Breakfast with Sharks Read online

  WHAT ARE YOUR CRITERIA FOR COMING TO L.A.?

  Hollywood is the land of laptops, cell phones, designer water, and decaf caramel mocha latte. It’s the best town on the planet in which to create and express yourself—when things are clicking. You can peer at mountainscapes (white-capped in winter, smog-capped in summer) as you write in the early morning, then catch a dynamite story meeting at the studio with an exec who is as excited about your project as you are. Afterwards, you may be invited to attend a private screening of a new movie directed by a friend, followed by a drive out to Santa Monica to watch the pounding—if sometimes dingy brown—surf beneath a glowing California sunset. That can be a typical day. But it takes time to get to that point.

  So, should you say good-bye to your cat and U-Haul just your Craftmatic bed and toaster oven to be here? Your decision to move to L.A. boils down to this:

  Anything that creates forward momentum is a plus, and moving to L.A. is real forward momentum. Anything that creates inertia or self-doubt is to be avoided.

  If your prime motivations for writing are “money!” and “everybody else in the solar system seems to be doing it,” don’t come.

  Don’t come if comparing your feet to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s size-elevens in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater is the first thing you intend to do upon arrival.

  Instead, ask yourself these three simple questions:

  1. Is there an original and unique voice in my writing or in my films?

  2. How will I find time to make money and write when I get to Hollywood?

  3. What are my immediate goals? What are my long-term goals?

  HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN YOU ARE READY TO MOVE TO L.A.?

  The simplest quantifying answer is that because living, working, and writing in Hollywood presents many unique challenges—cost of living in particular—you should complete at least two solid short films or sample screenplays before making the move. These are works whose merits have been recognized by any of the more than a dozen major film festivals and competitions around the United States. Beyond having these complete, polished works, each writer’s creative process and time line is unique. Because there are several important pros and cons to living in Tinseltown, you will need to establish your own criteria for determining whether the time is right for your relocation to Los Angeles, based on the factors I present in this chapter.

  THE PROS AND CONS OF LIVING IN L.A.

  Filmmaking is a relationship business because it involves the extremely intense collaboration of hundreds of people for weeks, months, and even years at a time. Frequently, producers and directors use military jargon like “going to war on a project.” It can get that tight. You’re all putting in interminable hours and pulling for the same thing. By day three, that A-list actress you thought was so aloof is asking how your dog is feeling. That’s why the notion of “build it and they will come” doesn’t work here. A writer should be in the trenches, too, ready to be his own best advocate for his work.

  Producers, directors, and writers have to get out and push their work by constantly generating new leads, working the trades and the pitch fests, and researching buyers in the trades and around town. A writer/director I know who recently completed a $650,000 independent film has been working every film festival from Cannes to Lake Arrowhead, attempting to set up theatrical distribution theater by theater, country by country. For this kind of face-to-face connection, being in town is a decided advantage. You never know when an exec may call impromptu to say, “If you’re not busy today, let’s hang out and kick this thing around.” Or, at the gas station, you may run into the star who would be perfect for your project. It happens. For example, actor Jim Gandolfini was my wife Sonia’s former client. That connection eventually resulted in a meeting and interest in one of my projects. A “creative” on the move takes a lot of meetings and knows all of the projects in development—especially those that pertain to their genre. That’s pretty tough to do on a regular basis when you’re in Piscataway, New Jersey.

  It’s hard to believe that a hundred years ago Hollywood was little more than a sleepy enclave in the desert, specializing in silent films called “short reels.” The movie industry, still in its infancy, had chosen a Southern California location both for its abundance of good weather and natural sunlight and to avoid the cost of electricity. Thus, Ithaca, New York’s loss (it was the first home of the film industry) was California’s gain.

