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IFH 754: Screenwriting Secrets from Hollywood with Corey Mandell · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle
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  Podcast, Episode number seven fifty four. Cinema is a matter of what's in
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  the frame and what's out. Now, more than ever, we need to
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  talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we see
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  the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this. Martin Scorsese
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  broadcasting from the back Alley and Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast,
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  where we show you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the
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  jungles of the film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
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  Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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  humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film
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  Entrepreneur. How to turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder
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  paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you want to order it,
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  just head over to www dot filmbizbook dot com. That's film biz book
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  dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason Buff. Thanks for joining
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  us here today. My guest is Corey Mandel. Corey is an award winning
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  playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ridley Scott, Wolfgane Peterson, Harrison
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  Ford, Warner Brothers, Universal, twentieth century Fox, you name it,
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  he's written it for you. I'm really excited to talk about to talk with
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  Corey today because he is writing at the studio level, and we really,
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  even though this is indie film, it's really important to know what it's like
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  writing at that level and how things work, you know, things like getting
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  an agent, the importance of having a manager, things like that, and
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  you know, it's really talking about something that I didn't know a whole lot
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  about, even though you know, I'm as many of you, I'm also
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  a screenwriter aspiring screenwriter, so it's good to know even though my aspirations are
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  more towards film. Anyway, I learned a lot from from Corey, and
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  I think he's actually a really good teacher as well. He teaches a workshop.
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  If you go to Coreymandel dot net and that's Mandel with two l's,
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  he's got a workshop there and I highly, you know, I think he's
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  got some great things to teach. I think you should definitely check out his
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  classes. And he's had a lot of success stories, so check that out.
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  Here we go, here's my interview with Corey Mendel. Well. I
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  guess the first thing we should start out with for people who are not familiar
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  with you and your your site and your work, if you wouldn't mind just
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  giving us a little bit of background in your career as a screenwriter. Sure.
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  So I went to Ucile Film School and this is back in the late
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  nineties, and it was really fortunate to launch my career by having rigly Scott
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  hired me to write Metropolis. I was still in film school. It was
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  just amazing to be in a room with or did Scott has him hire me?
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  Uh? Flew me to London first time I'd ever flown the first class,
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  the first time the new first class existed. Who I was, you
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  know, was living on like top rawm the noodles on a good day.
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  And so Dally committed to making Metropolis and it was a fun page of Variety
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  and ultimately didn't get made, which is a whole long story. But but
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  he mentioned me and he mentioned the script in very positive ways on the fun
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  page Avariety. So if you're looking to launch your career having heard the Scott's
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  very nice things about you and your strips on a fun page variety, is
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  not that a family, right? So let's step one. That was Yeah,
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  that was step one. My mom's day, and so then I became
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  you know, the super hot writers town for seven minutes, and and I
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  started. Next project was for Wilcom Peterson who just finished Air Force Blue,
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  and I did a project for him. I did a project for Working Title.
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  So I basically ended up doing over eleven years. I did nineteen for
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  hire a studio project, and you know, for some of your listeners who
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  maybe are a little new to the studio game. Basically, what that means
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  is I would get hired. I'd have an original idea, pitchs to the
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  studios, they buy the idea, they hired me to write it, or
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  what was more often the case, they had a project, they had a
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  writer or a couple of writers weren't chardally excited about where it was going,
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  so they would hire me to come in and rewrite it. I would also
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  sometimes get hired to adapt novels or graphic novels, and then occasionally I would
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  do production rewrites where you're actually on set. When you're making a movie,
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  you don't get credits, but you get a really nice paycheck, and you
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  are rewriting structure or or comedy or characters on set. So that's basically for
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  someone who's gonna work in the future film business under assignment. That's kind of
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  a range of the kinds of things you do. Now, what was the
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  process before you got that project with Ridley Scott? I mean, how did
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  you even get into that world? Yeah, that's a great question. So
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  what has happened is I had written a script at when I was at U
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  SLA and one of my teachers was running development for Meg Ryan. And again
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  this is like ninety eight and Meg Ryan's a big star, and I'd written
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  the script and I somehow convinced the her name is Kathy Raiden, to take
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  a look at the script, and she read it and she really responded to
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  it, and she talked to Meg when iand about it, and Meg really
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  responded to it. Meg wanted to do it. So then you get the
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  phone call that everybody wants, which is, you know, Kathy Graydon called
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  me and says, Meg Ryan, you know, very potentially interested in the
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  project. Who's your agent? And of course I said I don't have an
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  agent, and then she said, would you like me to help you get
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  an agent? And then like, uh, let me think about that.
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  Yeah, I would like that. And you know, the thing is the
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  key to getting an agent, and it's easier said than done. Is not
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  for you to be chasing the agent, but for the agent to be chasing
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  you. Now, probably the easiest way to get an agent to chase you
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  is to write something I get a major piece of talent attached. Again,
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  easier said than done. I understand that. For in that situation, I
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  literally have da and William Morris and I see him like pomp agent, like
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  clearing your schedule to meet with me. So I did that over the next
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  cup days, and I chose to go with ICM, with an agent named
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  Dan Karrence, who's awesome and so you know, put in a perspective Dan
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  Terrence at the time she represents Calie Corey. When they get an award for
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  Selma Louise, she represents you know, Foreman, you know, and then
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  little me. So it's a little intimidating, but it was really exciting.
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  And then to make a long story short somewhat short. Uh right, So
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  Meg Ryan is attacked. Now we have directors fighting for the project. We
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  suddenly have studios fighting for the project, Like this is going to be a
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  big strip, So I'm going to make a whole bunch of money, pay
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  off my student loans, get a car. Life is good. And then
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  a movie comes out that's in the same genre and somewhat similar but really not
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  that similar, but somewhat similar, and it tanks the tanks at the box
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  office, and suddenly Meg Ryan or someone on our team decides, maybe I
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  don't want to do this. And then suddenly the when Meg Ryan says that,
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  suddenly the directors are like, no, maybe I don't want to do
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  this. And then of course in the studios they're like, well, maybe
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  I don't want to do and I remember to help exactly right. And the
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  one thing I'll say for your listeners and I you know, I'm sure that
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  you have people listen to just be bound through this, and you also have
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  people who are kind of new to the game, and I went in between.
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  I'll just say that the experience I just went through, I constantly get
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  calls from students that mights I worked with who goes to the same thing.
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  It's like, you get as close as you can without it actually happening,
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  and you feel potentially there's something wrong with you for your curse. And the
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  thing is is when you start to talk to a lot for writers, you
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  realize it's a pretty typical experience. And so so at the end of the
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  day it was not going to sell, which was crushing. But you know,
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  I had a writing example, I had an agent, and I think
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  most importantly, I had credibility because the script I wrote had attracted I mean,
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  your star. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
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  now back to the show, and so that gives you credibility. So my
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  agent said, you have any ideas for you know, a pitch, because
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  now you have this credibility, Let's see if we can't sell a pitch.
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  And I said, yeah, this is an idea I've always loved, and
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  so I met it by her and she said, yeah, I think that
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  can have traction in the marketplace. And then she pulled out you know how
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  to pay for in a parent She says, okay, let's be the fun
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  part. Let's make our dream list, like if you could sell this pitch
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  and work with anyone at all, who would it be? And then very
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  first thing, I said, Liards Scott and she said great, so great
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  choice. Who else is We made our list of like major a list,
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  and it's sort of like, okay, that's our dream list. Now let's
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  start making list of maybe one more practical folks in case the dream list doesn't
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  have to But I got went. She goes, let's start with for the
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  scott since that was your number one choice. I went there and that was
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  the development executive. They really responded to the pitch. They brought me into
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  producing partner at the time, Mimi, she responded to the pitch. And
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  literally two weeks later, and this is a little embarrassing, but I get
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  a call and I said, up really late, and I'm like half to
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  sleep on the phone where I think it's ten thirty, and my agent says,
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  we're releasing town and he'd likes to hear your pitch at eleven thirty.
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  And it's like when it take me forty five minutes to get them and have
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  a shower and shave and all that. So I said, oh, that's
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  exciting, but can I go in later today, like at three? And
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  there's this long pause where I'm sure my agent is thinking, why do I
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  find this person? And then very nicely, very nicely, she says,
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  Corey releep in town. He'd likes to hear your pitch at eleven o'clock and
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  then I went, oh, of course, yes, I will be there,
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  and I don't know how it really works in my favorite Jason, because
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  I wasn't nervous like everything, just to get there and literally in a room
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  pitch, you know, really for a thing. I could boss us with
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  that through that's got because even the big hero of my Stella and of course
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  yeah, any bought it in Earth in the room he said, if you
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  don't mine, I'd like to buy this and I'd like to fight you to
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  London and work with you on the structure and have you write it, you
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  know, and it's like, well, really, let me check my schedule.
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  I see. To make that work, our people can talk and we'll
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  figure it out. Yeah, so let me ask you can I can?
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  I just pause on that for one second, and I want to make sure
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  we talk about a lot of different things, but one thing that we're talking
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  about right now is the pitch. Yeah, so is there any sort of
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  uh I mean, you're in your car, you're driving up, You're going
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  to see you know a legend. I mean, you have to be nervous.
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  What does what do you do to like make it all work out?
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  I mean what what's your pitch and how's it worked? And you're going to
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  turn you to how do you want to prepare themselves for a fit? Turnupt
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  get nervous or maybe actual? How do you I mean what? What is
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  what? What do you say? I mean? How how do you take
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  your screenplay and put it? I mean, what is that like a five
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  minutes six minute pitch that you do? Or so this is not a screenplay.
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  So generally, you know, when people are pitching, they haven't written.
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  So generally, if you have an idea, you got two avenues,
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  right, you can back it, which is to write the scripts on back
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  and then that's the thing that would be shown to people, the actual script.
