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Stories You Were Born to Tell

Last updated on March 24th, 2017 at 06:52 pm

“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

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Advice

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

“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

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Sell Yourself

Last updated on March 24th, 2017 at 06:52 pm

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

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No One’s Listening

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:09 pm

Jeff sat. He was new blood. A transplant. Like a minted quarter, shiny and uncirculated and fresh to death.

Seated around him, three individuals who arrived a month previous. All whom sang the song and danced the dance required to get established in this town.  He had every opportunity to pop questions, to mine for nuggets that’d make his transition easier. Finding even one morsel would make the effort worthwhile. Competition’s fierce, and that one byte of data might separate him from permanent resident status or a return ticket in three months with nothing but a story.

And he squandered the op. Instead, he talked. He shared his glorious triumphs, scheduling appointments from a league away, blowing in with the wind and blowing the hair back on his interviewers for his unpaid internship. He glowered about the bigger fish to come.

If you’ve heard “Los Angeles is a lonely city,” that’s why. Many people talk. Few listen.

The interaction, where one person opens their mouth, sound comes out, then the other person gets their chance, often isn’t dialogue around here. They’re two separate conversations, tangentially related. No interplay; just moments of waiting for the person to breathe or pass out, so the other person knows it’s their turn.

Does the entertainment business attract people like this? Or does it bring out this quality in them? Everyone’s looking to make it, on their own dime, sweat, tears – smart, brave souls, most – and that pursuit engages most of their energies. Their hustle consumes every morsel of attention. Any conversation not about them or their feats or their struggle is of no interest.  Their attention wanes in the time a youtube video buffers. Eyes glaze in the 20 seconds post posing an obligatory question.

In the trenches of this environment, a battle rages. It’s a war of soul, an internal conflict when you wake up every morning. The battle is reminding yourself to be sympathetic and kind. To be human. To remember when it’s all over, all anyone has is what they gave back to the world.

Most days, it’s a losing battle. Platitudes and sage words don’t advance careers. They don’t pay rent.  They don’t take away the loneliness.

How long can you look out for others who aren’t looking out for you?

How do you work hard and honest when most would take any edge you give them?

Offer up your soul and they’ll dump on it. Eventually, you get tired of cleaning shit up.

Seen one way, it’s a travesty to acknowledge you’ll walk away from this town jaded.

Seen another way, it’s an opportunity. An opportunity to stand out by being the person who listens, the person who looks out for others as much as he looks out for himself.

First thought that comes to mind is “it can’t be done.” This is a business built on relationships, but it’s also built on smoke and mirrors, on nepotism, and big deals brokered and broken in old boy’s clubs. And trying to rise against that with, what – kindness? heart? – is an act of madness.

Except this is a town where game changers also emerge from the mist. Not in the same abundance as the people who don’t listen, but they’re present. People who were told “you can’t do that,” or “nobody does that,” and do it anyway, because they believed in something more than their own personal advancement. Because they saw an opportunity the rest of the cogs were too busy churning to notice.

Of course, it’s hard to be one of these people. A game changer.

Why else would so few do it?

Photo Credit: thesohnzone

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Can’t Be Done

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

“You can’t be an assistant and a writer,” Teddy said.

Why?

“None of the assistants at the agency want to be actors or writers,” Teddy said. “They wouldn’t have time to do both. It’s just not done.”

He forgot. That every day in Los Angeles was another day someone back home said wouldn’t be done. He forgot how many friends wished us good luck (zippo,) how many thought this was a pipe dream we’d never execute (∞.)

Leaving home, leaving behind the foundation of a career, family and friends to live in a city with no home, no job, and no contacts, that’s “not done,” either. But we did it.  What we’re doing here – trying to make it in Hollywood – is something most people consider can’t be done. It’s something, for the great majority of people, won’t ever happen.

Yet those people still arrive in droves every year.

Us included. Here we are.

He lost sight of this.

Intern for any company or agency. You see the number of scripts in this game. You realize why it’s so difficult for any good script – any great script – to get noticed. As Eric says, “All the bad scripts are clogging up the system.” The WGA registers tens of thousands of scripts a year – and around 500 films are released a year in the states.

It’s completely improbable for anyone to write one of those 500 movies. That doesn’t stop them from getting up every morning and chugging out word counts, editing, and studying scripts. Relative to this long shot (they’re all long shots) juggling an assistant position and writing doesn’t seem too difficult.

Why can’t it be done? Why can’t you be an assistant and make it as a writer? Not enough time? Means you wouldn’t have enough time. You wouldn’t make the necessary sacrifices.

If it costs a studio $50 million to produce a picture, they’d say it’s impossible to do it for any less. Yet someone like Avi Lerner comes around and makes the same film for $20 film.

Saying something is impossible means they themselves can’t do it. Can and can’t are relative terms.

