The Curse of the Origin Story

You'd be surprised how many bloggers start out this way.

Matt’s email yesterday got me thinking about “making it,” and what exactly that means. I, too, will someday need a lawyer.

I hope.

This got me thinking about the Creative Screenwriting Podcast, and how they always start their interviews with “breaking-in stories.” I’m currently living through mine (I hope).

But there’s something that disturbs me about most of these stories. The writer always starts with, “I met producer X or director Y, and he/she/they liked my script.”

They never talk about years spent writing scripts, most of which are terrible, followed by several more years of coming to the realization that they are, in fact, terrible. They never mention working as a PA or a personal assistant orwhatever. It’s like they emerged from the cocoon of film school as a full-grown writerfly. (Butterwriter?)

Occasionally you’ll get, “I worked as a video store clerk… And then I made this movie!”

No one talks about the dozens of people they showed their screenplays to first, only to be rejected or, worse, get no response at all. They don’t discuss all the conmen and shady people they’ve had to deal with.

(I once had a producer agree to hire me for a few thousand dollars. When it came time to pay, he told me the financier would give me double the agreed amount, and I would have to give him (the producer) half. Also, he wanted me to give him his half before the funds for the post-dated check would be available. He swore to me he did this kind of thing all the time.)

My point is, the writers only talk about that one connection that panned out.

And that’s a problem for all us aspirants. We all know the basic strategy—write good scripts, network, rewrite, make friends, write some more, show your script around. Eventually it’ll land in the hands of a producer or agent, right?

But after years of running on the same treadmill, you start to think there must be something you’re missing. Some step you skipped or some trick you just don’t know. If you can just figure out how John August made it, or how Tarantino made it, or how John Wells or Joss Whedon or Aaron Sorkin did.

They’re not better writers than you,; they just knew some trick you didn’t. Some secret handshake or codeword. Something that means it’s not all random luck.

But the truth is, there is no secret. You just keep working at the video store or in the production office or whatever. Someday you’ll make it, but it won’t be because of some clever tactic or strategy. It’ll be because you met the right person at the right time with the right script.

And the only one of those things I can control is the script.  So, back to writing.

Colorful Response

Just over a week ago, I related an anecdote about the producer’s assistant indirectly checking that the intern was doing her job correctly.

A lot of people took exception to the assistant’s methods.  Final Girl’s comment was typical:

What a passive agressive moron. I hate people.

I have to admit, this surprised me.  At the time, everybody in the office laughed at this assistant’s joke, including the intern.

This leads me to wonder, did I fail to convey the levity of the situation?  Or are my readers correct, and the guy is actually a douche?

These are questions every writer must struggle with.

The Anonymous Production Assistant, hard at work on the next blog post.

Postings for Writers’ Assistants

Kathleen writes:

I am about to graduate in this lovely economic recession with hopes of landing a job in an already competitive industry. I have literally done everything. I even tried finding old UTA joblists and emailing actually people on it trying to sell myself.

The one type of job that is virtually impossible to find on the internet is a writers assistant position. I am aware how difficult they are to attain but I was wondering if there were ANY places that I could look that a WA position might pop up? If you have any other advice I would great appreciate it.

The only place I have ever seen a posting for a writers’ assistant was on the Coordinators 411, and I think that was only once.

Every writers’ assistant or PA that I’ve ever met either A) knew one of the writers already, or B) was promoted from within the show (which is really just a specific version of A).

Networking is the key to getting one of these jobs. At least, that’s what I’m told. I’ve never actually gotten one.

Of course, you could always try starting an anonymous blog, and maybe someone will enjoy your wit an insight enough to offer you a job (hint, hint).

Lucas, Spielberg, & Kasdan… Racists!

A few weeks ago, Mystery Man wrote about a transcript that’s been floating around the internet.  It’s a story conference involving George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Lawrence Kasdan discussing Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Should be fascinating to an aspiring screenwriter like me, right?  Meh.

Reading normal people talk the way normal be talk makes my teeth hurt.  They repeat sentences, they stutter, they lose their train of thought and ramble aimlessly.  I figured MM covered the most interesting parts (he’s good like that), so I never bothered to read the whole thing.

