Tag Archives: Jeff Willis

I’m constantly amazed by attempts at what they think is networking by writers trying to break into the film or TV business.

A few Sundays ago at about Nine PM (at night!) my cell phone rang with an LA area code. Now, on Sunday night I do have a tendency to not answer my phone if it’s somebody or a number I don’t know. But this time… I answered it.

On the other end was a female voice that said, “Hi Bob, I’m sure you don’t remember me.”, then proceeded to give her name. She was right. “You acted in a film with my son about ten years ago.” She then named the film. That didn’t help either. I remember the film (I just got a 4 cent residual check from it), just not her or her son.

My answer of “Uh. Ok.” didn’t faze her in the least. She plowed ahead.

“Well anyway, we were watching a Hallmark Christmas film last night. You know, the one with the Elf.” (Yes, I know it.) “And we saw your name on the credits. Are you the Bob Saenz who wrote it?”

This then became one of those moments where you can say, “Nope. Must be another Bob Saenz. Sorry.” and hang up the phone and go back to watching Punch Drunk Love on cable with your wife.

OR… you can say, “How the hell did you get my number? It’s Sunday Night. SUNDAY NIGHT!”

OR… you can say, like I did, “Yes, that was me.” and open a Pandora’s Box of requests from the owner of the phone on the other end.

That night’s requests from a woman I do not know:

1. Can you please give me your complete list of contacts/producers that I can send my script to? (Uh… no.)

2. Who could I possibly get to read my script and then get it to people who would buy it, make it, and cast it with the actors I have in mind, and pay me a million dollars, all immediately? (ok.. this wasn’t exactly what she asked, but this is the subtext version)

3. Why aren’t you jumping at the chance to help attain my dreams? (again, subtext)

4. Help me Obiwan Kenobe you’re my only hope. (begging is so ugly)

I was polite, firm, and because my wife was sitting in the room, understanding. I told the woman about the Black List, InkTip, Trigger Street, and Zoetrope. Places to post her script and get feedback, if she wanted to pay or trade reads. Again, she didn’t understand. Why wouldn’t I just give her my contacts or read her script?

I excused myself, thanked her for calling, and hung up knowing it wouldn’t be the last call, tweet, or email on the subject and she wouldn’t be the last one to try this. She wasn’t the first either.

There’s an art to networking. Well, not so much an art as an integrity. Only if you want to do it right. And doing it right is the only way it works.

Networking is all about building honest relationships with people. Yes, they are people in the business you wish to be in. Yes, they may have some influence (unlike me who at this point in my career, have little). Yes, if you have something of value to offer they may take a chance and help you. But this all happens after they LIKE you. And getting people to like you isn’t something that instantly happens.

It’s about developing friendships and relationships that are meaningful to all concerned. It doesn’t mean you have to hang and party and name your children after them. It can purely be on a professional level, but it does mean the person you are trying to network with doesn’t think you’re trying to USE them to get what YOU want. A one way street that only you go down.

It means that sometimes when you communicate with people you’re networking with it has nothing at all to do with you.  You call to ask how they are. You ask about their family. Their accomplishments. You read something about them or hear something about them and send a congratulatory Email, because you are GENUINELY happy for them and expect nothing in return.

When I was acting, I met all kinds of people on set. All kinds of sets. Film. TV. Commercials. Industrials. I developed relationships through friendship before the topic of my writing ever came up and sometimes waited until they asked ME if they could read my work. Or asked me to pitch my scripts (which, thank you most always led to reads). And yes, of course I asked people to read or asked to pitch, but only after it was clear there was no one way street.

I’ve met all kinds of people online. Directors, other writers, editors, DPs, Producers… at IMDb, DoneDealPro, Twitter, even on Facebook… and developed real lasting friendships. Real honest friendships.

Have these friendships led to successful work relationships? Yep. Some have. Some have been amazing (I won’t name any names Jeff Willis) And in some cases, I have tried to help people I've networked with because I WANT TO. Something friends do for each other.

Networking takes time. It takes being genuine in your efforts. It takes patience. It takes not being selfish.

I have true meaningful relationships with people in the film business that started with networking and grew to be so important to me that if I never had any business relationships with them, I would still want them to be my friends. You all know who you are.

