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IFH 746: The Entrepreneurial Screenwriter with Jeff Willis · 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 Hussle
• 0:14
  Podcast, Episode number seven forty six. Writing is easy. All you have
• 0:18
  to do is cross out all the wrong words. Mark Twain broadcasting from the
• 0:24
  back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle Podcast, where we show
• 0:29
  you how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the
• 0:33
  film biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to
• 0:38
  another episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your humble host,
• 0:41
  Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur How to
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  turn your independent film into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before
• 0:51
  for independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory film distributors ripping them
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  off to huckster film aggregators who prey upon them. The odds are stacked against
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  the indie filmmaker. The old distribution model of making money with your film is
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  broken, and there needs to be a change. The future of independent filmmaking
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  is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur. In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur,
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  I break down how to actually make money with your film projects and show
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  you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business with case studies examining
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  successes and failures. This book shows you the step by step method to turn
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  your passion into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series,
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  or any other kind of video content, the Film Entrepreneur method will set
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  you up for success. The book is available in paperback, ebook, and
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  of course audiobook. If you want to order it, just head over to
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  www. Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Now
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  today on the show, we have screenwriter and studio executive Jeff Willis. Jeff
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  has been in the business now for over fifteen years and has worked on some
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  major movies like Avengers, Endgame, Captain Marvel, Black, Panther, Thor
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  Ragnarok, among other films. He is also a consultant on the business of
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  screenwriting. And what I found really interesting about our conversation is about thirty to
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  thirty five minutes into our talk, we start to really discuss the entrepreneurial screenwriter.
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  This is a screenwriter that is using their stories, their unproduced screenplays to
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  generate revenue for themselves outside of Hollywood, outside of the traditional way a screenwriter
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  would make money. And it was a very very powerful conversation, and I
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  hope it gives you guys some ideas about how you can make money with your
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  stories, with your screenplays that is not strictly dependent on your film getting produced.
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  It sounds crazy, just take a listen enjoying my conversation with Jeff Willis.
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  I like to welcome to the show, Jeff Willis, How are you
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  doing, my friend? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Thanks
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  for having me on. I am doing as well as I can be in
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  this crazy, upside down world we live in today. I know, I
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  keep telling you pandemic adjusted terms is my go to phrasing these days. Pandemic
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  adjusted terms. I mean we live in well, I mean now currently when
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  we're recording this episode. I mean we're literally in Blade Runner because of the
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  fires. I mean some of the images coming out of San Francisco literally look
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  like Blade Runner twenty forty nine. It's I know, it's insane. It's
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  insane. And now every day I walk out of my house. I live
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  in la I walk out and I go, can't go outside of today up
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  too much smoke in the air. I got to go back in the house.
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  It's it's an insane It's like the whole world is. It's crazy.
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  It's crazy. Yeah, who knew that Roger Deakins was going to dpeat The
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  Apocalypse? It does look I mean, you're right, that's actually really I'm
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  gonna steal that one. I like that one because I don't know. It's
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  it's insane. And our business has changed so radically, and so many things
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  have changed, not only for writers but for the business in general. I
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  mean, if I would have told you, hey, Jeff, you know
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  in January, you know, no blockbuster season this year, for the first
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  time since nineteen seventy seven, there will not be a summer blockbuster season,
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  and oh, we're going to shut down the world for at least a couple
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  of months, and you would have looked You would have looked at me like,
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  that's a horrible pitch and we're not making that movie. Yeah, exactly.
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  Too unrealistic, it's too on the nose. No one would believe something
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  as crazy as that, no one would believe something would happen. So,
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  uh, how did you get into the business in the first place, sir
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  so I, you know, I started in film school. I didn't really
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  get interested in film until I was in high school. And it was one
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  of those things where a friend of mine who was a you know, one
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  of those like kids like I wanted to be a director since I was nine.
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  My parents got me a camp quard of roast and kind of kind of
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  people. He always knew I wanted to make movies, and he was one
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  of those projects in high school where you know, they you know, they
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  give you the option. They're like, oh, you can do an essay,
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  or you can do a you know, a project, or you can
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  do a test. And he was like, I want to make a movie,
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  and I was like, well, that sounds kind of fun. I'm
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  like I'll help him out with that. And then the process of you know,
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  being behind the scenes and making something just totally, like totally blew my
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  mind. I had so much fun doing it. And then once I knew
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  he was going to go to film school, I'm like, oh, that's
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  a thing. You can go to school for this, Like that sounds awesome.
