Getting script reads (The Job Interview trick)

Dude. Hilarious. The most real take on Hollywood I've read on this board. I'll hire you to sit in front of a camera and tell your story for "Hollywood Horror Stories: Tales from Writers At Sea." Excellent post.

It's not a bad approach, Zag.

We walk a fine line between pestering these people and trying to draw attention to our work. We are expected to go to LA and knock on doors. Writers, like myself, who do not are not considered as dedicated (my opinion) as those writers actually in the fight in LA. Even if you are considered a pest, that will become a bonus if they like your work.

In the end, it all comes down to your ability to turn a phase.

Excellent info. But this is too good of a trick to put on the boards. Maybe you want to retract it before everybody finds out.

Sounds interesting, but I'm a terrible liar and I don't think I could pretend to apply for a job without a major guilt complex overcoming me. I also don't live in LA, so I guess I'll stick to the old query process.

If you're in LA, and by some strange twist they offer you the job, TAKE IT!

That would be hilarious if you didn't though.

"Looks great, the job is yours."

"Oh, I wasn't really here for the job, I just wanted you to read my script. So, when do I get a contract?"

"..."

zagoraz said:

In that moment, when faced with having to reject someone face to face or take your script, 9 times out of 10, they take it....

Click to expand...

...and toss it in the trash as soon as you leave?

I may be in a minority here, but if my script isn't good enough to get read without resorting to cheap mind games. I'd rather it wasn't produced at all.
But that's just me.

Getting a script (a) physically somewhere and (b) read are so wildly different. I'd call OP's method ingenious and filmworthy in itself, but no guarantee of (b) for one hell of a lot of work.

I think that schemes like this carry a huge 'backfire-in-face' risk, and unless you're doing it as part of a Borat-type documentary, I'd recommend the more traditional route. If your work is good an agent or prod co. will at least read it and comment on it. Hell, they might even run with it!

Bmwhtly & Hillgate --

The "normal" way of submitting a screenplay is 100% worthless, in my opinion. Have you been to Hollywood? Some of the people in charge are illiterate ADD dyslexics with uncles or parents in the biz and they are far more likely to respond to Zag's sneaky approach than to EVER have anything to do with an MS sent in the mail. The Writer's Digest protocol of queries and crossing transoms disappeared just as the Internet and e-mail showed up, around 1998. Not one greenlight in California in the past five years came from a screenplay "mailed-in."

Zag's advice to listen to some 27-year-old's description of his job or his life is spot-on. If you listen out here, you're tagged as being "wise." They will call you, and not the other way around. There's still no money in it, as Zag also writes about the PA shuttle.

But Hollywood is also the domain of smart, ambitious executives who are looking for the next "Sideways" or "Little Miss Sunshine," and they know a commercial deal when they see or hear it. These people NEVER see a "mailed-in" screenplay, and certainly NEVER read a query. Every screenplay comes from a known source: a production company, a writer already connected, in-house producers (perhaps the majority), or from agents, lawyers and managers who are on a first-name basis or whose agencies have weight. I've written many times before on these boards that the only way in for the amateur is to get a lawyer or an agent or a manager. I've been out here almost four years, and that paradigm keeps getting more concrete: lawyer, agent, manager, in that order of importance. And I think in another five years even lawyers will be shut out or at least divided into the camp with access (smaller) and the rest with ambition. The latter will then go through the former to the people who can give a script any attention, let alone a thumb's up.

Of course people's writing dreams depend on the kind of silly insider tips from Writer's Digest and its ilk, but I've seen countless times that Hollywood's dreamers are bypassed by its schemers, exactly the sort of opportunistic wheelers represented by Zag. You make a contact, you make a friend, you make the friend come to you for ideas and advice, and then you can begin to pitch. Unfortunately, you can't do it from Oshkosh. I'd love to move to Nashville and have access to cheap musicians for my projects; I'd love to move to St. Paul and take advantage of the young blood creatives there; I’d love to move to a cabin outside Berkeley Springs and enjoy the West Virginia quiet and calm; I’d love to be in Santarem or Oaxaca or Socotra, writing, shooting, creating; I’d love to escape this place and the outrageous $2300 rent . . . But I can’t, because I’m totally dependent on the tiny lifeline threading out of Culver City or Universal Studios or Studio City or even the legal offices in Santa Monica. This is where the break is, and this is where you have to surf or admit that writing screenplays is a hobby and head for the mountains and type away, perhaps buoyed by the illusion that I can “send something in” and hit the target.

