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BPS 467: Why Breaking Into TV Is HARDER Than You Think with Sandra Leviton · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four sixty seven.
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1:34
Speaker 5: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis. My next
1:40
Speaker 5: guest is an amazing TV and film development exec. She
1:44
Speaker 5: has worked on shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which,
1:47
Speaker 5: by the way, we're going to talk about, Sons of Anarchy,
1:50
Speaker 5: and now she just produced her own film, which is
1:53
Speaker 5: Zoned two with her production company. Under the Stairs Entertainment
1:57
Speaker 5: with guests Sandra Leviton, Hey Santra, Thanks off for coming
2:01
Speaker 5: on the show.
2:03
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me so Santra.
2:05
Speaker 5: You know, growing up, you know, were you always sort
2:07
Speaker 5: of interested in, you know, in film and TV? And
2:10
Speaker 5: and was that the main reason why you know you're
2:12
Speaker 5: in it today was because you know you've you've sort
2:14
Speaker 5: of found it at a young age. Oh.
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Speaker 3: Absolutely, There's never been a point in my life where
2:20
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to do this as my mom likes
2:23
Speaker 3: to tell the story that by the time I was born,
2:26
Speaker 3: my bags were already packed and ready to move to
2:28
Speaker 3: Los Angeles to work in film and TV. There was
2:31
Speaker 3: never a single question ever in terms of what I
2:34
Speaker 3: was going to do with my life. This is always
2:36
Speaker 3: going to be it. And I started doing it quite young,
2:39
Speaker 3: you know, theater at very early ages, and then eventually
2:43
Speaker 3: started working in cable access. So I started working in
2:46
Speaker 3: television at a super young age, probably around sixteen years old.
2:51
Speaker 5: So when you when you first moved out to uh
2:53
Speaker 5: to Los Angeles, did you actually know anybody or did
2:55
Speaker 5: you just completely know nobody and you sort of just
2:58
Speaker 5: had to find your way.
3:00
Speaker 3: Actually, I came out with a really great support system.
3:02
Speaker 3: I went to you know, Emerson College, and we have
3:04
Speaker 3: a huge alumni you know, mafia if you will, out
3:08
Speaker 3: here along with you know, all of our friends. So
3:10
Speaker 3: by the time that we, you know, get to our
3:12
Speaker 3: senior year, we do internship. We all move out here together,
3:15
Speaker 3: we do internships, you know, we make contacts that way,
3:18
Speaker 3: and we all just kind of grow in the industry together.
3:20
Speaker 3: So thankfully coming out here fresh out of you know,
3:23
Speaker 3: during school, actually we had I had a wonderful support system.
3:27
Speaker 5: Excellent. So do you actually and you did go to
3:29
Speaker 5: college for for film production.
3:32
Speaker 3: Actually, I am probably one of the few people who
3:34
Speaker 3: actually has a degree in television. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm
3:38
Speaker 3: very specific.
3:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I actually have a degree in business.
3:43
Speaker 5: So it's kind of you know, it's interesting how everyone
3:45
Speaker 5: sort of finds a way into this industry.
3:48
Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. Everyone has such a unique and such a
3:50
Speaker 3: fascinating path. It's really cool to listen to everyone else's stories.
3:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's why when I was doing this podcast,
3:56
Speaker 5: you know, I've I've heard everyone who's been on here
3:59
Speaker 5: there has a different story, and it's always interesting to
4:02
Speaker 5: hear everyone's different story because they're all different, you know.
4:05
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
4:07
Speaker 5: So when you got it out to LA, you know,
4:09
Speaker 5: what were some of the first things in first some
4:12
Speaker 5: of the first projects that you sort of went to
4:13
Speaker 5: work on.
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Speaker 3: Oh gosh, Well, my very first Los Angeles jobs, if
4:19
Speaker 3: you will, was an internship while still in school, and
4:21
Speaker 3: that was at twentieth Century Fox. And I'm going to
4:24
Speaker 3: date myself a little bit here, but it was a
4:26
Speaker 3: really exciting time in TV development. I was in I
4:29
Speaker 3: was interning in one of the current programming and development offices,
4:32
Speaker 3: and it was the season where they were developing House
4:36
Speaker 3: and Bones and Desperate Housewives was coming and they had
4:38
Speaker 3: all lost in Space reboot, and it was just it
4:41
Speaker 3: was kind of considered like the start of the new
4:43
Speaker 3: Golden Age of television. So it was a really exciting
4:46
Speaker 3: time to be there. And so, you know, that was,
4:48
Speaker 3: you know, just a semester. So and then I had
4:51
Speaker 3: a job pretty much straight out of school, working at
4:53
Speaker 3: a small agency that worked with celebrities doing commercial endorsements
4:59
Speaker 3: and voiceover. And then from there I actually took a
5:03
Speaker 3: turn and worked in reality TV for a number of years.
5:05
Speaker 3: So my first like real shows like if my first
5:07
Speaker 3: real on screen credit, if you will, is for shows
5:11
Speaker 3: like Extreme Dodgeball, America's Most Talented Kid, and you'll see
5:15
Speaker 3: that my credit is like receptionist. But it was really
5:19
Speaker 3: exciting because this was my first on on screen credits.
5:22
Speaker 3: And then I had a lot of jobs where I
5:24
Speaker 3: worked on really great shows, but because I was doing
5:27
Speaker 3: more production coordinating or I was behind the scenes at
5:30
Speaker 3: an agency or at a network, you stop losing. You
5:33
Speaker 3: end up not having any on screen credits for a while.
5:37
Speaker 3: But yeah, my very first projects was a you know,
5:40
Speaker 3: outside of school were these like bunch of reality shows
5:43
Speaker 3: and so it was like this Real Life and Mad
5:45
Speaker 3: Love with Flavor Flave, and it was kind of a
5:47
Speaker 3: really fun and interesting time to uh be even in
5:50
Speaker 3: reality TV because it was just exploding.
5:53
Speaker 5: You know, I actually remember this Real Life with Flavor Flave.
5:57
Speaker 5: That was actually I remember that show in it in
5:59
Speaker 5: Flavor and I think Jordan Knight was on there, and yeah,
6:03
Speaker 5: I remember that now. And but yet you know, uh,
6:07
Speaker 5: you know, reality TV, you know, has opened up a
6:09
Speaker 5: lot of doors for some people because you know, as
6:14
Speaker 5: as again as I've had a lot of people on here,
6:16
Speaker 5: you know, reality some of some of them have actually
6:18
Speaker 5: started in reality TV. And you know they say, hey, listen,
6:22
Speaker 5: I even like episode ninety nine, you know when when
6:24
Speaker 5: I'm working Jay Freeman on here, he actually started in
6:27
Speaker 5: film and now he works primarily in reality TV.
6:30
Speaker 3: You know, That's one of the great things about this business,
6:32
Speaker 3: and particularly now, like when I think when I first started,
6:35
Speaker 3: people were very much like, oh, you're in scripted TV,
6:37
Speaker 3: or you're in film or in reality TV, or you know,
6:40
Speaker 3: eventually you're you know, you're only in digital. But now
6:42
Speaker 3: everyone can cross over into all the different mediums and formats,
6:47
Speaker 3: and so whatever your heart desires or whatever your medium,
6:49
Speaker 3: your story dictates that it wants you to be in,
6:52
Speaker 3: you have the freedom to do that. And I think
6:54
Speaker 3: that's one of the most exciting things that's happening right now,
6:56
Speaker 3: is being able to do all of that. So I'm
6:58
Speaker 3: not surprised that you're you're getting those kinds of stories.
7:02
Speaker 3: When I was, you know, when I was starting out
7:03
Speaker 3: during that time, I think almost all of us got
7:06
Speaker 3: jobs in reality TV because that's just where all the
7:09
Speaker 3: jobs were at the time, and so a lot of
7:11
Speaker 3: us started there and I know many friends who are
7:13
Speaker 3: still there and loving it, and I have some friends
7:16
Speaker 3: and people like myself who transitioned over into the scripted world.
7:19
Speaker 3: So it's it's such a cool and exciting time, I
7:22
Speaker 3: think to be in the business because of the crossover everywhere.
7:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, I definitely agree. You know, there's just so much
7:28
Speaker 5: going on. And you know, once you once you started
7:31
Speaker 5: doing the reality shows, like you know, real Life, you know,
7:34
Speaker 5: what did you go from from there? Did you go
7:36
Speaker 5: back into TV or did you segue into film?
7:39
Speaker 3: I was, I stayed in TV, and so from there
7:43
Speaker 3: I actually worked at Paradigm lt Agency for a while,
7:47
Speaker 3: and I was able to transition there quite seamlessly, actually
7:50
Speaker 3: between reality and scripted television, because when I first started there,
7:55
Speaker 3: I was working for two agents, and one of them
7:57
Speaker 3: was in alternative television and the other one was in
7:59
Speaker 3: scar to television, and so I was able to kind
8:01
Speaker 3: of play the fine balance of knowing the reality world
8:05
Speaker 3: really really well and beginning to really immerse myself in
8:08
Speaker 3: the scripted world. And then eventually, I don't know if
8:11
Speaker 3: you've ever been inside of Paradigm, but they're in two buildings,
8:13
Speaker 3: and my agents ended up being split into two different buildings,
8:17
Speaker 3: and then from there I fully transitioned into scripted television.
8:20
Speaker 3: And so then I was there about fifteen months or so,
8:25
Speaker 3: so you know, I did my year and I did
8:26
Speaker 3: my time and it was actually had a great time there,
8:29
Speaker 3: and then eventually went to Fax and so I stayed
8:32
Speaker 3: in scripted television and I've only recently transitioned into film
8:36
Speaker 3: about the last three four years.
8:38
Speaker 5: So you know, when you went to FX, you know,
8:40
Speaker 5: obviously from being your bio, you got to work with
8:43
Speaker 5: some really really cool shows like Sons of Anarchy. You know,
8:48
Speaker 5: it's always sung in Philadelphia. So is there any sort
8:51
Speaker 5: of like, you know, things that you can talk about,
8:53
Speaker 5: you know from your time there, you know, like some
8:55
Speaker 5: of the things that you've learned.
8:57
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I mean, we'd be here all day.
9:01
Speaker 3: But honestly, like I'll say that, you know, that was
9:03
Speaker 3: my that was my dream job. You know, FX when
9:07
Speaker 3: I first started working there, had the Shield and Nip
9:11
Speaker 3: Talk and Rescue Me and Niptok was my all time
9:14
Speaker 3: favorite show. Like I had even read wrote a specscript
9:17
Speaker 3: of it in you know, for one of my screenwriting
9:20
Speaker 3: classes when I was in college in season one, and
9:24
Speaker 3: you know, so like that show just had so much
9:26
Speaker 3: emotion for me. Being able to go and work on
9:29
Speaker 3: my favorite show was like the coolest thing ever. And
9:31
Speaker 3: also working at a network that was just so exciting
9:34
Speaker 3: and was going through such a growth phase and actually
9:36
Speaker 3: still is, and so you know, it was really great.
9:40
Speaker 3: My very first day there was the day that they
9:43
Speaker 3: picked up Damages two series, and so shows like Damages
9:48
Speaker 3: and Sons of Anarchy and Louis and all of these
9:52
Speaker 3: other great shows.
9:54
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
10:00
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
10:03
Speaker 3: You know, I was there from day one Meanwhile, I
10:06
Speaker 3: got to enjoy the final seasons of The Shield and
10:09
Speaker 3: Rescue Me and Niptok and some of the classics and
10:11
Speaker 3: really watch how not only the network changed, but how
10:16
Speaker 3: television changed through the various different development cycles there, and
10:20
Speaker 3: it's been super fascinating. And so you know Sonny too.
10:25
Speaker 3: I think Sonny's a really great example. And this is
10:27
Speaker 3: something I talk about a lot with clients and people
10:31
Speaker 3: I work with now and when I do panels and stuff,
10:34
Speaker 3: and it's just about how television has changed, even during
10:37
Speaker 3: the short amount of time. So when I first started there,
10:40
Speaker 3: So Sonny was in season three when I first started,
10:43
Speaker 3: and I'm being a fan. I'm sure you know the background,
10:46
Speaker 3: But the real quick thing is, you know, these guys
10:48
Speaker 3: were actors. They had basically bought a camera from Best
10:53
Speaker 3: Buy for like two hundred bucks, shot a pilot, returned
10:57
Speaker 3: the camera, so they essentially spent zero dollars and was
11:01
Speaker 3: able to shop this around and get a show on
11:03
Speaker 3: the air, and for basic cable at that time in
11:07
Speaker 3: the you know, early to mid two thousands, that was
11:10
Speaker 3: actually really possible to do. And in the amount of
11:14
Speaker 3: time that I was there, and I was at FX
11:15
Speaker 3: for about five years, that became harder and harder for
11:18
Speaker 3: people to do. Suddenly the schedule was you know, not
11:23
Speaker 3: just peppered with you know people, We already had you know,
11:25
Speaker 3: good relationships with writers and other shows, all different levels
11:29
Speaker 3: of writers pitching shows. But by the time that I
11:31
Speaker 3: had actually left, and that was in twenty twelve, and
11:34
Speaker 3: we see this a lot more now, I think across
11:36
Speaker 3: the board and television is that it has gone very
11:40
Speaker 3: much to the way of the film studios, which means
11:42
Speaker 3: that you need to have a plus talent attached, and
11:45
Speaker 3: that can mean writers and showrunners, and that can mean
11:48
Speaker 3: some other high level producer, some high level actor talent, musician,
11:53
Speaker 3: somebody who's a household name. And it was even hard
11:56
Speaker 3: to get on the schedule. People were fighting to get
11:58
Speaker 3: on the schedule to just pitch shows at that point
12:01
Speaker 3: in time. And this was right before you know, Netflix
12:06
Speaker 3: and Hulu and them like really exploded onto the scene
12:09
Speaker 3: as well. So thankfully there's more outlets to do all
12:12
Speaker 3: of that. But it just to be able to see
12:13
Speaker 3: all of that change and to see the you know,
12:16
Speaker 3: just even growth of television during that time was just fascinating.
12:22
Speaker 3: So I recommend going back and definitely like reading up
12:24
Speaker 3: on you know, history and interviews, not just with critics,
12:28
Speaker 3: but you know when they interview the executives and the showrunners,
12:31
Speaker 3: you really see how the shows have changed. Yeah, you know.
12:35
Speaker 5: I was actually inspired by It's Always Sun in Philadelphia
12:38
Speaker 5: to create my own TV pilot, and I ended up
12:40
Speaker 5: shooting that. Mind cost a hell of a lot more
12:44
Speaker 5: than theirs did, though, because there was called zero. I
12:47
Speaker 5: was very stupid and I tried to put way too
12:49
Speaker 5: much production value in mind. So, to make a long
12:53
Speaker 5: story short, I ended up shooting in a news film studio,
12:56
Speaker 5: a new soundstage that opened up right down the street
12:59
Speaker 5: from me. We ended up buying up a best buy
13:03
Speaker 5: I write aid and there was one other story that
13:06
Speaker 5: was going out of business. We bought a lot of
13:08
Speaker 5: stuff at a heavily dis kind of price, including racks
13:11
Speaker 5: and cover art for like movies and stuff and all
13:14
Speaker 5: this other stuff, and was just I mean, I'm talking
13:16
Speaker 5: with pennies on the dollar, and we built this whole thing.
13:20
Speaker 5: I shot it, and the whole time I'm leaving out
13:24
Speaker 5: a lot of stuff, by the way, But as you know,
13:27
Speaker 5: as I shot it, there were so many problems behind
13:30
Speaker 5: the camera, you know, listeners this podcast on what I'm
13:32
Speaker 5: talking about, but there were so many problems behind the
13:34
Speaker 5: camera that it showed on camera. And when I went
13:37
Speaker 5: to shot this around, one of the notes I got was,
13:42
Speaker 5: this seems like it would be like something that my
13:45
Speaker 5: kids would watch. And he's like, you know, it's almost
13:48
Speaker 5: like you're there. He's like, it's almost like this is
13:50
Speaker 5: a is a polished version, but it's not quite there yet.
