As you all know, show business is all about contacts. You may be the most talented person in the world, but if no one knows you, they will hire someone else that they do know.
So, you need to be passed along to them.
When someone recommends you contact someone they know, they are putting themselves on the line for you. Not a lot. But they are vouching for you. How you come off reflects on them -- at a minimum, on their judgment of people.
They also have probably picked you from a flock of other people they possibly could help.
When I hook up someone just starting out and someone who's established, sometimes the just-starting-out person jumps on the contact. Sometimes the just-starting-out person drops the ball. They figure they'll put the established person on their list of chores, and they'll get to it when they get to it.
Guess which ones I continue to recommend?
UPDATE: By the way, I am often impressed how willing people are to help someone break in. I asked two producers to talk to someone. One said, "I'm in prep, but tell her to call, I'll set up a time." The other said, "I'm shooting, but tell her to call my assistant, we'll set something up." Showbiz can be tough, but everyone remembers when they needed a break.
What you do with it, of course, is what makes the difference.
Wanna do some part-time on-site PR for a very cool Montreal indie game studio? Web stuff, shooting video, writing, social media? Lemme know.
UPDATE: Based some comments I got, I should explain some things.
This is a PR job. You must be able to spell my name correctly. (Someone did not; at his request I've deleted his comment.) You should be able to find out my email address. (Seriously. It should take less than 60 seconds.)
And then you send me your resume with a personable email explaining why you're the right person for the job. And, because you are SO GOOD, you already figured out which game company and which game. And for serious bonus points, your take on marketing the company. Because you want it that much.
For any job, you want to make sure that you create the best possible first impression. But a PR job, in particular, is about contacting strangers. You need to have a talent, or better, a skill, for contacting strangers. You need to know how to draw people into your story. For a PR job in particular, your self-presentation is the test. Your initial approach should knock my socks off. Otherwise the job will go to someone else who does.
Canadians: The illustrious DMc is doing another free CFC prime time TV writing workshop on the 21st.
Denis will walk participants through the process of getting an episode of the series on the air – from collaboration and brainstorming in the story room, to beatsheets, outlines and script drafts
Montrealers: SODEC is having another info session Wednesday the 18th at 4:30 pm at their offices at 215 rue St. Jacques, 8th Floor:
Cette séance, d’une durée approximative de deux heures, vise à préparer le dépôt des projets au programme d’aide en production des jeunes créateurs du 4 mai 2012. Le délégué à l’accueil des projets à la direction du cinéma et de la production télévisuelle, M. Alain Rondeau, sera sur place afin d’informer la clientèle sur les exigences du programme, répondre aux questions et aider les demandeurs à la préparation d’une demande.Note that this session is about screenwriting support, for which the deadline is May 4.
Les personnes intéressées doivent s’inscrire auprès de monsieur Rondeau au 514 841-2291 ou par courriel à alain.c.rondeau@sodec.gouv.qc.ca.
I suspect the session may be in French only, but many anglos have gotten their start in this program.
Alain is a really great guy, too.
Montréal, le 9 janvier 2012 - La Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC) annonce la tenue d’une session d’information le mercredi 11 janvier 2012 à 16 h 30. Cette session est destinée à la clientèle intéressée à déposer en production, secteur Jeunes créateurs. La rencontre se tiendra dans les locaux de la SODEC, au 215, rue St-Jacques, 8e étage à Montréal.Cette séance, d’une durée approximative de 90 minutes, vise à préparer le dépôt des projets au programme d’aide en production des jeunes créateurs du 20 janvier prochain. Le délégué à l’accueil des projets à la direction du cinéma et de la production télévisuelle, M. Alain Rondeau, sera sur place afin d’informer la clientèle sur les exigences du programme, répondre aux questions et aider les demandeurs à la préparation d’une demande.
Les personnes intéressées doivent s’inscrire auprès de madame Djina Victoria-Hall au 514 841-2296 ou par courriel à djina-victoria.hall@sodec.gouv.qc.ca. Pour plus d’information, veuillez consulter le site Internet de la SODEC au www.sodec.gouv.qc.ca
Q. Should I copyright my spec with the US Library of Congress, or register it with the WGA?There is no reason to register or copyright a spec episode. You don't own the underlying rights. No one would steal your spec 30 ROCK from you because they can't sell it.