The good news is that the sky is deep blue today, and it’s warm enough to wear a T-shirt if you’re not in the hills, and rent for a one-bedroom on Hollywood Blvd is as low as a grand a month including the use of a heated swimming pool. For a writer who wants to be in the movie business, why wouldn’t you be out here in the movie business? And for those writers who respond that they’re stuck in lives in Ohio or Yorkshire or Switzerland, why not make a movie about your plight? Check out “Tarnation.” That’s the easiest way into Hollywood.

And a personal note: I pay the crazy rent in Laurel Canyon because I can make a movie deal in the convenience store with my neighbors. There are three projects right now (a documentary and two foreign-language ultra-lows) in my hands which have sprouted from 100% casual conversations with neighbors and acquaintances. But I’m not really interested in collaboration, especially on new things, so I make my own projects slowly, slowly come to life and wait to drop examples on the starving lawyers and erstwhile “bankers” out here. And an added benefit is that investors (bored 50-year-olds with cash or large lines of credit) call me EVERY SINGLE DAY to see when they can write a check “to get involved,” and they’re calling from New York or Washington or Atlanta and are completely seduced by Hollywood and the Hills and Laurel Canyon. I go to Home Depot on Tuesday to buy a $14 hummingbird feeder so we can photograph these charming creatures on the deck, and the European 48-year-old real estate mogul staying at my place decides right there in the garden section that he wants to fund my fifty-grand Farsi bikini-babe-assassinates-oil-execs movie, and wants to write that check. But what about the vein surgeon in San Clemente who is Persian and thinks he’s a movie producer because he makes YOGA videos and who wants to be an actor in this movie and HE wants to fund it? And what about the disco king from Sunset Boulevard who wants to cast the Iranian actors, and what about the Iranian publisher who wants to play the detective? They all have access to money. As long as we’re talking under $100,000, no problem. And there is no script. No screenplay. I’m writing a love story and trying to produce a TV show, and in ten days on the East Coast eleven people will tell me they want to get out of real estate or retail or writing contracts and get into the movie business. That’s how sexy even the most tangential but credible connection to Hollywood can be.

If I was 27 and had the gab and could spell and had good handwriting, I’d make a movie for four grand in Peoria, move to LA and get into the New Media (youtube and the other net video junk) and look for a publisher who does not want to play by the rules. You couldn’t do this for two years before you get job offers or sell an idea, oops, script.

But to do it the way Writer’s Digest suggests is utterly hopeless. In my opinion.

That's why God invented these strange things with wings. I think they're called aeroplanes. And those little funny things with a wire (sometimes not). I think they're telephones. And what's even crazier is the internet. If everyone thought they had to be in LA to be in LA then you'd be paying a lot more than US$2,300 rent. BTW - that's not much by London standards. You get a cardboard box underneath Waterloo Bridge for that.

I agree you need to be near a centre of 'action', but there are a few of those, and some 'LA' people can't stand to be in LA. I don't think it's got anything to do with rental levels.

I don't think everyone's totally seduced by the 'LA allure', much as I love the thought of the crazy money...

But good luck to you! It's good to hear about life near the beach, although I have to say that the one near me's not bad either and it was about 72 degrees today...

Not to mention everyone in the film business does not exist in LA. They are all over the world. Yes, even here in Utah. And I've read a couple of interviews at least of scriptwriters who first gained contact through a query which later led to inverviews and assignments and no, not all of them lived in LA.

No disrespect Seanie, but I cannot accept the "You must live in LA to succeed." because I cannot live there. I have a family that I'm not willing to sacrifice just for the sake of some money and my name on something.