13:53
Speaker 5: And I and I would say, you know, that's exactly right,
13:55
Speaker 5: you know, And I got to pitch to to a
13:58
Speaker 5: G four and right as they were closing, and I
14:01
Speaker 5: actually that's how I actually met Chris Gore, and uh,
14:04
Speaker 5: it was a shame because people were saying that this
14:06
Speaker 5: is exactly what we would have put on G four.
14:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that that happens. And you know, this
14:12
Speaker 3: is a debate that I engage and often on Twitter
14:16
Speaker 3: with people because I think it's just it's so fascinating
14:19
Speaker 3: and to watch it change. But there really isn't an
14:22
Speaker 3: independent television market quite yet in the same way that
14:25
Speaker 3: there is with film, and so a lot of people
14:29
Speaker 3: are going out and they're doing exactly what you did.
14:30
Speaker 3: They're spending a lot of money to shoot these pilots,
14:33
Speaker 3: and you know, there's a couple good festivals now for
14:36
Speaker 3: like ITV and whatnot, and occasionally people do get options
14:39
Speaker 3: and pickups from it. But television tends to be also
14:43
Speaker 3: a little bit more of a hierarchy, and then film does.
14:47
Speaker 3: So you can come in with something like really really great,
14:50
Speaker 3: but with no experience, you're gonna be paired with, you know,
14:54
Speaker 3: other showrunners. You're gonna have other people kind of coming
14:57
Speaker 3: in creatively and financially. And when you sell to a
15:00
Speaker 3: studio and a network, you know, they they're really the
15:03
Speaker 3: ones calling the shots and in charge, and they like
15:05
Speaker 3: to work with people they've worked with before, and so
15:08
Speaker 3: selling and pitching shows still kind of tend to go
15:12
Speaker 3: through the same funnel system where you need to have
15:14
Speaker 3: the representatives or you know, lawyers and the people that
15:17
Speaker 3: you know to get you in through the proper doors
15:19
Speaker 3: to do that. Even for a lot of the new
15:21
Speaker 3: digital networks, you know, Hulu and Crackle and Awesomeess TV
15:26
Speaker 3: and all of them, they have a little bit more
15:28
Speaker 3: of an independent stream, but at the same time, you're
15:31
Speaker 3: still going through that kind of same gatekeeper funnel system.
15:34
Speaker 3: And you know, in film you can really you can
15:36
Speaker 3: just go out there. You can make it, and you
15:38
Speaker 3: can find some way to distribute it, either through you know,
15:41
Speaker 3: bigger companies to distribute it, you can do it yourself online.
15:44
Speaker 3: I know you've had some really great indie filmmakers who
15:47
Speaker 3: have done that themselves and you know, have really wonderful
15:50
Speaker 3: careers that way. And in television it's a lot harder
15:52
Speaker 3: because TV signals are still owned by big conglomerates and
15:56
Speaker 3: even with these big you know, digital eye outlets like
16:00
Speaker 3: Netflix and Amazon, they're still owned by these big conglomerates
16:04
Speaker 3: and so they still have this very traditional funnel system.
16:07
Speaker 3: So being able to go out there and make an
16:09
Speaker 3: independent TV show and just shopping it around is very difficult,
16:13
Speaker 3: and so that's why a lot of them end up
16:15
Speaker 3: turning to web series and hopefully you can build your
16:17
Speaker 3: audience that way and then get the eyeball enough eyeballs
16:21
Speaker 3: to be able to get you into that funnel system.
16:23
Speaker 3: So it's still a really really tricky thing. And I
16:25
Speaker 3: know a lot of people like to debate me on this,
16:27
Speaker 3: and I'm happy to so feel free. We can talk
16:29
Speaker 3: about this on you know, online and on social media
16:32
Speaker 3: a ton, because I love hearing different people's experiences, and
16:35
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of great cases even right
16:37
Speaker 3: now where those things do happen. You know, Insecure is
16:42
Speaker 3: a great example of that, where she was a web
16:44
Speaker 3: series that started out you know, online and then has
16:48
Speaker 3: now has a great HBO show. You know, The Sunny
16:51
Speaker 3: Guys are a really great example of that. That their
16:53
Speaker 3: time was earlier, well that was a little bit possible.
16:56
Speaker 3: But what I think a lot of people don't realize
16:59
Speaker 3: about that story. They were already part of the traditional
17:02
Speaker 3: funnel system, and I think that's something that people don't
17:05
Speaker 3: necessarily realize. They were actors at the time, they already
17:09
Speaker 3: had representatives, they had at the very least managers, and
17:13
Speaker 3: they were the ones that really helped them get into
17:15
Speaker 3: the doors at the networks. They were the ones making
17:17
Speaker 3: the phone calls and doing the pitching and all of that.
17:19
Speaker 3: So while their story is super great and inspiring and
17:24
Speaker 3: it totally is across the board, because I mean, and
17:26
Speaker 3: they're wonderful, it's one of those elements that I think
17:31
Speaker 3: people don't realize and television that that in order to
17:34
Speaker 3: get to the proper channels and the proper networks and
17:37
Speaker 3: the proper studios and the proper production companies. You still
17:40
Speaker 3: have to go through that funnel system to get there.
17:44
Speaker 3: You know, there are some really great examples of what
17:48
Speaker 3: we would call independent television that have done this in
17:51
Speaker 3: a very different way, which you know, the show Insecure
17:54
Speaker 3: is a great example of that, where she had a
17:56
Speaker 3: web series where she built an audience, and it was
17:59
Speaker 3: that audience and the eyeballs that were she was already
18:03
Speaker 3: accomplishing with her show online is what got the attention
18:07
Speaker 3: of the agents and the managers and everyone else involved
18:11
Speaker 3: that brought her into the traditional funnel system that got
18:13
Speaker 3: her into HBO. And so I think that's one of
18:17
Speaker 3: the big things that comes up that there's this misconception
18:22
Speaker 3: that TV works the same way as film, because it
18:25
Speaker 3: really doesn't. There's you still have to go through some
18:28
Speaker 3: kind of funnel system in order to get distribution. Otherwise
18:34
Speaker 3: you are doing it yourself, you're doing it online, in
18:36
Speaker 3: which case you're considered more of a web series versus
18:39
Speaker 3: an actual television show.
18:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, And and it's also about like Felicia
18:46
Speaker 5: Day when she actually hit her stride with with her
18:50
Speaker 5: with her show. Yeah, and that's you know, that's again,
18:54
Speaker 5: you know, that's what a lot of people use for
18:56
Speaker 5: inspiration as well. But you know, it makes sense with
18:58
Speaker 5: the always sunny guys because I know Rob was an
19:00
Speaker 5: actor before, and it doesn't make sense that at by
19:02
Speaker 5: that point he probably did that. You know, he would
19:04
Speaker 5: have to have a manager at that point and ucause
19:07
Speaker 5: I guess he was what in his late twenties early
19:09
Speaker 5: thirties when he was pitching that. So yeah, yeah, so
19:12
Speaker 5: I mean I imagine that's probably you know what happened.
19:14
Speaker 5: I mean, and it's just you believe it again, you know.
19:17
Speaker 5: That's I use that as inspiration. And my biggest mistake,
19:20
Speaker 5: Sandra was I should have aimed smaller, and looking back now,
19:26
Speaker 5: I actually have tons of ideas now that I could
19:30
Speaker 5: have used to shoot my TV pilot for like a
19:32
Speaker 5: fraction of what it actually ends up costing me.
19:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:35
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I think, you know, really, if that's the
19:38
Speaker 3: way that you want to that you want to go
19:40
Speaker 3: with it, you know it is. It's all about cultivating
19:43
Speaker 3: that audience and finding that audience and really building that
19:47
Speaker 3: hard and you know, distributing it yourself for a while
19:49
Speaker 3: online and which means you have to watch the costs
19:52
Speaker 3: and you have to act like an actual producer, not
19:55
Speaker 3: that you're not when you're doing it that way, we'll.
19:59
Speaker 2: Be right back after a word from our sponsor and
20:05
Speaker 2: now back to the show.
