Tag Archives: VOD

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.