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  So I went to Long Beach State for film school, and then,
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  you know, my senior year in film school, I interned in the in
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  the business, you know, to get my foot in the door and get
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  some college credits and everything. And that was you know, almost you know,
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  twenty years ago, so fifteen twenty years ago. So over the last
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  you know, over the last fifteen years, I've been just you know,
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  working my way up and you know, climbing the climbing the ladder and then
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  writing on the writing on the side. And the business is a slight bit
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  since she got into it originally, would you say, little little tiny bit?
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  You know, there are you know, things like emails which are way
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  more important than they used to be. And film we don't really send interns
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  to the copy room to copy you know, four hundred scripts manually anymore.
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  God, I remember those days, geez. I was an office interned for
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  a show for Fox when I was in college, and that was I had
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  to make copies. It was. It sucked. Yeah, No, no
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  one wanted. No one wanted to intern on Fridays because that was the day
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  you had to photo copy every script for every executive to take home with them
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  like, you know, and then don't forget the color, the different drafts
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  and the different color pages that you got to stick in and oh, exactly,
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  no, it's a good good good times, good times, good times.
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  But that's also a thing that a lot of a lot of writers and
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  people getting into the business don't understand that you do got to pay your dues
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  in one way, shape or form, you know. And I think from
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  when we were coming up, it was a little bit more accepted, and
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  I think there was a little bit more access, even because the competition wasn't
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  nearly as brutal as it is today. It was it was as simple.
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  It was simpler times as I'm sure when we were doing it growing up it
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  seemed like there was just oh my god, how are you going to break
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  in? But looking back, you're like, oh my god, it was
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  wide open, like there was nothing like I got internships on this, and
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  I got I got into that, and there was so many more opportunity.
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  But now it's a little bit more complicated, but I think it's a lot
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  more There was a lot more opening to the whole mentorship program and kind of
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  like getting getting in and learning that way and then doing that crap work,
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  pa work, intern work, things like that to kind of get to,
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  uh, to the next level and learn. Yeah, it's you know,
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  it's It's funny how often I tell people that too, because you know,
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  and you talked, you know, on your other episodes of your podcast about
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  how important networking is, you know, and that's the gong you keep banging
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  because like, like it is, it's you know, I haven't had I
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  don't think a single job that I've ever gotten since my first job has come
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  at anywhere other than networking. Someone knew someone or put in a call for
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  me or told me they knew of something, And it is it's like it.
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  As much as the industry has changed in terms of, you know,
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  how it does business or the things that focuses on, or the types of
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  projects it does, like, the one thing that never changes is you know,
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  by and large, with few exceptions, you know, the majority of
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  people make their way in this industry by starting at the very bottom, you
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  know, working real hard for a real long time until eventually it pays off.
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  And you know that you know that has has become more difficult in some
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  ways, but you know also in other ways, like like it hasn't really
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  changed. Like that's what everyone does, is is they have to spend a
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  long time paying their dues to, you know, to get to the point
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  they want to be. Now, can you you know? Because I'm sure
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  you know you work in Hollywood, you work with some big studios. I'm
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  assuming that you get hit up all the time, especially when someone knows that
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  you work at Marvel or you work at this company or that company. They're
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  just like, hey, hey, can you read my script? Hey I
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  got this great ant man script for a Man four can you or they try
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  to like suck like what can you do for me, Jeff kind of energy,
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  which is at the biggest mistake anyone could ever make when trying to network
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  with someone, because you just want to get away. It's just like being
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  that wanting guy who wants a date at a club. Girls can feel it
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  and vice versa. The same thing happens in the end. And I always
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  I always used to call it, or I still call it the desperation Jakar,
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  so you would actually it's a clone that you're drenched in with and you
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  can smell it, you can sense this desperation. I always tell people that
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  the only way to really truly network is want to try to be as authentic
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  as possible, and two to be of value. What can I do for
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  you? How can I help you? And that's how you build a relationship,
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  not what can you do for me? Would you agree? We'll be
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  right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
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  Yeah, no, absolutely. And it's funny because I get that exact advice
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  to pretty much everyone that asks. And it's funny. I'm pretty active on
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  you know, Twitter, read it a couple other you know things, and
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  it is funny how often people, yeah, people ask that question, how
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  do I network? How do I make connections? And it's funny because yeah,
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  as soon as you start with well over the course of several years,
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  you have to and people go, no, no, I'm out like some
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  of the other person, I can do it in two weeks. But it's
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  you know, that's the what you said is exactly right. I mean,
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  it is about providing, providing mutual value, and you can't be the person
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  that walks in and says, you know, what can you do for me?
