Chris Ming, Author at Christopher Ming Blog

Who Owns Your Collaboration?

The scariest part about going collaborative with a project is the realization that once you bring another person on board, once you put out that innocuous question over coffee or drinks or a BBQ sauce stained napkin, “I got this project; you interested?” is that the project doesn’t belong to you anymore.

Now you share the project with your partner. It’s a joint-venture. Doesn’t matter how many nights you slaved over the concept, or how much money you sunk to get it from point “A” to its current manifestation. The scope continues to grow, you add more pieces, you bring on more people, and you own less tomorrow than you did today.

It can be a punch in the gut, watching your collaborators rip apart your meticulously constructed project, fumble with their individual pieces, and tweak that, adjust this, turn that knob and spin this dial, then try to reassemble the monstrosity. Don’t they know?! That’s your baby they’re so callously tweaking and manhandling, with absolute disregard for the sacred “process.”

Eventually, the torture ends. The collaboration is over, and it yields a product. The product is in the can and ready to ship, and so the rights revert back to you, right? You suffered through the butchering, but at least now your baby (your bloated, misshaped baby with 13 fingers and an ear for a nose) is back in your arms, right?

It is… right until the moment you ship. The second you put your project out to the world, it doesn’t matter what the byline reads or screen credit declares or contract states: the project once and forever more no longer belongs to you. Now it belongs to the world. It’s theirs to judge, to hate, to love, to critique, to ignore. If you’re not okay with that, you’re limiting your opportunities to create something greater than yourself.

I finished working on an independently financed television series, where I met a lot of talented people, but at times the project felt like a sinking ship. Production wrapped a month early when we came up short on the money. Once the dust settled and the strike days came and went, we could look past the issues of gross overspending, creative arguments, and constant rescheduling, and see these were the symptoms of the real problem: the project was never a true collaboration.

The project only ever belonged to a single person: the creator, who doubled as an executive producer, who tripled as the financier. He struggled to keep all the moving pieces together, clutching the reigns tightly in his fist, refusing to relinquish even an iota of control. Even as the pieces slipped faster and faster through his fingers, he continued to hold onto the illusion of control, because it was the only way he knew how to respond. It was both frustrating and heart breaking to watch.

I try to bear that in mind as I plunge into collaborations: any project of mine with a chance at denting the universe was never “mine” to begin with.

Photo Credit: shindz

career

Headshot

Displayed on his laptop was the Facebook photo of someone I barely recognized. His was a good-old boy face, with clean features and a fresh haircut. He carried himself with forced-casual posture — shoulders back and spine slightly hunched — and it screamed American Eagle catalog.

Teddy and Kathy laughed at his modeling photos as they passed the bowl back and forth, him clicking and changing the picture every other toke. Teddy gestured towards the screen. “Look at what Ky’s been up to.”

Ky was a server who started working at the Thai restaurant just before I left. We didn’t talk much: I remember he seemed real country, real green. He mentioned getting into acting and modeling. I could barely place his face on the Photoshopped Malibu Ken in front of me, who went through a wardrobe change and pose shift with every mouse click, the only ubiquitous feature the plastic smile on his face:

Here he is, wrapped in a scarf!

Now, flexing his abdominal muscles!

Wow! It looks like Ky’s ready for a night on the town! Let’s go, Barbie!

They laughed and pointed and laughed some more, half in good-nature, and the other half, not so quite. “Hey, I mean, good luck to him,” Kathy said.

“Yeah, hope he gets something out of these pictures,” Teddy added. Like these dismissive platitudes negated their ridicule, or concealed the resentment laced twixt every laugh, every comment, every puff of smoke exhaled in Ky direction.

I remember doing the exact same thing, once upon a time, while visiting my friends Jenny Beth and Danielle, in Nashville. Late one night and bored, we started flipping through the 30-pictures-deep Facebook modeling album of a former CTY co-worker. He proudly posted a short prelude, explaining that he never considered modeling, but a friend suggested it and he “loved the results.”

