The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 154 - Be a Proactive Client

The agent/manager/client relationship is an interesting one. It's something that most of us new and aspiring writers dream about getting involved in. We often believe it'll be the solution to all of our (career-building) problems. Getting an agent or manager - at first, the idea is that any representative will do - is the first major goal of breaking into the film industry. Once that's been accomplished, they should do everything and drop everything for you. This kind of thinking can be misleading, can prove frustrating, and is in many ways just wrong. That said, once you have secured representation, there are a few key things you can do to ensure a more successful writer/representative relationship.

(Full disclosure: for anyone who hasn't been keeping up with me since day one - and apologies to people who have been - I currently have both an agent and a manager. Before that, I spent about four months with a manager who did not pan out, and a good chunk of time before that when I didn't have any representation at all. Take my advice, or leave it, with a grain or a cup of salt. All of this is based on what I've been told and what I've discovered through my interactions with my various representatives.)

As emerging talent, as my agent (who I secured in October) said, I have both a very easy and a very difficult job right now. I have to keep writing. Sounds simple enough, but the stakes have changed since I was just writing for myself. The future of my relationship with my representatives hinges on my ability to deliver product (scripts) in a timely fashion. That doesn't mean first drafts, either. The bar has been raised, and I'm charged with trying to produce two industry-ready scripts per year. It's a pretty mighty task, but this first year or two is really like testing period. Sure, the goal is to sell my post-Apocalyptic spec and set me up on other projects. But I also have to prove my ability to produce quality pages in a professional window. So, part of my job is to be proactive in terms of my writing - I have to come up with marketable ideas, and then be able to follow through with the scripts. In that way, I help my representatives and myself.

Being a proactive client doesn't end in just producing pages, though. While an agent or manager is supposed to set their writers up on meetings and get their name out into the industry, a dedicated client will try to do the same. This is where your contacts come into play. If you've held an internship or worked with someone before, and they have the power to read and maybe recommend a script, try to get that connection linked up with your reps. If you have an in at a production company, even if it's not the kind of company that does the work you're writing, let your manager or agent know. Make connections that they can follow up on on your behalf. The initial stage of your career is going to be used for building your visibility and gaining you some name-recognition. Be proactive in making connections, as well, and you'll help your representatives. After all, any help they get in marketing you, really just helps you in the end.

Hollywood Blacklist 2010

The 2010 Hollywood Black List - a compilation of 290 executives' favorite scripts of the year, which will not be in theaters in 2011 - has just been released. You can peruse the entire list here, at Deadline Hollywood.

If you've been following sales at all, a lot of these titles will probably look pretty familiar to you. Most of these have sold a while ago and, consequently, already have production companies attached to them. Like most independent film festivals, which were once intended to showcase work by new and emerging talent (but have since grown to be the release venues for A-list talent's next films), the Black List is no longer home to predominantly un-sold material by new writers. (Not to assume that it was, but in earlier years, many of the titles featured on the prestigious list had yet to attract buyers.) Now, the list is predominantly scripts that simply haven't been put into production yet, or are, but will not premiere on screens in 2011. In fact, excluding the scripts that only received five votes apiece - and there are a lot of those - you can count on one hand the projects which do not currently have a production company attached to them.

For those of us trying to break in, the list can be a mixed blessing. For one, I strongly suggest taking a look at it and reading all the loglines closely, so as to familiarize yourself with what's selling these days. These were the hot scripts of 2010. This is what the market wants. You'll start to see some patterns or similarities emerge pretty quickly in this list. No surprise there. On the other hand, since many of the ideas are reimaginings of tried and true formats, and fairly vague in logline format, you might find that your idea is up on that list. It's unfortunate, but that can happen a lot. The key to winding up on the list next year is to do your own take on something, not to mimic it entirely. While what's selling today might not be selling tomorrow, chances are rival companies are going to want to jump on the bandwagon - at least for a little bit - so you might see a market opening. Take it, if you can.

Also of note, and probably pretty obvious once you think about it, is the fact that all of these scripts have representation. This makes sense, since this list is compiled from votes by executives. For the most part, the only way to reach those people is through agents and managers. Don't be discouraged if you don't have representation yet. Just keep querying and trying to get someone to read your script. Hopefully, you'll name will be on the list next year!

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 153 - Know the Market

Screenwriting is a business. When you're a writer, you (your work) are your product. Your ideas and your talent are the good you sell, and your ability to deliver on time and be a pleasure to work with helps put you above the rest of the competition. And, like in any other business, in order to stay afloat in it - or in cases like mine, where the writer has yet to make a sale, but is trying to wiggle into the industry - you must know both the market value of the product and the market trends.

