Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 484: How One Tweet Can Change Your Screenwriting Career with Jeanne Veillette Bowerman

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BPS 484: How One Tweet Can Change Your Screenwriting Career with Jeanne Veillette Bowerman · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four eighty four.
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  Speaker 5: All right, everyone, thanks again for joining me. Joining me
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  Speaker 5: today is Genie Vilette Bowerman. Genie is the editor and
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: online community manager of scriptmag dot com and she's also
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  Speaker 5: the co founder and moderator of the weekly Twitter's screenwriter Chat,
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  Speaker 5: which is hashtag script chat. And she's also wrote the
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  Speaker 5: narrative adaptation of the Pulzer Prize winning novel Slivery by
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  Speaker 5: Another Name and the Genie has a script in the
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  Speaker 5: top twenty five of the Tracking Board and was named
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  Speaker 5: one of the top ten most influential screen running blogs
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  Speaker 5: by Stephanie Palmer. Well, Jeanie, how are you good?
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  Speaker 4: How are you?
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  Speaker 5: I'm doing pretty good. It's, you know, just another mild
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  Speaker 5: day here in Philadelphia. How's everything in New York?
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  Speaker 4: It's Ashley mild little you know, compared to the storms
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  Speaker 4: we've had lately, it's nice.
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  Speaker 5: So Genie, just to get started, could you give us
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  Speaker 5: all a little bit about your background and you know
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  Speaker 5: how you got started.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I actually went to the hotel school at Cornell,
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: and I owned a hotel at restaurant for fifteen years.
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  Speaker 4: And then when I turned forty, I kind of was like, Okay,
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  Speaker 4: I'm a stay at home mom with no kids at home,
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  Speaker 4: and I had closed the business, and I always want
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  Speaker 4: I had always wanted to write, and so I started
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: writing a novel and I had no idea what the
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  Speaker 4: hell I was doing. And one of my friends from
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: college said that once she had a screenplay, they're you know,
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: they're easier and well. And at the time, I could
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  Speaker 4: see why someone would think that, because it's only like
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  Speaker 4: one hundred and ten pages, you know, compared to hundreds
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  Speaker 4: of pages for novel. And but obviously, as you know,
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  Speaker 4: as the years progressed and I kept writing more and more,
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  Speaker 4: I realized that the unbelievable art and to writing a script,
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: it's so different than writing novels, which I'm also I'm
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: also writing some novels too now, but it so I
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: kind of just got started that way to kind of
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: went into it without knowing what the hell I was doing,
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: which is probably in some respects booking back on it
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  Speaker 4: the best way to do it, because I think if
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: I had known how difficult it was to break into
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: this industry, how hard it was to write a screenplay effectively,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: and well, that might have intimidated me. And so I
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  Speaker 4: think for me, definitely ignorance with Blip for sure. And
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  Speaker 4: then I started well writing Slavery by not a name.
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  Speaker 4: I started getting on I got on Twitter so that
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  Speaker 4: I could kind of meet other screenwriters and get a
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  Speaker 4: buzz going to the project. But I didn't realize at
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  Speaker 4: all the power of Twitter and the incredible network you
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: could develop there. And because of the network from Twitter,
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  Speaker 4: it's really how I got a script magazine found me
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  Speaker 4: and I was first a columnist there and then now
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  Speaker 4: the editor. It's how I've met so many people. My
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  Speaker 4: current writing partner who's on Twitter known as unknown Screenwriter,
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  Speaker 4: I've made so many incredible connections, and also how script
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  Speaker 4: chat was form. So really, social media is an incredible
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  Speaker 4: way for somebody who lived output of la to make
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  Speaker 4: some groundwork.
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  Speaker 5: And that's how we met too.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 5: So you know what exactly were you tweeting, so that
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  Speaker 5: Script Magazine was able to find you.
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  Speaker 4: Well, when we started script Chat, Joshaaztecker was a then
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  Speaker 4: online editor of Script Magazine and he is amazing at
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  Speaker 4: social media, really great with Twitter, and he noticed the
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  Speaker 4: hashtag script chat, and since it's Script Magazine, it caught
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  Speaker 4: his attention. And he's also a big history buff and
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: so when and a journalist, you know, and so when
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: he saw the project I was working on Player bright
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  Speaker 4: of a name, and that my partner in that project
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  Speaker 4: is the author of the book, who at the time
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  Speaker 4: was a senior national correspondent of the Wall Street Journal.
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  Speaker 4: And Joshua was just really intrigued by the whole project
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  Speaker 4: that we're working on and offered us an opportunity to
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  Speaker 4: just do one blog online about the project. And after
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  Speaker 4: getting to know me for over the course of the
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  Speaker 4: following year, that one blog turned into my weekly column
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  Speaker 4: Balls of Steel, which I don't have the time to
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  Speaker 4: write weekly anymore. But and that's how Bald and Steel
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  Speaker 4: was born, and that tu Spriate magazine found me. And
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: then once bald and Steel was Steel was born, and
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  Speaker 4: then they needed an editor. I raised my hand, you know,
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  Speaker 4: because it's nice having a day job that's in the
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  Speaker 4: in the industry.
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  Speaker 3: M hm.
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  Speaker 5: So so you know you use this as a great
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  Speaker 5: networking tool. You know, have you gotten other like you know,
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  Speaker 5: writing jobs just from people finding you on Twitter like
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  Speaker 5: sort of like you know, they try to contact you
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  Speaker 5: to heart write scripts for them.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. Like there's a guy who's from London, Clive Fraane.
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  Speaker 4: He got me together and some other people. Uh, he
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  Speaker 4: was in at the time. He was in Milan. We
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: had a writer in Mexico, one in LA and one
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  Speaker 4: in London, and we were working on a TV project
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  Speaker 4: that we were going to have uh that was going
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: to be ticked up in London and h and ended
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  Speaker 4: up losing funding at the last minute. But it was
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: an incredible experience to work on a TV show that
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: even though it didn't get greenlit, I still learned so much.
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  Speaker 4: And it was in my episode with a whorehouse hostage takeovers,
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: which was no much fun to write, and it was
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  Speaker 4: great because it was just another way for me to
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  Speaker 4: I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but
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  Speaker 4: I just rolled with it, and it's another way to
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  Speaker 4: just step I totally stepped outside of my comfort zone
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  Speaker 4: doing it because I didn't know, you know, I wasn't
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  Speaker 4: a TV writer, you know, and I just kind of
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  Speaker 4: imagined someone standing behind me holding a remote control so that,
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  Speaker 4: you know, at any time, they could click away, and
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  Speaker 4: that that really helped me. But yeah, so I got that,
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: and I got another gig writing like educational videos that
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: we wrote like in a sitcom format, and that was
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: from some a director I met on Twitter. I mean,
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  Speaker 4: I've gotten a lot of gigs side gigs and my
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: job really from people I met online.
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  Speaker 5: So I'm sorry I have to go back for that.