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  Or you can pitch it where you haven't written it yet. You have
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  an idea. You're talking to people through the through the idea, and then
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  if they like it and they believe in you as a writer, they'll buy
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  the pitch and then they'll hire you to write it. Generally speaking, for
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  those you know listeners who are kind of new to the game, you don't
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  get invited to pitch these days unless you have credibility. So, and it's
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  even more so than when I was baking in so generally they're only going to
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  listen to a pitch and buy a pitch from a writer that they are extremely
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  confident can deliver up the actual strip. So for you were writers, you're
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  not pitching these days. You're specting. You want to prove, not just
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  that you have a great idea that you could execute on it. So yeah,
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  So what had happened is I went in there and it was like a
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  forty five minute pitch and it was basically giving them the characters and the world
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  and the story and everything that happens and trying to do it and the woman
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  that was most engaging as possible. And then he asked me lots of questions
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  and we had a conversation and we were really talking to everything. I was
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  there for a couple of hours, and at the end of it, you
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  know, he really had a really clear vision of what my vision was and
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  what I was going to go and write. And he says, yeah,
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  So then he bought the pitch, so I get a certain amount of money
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  for that, and then also they hire me to write it, so I
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  get money that. So it's basically like you have an idea for a script,
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  and before you write it, you sort of embed it to make sure
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  there's a market for it, and if someone's interested enough, they'll buy the
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  idea and they hire you to write the script. And that's pif, hominy
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  and TV and it happens in features, but generally the only going to happen
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  to the writer who have a certain level of credibility. Okay, and what
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  is the now for writers who are trying to understand what the relationship is with
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  you and your agent. Where agent is the one that got you in the
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  room there in the first place, right, Yeah, so agents are your
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  salesforce. Agents are going to sell your script and or they're going to get
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  you in the right rooms with the right people for pitches or for writing assignments.
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  So that was the other thing is let's say that you write a script
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  and it goes out in the marketplace and everybody loves the script. They think
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  you are a fresher, rich voice, great characters, great structure. But
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  nobody buys a Strepp It's just it's not sitting what they're looking to buy.
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  But everyone's like that has a great express. So at that point, you
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  know the agent will send you on a round the meeting and those around the
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  meetings could be twenty to thirty, and there's kind of three kinds of meetings
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  that are all going to be happening. So one I would call is a
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  general relationship where someone's read the script and they're blown away by it. They're
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  not looking to hire a writer for a project. They're not really looking to
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  buy a pitch there. There's no there's no money that's going to come out
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  of this duty. But if it's a relationship building meetings, they just really
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  love your script, in your writing. They want to get to know you
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  to try to figure out, you know, if you're the kind of person
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  they want to work with, if you're crazy or not. There's a lot
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  of crazy writers out there, and they just sort of, what are you
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  interested in? And let me tell you the kinds of things that we're interested
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  in, because down the road they truly would like to find a way to
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  work with you. And some writers get disappointment because they'll take that meeting and
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  they realize somewhere during the meeting, I'm not going to get hired. There's
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  no money that's going to come out of it, and those writers are they
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  don't fit. You know, relationships are really important because you know, maybe
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  six months later that person is looking to hire someone. The fact that you
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  had a really good meeting with them and they really want to work with you.
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  That could lead to a job. So you write a script, everybody
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  loves it, it doesn't sell. You go on around the meetings, and
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  one type of meeting is this relationship building me Another meeting could be they really
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  loved your script. If you have the right idea, they buy a pitch
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  from you and they would help you develop it. So that's a meeting where
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  you're going in and they're like, hey, what ideas do you have and
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  you're pitching. That's what That's what the kind of meeting it was with with
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  the Scott Another kind of meeting could be they loved your script, couldn't buy
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  it, but we have we have the rights to this graphic novel, or
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  we have the rights to this article, or we have an idea that we've
• 18:06
  been kicking around internally, or we have a script that somebody wrote. We
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  want a pretty big rewrite and we want to make it darker, or we
• 18:14
  want to make it we want to make the character of this kind of a
• 18:17
  character or whatever. And you seem like you could be a good person for
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  that, and so then what happens is you're basically being invited to auditions.
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  It's like an act audition. So then if at the script, you'll read
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  it and come back in and you'll say, this is what I would do,
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  this is how I would change it, this is my addition for it,
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  and they're how can other writers do this as well? And then they're
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  going to pick the writer who they the vision that they like the most,
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  or if it's an original idea that they have or an article. Thinking you're
• 18:45
  going to go home, you're going to come back in and you're going to
• 18:48
  pitch what you would do with this idea or what you would do with this
• 18:52
  article. And you're generally competing against other writers. So what the agent says
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  is they're going to try to sell your script. Often that means packaging,
• 19:04
  putting elements, you know, to make the more exciting. They can go
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  out and there's a script for the star script and a director and concurrent to
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  that, we're going to send you on meetings. And again, these meetings
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  could be a relationship building. They could be you pitching original ideas, it
• 19:21
  could be them looking to hire a writer. And you go through a round
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  of those and uh, maybe somewhere along the way you'll launch your career.
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  You'll sell a pitch, they'll get hired to write something, your script will
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  actually sell. All of that possible. It's also very possible at the end
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  of that none of that happens. You met a lot of people, You've
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  got a lot of great relationships. At the end of the day, you
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  didn't get a job out of it. And then what you do is you're
• 19:48
  going to have to give your agent another really great script, and you're going
• 19:52
  to go through a second cycle. We'll be right back after a word from
• 19:56
  our sponsor, and now back to the show. And you've got a better
• 20:07
  chance of watching your career the second time around than the first time, because
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  he has relationships, and also you're no longer with a trick pony. You've
• 20:14
  now proven that you are capable of writing more than just one great script,
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  but it's awful. At the second round, you still haven't launched your career.
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  So you have to at another great strip and go through a third round.
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  And a lot of agents will say if you go through three rounds of
• 20:30
  meetings and you haven't landed at your first job, there's a good chance for
• 20:37
  something wrong with you. It's a good chance that you're no. Not everybody's
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  plays well with others, you know, And if you were sittings defensive or
• 20:44
  arrogant, or just someone that people don't want to work with, then you
• 20:48
  know, no matter how great your writing is, it's probably not going to
• 20:52
  happen. But assuming you play all with others, and what I certainly see
• 20:56
  in my students and clients, you know, five a third out of the
• 21:00
  meeting, they're getting us their shots. Now what you do if that shop
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  a whole different story. Okay, Now, you wrote a very good screenplay
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  relatively early on in your I mean, even before your career had kind of
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  even started. What were the things that you know brought you to that level
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  of writing? I mean, were you just born a good screenwriter or what
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  happened at school that really made you able to write a good screenplay? Like?
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  That A great question. And you know, there's so much misinformation out
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  there because I have a lot of friends or managers and I'm not going to
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  out anyone here, But what happens is there is this myth that if you're
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  a great writer, once you start writing, you write great stress And it's
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  just not true. I know so many writers who I mean, I'm talking
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  to Academy Award winning writers. I'm talking to writers who created big hit TV
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  shows. I'm talking about writers who make millions of dollars too. It seems
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  like everything they write is just amazing. And there was five or six years
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  where they weren't that good, and they were just getting a little bit better
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  and a little bit better, and they were doing the right kind of training
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  and they were being mentored. And then what happens is after five or six
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  years, they finally are writing at a level where they can be taken seriously.
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  They sell tre and they will just say or their manager will make up
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  some story like that was the first thing they wrote, and they just forget
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  about all the development. And that's really important people to hear that, because
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  it's a really abusive message otherwise, because if you don't realize that, then
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  you buy into the fairy tales. And people are doing it strategically. It
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  makes you sexier, and it makes you more desirable as a writer just to
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  be someone who naturally is a great fighter, like everybody who wants to work
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  with natural talent. So it's in people's interest to pretend they have natural talent.
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  But it's just I don't know a single successful writer who didn't start out
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  as someone who had a lot of potential that kind of sucked and was taught
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  and was mentored and got better. And so in my case, you know,
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  and as a writer, I wouldn't I wouldn't talk about this way,
• 23:18
  but I'm wearing my teachert cat so I'll be I'll be completely honest. What
• 23:25
  happened is I I was in film school and I had never written anything,
• 23:32
  and a friend and I kind of wrote a script together and it sold as
• 23:36
  a USA cable movie Storry in Virginia Madison, and it was a great concept
• 23:41
  and if we were just a little bit better writer, it probably could have
• 23:44
  sold it as a feature. But at the time it was the very first
• 23:48
  thing I wrote, A co wrote, it was a friend, so I
• 23:51
  kind of thought I was God's gifts to writing, because no one else in
• 23:53
  my films book bass sold anything. Okay, it was USA cable, but
• 23:56
  it paid pretty good. It was Virginia Madson, got made. It was
• 24:00
  very successful for a cable movie, I mean, for your first time out.
• 24:04
  At least for me, I was thinking, that's not so shabby.
• 24:07
  So my friend and I had a big falling out for or collaboration ended the
• 24:14
  whole other. Long story. But so now I'm solo and I write the
• 24:18
  script, and I'm in a writing group and they're like professional working writers in
• 24:25
  this group. They were all very honest with each other, and I showed
• 24:26
  it to them. They really liked it. They had some notes, they
• 24:30
  had a few issues. So I did a rewrite, shows them some notes,
• 24:33
  rewrite, you know how it goes. But I eventually got the script
• 24:36
  to a point where they're like, this is great, this will sell,
• 24:38
  this will launch your career. You know, I'll show it to my agent.
• 24:41
  Issue on this is so this is one of the best scripts I ever
• 24:45
  read. And of course I'm thinking, who am I to argue with that
• 24:48
  assessment? Right? And so I showed the film fool Professor and he reads
• 24:53
  it and, you know, saying, fecting I ever read it, Definitely
• 24:56
  going to sell. I'll get it to you know, help you get an
• 25:00
  agent, yad. So at the time I was working for this manager and
• 25:07
  almost to a favor, I said, you want to read the script,
• 25:10
  like I was a saying. I was like interuring I was a representative Bier
• 25:14
  and so he read the script and we met and I'll never forget he said,
• 25:18
  it's, uh, it's pretty good for like a dirty first draft.
• 25:25
  You don't want to show anyone in the industry the script. You'll only get
• 25:27
  one first impression. The script's not that good, but it has potential.
• 25:32
  And I this is like a weird disconnect for me because I'm it's not when
• 25:37
  I'm being told by everybody else. And what he said is you're professional writers.
• 25:41
  Professor's friends being honest with you, but they don't know how hard is
• 25:48
  the great thing it isness. They don't know the bar they have to hit.