I've talked a lot in the past about the importance of knowing the market. Sites like Done Deal Pro and Deadline Hollywood help track sales and industry happenings. Track this information closely. You can tell what the value of your idea might be based on whether or not something similar (i.e. teenage vampires) has sold recently, and what it went for. If twelve teenage vampire scripts sold last month, there's probably a good chance that by the time your idea hits the right agent or producer's desk, the trend will have passed, and the next hottest tween 'tainment craze will have begun. On the other hand, if space seems to be the next frontier for Hollywood, and your agent just happened to have received the next Star Wars from you, you could be in a good spot. Similarly, if a couple big action movies just sold, and you have a tentpole action out to representation or studios, you can guesstimate what its worth by what the others went for. (Of course, your representatives are the ones who will negotiate the terms of the sale; their job is to know that X scripts are going for Y money these days. A writer in the know, though, is always a smart businessperson.)

The downside to all this information can be equally as obvious. Research done at Box Office Mojo and via the trades can and often does shed some light on the climate for certain pictures at the moment. For example, the past week, I've been developing a Middle Ages idea. Over Thanksgiving, I watched the new Robin Hood movie. It wasn't very good. More than that, it cost a lot of money, and it was not considered a huge box office or critical success. Failing on one of those two points might not be so bad, if the other lives up to hope. For both to fall short, though, can be bad news - not only for the companies and talent involved, but for the genre itself. I had a hunch that Robin Hood might have made Middle Ages movies a bit risky now, so I called my manager last week just to follow through. Sure enough, he was keen on everything about the idea, except for the fact that it was set when and where it was. Audiences did not receive the last Medieval movie well, so all future projects are (almost immediately) dubbed too risky. Especially when written by still-unknown writers.

On the other hand (and back to the positive), tracking the trend like that allowed me to get a jump on debating the viability of the project, before getting too far into the script. Imagine if, three months from now, I sent my manager a completed draft of a script, just to hear, "I like it, but we shouldn't do the Middle Ages now." That would be bu hao ("no good"). So, in addition to all the writing you're doing, if you don't do so yet, try to follow the market, as well. It can give you a much needed leg up in this difficult industry.

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 152 - No More Idleness, A Writing Resolution

Thanksgiving is over, and Christmas and New Years are right around the corner. For writers not getting paid to work, this can either be a great time to work (what with all the free time) or, more often the case, an extremely detrimental period to one's work ethic. As far as I go, I know two things to be very true for myself - 1) while my team tries to sell my post-Apocalyptic spec, I can no longer afford to miss out on any potential writing time and 2) the temptation to scale back my efforts over the holiday month is great. To avoid stagnating, I have decided that I will not succumb to the holiday slump, no matter the hours that means I will keep.

In truth, I've done little writing in November, costing myself a great deal of time. Granted, I was out of the country and not on a trip conducive to writing for two weeks. And then, promptly after my return, I left the City again for the long Thanksgiving weekend. The result is a month with little more than about a half dozen loglines to show for it. At this stage in my (hopefully) emerging career, I have to consider that entirely unacceptable. 

Part of the reason for the lack of actual writing is that I have yet to settle on a next project. My manager and I go back and forth over my ideas, many of them proving unsuited to the current market for one reason or another. I've allowed myself this difficulty in settling on a project an excuse for little momentum, and over the holiday - which proved more revelatory than I anticipated - determined that was no longer justifiable. My return to New York prompted something in me, which wants to cast off any sense of idleness. I think, actually, something I experienced overseas did that, though I can't say what it was. 

I do know, though, that the position I'm in necessitates writing. To that end, I've decided to begin outlining a project I want to work on, even before receiving my manager's blessing on it. For starters, being able to speak about it at greater length should make my pitch stronger. If nothing else, though, it will get my mind working again after a vital month which, if I am to be completely honest with myself, feels like more of a loss than a gain in terms of progress that is in my hands. I can't control what's happening with the post-Apocalyptic spec at this point, so I feel as though I can't claim any real progress it makes as my own now - not, at least, until I have something solid to follow it up with. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 151 - Developing New Ideas as Producers Read

It's been a pretty eventful two weeks, though not a lot of that time has been spent on writing. As you know, I've been out of the country exploring the Middle East and Cyprus. It was a pretty epic, pretty incredible trip. And to be honest, it was good to get away from everything for a bit, especially the post-Apocalyptic spec, since there's nothing I can really do to further any progress at this point.

While I was abroad, my team went out to some directors and big-time producers. We're still waiting to hear back from most people. Of course, not everyone will like or want the material, but part of the process right now also involves just getting my name out there and familiarizing people with my style. Ideally, even if that doesn't lead to a direct sale right now on this project, it will beget other work in the near future.