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  Speaker 5: It's it's hostile taker. It's actually a hostile situation and
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  Speaker 5: a whorehouse.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was so good. And then when I wrote it,
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  Speaker 4: they ended and I killed this this character, and they
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  Speaker 4: ended up the character who I just made up for
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  Speaker 4: the episode in order to kill him, and and they
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  Speaker 4: loved the characters so much they were like, okay, you
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  Speaker 4: have you can't kill him now. You have to keep
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: him alive because we want to use him in another episode.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like, oh shit. So I had to come
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: up with a whole other way to figure out how to.
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: You know what.
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  Speaker 4: The climax of my episode was going to be now
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: because they just took it away, but it was but
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: it was really really fun experience, you know, you.
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  Speaker 5: Know, it's it's funny. I have a friend of mine
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: he wrote something called House of Horrors and basically it's
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: like imagine if Hostile the movie Hostile and Home Alone mixed.
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: That's what House of Horrors is. And yeah, it's like
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: they have all these they sell these traps and they
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: find out like, you know, these prostitutes are leading these
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  Speaker 5: guys into this you know, this truck stop area and
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: then killing them one by one and then they the
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: guy whos trying to seper hand by saying these traps
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  Speaker 5: and it's just it was funny because he told me
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  Speaker 5: he sent it out and some of the reactions that
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: he gets just by the name alone, He's like, people
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: were like, I don't know if I want to read
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: this to you know, you know this, I don't know
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: because it's a comedy horror. So it kind of falls
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  Speaker 5: that gray area. Have you seen a lot of things
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  Speaker 5: like that, you know, where sort of scripts sort of
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: get passed over, mainly over over, like you know, just
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: because of like the title or even just the you know,
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: the log line.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's so much easier for
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  Speaker 4: them to say no than it is to say yes.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: And and it you know, because when you think about it,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: like in the publishing world, like I've got a lot
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: of fun to have met online who are novelists, and
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: I watched them pump out novel after novel after novel,
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: whether it's with traditional publishing or whether it's fell published.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: Because it doesn't take millions of dollars to publish a book,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: you know, but to create a turn a screenplant into
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: a movie takes can take millions of dollars. So it's
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: so much easier for them to say no and not
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: get in trouble with their boss, you know, for saying
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: yeah to something that you might bomb, you know. And
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: also the way the economy is now, you know, after
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: the crash in two thousand and eight, it's just different.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: They're not willing to take as many chances. You see
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: so many more writers now doing web series, doing things
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: that you know, looking to put their shows on YouTube,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: like you know, did anything outside of the box of
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: traditional production. Because it's just you have to be creative
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: and think of a different way to get your story
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: out there. I even encourage writers to write their gripts
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: turn them into novels, because then they're intellectual property. And
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: half of what Hollywood does is half of the films
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: that are out or out of patience. So you know,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: now you're opening up your script for one hundred percent
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: of the market, not just passes the market by being
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: a non intellectual property. So and I am seeing some
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: writers do that and give that a shot, I mean,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: and then they and some I've got a friend who
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: fell in love with with the process and now just
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: want to write novels.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: Interesting. Uh, you know, I actually have a question from
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: the from one of the audience members. They they actually
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: and I guess let me actually ask it now, since
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: you know it is just about what we were talking about.
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: It says, I want to turn my screen my screenplay
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: into a novel novel. Excuse me, i'llah William Peter Blattie,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: who wrote The Exorcists, and he says, do you think
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: that this is a viable way to get my screen
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: to get my screenplay and further work noticed by creating
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: a website and then directing everyone there. So I think
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: what he's doing is he's trying to, you know, create
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: a book and then when if someone was adapted, you
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: can altomatically say hey, I have this screenplay.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think that. I think I think
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: one of the one of the many lessons I learned
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: from Doub Blackman, who wrote Slavery by Have the Name,
• 12:16
  Speaker 4: is when you have this piece of the you know,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: this this thing that you created, whether it be a
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: book or script or whatever, you know, to think about
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: all the different ways you can tap into that, to
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: utilize that piece of property that instead of just thinking
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: of this is just a feature film, you know period.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: You know, the Key's got the book and turned it
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: into a documentary for PBS. I wrote that at the
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: narrative adaptation with him, it's studying material for classes. He'd
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: love to make a play out of it. I mean,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: like you have to think about, like all the different
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: things you can do with that piece of intellectual property
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: that you have. And and so if it's the other
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: benefit Q just as a writer, is knowing that if
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: you turn it into a book, that you publish it
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and self publishing it is an absolutely credible option. Now
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: it's not considered vanity publishing anymore. So you kill yourself
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: to write the script, You killed yourself to write this story.
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: You must love it if you're going to be pitching
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: it and staying with it, if you haven't abandoned it yet,
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: So why not put it in some sort of form
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: that people can read it, so it's not just fitting
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: on your hard drives. And even if it never falls
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: as a screenplay, people are out there reading your words
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: and reading your story and you're getting some sort of
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: validation back from that. And it's part of why I blog,
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: because when I blog, people are reading my words. Even
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: if it's just a thousand words, somebody's reading it, you know,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: and it makes me feel there's a sense of satisfaction
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: in that as a writer, instead of having everything I
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: do just sit on my har drive and you know,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: if it doesn't get made into a move, nobody sees this.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I would definitely tell them, yes, do it
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: oh excellently.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: And you know that's something I brought up to too,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: because I actually brought up graphic novel adaptation because you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: I was actually listening to another podcast and they brought
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: up you know, how to go to Amazon and you
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: can create a kindel version, and then they also brought
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: up how to create an actual physical version that's basically
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: put on demand, so that way, you know, it's a
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: win win for everybody. So, you know, and like you said,
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: it's not vanity anymore, you know, self publishing. I I
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: was talking to a guest, I forget off the top
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: of my head, which guest was, But they actually brought
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: up the fact that it would take a lot for
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: them to actually go back to you know, pitching again
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: to like Penguin or you know, random Books, because they
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: they think it's more viable now to just self publish yourself,
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: create your own Amazon store, and go and go off
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: your own website like like you have, you have your
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: own blog, and now you have people going directly to
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: your website which is genevb dot com, and you know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: people can now you see all your other work, you know.
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: So it's like your your career, your own marketing department
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: pretty much, and your own your content creation everything.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: Well. And one of our one of our script check
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: co founders, Jamie Livingstone, and I should mention, uh, the
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: other co founders are King Garland and Zach Sandford Jamie
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: uh took a little break from screenwriting and started writing novels,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: thinking she would just oh, yeah, I'll write a couple
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: of novels. But her novels have become so popular that
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: she can't stop writing them because their audience wants another one.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: And she joined together with and forgive me, Jamie if
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: you're listening, and I get this wrong, but I think
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: this and how it went. She joined together with six
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: other authors, and they are the Unlucky Seven, and they
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: they sell their books collectively together, these thriller books, seven
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: thriller books, and they are like USA today best selling authors.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: They might even have just become New York Times but
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: strong authors. I don't know, I'll have to book that
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: up and see. But if you look up Unlucky Seven
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: you can and find them. And but and this is
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: this is a woman who's you know, a screenwriter and
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: said I need a break, I need to do something different,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: and started writing these novels. And she did easily turn
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: them these new series because she has a series of novels,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: so she could easily turn them into a TV show
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: into what, you know, all different kinds of things. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: but those stories are out there to get attention from people,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: and you know, you go to if you're a writer,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: you need to write and and there's no point in
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: writing something that nobody ever gets to read.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes to
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: the Unlucky Seven. But yeah, that's pretty interesting. And you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: and again, you know, just creating like this podcast too
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: is is just a different way. So I know it's
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: not writing obviously, but what you know, I just use
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: that sort of I think it's good because it's something
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: I wanted to do just to do it. It was
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: sort of like all my my two thousand and four
• 16:59
  Speaker 5: things to you know, get started list because that was
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: part of other podcast, you know, and uh, but you know,
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: but you know, it's also I think another way to
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: you know, get exposure for not only me, both the guests.