I have to believe that I can make it on my own. I have to believe that my writing will stand out if it's good enough regardless of my zipcode.

I am a strong believer in anything is possible even though I know not everything is possible.

Maybe that's the romantic side of me but there you go, you won't find me quitting any time soon simply because I don't live in the "right" area.

Well said icerose! I have a family too and I'd ensure a 6 bed 7 bath Bev Hills rental plus private schools paid for by the studio before I'd move there. And I'd want my own tennis court. And my own masseuse. And she better be Swedish...do they have those in LA?

seanie blue said:

The "normal" way of submitting a screenplay is 100% worthless, in my opinion.

Click to expand...

So, no-one who doesn't resort to cheap tricks to get their scripts into the hands of someone in "the biz" has any chance of getting anything done? This is what you believe?
And if you go to a job interview, some middle manager from Human Resources interviews you. He doesn't think your good enough to earn $10 an hour but he'll happily take your script. He'll read it, he'll decide that this is a million-dollar idea. Then the HR guy goes to the head of acquisitions for the studio, hands them the script and says "A guy came in for that mail-room position and left this script, it's genius"
The head of the studio reads it and agrees. You become rich, women fall at your feet, velvet ropes part.
And not one bit of that seems less likely than submitting a script and getting accepted?

icerose said:

Not to mention everyone in the film business does not exist in LA.

Click to expand...

Yes, Ice, spot on.
Cinema is a global market.
Sure, Hollywood blockbusters are made in Hollywood. So what?
This may come as a shock, but the whole world makes films. Even people in America but *gasp* not in LA.


Or, at least, that's the way I see it.

There is only one way to get your scripts read....


Ready?


Here it comes...


Getting the feel of anticipation?


It's a doozy?


There isn't any one way.



You can do what the OP says but chances are the script gets thrown out because that person was forced into accepting it. But if it has a killer premise or killer logline or killer title, then maybe.

You can move to LA and wait on tables until Speilberg comes in for his monthly plate of Calimari. Then again, you still need those killer titles, loglines, premise, etc...

You can stand naked on the corner of Willshire blvd... But you better have that killer title and such tatooed on your butt.

But the only true way you will get read is to keep submitting, over and over and over again.

Get your name out there, whether it be competitions, festivals, parties, networking, friends, friends of friends, whatever... Write a book, write articles, write poems on bathroom stalls, write a comic, take that little job of doing a student filmmakers short. Keep busy and keep getting your name out there. Tell everyone you know what you are doing. Make a webpage, do a blog, do email blasts through scriptblster, join inktip and scriptpimp. Do whatever you can and can afford.

Because... Whenever comes the day that a call, email or letter from (insert your name here) lands on someone's desk and they say "Hey. I think I heard of this person." Then and only then will they read your stuff.

Of course, you need to have a) killer title and b) killer logline and c) the right type of story they are looking or itching to make at that moment in time and space.

A great script will not be sold to someone because it is great. They have to be in the mood, they have to have the money and they have to be in love with your story as much as you are. Look how many people passed on great scripts. Not because they were stupid, but because they had other great (even if it was in their own mind) scripts that they were thinking of buying or already in production for.

::JUST ADDED:: Case in point. Mike Uslan (Batman Begins) loved my script and may have bought it, BUT... He is busy for the next ten years! He gave my name to a few people and they read it, but they didn't love it not to the level he did. Timing as well as a great story go hand in hand. If I had sent it to him a year earlier... well... things could have been much different.

Click to expand...

So I commend the OP for the scheme, because he/she got off their butt and did something. That is what I tell everyone. Do something, anything. Just don't sit there and complain about where you live or what you do or how much you have. DO SOMETHING.

Whoa. I don't think Los Angeles is the right place to live. It may not even be the right place to BE. You certainly do not need to be here to write a screenplay!! I agree with all that.

My post was a response to the idea that what Zag is doing is somehow sneaky or might back-fire. Getting into the biz most definitely requires face-time, in Lalaland, UNLESS YOU GET A LAWYER OR AN AGENT in which case you need never come to the place. But a lot of people on these boards are writing screenplays with the intent of "making it" in the film industry. They're copying the ridiculous high-cost junk from Scorsese and looking up addresses in the Hollywood Creative Directory, and for those people I would advocate a complete relocation to Los Feliz or even Glendale.