• 25:52
  And by the way, that's the late nineties. The bar is a
• 25:55
  lot higher today. And he said, every time you go out the script,
• 25:59
  it gets covered, and coverage gets database, everyone shares it. So
• 26:03
  if the scripts not like, the script's good, but it's not amazing,
• 26:08
  and there's a big difference between good and amazing, and in this industry,
• 26:12
  nobody cares about good. So he basically said, I'll work with you if
• 26:18
  you're willing to put the work in to help you help make the script what
• 26:21
  it needs to be, to help you become a better writer. And I
• 26:25
  was really honestly born at that time, because I was thinking maybe his opinions
• 26:30
  just not vouled compared to everything else. And so he suggested something that I
• 26:33
  suggest to all of my students and clients, which is, you really think
• 26:40
  your script's writing, because you only get one first impression, and that's the
• 26:42
  most sherished asset you have is your first impression. So what he suggested is
• 26:48
  go hire studio readers, like literally hire people who hire someone from them,
• 26:53
  imagine someone from Warner Brothers, like actual working readers. Pay them to the
• 27:00
  table, think it was like one hundred bucks, and have them do the
• 27:03
  coverage report. They would actually do the script, not in tracking. It's
• 27:07
  not the coverage report goes to you nobody else because it's not officially in the
• 27:11
  system. You're paying them to do the coverage report they would actually do if
• 27:17
  the script had come through the system. So I didn't have the money to
• 27:21
  do it, but I did it. And when the coverages come back,
• 27:26
  one of the things they will do is they'll evaluate the writer, you know,
• 27:29
  say recommend consider her path And I think they all came back path on
• 27:36
  the writer, which was a real kick to the guys. But at the
• 27:41
  same time, I was so appreciative that I knew that you know, and
• 27:45
  I didn't make the classic mistake of listening to everyone's song. Not great.
• 27:51
  It was find someone took it up to the marketplace, and now suddenly you
• 27:55
  know my name first script path is what everybody as in the record. So
• 28:02
  I worked at that manager and you know, it is a year and a
• 28:04
  half. And in that year and a half, like, I learned everything
• 28:07
  I didn't know, and I learned what my weaknesses were and worked really hard
• 28:12
  for him in the strengths. And after a year and a half a brutal
• 28:15
  work. This manager is not a pleasant person, and he did not he
• 28:21
  was smart. He know how to work as writers very well. So it
• 28:22
  was a brutal experience, but I learned a lot. And at the end
• 28:26
  of it, he's like, I think it's now ready. I'll pay for
• 28:30
  the coverage, and he bought. He paid for some people to do the
• 28:33
  coverage, and the coverage is all came back, recommend, recommend, recommend,
• 28:37
  And that was the script that I then showed Cassy rat and all this
• 28:41
  happened. So no I, as a writer, I would I would have
• 28:47
  said the following I went to film school and the producers program. It wasn't
• 28:52
  the screenwriting program. I didn't think I could be a screenwriter. I took
• 28:56
  a class where they made a fright at ala. I didn't want to because
• 29:00
  I was supposed to be a producer, didn't detected writer. And I took
• 29:03
  this class and I wrote the script. The teacher read it. Next thing,
• 29:07
  you know, Meg, Ryan's a cash. Next thing you know,
• 29:11
  by the way, all of that is true. It's all true. I
• 29:15
  just I just took out that year and a half h writer food camp Park.
• 29:22
  Well, okay, can you can you explain kind of what happened between
• 29:26
  the version that you thought was good, that your manager didn't think was very
• 29:30
  good, and the one that he finally thought was good. I mean,
• 29:33
  what what changed? It was just learning a lot about story structure and character
• 29:37
  development and conflict and all the things that I work with writers now, and
• 29:44
  I coached them through this process. And the thing is, there's such a
• 29:48
  big gap between good and amazing. And there are a lot of writers who
• 29:53
  you know, they read some books, they'll read some scripts, they watch
• 29:56
  a lot of movies and TV shows. You right back after a word from
• 30:00
  our sponsor, and now back to the show they have with us of natural
• 30:08
  abilities. They work hard, they have friends or in a writing group,
• 30:12
  and they can get themselves up to good or maybe really good, but they
• 30:17
  can't hit themselves up to amazing. And it's order to get and it's different
• 30:19
  for each person. But you know, everybody has inherent strength as a writer.
• 30:25
  Everybody has inherent weaknesses, and everybody has blind spots. And blind spots
• 30:30
  are weaknesses that you don't know that you have. So when I'm working with
• 30:33
  someone, the first thing is to help them understand what their blind spots are,
• 30:37
  so at least now they're known weaknesses as opposed I know. But then
• 30:41
  really important thing is helping people get dedicated exercises and dedicated practice so that they
• 30:49
  can turn weaknesses into strength. And it absolutely can be done. It takes
• 30:55
  time, it takes training, and the key is to work with someone who
• 30:59
  can help coach you through that. Because the thing that's has for a lot
• 31:03
  of people is a lot of the books and classes they're teaching rules and they're
• 31:07
  teaching paradigms and formulas, and ay, the industry is moving so far away
• 31:15
  from that that you know, most agents and managers won't even look at you
• 31:18
  if if that's what you're doing, because that's not something they can work with
• 31:23
  it anymore. But also be you learn a bunch of rules in a paradigm,
• 31:29
  you feel educated, but you haven't become a better writer. It's not
• 31:33
  that inside out process approach, which is what are my strengths, what are
• 31:37
  my weaknesses, what are my blind spots? And then how do ifern weaknesses
• 31:41
  into strength. That's that's the road to transformation. And the thing is managers,
• 31:48
  especially good managers, that's that's what they will do. They'll, you
• 31:55
  know, they have their client base, they are making money, then have
• 31:57
  their v teams will take some people they think have potential and they'll develop those
• 32:04
  writers in exactly the way I'm talking about. Or you can get mentored by
• 32:10
  you know, a successful writers can help coach you through that process. Unfortunately
• 32:15
  a lot of the classes and the books do the opposite. And that probably
• 32:19
  sounds really self serving because you know, some clients will do commercials for my
• 32:22
  workshops and and for my workshopice and I get that, and you know,
• 32:25
  and so if you want to take all this with a cynical game, it's
• 32:30
  call I understand. But the thing is what I endeavor do in my workshop
• 32:35
  is to help people have to get card training that they would get if it
• 32:39
  had a manager or a mentor. And obviously, and I tell everyone that
• 32:45
  if you have a choice between my workshop and an actual manager or a writer
• 32:49
  who can mentor, you obviously go with the manager or the writer, because
• 32:52
  like that's better than the workshop. The workshop is there for people who aren't
• 32:57
  able to get that at this point. And so I get a lot of
• 33:00
  nface students who have a lot of education in the realm of rules and paradigms,
• 33:07
  and they're writing they're not overcoming core weaknesses. So they keep writing scripts
• 33:13
  but are similarly flawed, and they're writing formulaic, predictable, generic kinds of
• 33:20
  script, which is exactly the wrong kind of script to work on. Okay,
• 33:30
  Now, so I assume things like save the Cat and all those things
• 33:35
  are kind of like, you know, you would consider that really going in
• 33:39
  the wrong direction, that people aren't looking for that sort of thing anymore.
• 33:44
  Yeah, So, and again the thing is, it's not what I say,
• 33:49
  but needing a man unders saying, right, because otherwise it's like I'm
• 33:53
  somebody that's saying, oh, don't listen to that. Teacher or writer,
• 33:58
  come listen to me your market you know, right. So it's like,
• 34:01
  okay, it doesn't matter what ratters what I say and matters the agents and
• 34:07
  managers say. And so the reality is agents and managers in this marketplace,
• 34:13
  in feature and in TV are looking for pitch perfect, authentic strips, and
• 34:17
  they're looking for scripts that are authentic, which means authentic characters but an authentic
• 34:23
  voice. It's a script we haven't seen before, it's a story we haven't
• 34:28
  seen before. That is pitch perfect execution. Very difficult to achieve this as
• 34:32
  a writer. But putting that aside, these scripts go viral, which means
• 34:38
  when someone writes a script like this and shows us it's in the industry,
• 34:42
  they talk about it and they they it's all the friends. Then the script
• 34:45
  gets passed around and there's a buzz, and that's what's required to embrace the
• 34:51
  writer out of all of the white noise that everybody's trying to break in the
• 34:54
  business. So if I'm an agent and I find you and I'm getting on
• 35:00
  the phone, I don't know. You might have pulled a bunch of stuff
• 35:05
  out of my lot. Might have a lot of credibility let's just say you're
• 35:07
  a newer writer, nobody really knows who you are, and you don't really
• 35:10
  have any credibility. Again, I'm not saying that's true for you, but
• 35:14
  let's just say that's true. So if I'm an agent, I'm now calling
• 35:16
  everybody saying, you got to read jacent script, and I'm basically putting my
• 35:21
  credibility on the line. I'm chasing people to read your script and they'll eventually
• 35:24
  do it that they're busy and they'll get to it eventually. As opposed to
• 35:29
  if you write a script that everyone's buzzing about, everybody's talking about, but
• 35:34
  I help you write that, it's like what used to be the Blacklist,
• 35:37
  those Blacklist script everybody's talking about the script. Everybody's buzzing about those scripts.
• 35:40
  Now people are calling me the agent saying, how come I'm not meeting with
• 35:45
  you, know, Jason? I want to meet with Jason. That's a
• 35:46
  whole different game, and more importantly than that is. So let's look at
• 35:52
  this way. If you're an agent, let's say you have your basic like
• 36:00
  me, you're sort of basic client. And so here's how Cory Mandel game
• 36:05
  worked. There be a writing assignment you would call and say I think Corey
• 36:12
  is perfect for this and here's why, and they probably occurred to me,
• 36:15
  I've got a track record. They say, sure, we'll put Corey's game
• 36:22
  on the list. So I now get to compete for that job. Other
• 36:25
  agents are doing the same thing. A bunch of writers are competing for that
• 36:29
  job. I don't get it. So now you're pulling someone else, and
• 36:32
  you're getting me to compete for another job. You're putting energy in. Eventually
• 36:37
  I book a job and you get ten percent of my money. And I'm
• 36:40
  I made really good money, so you're making ten percent of really good money.
• 36:45
  Okay, that's not too terrible as an agent. But you know my
• 36:49
  agent also represents Aaron Sorkin. So first of all, when Aaron Sorkin makes
• 36:55
  a tremendous amount more money than I do, number one, so right away,
• 36:59
  much more valuable player. But number two, how do you get Aaron
• 37:02
  Sorkin a job? You answer the phone, winner and everybody's chasing him.
• 37:07
  Right, He's a less writer. So a basic working writer is always chasing
• 37:12
  job. An a less writer, everyone's chasing him. So someone calls my
• 37:17
  agent and they know we've got this novel. We think Aaron perfect or you
• 37:22
  know, I don't know exactly what my agent does, but he probably says
• 37:24
  this to the Aaron's cloak is probably really high, and you agree to it,
• 37:29
  and then I'll give Aaron the book if you have Aaron might be interested.