20:08
Speaker 3: But you have to kind of think that way and
20:11
Speaker 3: be a marketer at the same time, because the more
20:14
Speaker 3: eyeballs that you get, that's when you know, the representatives
20:19
Speaker 3: come running. That's what other producers come running. That's when
20:21
Speaker 3: the people who want to help lift the tide come running.
20:24
Speaker 3: Is when they feel like there's something there that they
20:27
Speaker 3: can legitimately sell and make money off. Of just going
20:31
Speaker 3: out there and shooting something and then trying to shop
20:33
Speaker 3: it around without having that extra boost of people really
20:39
Speaker 3: kind of helping you along is extremely difficult in television.
20:44
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's uh you know. And when I look back
20:47
Speaker 5: back to on it's Angra. You know. I probably if
20:50
Speaker 5: I had to do it all over again, I would
20:52
Speaker 5: do it with the whatevers just describing, but like now,
20:54
Speaker 5: I would handle it completely different like you're saying, I
20:56
Speaker 5: would actually handle it a lot better. And in fact
21:00
Speaker 5: that I probably I may have not even done it
21:03
Speaker 5: at all instead of just and just say instead focused
21:05
Speaker 5: on film. Uh, you know. I actually the reason I
21:08
Speaker 5: did it was because I had the you know, it
21:09
Speaker 5: was kind of like a perfect time for me, but
21:11
Speaker 5: I ended up I probably should have done a film instead.
21:15
Speaker 5: And actually about a year after that, or about a
21:18
Speaker 5: year and a half, I ended up doing a trailer
21:19
Speaker 5: project and uh we were going to be part of
21:22
Speaker 5: a bigger team and that ended up you know, fizzling out,
21:25
Speaker 5: but we still shot the trailer anyway.
21:27
Speaker 4: Uh.
21:28
Speaker 5: But you know, just looking back at all this stuff,
21:30
Speaker 5: you know, it's all it's all learning experiences. That's why
21:32
Speaker 5: I think, you know, why I do this podcast is
21:34
Speaker 5: that way. So if somebody out there is, you know,
21:36
Speaker 5: thinking about doing something similar to what I did, they
21:38
Speaker 5: can at least learn and you know, save themselves some
21:40
Speaker 5: you know, time and energy and money. But just by
21:43
Speaker 5: hearing about you know, mistakes that I made.
21:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh absolutely, And honestly, like, if you feel the
21:48
Speaker 3: drive to go and do it, by all means, go
21:51
Speaker 3: and do it, you know, because at the end of
21:53
Speaker 3: the day, it's still excellent experience. It's how you grow,
21:55
Speaker 3: it's how you find your boys, and you know, it's
21:57
Speaker 3: how you get yourself out there.
21:59
Speaker 1: You know.
22:00
Speaker 3: What I would recommend is that if you do want
22:02
Speaker 3: to have a television show in the traditional sense of
22:05
Speaker 3: the word. I would say, just write right, right, right right,
22:11
Speaker 3: because that's really the way TV works. It's a writer
22:14
Speaker 3: driven medium and so you know, and it's got a
22:18
Speaker 3: hierarchy within it. You know, there's a hierarchy to get there,
22:21
Speaker 3: there's a hierarchy in the writer's room. Can you skip
22:24
Speaker 3: some of those steps, absolutely, but those are rare and
22:28
Speaker 3: so what they like to see is this kind of experience.
22:31
Speaker 3: But if you do want to have a traditional TV show,
22:33
Speaker 3: the best thing you can do is to write a
22:35
Speaker 3: massive portfolio and get those people interested. Because what's going
22:39
Speaker 3: to happen is is whether you've shot a pilot or not,
22:42
Speaker 3: the studio and the network are going to go and
22:44
Speaker 3: completely reshoot everything. They're going to have you rewrite everything.
22:47
Speaker 3: They're going to have you recast everything. They're going to
22:49
Speaker 3: have you completely redo everything. So going out there and
22:54
Speaker 3: you know, shooting it and doing it all for yourself,
22:57
Speaker 3: if your intention is to be in a more tradition
23:00
Speaker 3: TV environment, you are kind of I hate to say,
23:04
Speaker 3: wasting your money, but you know, you want to be
23:07
Speaker 3: financially smart and you want to be smart with your
23:09
Speaker 3: energy as well.
23:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that is one thing too, as I've after
23:15
Speaker 5: talking after making that pilot, was that they are going
23:18
Speaker 5: to remake, They're going to recast everything. I kind of
23:21
Speaker 5: knew that going in, though I had kind of figured,
23:23
Speaker 5: you know what I what I did with my pilot
23:25
Speaker 5: was I was like, this is an example of what
23:26
Speaker 5: things could be, which is again just to I know
23:30
Speaker 5: it's too late to stop being a dead horse. But
23:32
Speaker 5: if I could have made it cheaper, I believe me,
23:35
Speaker 5: there would have been at a lot of different ways.
23:37
Speaker 5: And I actually ended up just writing out a script
23:39
Speaker 5: one day without any idea of what I was. You know,
23:42
Speaker 5: I really didn't have a plan like, oh, this could
23:44
Speaker 5: have been another pilot, and I could have used this
23:46
Speaker 5: as more of like the concept pilot or the proof
23:49
Speaker 5: of concept. But as I started writing, and I said,
23:51
Speaker 5: you know what, I could have shot this in somebody's
23:52
Speaker 5: house and it would have cost me a fraction of
23:57
Speaker 5: what it cost me to actually do the excite, to
23:59
Speaker 5: pay the student costs we had, we had to buy insurance,
24:03
Speaker 5: I had to pay for the crew, I had to
24:04
Speaker 5: pay for all the stuff we used. I mean, we
24:07
Speaker 5: had a ton of stuff going on. Uh and and
24:10
Speaker 5: you know I still hadn't released a pilot because right
24:13
Speaker 5: after we got I got done making it, I actually
24:15
Speaker 5: was pretty pissed off about a lot of things. And
24:19
Speaker 5: I actually have an inclination now I think about about
24:21
Speaker 5: re editing it and and uploading it. I mean because
24:24
Speaker 5: also I also had a manager at the time, not
24:28
Speaker 5: not like representing me, but he was, you know, talking
24:30
Speaker 5: to me about things, and he said, you know, don't
24:31
Speaker 5: upload that pilot. Somebody could take the idea and then
24:34
Speaker 5: you'd be really out of all that money. And so
24:37
Speaker 5: I kept it back. And now you know, in the
24:39
Speaker 5: in the passing years, other people in the business have
24:42
Speaker 5: said they've just just released it on YouTube just to
24:44
Speaker 5: get in some attention. Yeah.
24:46
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess the big question that I would
24:50
Speaker 3: say I would recommend to ask yourself and for other
24:52
Speaker 3: people who are who are doing that, is you know,
24:55
Speaker 3: what what is your ultimate goal and intension with it,
24:58
Speaker 3: and also what is your goal or the series. You know,
25:01
Speaker 3: if you do end up uploading things online, then the
25:05
Speaker 3: idea is to get eyeballs and to get attention and
25:07
Speaker 3: then to build an audience. So now you have a pilot,
25:10
Speaker 3: so then what you know, now you're trying to build
25:13
Speaker 3: an audience on just you know, a half hour and
25:15
Speaker 3: an hour's worth of work versus you need to start
25:18
Speaker 3: churning out content. You know, that's the one thing about
25:21
Speaker 3: when you're building an audience, and particularly online, you need
25:24
Speaker 3: to start churning out content to get people to keep
25:27
Speaker 3: coming back to you and to grow that audience. And
25:31
Speaker 3: so I think that's one of the big things to
25:33
Speaker 3: keep the perspective up. I mean, that's how television in
25:36
Speaker 3: the grand scheme of thing works. So if you only
25:38
Speaker 3: have a pilot, you wrote a pilot, you shoot, you
25:40
Speaker 3: spend all this money shooting a pilot, and then you're like, okay,
25:42
Speaker 3: well now what you know, if you're going the more
25:47
Speaker 3: independent route, then you need to build the audience, which
25:49
Speaker 3: means you need to actually have a series and not
25:51
Speaker 3: just a singular pilot. Yeah.
