Tag Archives: The Black List

Been a little bit since my last blog. Lots of stuff happening. Finished a brand spanking new, kinda based on a real thing, comedy script spec I love with a new writing partner that I love writing/working with. Multiple trips to LA. Surprising meetings with studios. Meetings with some people I want to work with and meetings with people I never want to see again let alone work with. Meetings with cool friends I cherish. New life on a dark/comedy pilot I thought might go away, which is a good thing because it’s a killer concept. Other projects seem to be moving forward, one in particular is speeding, and loads of people I respect are asking/demanding to read the new spec.

Some personal family health hurdles to get over, which they did and received a Gold Medal for. Thank You God.

Life is good. I know you didn’t ask, but I need to announce it from the rooftops.

Now, let’s talk about being the Exception.

You know, those writers who dropped their script into the lap of a sleeping star on an airplane and it was made into a hit film. Or the writer who put their script into a pizza box and delivered it to CAA and got signed. Or the writer who slid their script under a restroom stall to that big director who made it his next film. Or the writer that got a star map, printed a dozen scripts, and threw them over the walls and fences at the Stars homes and the bidding war for the script that ensued afterward. Or the writer who made like he was delivering a singing telegram to a producer and ended his song by handing his script to the producer and the joyous celebration the two of them had afterward.

Yes, these things have all happened... the results didn’t, but the writers did make fools out of themselves trying these desperate and really unprofessional ways to get their work read.

There has been nothing that hasn’t been tried unsuccessfully, many times. Nothing. You may think it’s original, but it’s not. I have heard the stories from people who have been subject to this loonyness. It amazes them, it frustrates them, it pisses them off. In Amy Poehler’s new book, she talks about this invasion of personal space with an example of the time she was asleep on a subway in New York and someone dropped a script in her lap, waking her up. She was not happy. She was not nice. And I don’t blame her.

Who wants their personal space invaded? No one. Yet some writers seem to think this is fair game because once they heard a story from someone or another who knew a guy who knew someone who gave Coppola a script on a plane and it got made. This is how urban legends live on, because people need them to be true to justify their desperate actions.

Do people throw their software ideas over Bill Gate’s fence. Or their design ideas for a new Tesla under Elon Musk’s bathroom stall? Hell no. Why is this industry any different? Well, because it isn’t.

What the writers who try this craziness don’t realize is that producers buy writers as much as they buy writing. Why do you think they want to meet with the writers before they buy or option anything? To get a feel for who the writers are and if they can work with them. You know what they think of writers who do these over the line things to get their script read? Not a hell of a lot. The line, “Get off of my lawn!” comes to mind.

Hollywood as a business is amazingly risk averse right now, as if you couldn’t tell with all the sequels, remakes, and comic book films. One of the things they are really averse to is the uptick in law suits from writers who are sure their idea or script was stolen. That’s why no one will take any script that hasn’t been requested or brought to them by someone they trust. It’s too risky and they’d be flooded with scripts. They get enough scripts the right way as it is. Why do you think it takes so long to get a read once you’ve sent a requested script?

But... But... you don’t understand, Bob. I’m going to be the exception to the rule. It’s going to work for me because I’m brilliant and my script is brilliant and my film needs to be seen by audiences everywhere.

I can't tell you how many times I've read or heard this attitude. And then when their script get no traction, it's always everything but the script's fault.

I will say what I always say and will continue to say, GREAT SCRIPTS FIND A WAY. They don’t always get made, but they can make careers. If you’re not getting traction from your script from querying or reads or contests or sites like the Blacklist, you need to take a hard look at yourself and your script and face the fact that maybe it isn’t the people rejecting the script, but the script itself. Every writer has had to face this. Every writer who is a success now. What did they do? They didn’t get mad and feel sorry for themselves or blame anyone else. They pulled up their big boy/girl pants and wrote another one. And another one, working to get that one great script to get them noticed. Work.