Now that I'm back in the country, I need to continue developing other script ideas. I'm working on scaling them back a bit for the time being, and as I tried to kill 13 hours in the Larnaka, Cyprus airport last week, I came up with a half dozen, fairly mainstream and "simple" ideas. I don't mean simple in terms of the idea being basic or dumb or easy. Rather, simple just means that it's easy to comprehend, conducive to an elevator pitch that doesn't require visuals and an entire world or preexisting knowledge. People can hear these ideas in 30 seconds and think, "I know that. It's like (insert well-known movie here), but with a twist." Frankly, that's the ticket right now, at least for me. 

As I mentioned in the past few weeks, the industry is still fickle at this point, and as writers trying to sell big ideas, we have to make things that are unique and new takes on something that has been tried and true. That's what I'm working on now. If nothing else, it's an interesting experiment, just seeing how many ideas I can come up with in an hour, which I'd actually want to write. If I detested them, they didn't even go down on paper. After all, I'm the one who is going to have to spend (possibly) a year on it.

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 150 - Exploring the World (and Hopefully Finding Inspiration)

It's that time again - my annual "get out of the U.S." trip. Don't get me wrong. I love the comforts of home. Compared to some of the places I've been, life in New York City is a complete luxury. Still, I find it crucial to my development as a writer to get out there and see the world, and that's what I'm doing right now.

The itinerary is three countries: Egypt, Jordan, and Cyprus. I'm taking one of those all inclusive tours (with the exception of a few meals here and there), which is a first for me. The downside is that they rush us through everything before we really have time to take in the sights, and there's little flexibility to stray from the set plan and see other things. The upswing, on the other hand, is that there's very little planning I actually have to do. As long as I'm where I'm supposed to be, when I'm supposed to be, the rest is taken care of. If only someone would chew my food for me, I'd be all set.

Enough about that, though. This trip also comes at a good time for my writing health. As you might remember from last week, I'm developing new ideas again. I still really like a handful of older ones I have, but it seems that - without source material such as a graphic novel to back it up - the market's just not secure enough to risk sending them into now. On top of working out new things, everyone involved in the post-Apocalyptic spec is still strategizing for that. This past and this current week would be too much sitting around, constantly checking email and waiting for my phone to ring for updates. Not being able to access email or phone, in fact, not being in the country, makes the wait much easier.

Sometimes, the best thing a writer can do to get back on the proverbial writing horse is to get as far away from writing as possible. One of the stories we used to hear a lot in school was how one of our professors poured everything he had into one final script while he was trying to break in, then took what little money he had and went to China. He wanted to get as far away from it all as possible. If nothing came of the script, then fine. He'd tried with all his might. But, as it would happen, his agent managed to track him down in China, and one day, that writer got a call telling him to get on the next plane back to L.A. His career had begun. I'm not expecting something like that to happen now, but it just goes to show you - sometimes distance is what the doctor ordered.

The Writing Week (Vol. 3) part 149 - The Dependence on Source Material

The further I get into the industry (and that's still not incredibly far, yet), the more I hear people talk about the importance of source material. If you're unsure what I mean, 'source material' here describes existing material, which your script is based on. It can include anything from books or graphic novels, to other movies or even paintings. Basically, it's something that studio heads and producers can look at as already having found an audience (even if it's a very small one), which makes them more comfortable with backing your big idea. 

A prime example is Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove (and my favorite western). He wrote an epic script about rangers who drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Montana. No one wanted it. He then wrote an epic - 900+ - page book based on it. It was an in-demand property. He quickly tweaked his existing script and sold it as a four-part miniseries. Go Larry.

What this all means, more or less, is that your awesome superhero movie idea, while indeed quite awesome, is less likely to get greenlit than a movie about a third tier superhero that a dozen people read about each month is. Why? Because the product is already in place. More than that, there are already visuals that the writer (or director, or producer, or whoever) can produce in a pitch meeting. You have an idea - and even a script - which is great. What you don't have is a comic book you can point to and say, "look, here is is, hitting something!" It sucks, but I'm finding it's true. 

In the past few months, as I work out future projects I want to develop, I find myself butting up against this 'source material' wall. Superhero stuff - unless a rarity like The Incredibles or Hancock - is basically not gonna happen without a comic book it's based on. Giant sci-fi epics (unless you're James Cameron) are in the same place. For emerging and unproduced writers now, the waters of the market are cold and rough, and a simple, one-sentence pitch of an idea are (perhaps unfortunately) some of the safest boats. Heat worked, so how can you do Heat with a unique spin? That's what you'll be asked.

Of course, I don't want to limit anyone. I was talking with Onyx about this last week, and he reminded me of something important, worth keeping in mind. Sure, it's tough to launch your own The Matrix without source material, but a couple big sales can make all the difference. A tried and true writer can get a lot more experimental than a newbie. So, for the time being, I know that some of my ideas are going on the back burner. I'll keep working on them intermittently, with the hope of one day being that tried and true writer. Then, look out. Something awesome will happen.