MN to Hollywood

Dynamic.  Engaging.  Polished.  In his session, Breaking in Miles from LA, up and coming screenwriter Mark Golik was none of these.  Neither was he any of these: Pretentious.  Aloof.  Arrogant.

While some speakers at the 2009 Screenwriting Expo were masters of pomp and circumstance (which, for them, worked just fine), Mr. Golik was one of the most genuine presenters.  A Pittsburgh resident, Mr. Golik admits the option deal for his first screenplay, The Color of the Puck, was lucky.  But, like Thomas Jefferson said, the harder you work, the more luck you’re bound to have.

Mr. Golik’s success story is the exception to my newly adapted rule that queries don’t work.  It was through a query letter that he secured his manager who subsequently marketed his screenplay and penned an option deal.

Overnight success?  Hardly.  Mr. Golik sent countless queries before signing with his manager, and his manager pitched the script for more than a year before getting the option deal.  Oh, and the option deal?  Not exactly mucho dinero.  But it is a huge step in the right direction – just don’t expect the humble Ohio screenwriter to admit it.

The sincerity and candor from Mr. Golilk was refreshing.  He underplayed his success and promoted routes that I have been hesitant to accept – namely screenwriting contests and an Industry website, Inktip.  More on Inktip in a future blog entry.

A quick summary of my notes from his class:

Learn your craft – be open to criticism – don’t beg – promote the heck out of yourself – palm up, not palm down (offer a favor from yourself before asking a favor of someone else) – do cool things for others – be proactive – focus on boutique agencies and avoid the big ones *

* this note contradicts some others’ beliefs that the larger agencies have more room to add clients while the boutique agencies are swamped with the clients they already have.  I think both are correct.  Like I’ve written many times before, this is the grayest of industries.

With a name like Wisdom, how could I not sign up for a session with her?  Her middle name may very well be Passion, or Motivation, or Energy – she spoke with much of each while living up to her surname.

To sum up her class in a blog entry would be impossible, so I’ll do my best Chris Berman impression and give a few highlights.

Learn the rules so you know how to break them – Know Hollywood statistics – Know who the up-and-comers are – Know your competition – Most common genres, in order, are action, comedy, thriller, and drama – 50% of audience is under the age of 24 – In a meeting, you have 15 seconds to capture the attention of an executive – Don’t query (heard this many times at the Expo) – Execs will read e-mail, but you have 3-5 seconds to capture their attention

Ms. Wisdom wasn’t shy in lecturing her crowded classroom.  When most of us were unable to name the all-time Australian Academy Award winning movie, Somersault, we were given an earful.  Really?  Is it imperative that we know something so trivial?  I’m going to have to defer to Ms. Wisdom and agree that knowing this industry inside and out will offer a distinct advantage.

It goes back to the premise of this entire blog – education.  The more ammo in the magazine, the better equipped one will be for this battle to enter the well defended Hollywood fortress.  It’s funny how many people embark on this journey assuming it’s an easy ride.

Did I say funny?  I meant sad.

Along with Creative Screenwriting’s weekly interview podcast, Pilar Alessandra’s On the Page podcast is an essential listen for any screenwriter.  If you have iTunes, subscribe to both.  Now.

Ms. Alessandra taught all day Friday.  Because of scheduling I I was only able to take her You Had Me at Page One session which was, for me, the weekend’s most interactive engagement.  Using examples from popular screenplays including The Bourne Identity, written by the masterful Tony Gilroy, and The Hangover, penned by hot hands Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, Ms. Alessandra invoked thoughtful discussions on the importance of a remarkable first page of one’s screenplay.

As a former studio reader, Ms. Alessandra emphasizes the importance of hooking the reader as early as possible, forcing the reader to turn through the remaining 89-119 pages.  Readers take home large stacks of screenplays (metaphorically speaking as pdf files are now replacing hard copies) and are looking for reasons to not like each one.  It’s much easier for them to pass on a script than to hand it up to an executive.  Consequently, many scripts get tossed after only the first few pages have been skimmed.

Page one of a screenplay must invoke emotion in the reader – fear, anger, sadness, happiness, whatever – something that will provoke the reader to turn the page.  There isn’t time for elaborate character description, flowery location setup, or frivolous scene direction.  Save that for your novel.

“Queries don’t work.” – Philippa Burgess, Christopher Pratt, and Andy Corren

Earlier this year I made a concentrated effort to fully research and query specific agents and managers.  Personalizing my queries, I reasoned, would more effectively prove my worth as a client.  My indiscretionary efforts are explained in this blog entry from March.

I’ve read from multiple sources recently, and Ms. Burgess, Mr. Pratt, and Mr. Corren confirm, that query letters simply do not work for securing literary representation.  I had suspected as much even before making my Spring push of query letters, but I reasoned that pitching myself as a multi-hyphenate and tailoring each pitch specifically to the intended recipient would increase my chances.  It very well may have, but only in the most miniscule degree.