• 37:31
  I mean, you would rather have one Aaron Sorkin than twenty Corey and
• 37:37
  Mandell. And so as an agent, you're looking for people who have the
• 37:43
  potential to be a less writers in both TV and future because that's where all
• 37:47
  the money is. And someone who follows, say The Cat or other such
• 37:54
  sort of paradigm formulas, these scripts do not become a less writers. So
• 38:00
  when you look at scripts that have launched a less careers like Juno, like
• 38:09
  you know, American Beauty, like Mad Menning, we can go on and
• 38:15
  no, they're not following the paradigm. They're authentic scripts. They're original.
• 38:20
  And so I'm an agent and somebody has written to one of these formulas that
• 38:28
  a lot of summer movies are going to follow. And by the way,
• 38:30
  just between you and me, I wrote a lot of summer movies and I
• 38:35
  often follow the formulas because if you're working for Warner Brothers, and they're doing
• 38:39
  X Man five. They're not looking for American beauty. They're looking for someone
• 38:43
  who can sort of issue on that hero's journey paradigm. The thing is,
• 38:51
  let's say you're an original writer, a new a new writer, and you
• 38:52
  write one of those scripts. It's not as easy as it looks to really
• 38:57
  make it interesting. It's not as easy as it looks, sort of like
• 39:00
  I see it not as easy as it looks to follow the forum. But
• 39:02
  let's say you can do it. Let's say you can do it. And
• 39:06
  so people we descript a brand new writer like, hey, this guy can
• 39:08
  smartly follow Asuma. Who cares? Really? Who gives that you know what?
• 39:15
  Because there's a lot of writers that can do that. And some of
• 39:17
  those writers are like Corey Mandel, who has worked for really big people,
• 39:23
  and like Ribby Scott and we'll see infusion and they've always want to work with
• 39:27
  me again. So like that gives me a lot of credibility. I have
• 39:30
  a track record where I've worked under deadline. I've been in situations where threeks
• 39:35
  before I'm training a script in the studio calls me and they want a completely
• 39:38
  different direction, and I can pull that off. I've proven that I could
• 39:42
  pull that off, so I have a huge advantage over you. And then
• 39:45
  of course the person who wrote Guardians of the Galaxy has an enormous advantage over
• 39:52
  me, you know, because they've written something stuff that's made a tremendous amount
• 39:55
  of money. We'll be right back after word from our sponsor, and now
• 40:05
  back to the show. My point being, there's people who can follow There's
• 40:09
  a lot of people can follow a paradigm. They have a track record.
• 40:13
  You don't, So why does anybody care? Nobody cares. That's what agents
• 40:16
  are are constantly sending me people to my classes. It's like I can't break
• 40:22
  somebody into the business because they followed a conventional paradigm because nobody will read that,
• 40:29
  like nobody cares as opposed to you write a script that nobody's seen before.
• 40:36
  It's really fresh and exciting and it gets people's attention. It's what's called
• 40:40
  the head turning script. Now, I worked with someone who spent you know,
• 40:45
  a year and a half well to write that script. Wrote that script,
• 40:49
  didn't sell, and they got offered like, oh, I think it
• 40:52
  was like three hundred cram to write Canada there three or Canada there four,
• 40:57
  and he like calls me, He's like, I don't know if I should
• 40:59
  do it or not, because I've worked so hard to be able to write
• 41:00
  to this level. Now they're offering me a lot of money to do a
• 41:05
  formulaic you know, ain't by the number strapped and the book do I do?
• 41:08
  And my answer was, my job is to help you to get to
• 41:13
  the point where you have that decision, because you make the decisions like could
• 41:17
  I think people go either way personally me, I just really took the job.
• 41:21
  I always took the money. I don't think that was smart, but
• 41:23
  that's what I did. But my point is the disconnect that a lot of
• 41:30
  people make is there's these people that are like code breakers. They go,
• 41:34
  look at all these movies coming out in the summer. I decoded what happens
• 41:37
  on every page, and then they teach this paradigm. And then writers go,
• 41:42
  well, I should write script that you know is commercial. If I
• 41:45
  want to break in the business, this is what the studios are summer,
• 41:50
  I should write script like that. And the exact opposite. That's true.
• 41:52
  Agents will tell you most of the clients I signed I signed off the scripts
• 42:00
  that I was really confident I couldn't sell because they were different, their original
• 42:05
  Like Eric Singer wrote the script the Sky is Falling is so violent, so
• 42:08
  dark, that nobody was going to buy the script. Like nobody, but
• 42:15
  everybody had to meet this guy. Everyone had to meet the guy who wrote
• 42:17
  this, and people want to find a way to work with it. And
• 42:21
  so he was booking assignments and making what I think is nice six figure income
• 42:24
  year in and year out, and kept writing original material. And eventually one
• 42:30
  of those one thing he wrote got made as an American hustle, and now
• 42:34
  I was, you know, a big a US writer, probably making him,
• 42:37
  you know, millions of dollars. But for many, many years he
• 42:42
  was a working writer making six figure income off of a script that didn't follow
• 42:46
  the paradigm, didn't follow the former. It was just so original and so
• 42:52
  dark and so messed up in a good way that everybody topped that script right.
• 42:58
  Everybody said, have you read this guy? I thought, you've got
• 43:00
  to read this strip. That's what agents and managers, you know, that's
• 43:05
  what they want. They want something different and original. And even if that
• 43:13
  is a sample that you use to start writing straight down the middle, save
• 43:17
  the cat summer strips. Fine, but you can't. It's really difficult to
• 43:23
  break in the business writing a strip like that because it's a dime a dozen.
• 43:29
  It just nobody cares. Can you talk a little bit about, for
• 43:35
  example, when you're looking at for people who are trying to break in as
• 43:39
  screenwriters, you know, what are the essential things that they need to do
• 43:45
  if they're I'm assuming what you're saying is people need to submit just amazing samples.
• 43:52
  I mean, let's say you don't have a vehicle where somebody like Meg
• 43:55
  Ryan wants your screenplay and you're you're just going the direct way and say,
• 44:00
  I want to find an agent to you know, to support me. What
• 44:04
  is the what kind of spec screenplay do you think they that were kind of
• 44:07
  like work for them? Well, so what works for people? Again it's
• 44:12
  pitch perfect authentic and authentic would be you know, a script that only you
• 44:16
  could have written, this completely original. So you know, you know,
• 44:22
  David Tyler wasn't sitting around going I wonder what to sell in the marketplace?
• 44:24
  That gad of scripts about you know, guy has a stuttering problem. That
• 44:30
  the King speech was just something that he was really impassion to write. He
• 44:35
  had. You know, he's publicly discussed that he'd had a stuttering issue,
• 44:37
  and there was just a very personally important script to him and he wrote that
• 44:44
  step and uh, you know, he wasn't trying to gain the marketplace.
• 44:49
  He was just writing a script with an amazing character, amazing story that was
• 44:52
  he was really impassionate about. I mean, you read that script. He
• 44:55
  doesn't read like any other script. It's like you read American Beauty. Oh,
• 45:00
  another one of these scripts. There's just something original about it and different,
• 45:05
  and it doesn't have to be a quirky character piece. Again, the
• 45:07
  sky is falling, you know, about the end of the world, and
• 45:09
  these priests are just going around killing people, and it's very dark and it's
• 45:14
  very violent. It's certainly not Juno from a total point of view, but
• 45:19
  there's just something you hadn't seen that before, and there's something unique and powerful.
• 45:24
  And so you look at a spec script like Groundhog Day, you know
• 45:28
  it is a classic rom cap, but it's just doesn't you don't read that
• 45:32
  spec script and you know, after another rom com script and it killed itself,
• 45:37
  It's is different. There's just something different and original and exciting and fresh
• 45:45
  about it. That's the kind of spread. And the thing is, when
• 45:51
  I go and speak at event, you know, I always hear writers complaining
• 45:54
  out it's so hard to get an agent, it's hard to get a manager.
• 45:57
  No one wants to read my work, No one wants to represent the
• 46:00
  only one that you know represent known commodities. The thing is that that's just
• 46:05
  not true. I the last couple of days I've been being with managers and
• 46:10
  they all have the same complaints. We can't find enough new really great writers,
• 46:19
  you know, and they're all like, who of your students should it
• 46:22
  read? They're there? They cannot find enough new There's so many opportunities for
• 46:28
  writers to particularly in TV, but more and more features. The thing is,
• 46:34
  it's not looking it's not looking for new writers. That's that's pretty easy.
• 46:37
  And it's not looking for new writers who thinks they're really great, because
• 46:40
  that's a lot of those people. It's new writers who really are amazing.
• 46:45
  I mean, if you look at the script for Juno, you look at
• 46:50
  the script for American Beauty, you look at the script for Madmin. You
• 47:00
  know, right my phones did the word thing out the sir, I mean,
• 47:05
  these are these are amazing scripts. So like I know the guys that
• 47:12
  wrote, uh, they wrote the specscript for the nixt the TV show.
• 47:15
  I mean that script was really great and Stephen Thodenberg, who had retired,
• 47:25
  we got that script and read it and that learned him back. People still
• 47:30
  talk about the Game of Thrones pilot script. It's just an amazing piece of
• 47:36
  writing. The American I never hear that pilot went around town and everybody was
• 47:42
  everybody was talking about that script. And the thing is, there's a lot
• 47:47
  of skill and the build it goes in the writing at that level, at
• 47:51
  the highest level, and if a new writer can write to that level,
• 48:01
  managers are looking for that. That the the scarcity here. And I'm sorry,
• 48:09
  I used to be an colonist of sometimes with an old pattern, the
• 48:13
  scarcity is not on the agent. So no, this is really important because
• 48:19
  if there, if the scarcity was on that front, which is what everybody
• 48:22
  thinks, which means you've got all of these new writers who can write an
• 48:28
  amazing strips and it's just not enough agents for managers to go home. If
• 48:32
  that was the case and you were one of those writers, how do you
• 48:37
  persevere? Well? Luck, connections, relationships, that's what those that's what
• 48:45
  if you're a new, amazing talent as a writer. I'm not saying you
• 48:50
  can just sit at home and they'll come find you, but I'm just saying
• 48:52
  getting the manager is actually easy because they're looking for you. HBO has executives
• 49:01
  who are out going to one at place, looking through YouTube. They're looking
• 49:07
  for fresh, original, new voices. The king is there's obviously a lot
• 49:15
  of people out there that want to be writers that have an original, unique
• 49:20
  voice and take have passionate about this, have read books. There's a lot
• 49:24
  of those people. The percentage of those people who can write pitch perfect,
• 49:32
  who can write to the level that people are looking for, you know,
• 49:37
  is one hundredths of one percent at best. And so the key is I
• 49:45
  think a lot of writers can take an advantage of because there are businesses out
• 49:51
  there that basically say, what stands between you and a career is access.