You aren’t going to be the exception because there are none. You hear a story about some writer who sold his first script for big money? Chances are he spent as much or more time networking and querying to get it read and then was GREAT in the room. And as I’ve said previously, networking is nothing more than developing genuine relationships with people. Something that takes time and effort. Expecting someone with contacts to do something for you out of the blue is not networking. It’s insanity. Networking is work. Just like querying is work. Sites like the Blacklist cost and not a little. You have to invest your hard earned money for maybe no results. It’s what screenwriters do when they understand the business they’ve chosen. When they don’t understand, they throw scripts over fences.

Follow me on Twitter...... @bobsnz

Been an interesting week. No word from either pitch. But no one has passed yet either. Doesn’t mean they won’t, just means more patience is needed. Something all writers have to get used to.

My wife had a serious health scare this week, too. A condition she had previously that she was assured was something that didn’t reoccur did. And she ended up in the hospital for 5 days. She’s home now and doing well, but damn. She’s one tough cookie and healing and doing exactly what the doctors told her to, so that the non-reoccurring disease doesn’t reoccur again. Thank God it’s over and she’s ok.

Then...  I found out that my opinions and knowledge about writing don’t count because I write “crappy TV movies”. Now, I’m going to say that the person who wrote this on a public board wasn’t commenting on my personal films (I don't think) as much as much he (yes, it was a he) was commenting on TV films as a whole, saying that anyone who scrapes the bottom of the barrel (like me) and writes for Hallmark or Pixl or ABC Family or Lifetime or any number of Cable outlets are hacks who don’t deserve the time of day. Real writers write for lofty arenas like Movie Studios and Major Production Companies. (Major production companies produce TV movies too, but why mess up this guy’s thesis with facts.) But he pointed the answer at me. I laughed.

Don’t misunderstand. At first I got a little steamed, but then I calmed. I’ve seen this before. An unproduced writer who will only let who he deems the best touch his vaunted work. I wish him success. He’s got a much tougher road because of that attitude though.

I posted my OPINION on a public board in answer to a question about the viability of Big Budget scripts. I answered that I thought Big Budget scripts can be a good sample, but if you want to sell something, the future of original scripts is in Cable, VOD, Online with Netflix types, and whatever pops up in that arena in the future. These are the only people who are buying and producing original work in any significant way. Studios are too scared to take a chance on it. For the kinds of money they risk, they need audience pre-approved goods. Marvel, DC, sequels, best selling book adaptations, remakes of old films and TV shows....etc... You know the drill. You see what’s in the theaters every week. I said, and I do believe it, that if you write an amazing script with a reasonable budget you will generate all kinds of heat. Look at the people who wrote and made SAW.

He took exception to my answer. He said, in so many words, you only make it to the top if you aim for the top. Big Budget Studio Films. You can’t listen to people like me who write cheap crap. I guess aiming for the top can only happen from the outside. I thought you could start anywhere and use that experience to aim for the top. My bad.

Not really. Not settling for anything but the top is a recipe for keeping your day job 99% of the time.

Yes, every year there are maybe a couple of writers that write some big budget epic that wins universal praise and lands them a deal to write a Marvel film. Their film doesn’t get made, but they're in the game. So yes, if you’re burning with the desire to unleash your Big Budget Epic, by all means, write it. I never said don’t write one. I think the guy who dissed me would be surprised that I have two of them ready to go and one in the middle of being written. And as I work my way up from “crappy” cable films, which by the way have actually paid all my bills and more the last two+ years, I have three theatrical films moving forward. Now, they all may end up on VOD, but hey, they’re moving toward production with a writing credit for me and actual money paid. Why limit yourself by looking down your nose at any kind of screenwriting?

Both of my pitches the last couple of weeks came DIRECTLY from my TV experience. Both production companies asked to see me because of my TV resume. One for a limited series and the other is another crappy TV movie, that’s not crappy (it’s a great idea). And out of that pitch meeting may come another unrelated write for hire job on top of it. For another TV movie. That pays. Well.

