Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:17 pm

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

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:03 pm

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

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:03 pm

There are bad days. Two steps forward, one step back days.

Then there are the worst days. One step for man, one mothertrucking leap to square one at escape-velocity speed, a leap straight out of the influence of All Things Good and an ejection towards Never Never land.

On the bad days, you’re in over your head.

On the worst days, you’re an imposter, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Sweat trickles into tear ducts beneath the mask, keenly aware that everyone in the elevator sees through the shined up kicks and pressed white shirt as the numbers climb tick tick tick to the beat of the Musak, towards your destiny of cracked leather chairs and arthritis inspiring keyboard, despite its ergonomic intentions.

The question, “What made you think you were special?” Sonic Booms! in ear drums on the worst days. Thousands flock to Los Angeles, the Hajj of the entertainment industry, and they’ll devote years of their lives to the crusade, giving up friends and family and dates and poker nights and beaches and sunsets to make it. You think you’ll climb even a mole hill while you’re here? Yes, talent rises, but if you don’t realize there are at least hundreds of people more talented than you, if you think you gots the biggest talent in all the land, then you’re spending time with the wrong people. Even artists with talent oozing from their pores may never make it to the top, as there’s only so much square footage to go around. You want your piece, you have to take it: throwing bows and Tony Jaa knees strikes in every direction. Forget claws; get an Adamantine skeletal frame and hide so tough, it’ll make Captain America’s, federally endorsed, Nazi-crushing shield look like a single-ply toilet paper. And if you hear “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” one more time, you might donkey punch that person right in their sardonic mug.

Trying to make it Los Angeles changes how you view the world. You see it through a rotating kaleidoscope, where values and morals and truth and lies shift with the slightest breeze. It changes you; changes you precisely in the manner you scoffed at before, back when you thought nothing would change you, that you’d stay true no matter what.  The worst days whittle down that resolve like a sharp knife and rough hands groping a block of putty. Straight-shooters might make it in this business, but they certainly don’t make it easy on themselves, and who’d notice if you cheated an inch here, took an iota advantage there?

The loneliness aches like a dull pang on the worst days. Countless meals-for-one while you create your own hustle 3,000 miles away from anyone familiar, the people you want in your life as they love and cry and marry and hold concerts and make art and make mistakes and do what made you love them to begin with. Meanwhile, you try forging new relationships in a climate where throwaway friends are as common as Astroturf roll-out lawns, and just as fake. Everyone’s playing the game, and at some point you realize there’s no way to turn it off, no reset button to push.

But even if the day stretches itself out like Gumby downing muscle relaxers on a hot day, the day ends; even the worst days end. And when it does, you’re still living in Los Angeles, driving down Sunset Blvd to go home or go drink or go commiserate, and this is something no one can take away. No matter the abuse or the belittlement or the loneliness, you’ll have this: you could be anywhere in the world, and here you are, making it on your own initiative and own hustle, getting paid to work your own hours, to create something unique for the world. You’re getting exactly what you signed up for; no more no less. All it took was the willingness to risk everything, which for the great majority of people, amounts to nothing at all.

Photo Credit: Ted Fu

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:13 pm

What’s the play?

There be two.

Numero uno – wait. Wait till you’ve put the finishing touches on your portfolio, spit-polished pitches to crossfire, getting caught up in the BING BANG BOOM, trying to send tingles a-shuddering down spines. Wait till you can show the Masters of the Universe you’re serious about the craft, not no East Coast blow-in blow hard moonlighting through the Denny’s managerial fast track as of two weeks ago, before scribbling THE END on a senior year creative writing thesis, convinced you’re holding Wonka’s Golden Ticket.

If you’re no blow-in, if you made the move to stand toe-to-toe with everyone else in this endeavor, you’re treated with an iota more seriousness. Except seven minutes into the hustle, and the temptation to wait will strike you harder than a Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out! punch-out. You got the first person POV of the cliché: who you know matters more than how good you are.

Because everyone’s saying – no one’s buying.

Because everyone’s saying – there are no jobs.

Because – no baby writer can get a meeting or make a wave – not without the gravitational pull of a star from afar: the phone call from an uncle or cousin, the referral of a family friend.