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: You know, somebody ever slumps upon something.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: You know, absolutely absolutely and script chat did that for
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: us very much. Though like it got us exposure, It
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: got us recognized by people. You know, people then would
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: start contacting us to say, you know, I want to
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: be a guest on script chat. I mean, it's a
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: great networking tool and it also is uh, it's not
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: just that it's it's it's a pay it forward thing,
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: you know, where you're you're talking about something you love
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: and you're also giving this you know, content to your
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: listeners so that they can learn, and it leads you
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: feeling warm and fuzzy and leaves people feeling warm and
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: fuzzy about you, and it's just a win win.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely so. So you know, Genie, you know, could
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: you give us, you know, just to switch topics, but
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: could you give us, you know, what is your daily
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: writing life, like, I mean, like what is your daily
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: uh you know, your daily routine like.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Insane?
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Well that's because that tells you what two questions and
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: I've figured, you know what, I might as well just
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: ask this with kill Twober's one stone.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Well, okay, there's things about my life that people,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: you know, I'm one of those feels like really open
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: about stuff I'm not. I don't try to pretend I'm
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: something I'm not or anything like that. I mean, I am.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I am my reader at Script Magazine. I'm hustling, I'm writing.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to juggle a day job and a family
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: and and I have uh, one daughter in college and
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: my son is a senior in high school. And so
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: we've been applying to colleges and doing all that kind
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: of stuff. And I've got pets, and I'm I've got
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: and if Script Magazine. What a lot of people don't
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: know is I don't have a team at Script. It's
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: just me and I have sixty contributors. So I manage
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: these sixty contributors and edit all of the work that
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: you see online, and so it's juggling. It is challenging.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: But what I've discovered is that, you know, I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: was the biggest lesson for me that works for me.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: For other people, I think what really works for them
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: is to have the nine to five job where you
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: go you just focus on your work nine to five
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: and you come home and you don't have that kind
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: of job where you know you have to take it
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: home with you. You might have to work on the
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: weekends at night, and then you can just focus on
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: your writing on those off hours. For me, my job
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: is not like that because I have people from all
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: different time zones. I've got writers in la and I
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: have writers in London, so I get emails all the time,
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: and since they're freelance writers, a lot of time they're
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: working and writing their articles on the weekends. They don't
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: have boundaries of nine to five, So I can't have
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: boundaries of nine to five.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: So that's the challenge for me, and finding time to write.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: And when your kids are hungry. Your kids are hungry,
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: they want dinner on the table, you know. And I'm
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: still pretty old fashioned that way, you know, Like I
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: still have dinner on the table every night, and you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: all that kind of stuff. But so what I do
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: is I find that I never used to be a
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: morning writer. Like right now while we're talking, my my
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: daughter's texting me because she's at the supermarket and one
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: no want to get hold on. Okay, I'm gonna ignore her.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: So and so, so what I do is I get
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: up in the morning and I and I try to
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: just write, Like as soon as I get the kid
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: off to school and get the dog fed, I sit
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: down and I try to write. Because I find that
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: if I try to do all my other stuff first
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: and then write, I'm too tired at the end of
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: the night. Like I can't write after dinner. Like I
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: know a lot of people can write at night, late
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: into the night. I can't do that. I'm too tired.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: I want I want a drink. I'm done. So I
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: start my day writing and then I'll pop in check
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: my email at work, make sure everything is okay. And
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: then as soon as I'm like okay, capped out, wrote
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: that scene, wrote whatever it was. My goal was for
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: the day. Even if I honestly dave, even if I
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: only write for fifteen minutes, I have to write something
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: because or else I'm just a bitch, Like it gets
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: me irritable, like I didn't take care of myself today.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Then as the day goes on, I start getting resentful
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: because I didn't. I didn't do what I wanted to do.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: So I try really really hard to do that. I'm
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: not always successful, but I do try to write in
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: the morning and then and then I and then I
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: go full full on into my day job and just
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: work work, work, work, work, And then if but if
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: I'm inspired and I want to keep writing in the
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: morning and I just on a roll, I keep writing,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: and then I then I will many many nights, I
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: will end up doing my day job until eleven o'clock
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: at night because I have to do what I didn't
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: do during the day. But I'm very blessed to work
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: from home so that I have that flexibility to tap
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: into my creativity when I'm feeling it. And I know
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: a lot of other people don't have that. But and
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: then I try on the weekends, I dedicate Sunday Funday,
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: you know, and so I try to do all my
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: mom's stuff on Saturday, so that on Sunday is my
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: day and I can just write. That's how I find
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: works for me.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: Well excellent. So, you know, because a lot of people
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: do work the nine to five, and sometimes there are
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: like you know, people who are on call. So like
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: if they do work the nine to five, suddenly they're
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: getting you know, calls at you know, eight o'clock at night.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, exactly, so easy.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Other thing too, other than interrojet for a second. The
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: other thing too, is to try to write on your
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: lunch break, like you know, just just really be disciplined
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: and write any second you can. I'm actually one of
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: my friends had contacted me the other day nervous. He
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: had opportunity for to take on a gig to write
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: a script and actually get paid to do it. And
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: he was very nervous to say yes because how am
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: I going to find a time to do this? And
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: so I put a call out onto Facebook and onto
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Twitter for people to give the advice about how they
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: work a day job and get writing done. And people
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: send in a ton, a ton of comments and tweets
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: which I've collected, and I will write a future balls
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: and Steale about this, just bullet lifting everybody's ideas of
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: how to get how to get that done. I probably
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: won't write it for a couple of weeks, but when
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: I do, I'll shoot to the url.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: Oh thank you, you know, because you know I speak
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: of you know, you said writing at least fifteen minutes.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: And I remember I got advice before from from an
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: actual working writer at in LA and he said the
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: same thing, because basically he said, as long as you
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: can just even get a small amount done, he said,
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: by the end, he actually timed it out. He said,
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: if what he tries to do is it's at least
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: fifteen minutes a day, and at most, he said, we'll
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: just do it to he like sort of burns out
• 24:23
  Speaker 5: and on those magical days when you know, sort of
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: everything his schedule clears up and basically he tries to
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: get a rough draft done within like three to four weeks.
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: What have you heard? I mean? Is your style similar
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: to that we try to get, you know, just that
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: first draft, bang, go as quickly as possible it?