You, as a writer, need to be open to any number of avenues for experience. I started in this business writing corporate videos and radio commercials. I wrote for anyone who would pay me. Local directors who needed a polish on their tiny indy film that had no chance of going anywhere. I wrote short films for hire, rewrote short films for directors. I wrote and directed cheap cable commercials for local businesses. Anywhere to get my foot in any door, to get my work out there and seen. I’m not too proud. It’s experience. It’s education.

You owe it to yourself as a writer to explore every path you can to getting out there. Look at any writing job as an opportunity.  Explore the good writing contests. The Blacklist. The Query. Networking. And look seriously at writing a great small budget film.

I wrote one called “Extracurricular Activities”. It has been responsible in some way for every door that has opened for me and every option on another script or write for hire job I've ever gotten. Every opportunity. Even got me my manager. It is way too dark and twisted to be a cable film for Hallmark, but the writing ability on a budget got me my first meeting with them. If it had been a big budget extravaganza they wouldn’t have given me the time of day, because they want people who know how to write well, small.

Everyone has to start someplace. It’s easier to start on a bottom rung of a ladder and work your way up than it is to wait and wait to be dropped at the top.

The difference? Expectations can be anything you can imagine. Reality mostly bites you in the ass.

This Blog is courtesy of a few new writers I’ve dealt with in the past couple of weeks. I got a lot of response to my last Blog, mostly about the writing to budget part of it. I talked about writing low budget films because I said, and I do believe it, that a new writer has a much much better chance of getting traction with a low budget script than with a high budget one. And this is purely based on numbers.

I can count on my hands the number of entities who can produce a high budget script. And the truth is, they don’t buy spec scripts anymore. Look at what the big budget films of the last five years consist of if you think I’m wrong.

Maybe a couple of exceptions a year. But out of the thousands and thousands of high budget specs floating around out there, two or so exceptions a year does not offer a new writer very good odds. You have a better chance of being killed by a rhino.

The problem is most every new writer I heard from about this subject assured me that they were the exception. Their big budget epic is going to knock the studio execs off their feet and most likely a bidding war will ensue. All they have to do is get it to “fill in the blank”.

1. Spielberg

2. Jonah Hill

3. David Fincher

4. Denzel (they never say his last name)

5. You get the drift.

Expectations. Sky high. No semblance of reality.

There was a time when people did research and/or worked to find out how to do something. I’m not sure if it’s cultural or just the sheer numbers now of people writing screenplays, but those days seem to be gone for most new writers. They storm onto Internet Boards of all kinds demanding satisfaction for their monumental efforts. And when they find out the truth, they whine. “Why won’t the agents at CAA read my script? Why won’t George Clooney read my script? It’s not fair.”

That’s right. Life isn’t fair. Get used to it. You’re not living in an insular world where they don’t keep score and everyone gets to play regardless of skill anymore. Everybody is NOT a winner.

There are ways to get your scripts read by agents, managers, actors, directors, and producers. You network. You query. You use websites like the Blacklist. You enter screenwriting contests if you want (although personally I think 98% of these are worthless). You go to pitchfests. You don’t know what these things are? Go look them up. Learn to do the nose grinding work that most successful writers have done.

Now, you also have to write great scripts to get noticed and I can count the great scripts I’ve read this year on three fingers. And I’ve read quite a few. So it’s not easy.

And I’m not innocent in all of this either. I was filled with unreasonable expectations from the moment I started writing. Luckily, I learned some valuable lessons early on. Painful lessons. Extremely painful lessons. So I listened and I took those lessons and I studied the industry and I found out how to get my scripts read the way the industry expects me to.

Did it temper my expectations? Yes absolutely, except one. I lost that one a couple of weeks ago.

My last remaining expectation was that I was going to write features. Movies I could walk red carpets to see. In the theaters. It still may happen, maybe. I have some scripts optioned that if they get made might not go to VOD first.