They could, I suppose, pretend they wrote it, but I've never heard of something like that happening.
It wouldn't hurt to copyright your spec pilot, but bear in mind that there are not so many legit places to send a spec pilot, and your agent is likely going to send your spec to most of them. So if someone stole your spec pilot, they would likely be sending it to the same exact people, who will then say, "WTF are you sending me someone else's script for?"
If you don't have an agent, then you're probably sending your spec to agents in order to get an agent. Agents don't steal ideas, they represent writers with ideas.
And you can't really send a spec pilot to production companies without an agent. It's possible, though very difficult, to break into features without an agent. But I am not sure it is at all plausible to break into TV without an agent.
So bottom line, copyright your script with the Library of Congress if it makes you feel better. You can even do it online, I believe. But for tv scripts, it's probably not necessary.
I was also wondering if there's any particular university degree you would recommend for young people interested in writing for film and television?No.
I have a double major in Computer Science and English. I would say that my C.S. major helped me at least as much in showbiz as my English major. Computer Science taught me how to write a script "top down." Also, having a C.S. degree, and French, got me my first full-time job in the biz.
If you're a writer, you'll write. That's why when I was at Yale, there wasn't much of a creative writing track. I did more, and better, creative writing trying to get fiction and poems into Zirkus, and The Yale Lit, than I did taking John Hersey's creative writing class. I did even more, and better, when I took a term off to hang around Columbia and audit Kenneth Koch's creative writing class for no credit.
I also learned more about screenwriting from Funky Bob Thompson's class "The Afro-Atlantic Tradition" than I did in some screenwriting classes getting my MFA at UCLA. "Master T" taught about how in West African and Southern Black cultural traditions, syncopation isn't an esthetic exclusively for music; it applies to quilts, to dancing, to everything. I learned how not to write in 4/4 time.
(And when I say, "Master T," think of the whitest guy you ever met, in a button shirt and creased pants. He was the Master of Timothy Dwight residential college until last year.)
So I don't really care what you study in college. And neither will anyone else in LA. They are if you're smart. They care if you know stuff. Mostly they care if you can deliver a hot spec. Whatever gets you there is what you should study. If that's History, great. If that's Electrical Engineering, also great.
Remember, the point of university (as opposed to a graduate degree) isn't to teach you stuff. The world can teach you stuff. Working will teach you stuff. University is to teach you how to learn; and to teach you to attack a problem from multiple perspectives.
So, really, study what you love. If you're a writer, you'll write.
As I don't live in the US, I was wondering to what extent the need to be in LA applies to writers based in other countries. Is it better to approach one's own country's agencies and production companies first, especially if the screenplay is something set in that country that might qualify for government arts funding if produced there?Overseas, and Canadian, writers are in a different boat. If you qualify for government arts funding, use that first. Then, when you've made a smash-o picture, go to LA to see if LA cares. If LA doesn't care, go back and make another homebrew movie.
Every country has its own production hubs. In Canada, a TV writer must be in Toronto, a game writer probably should be in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver or Edmonton, and a feature writer can be in a number of cities. If the government is offering you money to create culture, stay where you are and take their money, until something you've made hits in LA. Then go to LA and say, "that movie everyone's talking about? I made that. Want to rep me?"
Daniel Martin Eckhart links to the documentary "Malkovich's Mail" about the unsolicited scripts and queries that John Malkovich gets. They track down the writers of some of these very original ideas ("cyborg dinosaurs!" "climactic warthog attack leaves one dead!").
My buddy Maarten Kroonenburg is a cinematographer who owns his own equipment company, and he's starting to direct. He just directed a comedy short we wrote together. He's going to direct another in the Spring. I'm writing a feature for him to direct.
Maarten needs some help with his projects, and is looking to bring on an intern to do things like research, promoting and submitting his shorts to festivals, helping to organize his next shoot, applying to funding agencies, finding scripts for Maarten to attach himself to -- all kinds of stuff that an emerging filmmaker would probably want to know how to do. The time commitment wouldn't be big except in a pinch.
The ideal candidate would be in Montreal, but it's entirely possible that he or she would be somewhere else. (Most of my own interns have been out of town.) The ideal candidate would be super-organized, with excellent communication skills.