25:54
Speaker 5: That when I talked to another producer about that, they
25:57
Speaker 5: actually said, you know, could you ever do it like
25:59
Speaker 5: in someone's house, like you know what I mean, like
26:02
Speaker 5: or somewhere on the location that you could get for
26:03
Speaker 5: free or cheaper. And that's the reason why it made
26:07
Speaker 5: more episodes was because I was you know, the whole
26:10
Speaker 5: thing took place, you know, at the on the sound
26:12
Speaker 5: stage where we where we made it look like a
26:14
Speaker 5: video game store and it was so you know, I said, no,
26:17
Speaker 5: we had to break all that stuff down. Half of
26:19
Speaker 5: it was thrown away, the other half was supposed to
26:22
Speaker 5: be sold, and the person at the last minute, but
26:25
Speaker 5: you know, bailed out of the deal, which was killer. Again.
26:29
Speaker 5: I mean, honestly, Sandra, I actually wrote, and this is
26:32
Speaker 5: a funny part too, I actually wrote a book all
26:34
Speaker 5: about this, and I chronicled every day. I chronicled all
26:38
Speaker 5: the things that went wrong went right, and I actually
26:40
Speaker 5: pitched the book as well, and most publishers were like,
26:44
Speaker 5: we don't. We don't really have have had a lot
26:45
Speaker 5: of success with first hand accounts like this. Usually we
26:49
Speaker 5: prefer the how to books. But now the more I
26:53
Speaker 5: talk about the book, everyone goes, well, do you still
26:55
Speaker 5: have that ready to publish? And I'll say, well, it's
26:58
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's in a bunch of note and
27:00
Speaker 5: they said, well, if you ever typed it up, you know,
27:02
Speaker 5: you should just self publish it now.
27:03
Speaker 3: Because that's one of the great things about now is
27:06
Speaker 3: that you can do things like that.
27:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I actually and thinking about putting it
27:11
Speaker 5: together with another book that I was going to write
27:13
Speaker 5: and put the two together, and just because it was
27:16
Speaker 5: going to go back and forth, I actually got there's
27:18
Speaker 5: a book called Disaster Artist by Greg Sostero, and it's
27:22
Speaker 5: about making the room, and I got inspired because it
27:25
Speaker 5: was almost like he was, you know, each chapter is
27:28
Speaker 5: different each chapter. One chapter is in the present, one
27:30
Speaker 5: chapters in the past, and that's sort of what was
27:33
Speaker 5: going on, and that's sort of what I was going
27:35
Speaker 5: to do anyway, was you know, trying to make this
27:37
Speaker 5: film and also working at a soul crushing gay job,
27:41
Speaker 5: and those two things. Uh, the stories I have of
27:44
Speaker 5: both of those, nobody really believes. And you know, I
27:47
Speaker 5: ended up starting this podcast in twenty fourteen when I
27:50
Speaker 5: got turned down for a job that was you know,
27:52
Speaker 5: rightfully mian and I was like, you know what, fuck it,
27:55
Speaker 5: I gotta do something creative, So I started this whole podcast.
27:58
Speaker 5: But you know, that's that's something that I actually, you know,
28:01
Speaker 5: I'm just working on, you know, so many different things.
28:03
Speaker 5: It's kind of hard to sometimes find a time to
28:06
Speaker 5: do some of these little like projects like that, like
28:08
Speaker 5: creating the book and then just doing the kind publishing route.
28:11
Speaker 5: But it's something in the back of my mind. And
28:13
Speaker 5: I also wonder if some people would actually believe half
28:15
Speaker 5: the stories that I actually have in there.
28:17
Speaker 3: You know, I think people working in the business and
28:19
Speaker 3: already working in the industry would absolutely believe the stories
28:22
Speaker 3: because we work in a very strange, very interesting business
28:26
Speaker 3: where weird things happen very often. And you know, I
28:30
Speaker 3: know whenever I talk to my friends back home and
28:32
Speaker 3: I you know, talk about things in my day to
28:34
Speaker 3: day life or things that have happened and experiences working
28:37
Speaker 3: on the various shows and projects I've worked on, and
28:40
Speaker 3: they just can't comprehend the kind of life that we
28:43
Speaker 3: lead sometimes. And so yeah, I think if they're in
28:46
Speaker 3: the business, they will completely get it, and we'll be like, oh, yeah,
28:49
Speaker 3: we've been there too. And then I think on the
28:51
Speaker 3: flip side, I think it is kind of fun and
28:53
Speaker 3: interesting for people who are not in it to hear that,
28:56
Speaker 3: and it could be a little unbelievable to them, but
28:59
Speaker 3: we know it's really.
29:00
Speaker 5: Well yeah, absolutely, you know, it's just again some of
29:05
Speaker 5: the stories, you know, it is it is just so
29:07
Speaker 5: outlandish and sometimes they're just so unbelievable. But if you again,
29:11
Speaker 5: if you have if you work in the industry, it
29:13
Speaker 5: seems it's like well, all right, it's just another day
29:15
Speaker 5: at the office.
29:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I think one of the fun stories I
29:20
Speaker 3: like to tell, and by all means not the weirdest,
29:23
Speaker 3: is when I was, you know, working at FX, and
29:25
Speaker 3: I was on the Fox lot and they were shooting
29:27
Speaker 3: water for elephants at the time, and so they were
29:29
Speaker 3: doing this big parade scene. It was kind of down
29:31
Speaker 3: like the New York Street set, and it was right
29:33
Speaker 3: outside my window. And I had a friend come by
29:35
Speaker 3: for lunch that day and we were walking over to
29:38
Speaker 3: the commissary and we turned around the corner of a
29:40
Speaker 3: building and there's an Juliane elephant just getting hose down
29:44
Speaker 3: right in front of us. And you know, who does
29:47
Speaker 3: that happen to? You can't work at a hospital. Turn a
29:49
Speaker 3: corner and then suddenly like there's this giant elephant taking
29:52
Speaker 3: a happy bath. You know, It's one of those things.
29:55
Speaker 3: And one of the fun things about our business is that,
29:57
Speaker 3: you know, that's a weird least can be in every occurrence.
30:03
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
30:09
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
30:12
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely. You know a story I like to tell
30:15
Speaker 5: is this guy who I was once when I first
30:17
Speaker 5: started we were going to go make this film that
30:20
Speaker 5: he was always talking about making, and he finally got
30:23
Speaker 5: some funding to make it. It wasn't a lot of money,
30:25
Speaker 5: you know, about twenty grand and we were finally going
30:28
Speaker 5: to make this film. And the film didn't have a
30:30
Speaker 5: lot to it, so it didn't really it was a
30:32
Speaker 5: self contained thriller or self contained horror. So we get
30:36
Speaker 5: to this like house. It was like an old dilapidated
30:39
Speaker 5: mansion and there were these brand new steel gates locking
30:44
Speaker 5: everybody out right. So we get there and we said
30:49
Speaker 5: and we get there and he says, oh, wait a minute,
30:52
Speaker 5: I forgot the key and we can't get into this
30:56
Speaker 5: to this house because these gates are now, these new
30:58
Speaker 5: gates are there. So he said, let me call my brother.
31:01
Speaker 5: His brother is all the way across the country and
31:04
Speaker 5: he says, oh huh. So then he's trying to convince
31:09
Speaker 5: that this this little pa, I mean, because they're smaller
31:12
Speaker 5: and you know, this, to hop the fence and try
31:17
Speaker 5: to let us in on the opposite side. And the
31:19
Speaker 5: PA was like, I think that might be breaking and entering.
31:21
Speaker 5: He's like, no, no, no, we have permission to shoot here. Well,
31:25
Speaker 5: the PA hops the fence. Well, the gate doesn't open,
31:27
Speaker 5: there's no latch. It's literally a traditional locked gate. So
31:30
Speaker 5: if you don't have it the key, you know, yeah, exactly.