• 50:00
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the
• 50:07
  show. And don't worry, I can help solve that for you. You
• 50:10
  know, I'm going to have this pitch fest, or I'm going to shop
• 50:13
  your script or I'm going to list your script or on whatever it is I'm
• 50:16
  going to help you get access if you're willing to give me some money.
• 50:21
  So you know, there was a pitch best that I used to go and
• 50:23
  teach that and I'm not doing it anymore. I just don't feel good about
• 50:27
  doing it because there's you know, five to six hundred people coming to LA
• 50:31
  paying hundreds of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, hundreds or thousands of dollars,
• 50:37
  and they get the pitch in front of people, they get five minutes
• 50:42
  to pitch in front of selling. Well, no one's going to buy their
• 50:45
  pitch, but what they might do is like your pitch, like your energy,
• 50:47
  like you geez, can you write at all? There will be that
• 50:52
  blunt about it, but they'll say give me a writing sample, and then
• 50:57
  if that writing sample is amazing or close to me, then will bring you
• 51:00
  in for a meeting and really starts to see if that something can be there.
• 51:04
  And it was just talking to all his executives and a lot of them
• 51:06
  like, yeah, we're just not going to do this anymore because we've gone
• 51:08
  through three or four years worth of these. We've asked for a couple hundred
• 51:13
  writing examples, and so far not one writing sample was anywhere near good enough
• 51:19
  for us to bring that person in. So this is a complete waste of
• 51:22
  time for everybody involved. So now, obviously, if a listener, if
• 51:30
  they are in a position they're in that point oh one and a one percess,
• 51:32
  they're a new writer, they don't have a track director, they don't
• 51:36
  have an agent manager, and they are writing pitch perfect upent and they're able
• 51:40
  to do this. Sure, if there's someone can help them get some access,
• 51:46
  why not. But the reality is for most people just spending so much
• 51:51
  time and energy and maybe money trying to solve the access part of this,
• 51:58
  as opposed to spending high and energy figuring out where they are as a writer
• 52:05
  and what they need to do and get to become a better writer. So
• 52:08
  it's sort of like people are spending all this money to get interviews for surgeon's
• 52:15
  job because they really want to be a surgeon, because it's good money,
• 52:17
  it's good benefits. They've never been in medical school, so yeah, you
• 52:21
  can spend all this money and get an interview at hospital, but they're never
• 52:24
  going to hire you, you know, as opposed to spend your time and
• 52:27
  energy actually getting medical training so that you're qualified for the job. There's so
• 52:31
  many people out there who just aren't qualified and they're not doing the training to
• 52:37
  get there. Now, do you think that getting a manager is an important
• 52:43
  step to like, I mean, should you try and do that before you
• 52:46
  try to go find an agent and you know, the get you in shape?
• 52:51
  Yes? Yet yet for for all bunch of reasons, agents, especially
• 52:55
  these days, they are sells people. They're not there to help your careers,
• 53:00
  are not there to develop you. They're not there to take your script
• 53:04
  and say it's it's close, but it needs to get better. They're just
• 53:07
  a salesforce. And the manager is someone that is going to help develop you,
• 53:15
  help them understand your career. So first thing, yeah, I would
• 53:20
  definitely go for a manager before you get an agent. First of all,
• 53:23
  a manager will let you know when you're ready for an agent, and they'll
• 53:28
  protect you and not and keeps you from agents until you're ready to help develop
• 53:32
  you. If they're a good manager. Careful, a lot of bad managers
• 53:35
  out there. Assume it's a good manager, and then when it gets to
• 53:38
  the point where you're ready for an agent, they'll know who's a good agent
• 53:43
  for you. So the thing is is all agents have a superpower of build
• 53:49
  a sit in a room and somehow know what it is you want to hear
• 53:52
  and tell you what you want to hear, even if it's not true.
• 53:55
  So a manager is going to know you, your personality, your writing,
• 54:02
  and they're going to be enough place to help figure out what would be a
• 54:07
  good agent for you. Is there any way to make sure that you're finding
• 54:12
  the I mean a good agent, I mean where is that kind of where
• 54:15
  do you find them? Well, so the thing is that you don't Okay,
• 54:21
  you don't find anu because I mean, sorry, I was talking about
• 54:23
  a manager. How do you like, how do you go about finding a
• 54:25
  manager? Right? So it's actually not that far. So the one thing
• 54:36
  you want to be fearful about is I'm starting to see more and more of
• 54:39
  these management companies are just taking advantage of people. So like, you don't
• 54:43
  want to find some manager that's charging you, you don't want to manage it
• 54:46
  taking ten percent of anything. You know, It's like one management company's actually
• 54:52
  like taking if you're an editor or a web designer, they're going to take
• 54:57
  ten percent of your income. So there's there's these scams out there. You
• 55:00
  got to be careful of that but that aside what you're looking for. It's
• 55:07
  not hard to network. It's not hard to find out like who the good
• 55:09
  management companies are, and so you know the management companies if you reach out
• 55:15
  to them, and you just reach out to like the lowest person, like
• 55:19
  the the intern or the creative executive who's reading strips, it's the lowest person
• 55:25
  on the food chain. You have a nice little thirty seconds, one minute,
• 55:30
  little presentation. You call enough for them. There's a big chance to
• 55:35
  find one or two of them to take a look at the script, which
• 55:37
  really means we'll just take a look at for a couple of pages to see
• 55:42
  if you can know how to write, and if your script's amazing, you
• 55:45
  know, there's a really good chance that you'll hear back from them. The
• 55:51
  thing is is, I know a lot of those people. A lot of
• 55:52
  those people are the students, and they'll tell you ninety nine percent of the
• 55:57
  time you know they're amazing is how bad the scripts are? You know,
• 56:02
  it's not amazing. It's not amazing. If there's writers out there that think
• 56:06
  they're where they are, there's writers that think the script is really great and
• 56:09
  it's not, but they find amazing is like how wide that gap could be.
• 56:16
  So it's not it's not hard at this point to get people in management
• 56:22
  companies, especially like the lowest level person to take a look. And if
• 56:28
  you live in LA, like these folks who like these newer people to manage
• 56:34
  to compan their networking, so they're always going to network events to go and
• 56:37
  the writers build events or at screens or at certain parties, it's not hard
• 56:40
  to get plugged into that circle if you live in LA. And if you
• 56:44
  don't live in LA, that's okay, you don't have to move to LA.
• 56:47
  You know, with the Internet, it's not hard to find out who
• 56:51
  these people are and reach out people via Twitter and Facebook and email, and
• 56:55
  it's just it's it's not that hard to get people to read the scripts.
• 57:00
  I'm not saying it's easy, but what I say is training yourself to be
• 57:06
  able to write the kind of script that when somebody reads it, it has
• 57:12
  a positive outcome for you. That's so much harder than getting someone to read
• 57:16
  a script. And the mistake the biggest intakes that writers make is you go
• 57:21
  out to the management company, you get someone to read your script. It's
• 57:23
  just not that good. It's probably it like it's probably not going to read
• 57:27
  another script from you, and they database the stuff, so suddenly maybe you
• 57:30
  got to just burn your bridge there. You're going to burn your bridge elsewhere.
• 57:36
  Your first impression is precious and you're like some minor leaguer and when you
• 57:43
  get pulled up to the majors, you have to hit all run your first
• 57:45
  time. And that's that's not how it works in baseball, right, If
• 57:49
  you're a minor leader, show a lot of central you go out to the
• 57:51
  majors, you strike out the first time, they probably don't send you back.
• 57:54
  It's probably give the batting coach they work with you. You strike out
• 57:58
  enough times, we're going to send you back. It's not like that here.
• 58:01
  There's so many writers one who wakes in the business. There's so many
• 58:05
  people that it's sort of like you get your shots, and if you don't
• 58:08
  knock it out of the park, you might not get those shots. In
• 58:12
  fact, here's something that's pretty chilling, and I'm not going to quote the
• 58:19
  name because I don't have permission, but not that long ago, I was
• 58:22
  talking to an agent at a at a one of the bigger agencies, and
• 58:28
  they said something that this is I think it's really important for UH listeners to
• 58:32
  hear this. He said, if you you think you said, if we
• 58:39
  read a script from a news writer and we don't think that script is just
• 58:45
  pitch perfect, authentic, And I was going to represent that writer. Ever
• 58:50
  they're blacklisted. And at first I got kind of upset because I know for
• 58:55
  fact that if writers can engage in the right kind of training, they can
• 59:01
  dramatically improve. And so, okay, so this writer maybe isn't where then
• 59:06
  you could be today, but two years from now or two years from now
• 59:09
  or four years from now, they might be an amazing writer. And so
• 59:14
  I just got a set. You know, the teacher in meeting got really
• 59:15
  set, and I started to push back, and he knew exactly where I
• 59:20
  was going, and he shut me down and said, no, no,
• 59:22
  you don't get it, because we made a strategic decision. Cannot be in
• 59:27
  the stupid ladder of business. And that's when I was like, WHOA,
• 59:30
  Now I don't know what you're what are you're talking about? Because it's really
• 59:34
  simple. You point. You know, if you get hired by Wilkan Peterson
• 59:38
  to write a script, you have a deadline, like at some point you've
• 59:40
  got to turn that script in no matter what, and you got to make
• 59:45
  it as good as you can. But you've got a deadline. He goes,
• 59:46
  if you're trying to break in the business, there's no deadline. So
• 59:51
  if you're trying to break in the business and you have moved mountains to get
• 59:53
  me to read your script or someone else in my agency, we'll be right
• 59:59
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:00:07
  If that script is not pitch perfect, authentic, you're an idiot. And
• 1:00:13
  we don't want to represent stupid writers because even if they're writing includes, they're
• 1:00:15
  so stupid and stupid writers, they just take more time and energy, they
• 1:00:21
  create more messes. It's just we don't want to be in a stupid writer
• 1:00:24
  business. And I would respectfully disagree with this person because I work with writers
• 1:00:31
  and I know that a lot of writers go out with scripts when they shouldn't,
• 1:00:36
  and it's that's because they're stupid. It's just because they're insecure, it's
• 1:00:39
  because they're impatient, it's because they're delusionful. It's just they're listening to their
• 1:00:45
  own people. Because I know what it's like if you're writing groups or your
• 1:00:50
  teacher is telling the script or even worse, people spend money. They go
• 1:00:53
  online and they hire someone to do coverage of the script and our script consultant,
• 1:01:00
  and and people have really good, impressive credit. Well, the thing
• 1:01:05
  is, if you're online marketing yourself as a reader or scripts consultant, that's
• 1:01:10
  probably a big part of your business. And so you want repeat customers,
• 1:01:15
  and happy customers are repeat customers. So a lot of these folks that have
• 1:01:19
  reputation for skewing everything positive. I'm saying that's true of all, but a
• 1:01:23
  lot of them. And so you know, someone will go online, find
• 1:01:29
  someone who used to work at dream Works and Warner Brothers and pay this person
• 1:01:34
  X amount of money and then this person says, oh, your script's brilliant,
• 1:01:37
  you should go out to the marketplace with it. I can't understand how
• 1:01:40
  that writer would feel confident. And that doesn't mean they're stupid. Means they're
• 1:01:45
  a little big, a little naive, but they're not stupid. But the
• 1:01:50
  point is people get blacklisted, like your first impression means so much. And
• 1:01:58
  every agent or manager that bring into NUCAILI classes and kind of workshops, they
• 1:02:01
  always say single biggest mistakes that writers make new writers is going out to the
• 1:02:07
  marketplace before they're ready, right, So can we I want to change gears
• 1:02:19
  for just a second and talk about actual the actual writing process and some of
• 1:02:23
  the ways that people can improve. Now when you talk about not using these
• 1:02:27
  paradigms and things like, you know, the structures that are kind of pre
• 1:02:31
  built and it's kind of like writing by numbers or whatever, you know,
• 1:02:36
  for a lot of people, and a lot of the screenwriters that I've talked
• 1:02:38
  to that are not at the same level you are, but they're writing independent
• 1:02:43
  films, they kind of rely on that stuff to you know, when they
• 1:02:47
  go into the abyss and they're trying to put together their story, they use
• 1:02:52
  that sometimes to kind of put things together and figure out, you know,
• 1:02:55
  how everything's going to look. What what is your advice for you know,
• 1:02:59
  let's say, for example, before you're ever writing and sitting down and you
• 1:03:04
  know, writing the actual screenplay, what is your process for building that blueprint
• 1:03:08
  and that structure of your story before you begin. So that's a great question
• 1:03:15
  I'm going to have to respectfully say, like that would be an entire podcast
• 1:03:19
  in itself, but here's what I'll say. So you know, I got
• 1:03:23
  hired to write Metropolis for us kind of a talk about and I'm in London,
• 1:03:27
  like it's the second night. We're having dinner and the producer beings over
• 1:03:32
  and says, hey, I know you you go to Utily fum Stole.