The “results” were far more over the top than Ky’s photos, and included super-mega-bonus suggestive captions, like “wanna get nailed?” as if wearing cut-off jean shorts, an open flannel shirt, and a firm grip on the shaft of a hammer wasn’t suggestive enough. Or if clutching a toy jack hammer directly in front of your crotch didn’t slap you across the face with a laundry list of double entendre, one was provided for ease of reference (“I’d hammer you, too.”) We laughed and we pointed and we laughed, until we went through the entire album, trying out each caption in our own sexy voice.

Half in good nature. Half not so quite.

This time around with Ky’s photos, it wasn’t as amusing. I walked out of the room, and the click of the mouse and more laughter followed me into the hallway. Their gaiety hit too close to home. It was a low blow, making the subject of their ridicule someone who was getting started in entertainment. Be certain that anytime you attempt something difficult, something without a proven record, people are lining up their bets against you and laughing as they do it. Rare are the people who wish you the best of luck, and mean it.

Which is helpful, in its own way. Ridicule weeds out those without the gumption to stick it out for the long run. If you can’t handle some razzing at stage one, it’s unlikely you’ll have the staying power to last the seasons, when ridicule melts to begrudging acceptance, and eventually, blooms to admiration.

Still. “Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle.”

Photo Credit: Shannon Huppin

career

Spin

There’s a crazy homeless lady yelling obscenities outside my window. I hate callously tossing around words like “crazy” and “homeless”– that could be someone’s grandmother outside – but she’s got a schizophrenic gait to her speech, see-sawing from sing-song to Banshee. That’s the “crazy.” And she parked her shopping cart of worldly possessions next to my car, and is using the rear end bumper as a roof. That’s “homeless.”

Teddy suggests we get out there and tell her to move, but he doesn’t read horror scripts all day, so he doesn’t know any better. There’s always that guy in slasher flicks who approaches the seemingly vulnerable creature, disguised as an old lady or the ubiquitous little girl (equally ubiquitously played by Chloe Grace Moretz.) His hand is outstretched, like he’s about to pet a baby bird. He’s hunched over, his eyebrows furrowed, and in your head you’re screaming “No! Don’t do it! It’s a trick! She’s going to bite your face off!” but he inches closer and closer, unconcerned with your pleas because you don’t possess telepathy and he is inside a television.

He gently touches the old lady, and…

Nothing happens. He smiles…

Right before she rips his face in half.

I will not be this guy.

The alternative to asking the crazy homeless lady to move is realizing that she may be obnoxious, but she’s not doing nobody harm. We should just stay inside our warm, safe apartment, with running water and electricity and cell phones, counting our blessings.

Then get on the cell phone and call the police, and ask them to move the crazy homeless lady.

I prefer this option, though I’m not sure what good it’d do. In Los Angeles, there’s this “live and let live” attitude towards the homeless and panhandlers that still escapes me. There’s a panhandler I regularly pass, stationed right where the “10” empties onto National Blvd. Her scraggly brown hair is tied back in a ponytail, and tucked into her USC sweat shirt. Every time I get gas or groceries, she’s working that corner, though her specific duties vary. Sometimes she’s got her cup in hand, walking down the long line of cars waiting for the light. Other times, she’s flirting with the homeless wheelchair guy, or drinking a 40 out of a brown paper bag.

Yesterday, I saw her at Starbucks, ordering a Frappuccino. It was half-off, part of the Happy Hour special they were running, but still.

Across our apartment, a woman parks her van loaded with cans and bottles she’s collected inside an outdoor garage. Like others, she makes her living hunting recyclables. I never gave it any thought until I overheard her conversation with another professional recycler. “People look down at me,” he said, “but shit, I ain’t working for no man. I make my own money, and I make my own hours.”

He’s not a recyclables hunter; he’s an entrepreneur.

And what one might refer to it as panhandling, others call hustling.

