who does bookkeeping on the side and an offer to have coffee next week with a comedy writer. The cool thing is I could have asked for just about anything – does someone know where I can get the best deal on snow tires? I’m sure someone would have a friend they could introduce me to. People last night were looking for a variety of things and some people had some really great news about various projects they are working on.

When my friend and I left, he said wow, I had heard that people in LA were so me, me, me but this group really isn’t. Very true. It isn’t. It’s like the It Takes A Village Creative Support Group. Marc is a huge believer in networking and mentoring and he’s had a fair measure of success in his own career to prove how helpful that really is. So many of Marc’s stories start off with someone making an introduction to someone else who opened a door and then…Marc got what he needed in the end. He’s all about paying it forward and all about making a list of the people who are doing what you want to be doing and finding a way to introduce yourself to those people and just by making that personal connection, you are paving the way for a future involvement with them. I can’t possibly encapsulate or sum up the way Marc runs his group – or The Table as they call themselves – but I was just blown away by the warmth of this group of people. And it all springs from Marc, who is one of the kindest, most generous people I have ever met.

If you live in the LA area, Marc runs another group called The Super Mentors class and I’m going to be sure my friend signs up for it. Mentoring, networking, paying it forward – it seems old-fashioned, but it’s the foundation Hollywood was built on. And it’s nice to see it alive and well at a small cafe in Toluca Lake every Thursday night.