OH… one more thing. If your scripts aren’t GREAT, networking doesn’t work no matter how well you do it.

I’m going to step back for a moment and thank a couple of directors who calmed my nerves and helped me get ready to direct this short film. Elise Robertson, a wonderful LA director, who told me if I didn’t direct this she’d kick my ass. And one of my closest friends, my collaborator, experienced director, and film directing professor at Chapman’s Film School, Jay Lowi, who loaded me up with all kinds of knowledge I had to cram into my head in about three days. He was the one who told me to edit each scene in my head as I shot it so I wouldn’t forget a shot or to find a shot I hadn’t conceived of to complete what I imagined to be the finished scene. It was brilliant simple advice and it worked.

I spent the few days I had before shooting getting my shot lists together and breaking down each day's shooting schedule. I also looked at the film as a whole to decide what tone, overall look, and recurring themes I would use to advance the story visually. I broke down each character so I could communicate to the principle actors what I wanted each one to distinctly portray.  Again… there was NO SCRIPT, just an outline so this was important.

I was unbelievably fortunate to get such wonderful actors who were open to my sometimes strange ideas and spur of the moment concepts. This film wouldn’t have turned out so well without the great performances and the special things they brought and added on their own.

I’ve also been fortunate to be on sets with some iconic directors as a minor league actor. Coppola (twice), Ron Howard, Clint Eastwood (twice), David Fincher… the thing they all have in common, that I could see, is that they hire good crew people, tell them what they want, and LET THEM DO THEIR JOBS. I saw no micro-managing and that freed them up to direct. To do their job and get their vision on film. Yes, the buck stops with them, but it’s a less crazy buck. I attempted to do the same thing in my small way on this film. And it worked. You trust people and mostly they respond with their best work.

But what I really loved about directing was the rush I got from it on set. How it just opened up floodgates of creativity in everyone. How as a director you can see something in a rehearsal or a first take and that makes you come up with the one thing that makes that scene special. Something you would have never thought of writing the script. This was an eye-opener for me as a writer. And will help me in the future throwing out my preconceived notions and personal ownership of my own writing and trust other directors do what they need to do with it. It was a GREAT letting go of ego lesson.

Once we were done shooting, I realized my job was not even half through. Post production, editing, sound effects, reshoots (yeah, reshoots), original music, titles, color correction, who knows what else.

Editing is surprisingly fun, especially if you have an amazing uber-experienced editor that has been recommended by a great director (who actually puts in a very good word for you with the editor).

Rick LaCompte is that film editor. Not a short film editor. His CV is filled with successful films. The posters from those films cover the walls of his huge work space. He even said, “I don’t usually do short films.” Again, I am amazed and grateful for my good fortune. Thank You God.

He proceeded to give me an eye-opening education on the art of editing. And it is an art. He is patient, understanding, endlessly creative, and honest. It didn’t take but about half a second to trust him completely. He didn’t let me down either. He has an uncanny talent for looking at all the footage for a scene as a whole and then effortlessly manipulating it to make it look better than you pictured it. And then building from there, remembering the smallest things he’d done in past scenes to achieve the tone, the look, and theme threads I told him I wanted for the film. An artist. I cannot recommend him more highly.

Yes, the reshoots. Even though I thought I was so careful with everything, I did not get two transition shots I needed for the final action sequence. Bad me. No one’s fault but mine. The film doesn’t work without these shots and as much a magician as Rick is, we couldn’t work around it. So, in the next three weeks I’ll shoot the scenes. Thank goodness the actors and the DP are game. When you miss shots you recorded on a Red camera, you can’t just film them on your IPhone and hope no one will notice. So I have to rent the camera again for a day, too. I complained to Jay Lowi about my stupidity and he laughed and said, “Happens to everybody. Just chill and go do it.” He’s my hero.

Until the reshoots, I can work on sound effects with Rick and original music with my composer, Thomas Tissot. And baby, am I lucky to get him. He’s a creative, fun musician and I can’t wait to see what he’ll come up with. I’m getting him now before I can’t afford him anymore. He’s got a BIG future. And I’m meeting tomorrow with a title effects guy to do something special with the main title. We’ll see if he can do what I want and how much it’ll cost if he can.