You can make it in the film industry by coming out here and getting a job. Might take seven years, but you'll get all the opportunities you need to show what you have. (And there are a lot of people in the 8+ years category whining about not having a chance because of a conspiracy and, believe me, they never had a chance to begin with. [Usually, in my experience, because they cannot or will not study film beyond Tarantino and Eastwood, which isn't studying but slumming IMO.]) Being sneaky is a huge advantage.

Or you can make it in the film industry by actually . . . making . . . a movie! Even one for two thousand bucks. Of all the posters I read here, it seems to me that Icerose is in the best position to make a movie. Utah, family, incredible long odds, indomitable spirit; a neighbor with an $800 camera could make a very interesting doc.

Or you can make it in the film industry by the longest of all shots, which is to write a screenplay. Only two dozen of these things, max, get bought every month for an amount over $50K, in ALL OF HOLLYWOOD. That's 300 screenplays, max max max max, a year with a price of over fifty thousand dollars. Last time I checked, most families need at least half that amount of money to survive for a year. Even people with Oscar nominations have trouble selling screenplays; I know, I was the director of record for one for almost a year before I came to my senses and realized I couldn't make a $5-million movie if my life depended on it and in the middle of a Thai dinner in Santa Monica I told the writer I was dropping out. Due to my incompetence, in my opinion, and because I have better things to do, in his opinion.

And it's this third option that I constantly refer to when advising how to approach a lawyer in particular and the industry in general. If you're going to write a screenplay, sending it in the mail to a stranger is like throwing it out of an aeroplane and hoping a page lands somewhere useful. I think hiring a lawyer for $300 for two hours, or $150 for one hour, to talk strategy and explain your story is the best option; if he likes the story, or if he likes you, he'll push you or sell you or carry your cross. If he doesn't like you or your idea, he pockets $150 and you have the very valuable knowledge that your screenplay is probably worthless.

Ad if any one of these three options actually work and you become the darling writer of the moment, then you can turn tail on Hollywood. This is certainly my intent. The water is too cold to swim in, and I would rather be somewhere where the local people tell you who they are, straight up, without the glossy B.S. And there is a sheen of desperation in every short skirt and vodka smile, a hint of panic in every nodding chin or lifted eyebrow, which also makes the city singularly unpleasant.

But to get your screenplay read, if that is the actual ambition and not a statement of self-delusion, some kind of approach to the gates is necessary, and Zag in the first post here provided a very concrete strategy which trumps every carefully packaged MS with its shiny letter of introduction sent five thousand times a day from post offices all over America. The groans that greet every screenplay! If the constant thought of the local people in Warsaw is "Sit down and shut up," I'd say the equivalent here is "Not another one!"

seanie blue said:

Only two dozen of these things, max, get bought every month for an amount over $50K, in ALL OF HOLLYWOOD. That's 300 screenplays, max max max max, a year with a price of over fifty thousand dollars.

Click to expand...

Where are you getting those numbers?

You may be right if you are talking only about sales to studios or producers with studio shingles (which in that case the average sale price would be closer to 100K). MOV, Direct to cable, Direct to DVD, Small indies, festival pieces account for more than 75% of all screenplay sales. Now of course the average sale price for these would be less, but were talking about productivity. We're talking about building a career. Even doctors only expect to make a fraction of thier salary just out of med school. It takes years to build up to a high paying level.

Do you think Haggis got a million a script when he was writing for Love Boat or Walker Texas Ranger? Of course not. It takes time to build up a career and that's what everyone here wants.... Not to get rich of a sale but to establish a career where one day they can retire in comfort (isn't that what every person who works wants?) .

And let's not get into options which account for over 80% of all money received by writers every year. A good friend of mine hasn't sold a script in ten years but manages a comfortable living by optioning a half dozen scripts each year.