Then, I saw this article in Cracked.  Quick sample:

It’s just sort of interesting to me to see what exactly Steven Spielberg thinks is important in a brainstorming session. In five days, they never decide a name for Marion Ravenwood, they don’t quite settle on too many geographic locations and they still don’t know exactly what Indiana’s last name should be, but if there’s one thing Steven Spielberg can concretely say, it’s that Indiana Jones should knock a llama over. “Guys, I don’t give a shit about what else happens in this movie, but if the credits roll and there’s so much as one fucking llama standing I swear to God I am going to lose it.”

Now I have to read this transcript.

Questions, Questions

In response to yesterday’s post, univoked asked if writers’ conferences could be helpful in finding an agent.  Ugly Deaf Muslim Punk Gurl! replied: 

Writers’ conferences aren’t really for screenwriters, they’re for BOOK writers. So if you’re looking for a literary agent for a BOOK you’re writing, then you could go to a conference.

Otherwise, don’t bother if you’re searching for a film literary agent.

univoked responded: 

That’s funny, when I looked on Google I found 3, and that was just page one.

True as it may be that scriptwriting conferences exist, they’re still not very useful.  Half of them are scams, and the other half are well-intentioned but unhelpful.

Back in my agent-assisting days, I went to a few of these, mostly for the free lunch and the $100 they offered anyone who would sit and listen to a ten pitches an hour.  I was hardly alone in my insincerity, either.  Few of the agents there believed they would find anything useful.

And we were fairly justified in that thinking.  The best pitch I ever heard at one of those things was “Moby Dick… in SPACE.”  Apparently, he’s never seen Star Trek II.

Of course, those of us listening to pitches weren’t exactly cream of the crop, either.  Like most of the pitchees, I came from a tiny agency.  The few big agencies that did show up only sent their most junior of junior agents.

And that’s the point.  I honestly can’t remember the last time one of the conferences or pitch fests resulted in actually starting a career.  It’s best to go about it the old fashioned way.

Or skip the whole industry altogether, and make your own product online.  Either way, there’s no shortcut to getting your work noticed.

Any agents out there want to weigh in?

How to Get an Agent

Chad replied to yesterday’s post:

I read every entry of your blog last night starting from the very beginning in April. You’re hilarious!

Wow, even I haven’t read every post.  (You can tell by the poor speling and grammar,)

I’m a fellow (aspiring) writer and had a quick question for you- how do I go about getting a literary agent to send out my scripts? Do I just send it to them and let them know it’s coming? I figured you’d be the most knowledgeable on the subject. Thanks!

Well, if I really knew the answer to that question, I probably wouldn’t still be a PA.  And more to the point, I wouldn’t tell you the answer.  Less competition that way.

The truth is, very few agents take scripts from people they don’t know, or who weren’t referred to them by someone they know.  So, how do you get referred by someone who knows an agent?

First, you have to meet that person.  To do that, you have to live in Los Angeles (or New york) and work in the industry.  Then, convince them to read your script.  If they respond well to it, then that might be the right time to ask for a referral.

Now, this seems simple, but there are a million variations on this process.  John August has a whole series of articles from writers about how they got their first agent.  (Check near the bottom of the linked page.)  Every writer’s story is different.

On a final note, I should ammend my list above.  The first step should be, “Write a good script.”

Poking the Frog

Every once in a while, the hype surrounding 30 Rock overwhelms me, and I decide to give it another chance.

This is always a mistake. I can count on my hand the number of times I laughed at the show (“Did a Korean person die?”). I tend to turn it off after the teaser, when I go five minutes without laughing.

I didn’t even get that far with last night’s episode.

It started with Liz Lemon, a showrunner of a fictional TV series, not realizing that the crew of her show didn’t get the next week off. (Which is, granted, mildly amusing in a meta way, as the writers of the 30 Rock itself must obviously be aware of such occurrences, or they wouldn’t know to make a joke of it.)

Then the show establishes that “the only thing” Liz does for herself all year is go to St. Barts, and she refuses to let anything interfere with this trip.  From personal experience, I know this is not true of any television producer, ever.

Worse, setting this up as the character’s central problem for the episode strikes me as a bit of a “Let them eat cake” moment for the writers, squandering the good will of the self-mockery above.