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: Well, yes, I'm actually trying a different process right now,
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: which I'll discuss in one second. I just want to
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: say this about this current topic so that I don't forget.
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: But one of the beautiful things about the fifteen minutes
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: is even just even just getting if you spend fifteen
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: minutes on it, what's going to happen is your mind
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: is still going to be thinking about it all throughout
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: the day. And so that fifteen minutes really a lot
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: more than fifteen minutes, because even if you're not putting
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: words on the page and you're thinking about it, that
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: counts as writing because you're digesting and developing the story
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: in your head. And the other trick I would say
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: that helps you pick right up quickly. Would you only
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: have fifteen minutes is don't finish like never, never completely
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: finish the scene, so that you have and say okay,
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: now I'm done today, because they finish the scene. If
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: your goal is to finish that scene finish it, but
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: then start the next scene before and then stop for
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: the day, because if you've already started the scene, your
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: head's going to be thinking about that scene throughout the day.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: So when you sit back down, you're not looking at
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: a blank page and you've already been digesting it, so
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: you can just kind of hit the ground running. Those
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: are little things that I think have helped me.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: So so then, so what process now are are you
• 26:13
  Speaker 5: using to write this new scroup?
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: I oh yeah, Oh my god, I am so far
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: out of my comfort zone, Dave. I just I just
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: had a long talk with about this yesterday because I
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: was freaking out because it's so different than what I
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: normally do. I normally outline. I'm like an outline junkie,
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: and I think part of it is because I hate
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: starting things so outlining. I just, you know, outline, outline,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: and I kind of sometimes use it too much as
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: the safety net. And even though I never really I
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: stick to the outline somewhat, I never have a problem
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: run I'm writing, going off the outline, exploring characters, all
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: of that kind of stuff. But for some reason, I
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: just kind of need an outline, and and so an
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: unk never writes for the outline. He might have just
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: sort of a broad brushstroke, but he's been doing this
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: for years and and I don't know if you just
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: to clarify, I'm known screenwriters, a ghostwriter. He writes for hire,
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: no credit with NDAs he's written. He's written with some
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: incredible people and rewritten some incredibly talented top writers. I mean,
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: he's he's been at this for a very long time.
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: So he is challenging me to try to embrace with
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: this new project that we're working on, his style, which
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: and I'm I love challenging myself. I love trying different
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: different processes and seeing what works best for me and
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: discovering new ways to do things and new ways to
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: tap into that creative energy. So we are literally writing
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: the first draft like it's like we're brainstorming, like I
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: have when I send him this when I write something,
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: and I sent him the script to pick up where
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: we left off, I never know what he's gonna do.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Like this last scene he sent it back to me
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: and he'd kill someone and I'm like okay, And we're
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: like exploring characters, and so I was like, Okay, I'm
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: struggling with this. I'm really struggling. I'm feeling like I
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: don't know, Like I'm standing blindfolded in the middle of
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: the forest, you know, like where am I supposed to go?
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: You know? And he and so he's just encouraging me
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: to He's like, you know, you might am reminding me
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: of things like And this is what's great when you
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: have a writing partner knows you well and knows and
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: knows you know, like what might he could look at
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: my fear objectively and not emotionally and remind me. Look,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: you're a martial artist. When you're standing in the dojo
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: and somebody started fighting, you do you do? You sit
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: there and think about it. You just react. You just
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: you know, block, punch, kick, whatever you have to do.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: You just muscle memory and you just relax and do it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: So do the same thing when you're writing, like shut
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: the door, like Stephen King says, and just write and
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: can and take that pressure off of yourself and just
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: think of it as like you're just brainstorming, but in
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: script format, so that then by the end of the
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: time of brainstorming and sid having an outline, we have
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: a script and then we can play with that. And
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: so I I'm trying that, and I I think I'm
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: gonna like it. But it's a little it's a little
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: scary for somebody who's used to outlining, but there's tons
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: of people who do it this way and and don't outline.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: So I'm just trying a different a different process this time.
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: So so, uh, Genie, when you outline, do you like
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: what exactly do you? How do you outline? And what
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: I mean by that is do you like go buy
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: like sid Fields? Uh? Two points? You know what I mean?
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: I forget the name of something my head. I can't
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: believe that.
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: Uh no, I don't.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: And there's all those different ways like the beat sheet
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: and the hero's journey, and there's so many different structure ways.
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: I think. I think once you when you're starting out,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: it's really important to pay attention to that kind of stuff.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: And then at a certain point, a certain point, you
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: sort of get to a point where you know story
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: well enough that you don't have to look at that
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: roadmap kind of thing. One of the things that I
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: started that I really loved was Michael Haig and Chris
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: Fogler have a DVD called The Hero's Two Journeys, and
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: I thought that was that was something that really helped
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: me when I was beginning, because it talked about not
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: just the structure in terms of plot points, but also
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: the structure in terms of the character's arc and evolution,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: and and that I thought was a really great resource
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: for a beginning writer. And even remind yourself. I would
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: go back and watch it, you know, right before I
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: would start any new script, just to kind of refresh
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: my mind and memory of it. But then it just
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: becomes intuitive. So what I what I had been doing,
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, like with Slavery by another name, that
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: that script had becomes Slavery Vine in some respect, it's
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: like six years, you know, into it. But we had
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: a thirty one page outline, and by the time that
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: it got to that point, it was like flug lines.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: I would then do this really detailed outline and then
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: put it into the screenwriting software and would complete with
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: slugline and a paragraph for each what was supposed to
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: happen in the intent and purpose of that scene. And
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: that helped me because I was never ever looking at
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: a blank page, so I would go in and I
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: would look at this as what I'm going to do,
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: and then I would just sit down and write that scene.
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: And sometimes things would change, scenes would get deleted, added
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: and change, you know. You know, the trick to outlining
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: is never to think of it as something that's set
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: in stone. You have to like let it go, you know.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: But at least it gives you sort of a little
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: map and you can veer off of it and whatnot,
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: and that has that was always my comfort zone, knowing
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: that I had this, Okay, this is I'm a planner.
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: So it helped me to know I have a plan,
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: this is the plan of this scene, and this is
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: what's going to happen.
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know I've outlined too, and I'm sure other
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: people have. And suddenly, you know, when you start writing,
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: you either realize you've not written enough, you've written too much,
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: and you're like, oh my god, what I thought was
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: going to be? You know, a two page scene is
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: now spanning fifteen pages, and that's when you sort of
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: so when that happens, do you just sort of continue
• 32:46
  Speaker 5: with the just doing it and then then you'll edit
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: later and when you're finished a rough drift.