In upstate New York, you throw an empty bottle on the ground, it’s littering. In Los Angeles, you know it’s going to get picked up: so you call it charity.

In many American cities, employing someone at no pay to keep the coffee machine going and fetching printouts is called slave labor. Here it’s an internship.

If that’s not spin, then I don’t know what is. It permeates from every crevice of our lives, a byproduct of being concerned with how others perceive you. Spin is everywhere and it’s still spreading, bleeding over Ethernet cables and wireless routers, diffusing from our real lives to our online lives and back again. There’s merit in developing the ability to spin, especially when it’s your Facebook or blog account that notifies others of your engagement, your job promotion, or what you ate for lunch. It’s more fun (and easier on the ego) to spin a post about triumphing over adversity, versus admitting this recent slump of failures has got you frustrated and rapidly losing faith. And why admit you got your heartbroken when a simple “In a relationship with…” toggle box explains it all, and the only thing left to do is untag your former significant other out of your life?

Spin grants us a glossy veneer to cover blemishes. With a click, any defeat can be turned to victory, any failure, a success. “Be all you can be,” has given way to “be all you’re perceived to be.” This power comes with the very real possibility of losing sight of who we actually are and what we actually feel. Until one day we find ourselves out on the street, babbling schizophrenics all, torn somewhere between our real lives and digital selves.

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon

restaurants

Tipping (Isn’t a City in China)

Allan soured his face as I explained his duties as the bus driver for today: keep your phone on. Answer the calls. Make sure you’re constantly looping back here from LAX — don’t just stay at the airport.

He had this “I-can’t-believe-my-lot-in-life-is-driving-a-bus” expression on his face. The sentiment seeped into his posture, and into his surly one-word responses to my instructions. He maintained that presence the entire day, up till the moment I signed his parents, indicating services rendered, and that he completed his duties.

After I shook his hand, he paused, then said, “Handshakes and thank you’s are nice, but that’s not why I do this job.”
I smiled and blinked, in that confused way we do when we don’t understand someone and hope they’ll go away if we stay cheerful and silent. He placed the form I just signed back in front of me, and pointed out the highlighted section about “gratuities not being included in the fee.” And he repeated himself:

“Handshakes and thanks you’s are nice, but that’s not why I do this job.”

Ah. He was, very not so subtly, asking for a tip.

I looked to my boss, Charlie. He had the very same smile plastered to his face. “I need you to tell me exactly what you need.” He blinked repeatedly.

Allan gestured to the paper. “Would you go to a restaurant, eat, and just pay the bill? Is that how you treat your waiters?”

Charlie explained to him, as nicely as he could muster, that we didn’t tip the drivers, and this was something he was going to have to work out with his company. Allan snatched his papers and stalked off, calling in heavenly reinforcement with a “God bless,” reminding us not tipping bus drivers wasn’t the Christian thing to do, before he disappeared out the door. I’ve never seen him since.

Despite knowing Allan was a troubled man working on his own issues, the whole experience left me feeling dirty. Well, not dirty exactly, but worse — cheap. I lived and worked in this community for a few months and had completely removed myself from the service industry for the first time in more than a decade. I surrounded myself with a constant stream of people whom I could tell, based on how they conducted themselves, saw these men and women in the service industry as beneath them. Did that influence or contact high or whatever you want to call it put me out of touch with my own humility?

Humility — how you view your importance to this world — is the quality I value above all virtues and attributes. It’s difficult to teach, and more difficult to fake, as it shapes your every interaction with others. At the same time it’s a quality closely tied to one’s resiliency; it toughens you up to do the hard work when your other resources: money, time, intelligence are scarce. And precisely because I value my humility so greatly, it strikes a nerve when Allan’s response challenges it.

Maybe Allan’s correct, and it’s proper etiquette to tip these drivers; just because we set the precedent of not doing it doesn’t mean we were right in the past. Navigating the rules and ethics of tipping is a treacherous path, though — put out a tip jar in front where something gets sold and money changes hands and we ask, “Oh, am I supposed to tip?”