That first person POV is filled with slush, garbage and shod from coast to coast, peripheral to peripheral.  Without the referral, don’t matter how brilliant the concept or how wonderfully tight the story, it’s just more sludge clogging up the system. So you wait. Till you’ve built your own following, till your reputation precedes yourself, till you’ve paid your dues and the people who matter know you’re the Real Deal.

Plenty of reasons to wait. All of them good.

Opportunity costs are expensive. Every tick tock wasted on writing queries that won’t get read, or setting up meetings that get pushed, is time spent not making cash monies or time not spent working on the next script. It’s not enough to be a worker – everyone’s a worker, and everyone’s got access to the same 24 hours you do. But who’s working smarter? Who’s investing their 19-hour day in the right basket? Without the referral, is it a waste of time trying to get past the gatekeepers?

Maybe.

But isn’t that their job? That’s why these assistants get paid their $10 per hour plus daily bonuses or ridicule and abuse, yes? And why the interns eek out a living on just the latter? They call ‘em gatekeepers, so give them something to keep. Like Elizabeth Gilbert said:

“I often hear people say, ‘I’m not good enough yet to be published.’ That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT.”

Shell out on the opportunity cost to chase the lucky break. Sinking 20 hours into queries that produce squat, yes, that’s 20 hours you’ll never get back. But it’s not like you’re thumb twirling between those 20 hours, staking out the USPS for the rejection letter. You’re still working, still creating, still hustling – point being: go after the big score, but keep notching the small victories.

So GO. Don’t wait. Hustle. Make your own luck and create your own contacts. This means taking some long shots, doing things people say don’t produce results. Remember, they don’t know; nobody knows what works. No one can predict the next hit. The only way you can guarantee it’s not you is by never getting in the mix.

Have a methodology to GO. Target, individualize, meet people in person if you can; doesn’t matter how good a writer you are, it’s difficult for personality to shine through an e-mail. Do not prematurely burn a contact by asking for a favor – not until you’ve earned the right to do so. Target, target, target; don’t waste anyone’s time by sending over something that’s out in left field for them, or less than your best. Do your homework – which is more than a good log-line and a Google search of whom you’re meeting. As a manager said, “it’s not just knowing the pitches. It’s knowing the stories backwards and forwards, never missing a beat. It’s knowing the subtext beneath the stories, the motives behind the characters. It’s knowing everything and having the polish to communicate it in the simplest, clearest way possible.”

That’s the play after finishing the script.

Go. Do your homework. Take the long shot – and keep hustling amidst it all.

Photo Credit: aidan morgan

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:03 pm

There’s this scene in the flick, Social Network. Two score, seven more bodies circled ‘round five computers and a bottle of whiskey. The dry erase board squishes uncomfortably against the wall. Music blares. Students cheer. In the epicenter, five students write code to break into a security system. That’s fifty fingers — count ‘em! — flying through keyboard strokes; ten individual eyeballs absorbing data at a pace that makes Hoffman’s Rainman look like Special Ed; five shots of amber elixir slammed down throats every seven seconds the bell goes BRING BRING BRINGING. These mad geniuses pound away, hacking to see who hacks it amongst Mark Zuckerberg’s band of merry.

At a distance, Zuckerberg and business partner, Eduardo Salverin, observe the spectacle. Neither knows it, but it’s the beginning of the end. Zuckerberg’s assembling the West Coast Crew, his A-Team; he’s surrounding himself with very own Justice League or Teen Titans or Planeteers and he’s not even trying to save the world or take pollution down to zero. He just wants to be your Friend.

So he gathers his squad of geeks and programmers, all who’ll pursue this passion with what some might call fervor, others call obsession. And Salverin, he’s already opted out of this leg of the gravy train. He believes in the product as much as anyone else, but his dedication is back at stage 1-02 while the Z-Boys polish their plungers and comb their mustaches, readying to storm King Koopa’s castle

Zuckerberg knew it. That Salverin didn’t have the “stand-to-lose-everything, win-at-all-costs” drive. The only thing Salverin offered the partnership was “balance” – sound advice, hedged bets and proportionate responses – everything Zuckerberg didn’t want or need. Zuckerberg wanted focus. He wanted to surround himself with like-minded individuals, all with sights on the same goal, all sharing the attitude to get it done.