Ideally, the candidate would be willing to do this as an unpaid internship, but it is possible that money could be found for the right person. Or access to his equipment truck to shoot your own stuff. College credit could also be arranged, I imagine.
If you're interested, please send your c.v. as a PDF, along with a personable e-mail introducing yourself, to Jennifer Mulligan.
Stage 32 is "the social network for film, television and theatre creatives." They are free. They say they have "already hooked up dozens of struggling screenwriters with producers looking for good scripts." They have 15,000 members after two months; about 1/4th of those are screenwriters.
I don't know if anyone needs another social network -- I've got Facebook, Facebook fan pages for my books and novel, Google+, LinkedIn and the Twitter. And there have already been various versions of this idea. But it might be worth checking out if you're not already hooked in.
The WGC and Bell Media are calling on writers in eastern Canada to apply to the Bell Media Diverse Screenwriters Program. This session will run in Toronto in the Spring of 2012. The program is free-of-charge to selected writers, and offers emerging and mid-career writers from diverse backgrounds the chance to hone the skills they need to become successful professional screenwriters. And one writer will come out of the program with a paid internship on a Bell Media TV series. The Deadline for eastern Canada applications is December 2, 2011. For more information and application materials, please visit www.wgc.ca and click on Bell Media Diverse Screenwriters Program. It's an amazing opportunity!
Q. I'm a high school student who wants to pursue a career in TV writing. I've been working my way up to writing some specs, and also I've been doing a little bit of playwriting, as it's just easier to find youth classes devoted to that than any other media writing outlet. What do you recommend for a kid right out of High SchoolI would never tell anyone not to go to college. No one ever made much of himself without finishing university. Except, you know, Steve Jobs. And Steven Spielberg. And Bill Gates. And Thomas Edison. And Shakespeare.
In Crafty TV Writing, you advise all prospective writers to get an internship/assistant position at a literary agency in L.A., or if you can on the staff of a TV show, but I felt this advice was given with "adults' in mind, and I wasn't sure if this was the optimal path right out of high school.
Would it be better to go through NYU's Dramatic Writing program (which I was not accepted to, though a friend of mine was) or to do as you say and get a job inside the business and save a degree for later? As you may have guessed, part of my hesitation stems from the whole stigma against not going to college--a stigma which I am ready to ignore in pursuit of a TV writer's position. But I just wanted your genuine opinion as to what a high school graduate should do to become a TV writer.
I would still never tell anyone not to go to college. The facts you learn in college are rarely useful in themselves. No one is going to offer you $100 to compare Dante to Milton over the weekend. But you learn how to learn, and you learn how to think at a problem from different angles. And you learn to read deeply.
Also, you make a slew of friends who may be useful to you later. And if you're writing plays, it's a hundred times easier to get them produced at university than they would be out in the cold hard real world. It is a real pain in the ass getting a play produced at an Equity Waiver theatre. At college, they will produce your play for you, and offer you cake. (See "Sorkin, Aaron.")
I'm not sure you need a dramatic writing program in college. I was a computer science major; Yale didn't have creative writing, really, except one course with Harold Bloom. (I actually spent a semester hanging out in New York auditing classes at Columbia to circumvent this. I just did the work and no one seemed to mind I was just auditing.) I worked on a literary magazine at Yale (Zirkus) and founded another one (The Trumbull Review), and there was no shortage of poems and stories. A buddy of mine wrote plays which were performed at Yale. Neither the writing nor the performing were for credit. If you're a writer, you'll write. No writer ever needed a writing class. But you can't really study James Joyce on your own and expect to make anything out of Ulysses. And learning how to unpack some crazy Modernist's styles will develop your analytical muscles that you can then apply to figuring out the template to THE GOOD WIFE or 30 ROCK.
You can get part-time internships when you're a student. You can't come into an agency part time when you're 22, but you can when you're at UCLA. Everyone understands that you can't be full-time. So in some ways it's easier to break in as a promising student than as one of many underemployed adults. You could intern at an agency, but part-time, and without having to be a messenger. If you actually got offered a writer's assistant job, you could drop out of school, and then if it led nowhere, you would return to school.