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I just I just let it go, just write
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: however much I want to write. The first draft of
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Slavery by No the name was one hundred and seventy
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: five pages, and it's an epic story. But nothing's worth
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: one hundred and seventy five, So it's I think it's
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: now like one hundred and thirty two, but it's but
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: it isn't you know, it's a little lengthy, but it
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: is an epic story. I wouldn't if it was any
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: other story other than this, I wouldn't have it beat
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: that long. But but yeah, you just let it go
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: and then and you can. I mean, that's what rewriting
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: is all about, because you never know what's going to
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: come out. Like even and even when people would give
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: me notes and I wouldn't like those notes, I wouldn't
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: agree with them, I would still try them because you know,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: there might be something in that note. There's something in
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: it that's worthy of something. It might not be the
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: exact note they gave me, that their solution might not
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: be the solution that I ended up using. But by
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: trying something, I could always find a solution that worked
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: for me and the note giver. And that and when
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: I say solution that worked for the note giver. It
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: only needs to work for the note giver if the
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: notegiver is your producer. If it's just somebody who's reading
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: your script to give you notes, you don't have to
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: worry about pleasing them. You just listen to what they're
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: saying and see if it works for your story or not.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: But when I had producers, definitely pleasing them is important.
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm part of a writer's group and we always
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: you know, give each other notes. You know, we hand
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: in you know, a scripts each month, not completed scripts,
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: but usually like ten to twenty pages, and when you
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: get notes, you see a lot of different ideas, you know,
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. So that's a very good point. The
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: point you just brought up was take the note from
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: the other readers and see if you agree with it,
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: and see how it would help your story. And also see,
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: you know, the person saying it and why they're saying it. Mean,
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: like what are they trying to convey Because some people have,
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: you know, certain things like they just want to read
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: horror scripts or some people who just want to read comedies,
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: you know, and you know, I think that's that also
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: ways into whatever they're trying to convey.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, uh so, Geenie, do you want to take some
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: questions because you have a lot, but I'm not gonna
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: take I'm not gonna ask all of them. Uh Like
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: I was just just mentioned to you as we started this,
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: there was a lot that came in at like the
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: midnight hour.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Whatever you want to.
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: Ask, sure, so I'll ask probably the best five or so.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: So the first question actually had came in. This is
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: by John who's a producer on the screen, the producer
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: of the film The Walking Full And his question is
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: does one script actually mean there's one page of the
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: script equal one page on screen?
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: You know, I mean I think it's it. Typically that's
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: the rule, like when you're you're writing, you think of
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: one minute is one page, But it depends on what's
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: on the page and what the director decides to do
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: with that, and you know, but that's the basic standard rule.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: It doesn't exactly like if you stop, that would have stopped,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: you know, like and it doesn't exactly make a minute,
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: but that's just the way to gauge. Uh.
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, by the way, have you seen that yet the
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: commercial because they're doing any go go for it? And
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: he actually the film is all about a guy who
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: actually walked from New York all the way to California.
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: Oh cool, And I don't know if you if you've
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: heard of it yet.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: We have a walking stick because I'm really into walking
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: sticks lately.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: He did.
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: There's different pictures of him going through all the different states,
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: and some states he actually had a walking stick.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: I want one that has like a little button that
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: you pushed that a knife comes out. Because I live
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: in the country, so I'm walking on these back like
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: der roads, and there were bear and you know, there's
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of stuff out there. You know, there
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: was a completely different side note, But no, I haven't
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: seen it yet, and I would love to check it out.
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: There was a walking stick that I saw that actually
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: unfolded and there was a sword inside, so like it
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: was that this stick, this stick was actually the sheath
• 37:02
  Speaker 5: so you would pull it out and it was actually
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: a double bladed sword. So I guess if there was
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: a bear, you could actually fend it off at least
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: you had something, and then you could just resheath it
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: and then it's a walking stick again.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, I totally want that. I totally want that.
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I saw like a couple of years ago, I
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: was looking my mom was asking for a walking stick
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: and I found it and I was like wow. I
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: was like, no, I didn't get it because, uh, I
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: don't think she would probably be like, oh my god,
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: I'm never using it because she'll she'll only use like
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: certain stuff. And I know if I showed it there
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: was a sword inside, she'd be like, oh my god,
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: I'll get arrested.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: But she probably send you to therapy.
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: Uh So, the the second question is how does an
• 37:52
  Speaker 5: unknown screenwater get representation?
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, this is like this this week could
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: talk all day about. I think basically what there's there's
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of stuff that that Like, I've moderated a
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: lot of panels at conferences where we set panels of
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: agents and managers and everybody. Everybody wants to know like
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: this magic trick, you know, And I actually wrote a
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: post called the magic trick is Selling your screenplay. It's
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: one of my Balls and Steel posts where you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: I talk about some of that, but basically in terms
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: of getting representation, specifically not selling it from what. I
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: don't have representation, and but I have gotten my script
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: read by like the top agencies and and great production
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: companies and things like that. By hustling, like I learned,
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: learn how to pitch. And one of the best ways
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: to learn how to pitch is to go to UH
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: pitch beests. And you're not, honestly, you're not going to
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: sell your script at a pitchfest, but you're going to
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: learn how to how to pitch your script, how to
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: get comfortable talking to executives. You're going to make connections,
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: you're going to get part of You're not just trying
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: to sell your script, You're trying to sell yourself. And
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: because if they say yes to the script, they're going
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: to have to work with you. So it really is
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: helpful to practice those pitching skills with people in those
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: in that pitch fest environment because you can do every
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: you know, the pitches are only for five minutes, so
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: you just you're in line and you just go go go, go,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: go for hours all day and you can easily get
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: in like, you know, fifteen eighteen pitches in a day,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: and those are fifteen or eighteen people who you had
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: to drive all around LA and try to get meetings
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: with you never would be able to. And yeah, I
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: mean there's no question a lot of them are assistants,
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: you know, but today's assistant is tomorrow's studio head. But
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: people change companies so often in this industry that they
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: may be at X y Z company today but over
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: at ABC company tomorrow, you know, and that may be
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: the fit for your script.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: You know, like so, and they might just And the
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: trick is getting read so that people know whether you're
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: a good writer or not. And if you're a really
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: good writer, your script is going to stand out. And
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: so the other way to do it is by entering
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: contests like this tracking Board launch Pad. The whole purpose
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: of this is not it's to try to get these
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: twenty five top writers to launch their careers. The blacklist
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: is another great way to It's not a contest, but
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: it's a great way to get feedback on your script
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: and get it listed. And so many executives do look
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: at the blacklist to find material you can tag your
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: your stuff. I just entered Slavery, run another name into what.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: I'm waiting for the feedback so it could be listed.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: Because I'm curious to see how the process works. I
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: know you know, they've got they've had people get representation
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: from that as well. The best, you know, the big
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: contest like Austin, the Austin Film Festival one is really
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: good final draft, big break script, a Plua, Blue Cat.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: When it's the big contest, executives will notice. They will
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: read those and you may not even know they're reading
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: your script if it if it places as a finalist,
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: people will just read them. It's not like they'll leave
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: on contact you to say we're going to read your script.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: They just get them. And so but don't I would say,
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: don't bother with the contests that are that are smaller
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: that unless there it's like a contest that gives you,
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: like you know, money as a prize that and you
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: need the money. But if you're if it's a smaller contact,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: they're not going to really notice the representations. The reps
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: aren't really going to notice those, you know. So unless
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: they offer feedback or something else that you find a
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: personal value, they probably aren't going to help you career wise.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: But you know, just and write a lot like right.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: The other you know, the other thing is you've got
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: to write something that's marketable, something they can sell there's
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: no point in them repingue like and that's this is why,
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: this is probably why I don't have an agent yet,
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: because the thing that I'm most known for is slavery
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: by of Anain, which is a very very difficult thing
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: to sell, and everyone who reads it says, oh my god,
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: this has to get made. This is such an important story.