Not easy. Not easy to have this foresight. Not with the rhetoric of balance bouncing around like a Plinko chip, preached by everyone and their baby’s momma. Balanced diet, balanced portfolio, work-life balance… advice that probably works for 98 percent of the population. But for the two percent who want to change an established order, determined to win against the house when the deck is stacked clear to the cumulus nimbus, dividing eggs is a waste of protein.

Benjamin Graham said it best: “Don’t diversify. Don’t put your eggs in different baskets. Put all your eggs in one basket.

Then watch that basket like a hawk.”

When odds be long and time short, balance beams and juggling acts don’t impress no one. Balance leads to great stories of how someone once took their shot and missed. Focus, immersing yourself in passion and passionate people, leads to others telling your story for you.

Photo Credit: bitstop2003

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:03 pm

All the writers coming in have a certain image, Eric said.

Break it down for me.

He broke it down: hippie-indie-scenester. White, early-30’s. Clean cut intellectuals in square frame glasses. Drink orders come in two varietals: water and tea – as if ordering anything else would be faux pas. Nobody orders coffee, despite the likelihood they guzzle it by the gallon on their ownsome.

Armed with this nugget, how do you cash it in? How do you use this information? Is image another tool in a writer’s arsenal, clanging and jangling in different timbres against the hammering rat-tat-tat of alliteration or sliding rule of simile? By its nature, the writer’s contribution is relegated to the cutting room floor. In any media or production, writing happens in the shadow, behind the spotlight. The writer’s image won’t make it to the final product, or be part of its brand.  So will image play a role in a writer’s career?

In a perfect world – no. In a perfect world, any person in any field would be judged solely upon their work. The quality they produce would be the only factor propelling them forward, and lack thereof what holds them back.

But The Perfect World be pop: nil.

Dozens of factors come out to play in determining a person’s long-term success. Personality. Timing. The ability to schmooze and network and play the game. Politics, conscious and unconscious biases of those reigning from the echelons above. In each factor, everyone stands to gain a little and lose a little. Image is no exception.

If in 95 percent of an executive’s career, the writers they encounter all slot neatly into the same round hole, the edge lies with being the square peg. They are the crucial outliers – the people standing out who stand a chance amongst clutter.

There’s no “right” image to achieve, no magic bullet to stand out in a positive way. It should be organic, coming directly from the heart, and as much a part of the person as hair color, bust size, and talent.

It’s peacocking minus the cock. Aiming for contradictory is a good start – contradictions naturally attract attention.  What’s initially seen as an abnormality can be the springboard bumping you to a higher level of success because of the attention the abnormality garners: the white rapper, the black golfer, the Chinese basketball player, the writer moonlighting as a stripper.

Of course, there’s zero substitute for talent. For constantly and consistently producing quality in an environment of talented people. You must have the goods. You gotta have chops. You must work on the other components of the package: personality, likability, charm, before even thinking about how you’re going to out-image the hippie-indie-scenesters. Coupling the package with a distinct image is only a gambit, but one that offers an edge in a competitive field where you must seize every advantage you can.

A writer’s image won’t make it to the final product. But it can determine if the product makes it to the finals.

Photo Credit: John Jackson

Last updated on March 9th, 2019 at 04:03 pm

You see yourself a mover/shaker? You going to be lining up deals and inking contracts? Then get used to waiting. Your life isn’t a half-hour scripted series – no roll credits, scroll to next episode, cue theme music, and bingo-bango! the deal be done, chico, and you’re skipping to the bank.

Two ways to attack the waiting period. The first is with your ego on a pedestal: how dare they make me wait? Don’t they know who I am? Well, I’m nobody, but it’s still rude.

Or –

How could they make me wait this long? Didn’t they see my qualifications? Didn’t they whiff the desperation I be reeking?

Or –

Replay the entire interview like a TiVo’ed Lifetime movie you can’t delete: did I say the right things? Did they misinterpret my words? Did I offend someone?

Method deuce: go in with no ego.