  The idea of conducting business over a meal is a holdover from those simpler times. Remember that Hollywood is a place where success can be proportionate to the number of times you eat breakfast, “do” lunch, dinner, or drinks, and have other, more formal meetings in a single day. If you’re physically here, there’s much greater opportunity to meet the people with whom you’re eventually going to be working. “When are you going to write me that part?” is a running joke I have with a TV actor whom I run into around town seemingly every month. One benefit of film school is that you’ll probably come out here and travel in a pack with a class of fellow plebes. That means that as soon as one person in your posse hears about an opportunity, you’ll learn about it, too. For example, a director who gets a shot at a new show will solicit the writers he or she knows for scripts. That sort of thing happens all the time, and is the means by which many of us writers commonly obtain work.

  There are disadvantages to living in L.A. as well. Rent a house with a yard in New Hampshire for $350 a month, write full-time and have a part-time job to cover the essentials—or get a modest two-bedroom apartment in the San Fernando Valley for $1,600 a month and work two jobs and write on weekends and in the hours between midnight and 3:00 a.m. Rejection of your work can be expensive at these prices. My life during my first three years in Hollywood, as I hunted for crappy $1,500 options, was augmented by teaching college courses in a prison, working as a weekend manager of a real estate office, and sometimes filling in as a paralegal for a city attorney who handled a few private cases on the side. So you have to hustle to live here. However, having a day job that you enjoy and that consistently pays the bills, yet provides an opportunity to write on the side and let the process move forward, is a solid buffer against becoming a broke, angry writer who is no fun at parties. Striking such a balance isn’t easy. One key is discipline—establishing a time to write every day and then sticking to it. Having a writing group where you are expected to submit pages for the group read each month is one way to ensure you stay on track.

  Another strategy is to figure out exactly how much money you need to live, then find the base level employment that meets that criteria. For example, what’s the point of being a corporate executive earning $125,000 a year if you’re miserable because you can’t find free time to write? Perhaps you’d be happier running the night shift of a copy shop where no one cares if you write while the print jobs are processing or business is slow. And if the copy shop is in Southern California, chances are your co-workers will also be “creatives,” and many of the jobs you process will be projects coming from production companies. A writer/director/producer I know learned a lot about the kinds of scripts that made it into production by scanning such projects as they came through the copy shop he managed.

  Temping is another good alternative, especially here in Los Angeles, since some agencies specialize in placing you at studios and production companies. It’s a good way to get a worm’s-eye view of the moviemaking system in action. The jobs can last as little as a day or can stretch out to months, and are great opportunities for networking. Often, good temps are offered permanent positions since most producers and execs like to hire from the inside. A friend of mine who temped at Disney ended up as a writer twelve months later just by being in the right place at the right time. Such an occurrence is unusual, but it can happen.

  Hollywood Temp Agencies

  Ad Personnel, Beverly Hills

  310-284-3939

  (Advertising agencies)

  Apple One, Glendale

  818-247-2991

/>   (Disney, NBC, Warner Bros)

  Friedman Agency, West Hollywood

  310-550-1002

  (Various)

  The Right Connections

  310-657-3700

  (Disney)

  Star Personnel, Beverly Hills

  310-278-8630

  (Paramount Studios and Talent Agencies)

  Ultimate Staffing, Century City

  310-201-0062

  (Fox)

  Venturi Staffing (formerly Thomas Staffing) Los Angeles (Mid-Wilshire)

  323-931-9400

  (Paramount Studios and E! Entertainment)

  Websites for Film, TV, Writing, and Job-Jobs

  www.mediabistro.com (writing jobs)

  www.sunoasis.com (writing jobs)

  www.writerswrite.com/cgi-bin/listjobs.pl (writing jobs)

  www.journalismjobs.com

  www.Film.com (nationwide crew placement)

  Castandcrew.com (payroll and talent services)

  Crewcalldirectory.com (nationwide crew placement)

  Filmstaff.com (nationwide crew placement)

  Mandy.com (film and TV job postings)

  www.showbizjobs.com

  www.entertainmentcareers.net

  www.showbizdata.com

  www.craigslist.org

  www.awn.com (animation jobs)

  www.cooljobs.com

  www.flipdog.com

  www.hotjobs.com

  www.monster.com

  www.techies.com (computer jobs)

