Breakfast with Sharks Page 3

  So what does Hollywood want? Writers who can tap into their own life experience or perspective to create stories for a wide audience. Scripters who can accomplish that will quickly find a place here. Meanwhile, omitting such voice from one’s writing in a pursuit of pa$$ion may or may not result in short-term financial gain, but is guaranteed to produce long-term cynicism about the industry because following this path means you lose your grip on your beloved craft. That’s a perspective that no writer attempting to realize his or her dream of making movies can afford.

  2

  SECTION 103: DEALING WITH REJECTION

  Advice on Rejection from a Seasoned, Award-Winning Writer

  How to Handle Rejection

  Revising Your Work in the Face of Rejection

  MATERIALS:

  Teflon Ego the Size of Cleveland, and Bulletproof Underwear

  EXTRA CREDIT READING:

  Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo

  I’m sure it’s better than it sounds.

  —A “FRIENDLY” PRODUCER, AFTER HEARING MY VERY FIRST PITCH

  Don’t believe the hype. You don’t have to make a tremendous impact in your first year as a writer. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Good Will Hunting was five years in the making. Tom Schulman’s Dead Poets Society was ten. Billy Bob Thornton spent nineteen years in the wilderness to get to Sling Blade. Notice a pattern? The Greeks wish they had a mythology as elaborate as our star-studded, gold-paved Hollywood myths of instant success. There is the fantasy of Hollywood and the reality of Hollywood. In other words, don’t mistake Hollywood sizzle for steak. The reality of Hollywood requires patience and hard work. Lots of your favorite films were more than a decade in the making. On the real road to fame and riches, there are many, many potholes, and much rejection in them there Hollywood Hills, so much so, that I decided to include the section at the front of my book, just so you’ll think about this reality as you read the rest of the tips I share. Literally hundreds of people will say no, in the form of nondecisions and passes, for every one that says yes on your project. But even one “yes” can make for a successful career. Often luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

  ADVICE ON REJECTION FROM A SEASONED, AWARD-WINNING WRITER

  Some of the best advice I received came early in my career from Emmy Award–winning writer Cynthia Cidre (Mambo Kings) who has more spent more than twenty years in the business. She recommended the following Hollywood timetable: “Five years for overnight success and ten years to have a career.” That’s because even after that initial affirmation of all your hard work, dedication, and talent, rejection will still remain a big part of the business. So, for any sort of longevity, you must glean what you can from the naysayers, and discard their rebukes. Admittedly, when Cynthia Cidre imparted her hard-earned wisdom to me, I remember thinking, “Five years? Yeah, right! Maybe for other people, but I’ve got an advanced degree and Master Plan.” But when, four years, nine months, and two days later, my first studio assignment came through following a string of small production company options and writing gigs, I heaved a huge sigh of relief and told myself I was right on track. A career in Hollywood is less a sprint than a marathon with intermittent bursts thrown in. That’s why the kamikaze approach—“I’ll blow into town for seven months while scoring up some meetings and big-money deals!”—is shortsighted. Writers should think about the big picture of what they want to accomplish, and then brace for the long haul. In practical terms you should definitely accept a midnight shift editing someone else’s opus—or the thousand-dollar option on your masterpiece—just to keep yourself working and in the game. So here are three things to take into account when planning out your career strategy:

  1. True-career building usually has a long, slow, logical progression that is more cyclical than linear.

  2. Many ups and downs can occur during the three to four years that the average movie requires to go from script to screen.

  3. Don’t be in a hurry. Perfect your craft.

  The business side never gets better. Only your craft improves.

  —Ed Solomon, Writer, Men In Black

  HOW TO HANDLE REJECTION

  Rejection is a big part of the Hollywood landscape, but you can learn to deal with it. In fact, the sooner you do, the better off you’ll be. It’s a fact that upon achieving a certain proficiency with your work, you have zero control over the biblical pestilence of things that may go wrong—a three-picture deal hangs up in Legal Affairs, meanwhile the production company loses its development funding and your two-year deal is dead—or maybe a $46-million studio deal that would pay you $600,000 against $750,000 (the price paid for the project up front; “Against” refers to total additional monies paid if the screenplay is made into a movie) comes apart over $2 million for cable rights. Both war stories happened to me—and to just about anybody else you talk to here. The industry is a behemoth whose actions may feel crushing but are rarely personal. So when bad things happen, take a time-out. Get away from the situation as fast as you can. Yes, you have a lot riding on the result, but the sooner you gain perspective, the sooner you’ll be able to correct a problem or come back with a new action plan. Sounds easier said than done, doesn’t it? What follows is a quick story showing how I put the above into practice.