• 1:03:35
  Yes I do, because you've learned that three s structure of this and appoint
• 1:03:38
  all that stuff. And I'm like, yes, I help because if you
• 1:03:40
  try and write to that, yes you different work, I will fire you
• 1:03:45
  so faster head will stand and I'll bring in a real writer. And I
• 1:03:51
  I thought he was joking, and it started laughing, and then he said
• 1:03:54
  I am not joking. Oh so fortunate. So part of the day under
• 1:04:00
  their wing, and they taught me story design and our damp story structure because
• 1:04:05
  and actually finished the story and off backtrack, so you know when it was
• 1:04:10
  on the front page of Variety that really Scott was making it. I got
• 1:04:13
  invited all these big parties around down I was the guy for like seven minutes,
• 1:04:16
  and I was there already actually my agents the house and you know,
• 1:04:20
  Calgory is there and you knows forming and all these writers who like had careers
• 1:04:26
  I could only dream of, and it was shocking. They all just make
• 1:04:30
  fun of the writers who follow these paradigms. And those are the things I
• 1:04:34
  do in ACAI class because a lot of my students have that paradigm hammered into
• 1:04:43
  them. Is I'll bring in an agent from an agency and I'll aw them
• 1:04:45
  to bring in of all the writers they signed in the last year, to
• 1:04:50
  bring in the script that they signed those writers off there, because okay,
• 1:04:56
  for Calie coryus Sell, Luis, if it's about Cody is you know,
• 1:05:00
  you know you can your listeners can get access to those scripts. But a
• 1:05:04
  lot of time, you know, as Aseric singer and it's a sky is
• 1:05:08
  falling, that script didn't get made and there's a good chance of not sitting
• 1:05:12
  there on the internet. So a lot of writers when they get signed.
• 1:05:15
  You know, I worked with a writer who just recently coached to write it
• 1:05:17
  through the TV pilot. It didn't sell, but it got her all these
• 1:05:21
  meetings. She's got a four hundred thousand dollars overall deal at in the studio.
• 1:05:26
  But you're not going to find that script online. So datas will bring
• 1:05:30
  in the script that they sign people off of, and then I just have
• 1:05:34
  everybody go through the scripts and you can take any of the paradigms that you
• 1:05:38
  want, and just how many of those scripts follow the paradise And the answer
• 1:05:44
  is usually none or you know, one or two, but very various.
• 1:05:48
  That's where I start my classes because it isn't about well, Corey says this
• 1:05:55
  thing, and this teacher says that thing, and this he just says that
• 1:05:58
  thing. No, it's just about what the reality is in the marketplace.
• 1:06:01
  I think a big reason that people follow the paradigm is a it's easiest to
• 1:06:10
  really understand organic story structure and story design. It takes. It takes training
• 1:06:14
  and skills. That's the whole other. Like a lot of people they what
• 1:06:16
  they want to do is plotting. People don't understand the interesting plotting and the
• 1:06:20
  story. So the plot is this happens, and then this happens, and
• 1:06:25
  then this happens, and then this happens. And you're trying to make those
• 1:06:29
  things interesting or funny or or scary or or thrilling, you know whatever kind
• 1:06:35
  of scripture, trying to right, and you're very focused on this happens,
• 1:06:39
  and this happens, and this happens. Oh, and then this happens,
• 1:06:41
  and then wow, this happens that's the plot, story the whole difference.
• 1:06:45
  So that makes it interesting. Story makes this meaningful and impactful, and memory
• 1:06:51
  the whole different way of thinking about it. And it's the integration of story
• 1:06:55
  and plot. And there's just a lot of training and skill set that go
• 1:07:00
  ins. It can be taught, it can be learned. This is the
• 1:07:03
  kind of work that the top managers do with their right and there's the quick
• 1:07:09
  lot commercial plug, it's what I do in the workshop. And so a
• 1:07:14
  lot of people don't have that training, so then their only options is follow
• 1:07:19
  paradigm or just follow their instincts, to sort of follow their impulses instincts or
• 1:07:25
  all the characters around. But here's the thing is, you follow your characters
• 1:07:27
  around, they'll do a lot of interesting things. It's just not going to
• 1:07:30
  turn into a really compelling story. I currently And if you follow your instincts
• 1:07:35
  and impulses, you can write a really interesting first draft. But there aren't
• 1:07:43
  many people in the world whose instincts and impulses consistently drive to a successful story.
• 1:07:48
  There's a lot biggs into pitch perfect authentic, So you know, I
• 1:07:55
  think for a lot of people, their choices are follow up paradigm, we'll
• 1:08:00
  kind of make this step up and follow my instincts, and that second option
• 1:08:05
  generally does not, you know, lead to it done. So that's why
• 1:08:12
  they follow the paradigm. How people follow paradigm that the it's been lied to,
• 1:08:15
  you know, they've been told this is what readers look for. You
• 1:08:18
  won't be considered by an agent if you don't do this, and it's the
• 1:08:21
  opposite. In my current class, I've got like four different readers and they
• 1:08:27
  each one and I didn't say anything. Each one all on their own said,
• 1:08:30
  you know, to the class, we've been told to throw away any
• 1:08:34
  descripts, to qullow these paradigms because nobody's interested in those kinds of descripts are
• 1:08:40
  writers, especially on the TV prontuct. So it's a you know, I
• 1:08:47
  do an entire eight week workshop in story science, so it's it's just not
• 1:08:54
  feasible for me to answer that question in the short space. But for the
• 1:09:00
  listeners, you know, what I would say is he don't take my word
• 1:09:04
  for it. You don't know me. I'm pretty nice guy, but maybe
• 1:09:09
  you don't know me. But don't take your others. Don't take any other
• 1:09:13
  guests on this podcast word for it. That's my opinion. Don't take your
• 1:09:15
  teacher's word for it, don't take them famous gurus, don't don't think anyone's
• 1:09:20
  word for it's too important. Get your hands on scripts that have launched careers.
• 1:09:27
  That's not that hard to do. If you network around, you can
• 1:09:29
  reach out to writers and say able to be possible to see the script that
• 1:09:31
  launched your career. It's not that hard to get if you know agents or
• 1:09:35
  managers or you know someone works for an agent or manager. It's just not
• 1:09:38
  that hard in the electronic PDF world to get your hands on the script.
• 1:09:43
  But that's going to be that's how far is that going to be from the
• 1:09:45
  ones that are like the published ones that you see it? Like now,
• 1:09:49
  that's yeah different, Raltin, is this the we're looking for the script that
• 1:09:55
  launched somebody's career. We're looking for the script that you're an unknown writer.
• 1:10:00
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
• 1:10:06
  the show. You wrote a script and a manager and you know read the
• 1:10:11
  script and said I'm gonna work with you, or that's a script that w
• 1:10:15
  E or c AA you know signed you off of, or like so so
• 1:10:21
  for instance, in my case, you could find Metropolis online, but the
• 1:10:29
  script that launched my career you cannot find outline. So the script that got
• 1:10:33
  me into a room for really Scott to hurry me and write metopraphy, you
• 1:10:38
  can't thatscript. You're not going to find outline. But you know, Metropolis
• 1:10:42
  is a script that you could find out life. But you really want to
• 1:10:44
  go back to the script anyway. My point is you look at those scripts
• 1:10:48
  and then take any of the paradigms that you love and ask yourself, Now
• 1:10:53
  it's different. But like if you start looking at lower budget genre film,
• 1:10:57
  yeah, you know you are going to see a lot of paradise. It's
• 1:11:00
  a it's a different game, it's a different arena. Although that said,
• 1:11:06
  you know, if somebody wants to write a thriller script like you, I
• 1:11:13
  suggest trying to write an elevated roller script that isn't just you know, paid
• 1:11:17
  from the number you know, for instance, clients all land. Now it
• 1:11:21
  doesn't really care because it's adapted from a novel. But let's just say it
• 1:11:26
  wasn't adopted from a novel, Like that's a really brilliant script, but it
• 1:11:29
  has elevated characters, but you write a script like that, you have a
• 1:11:32
  shot in the majors. You have a shot to launch a career. And
• 1:11:36
  if it doesn't happen, you know, you can always go down. And
• 1:11:41
  well, I guess times is kind of a it's probably expensive to make,
• 1:11:46
  you know, but just a you know, a script like X Martina,
• 1:11:53
  you know, very containing one location, what two three characters, that's that's
• 1:11:59
  the kind script. It's an elevated script, you know out scars like that's
• 1:12:02
  a great script. And it's not just painted by a nuther script. It's
• 1:12:06
  just what you're looking for is first of all, we're looking for characters that
• 1:12:14
  are authentic in some power. And whenever you have characters that have to do
• 1:12:16
  certain things on certain pages, certain events have to happen, then they're not
• 1:12:23
  going to feel authentic. Secondly, you know, I used to be a
• 1:12:28
  studio reader and it's like you needed a script and it's like, Okay,
• 1:12:32
  here comes a big surprise event. It's so not surprising. Okay, here
• 1:12:36
  comes a big you know, insight into it if you just see it coming
• 1:12:41
  a mile of la and you you know, writers are only working on lend
• 1:12:44
  script. They don't understand the piles of scripts that are moving through readers' lives.