Everyone knows they should tip their servers, though percentage points are often points of contention. Some tip bartenders extra generously, and others tip them the same way they tip strippers: a dollar per round, more depending on the square inch of cleavage shown. What about the baristas at our coffee shops? The furniture movers? Cab drivers and delivery boys? Sushi chefs? Camp counselors? Bell hops and door men? Who do we tip and how much?

It sounds like an over analysis, but I don’t see it that way, because I am, and everything I achieve is, a byproduct of this system. In eleven years, I’ve made my living on both the overwhelming generosity and bitter stinginess of others. Every person whose food I served or dish I cleared, has microscopically yet very definitely had a hand in shaping who I am, and I am blessed. I am grateful. Not because of some glamorous lifestyle, or because I have so many great things, or because of any significant achievement: I am blessed to be at a station in life where I can make those things happen for me, if I work for it. Because of those people who tipped, I’m in position to earn it.

That’s the idea behind tipping, isn’t it? That no one’s entitled to it, no matter your life’s station or your job title. No one’s entitled to the extra, even if you work in a profession where “a minimum 18 percent gratuity is charged for parties of 6 or more” or if it’s the kind of place where you put out a tip jar. We are not entitled to the tip. The same way we’re not entitled to the promotion because we’ve been with the company for x number of years, or the paying gig because we interned for three months and got really good at fetching coffee. We’re not entitled to any of it.

Everything we want, we must earn

Photo Credit: Tom Raftery

career

Stories You Were Born to Tell

“MODERN FAMILY: there’s a show I feel like I was born to write,” my friend said to me. “It’s like, I can anticipate every. Single. Joke. Before they get to the punch line, I already see the set-up and I know the payoff.”

Makes me think of watching cage fights, with George St. Pierre or Miguel Torres in the ring, and I’m anticipating the shovel punches and the fist-elbow combo thrown, and when his opponent’s going to shoot or if it’s a deke! and instead follows up with a kick, and I know he does this by avoiding deceits flowing from the hands the eyes the head. Instead, he locks on the hips like Master, and that’s how he anticipates every. Single. Punch.

But recognizing technique while reclined in the barcalounger is not the same as stepping into the ring with 155 pounds of War. And calling out a punch line isn’t the same as writing one.

Recognizing and anticipating puts your skill level a hair above those who blindly consume, and hardly an iota closer to someone who creates. Recognition is a tool in a poor man’s arsenal; safety scissors amidst scalpels. Before assuming you’ve got the chops for story, ask yourself: can you talk about which parts of the story work (and which don’t?) Can you break it down for people, step-by-step, moving through the story with a clear head and clear vision and clear words as to why this piece fits better over here than over there? Can you see past the words to spot the structure? Why is a show like Modern Family funny? Why does a bit work, not just on the funny haha level, but that deep, resonate in my gut level? Can you break down why some stories feel like discovering a soul mate and others just the cheap fulfillment of a one-night stand?

That’s ARTICULATION.

Go another level, past articulation, down to limbo, and you’ve discovered where real work happens. No liberties here, no staring at the near completed puzzle and saying, “of course the pay-off happens here, where else would it go?” You’ve CTRL+N’ed yourself to a document so bleak and white it’d give Edith Wharton a symbolic hard-on. Now, CREATE.

That’s the real work.

Yes, story be story. Anyone with years of books beneath their belts and movies behind their eyeballs gots a sense of what that is. Everyone’s got their inkling of the aesthetically pleasing. I look at Starry Night, I’m hit with the vague understanding of its appeal and allure. It doesn’t bring me half a step closer to investing in a Crayola 24-pack and hacking off an ear, though.

Consume. Recognize. Articulate. Create. In that order.