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: And it's about slavery post Civil War. Everything that's going
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: on right now with Ferguson and all of this relations
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: between the law enforcement and the African American community. Slaverbread
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: of Anain is all about prison laboring and how the
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: South after the Civil War, how the South created these
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: laws to relate to re enslave blacks by arresting them
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: for these false crimes and then leasing them as prison laborers.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: That's why slavery by another name. And this is and
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: before those laws were created, blacks and whites, they're fifty
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: to fifty blacks and whites in prisons. And then after
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: these laws, a disproportionate number of African Americans were in
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: prison and that leads a stigma in society where people
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: start thinking, oh my god, they are dangerous people and
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: they aren't. It's you know, it's the laws that were created,
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: and you know, years and years of that happening, you know,
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: changes society's perception of a culture. And so it's extremely
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: timely right now film hoping that that helps us. But
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: it's still a very difficult sell because it's a period piece.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: You know, it's not going to be a cheap film
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: to make, So you need to get representation. They need
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: to know they can sell something and make money off
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: of you. So I'm writing other things right now with
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Unk and myself that are much more marketable, that are
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: easier to sell, so that then hopefully I can get
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: those sold and then someone to look at Slavery. So
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: you know, don't pick, don't do what I did, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: pick that monumental herculean project, you know, and and have
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: that ther your your thing that's on the forefront. You know, think,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: think smaller and marketable and something that they can sell,
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: because that's you know, that's how they put food on
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: their table, is to sell yourself.
• 44:29
  Speaker 5: So that ties in with the My next question you're
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: speaking of a soluble screenplay is how to tell or
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: how do you tell if you have a good concept
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: or not. Oftentimes I'll develop a concept and begin writing
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: only to hit a dead end.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: That is the million dollar question. I mean, if you
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: know what I mean, really, I think it's it's one
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: of the things that I did.
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: We're working on this project now. It's a horror project,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: and over Thanksgiving I pitched it to my nieces and nephews,
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: who are all like in that target audience range eighteen
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: to twenty five, you know, and they were all like,
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: oh my god, oh my god, I would totally see that.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Oh my god, you know, like, so you want that
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: kind of reaction from your target audience, but also think about,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: think about budget, think about because those are also things
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: that matter. You know. Eighteen to twenty five year old
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: males are, like, I think, the biggest audience for films,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: and they'll go see them multiple times. So if you
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: can cap into that, you know, but you also have
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: to find not just the marketable idea, but the idea
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: that you can be passionate about writing, because if you weren't,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: if you're just writing a horror piece, you know, horror,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: not horror, but like a total like horror piece for money,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: for whatever, just to see if you can break in
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: that way, but you aren't passionate about it. It's it's
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: a show on a page. So the trick is finding
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: something that you have you can tap into and and
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: and really enjoy writing that somebody can sell and there
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: will be an audience for it that has not a
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: mondumental budget, because that matters too, you know. So it's
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: it's tricky. I mean, there's a high concept, you know,
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: is uh is it is really tough. I was talking
• 46:33
  Speaker 4: to a professional writer, Joe Gazoom one day. He was
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: a guest on script shot. He's I think one of
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: his scripts is on track and boards hit List, and
• 46:46
  Speaker 4: he was telling me that with his manager he will
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: literally go over one hundred ideas, one hundred or more ideas,
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: and his aunt, his manager will say this is the
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: one you're going to write. So if you can get representation,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: they can certainly help you decide which one they think
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: they can sell. But I would say, look at things
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: like the hit list, look at the blacklist, look at
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: the top twenty five on the tracking board launch pad,
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: look at log lines of things that are selling, and
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: sort of research and figure out. And it's not about
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: following the trends. It's about figuring out what made that
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: why was that log line so good? You know, like
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: it takes a while to hone that skill of figuring
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: out what is the project? And honestly, I think you're
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: better off bending a lot of time figuring out what
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: to write than just writing any idea that you have,
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: because you know, if you write it and you can't
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: sell it, you still learn stuff from brighting things even
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: if you don't sell it, so it still help pulone.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: You're writing skills. But if you're really trying to get
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: representation and sell some things, spend a lot of time
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: figuring out what it is you're going to write that
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: would attract somebody, would attract the audience. Isn't going to
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: cost a fortune to make, especially if you're just breaking in,
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: you know, because if it's not going to cost a
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: lot to make, you can also do it as an
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: indie film too.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: Exactly right, And you know we were talking about that
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: with Past's guests as well. Was you know, if you
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: had to if you sort of reverse engineer it by
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: taking a list of what you have, which is sometimes
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: called the Roe Regaez list, So hey, I have access
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: to like this farmhouse and stuff like that, and suddenly
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: you're building basing a film there, you know, the settings
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: entirely inside this farmhouse, and you know that way, if
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: it doesn't get noticed that way, you can just try
• 48:40
  Speaker 5: to crowdfund it or you know, pull every resource you
• 48:43
  Speaker 5: have together to make this small film and maybe just
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: put up on YouTube, just try to get noticed.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and people do it all the time.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: They make these these films and then they go they
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: submit them to film festivals and they get noticed and
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: they win awards, and then they go on to do
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: something bigger. You know, it happens all the time. M hm.
• 49:02
  Speaker 5: And speaking of a million dollar questions, this is, uh,
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: this ties in with what we're talking about, and this
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: is this is an only million dollar question is getting discovered,
• 49:09
  Speaker 5: which is I'm hoping to get discovered with my screenplay,
• 49:12
  Speaker 5: but I don't know where to start. Uh this person list,
• 49:16
  Speaker 5: the Blacklist, tracking Board, script shadow, is there a specific
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: website that they should put their material on for a
• 49:24
  Speaker 5: better chance of getting noticed.
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: The first thing I would say, before you put your
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: script anywhere, make sure it is the best possible script
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: that it can be, and so get feedback. You know,
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: don't put it out too soon, because there's like you know,
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: there's they keep track of stuff like that, you know,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: like whether whether to consider the writer or not, not
• 49:50
  Speaker 4: just the idea, but the writer. So you want to
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: make sure that it's written well because you don't want
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: to have like a red mark next to your name.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: So one of the things that like the Tracking Board
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: does and the Blacklist does is you get you get feedback.
• 50:16
  Speaker 4: And I know a lot of people talk about that
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: line to pay for coverage, not line to pay for notes.
• 50:24
  Speaker 4: I think I've always done it. I've always gotten some
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: sort of coverage and and not coverage so much, but
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: you know, notes and script notes, especially when I started off.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: Now I don't Now I don't really pay for them anymore.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: I mean I did on the Blacklist and on the
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: Tracking Board, but because I have a great respect for them.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: But for the most part, I mean I have I
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: have friends who are great writers, and we trade scripts
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: with each other and we give each other notes. But
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: for these opportunities to get noticed, I'm not opposed to pay.