  Planet Shark.com

  EmployNow.com

  Temporary Housing and Sublets

  LosAngelescraigslist.org

  Working for free, or interning, is another tried-and-true way to build the necessary credits to land an industry job. Cull through the Hollywood Creative Directory, which is the leading source for contacting nearly 10,000 producers and studio and network executives representing over 1,750 production companies, studios and networks. The HCD includes addresses, phone and fax numbers, staff and titles, credits and studio deals. You should find a spot within days. The downside, of course, is that you will be working without pay or benefits, so you’ll need savings or a part-time job. One friend who is now a Hollywood producer got her first break by interning three days a week for a well-known actress. She was offered her first assistant position within six months. Note that some writer/producers have interns, but the practice is less common than with full production companies or at the studio.

  THE THOMAS GUIDE

  Los Angeles County comprises some 312 cities and communities. Unless you are coming from New York or London or another great international city, the vastness of Greater Los Angeles can be overwhelming. In fact, according to the Newcomer’s Handbook for Los Angeles, discussed later in this section, this city is large enough to fit St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburgh, and Manhattan all within the city borders. Studios and production companies are spread out across Los Angeles from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills, from Hollywood to Santa Clarita. It can take over an hour and a half to drive from one place to another over freeways, mountain roads, and surface streets. Not knowing where something is, or how long it takes to get there, is not a viable excuse for missing a meeting or being late. So the first book you buy upon arrival should be a Thomas Guide, a map book that’s more than one inch thick, is updated annually, and is indispensable for getting around Southern California. Based on personal experience, I highly recommend that you study this good book a bit before the time comes when you actually need it. During my first visit to Los Angeles, I purchased a Thomas Guide the night before my very first two meetings in Hollywood. These meetings just happened to be with executives with studios at the opposite ends of the city. Sweating and swearing through rush-hour traffic on L.A.’s notorious freeways, I somehow managed to crash-land my rental car at Disney Studios in Burbank on time. It was certainly no way to take my very first industry meeting. Afterwards I opted to return to my hotel in Hollywood, drop off the car, and call a cab to take me to Sony in Culver City. I was on time there, too, but the ride cost nearly fifty dollars, which was my meal budget for the entire week.

  WHERE TO LIVE

  L.A. is composed of many city-states, each with its own character, its own pluses and minuses. Your objective should be to find a place that’s in line with your habits and interests. For example, one friend is willing to pay a little more in order to be minutes away from the museums along the Museum Mile district of Wilshire Boulevard. It’s probably not a good idea to sublet a place just above Sunset Strip if you’re not into the club scene. Despite the panoramic views, such a place will have you locked in your living space by 10:00 p.m. each night as you avoid the crowds and grit your teeth at the ceaseless honking and squealing of cars. One rule of thumb is that rent is cheaper the deeper into San Fernando Valley you go, mainly because of the sometimes searing desert heat in summer, where temperatures can reach as high as 112 in places like Santa Clarita. If the prospect of watching children turn sand into glass on the sidewalk right outside your apartment alarms you, then moving too far inland probably isn’t an option at any price. Of course, it’s only uncomfortably hot for about three or four months of the year. Conversely, the cost of living rises the closer you get to the Pacific Ocean, which remains temperate and cloaked in a morning sea mist even during the hottest months. Here, it’s not uncommon for people to pay $600 to $2,000 a month or even more to live in apartments as small as 200 square feet.

  To figure out what area will work best work for you, I highly recommend the Newcomer’s Handbook for Los Angeles by Joan Wai and Stacey Ravel Abarbanel. The authors have profiled most neighborhoods within Los Angeles County. Most of the resources you will need are covered, including utilities, local banks, cable, mail, publications, public transportation options, child care, and public school districts. The book also covers recreational activities, museums, public parks, shopping districts, and annual events throughout the city.