31:35
Speaker 5: So so he eventually said, I guess we're not filming
31:39
Speaker 5: today because he said, I there's no way I'm getting
31:41
Speaker 5: over this fence. And I was trying to think of
31:43
Speaker 5: a way we could do this. But you know, it's
31:46
Speaker 5: just funny because I tell this story of people and
31:49
Speaker 5: they go, what the hell? They were like, you don't
31:51
Speaker 5: have that? How do you not have a key? And
31:53
Speaker 5: I said, well, the guy who was doing this whole
31:56
Speaker 5: thing just completely forgot about it. And you know, even
32:00
Speaker 5: still we tried to get in there and eventually was
32:02
Speaker 5: just like, you know what, he goes, let's just call
32:04
Speaker 5: it a day. But that's after we were there for
32:06
Speaker 5: a couple of hours trying to figure out a way
32:08
Speaker 5: to break into it through this fence.
32:10
Speaker 3: But the I mean, the stories are hysterical. I mean,
32:14
Speaker 3: like when you think about your daily conversations that you
32:16
Speaker 3: have when you're you know, in pre production and production
32:18
Speaker 3: on shows and you're trying to figure it all out
32:21
Speaker 3: and you're having these intense conversations about you know, somebody's
32:25
Speaker 3: you know, bodily functions or you know, how to make
32:29
Speaker 3: something look bloodier or not bloody. You know, like there's
32:33
Speaker 3: so many aspects of it. Like I remember, we would watch,
32:35
Speaker 3: you know, whenever we would watch dailies, and particularly on
32:38
Speaker 3: some of our shows, they were a little bit more
32:40
Speaker 3: on the rasier side of things, and we were always
32:43
Speaker 3: so paranoid that like hr would be walking down the
32:45
Speaker 3: hallway and think we're watching porn because we're sitting there
32:49
Speaker 3: watching dailies of you know, a sex scene and we're
32:52
Speaker 3: you know, making sure and you can hear them screaming
32:54
Speaker 3: to make sure that the actor has the proper sock
32:58
Speaker 3: in the right places to be able to shoot properly,
33:02
Speaker 3: or they're swearing, and meanwhile, you know, you have particularly
33:06
Speaker 3: at a at a place like like Fox. You know,
33:08
Speaker 3: it's a big corporation, and different departments operate very differently
33:11
Speaker 3: than creative departments, and so we were always so paranoid
33:15
Speaker 3: that they would be coming down the hallway and report
33:16
Speaker 3: on us for you know, vulgarity or porn or god
33:19
Speaker 3: knows what else, you know, because you know, we would
33:22
Speaker 3: be in things, you know, these group things about like
33:25
Speaker 3: you know, sexual harassment and language, and there would be
33:27
Speaker 3: another like it would be like a little old lady
33:29
Speaker 3: complaining how somebody swore during one of their meetings, and
33:32
Speaker 3: we just kind of duck our heads because that's half
33:36
Speaker 3: of what we're doing. So it's really fun to think
33:39
Speaker 3: about the kinds of conversations that we get to have
33:42
Speaker 3: on a daily basis.
33:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's always a different day, and it's always some
33:46
Speaker 5: kind of some some kind of new problem as well.
33:50
Speaker 5: And you know, especially now because you know things are
33:52
Speaker 5: going into more of a tech route, so now you know,
33:54
Speaker 5: there's a lot of problems like oh, man, you know
33:56
Speaker 5: final cut's not working, or hey, advid's not working, or
34:00
Speaker 5: these new three D effects aren't working or something like that.
34:03
Speaker 5: You know, it's just, you know, it's funny because now
34:06
Speaker 5: it's the same problems, but they're different. So it's you
34:09
Speaker 5: know what I mean. Now, it's like there's always there's
34:10
Speaker 5: always tech problems that never seem to exist outside of
34:14
Speaker 5: when you're actually going to go shoot your film and
34:16
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, you know, all these interesting tech
34:19
Speaker 5: problems that you know, when it happens, you're ready just
34:22
Speaker 5: to say, oh that's it, I'm done, I'm going home.
34:24
Speaker 5: But you know, it's stuff like that, and you know
34:27
Speaker 5: it's it's just again That's why I enjoy this podcast
34:31
Speaker 5: because again you have to hear stories like that and hopefully,
34:34
Speaker 5: you know, you try to avoid some of that stuff,
34:35
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, if you can, as much
34:37
Speaker 5: as you can, you try to minimize it.
34:39
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think what's so funny is that
34:41
Speaker 3: you can talk to people who have been in the
34:42
Speaker 3: business thirty forty years and they still have problems that
34:45
Speaker 3: they never thought they would ever experience. It never goes away,
34:49
Speaker 3: no matter like how much experience or how long you've
34:51
Speaker 3: been doing it. And so you know, you definitely have
34:53
Speaker 3: to have a good sense of humor, treat and get
34:55
Speaker 3: through a lot of this.
34:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, I've listened the thick skin and being
34:59
Speaker 5: able to lay in the face of like total total collapse,
35:02
Speaker 5: and you know, it's interriant. You know, I wanted to
35:04
Speaker 5: just to get back to, you know, to your career.
35:06
Speaker 5: I know I kind of got sidetracked there, you know,
35:08
Speaker 5: So so what are you know, You've You've done all
35:10
Speaker 5: this work, great work at FX, you know, so what
35:12
Speaker 5: are you currently working on right now?
35:14
Speaker 3: So I left Fax, I said in twenty twelve, I
35:18
Speaker 3: took a little time off because I have worked my
35:20
Speaker 3: entire life. And from there I started my company Under
35:25
Speaker 3: the Stairs Entertainment and mainly to produce, and then I
35:29
Speaker 3: actually transitioned into writing in the last couple of years
35:32
Speaker 3: as well. So I produce them right, and my attention
35:34
Speaker 3: went to features. And the reason behind that was because
35:38
Speaker 3: I knew I could go out there and produce a
35:40
Speaker 3: feature and actually build an audience and really make a
35:43
Speaker 3: name for myself and my projects, and you know, and
35:48
Speaker 3: still keep my foot in in television. So that's what
35:51
Speaker 3: I had been doing. And so for the past few years,
35:54
Speaker 3: I have been developing a number of projects, mostly dark,
35:58
Speaker 3: character driven stuff. I'm a big proponent of diversity in film,
36:02
Speaker 3: both in front and behind the cameras, and unfortunately in
36:06
Speaker 3: that in this business, that also includes being a woman.
36:09
Speaker 3: Even though we're fifty one percent of the population, we're
36:11
Speaker 3: still considered diverse in the film industry. But you know,
36:16
Speaker 3: that includes everything across the board, from disability, sexuality, ethnicity,
36:20
Speaker 3: and skin color whatever. And that doesn't mean every position
36:24
Speaker 3: necessarily on my projects has to be filled by that,
36:27
Speaker 3: even though I do like that, but all of the
36:30
Speaker 3: major components, whether it's you know, story elements, whether it's
36:35
Speaker 3: key cast and crew, has to incorporate that in some way.
36:40
Speaker 3: And so I'm very proud of my projects to be
36:41
Speaker 3: able to get voices out there that aren't normally heard.
36:46
Speaker 3: And so while I've been developing and writing and amassing
36:51
Speaker 3: my feature projects, released a short film in the meantime
36:55
Speaker 3: called Zone two, made the festival rounds for the past
36:58
Speaker 3: about year year and a half and where just now
37:00
Speaker 3: diving into digital distribution. So that will be coming out shortly,
37:05
Speaker 3: probably in the next handful of months, and so we
37:08
Speaker 3: will have announcements on that soon. But that one did
37:12
Speaker 3: really well, played a lot of major horror festivals. It's
37:14
Speaker 3: played all over the world. Super proud of it, and
37:17
Speaker 3: really just acted as a way to propel the company
37:22
Speaker 3: into the features and kind of regaining my onset toes
37:27
Speaker 3: because spending so much time working at a network and
37:30
Speaker 3: working at the agencies, I hadn't been on set in
37:32
Speaker 3: a while, and so it really helped you that. And
37:35
Speaker 3: so currently now have about three projects I'm producing at
37:40
Speaker 3: about three that I'm writing one of them right now.
37:44
Speaker 3: We are going out, We are in the process of
37:47
Speaker 3: finding financing and casting, and I'm looking for directors onto
37:50
Speaker 3: of the others.