My first credited film was for a big Cable Network. They were the only people offering me the chance to write films. It was where opportunity came first. Luckily for me, it was a huge success for the network. Sky high ratings and good reviews. And then… the next five credited films came. Also for Cable Networks. Also rating successes. The one film I thought might go and get theatrical release was postponed yet again not long ago. It still has a very good chance of being made next year, but again… expectations.

My CV says loudly… this guy writes for TV. Very successfully, thank you God, but for TV. Not what I had planned.

Then reality a couple of weeks ago. In form of a very very good friend.

Jeff Perry is an amazing actor. You all might know him as Cyrus, the President’s Chief of Staff, on the show Scandal. Jeff, Gary Sinise, and Terry Kinney founded The Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago right out of High School. It’s still one of the premiere theater companies in the world. If you don’t know Scandal, look Jeff up. You know his face and you know that he is uniformly excellent at anything he does on TV, film, and on stage. He is also my good friend.

We had breakfast a couple of weeks back and were talking about my career. (His is set) I was bemoaning the lack of theatrical films on my CV. He told me, and correctly I might add, that if I was getting a reputation for being a TV guy that was great, because the future of this business was right where I am. TV, VOD, Netflicks type outlets, Cable Networks. Look at the kind of risks all these entities are taking. Look at the originality across the board. I know all these things are true, but expectations…

The more we talked seriously about it and the more I thought about it afterward, the more I came to realize that I am positioned as a writer in a pretty good spot for where the future of original writing in this business is going.

Right after that I had a general meeting with a big production company that does both theatrical and TV producing. We talked about my theatrical film scripts and they asked to see a couple of them, but they brought me in because of my TV resume. So they asked what I had there. I told them. They asked for my hour drama pilot. But… They really got jazzed when I talked about a mini-series idea I’m working on with actor/director Elise Robertson. TV mini-series. Jazzed enough to ask that Elise and I come back in for a formal pitch.

Not bad. Expectations and Reality. Sometimes, just sometimes, reality doesn’t bite you in the ass. You accept it and embrace it.

who I never met or talked to in my life. The answer is No.

I cannot. I can’t give you any shortcuts either, because there are none. This is something you’re going to have to do yourself. But thanks for asking. Oh… do you know ANYTHING about me? Except the fact that you think I’m a working screenwriter? Did you think in our First Contact ever I was just going to say, “Sure. I’ll do everything in my power to get you a manager and agent.”?

Ok. I know that sounds obnoxious, but C’MON.

By the end of this year, I’ll have 8 produced and distributed films with my name credited as a writer. Eight. Most of them for Cable Networks for sure, but the ones released so far have great ratings. I have an original theatrical film that has a start date in June with a cast brewing I can only dream about. (Soon to be announced so I can talk more specifically) I have another original theatrical script optioned to a very good Production Company in New York who say they want to make it next year.

Now… you’re thinking this guy sure likes to talk about himself. There’s a point. I do not have an agent. Again… with all that… I do not have an agent. Can’t even get one interested. Why? Beats the hell out of me. One friend told me the other day he thinks I’m the “hardest working unknown screenwriter in LA”. I understand your frustration at being agentless, but when you have to ask a relatively unknown like me to help get you something I don’t even have myself? Just... wow…

Yes, I do have a manager. He’s been pretty good. Gotten me in a few rooms and I’ve turned those meetings into money for him.

How did I get him? By networking. After knowing a director for YEARS and him liking my work enough to option a script, he recommended me to my Manager. Then the manager read my work and liked it enough to take me on. I’ve had my manager for two and half years and in that time I’ve had multiple writing jobs for production companies, multiple rewrite jobs, and 4 produced films with 4 more on the horizon this year. Yes, a manager makes a difference.

He took me on because he read my work and thought he could make money from it. Not because I was a nice guy… or any kind of guy. He also liked the fact that I have a two foot tall stack of original scripts that he thought were very good.