  I once gave a new screenplay to a top producer with whom I had already worked. The producer called three weeks later, saying she would like to meet on the project. We did, and I walked away thinking we had a deal in the works. When none materialized, my agent couldn’t illuminate the situation beyond saying that “they [the producer and her company] are slammed over there. They’ll probably revisit the project in the spring.” A call to the producer was returned by her assistant, who verified what I’d been told. Of course, my first reaction was to seethe. This seemed to me like months and months of work and careful strategy apparently down the drain for seemingly unfathomable reasons out of my control. Instead of continuing to stew, I called an independent film producer friend who happened to live near Santa Monica. The script was much too big for his budget, but I respected his opinion. We met for lunch, watching Rollerbladers on the boardwalk and taking in the midday sun and surf. At the end of the afternoon, I gave my friend the script to read. Five days later I was already feeling like myself again, busy with pitching on another project, when my friend e-mailed his thoughts. According to this producer, the script was a winner, but the setup was overly complicated and the first act too slow to develop. Most likely, the A-list producer who was known for getting projects made quickly had had reservations about taking time to correct the problems. While I might have felt “betrayed” by the A-list producer’s apparent flip-flop and lack of commitment, instead I was euphoric at reading my friend’s e-mail, since these were both issues I could easily correct. My time had not been wasted, and the project still had a bright future. Responsibility for my career was squarely back on my shoulders.

  To repeat: Bad news in the form of a passed (rejected) script or dropped deal is inevitable. Again, it’s nothing personal and it happens to EVERYONE. But you can always go walk your dog or hike into the canyons or drive out to Santa Monica to clear your head, then get back to the business of building your career.

  Five Keys to Dealing with

  Day-to-Day Frustrations

  1. Be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are most careers.

  2. Give the process its due. Be willing to write and rewrite.

  3. Choose only projects that challenge you—stories with themes that you are passionate about.

  4. Passion is infectious. Learn to harness and communicate your excitement to others.

  5. Try to glean information from every criticism you receive. Your focus should be on your work and ways to improve it. Avoid getting embroiled in personality conflicts.

  Remember that even professional writers who spend six months completing a screenplay may give in to frustration when they receive critiques from the studio. These same writers ma
y become unwilling to spend another month or two on the project. If a contract or accolades aren’t immediately forthcoming, sometimes it’s easier to abandon the project and start fresh on the next sure-fire million-dollar idea. Entitlement is a killer in our business. Getting a little success and thinking you’re granted a secret handshake for life is dangerous. That’s a problem I have perceived as a young writer regarding some older writers who seem to be hermetically sealed in their own sense of entitlement. Usually this “old attitude” is not related to their writing ability, but is a business conceit whereby these writers feel that they are owed a living by the industry. For example, the very first writing group I audited upon arrival to Los Angeles felt like the cast of Twelve Angry Men. Project discussion deteriorated into teeth-gnashing at “the system” even before I had time to put on my “Hello! My Name is Michael” name tag. I never went back. Of course, what these writers wanted was to recapture that moment long ago when it all seemed so easy, and what they were really railing against was a system where writers now have to prove themselves over and over again. A successful veteran writer once told me that writers especially tend to devolve into whiners over time. He blamed this on “the process.” He was referring to that conga line of execs and above-the-line people who can wipe out six months of a writer’s work in a single afternoon of notes, without giving the writer a chance to plead his case. I used to run into a writer/director who wrote series television in the early eighties but has worked sporadically since. Every time I saw him he repeated the same mantra: “Lemme tell you something, those executives (or producers, directors, agents, lawyers, valets, stevedores) are idiots. Don’t let them screw you, because they will. Believe me, I know!” One day I was surprised when he suddenly asked me to read one of his new scripts. I was only slightly curious, but felt obligated to give it the ol’ colleague try. A few days later I came back humbly with detailed comments that I felt would elevate the material beyond its current state, which was that of a good concept mired in a fog-bog of hastily executed clichés. After we talked it over, the writer admitted as much, but then said, “You gave me some great ideas, but that sounds like a lot of work. I just want to sell this thing and let somebody else figure it out. I think I’m gonna go with what I’ve got.” All I could say was “Good luck.” I realized then that the old timer’s frustration with the industry was based on the fact that the industry doesn’t award sloppy and lazy writers. Here I must tell you that no matter what level you reach as a writer in Hollywood, producers will almost always pressure you to bleed the edges—i.e., do free changes (if not free drafts). The request for revision is another kind of rejection, one that may still lead to ultimate rejection. You just have to be willing to view revision as further attention you can pay to your craft.

  REVISING YOUR WORK IN THE FACE OF REJECTION

  There are some frustrations that can be easily avoided. Never, never, never send an agent or a would-be producer a script that is hot off the presses (the only exceptions being unavoidable situations like assignments and revisions to shooting scripts under tight deadlines), because such a project is not ready for the market yet. The scriptwriting process means that a writer is trying to juggle a couple of dozen subtle and not-so-subtle story elements, and a few obvious problems may slip through the cracks. So a time buffer is needed. Remember, most agents are inundated with flawed material—they get their best possible rush from receiving a script that they can sell TODAY. Consequently, agents tire very easily from too much development and need for revision. In other words, they quickly lose enthusiasm for the specific project and for you as a client. Writers who continue to send out green scripts do so at the peril of their careers. As will be discussed in more depth later in this book, Hollywood literary agents are, first and foremost, deal brokers. That is their primary training. Despite what some agents may claim, few are motivated by hunkering down in the trenches, participating in hand-to-hand combat with a writer on an unsold spec. With all of the above in mind, I devised a system of Five Trusted Readers who understand the pitfalls of reading first drafts. This system provides me with a first line of response and rejection, but also clear instruction on how and why I need to revise my first drafts. It is a very valuable tool.