Each manager in this panel at the 2009 Screenwriting Expo noted that exceptions exist for every statistic, but they recommended strategies other than querying, including networking, screenplay competitions, or self-producing.  I feel good about my current tract of networking and self-producing, and I am considering the competition route despite the steep cost of entering.

Ms. Burgess, who spent three years at ICM before starting her own company, stressed the importance of creating content, specifically blogs, DVDs, webisodes, and news articles.  Check, check, check, and check.  I’m doing all that.  If I build it, they will come – right?  According to the managers on this panel, yes.

I’ve read Michael Hauge’s Writing Screenplays that Sell and listened to his CD lecture Screenwriting for Hollywood.  His and Christopher Vogler’s The Hero’s 2 Journeys is a DVD I’ve been slowly working my way through over the last year or so – it’s not that it’s terribly long, it’s just a bit prosaic for my ADHD mind.  Mr. Hauge doesn’t go for style points in presentation, but he offers a lot of useful information.

His lecture, Sell Your Story in 60 Seconds, based on the book of nearly the same title, was the second session I attended at the 2009 Screenwriting Expo.  It fell on Friday morning, two days before I was scheduled to offer pitches at the pitch fest.  Maybe the class helped – maybe it didn’t.  It certainly didn’t hurt.

Mr. Hauge reminded us all that we should have one goal, and one goal only, when pitching – to convince someone to read our screenplay.  The greatest pitch in the world won’t do anything for an awful concept.  Conversely, the worst pitch in the world could still work if the concept is brilliant.  Once again, everything comes down to having a story worth telling.

Mr. Hauge developed a list of 8-steps to pitching.  Without his permission, I hesitate to include the steps here, but I found them all useful, albeit a bit obvious to an intuitive mind.  That said, the most obvious of suggestions are oftentimes the most overlooked.

Now, the one caveat to all the teaching Mr. Hauge puts out through his books, DVDs, and seminars is that he hasn’t, to my knowledge, ever sold a screenplay himself.  That fact doesn’t discount his claims – after all, I’ve only optioned a screenplay and produced one of my own, yet I’m ‘teaching’ through this blog – but it does cause one to step back and consider the source.  Like any research, the learning one seeks in screenwriting should be filtered by the student from a variety of teachers.  Mr. Hauge certainly belongs on the list of screenwriting teachers for the diligent screenwriting student.  I, on the hand, don’t belong on that list, which is why I’m trying to point in the direction of the teachers I’ve enjoyed along the way. :)

“Movies have become more influential than the church.” – George Barna

How can one ninety minute seminar be equally inspiring and disparaging at the same time?  George Escobar’s was the first session I attended at the 2009 Screenwriting Expo and I came away with mixed emotions.

Mr. Escobar spoke of Sherwood Pictures’ Fireproof and Facing the Giants as the gold-standard in Christian entertainment.  Financially speaking, he’s absolutely right – Fireproof alone raked in over $30 million theatrically against a reported budget of $500,000 – but from a creative slant both movies fall far short of excellence.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the messages of both movies, but the execution is painfully amateurish.

I’m optimistic about the upcoming movie, One Good Man, produced by Mr. Escobar’s Christian production company, Advent Film Group.  Mr. Escobar was quick to separate his new film’s production quality from the Sherwood efforts.  And he did so in a humble, non-incriminating manner.

However, Mr. Escobar also claimed to be unable to produce a Christian-themed movie that could compete with blockbusters like Transformers or The Dark Knight.  “I’m not talented enough yet,” was his claim.  Maybe by earthly standards he is correct, but even if he isn’t talented enough, there are many talented individuals out there, Christian or otherwise, that could turn mediocre into outstanding.

I hear the argument already.  When so-called industry experts are brought in, the Christian message is compromised.  I agree with Mr. Escobar’s assessment that Hollywood adapts a world-view instead of the Christian Godly-view.  That’s why it is imperative that we Christians work our way into leadership positions within the industry so the Godly-view can prevail while Hollywood quality standards are upheld.  Is this a paradox?  I certainly don’t think so.

While I don’t aspire to make Christian movies, I do aspire to be a Christian who makes movies.  I have a Christian screenplay sitting on my shelf, but before I do anything with it, I need to secularize it a bit.  Preaching to the choir is not my mission, nor is it my strength.  Fireproof and Facing the Giants may have their choir audience, but I’d rather reach the crowd outside the church walls.

Advent Film Group looks like a wonderful organization poised to groom Christians to fill prominent creative positions in Hollywood.  I just hope the groomed don’t turn out to be Sherwood Pictures clones content to make below average movies with above average messages.  Judging by Mr. Escobar’s desires, I’m optimistic that Christian movies will one day turn a corner and be good enough to compete with the summer blockbusters.