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: And I look at it as it's like you're paying
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: for a tutor. You know, it's part it's an investment
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: in myself and in my education as a writer, and
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: so I always learned something from notes that makes me
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: a better writer. So before you list it anywhere, make
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: sure it is the best possible script that it can be,
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: and then submit it. And I would definitely say all
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: of those things that I mentioned in those contests that
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: we talked about earlier are all great ways to get noticed.
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: So, you know, just to continue that question, what is
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: somebody just put a screenplay up on their own website,
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: like they actually created a website. You know, they got
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: wix dot com and I just built their own website
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: doing very simple stuff. What do you think of that idea,
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: just sort of just to get it out there.
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't do it. Okay, I'm not even sure I can.
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: I can articulate why. But I'm a big spidy sense person.
• 52:01
  Speaker 4: You know, my media spighty sense was no, no, no,
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: don't do that. And I trust my gut. I think
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: there's there's because you know, because you're going to change
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: I mean you know you're going to change it, You're
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: going to rewrite it, you're going to evolve it. So
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: if you put it up and it's not just fucking amazing.
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: Then you know, you kind of blow the opportunity to
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: really have it be this, you know, the best it
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: can be. I think, you know, because what if somebody
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: reads it today, but then tomorrow you do a rewrite,
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: that's just killer. But now they're not going to revisit
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: it because they already read it, you know, like it's
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know, it's just not something I would do.
• 52:44
  Speaker 4: I think that you're better off just queerying people and
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: or going to pitching events or entering contests and having
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: people request it to read it. That's that's me.
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I I just you know, I just wanted
• 53:03
  Speaker 5: to ask since we were talking about it and I
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: heard there somebody once suggested that to me, and I
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: was like, I don't know about that. So that's why
• 53:11
  Speaker 5: I kind of and.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: I think if your spidy fence immediately says I don't
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: know about that, I think you have to just trust
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: that and not go with it, you know, not do it.
• 53:19
  Speaker 4: And sometimes you don't need like an absolute rational reason
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: why to do or not do something, just trust your gut.
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: No, yeah, I know, what's exactly what you mean. So
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: you know, Geenie, I've we've been talking about for about
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: an hour. I've taken up a lot of your time.
• 53:38
  Speaker 5: So you're a busy ferson, I know, so you've like,
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: I gotta get writing.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: Oh it's a nice break. Actually.
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: Uh So is there anything that we that we have
• 53:52
  Speaker 5: a discussed that you will like to bring up?
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I would like to say a little
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: bit about social media and social media etiquette. I think
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: it's really really important when you're participating in social media
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: that you are mindful and respectful of people's time and
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: and and and and really what you're there for. You know,
• 54:20
  Speaker 4: like you're there to connect, You're there to be social,
• 54:22
  Speaker 4: You're there to build a network and build a relationship.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: So it's important for people to not be selfish online
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: and to be giving and and you know, like what
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: you're doing with these podcasts, what I do with script chat,
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: what you know a lot of other people do, would
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: just simply you know, and obviously these are big platforms
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: that not everyone can wants to do and wants to
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: dedicate that kind of time. But even I'm talking just
• 54:52
  Speaker 4: as simple as you found a great article you want
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: to share with other writers, tweet it out, you know,
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: you know, if you meet if you meet people online
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: and you think this person might like say, say, you
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: want to write a graphic novel, but you want to
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: have you need somebody who might you know, you might
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: need an artist, or you might need something else that
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: that they say, Oh, I know somebody who could help Dave,
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: you know, and then introduce those two people. You know,
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: it's it's it's not about you all the time, you know,
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: like it's it is about it's a community of people.
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: And and the best way to get the most value
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: out of that space is to be a giving person.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: And it does all it does truly come back to you.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: And then every once in a while you're gonna need
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: some help, and you can say to somebody say, hey,
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: you know I want to I'm doing a crowdfunding campaign,
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: or I'm doing this, or I'm doing that. I could
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: use some help with this. People will be much more
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: likely to come and help you if you've been helpful
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: to other people. That's my two cents. And and just
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: don't suck like you know, to be a good decent
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: human being.
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: You know, it's funny. I actually knew somebody who would
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: take the Facebook every time they had a problem with somebody,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: and they would just like go into this person, and
• 56:14
  Speaker 5: people all over were like, what the hell is wrong
• 56:17
  Speaker 5: with that person? Like why would you do that? Deplete?
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: The delete tweet feature is a very good thing.
• 56:27
  Speaker 5: Uh, That's why I always try to make jokes or
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: you know, or networking. That's why I kind of social
• 56:33
  Speaker 5: media if if you notice, I stay out of politics completely.
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: I talk about them at all.
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's just I don't think it's conducive to any
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: any sort of dialogue or anything. That's why it's either
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: self deprecating jokes at myself or like hey it's a
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: useful piece of information. And then you know, look at
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: third ones like oh hey I got this podcast. I suck,
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: but the guests don't.
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: So it's yeah, And I find that whenever people do
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: talk about politics, even if it's even if it's my
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: scene political viewpoint, they always it always pisses people off
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: and people start on following them and and you know it,
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: and then it begs, so what is what is the
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: point of that? Like, first of all, why can't we
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: all isn't this what America is all about? That we
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: all have different view points of view? And why can't
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: we celebrate that? Why do people have to get so
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: pissy about it. I just don't want to engage in
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: it because I find it's just really really it ends
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: up being biting and negative, and that's not what I'm
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: there for. And I don't really, honestly, I don't really
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: give a shit. Like, you know, everybody can feel the
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: way they want to feel, and they have a right
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: to feel they want to the way they want to feel.
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: But I don't have to feel the way everyone else feels,
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: and everyone else doesn't have to feel the way I feel.
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: Just like any advice I've given today on screenwriting, there
• 57:45
  Speaker 4: you know there's going to be somebody who disagrees with it,
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: and I'm totally fine with that because I only speak
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: from my experience as a screenwriter and and so this
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: has been my experience. Are there other ways to break in?
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: Are there other ways to get a manager? Absolutely, you've
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: got to friend who who knows somebody? I mean, it's
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: definitely like who you know, don't be afraid to ask
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: people you know, do you know somebody who might like
• 58:07
  Speaker 4: the script? You know, ask your friends, Like, there's so
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: many different ways to go about it. There's as many
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: ways to break into the industry as there are people,
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: there's no one right way, and so I think in
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: social media people have to be open to different viewpoints
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: and different philosophies in different angles of breaking in. Some
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: people hate Pitchfest. I love them. You know, they worked
• 58:28
  Speaker 4: for me. They haven't worked for other people. Everybody's going
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: to have a different experience. So I would suggest to
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: everyone that they just try dip their toe in and
• 58:38
  Speaker 4: try a whole bunch of different kinds of things and
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: see what feels organic and works for you and then
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: go with that.