• 1:12:48
  And so when you've just read fifty scripts that are structured pretty much the
• 1:12:54
  same way, they all just get forgettable. They all feel generic. And
• 1:12:58
  then along comes a I was on a screenlin kind of a little while ago,
• 1:13:02
  and the person with some writers like, I'm writing it on the WIRs
• 1:13:05
  threat and the experts that stop stop right now. You just think, no
• 1:13:11
  one's going to buy an arre script, No agent's gonna But here's the thing
• 1:13:14
  that that person luckily didn't listen to that person they wrote that script and they
• 1:13:18
  just got fired by a team of agents at THA. I have no idea
• 1:13:23
  if that war script is going to so probably not, but it's got th
• 1:13:27
  A. They're now by C A A and they're taking lots of meetings because
• 1:13:30
  here's the thing. I'm a reader and I'm going through a pile of script,
• 1:13:32
  and then suddenly there's this noir script doesn't have the insighting incident. Page
• 1:13:36
  ten doesn't have that. Not only the abyss on a certain page, but
• 1:13:41
  this kind of abyss or the false false low beat on the mint of whatever.
• 1:13:45
  It doesn't. It's not constructive that way. It's not different for the
• 1:13:48
  fake of being different. It's different because it's an authentic story that's unfolding its
• 1:13:55
  own taste, and it has a reason for the way it's structured. And
• 1:14:00
  I just never seen a script like this. It's like, the next week
• 1:14:05
  i'm driving home, I'm thinking about that script. I ain't thinking about everything
• 1:14:10
  else. So when my boss or my friend who worked at another production company,
• 1:14:14
  he says, you read anything good lately. That's the script I'm going
• 1:14:16
  to talk about. That's the script that I'll remember, and that's the script
• 1:14:20
  that people start talking about. That's the script that can launch your career.
• 1:14:26
  So now that said, I have a lot of clients who write those kinds
• 1:14:30
  of scripts. They don't sell, they take meetings, nothing happens, or
• 1:14:34
  at another script like that doesn't sally take meetings. Maybe then the agent says,
• 1:14:40
  Okay, we really kind took a shot at really launched in you.
• 1:14:45
  You know, maybe this next script, we do want to bend it a
• 1:14:47
  little bit more toward convention. Let's take your unique boy, Let's not write
• 1:14:51
  a four squares straight down the middle of say that that script of Matthew that
• 1:14:56
  because I'll just be ignored. But let's take your sensibility and your abilities,
• 1:15:01
  and let's see if you can't bed a little bit towards something a little bit
• 1:15:04
  more conventional, and see it happens. But that's the plan. B it's
• 1:15:10
  not the plan A. Right. Plan A is write something that blows people
• 1:15:14
  like that nobody's seen before that. People go, oh my god. Even
• 1:15:17
  if I can't buy this script, I want to meet this writer. I
• 1:15:19
  want to work with this writer. I love this writing. I would love
• 1:15:23
  to work with this writer. That's your job. Get a bunch of relationships,
• 1:15:26
  get a bunch of people excited about you. Maybe that turns into a
• 1:15:29
  job. Maybe it doesn't. But if it doesn't, you have all these
• 1:15:32
  fans who want to work with you. You write another script, a whole
• 1:15:35
  other shot. Has something happening somewhere down the road. Yeah, and I've
• 1:15:41
  seen this with some of my clients or students. Then they'll have that conversation
• 1:15:45
  with their agent or nager and maybe then they will say, all right,
• 1:15:50
  why don't we write to this target that's a little bit more of a commercial
• 1:15:55
  target, so we can least get you some money, and we can at
• 1:15:57
  least start to get you a track record. But while you're doing that,
• 1:16:01
  keep writing your original stuff on the side, because when one of those things
• 1:16:05
  break, that's how you become an a less writer, you know. So
• 1:16:09
  you think about Aaron Thorkin, you think about Alan Ball, you think about
• 1:16:14
  data side like like the script that makes them or Eric Singer, you know,
• 1:16:18
  and you look at a script like American Hustle. It's not following the
• 1:16:21
  paradise. It's not conventionally structured script. It's a uniquely structured script with unique
• 1:16:27
  starlatist And now he's an the off us writer. You know, the guys
• 1:16:30
  who wrote The Nicky, they had a really next career. They're doing comedy,
• 1:16:36
  you know, they're not competing for jobs or landing jobs making good money.
• 1:16:42
  They write the script The nick It's perfect authentic. You know. It's
• 1:16:45
  not following the paradigm. It's not following the formula. It's original. It's
• 1:16:47
  unique. And now after the first year of the NRI, you know,
• 1:16:55
  studio heads are taking them out to dinner, stars are taking them out,
• 1:16:59
  taking them basically astead of them chasing jobs, better jobs are chasing them.
• 1:17:08
  And that's what happens when you write one of these scripts and it hits,
• 1:17:14
  and you have to be lucky for it to hit, but even if it
• 1:17:16
  doesn't hit, it gets you in a room with a really Scotts to pitch
• 1:17:20
  them. So that's why you get some marriage. You're looking for this.
• 1:17:24
  So all I know is that I'm getting more and more people in the industry
• 1:17:30
  sending me writers to work with me, because people will say, these writers
• 1:17:35
  have a great sense of dialogue, they can really write action. It can
• 1:17:40
  really do common, they can really do this, they can really do that,
• 1:17:43
  But they don't know they're just formulized. I get a lot of MFA
• 1:17:47
  students who've been taught that search traditional film school approach, which really made sense
• 1:17:53
  in the eighties, made a lot of sense in the nineties, kind of
• 1:17:57
  stopped making sense years ago, and now it's a kiss effect. Now,
• 1:18:05
  what was the difference with your students? Can you tell the ones who are
• 1:18:10
  going to have success and the ones are gonna probably drop off? No,
• 1:18:15
  And I've really tried to stay blind to that. I really think it's important
• 1:18:19
  that when I work with everybody, they get the exact same focus and exact
• 1:18:25
  same enthusiasm. And the other thing, though, is I have worked with
• 1:18:30
  people who I privately thought were some of the worst writers I ever like,
• 1:18:35
  just like privately was like, I just don't see that their mountain is so
• 1:18:42
  high to climb, Like their weaknesses and blind spots are so abundant. And
• 1:18:47
  I've seen them become amazing writers and go on and I'm not going to name
• 1:18:56
  names obviously, but have really good careers. And it's not true of all
• 1:19:00
  of them, but it's happened enough that it's got me to realize my attestment
• 1:19:08
  doesn't It doesn't matter where you start, it matters where you end, And
• 1:19:15
  it matters how committed you are, how growth mindset you are, how willing
• 1:19:20
  you are to put in the work, but put in the right amount of
• 1:19:25
  work or the kind of work, because that's where dedicated practice comes in.
• 1:19:28
  So a lot of people buy into this idea that if you want to be
• 1:19:31
  really good, just keep writing. The more you write, the better you'll
• 1:19:34
  get. It's not true for most people. The more they write, they
• 1:19:39
  certainly start learning from mistakes, they certainly do get somewhat better, but there's
• 1:19:45
  core weaknesses and blind spots. They don't know the consistent mistakes they make.
• 1:19:51
  But so the more they write, they just end up with a larger pile
• 1:19:58
  of similarly flawed stretch. They hit it feeling it can't get pack. We'll
• 1:20:01
  be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the
• 1:20:09
  show. A lot of my students come from that space, and so what
• 1:20:15
  they get excited about is are there actual exercises that can teach skills, that
• 1:20:24
  can teach tools that can make them actually significantly get better if you want,
• 1:20:30
  Because we've been talking sort of exactly and I have to go in a little
• 1:20:34
  bit and it's been a while, but I'll give it. If we have
• 1:20:39
  time, I can give one example of one of these skill sets. So
• 1:20:42
  at least this isn't all left in the tract. Okay, yeah, I
• 1:20:45
  mean that would be good. Okay. So one of the skill sets is
• 1:20:50
  what I would call creative imization, and it basically goes down like that.
• 1:20:57
  Most writers, right, you can work from a conceptual place or an intuitive
• 1:21:01
  place, and these are very different muscles and very different approaches, and most
• 1:21:08
  writers are wired to work whenever they or the other. So conceptual writers and
• 1:21:13
  intuitive writers, that's saying. So conceptual writers tend to write outside in,
• 1:21:18
  and intuitive writers tend to work inside out. Conceptual writers tend to when they're
• 1:21:25
  working. They're very focused on what other people will be thinking. They're very
• 1:21:30
  focused on plotting. They're very focused on logic, making sure things make sense,
• 1:21:33
  things are properly set up, pacing, having interesting things happening. Contrutive
• 1:21:41
  writers have a very different navigation. They are working from an authentic place.
• 1:21:45
  They're working from a place of what's interesting to them, what's true to the
• 1:21:49
  character, what would the character really do. It's a very different space.
• 1:21:55
  A conceptual writer tends to be somebody who would say, I've got to figure
• 1:21:58
  out my story before I write it, where in a tutor writer would say,
• 1:22:03
  and you know, write my story so that I can figure it out.