Yes. I would agree that the average bottom line for any writer would be close to 50K, but that is a starting point in a career. Hell! I know writers who sold their first script for a $1000, but ended up in the WGA and their second script sold was union scale.


I'm in a ranting mood. Please don't take any offense to length of rebuttal. It happens sometimes.

P.S. I just called a friend who works in the Story Dept at one of the big studios and she told me that they (the company itself and not any individual producer) bought approximately 70 screenplays last year. Keep in mind that is one of a dozen major studios.

Click to expand...

seanie blue said:

They're copying the ridiculous high-cost junk from Scorsese and looking up addresses in the Hollywood Creative Directory, and for those people I would advocate a complete relocation to Los Feliz or even Glendale.

Click to expand...

What's wrong with Glendale? <she types, from her $800/mo apartment in Glendale> I actually used to live in Los Feliz <g>.

*

I've lived in LA for 8 years (4 of those were film school) and I don't know that you have to live here to make it. Everyone who lives here is so disillusioned. You have no option but to run into bitter screenwriters and it really affects your work. You all end up writing the same bad scripts. And then after 10 years of trying to 'make it' in LA -- all of your experiences are LA. And no one wants to buy another script about Hollywood. It's a good place to be if you want to write for TV. But otherwise I think you can get an agent and/or get contacts from anywhere. I think there are some advantages to meeting people in LA, if you are the kind of outgoing person who would actually meet people and sell yourself. But I think that after a year or two you've done all you're going to do here.

I see what you are saying now Seanie. Personally I don't think I'm interesting enough to appear on film or in a book, but that's another matter.

My approach is less daring, but I do seem to be gaining ground, even if only in my mind.

I look up production companies, usually small but with good solid credits who are open to submissions, send them queries that I have polished and have recieved positive reactions. I've gotten about a 65% read request in the last 3 or so months. I don't know if that is good or bad.

I recently had request by phone which was surreal, even now, I don't know where it will lead.

I have two shorts slated for production this year. One is planned to be part of a series that has distribution on sci-fi or something like that, whether or not it goes through, we'll see. The second is for film festivals, hopefully it will happen as I'm told that is a good place to get your work out there.

All I can do is write, edit, submit, repeat. I'll let you know if it ever works out.

I know no one likes the fact, but Seanie Blue is mostly correct.

Sure, other places have opportunities: Austin, New York, London, Canada, Austrailia, Bollywood are but a few.

Still, all combined, I doubt they have the opportunities LA presents. Writers can work in low-paying jobs which do lead to better opportunities. If you want to slug it out in the trenches of Hollywood, and you have talent, you can make it.

Still, Zepro is right, the whole film making population gets stuck in the Hollywood rut. Producers see the same rehashed crap over and over.

That said, a writer's screenplay can succeed from Peoria or Westwego. It must be fresh and well-writen. That's what the producers want, something new to grab the audience. Mostly, they want a finished product people will pay to see more than once.

All a writer needs is someone to read their screenplay and like it. It starts up the ladder from there. Bottom tier readers bump scripts up every day. Fifteen years or so ago that happened to me. The script supervisor liked a few more of my ideas and hooked me up with an agent. Of course, the show got cancelled on me. Bad luck, so what. I was urged then to go to LA for work. I don't remember if a paying job was on the table or not. For many reasons I passed. I might still pass today, probably would.

Screenplays seem a great deal tougher to market, but at least it won't get cancelled on a whim.

Bottom line, a writer probably will see more paying work in LA, but you can make it from anywhere. People do win lotteries.

SB, what do we owe you?

I mean, you can't just be giving this away for free.

Oh, you are giving it away, but no one wants to hear it. Good.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Ignore SB. Just spouting nonsense is all.

No, I am not saving any of these posts. I am not using them as the starting point for a plan of action. Not me. Nope. And I'd advise you all to do the same.

Okay Odo.

Play nice. SB is giving a harsh reality that is true in some respects. I only complained about some actual numbers used.

But just as much as someone says to move to LA, there are those that make it regardless of local.

There is no one way to make it, except hard work, perseverance and above all-- great scripts and lots of luck.