Finally, there is nothing preventing you from writing TV specs while in university. I wrote lots of stories and poems at college when I wasn't debugging programs; and Computer Science was a ridiculously hard major compared to English. Your typical college student has a ton of time to write, if that's what he wants to do. Actual jobs are much more tiring. College gives you an excuse not to go get a job.
College gives you an excuse to be wet behind the ears. If you aren't in college, even if you're the same age as a college student, people expect you to be a grownup. People are much more forgiving of college students for tripping over things, or for offering their opinion when no one wants it.
I think it's great that you have a strong opinion about what you want to do. I wouldn't consider college an impediment, though. If you work it right, it can be a platform, or even a diving board.
I understand your time is valuable so I will try to keep this short. My name is [name that starts with N], and I am a sophomore at [university you've heard of]. I have a rough TV script for a sit-com that I've worked on, about [snip]. I have read most of your website and I fully intend on buying your books, but I am writing to you to see if you could offer any additional advice that is specific to my situation. I've read online that the chances of a production company even acknowledging an unestablished writer are nonexistent, but I refuse to give up. I am confident that my concept has commercial potential, and I intend to see it through.Dear Name That Starts With N:
I don't have the money to pay you to read my script, and I don't have the money to find an agent. I truly value your feedback if you should find the time to respond.
Here's one bit of specific advice: do your homework before you bug professionals for advice. Many people will give you one free conversation with them, but very few will give you two. You have just wasted your free conversation with me.
How have you wasted it? Well, you haven't bothered to get my books. What are the odds that my book CRAFTY TV WRITING: THINKING INSIDE THE BOX might contain some information about your spec pilot and your chances of getting it read? I'm pretty sure it's in the library at [university you've heard of].
Or how about my blog? In my six years of blog entries, there are quite a few tagged "spec pilot" and "breaking in." You obviously haven't read through my blog posts. Instead you just figured you'd dash off an email.
Your request comes off as lazy and over-entitled. You haven't even rewritten your script and you already want me to reassure you that you might be able to sell it. You haven't even cracked my books, and you want to assure me that you "refuse to give up." It's like you're yelling "I have not yet begun to fight!" after an evening at a bar talking about joining the Navy.
(You "don't have money to find an agent"? What does that even mean?)
When you contact people in the business, do your homework. Read their books or articles or blog posts if they have them. See their movies and TV shows if they've written or created them. People like answering educated questions. ("When you were developing THE OUTER LIMITS, how did you try to distinguish it from THE TWILIGHT ZONE?") They want a sense that you treasure their input, and you've put in at least as much effort into the question as they will have to put into the answer.
That way, you earn the right to a second conversation.
UPDATE:
I apologize if I insulted you or wasted your time, this was my first stab at this. While the truth stings a bit, I believe this is what I needed.A willingness to embrace criticism is an extremely important virtue in any biz, but particularly this one. Bravo.
Q. I had a heated discussion recently with someone who said there's really no excuse not to be working in TV these days, with 500 channels on cable actors and writers should be able to beak through somewhere. My response was these 500 channels are owned by 1 or 2 companies getting less revenue than before, and thanks to reality TV hire fewer writers and actors so while there are plenty of opportunities to 'be on TV' for free, actually making a living at it is harder than before, especially in Canada.I don't know any TV writers who think it's getting easier. If you look at most of those channels, they're reailty shows, game shows and documentary material. There are more channels that air some fiction. But the channels are more distinct. To sell something to HBO, it really has to be an HBO show, and that's different from an AMC show, or, Lord knows, a broadcast show.
If all you want to do is work in TV doing anything at all for any kind of pay, they're kind of right, if obnoxious. But if you want to work in comedy or drama, well, there are a lot of unemployed comedy and drama writers flip-flopping on the strand, gasping for air.
Q. What should a newbie do to break in?Well really, it depends what you want to do. If you want to do features, normally, you write a spec feature. If TV, it used to be you write a spec script. These days, and especially in Canada, a lot of people are getting traction with spec pilots. But a great spec pilot is so much harder to write, I tend to encourage people to start with spec scripts.