• 1:22:08
  Very different and so their scripts get that. There's a different experience screen
• 1:22:13
  the script. So, for instance, let's talk about characters. Conceptual writers
• 1:22:18
  invent their characters. They design their characters, and so the characters never feel
• 1:22:26
  real, They feel inventive. They on some level feel a little bit like
• 1:22:30
  puppetts who've been created, at least in times to serve the plot. And
• 1:22:35
  these writers often have great ideas, they concepts, good plotting, but where
• 1:22:44
  they're falling short in the marketplace if their characters aren't strong with us. Intuitive
• 1:22:48
  writers it's a very different experience. And tutor writers don't invent the characters.
• 1:22:54
  They don't design their characters. They discover their characters. And their characters are
• 1:23:00
  like real people to them and real people to us, and they speak like
• 1:23:08
  real characters or real people, and you can feel that they are like real
• 1:23:13
  characters. But the intuitive mind is so focused on what is authentic, what
• 1:23:17
  the characters really do. These writers can't construct strong stories, so they have
• 1:23:25
  great characters, always in search of a strong story, where conceptu writers have
• 1:23:30
  all the story worked out, that they don't have strong characters, and it
• 1:23:33
  gets worse than them with conception most conceptual writers, when you read their work,
• 1:23:39
  there's all of this interesting things happening. All these interesting events are happening.
• 1:23:44
  It's just not interesting because you don't feel anything when you read it,
• 1:23:49
  because they didn't feel anything when they reven it the different space that they're working
• 1:23:55
  in. And so you've got these writers who can get half of the equations
• 1:23:59
  but not the other hew And here's the problem. Everybody always writes in a
• 1:24:05
  way to try to get the best possible script. You know, if you've
• 1:24:10
  been hired by self in a studio or a network, you obviously want to
• 1:24:12
  write the best possible script. That's all the If you have an agent or
• 1:24:15
  a manager, you want them to love your script and champion it and take
• 1:24:18
  it out change your life with it. If you don't have an agent or
• 1:24:21
  a manager, you want to write a really great script that you can get
• 1:24:25
  an agent or a manager. Or if you're really kind of new in the
• 1:24:28
  game and you're like, I'm not ready for an agent or a manager,
• 1:24:30
  you're probably trying to write the best possible script so that you can feel that
• 1:24:35
  you're not wasting your time and that people you show your script to. Yeah,
• 1:24:40
  maybe you know there's going to be issues with it, but at least
• 1:24:43
  the kind of fack you guests leads you to believe you might have a shot
• 1:24:47
  and this isn't just a stupid dream that you're chasing. So we're going to
• 1:24:53
  always try to write the best scripts that we can write. And so what
• 1:24:56
  we do, knowingly or unknowingly is we played our strengths and hide our weaknesses,
• 1:25:03
  which is what we should do. You know, if I'm trying to
• 1:25:04
  write my best possible strength, I should play to my strength and hiding my
• 1:25:09
  weaknesses. Well, over time, my strength gets stronger and stronger, and
• 1:25:14
  my weaknesses get weaker and weaker, and it's a big reason why writers can't
• 1:25:17
  get there. They can't get to that level that you can get to.
• 1:25:19
  So one of the skill sets I teach in my workshops is you're going to
• 1:25:25
  write to your weakness and hyder shift. So if you're a conceptual writer,
• 1:25:29
  you're going to work from a very intuitive place, so you can develop and
• 1:25:31
  strengthen them intuitive side, and so your suicide is as strong as your conceptual
• 1:25:35
  side vice versa. If you're an intuitive writer, you're working any conceptual side,
• 1:25:41
  And so the first step is identifying your weak side and developing that,
• 1:25:46
  focusing on that until it's becomes as strong as your strong side. And then
• 1:25:51
  the second step is the actual creative integration, which is learning how to integrate
• 1:25:57
  these two sides so that you can now write great characters and great story.
• 1:26:01
  Because pitch perfect authentic. Authentic means you have to be a rock star on
• 1:26:06
  the intuitive skill set as an intuitive writer, and pitch perfect means you have
• 1:26:12
  to be a rock star and a conceptual site. And most people are not
• 1:26:16
  integrated, and they're writing practically to disintegration. So you know you talk to
• 1:26:21
  conceptual writers and you ask what are you working on? It's always concept writers
• 1:26:27
  hang out in the same space. You know, they do horror films,
• 1:26:30
  psy concept horror films, they do thrillers, sci fi, big idea comedies,
• 1:26:33
  action, big plot driven, concept driven material because they can kind of
• 1:26:42
  hide the fact that they're not that great a characters and dialogue. Tutior wters
• 1:26:45
  are writing small, quirky character emotional type material where it's all about the characters
• 1:26:55
  and the dialogue and the emotion, kind of hiding the fact that they're not
• 1:26:59
  really that good story structure. Well, the thing is, there's a lot
• 1:27:02
  of people out there who can write really good emotion after stuff that can't do
• 1:27:08
  story structure, and nobody really cares for the most part about those, Right,
• 1:27:11
  We're looking for writers that can do both. One of my students directing
• 1:27:16
  a film is coming out in two weeks for directing a film for Paramount Comedy
• 1:27:21
  Texting. It's called Drunk Wedding. It's testing really hot, and so there's
• 1:27:28
  a buzz about this guy. And you know, he was complaining to me
• 1:27:30
  because he's reading all these scripts looking for his next project, and there's all
• 1:27:34
  these scripts he says, they're really funny, great jokes, great structure,
• 1:27:39
  great idea, that characters they just feel like stock characters and there's no heart
• 1:27:45
  to it. And I'm just not going to cook my career bag in up
• 1:27:48
  to one of these scripts because and then I read scripts that like, they
• 1:27:54
  are great characters and there's a sense of like heart to it, but it's
• 1:28:00
  just there's no story. There's no states for structures all over the place because
• 1:28:04
  it's so hard to find someone that can do both. And then his complaints
• 1:28:08
  hears all the time because I finally find one of those trips, and of
• 1:28:13
  course I'm spoken for, you know, And and you know it's been bought
• 1:28:16
  by the major players, you know, So the big players they're buying up
• 1:28:23
  all of those scripts because either they want to make it or they want to
• 1:28:26
  keep their up and coming competition from being able to make those scripts. So,
• 1:28:32
  you know, if someone's listening to this and they are so great with
• 1:28:35
  character and emotion and dialogue, if they can get better at structure and actually
• 1:28:42
  tell interesting stories like American Duties, you know, have both very rarefied company
• 1:28:46
  and they will be sawt after vice the versa. If you have someone listen.
• 1:28:50
  Just they're really good and they love horror films and icons of horror film
• 1:28:55
  or thrillers, love budget, their studio level, the action, what have
• 1:29:00
  you. You can get better at the character from and the and have some
• 1:29:05
  genuine emotion in there. Man, you stand out. You stand out because
• 1:29:12
  there's just so a few people that can do. So that's an example one
• 1:29:15
  of the things that work up in the workshop. And it's called creative integration.
• 1:29:18
  You know, for those of you listening, if you're interesting, that's
• 1:29:21
  going on my website. It's Coreymandel dot net. You know, I teach
• 1:29:28
  something called professional Screaming Line the Workshop, which is the Foundational Workshop, and
• 1:29:32
  it teaches conceptual and intu the skill sets. It's eight weeks and sorry,
• 1:29:39
  I interested in a commercial that I'll I'll be quick with it. We do
• 1:29:42
  it. We do it in LA in Santa Monica, and if you don't
• 1:29:45
  live in LA, or if you do live in LA, we do it
• 1:29:47
  online using web ax. So if you take another online class, so this
• 1:29:50
  is like real time, so it's like going up with in Morgig class.
• 1:29:54
  You can see and hear everybody. You just get to be at your computer.
• 1:29:58
  And we've had right, take it from all over the world. We'll
• 1:30:02
  be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the
• 1:30:10
  show. The June ones are sold out. We tend to be about six
• 1:30:17
  months out, so'll be doing them in September, and those are starting to
• 1:30:21
  sell out that there's still spaces. If you really want to do the June
• 1:30:26
  one, you can email my assistant and she can put it on the wait
• 1:30:30
  list and sometimes the spot does open. So my website coreymandel dot net,
• 1:30:36
  and my sister is Lisa, so she's Lisa at coreymandel dot net. If
• 1:30:41
  you want to email me Corey at coreymandel dot net, and those emails are
• 1:30:46
  on the website, which is coreymandel dot net. The everything I suggest is
• 1:30:51
  sign up for the newsletter. We will often we do that once a month,
• 1:30:55
  interview an agent, or interview a manager, or interview a letter to
• 1:30:58
  sold the script that might be of interest. But and I know that we've
• 1:31:05
  been talking a long time. I think, you know, let's see what
• 1:31:09
  their thoughts is from your listeners. Maybe people just think of a big blow
• 1:31:13
  hard, but if people are interested, if people are interested in the stuff,
• 1:31:16
  then you want I'm happy to come back and talk about more of the
• 1:31:18
  skills. I think we talked a lot about sort of the marketplace agency managers
• 1:31:24
  are thinking and looking for, and we talked a lot about mistakes people making
• 1:31:29
  and let you have to accomplish, but we haven't really And I know this
• 1:31:32
  is what your latest questions were, that this whole sort of subject of Okay,
• 1:31:35
  how do you actually do it? What are I do? The skills?
• 1:31:38
  Right? I could certainly talk more about that if you want to know,
• 1:31:42
  if there is interest from your listeners and you want to have me back,
• 1:31:45
  I'd be happy to do it. Yeah, man, that would definitely
• 1:31:47
  be great. I mean there's even the stuff that you were just talking about
• 1:31:49
  that I would love to go further into detail with. But yeah, we
• 1:31:54
  would need more time. So yeah, I really appreciate it, and we,
• 1:31:57
  you know, let's definitely do like a part two sometimes where we get
• 1:31:59
  more into actual screenwriting and structuring and all the you know, the the nuts
• 1:32:03
  and bolts of it all. Love to do it all right, man,
• 1:32:06
  Well, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot for coming on the show,
• 1:32:09
  and uh, you know, I want to thank Jason so much for doing
• 1:32:14
  such a great job on this episode. If you want to get links to
• 1:32:16
  anything we spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at
• 1:32:18
  any film muscle dot com Forward slash seven fifty four, and if you have
• 1:32:23
  it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe and leave
• 1:32:28
  a good review for the show. It really helps us out a lot,
• 1:32:31
  guys. Thank you again so much for listening. Guys, as always,
• 1:32:33
  keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
• 1:32:38
  and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle
• 1:32:43
  podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I E F
• 1:32:46
  I L M h U S T l E dot com.