See it isn’t about you – a difficult concept for those who wear their interviewing ability like a merit badge, tallying their flawless interview-to-job-offer stats like notches on a bedpost. A sign clear like crystal that their reach never exceeded their grasp.

Not nobody interviews you to advance your career. The interview is about advancing the best interests of the company. Whether you’re that person or not isn’t a reflection on you.

Wait – backtrack, flip that: if their decision makes you feel more or less whole, then you’re already missing a piece no job or salary can fill.

Not to say you should be delighted to get passed on. “Show me a happy loser, I’ll show you someone with a short-lived Hollywood career.”

But get the job, don’t get the job – says nada about a person’s character.

The only thing that says anything is this: how do you spend that time waiting? The world doesn’t pause while waiting on this one, this miniscule deal, this microcosm of a negotiation in the big picture of things. You got to be stirring other pots, simmering sauces and catching whiffs. Because with several pots cooking, why sweat the buns in the oven? – they’ll rise in their own time. In the long-run game, that’s how you earn maximum bonus.

Then if you get an offer, super-duper. Put pots on the back burner.

If you don’t, battling ego is a 24-7. There be no ceasefires, friend.  So easy, to take it personally. Sulk into the office with a chip on your shoulder that’d have Atlas asking you for tips. Stop giving your best, stop anticipating the needs of others. Hey, they passed on you, right? So screw them. Start looking for another opportunity elsewhere, because you know this isn’t the source.

Or…

You let it go. Harder than it looks. But you do it anyway – keep doing what got you noticed in the first place. No, scratch that – do it better. Every time your goddamn contagiously cheerful mug waltzes by, every time their new hire messes up, make them ask themselves: “Did we make a mistake?”

In the meantime, keep them pots a-stirring.

Photo Credit: 30miller

Last updated on January 15th, 2022 at 06:18 am

Line ‘em up. Knock ‘em down.

It’s one method in the madness. Probably not a good one: sawed-off shotgun, Super-C Spread Gun, see-what-sticks spaghetti-style method. Like Terry Rossio wrote in the essay, Breaking the Ice, however: “Breaking into the film business is not a problem that resolves itself through a single answer or path. It’s a problem that succumbs only to a process, a series of efforts taken over time. And the bitch of it is, you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off.
So you do everything. Whether the odds are with you are not. You do everything.”

Get started by subscribing to the UTA Job List. Copy each listing that sparkles, no matter how remote the twinkle. Create an e-mail template that you’ll tweak after spending a few minutes researching individual companies. Then start blasting off those cover letters and attached resumes, knocking them out like Rocky Balboa and his never-ending string of sequels.

Take educated guesses at the names of the people who will read the cover letter (based on the company website, or the e-mail address.) There’s nothing to lose, so take your poke. Maybe you’ll be wrong. Maybe you won’t be. But even the poorest guess won’t sound more awkward than “To whom it may concern,” or “Dear Sir or Madam.”

Attach your resume, but include it in the e-mail copy, too. Don’t give nobody the chance to give you the lick because of outdated antivirus software. More about the resume: screw chronological order. No one looks at dates, not even a peek. They spend ten seconds glazing over your resume to find something that catches their eye, so help them find it quick.

No need for it to be the most immediate job experience, or one where you learned the most. If it’ll seize their attention, raise you out of the pile of resumes on their desk, put it up top. A position related to what you’re applying for. A company of similar function, size, or reputation. Hell, any recognizable company, with brand name stats.

At this stage, they’re looking for credibility. They want talking points. They want you to take the opportunity to prove you’re no crazy. Make it easy.

Pop off the e-mails. Don’t spend too much time on any one company. It’s a numbers game. Send them then forget them.

While you’re waiting for the next batch of openings from the UTA Job List, use your connections to meet with people. Or try foot leather – waltzing through the company doors, seeing if they’re looking for interns or unpaid help.

Long shots for sure. But everything seems like a long shot, and “you never know which is the right strategy until it pays off.”

Scorecard

Companies applied to: 20

Companies applied on UTA Job List: 18

Interviews through personal contacts: 1

Physical resumes dropped: 3

Days spent looking: 25

Internship position offered: 1

Return to Internships: Part Two – First Interview

Photo Credit: Marc Dennert