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire

I am inanely annoyed by most sports broadcast analysts.  They get paid handsomely to repeat recycled comments week after week after week.  Gee, did you hear Adrian Peterson has a firm handshake?  Did you know Kobe and Shaq had a falling out?  Did you know whenever the [insert team] play the [insert team] you can throw the records out the window? 

What bothers me most, though, is the way these suits in the booth second-guess everything on the field or court.  And they do it with such certainty.  If they know so much better, why are they not coaching themselves?  We’re all entitled to our own opinions, and we’re likely to disagree from time to time with the decisions made by our beloved sports authorities, but what gain can come from berating their every move?

When it comes to decisions, we all make bad ones.  Coaches.  Players.  Actors.  Moms.  Dads.  But we all make good ones, too.  I have a theory that while bad decisions are very much a part of everyone’s life, wrong decisions do not exist.  Just as every action has an equal and opposite reaction (thank you, Mr. Newton), every wrong has to have an opposite right.  Otherwise, how could we be assured it is wrong?

Once a decision is made, there is no way of ever knowing what the result of an opposite decision would have been, unless we are Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day.  We can speculate, and in many cases the speculation leads us to believe strongly that a different decision would have yielded a better result.  But that’s the key – it’s speculation.

So I’m living my life knowing that every decision I make is the right decision.  Don’t get me wrong, many (maybe most?) of those right decisions are still very bad decisions, but at least I don’t have to burden myself with worries of making a wrong decision.  Good or bad, I can only make right decisions.

Time will tell if my decision to spend money I don’t have on a trip I can’t afford will prove to be good or bad.  I know it was the right decision and I’m glad I made it when I did.  I met many wonderful people and learned from some of the great screenwriters working today.  I’ll share in the coming entries some notes I took from the 2009 Screenwriting Expo.

If I’m lucky, some expert sports announcers will critique all the notes…

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

I plan to soon share my experiences from the 2009 Screenwriting Expo, but I received my weekly Max Lucado e-newsletter today and found its message remarkably poignant for anyone trying to keep their head above water these days.  We creative types are certainly of no exclusion.

So I share, with permission from UpWords Ministries, this excerpt from A Love Worth Giving, copyright 2002, Max Lucado and Thomas Nelson Publishers.

When You Are Low on Hope

by Max Lucado

Water. All Noah can see is water. The evening sun sinks into it. The clouds are reflected in it. His boat is surrounded by it. Water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the west. Water.

He sent a raven on a scouting mission; it never returned. He sent a dove. It came back shivering and spent, having found no place to roost. Then, just this morning, he tried again. With a prayer he let it go and watched until the bird was no bigger than a speck on a window.

All day he looked for the dove’s return.

Now the sun is setting, and the sky is darkening, and he has come to look one final time, but all he sees is water. Water to the north. Water to the south. Water to the east. Water to the …

You know the feeling. You have stood where Noah stood. You’ve known your share of floods. Flooded by sorrow at the cemetery, stress at the office, anger at the disability in your body or the inability of your spouse. You’ve seen the floodwater rise, and you’ve likely seen the sun set on your hopes as well. You’ve been on Noah’s boat.

And you’ve needed what Noah needed; you’ve needed some hope. You’re not asking for a helicopter rescue, but the sound of one would be nice. Hope doesn’t promise an instant solution but rather the possibility of an eventual one. Sometimes all we need is a little hope.

That’s all Noah needed. And that’s all Noah received.

Here is how the Bible describes the moment: “When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf!” (Gen. 8:11 NIV).

An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have the bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after a flood. Proof to the dreamer that dreaming is worth the risk.

Don’t we love the olive leaves of life?
“It appears the cancer may be in remission.”
“I can help you with those finances.”
“We’ll get through this together.”
What’s more, don’t we love the doves that bring them?
Perhaps that’s the reason so many loved Jesus.

To all the Noahs of the world, to all who search the horizon for a fleck of hope, he proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes. He comes as a dove. He comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of hope.

Have you received yours? Don’t think your ark is too isolated. Don’t think your flood is too wide. Receive his hope, won’t you? Receive it because you need it. Receive it so you can share it.

Love always hopes. “Love … bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7 NKJV, emphasis mine).

I realized some time ago that the Soap Athetic links in earlier blog entries are now dead.  We removed the show from Numa Network, but I have re-cut it into three segments and inserted a few extra jokes that weren’t in the original release.  So here are the three segments and the gag reel for you to laugh at hysterically all over again. ;)

Soap Athetic part 1

Soap Athetic part 2

Soap Athetic part 3

Soap Athetic Gag Reel

I am now in full pitch mode in search for a home for my little mock soap opera.  Good news to come.  I know it.

I suppose I’m late to the party on this one, but I’ve recently started e-mailing my script to one of my Yahoo e-mail accounts every time I finish writing.  It’s a quick and easy way to back up my work.  I haven’t seen the tip anywhere else, so here it is, free of charge.  ;)