Then Liz’s stupid assistant informs her that her hotel overbooked, and the trip is off. She meant to tell Liz earlier, but forgot to press ’send’ on the text.

Annnnnnnnnd… I turned it off.

There’s really two kinds of jokes. Well, actually, there are many, many kinds of jokes, but for the purposes of oversimplifying to make a point, I’ll consider two.

First, there are jokes where you take the assumed reality, and do the opposite. This is why the pie-in-the-face gag only works when the sap’s got dignity.

The other joke is to take reality and exaggerate it. Cartoons, and cartoony shows like 30 Rock, do this.  Which is how I know the writers think their assistant is a moron.

So, now I have a personal beef with 30 Rock. Producers are helpless without us “over-qualified, over-educated assistants with the unjustified self esteem and the ludicrous salary day-dream.”

And the worst part is, there is an assistant character for the second joke. Why not have an assistant that’s mind-blowingly, unbelieveably awesome? I mean, most comedians seem to think the funniest thing about Obama is that he’s perfect.

Give us assistants some credit, 30 Rock.

And While We’re on the Subject…

Coincidentally, John August was also dispensing career advice today.

Very few others see such a jump in pay grade as the writer, but his advice is still probably good for anybody climbing up the Hollywood ladder.

The one think I take issue with is his $850 per week figure. I don’t know any assistant making 850 a week; I feel seriously undervalued.

Insert Dog Pun Here

Who let the dogs out?  The business is going to the dogs.  These scripts are dogging me.  The dog days of script reading.  Whatever.

See, I used to work for a producer at a low-end production company.  They made direct-to-DVD sequels and knock offs of real movies with budgets ranging from low to really low.

My boss was always on the look out for the next mediocre American screenplay. Even by his relaxed standards, though, most of the scripts we got were crap.

Then, one magical day, we received two scripts– President Dog and Surf Dogs.

Now, these weren’t written by the same person.  No one was writing a series of “dogs doing things they shouldn’t” movies.  Two writers independently arrived at the notion that semi-anthropamorphized dogs are what Americans crave for in their entertainment.

President Dog, as you would assume, was the better script.  It featured a senator’s dog, who could talk.  The first scene involves the whole family, dog included, sitting at the breakfast table.  Like Family Guy, only not funny.  Anyway, the senator has a heart attack while running for president.  Naturally, his dog takes over the campaign.

Surf Dogs is slightly more realistic, in that the dog can’t talk.  On the other hand, it can surf.  Kind of a coin toss, really.  The real problem was that there’s no surfing in the film for about twenty minutes (a kid moves from Jersey to Hawaii), and the dog doesn’t surf until page forty-five.  I haven’t read McKee in a while, but I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with that structure.

Now, I’m a little less surprised when an Armegeddon and a Deep Impact (or whatever it is this year) come out at the same time.

- – -

On an unrelated note, no squid?  (Link courtesy of TV Calling.)

Doing It In a Group

No, not like that one time in college when we were all drunk.  Well, I wasn’t drunk; I was just male.

Anyway.

I’m talking about my writers’ group.  We had our first meeting in a couple months last night, and it was great.

Being a bunch of writers, we did everything in our power to avoid the task at hand.  We talked about movies that were tangentially related to our screenplays; we talked about movies we’d seen recently; we talked about movies we wanted to see; we ate dinner; we talked about our jobs, lack of jobs, or potential, future, possible jobs; we talked about politics, monkeys, and the relative merits of the term “boobs” as opposed to “breasts.”

After an hour and a half of discussed everything of even moderate interest to any of us, we talked about our scripts.

And we actually got stuff done!  I figured out how to tie up some loose ends in my romantic comedy.  One guy got some good advice for tightening up his voice over.  Another girl found some direction to a plot that was floundering.  (I tried once again to convince her to change the depressing ending of one of her scripts, but she refuses to listen to reason.)

It was so fun and helpful that I started to wonder, is this what a writing room is like?  Dicking around until something good happens?  I sure hope so.

On a side note, a friend sent me a script that’s 126 pages long.  The title page makes it 127 pages, which frustrates me to no end, because I print scripts in sections, rather than in one huge stack.  Since 127 is a prime number, I can’t break it up into equal portions.

Is it weird that this bothers me?