Approach

“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” – Sir Winston Churchill

Any scratch golfer can tell you a round can be made or lost with your approach shot.  Yet many duffers like me spend most of their range time trying to knock the core out of the diminutive dimpled demon.  Interestingly, the difference between a 240 and 280 yard drive is generally frivolous for a skilled iron player.  Instead of trying to flex my muscles with monstrous drives, I would be better advised to learn how my 5-iron works.

Just like the wickedness that is golf, the even more impossible Hollywood game can be won or lost by the player’s approach.  While many coaches have offered guidance in appropriate approaches for aspiring writers or actors or models, the multi-hyphenate approach is still somewhat fleeting.  I’m certainly no pioneer in trying to pitch my eclectic self to Hollywood, but as far as I know, I may be one of the few documenting my successes or lack there of.  So far, the latter has the better handicap than the former.

My first rounds of querying back a couple years involved blanketing every agency accepting screenplay queries.  I exhausted a couple calling cards making telephone contact first, then many rolls of stamps mailing what I thought was a good pitch for a very marketable screenplay.  I still believe in the pitch and I still believe in the screenplay.  It’s the approach I question.

This time around, I’m spending a good amount of time researching each company before I send them my query.  At 3 or 4 queries a week, I’m certainly not launching a mass attack, but instead focusing on specific targets of which I have an understanding of their philosophies and place in the market.

Will this approach work?  The optimist in me says yes.  Too bad the pessimist has the final say on these dreary, rainy days.  But, as Mr. Churchill stated, there’s no use in being anything other than an optimist.  Looking more closely at the glass, it does indeed look a little fuller than before it did.