The other way in, these days, is to make your own really eye-catching viral YouTube. If you can come up with the next Annoying Orange, a lot of people are going to know your name. (And what is Annoying Orange but the next Têtes-à-Claques*?) This really works best in comedy, of course. It's much easier to score with a 2 minute comedy than a 2 minute drama. (Though: LonelyGirl15.) It wasn't really practical to do that 10 years ago, what with there being no YouTube, among other things, but now a lot of people are making their own low-rez product and breaking in/out that way.
We spent this morning on a script for a 2 minute YouTube, so there you go.
The real question you gotta ask yourself is: am I ready to amaze people, or should I learn more first? If you think you're not ready for prime time, then write a spec, 'cause that's probably still the best way to learn. There's no shame in taking the time to learn your craft. But if you feel you're ready to amaze, then go do whatever it is you're the most amazing at. You'll always get where you're going faster doing what you're best at, than doing what you're merely good at. (And that's why I quit Computer Science.)
*Here's the English version, though take my word for it that the Québecois version is way funnier.
If you're a Québecer filmmaker between 18 and 35, and you have a short you'd like to make, check out SODEC's Cours Après Ton Court
The deadline for the NSI Features First program. It's a part time training and mentorship program for teams of emerging writers, directors and producers with a project they'd like to refine. It's not an award -- it doesn't pay -- but thirteen features have been produced since the program started in 1997, or almost one a year. That's pretty good.
One of us said no to a potential writing gig the other day. It was not an actual job offer. (Writers almost never turn down actual job offers.) A producer offered us a chance to do a "take," with the possibility that if they liked it, they'd hire us over the other people doing "takes."
A "take" is how you would approach some creative material. It could be how you'd rewrite a script, or how you'd adapt a novel, or what you'd do with a one-liner TV pitch. You're hoping to get the rewrite or the adaptation job. A "take" means that the producer hasn't chosen you, you're just on the shortlist.
The reason you might do a take is that there is a producer who is interested in your creative involvement. That's flattering. If you're pounding out spec scripts, you have to work just to get someone to read your spec. Here there's already a producer.
The downside is that there is only one customer for the take. You don't own the underlying material. If the producer decides to "go a different way," all your effort is down the drain.
When I do a take, I'm rethinking the whole movie or TV show, whether it's an adaptation or a rewrite or whatever. It often ends up being 6-8 pages. That can easily take me a week. I can't really do less work than that, because I know someone else is going to be turning in a week's work, so if I'm going to do anything, it better be as good as I can make it. I suppose there are people who can get a job with a page or two, but I find I need 6-8 pages to be sure I know what the movie is.
How do you know when to turn down an opportunity to show what you can do?
The key factors are the value of the job, how much the producers like you, and above all, how many other writers the producer is talking to. Last year we did a "take" for a producer who promised our agent they were only going to a few other writers. If I wind up doing, say, four takes for four different producers, and get one job, it probably is worth my time. If I was up against a dozen writers every time, then I could spend, on average, a quarter of the year doing takes. I won't do a take if I'm up against a dozen writers.
Writers, of course, don't like it when producers go to too many writers at once. They are taking advantage. They are using up the writers' time and creative juices for nothing.
The other key factor, of course, is where your career is. If you're not busy, you can learn something from the experience of writing a take, even though you will almost certainly not get any honest feedback. The busier you are, the more confidence with which you can say, "Thanks for the thinking of me."
This question came up on Metafilter: Why doesn't mainland Europe produce as many popular music artists than UK / US? Is it purely down to the language barrier?
Supposing the premise is actually true, I think it has a lot to do with venues. Everyone starts out crap. But where do you get good?
Britain has pubs. So does Ireland. Pubs will hire crap bands to perform on an off night. The US also has lots of bars where a crap band can get their act together.
That's not true everywhere. Look at France. There are places in Paris for a good band to perform, but there are almost no places for a crap band to perform. Bands don't play in bars in Paris.
There are other factors. Canada does well exporting performers because there is a lot of protection for Canadian content in the music industry, so budding performers can get airplay. And the other factor is whether people are interested in listening to bands from their own country.
But I think the availability of venues for crap bands has a lot to do with it.
My trusty R.A., Miz Mulligan, has organized a Soirée Schmooze in Ottawa on the Summer Solstice. If you're in showbiz of any kind, including games, come hoist a glass!