37:53
Speaker 5: And you know we're talking about in the pre interview,
37:55
Speaker 5: you have so much going on right now, and you know,
37:58
Speaker 5: like all these projects start taking off, and you know,
38:00
Speaker 5: it just it's almost that they all take off in
38:02
Speaker 5: the exact same time, and it just sort of you
38:04
Speaker 5: know what I mean, it's almost like it has that
38:07
Speaker 5: luck to it all the time.
38:08
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely, it never fails. I know. One of the
38:11
Speaker 3: things we were discussing before was my company, Script Chicks,
38:16
Speaker 3: that I had formerly been doing with Miranda say Jack,
38:18
Speaker 3: who was a previous guest on your show, and we
38:21
Speaker 3: had co founded it together not long after we had
38:26
Speaker 3: both left our jobs kind of around the same time
38:28
Speaker 3: to pursue our various elements, and we realized that we
38:32
Speaker 3: were doing a lot of you know, we were working
38:34
Speaker 3: with a lot of writers, you know, doing notes and
38:36
Speaker 3: business coaching, and so we decided to form script Chicks
38:40
Speaker 3: at that time, and we actually just recently closed it
38:44
Speaker 3: down due to the fact that our individual projects have
38:46
Speaker 3: started taking off and doing a lot of really great things,
38:49
Speaker 3: and so we haven't had the time to put the
38:51
Speaker 3: attention to it that we've still that we've liked to.
38:55
Speaker 3: You know, we're both taking individual clients still, but our
39:00
Speaker 3: projects have really kind of shifted and become more of
39:03
Speaker 3: the focus in each of our lives. So it's, you know,
39:06
Speaker 3: all good things, and it's really exciting to be able
39:09
Speaker 3: to do that. And you're right when it rains the
39:11
Speaker 3: poors and you know, all the tides rides together. You
39:14
Speaker 3: see all your friends, you know, making it at the
39:16
Speaker 3: same time, you see all your projects going at the
39:18
Speaker 3: same time, and so it's a really exciting point in
39:21
Speaker 3: life when you finally get there.
39:23
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it is. And like I was saying too
39:25
Speaker 5: about this podcast, you know, like when I'm trying to
39:27
Speaker 5: do all the other stuff, sometimes I feel like this
39:29
Speaker 5: podcast has like a life of its own. You know.
39:31
Speaker 5: It's like it's just the more attention I try to
39:34
Speaker 5: put towards other things, the more it like tries to
39:36
Speaker 5: pull me back in kind of I kind of feel like,
39:41
Speaker 5: what was it? Scarfacing said that, why am I joining
39:43
Speaker 5: a blank? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah exactly. I was like, wait,
39:46
Speaker 5: who said that? Oh my gosh, for a guys who's
39:50
Speaker 5: seen a lot of films, I blank out on here
39:52
Speaker 5: all the time, and I don't know why that is
39:54
Speaker 5: probably because I'm trying to do too many things that
39:56
Speaker 5: wants here.
39:59
Speaker 2: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor,
40:05
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
40:08
Speaker 5: It's not that i'm you know what I mean, I'm
40:10
Speaker 5: trying to do the interview and I'm also watching to
40:12
Speaker 5: make sure that like the recordings doing going properly. I'm
40:15
Speaker 5: trying to I'm making sure that the internet's proper.
40:17
Speaker 3: Now.
40:17
Speaker 5: I'm just like, you know, I'm looking at these like these,
40:19
Speaker 5: these all these things now and I'm always like, you know, uh,
40:24
Speaker 5: having sometimes I'm having brain farts here. But but you know,
40:28
Speaker 5: you know, Sadre, I wanted to ask you also know,
40:30
Speaker 5: if there was one piece of advice that you could
40:32
Speaker 5: give to anybody about who was who were starting out,
40:34
Speaker 5: you know, what would that piece of advice be.
40:37
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, that is a very big question. It would
40:41
Speaker 3: be really to just get out there and do things
40:45
Speaker 3: and meet people. Because this business is so much about networking.
40:48
Speaker 3: And I know that this is advice that you've heard
40:51
Speaker 3: a million times before, but it is true. It's you know,
40:56
Speaker 3: get to know people, and get to know people in
40:57
Speaker 3: a very genuine, authentic way because people can smell b
41:03
Speaker 3: yes from a mile away. We all know that we're
41:06
Speaker 3: all talking to each other and we're going to networking
41:07
Speaker 3: events because we all want something from each other. So
41:10
Speaker 3: you know, why not make it a little bit more
41:12
Speaker 3: pleasant You get to know each other as people, and
41:14
Speaker 3: then also more likely to help you once you get
41:16
Speaker 3: to know them as people and they don't feel like
41:18
Speaker 3: you're being used. And so I would say, just, you know,
41:22
Speaker 3: make genuine connections with people. While you're doing that, do
41:26
Speaker 3: not be afraid to pay your bills and eat, but
41:29
Speaker 3: also please go out there and be creative and make
41:32
Speaker 3: stuff like we're at a time right now where you
41:34
Speaker 3: can you can make stuff on your iPhone and put
41:36
Speaker 3: it up on YouTube and it may or may not
41:37
Speaker 3: go anywhere, but you're just exercising those muscles and creativity
41:42
Speaker 3: and all of this is just practice. And so if
41:45
Speaker 3: you're not doing it, you're not gonna get better at it,
41:49
Speaker 3: and people aren't going to pay attention to you. You know,
41:52
Speaker 3: there really is no such thing as an overnight success
41:54
Speaker 3: in this town. You're a ten year overnight success. You
41:57
Speaker 3: can ask any successful you know, writer, director, director of photography, producer.
42:03
Speaker 3: They are all plugging away at it for ten years
42:05
Speaker 3: before anybody knew their names. It's just everyone likes to,
42:08
Speaker 3: you know, hear the fun stories and not the you
42:12
Speaker 3: know struggle that everyone went through. But you know, the
42:16
Speaker 3: truth of it is is, you know, just get to
42:19
Speaker 3: know people, because that's how you're going to get your
42:21
Speaker 3: jobs in this business. And you know, apply your energy
42:26
Speaker 3: to your practice whatever that may be, whether it's writing
42:29
Speaker 3: or producing or directing or you know, photography, just be
42:34
Speaker 3: doing it.
42:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, that is a fantastic, you know sort
42:38
Speaker 5: of way to end the podcast, Sandra, because you know,
42:40
Speaker 5: I agree with you one hundred percent. And the fact is,
42:44
Speaker 5: you know, I think now is the time, if you're
42:46
Speaker 5: going to make a film, to make a film, because
42:48
Speaker 5: I think in five years time, if you're if you're
42:50
Speaker 5: listening to this podcast and you're thinking about making a
42:53
Speaker 5: film five years from now, you're gonna be glad you
42:55
Speaker 5: did and you don't want to be that person five
42:57
Speaker 5: years from now, going, man, I should make that film. Still,
43:00
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, time take it away.
43:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And you know, and I was so jealous of
43:06
Speaker 3: all of you young people now who have all of
43:08
Speaker 3: this technology because when I was coming up and when
43:11
Speaker 3: I was growing up, you know, we had like the
43:13
Speaker 3: HS cameras, we could you know, I learned tape to
43:16
Speaker 3: tape editing. You know, trying to be able to do
43:19
Speaker 3: things was a little bit more difficult at the time.
43:22
Speaker 3: Even when I started in this business, it was much
43:24
Speaker 3: harder to you know, develop your voice a little bit
43:27
Speaker 3: earlier on and build that. And now you have every opportunity.
43:32
Speaker 3: I mean, we have video on our phone where we
43:35
Speaker 3: can upload things immediately, and so you can start developing
43:38
Speaker 3: your voice at so much of a younger age where
43:40
Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of people from you know,
43:43
Speaker 3: our generation and older than us. You know, it happened
43:47
Speaker 3: a little bit later in life because we had to
43:49
Speaker 3: wait till the point where we had jobs where we
43:52
Speaker 3: were able to do those things to gain access to
43:54
Speaker 3: the types of things. Now we have access to everything,
43:57
Speaker 3: so you can develop your voice so much younger. So God,
43:59
Speaker 3: don't waste any time time. Go do it now.