YES. There are the exceptions you hear and read about, but I guarantee you the real story behind them is not unlike mine. Someone worked and worked on their craft and wrote and wrote and wrote and then networked or queried the right way. Most all overnight successes took years to get there.

You want an agent? A manager? Write GREAT scripts. More than one. Then query. And wait. And wait some more. Then query again. You can also spend money on something like the Black List, which for the right person with the right script can work, but again you need to write something GREAT. Not good. Great.

And don’t approach other people to do your work for you. People you don’t even know. Do the work yourself. Learn to network properly (see my blog on networking) and query intelligently. Learn about the people you’re querying. It’s all out there.

I wish you nothing but good fortune and success. There’s room for everyone to do well, but do it with a plan. And know it takes frigging time.

Thanks for letting me vent at your expense.

One of the most frustrating things about screenwriting is the time it takes for anything to happen. Anything. It takes time to figure out what to write. It takes time to research it. It takes time to write it, always longer than you think. Then come your rewrites. Time. More time.

Now you want someone to read it. It takes time to build a network of writers and trusted people in the industry to vet your work before you try to get it out to be optioned or sold. And then it takes time for them to read it and get back to you because they’re busy, too. This is if you want to do it right.

This doesn’t take in the time you need to write a bunch of scripts to get good enough to be able to maybe sell one. That’s a long time, too.

Now… You can write a script in two days and be done, have no one but your friends and family read it and then try to send it out. The chances it will not be complete crap are infinitesimally low, but you still have to sell it. And that’s where time really slows down.

And here we get to the most frustrating thing about dealing with new writers. Most expect instant gratification. They have no idea about the reality of film and TV production or they think their script is so good, that even knowing how long might take, they will be the exception to the rule. Nope. Not going to happen. Not. Going. To. Happen. Either way, their thought is: I will write this script. It will sell. I will be on the red carpet at the premiere in six months. Ok, three months.

Sounds like an exaggeration, right? Yeah. Ok. It’s a pretty harsh assessment. But it's what I hear. All the time. It's the expectation. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard writers complain they haven’t heard anything from a reader and it’s been a WHOLE WEEK. Or the manager who requested it hasn't gotten back to them in a month. Or why can’t they get anyone to read their script right now? Why do I have to wait? Why is it so unfair that you can’t send an unsolicited script to anyone you want and have them read it the next day? Ok… I’m exaggerating again… but not by much.

The system is set up the way it is so that producers, production companies, agents, and managers are not so overwhelmed with product that they can’t read anything. There are hundreds of thousands of scripts out there looking for a home. And every writer of each of these believes they have the next hit film. That includes me. You should believe in your work. It’s essential to success. But the industry doesn’t believe you. Thus all the checks and balances and brick walls put up by the people in the film and TV business. It’s self protection from the avalanche of scripts that would engulf them.

And… getting through those checks and balances and brick walls takes time. A lot of time.

Want to know how long? It’s not weeks or months. It’s years. Mostly years and years. Yeah. That much time.

As a new writer who’s trying to get read by a manager or agent, if you're lucky enough to get a request based on your query, you need to know it could take weeks or months to get to the top of their pile. If you get read sooner, it’s a bonus. Once you have a manager or agent and they send your work out, it can still take weeks or months to get read. And longer after all the passes, because you have to do it all over again. I heard hundreds of no’s. Still do. You have to be patient. It hurts, but you have to.

Yes, there are fabulous sites like the Blacklist that may speed up the process, but nothing is guaranteed and it's a tough process to get through them, too. Still, I wish they'd been around when I started, but hey… c’est la vie.

But now, you hear yes. And you’ve optioned a script. Congrats.

Once you option something, even if it’s shortcutting time on the Blacklist?  Time? TIme slows to a crawl. You have no idea.