Teddy said isn’t how it’s done — making it as a creative artist by first being an assistant. That it doesn’t fit the model – what model? There is no model, no guaranteed path, that’s what makes this particular hustle, making it in Hollywood, so hard and so beautiful and so demanding. There are no guarantees, no right or wrong ways.

There are only the people doing it. And the people telling them why they can’t.

Photo Credit: pankie18

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Internships – Part Two: First Interview

Last updated on November 3rd, 2021 at 03:22 am

He glanced at the resume. Read it aloud, a clear as Ever indication this was time primero he laid eyeball to C.V. ink.

“Shogun Sushi,” mumble mumble, “Rutgers University,” mumble mumble, then stopped. Where they always stopped. Asked what they always asked. “What’d you do for Maxim Magazine?”

Eric offered one takeaway, other than his narrative on the crapshoot that is procuring an internship: “Be clear about what you want to do. The last guy they passed on because he said he didn’t know what he wanted.”

So when he posed his question – what do you want to do in this industry? – he got the straight.

Be a screenwriter. No if’s, and’s, or um’s.

At which point Matt concluded the interview, and offered two-penny thoughts on the best path to becoming a screenwriter, none which involved his internship program.

“I see this internship as a stepping stone for people,” he said. “I don’t want someone who’s going to do this, then take a position for $38,000 a year at Chase Bank or something.” He followed this back-handed back hand with suggestions how a Chase bank teller should go about it.

“Spend a year just focused on your writing, and reading great scripts. You don’t have to be a part of this program to do that.”

Or –

“Take a class on screenwriting at UCLA extension. Learn about the structure – that’s the best way for you to become a screenwriter.”

Or –

“Spend a year working desk at an agency. Learn from the movers and shakers. You’ll spend 80 hours a week there your first year. Probably won’t write much. But you’ll come out with contacts, and with luck, get somebody to represent you.” At which point he realized how contradictory his advice was, and tried fobbing it off with – “you’re well-spoken, you dress well, and you’re a sharp guy. You look like an agency kid to me.”

Mad-Libs are more specific.

Twenty minutes of this. Followed with some standing, a warm smile, and hand shaking hand. All formalities – the interview finished 18 minutes ago. But not nobody wastes your time unless you let him; if the crash ‘n burn looks top gun, best aim for great balls of fire.

Matt, I respect your opinion. I respect everything you just said. But I want to leave no doubt in your mind that I want to be in contention for this internship.

Finally. A genuine smile to replace the smirk. “Then you are.”

Never heard from him again.

Continue to Internships – Part Three: Scorecard

Return to Internships – Part One: Getting an Interview

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Internships – Part One: Getting an Interview

Last updated on November 2nd, 2021 at 05:09 pm

“It’s rolling the dice,” Eric said, “trying to get an interview for one of these internships.”

On the second day of his internship, his boss presented him a stack of resumes. “He told me, ‘go through these, find five candidates to interview for the last internship spot.’”

“When you’re given 50 resumes and cover letters, and told to get it down to five, you look for any reason to discount someone. That’s how I eliminated the first half: I looked for any reason to not consider them. Typo – gone. Poor formatting – gone.

“One guy, trying to be funny in his cover letter, wrote he was looking for ‘slave labor employment.’ It was cute – he was eliminated. Another girl put a suggestive picture of herself as the background to her resume – gone.

“That got me down to 25 resumes, at which point it’s even more of a crap shoot, not less.” All of the obvious rejects were already sitting in the trash, he explained. With those that remained, how many were likely to jump out as the “right” person for the position?

Very few.

“It came down to my mood, or the little details I noticed in the resumes. ‘Oh, you went to a Big 10 School? Okay, you’re in.’ Or, ‘You went to Texas State? I like your football team, you’ll get interviewed.’ Any insignificant detail can make the candidate stand out, and it’s completely subjective to the person going through the resumes.” Eric shook his head. “Not to mention any subconscious biases or prejudices.

“I chose three resumes and realized they were all girls. And I’m not going to hand my boss five female candidates, so I eliminated the remaining girls from the stack of resumes. Which isn’t fair to them; anyone of them could have been more qualified than the three already picked, but that’s just the way it goes.

“It just makes me realize more that if you want to get somewhere in this industry, you have to know people. Submitting your resume to a database of resumes – like I did before – is fruitless. The people in charge want recommended people; they’re aware what a shot in the dark the hiring process is. If they pick a random, they could wind up with a psycho nobody likes. If they hire based on your recommendation, at least they’re removing the ‘random’ element. Everyone benefits when you hire based on a recommendation.”

Continue to Internships – Part Two: First Interview

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Did I Make the Right Decision?

Last updated on May 4th, 2018 at 11:53 pm

Don’t remember who said it, but there’s something about the quote, paraphrased below, that sticks like beach tar to fleshy foot:

“Self deception is such an insidious thing; not only are you lying to yourself, but then the lie covers its own tracks, so you never realize it existed to begin with.”

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