44:01
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, Sandra. And you know that's why I have
44:06
Speaker 5: so many people on here and of all different age backgrounds.
44:09
Speaker 5: The youngest person I ever had on here was nineteen
44:13
Speaker 5: or twenty and the oldest person I had on here
44:16
Speaker 5: was eighty six.
44:17
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it, I love it.
44:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, so very very very wide range. You know, it's funny.
44:25
Speaker 5: And the person who was eighty six, by the way,
44:27
Speaker 5: actually used to work with Bruce Lee, and that is
44:30
Speaker 5: that is Leo Fong by the way. Everyone who's wondering,
44:32
Speaker 5: But yeah, he was a very interesting interview and how
44:35
Speaker 5: he got from movies made. And the youngest at that
44:37
Speaker 5: point was was Joe Kowalski. But I'm actually talking to
44:41
Speaker 5: somebody now who is like, I think she's sixteen.
44:44
Speaker 3: There's a young well, there's a young teenage horror filmmaker
44:47
Speaker 3: female who's like sixteen, who's been doing really well, so
44:50
Speaker 3: I hope it's her.
44:53
Speaker 5: There's a girl who lives around me who does horror
44:55
Speaker 5: films as well. Her name is Emily something, but I
44:59
Speaker 5: don't I've tried to get her on the podcast have
45:01
Speaker 5: heard of that come on, but I can't. We can't
45:03
Speaker 5: sort of make our schedules meet. But there's a friend.
45:06
Speaker 5: There's another girl that I was thinking of. Her name
45:08
Speaker 5: is Kansas Bowling, Okay, and she actually I was talking
45:13
Speaker 5: about her to have her on.
45:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's great. There's such a great community
45:19
Speaker 3: of filmmakers online, Like it's just such a great, great
45:22
Speaker 3: resource and social media and everyone's getting younger and younger
45:26
Speaker 3: and younger. But it's it's so wonderful to be able
45:29
Speaker 3: to that they have the opportunity to cultivate the talent
45:32
Speaker 3: and and for all of us to be able to
45:35
Speaker 3: meet in this you know, ambiguous kind of place but
45:37
Speaker 3: connect on such deep levels.
45:39
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that's why I
45:43
Speaker 5: you know, I like your social media can be a
45:45
Speaker 5: bit of a double edged sword. But the one part
45:47
Speaker 5: I do like about it is I do get to
45:48
Speaker 5: meet people like you, Sandra, and then doing this podcast
45:51
Speaker 5: is you know, it's just even extra, you know, and
45:53
Speaker 5: being able to meet different people and really expand my network,
45:57
Speaker 5: and you know, it's just yeah, I figure it's great
46:00
Speaker 5: for everybody, you know, and it's, uh, it's just great
46:02
Speaker 5: here about what everybody's up to.
46:04
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean I've met many of my collaborators
46:07
Speaker 3: and my writers we met on Twitter, and you know,
46:11
Speaker 3: Twitter has been an amazing, amazing tool, you know, for
46:15
Speaker 3: the projects I've worked on for myself personally, and and
46:19
Speaker 3: even when I was you know, at the network, it
46:21
Speaker 3: was such a great tool for for our shows in
46:23
Speaker 3: terms of research and connecting with fans. I mean, social
46:25
Speaker 3: media just provide such an amazing, amazing community and so
46:29
Speaker 3: much opportunity.
46:31
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's the that's the key word, is opportunity.
46:35
Speaker 5: And you know that's so listening to not only this
46:39
Speaker 5: podcast episode, with the other podcast episodes. It's all about
46:42
Speaker 5: either creating your own opportunities or finding other opportunities that
46:46
Speaker 5: you can that can help you know, where you can
46:48
Speaker 5: provide value and then they can help you out at
46:50
Speaker 5: the same time, like finding a crew to be a
46:53
Speaker 5: part of, or if you're gonna need to create your
46:55
Speaker 5: own opportunities, you know, maybe make your own movie, maybe
46:57
Speaker 5: write your own movie that you wanted to actually do.
46:59
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think also too, I mean, every person
47:02
Speaker 3: you meet is another opportunity, and it might not be tomorrow,
47:05
Speaker 3: it might happen, you know, years from now. I mean,
47:08
Speaker 3: the reason why I got my job at FX stemmed
47:13
Speaker 3: directly because of not just my job at the agency,
47:17
Speaker 3: but because of a very particular conversation I had with
47:21
Speaker 3: my you know, future boss. You know, I was working
47:26
Speaker 3: for an agent who had a bit of a reputation
47:28
Speaker 3: of being very intense with people, and which was fine.
47:32
Speaker 3: We had a great working relationship, but I also would
47:35
Speaker 3: have to follow up and clean up a little bit
47:38
Speaker 3: after some of those phone calls. And so after this
47:41
Speaker 3: one particular conversation with my future boss, they'd gotten into
47:47
Speaker 3: an argument over a show that we had been developing
47:49
Speaker 3: together with some of our clients, and she had been
47:51
Speaker 3: developing at a previous job, and I don't know, we
47:54
Speaker 3: called back at some point and I just started immediately
47:56
Speaker 3: apologizing for him and just totally taking responsibility for my
48:00
Speaker 3: bosses intense conversation, and you know, I completely forgot about
48:06
Speaker 3: it because it was so normal to me. And then
48:08
Speaker 3: fast forward, you know, about eight months to a year later,
48:12
Speaker 3: and I was interviewing at FX, and you know, and
48:15
Speaker 3: these jobs are very tough to get, and you know,
48:18
Speaker 3: I was really fortunate to be able to have this job.
48:20
Speaker 3: And I think it was two years into my my
48:23
Speaker 3: time there, she finally told me why she hired me.
48:26
Speaker 3: And part of the reason why she hired me was
48:28
Speaker 3: because of that conversation that I had taking responsibility from
48:32
Speaker 3: my boss three years prior. And so you just never
48:36
Speaker 3: in the point of all that is to say, like
48:38
Speaker 3: you never know what you know, who you're going to
48:41
Speaker 3: be and what you're going to do and what's going
48:43
Speaker 3: to be that thing that creates that opportunity for you?
48:47
Speaker 3: So just be open.
48:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, Sandra. I couldn't agree more. Uh, Sandra. I
48:53
Speaker 5: want to say thank you very much, you know, for
48:55
Speaker 5: coming on. I mean I could talk to you all day,
48:58
Speaker 5: I could say, you know, I mean you and I
48:59
Speaker 5: could be sharing war stories all day, Sindra. Where we
49:02
Speaker 5: will find you out online?
49:03
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you can find my company at uts Entertainment dot com.
49:08
Speaker 3: I'm also on Twitter. I have two handles. One for
49:12
Speaker 3: my personal handle, which is Lil s j L, so
49:15
Speaker 3: it's l I L Underscore s j L, and the
49:18
Speaker 3: other one is Understairs Ent and that one, obviously is
49:23
Speaker 3: for my company. I like to host a little thing
49:25
Speaker 3: called tv chat, and I love talking about television. I
49:28
Speaker 3: love talking about film and story. So come hang out
49:31
Speaker 3: with me there and ask me anything. I'm always open
49:35
Speaker 3: for conversation.
49:37
Speaker 5: And I will link to all of that in the
49:38
Speaker 5: show notes everybody, and you know you can talk to
49:42
Speaker 5: Sandra on Twitter and or argue with her as she
49:46
Speaker 5: as she put earlier.
49:48
Speaker 3: Come come argue with me.
49:49
Speaker 5: It's fun, Sindra. I want to say thank you so
49:53
Speaker 5: much for coming on.
49:54
Speaker 3: Well, thank you so much for having me. This is
49:56
Speaker 3: super fun and let's talk more. Yeah.
49:58
Speaker 5: Absolutely absolutely, and please stay in touch and I will talk.
50:02
Speaker 3: To you soon. Absolutely. Thank you so much.
50:04
Speaker 5: Thanks Sander.
50:06
Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
50:07
Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
50:09
Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
50:11
Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
50:15
Speaker 2: Forward slash for sixty seven. Thank you so much for listening. Guys,
50:18
Speaker 2: As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
50:21
Speaker 2: to you soon.
50:22
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
50:27
Speaker 1: dot tv.