  Five Trusted Readers

  I use a system of Five Trusted Readers to check out my work and give feedback BEFORE I send my projects on to producers, or even to my agent. These readers are peers, former instructors, or industry people I have befriended who are willing to read my new project and whose opinions I value and trust. I made five the number because it’s a tie-breaking odd number (if two like a story element and two don’t, I always have a tie-breaker). Also, I found that three were too few opinions while seven meant I was waiting longer for more people to read my work. The makeup of the group shifts depending on circumstances and the type of project. For example, I won’t give a science-fiction script to someone who has no interest in science fiction. So I look for a replacement reader.

  No matter what deadlines I’m under, I always show my work to my readers first. Then it’s rewrite, revise, rewrite. Remember Cynthia Cidre’s little gem of a movie Mambo Kings? Thirty-two drafts of the script were required to get to the screen. Meanwhile, veteran playwright and screenwriter Craig Lucas wrote 26 drafts of The Secret Lives of Dentists before it reached the screens.

  Writing is hard, and rewriting is inevitable. Not every moment of the creative process can be a Mardi Gras parade. As writer and psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo points out in his excellent book, Writing from the Inside Out, fear and doubt, procrastination, loneliness, and even creative blocks are all a normal part of the creative process. We fear failure and rejection, but these feelings are actually part of the process. Even the most established writers and directors experience profound doubt on a regular basis. That’s because such a sense of discordance and isolation, and fear that “time is out of joint,” is our very motivation to create. As Palumbo points out, without such feelings we would have story structure but no unique story. Those things that we often perceive to be inadequacies or defects are actually the building blocks of our creative process. If you don’t put something of yourself in the frame or on the page, what’s the point?

  The Challenge to Write About One’s Experiences

  My first teaching job was a screenwriting course in a prison. In the class was a folksy older inmate whom I liked to think of as “Oregon Woods.” He had lived in various communes in the desert and the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s, and wrote fluffy stories about teenage parties and “love-ins.” One day he came to see me in my office and I said casually, “You lived in such an incredible time, but write such nonsense—what’s up with that?” Oregon Woods shifted in his chair and there was a long silence before he told me that one morning more than two decades ago, he had dropped acid and decided to go for a drive at dawn along the California coast. Until a cop pulled him over, Oregon Woods knew nothing of the jogger he had struck and killed five miles back.

  Oregon Woods’s life spiraled down from there. He was haunted by a horrific event of which he had no memory. The room with just the two of us in it became very still. I quickly realized that this man’s depth of despair and grief was beyond my experience or skills as an instructor. I said the only thing I could: “Can you write about it?” He paused, then replied, “I don’t think I can . . . I guess I’m not cut out to be a writer.” I said, “It’s your call.” Oregon Woods showed up a few more times, but didn’t say much, then one day stopped coming to class. I never saw him again.

  3

  SECTION 107: FUNDAMENTALS OF RELOCATING TO L.A.

  What Are Your Criteria for Coming to L.A.?

  How Do You Know When You Are Ready to Move to L.A.?

  The Pros and Cons of Living in L.A.

  The Thomas Guide

  Where to Live

  What Is a Writer’s “Voice,” and How Do You Make Yours Stand Out in Hollywood?

  Learning Patience Once You Get to L.A.

&nb
sp; Building Your Support Community

  The Most Important Virtue: Commitment

  EXTRA CREDIT:

  Demo (Highlight) Reel

  Business Card on Video CD or minidisc

  EXTRA CREDIT READING:

  Newcomer’s Handbook for Los Angeles by Joan Wai and Stacey Ravel Abarbanel

  In this chapter we analyze factors that will help determine whether you are prepared to come to Los Angeles, as well as the feasibility of living and working outside of Hollywood. Recently a fellow screenwriter, a good friend I’ve known since film school, packed it in and jetted town. Hopefully, this writer will try again soon. The old saw that people in Hollywood succeed not on ability but by persistence remains true. No one ever really fails here, they simply quit. That my friend is talented, disciplined, and driven, but somehow has yet to catch on here, speaks volumes about how difficult it is to carve your personal Mount Rushmore into these Hollywood Hills. Film is the most dominant art form in contemporary culture, and, as a sought-after vocation, has considerably more sparkle than, say, iron smelting. Such allure makes ours one of the most difficult industries to break into, and great personal ability and pricey film school training may not always be enough to ensure that one will make it. Indeed, the odds against thriving here, or even surviving, can be daunting. Every day, however, many beat the odds and make it. The very same week my colleague made the decision to move on, another friend, a director, who deferred his migration to L.A. for several years and tried to work from the Right Coast, finally arrived in town. His first words to me were, “Man, I’m just thrilled to be here. Now I can commit one hundred percent to the dream.”