Fortitude and study, that’s what it’s going to take to learn the mechanics, to get a grasp on the science and move from one level to the next. Fortitude and study reveals the magic, and what is magic but some misdirection mixed with sleight of hand, built on a science foundation? Prepare to invest your time if you’re going to articulate rather than recognize, and create rather than articulate. No room for skeptics, neither. No time for rants on “my artistry, hear me roar! unbound by the boundaries of your box, by the man, by rules or convention!” Because art isn’t the doing away of structure, but its understanding: why it works and where it’s limited. Scrapping what fails and retooling the rest.

So where you going to get educated on your reversals, your turning points, your inciting incidents? How you going to study up on three-act structures and the placement of set-ups and payoffs?

By taking classes. Reading screenwriting books and treating the good ones like Testament. By listening to others talk about screenwriting, piping the knowledge of others directly into your brain every chance you get. By reading scripts: piles and piles, spanning across genre and generation.

And most importantly, by wringing out your brain every chance you get, putting pen to page and shedding stories. Even when you don’t think you’re ready. Even if you don’t think this story is ready to be shared.

So that when you find the story you were born to tell… you can.

Photo Credit: Gifford Pinchot National Forest

career

Advice

“My catchall, general advice to everyone who moves out to Los Angeles is this: if there’s anything else you can do, anything else that’s your calling, go do that instead. It’s a pat answer,” he admitted, “but this is just too hard…”

Which immediately raises the question: why is it hard? Because people will be mean to you? Because the hours stretch long and your social life sums to nil? Because you’ll be overworked, underpaid, and unappreciated – conditions your mother conditioned you into believing you’d skip right over because you were a unique snowflake?

It also prompts the follow-up question: hard compared to what?

When did the resultant response to“too hard” lead to “so don’t try?” Giving up because something is too hard – you attempted, drew conclusions based on the results, and decided to invest your time elsewhere – there’s no shame in that.

But too hard to even attempt?

Easily the worst attempt at advice I’ve ever come across.

Everyone’s journey, — from love to career to family to personal — is just that: personal. To compare how one person experiences joy, pain, and hardship to another is a fruitless exercise. The brilliant academic mind is a tortured soul in social situations that the social butterfly who battles bulimia excels in, while the bum standing outside her bathroom window scrounges through garbage cans of the single mother raising three kids alone because her addict husband couldn’t kick the habit he picked up when he in law school.

Who’s to say what’s “too hard?”

Pursuing your dreams is hard – that’s why they’re dreams; because you gots to stretch and reach and scratch and claw and lie and steal and cheat for them. If you make a living creating art, hustling for every cent, sure, it’s probably safe to say your path is filled with more struggle than someone happy with their nine to five.

But that does not make you a unique snowflake.

Contrary to popular belief, you still are not the hardest working person in your town, or your field. You’re probably not the hardest working person on your block.

Nor does it give you the privilege of passing off bullshit as your own sage adage for the temporary high of superiority and ten seconds of a hard dick you get at the thought of helping a fellow artist with your brilliant insight into the Holllywood machine.

It’s irresponsible to assume fragility, not strength. Individuals are more resilient than they’re given credit for, and we have to make a choice: to be the person who pushes the resiliency of others beyond their limits, beyond what they thought possible…

Or the person who convinces them that, “yes, there’s your limit. Your reach meets your grasp.”

Gotta stretch, baby. Gotta dream. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. Maybe you’ll make it, maybe you won’t.

But at least you won’t leave this earth wondering what would have happened if you never took your shot.

Which would be the hardest thing of all.

Photo Credit: muizei

career

Skateboards and Hollywood

There’s this moment, right before stumbling off your board, where you ask yourself, “Really? Did I have to try and get fancy right here right now? Were the potential flair points really worth the mouthful of gravel I’m about to eat?”

Then you’re falling.

Then you’re meeting asphalt.

Mucho gusto.
Igualmente.

Tucking, rolling, sliding, anything you can do to keep the wounds surface-level only, because you’d rather not test the limits of your paltry health insurance.