  What Should You Have Before

  Arriving in Hollywood?

  1. The security deposit on an apartment, as well as enough money to tide you over for eight weeks (figure on a total of $2,500) while you look for work to pay the bills and until you receive your first check.

  2. An idea and strategy for obtaining a full-time or part-time job that will still allow you to pursue your writing career.

  3. Two polished screenplays and/or two short films that have been transferred to video or DVD.

  4. A productive writing regimen.

  5. A reliable automobile.

  WHAT IS A WRITER’S “VOICE,” AND HOW DO YOU MAKE YOURS STAND OUT IN HOLLYWOOD?

  As I’ve said, it’s not enough just to show up in L.A. with a burning desire to be a writer. You will need something that sets you apart from the competition. In Hollywood, the corollary to success having many fathers, and failure being an orphan, is that the career ladder to success has many, many rungs, all of which are slathered with Krazy Glue. So it’s important to have the following four virtues in your arsenal: voice in your work; patience for a process that may take several years; the desire to build your support community; and the commitment to make sure you work every day.

  First, let’s put things into perspective by doing a bit of math. In a given year, 50,000 screenplays will be registered with the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Of that number, about 5,000, or 10 percent, will earn money through optioning (a studio, production company, and or producer pays someone for the exclusive rights to a literary property for a set amount of time. At the end of that time period, the material can, in most cases, be optioned again, but if not, the rights revert back the original owner, i.e., the writer). That’s means 45,000, or 90 pecent of the 50,000 scripts will never earn a dime. However, of the 5,000 screenplays that are purchased or optioned, only 200, or 4 percent, of the money-earners will be made into movies. So the odds of a script being bought are ten to one, and the odds of a script being turned into a movie are 250 to one
. Pretty sobering, huh? Of course, you’ll cut those odds down considerably just by applying what you learn from reading this book. But you’re still going to need a script that cooks with heat, that gets people’s attention. I have been paid for more than half of the projects I’ve written. I’m proud of that fact, even though the monetary compensation has sometimes been limited to as little as five hundred dollars. My “secret” is not competing with the other 45,000 writers. Okay, so how does one do that? VOICE.

  Around once every two weeks, a reader of my magazine column queries me about relocating. I wouldn’t recommend packing the Yugo until you at least have the seeds of what will become your most important commodity and currency, your voice—that wonderfully magical, ethereal word the industry uses in sometimes hushed, reverential tones, as in, “This writer has a fresh voice.” The term connotes everything from a writer’s uniquely personal style or perspective to a grasp of specific themes or an ability to work with subject matter that is commercially viable.

  In practical terms, a voice means having something to say, whether about teen angst, the detachment we all feel in the midst of the “communications era,” etc. It is a point of view, a style, and an intimacy or urgency flowing through your work. Veteran screenwriter Jon Cohen (Minority Report, Riptide) explains his voice this way: “My one rule is write big. No matter what they tell you, if your sentences are rich and compelling, then you’re telling the story that way as well. Somehow be spare and get to the good parts fast, the standard rule, but when you’re doing the good parts fast, remember fast does not mean skeletal and lean. Let them smell the copper in the blood and the slippery lick of the tongue.”

  Every time one of those enthusiastic “New Guns Taking Hollywood by Storm” articles appears in a magazine or a newspaper, 10,000 people across the planet drop what they’re doing and move here. What will they say with their words and images when they get their opportunity? What part of the human condition means something to them? What is their voice? Too often writers leave that part of the equation blank. People get here, quickly lose their way, and start writing and rewriting the same two or three scripts over and over in an attempt to work an angle for a perceived opportunity. Often you’ll hear writers say the most improbable things, like “I’m reworking my slasher script into a romantic comedy period piece because that’s what’s hot.” Such an attitude can become a one-way ticket to the land of cynicism, which can poison a writer’s creative process. And if you do have a distinct voice, it can be hard at times to get that voice heard.