Someone has finally said, “YES”. Well, it’s not a real yes. It’s a qualified yes. They have notes and you need to rewrite your script to satisfy those. Whoops. Nice try. We need a second rewrite. More notes. Now another year has passed, good thing you gave them a renewal for another year. We might get Denzel, you need to rewrite it for him. More notes. Another three months. We didn’t get Denzel. But we have more notes. Another six months.

We have a director. He has notes and is going to do the rewrite himself. You sit and hear nothing for another six months. You email and call and they tell you to be patient. If you email and call too much, they’ll shut you out completely so you have to be careful. Then they hire another writer to rewrite it. And then they renew for the last yearly option. You’re in your third year. They tell you that they’re close to having financing. And another year passes and they say, “Sorry, we tried”. You get the rights back. To your original script. They still own all the changes you made based on their notes. You can sell the original again. And process starts once more.

This is the norm. A small percentage of scripts optioned actually get made. I optioned multiple scripts multiple times to Studios and BIG and small production companies for eighteen years and never got one film made. Made some good money, but never had an original script of mine made.

That changes this year, but that’s another blog. And yes, I have a bunch of credited films to my name. By the end of this year, I’ll have eight. Most of them are films where I rewrote the original writers so drastically that I got credited as a writer with them.

Getting a green light on a film is an amazing experience. You don’t believe it when it happens, even if it’s a script you rewrote. Seeing your storyline and characters and dialogue on screen is surreal. Why is it surreal? Lots of reasons, not the least of which is all the time it took.

There is NO instant gratification. There are no overnight successes. Everyone spent time becoming an overnight success. More time than you think.

I love strong independent women. I’m married to a strong woman. I have two wonderful daughters who are strong women. No, none of them are going to win an arm wrestling contest. But if you could arm wrestle by sheer will, they’d wipe out all comers.

I am proud that they are not defined by their gender or their jobs (although all of them do very well there, too) or who they're married to. They’re defined by their strength of character, something that shines through the way they live every aspect of their lives.

All of our female friends are strong independent women, as capable of handling anything the world throws at them as any man. They aren’t afraid, or subservient, or incapable, or weak minded, or dependent, or shallow, or stupid. (Things I see way too much in scripts lately and hate.)

All these women are complex, exciting, and fun. And, I believe, representative of most women.

All this begs the question:

Why the hell aren’t women represented this way in film?

I’m tired of watching films where the female characters (as few as there are sometimes in some films) play second fiddle when the filmmaker could have opened up the story, making it more complex and more genuine by having capable females doing in film what they do every day in real life.

I love writing strong real female characters. They’re actually, to me, more fun to write because of the natural much more complex thought processes compared to men. (sorry if this sounds sexist, but to me, women often do better than men in this category.)

So today my challenge is to look at the scripts you’re writing and turn them on their ear, if you need to, and write female characters that rival your male ones.  Don’t let your female characters continue to be the underused or stereotyped 50% of the population they’ve been. Make them reflect real life. Don’t make them weak and dependent. Don’t do what I see in a lot of scripts these days. Don’t marginalize them. Don’t make them second class citizens in your stories.

Try writing a script with a strong female protagonist or antagonist. The comedy I just optioned through the Black List has just that. A female antagonist for the ages, I think. So does the company that made me the deal. They told me she was reason they optioned it.

This rant was courtesy of a spec script I read last week that I thought was an insult to women because it completely ignored them, when as way of writing a much much better story it should have been embracing their contributions to it. It was that blatant and that BAD. And it pissed me off. Thanks for letting me vent.

 

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.

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.

Welcome to my inaugural Blog. Why am I blogging? I love to write. And while I do write for a living, thanks to the kindness of the film and TV industry (and some miraculous help from God), sometimes when I’m stuck on a project or between projects, like I am now, this will give my writing psyche an outlet.

Luckily, something great happened to coincide with the timing of this first blog. Something to talk about.