I throw in a prayer, too: please dear sweet Jesus I hope nobody saw that…

“Hey man, you alright?” a man on the sidewalk asked, trying hard not to laugh too loud. Failing to do so.

“Gotta love it,” I replied, my voice suave and steady as I scrapped myself off the ground, and chased my board which was skittering down the street.

In the past I avoided such moments by skating solely at night, when no one could see my bumbling. Or if they did, they wouldn’t recognize my face in the daylight, and would be unable to banish me back to the darkness where I belonged with looks of contempt. There is something embarrassing about being a 25-year-old man-child putzing around on a skateboard — if you’re skating at that age, there’s this expectation that you worked out the kinks when you were young and foolish enough to believe transportation on a plank resting atop four wheels was a valid mode of transportation.

Except I started skating at 24, only after I moved out to Los Angeles. So when I see the young and fearless skaters, attacking the street or vert or their new trick, I can’t help but resent the little assholes and their 20-year head start.

I started my Hollywood writing career the same time I started skating. My first lesson was, whatever you do, don’t admit you want to write. I interned with a management company, and kinda sorta fibbed about my desire to get into management and being an agent, so executives wouldn’t pass me off as just “another writer.” When people asked why I moved to Los Angeles, I gave pat answers: for the weather, a change of pace, etc. I pursued writing like a prepubescent teen pursues masturbation: alone, in secret, with hands furiously working in the dark. Looking back, this might have stifled my creativity but in the long run it’s not a bad move. Strange as it is to move 3,000 miles and not admit the real reason why, it’s a chore to distinguish yourself from the other millions of 25-year-olds with a whole lot of aspiration and dream, but no credits.

The more skating I watched, the more I noticed that what distinguished a skater from the pack wasn’t their execution of this trick or that move, but how they expressed themselves with their skating. The skaters who drew my attention were the ones who said something every time they stepped on the board. Because once everyone reached a certain level, they all possessed the same arsenal of tools at their disposal, and it was how they used those tools that distinguished themselves from the rest. It was more than transportation, more than a spectacle. It was art.

The only way to reach that level is admitting you’re going to take it seriously. That means pursuing your art in the daylight, and being willing to be judged by your work. You have to put it out there. You have to perform, right in the middle of the road, where anyone can see you fall.

Photo Credit: fish’s box

marketing

Sell Yourself

You could tell he was a best-selling author the moment he stepped on the elevator. It was in the smile: the smug smile of success of someone who needs success to smile. If that didn’t tip you off, then the collared shirt with his name embroidered over his right tit and the words “Best-Selling Author” embroidered over his right tit did.

His beard resembled a furry cat, a tawny feline that perched onto his chin years ago and never left. Instead, the pussiness seeped into his pores and oozed throughout his persona: the entitlement in his strut, the condescension in his tone – he was a self-satisfied pussy alright, content with a belly rub, maybe a broken-winged butterfly to bat around. Behind every. last. word. was an inner sigh of contentment. An, “Ahhh… it’s me, bitches!” right as a Swizz Beatz beat dropped and looped endlessly in his head.

He was the kind of person you’d meet at wine ‘n cheese parties. He’d listen politely to whatever you said, nodding too often, after every. last. word. because that’s what he learned in his interpersonal communications class. Except the glazed look in his eyes and the superior smile itching to break out over his face gave the game up, and finally you’d pop the unavoidable question: so what do you do?

And he’d one-up your every utterance with his trump card, his bitch of spades:

“Me?” dripped with false modesty and fake surprise. As if he’s never heard the question before. “I’m a best-selling author.”

Then you nod and say something to the effect of “how fabulous,” though you may never have used the word “fabulous” in your life, before sipping the box wine and nibbling on some stinky Cabrales. You’d re-read the words on his shirt.

“I never would have guessed,” you’d say.