This small experience as a director is going to make me a better writer. It already has.

I had time to do all this because for the last two months, I’ve been unemployed and it afforded me the time to get a lot of the post-production done. Well, unemployed until yesterday. Got word from a production company that a script I wrote with my good friend, Jeff Willis, is heading for production and they need a rewrite. Now. So, after we get the notes next week, we’ll be starting on that. And I’ll leave the composing to Thomas and free up a day to reshoot what I missed while we write.

My goal is a finished film by March first. Ok. Mid-March. (I don’t want to scare Thomas) And to have a director sample I would be proud to show any executive. I think I will.

Most people this time of year make New Year’s Resolutions. Me? I do my best not to because I know myself and I know I’ll never keep any of them. I never have.

I do have some goals for 2014 though. One of them is to make it as good as 2013, professionally.

Personally, 2013 mostly sucked gas, especially for my fabulous wife, lots of loss and health concerns. I won’t bore you with the details, but I am hopeful 2014 is better for us that way and especially for her.

For my writing career, it was nothing short of miraculous.  One sold script (with a writing partner), four production rewrite jobs, one cable TV series episode job, two produced films. I got to visit the set of one of those films for a day and see them film something I wrote. I never got to visit the sets of my first two produced films in 2012, even though I was invited. This year I got to. The producer was mega gracious and immediately asked a PA to get me a director’s chair and set it up next to his so I could see the monitors. The director pulled me onto the set and explained how he was setting the shots up. The crew was friendly and engaging. The actors thanked me for writing such a good script. (Whether they meant it or not is inconsequential) It was like hundreds of daydreams coming true. I pinched myself a lot that day.

My dark comic thriller sped its way to a 2014 start date with some amazing attachments. I got a nice acting job in a very funny film and enjoyed it a lot. It’s been three years since I did a film only as an actor and it was FUN.  I directed my first short film. It was a ton of work and a ton of fun and the jury's still out, in editing now.  I think it'll be funny. And this month, to put a big bow on the year and thanks to the Black List, I optioned a big commercial comedy to a very successful production company. And everybody paid me on time. A good year.

Uh oh. Did I dream it? I just looked at what I wrote and it seems too good to be true.

Well, I also got yelled at by my manager a few times. I didn’t write one original script the whole year. He also told me to either update my website (which I hadn’t done in three years) or dump it. I updated it and added the blog. I also lost out on some writing gigs and got some disappointing passes along the way, too. And I got rousted by US Marshalls at gun point while traveling on an AmTrak train, something I’d rather not have happen again. Hmmm, the list of not so good things is filling my head now, so I’ll stop ruminating about 2013.

GOALS FOR 2014:

Lose 40 pounds. Big one. Have to. For my health. For my family. For me. Not a resolution. A goal. This one is gonna be the hardest. Why I bought a treadmill and put it next to my desk in my office. It will NOT collect dust.

Write three new originals, at least one with my sometime writing partner Jeff Willis. (I’ll do a whole blog one day on how ultra cool this guy is and how much he deserves all the accolades he’s been getting lately.)

Have at least two films shot. (The aforementioned Dark Comic Thriller and a romantic comedy I wrote with Jeff that we sold last year)

Option a couple more scripts.

Get a couple of good rewrite jobs. Maybe get to adapt a book.

Maybe write a book. Maybe.

Get an agent. Yeah. I know. I still don’t have one. I have a wonderful manager though.

Couple of acting jobs would be nice.

Realize I’m asking for too much.

And the one that will happen for sure, keep trying to give back.

When I first started to try and do this writing thing a whole bunch of people in this business helped me out beyond what I could have ever expected. They encouraged me to keep at it. They championed my work. They got me through doors I could have never dreamed of getting to, let alone through. The help I received was staggering.

I promised myself I would do the same thing if I was ever in a position to do so. I’m not completely in that position yet. I’m still on the fringes of this business, but I do love to encourage writers and believe that there is room for anyone to succeed.

So… to my family, all my friends, colleagues, business partners, writers I know, writers I don’t know, I wish you all a beautiful 2014 filled with your dreams coming true and big pots of gold at the end of every rainbow. But mostly I wish you personal satisfaction, because that… is what pays the most.