As a screenwriter, besides writing a good script (which is the single hardest thing to do), the next hardest thing to do is to get your scripts out to be seen. Not just seen by people who would read them, but by people who would buy them and make them.

So let’s start with the understanding that you already have a great script (hard to do) and it’s ready to be exposed to the world. Now you want to sell it. How do you do that? (For all you experienced writers out there rolling your eyes because I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, I have a lot of non-industry friends who will read this.)

The standard ways:

Query: You put pen to paper (or nowadays fingers to keyboard) and write a compelling two paragraph note to producers, production companies, or potential agents and managers explaining why they should read your masterpiece. This does work, but you better be one damn outstanding letter writer. I’m not. I’ve never written one, but would if I had to.

Networking: This is where you ACTUALLY MEET PEOPLE IN THE INDUSTRY AND CULTIVATE RELATIONSHIPS. The CAPS were there because a lot of writers think networking is meeting someone in the industry for the first time and expecting them to do anything you want to make you successful and rich. Nope. Not it. Doesn’t work that way. Networking takes time and effort and developing genuine friendships with the people you’re networking with. Anything other than that is taking advantage of people. And the people in the industry know this and don’t like it. They don’t like it a lot.

Manager and Agent: To get one see: Query & Networking.

The non-standard ways:

Contests: Tough one. There used to be only a few of these and they meant something. Now there are too many to count and they don’t. If you win The Nicholl it still means something, but again… I think at last count there were 7000+ entries last year and one person won.

Websites:

And this is where we get to my good news.

For a long while in Hollywood there has been a short list of the best unproduced screenplays, for that year, published every December. Writers kill to be on it. It means instant legitimacy. It’s called “The Black List”. (More experienced writer eye rolling allowed here).

Well, with all this goodwill in the industry and only being a yearly thing, the man who runs the Black List, Franklin Leonard, came up with a way for writers to get their scripts out to the industry all year long. The Black List 3.0. A paid service where you can get your script hosted on the site and then, if you want, get paid reviews by professional readers employed by the Black List. And if your reviews are rated 8 to 10 (on a 10 scale), you make their published “Top List” and your script goes on a weekly Email blast to industry professionals. And sometimes those scripts get picked up (optioned) by those companies. A good thing.

I have a great manager, John McGalliard of Chaotik Management, a man who I got through networking. (Thank you Jay Lowi) He’s the man who got my work out to production companies and how I got my first credited produced film (hell, he got me four credited produced films) and all my wonderful rewrite and write for hire jobs. He’s my friend and very good at what he does. The only thing wrong with him is that he’s in too good physical shape. No one should be that fit.

So, after reading about this service and reading other writers discussions, pro and con, about it, I decided to see what it was all about myself with what I call “My Black List Experiment”.

Like most writers, I want to see what people think of my work and at the same time I’m scared to see what people think of my work. What makes the Black List different is that this is a place to find that out and maybe sell something at the same time. So, I placed one of my original scripts, a very big broad commercial comedy, on the Black List... and, to my relief, the readers rated it with 8's and one 9. (I like these readers)

I hovered near the top of their “Top List” and was included in the email blast a few weeks in a row. More than a few downloads by industry pros later and… Holy Smokes… got an email and a call from a production company that has made and distributed eight films in the last three years, some of them very successful. Not some fly by night wannabes, but real industry players. They wanted to option the script with every intention of putting it on their film slate and making it in the next couple of years. (Movies take a long time)

They sent a contract. Time to call John. I did. He handled the option negotiations with his usual care, toughness, and fairness, which ended up being a more than a month long. And now… thanks to his due diligence, the contracts are signed.

(fireworks go here)

My two foot tall stack of original scripts now has one less script on it. Yay. It also means I have to write more.

The Black List Works. It worked for me. It’s not going to work for everyone every time. It can’t. But it’s a viable new way to get your work out there. And real honest to goodness moviemakers are using it to find content. Thank you Franklin. I owe you a drink next time I’m in LA.