Promote, market, sell yourself. You gots to do it if you’re going to make it, yeah? Chalk one up to naivety, but there’s got to be some finesse to it, a balance between creating buzz and hawking yourself on the street corner with the name “Kandy Kane” screened onto your booty shorts. The line’s a blur at the best of times, and a beer-goggled squiggle at the worst, when wearing a shirt with your resume embroidered on it is an acceptable practice in branding. Seems the line will continue getting fuzzier and fuzzier, too, as this generation emerges into the market, a generation brought up believing they are all unique snowflakes, and encouraged to tout the specificity of their successes and talents with alarming ease.

The problem with this is you’re only as good as the hype until you begin to believe it. At that point, it’s all downhill, because the second you start believing you “made it,” the drive that got you there begins to diminish. Humility and humbleness won’t blow you up like a youtube video gone viral, but they’ll continue pushing your talents long after any glim and glamour has worn off. And no matter how loud the marketing gimmick, it can’t match the volume of the art you make or the content you create. If these don’t say enough about you, nothing will.

Photo Credit: Famelab Italia

career

Turning Point: Part Two – Conceptual

What be the path now? Keep swinging for homeruns, hoping to get lucky with a feature written on spec? Because hey, even suckers eventually draw to that inside straight, long as they keep chasing it down. Or take a leaf from the electron’s notebook: hit it up with some “V” to the “IR,” and march down Easy Street, aka The Path of Least Resistance. You’ll hit different resistors, some in parallel, some in series, but at the end of the circuit at least you’ll find a paycheck and the stability of solid ground.

Option One is to stick to the Status Quo; there’s an appeal to keeping doing what’s doing. Stephen King said writing’s like sailing across the Atlantic in a bath tub, so why make waves? You’d be crazy to start drilling through porcelain unless you want to be a rub-a-glub-glub. Instead, keep on with the internships, hit up a few more companies, and earn experience points slow and steady – go for the level up by trolling though Mideel for Head Hunters, instead of setting off for Ruby Weapon. Give yourself cushion by waiting tables on the side, and most importantly, keep writing, keep producing art, keep pursuing what you came out to do. Some asshole’s going to hit the long shot – might as well be you.

Long Shots

1. Nicholl Fellowship

2. Zoetrope

3. Slamdance

4. Austin Film Festival

5. Nantucket Film Festival

6. Page

7. Scriptapalooza

Option Two is setting sights on the writer’s room. It’d require a shift in gears, coming at the craft at a slightly different angle. The medium and the approach would change: writing specs for existing shows, and sending them off to get into a writing program, but you’re still writing. You could continue applying for internships, but the spectrum would be narrowed a smidgen: taking shots at production company jobs only, to get yourself a shot at the Writer’s Room by default of proximity, while trolling for an op as a writer’s assistant. And ‘cause the effort don’t earn a paycheck, it’d still require waiting tables on the side.

Writing Programs

1. NBC Writers On the Verge

2. Warner Brothers

3. Fox Diversity Development

4. ABC Program

5. CBS Program

Finally, there’s the agent gig option. The Path of Lesser Resistance. Wouldn’t have to wait tables, for sure – not because you’d rake in the dough (no sir, not at ten dollars an hour) but because there’d be no time. Any writing completed would be done on the side, on weekends or during the day’s wee hours, and who knows if that’s enough time to produce anything of significance? Instead, time would be diverted towards building contacts and making connections, who you may or may not have anything to show, depending on if you’ve already done your work. If you haven’t, well, what separates you from the guy who only talks about his “great idea?”

Except – damn, there’s a huge draw to doing the agency route, because if you’re living in Los Angeles, you might as well live it. Be a part of the Hollywood machine. Attack that lifestyle. Get a taste for it, live that hustle, at least for a little while, because isn’t that part of the experience? Even if becoming Agent Extraordinaire isn’t the end game, is it so wrong to sample the wares?