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that sounds amazing. And also you put on the
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: poet is. There is a ton of different ways to
• 58:52
  Speaker 5: break in, and you never really know who's watching on
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: social media. So because I mean and hear about that, Uh,
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: I don't see all the time, but you hear by
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: them more frequently. Is someone was found on Twitter or
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: someone was found on their blog, like Diablo Cody was
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: found because of her blog.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, you know.
• 59:13
  Speaker 5: I never know. That's why I think you aways stay wasteful. Two.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: I think screen eaders really should have websites and have
• 59:20
  Speaker 4: blogged about something. I don't give a shit if you're
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: blogging about your cat, you know, just blog about something
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: because it helps people know that you can tell a story,
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: and even a story just in five hundred words or
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: whatever it is for the blog post. That makes them
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: more confident requesting your script if they see that you
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: can at least write and be articulate and tell an
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: engaging story, make them laugh, make them cry, make them
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: feel something. Plus practically, it has all your contact information
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: on it, Like, don't make it hard for people to
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: find you on Twitter. You know, there's not there, there's
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: not always people that if they don't have a website,
• 59:58
  Speaker 4: there's nowhere for people to really.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: Know, like we'll be right back after a word from
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: our sponsor and now back to the show to.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: Get your email address or to you know. So make
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: it easy for executives to discover you, and having a
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: website is the best way to do it.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a good point because I've actually gotten a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: ton of contacts through my contact form on my website
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: and yeah, yeah, so that's you know. And also it's
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: good because I can filter through all some of the stuff.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: Some of the stuff is usually like hey Dave, I
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: don't know who you are and you don't know me,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: but here's my crowdfunding campaign give me money.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: Oh oh my god, oh my god. Yes, you should
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: see some of the things I get in my email
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: in Bush. But we won't go there because that's the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: whole other We should do like a Geni's mail bag.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: Anytime you want to come back, Genie, please let me
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 5: know and we will do that. We'll go through all
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 5: the different emails you get because actually that not only
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 5: is fascinating, but I think it would be educational as well.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, and we might need to be drinking
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: for that one.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 5: Why not? I mean I was, I'm drinking coffee right now.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: But well I'll switch to like wild turkey one o one.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: Or something perfect perfect my favorite.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Uh do you like wild turkey?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah? I do love it. And you know what's really
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: great if you soak rollers in it? Oh my god,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: just really yes, poke little holes in the bottom of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: the rollers and stick them in in a in a
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: shallow bowl and put wild turkey in there. It's great.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 5: I've never I've never heard of that before, but I'm
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 5: gonna try it now. That's all I get through Wild
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: turkey one O one because I got addicted to the
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: American honey wild turkey because it's just so smooth.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 5: And I had a Thanksgiving party with some friends and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 5: I they normally they're like, oh, we don't drink whiskey.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: And I put them a little bit of the American
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: honey wild turkey and they're like, oh my god, this
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: is amazing. This tastes so good. I was like, yeah,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: it's smooth, and you know, it's like my go to drink.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's great, and we need that.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: We got too many emails about crowdfunding campaigns. I actually
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: just became a moderator of a board all called the
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: launch Board, and it's all about you know, tips and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: tricks about crowdfunding and this and that. And one of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: the rules that the person who who made it said
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: was do not post your crowdfunding campaign. He goes asking
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: for advice and trying to promote it are two different things.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 5: And he's like, you know, because he and I were
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: talking and he said he had to leave a bunch
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 5: of private groups on Facebook because of that. It was
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: just so many crowdfunding campaigns one after the other, and
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 5: you're like, this isn't even a group anymore. It's just
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: you know, like a it's a I'm getting marketed to
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: and just it's like spam, you know, so it is,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: and it's and.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: I you know, I did it once for our short
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: film Impass, and we raised over fifteen thousand dollars and
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: I'm so so appreciative to everybody who helped us with that.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: But I wouldn't I really, If I never have to
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: do another crowdfunding campaign again in my life, I'll be thrilled.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: It's it's exhausting, it's hard work, it's you know, it's
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: and it's an I don't know. I just I hope
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: I never have to do one again.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: Even I'm sorry, even people you know, I know who
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 5: had the quote unquote rich relatives, even they struggled. I'm
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: not saying, you know, if Famon's listening, not saying not
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: to do it, because you as you know, I've had
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 5: a ton of guests on the recent Backust find incredible.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: It's an incredible resource. And there's incredible platforms to do
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: crowdfunding now, you know, Steven Spark. I mean, there's still
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: many great, great platforms for people to help independent filmmakers
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: get the money to make their dreams come true. I mean,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: I think crowdfunding is great. I have no problem with it.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: I'm just saying, as somebody to do it, it's it's
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 4: it's a lot of work, you know. Oh yeah, absolutely,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: you earn everything, you know, a lot of work.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, oh absolutely, It definitely is a lot of work.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 5: That's what always calls people on before they start one.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: I always say, and you know, this is going to
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: be a lot of work. This isn't going to be like, oh,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 5: I'm going to send one tweet out and suddenly I'm
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: going to be, you know, rolling in six figures.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: But you see, it all comes down to the don't
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 4: suck because if you stuck on social media, no one
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 4: is going to want to help you in your crowdfunding campaign.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it's so and you can't think
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: about that after the fact. Just to think about that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: from day one, when you start tweeting or start connecting
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: with people online, you have to always be mindful of that.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: Like I say to my kids, you know, don't say,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: don't you know, put anything out there that you wouldn't
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: want to see on the front page of the newspaper.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: I just happen to be very comfortable with seeing anything
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: other front me. Like I'm not. I'm not very guarded,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: you know, online. But I think some people should be
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: a little more guarded than they are.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I I think we all have friends like that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: where it's like, maybe you should take that tweet down.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: Maybe it's not you know, you're trying to get investors
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: for your film and he's and he was, you know,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: tweeting about random stuff that could be taken very out
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: of context. Oh yes, but but Jeanie, this has been
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: awesome having you on where Oh thank you, you know again, Like,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: if you want to come back on, please let me
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 5: know because I would love to do the Jenny's mail bag,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 5: Genie's mail bag, and you know, we can go through
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 5: all the crazy emails.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: Take a file for that, like the great one.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: Uh So, Genie, where can people find you at?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: If you go to Genie vb vis in victorbsboy dot com,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: there's a contact page there that has all the different
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: ways you can stalk me and all different social media
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: outlets and my email address as well. And careful, careful
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 4: you email me. You might end up on the show.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, don't suck and write something crazy. And I'm going
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: to link to that in the show notes and as well,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: I'm going to put a link to everyone to find
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: her scriptmag articles because, as we've talked about, Genie writes
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 5: the Balls of Steel and she has a wonderful, wonderful
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 5: articles in there that can help you out. Thank you
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: everyone for listening Genie, Thanks are for coming on, and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: if you're anything, always give me a holler.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: Thanks, thanks for having me.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: Dave, oh my pleasure. All right, have a good day
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 5: you too, Take care bye Bylle.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: tv for it. Slash four eighty four. Thank you so
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: much for listening, guys, as always, keep on writing no
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.