No simple choices, but plenty of ways to go wrong. Lots of diversions and distractions out there, and the only thing keeping the straight is paradigm: knowing what you want, and knowing you’re in the long haul to get it. Without it, it’s aimless wandering. With paradigm in place, you’ll wander, but at least you’ll drift in the right direction.

Photo Credit: Lauren Cameron

career

Turning Point: Part One – Paradigm

Introduction

Got slapped with a backhand of information overload the other day. Felt like a shotgun shell of wisdom blasted in my direction – that can happen when you sit down and speak with two people who genuinely care about helping others with their careers – not easy to find. The information can be spliced two ways: paradigm and conceptual.

Paradigm

There aren’t sheets on the bed – that single observation caused the paradigm shift. Changed the way you looked at these last five months in Los Angeles.

It’s a queen-sized bed, graced with a twin-long flat sheet, the type made for foam dorm beds covered in stains incoming freshman pray are remnants of beer or (if it must be a bodily fluid,) vomit. The twin-long sheets is the color of white sanitation, the color of strait-jackets and hospital corridors. Instead of a duvet or comforter or a blanket, there’s a lime green 20-degree EMS mummy-style sleeping bag. Which is great for the surprisingly cold nights in Los Angeles, but doesn’t scream, “Welcome home!”

Because – and here’s the turn – this still isn’t home.

Even after schlepping shiz from coast to coast, at the heart of it, Los Angeles still wasn’t anything of permanence. The trucker hat hasn’t been hung, the proverbial roots haven’t snaked down like octopus tentacles into fake California Astroturf grass. Living in Los Angeles was no more than a pit stop: the car still rocks New York plates, a New York driver’s license still gets flashed to bouncers, and the I-9 forms still re-direct to the 518. Up to this point, this hasn’t been life, but rather, just another grand adventure, something to pick up and walk away from after nine months. That’s been the lifestyle for years now: never committing to call any one locale “home,” or any one gig to call a career, and living light so the departure is never much more than a middle finger while EXITING STAGE LEFT.

This realization struck like a knuckle duster to a glass chin while discussing possible career steps with a friend. We debated the merits of getting into an agency program – getting paid minimum wage for a year or more as you’re groomed to become an agent-extraordinaire – but you’d come out with an arsenal of tools, and most importantly, the contacts of the future Misters and Misses Hollywood’s.

I scoffed at the idea.

Can’t do that for a year, I told him. I can’t possibly commit 18 months learning to become something I don’t want – no matter how great the reward.

He smiled at me. He said, “Why not?”

It’s too long of a commitment.

He said, “The best writers don’t stay writers their whole careers. They move onto other things: they direct, they produce, they become creative executives. If you want to look out for your long-term career, then the agency program and establishing all those contacts is a good plan. Because at some point, you’re going to need them. The cost maybe 18 months, but over the course of your career or your life, what’s 18 months?”

This friend, who a lifetime ago, was a professional dancer, said it took him 10 years of training to get to the point where he had the physical tools to walk into an audition and know he’d get the part. Compared to 10 years of grueling, physical training, what’s 18 months?

These last five months have been cute: poking a toe in the water, testing the temperature. But at some point, the time for dicking around is over: you’re either in or you’re out. You’re either running with the bulls or you’re standing safely on the sidelines. Except this ain’t no sprint, neither – only marathon-men make it in this business, while hot commodities are just flashes in the frying pan, dying out fast as fireflies in a jar. So if you’re not willing to put in the time, don’t bother. If you can’t keep your eye on the target for three, five, ten years, then you’re just clogging up the system. You have to accept missing out on dozens of other adventures, any number of birthdays, weddings, Christmases, and decide whether those are sacrifices you’re willing to make.

The paradigm shift came down to this: continue working and living and doing the way things have been doing, then go home with some nice stories, and say, “I tried.”

Or change. Take it more seriously. Be totally and completely committed. Then visit what you used to call home, and say, “I did it.”

Photo Credit: Sean Puno