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  Nice to meet you, you know, like read my script. And
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  what's funny is how often people will literally just assume that that means, you
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  know, like like bumping at one interaction. So it's like, Okay,
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  I won't ask them to read my script the first time. I'll say nice
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  to meet you at the pitch event, and then I'll go home and then
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  I'll email them and say, well, you're reading script, you know,
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  and it's and I keep telling people it like it's that's not what it's about.
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  It is again about, you know, providing a mutual benefit and showing
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  that you're genuinely interested in someone else, because we all have people that you
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  know, want something from us. We all have people that are looking to
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  leverage what we can do for them for their own benefit, and we're all
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  in that position where we all need benefit from someone else. But you can't.
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  You can't make a habit of being the person that is constantly treating like
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  a one race street and saying what can you do for me? How can
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  you help me? Help me, help me, help me without offering something
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  in return. And it's funny because the next question that a lot of young
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  writers you know often ask is like, well, what could I possibly offer
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  you know, an executive you know, or what can I offer someone you
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  know in a position of power? That I need something from. And it's
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  and it's funny because I tell people, well, I mean think about you
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  have to you have to anticipate, you know, what, what they need,
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  what they're looking for, that kind of thing. They are meeting with
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  writers because they need good quality writers that can and you know, pitch to
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  them that can help them fill out you know, a slate of you know,
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  of talent that they're looking at. You know, they need people who
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  can't they can rely on that. They know that, you know, when
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  their boss says here's a concept I'm interested in, they can bring someone in
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  and and vet really quickly whether or not they're a good fit, so that
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  they can look good to their boss. So your value as a writer,
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  you know, isn't in you know, here's a script by it from me.
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  It's I can you know, I can tell stories, I can develop
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  character. I can take what you're giving me and synthesize that and give you
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  back something that you can, you know, show to your boss, show
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  to your department head, show to a producer or a director and make you
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  look good. And that's how you get into these relationships where and you know,
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  the more I'm the higher the levels I get to in this industry,
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  the more I see it's true where you know, there are very few people
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  in this industry that have the power to you know, to green light or
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  to or even to spend money you know nowadays, Yeah, there's just there's
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  just so few of those positions around, and those people tend to have people
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  that they like and go to over and over again because those people have demonstrated,
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  you know, an ability to give them what they're looking for. So
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  they say, great, I need to rewrite on this. You know,
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  this speck is pretty good, but the dialogue sucks. You know, I
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  know a guy who's my dialogue guy, and I can bring him in and
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  he'll polish this up for me. And you don't get to be in a
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  position like that without offering some value to someone else. The guy that keeps
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  saying will you read my spec? Will you do something for me? Never
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  becomes the guy that gets a call from a studio head saying, look,
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  I need a last minute dialogue polish on this. I'll give you a hundred
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  grand for a week's worth of work. You know, Yeah, it's very
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  true. That's a lot of times people will ask, like, hey,
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  why is that director keep getting work he stinks like his movies are bad,
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  but he keeps getting work, or that writer keeps getting work. Why because
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  exactly what you said, they have proven that they can provide a service,
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  get and get it finished, which and actually get them a final product good
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  bad, are indifferent, they got something at the end of it, and
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  that you can show that you've completed as a director of three, four or
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  five films like okay, at least we know he or she's going to get
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  it over the finish line. Same thing goes for writers, like we're going
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  to get a draft out of this guy or we're going to get a polish
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  out of this person, And that is more valuable a lot of times than
• 14:20
  the most talented writer that no one's ever heard of. Is that, I
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  mean, because they're unproven and Hollywood is fairly skittish when it comes to new
• 14:30
  stuff like that taking risks. Yeah. No, the number of times that
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  I've told people that too, right, It's like, and again, I
• 14:35
  think this is the saying that pretty much everyone says. But you know,
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  it's it's better to be, you know, someone who is pretty good at
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  their job and easy to get along with than someone who's a genius and not
• 14:46
  because it is true, like what most executives are looking for in a situation,
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  especially when you're developing something like development is a process of incrementally getting closer
• 14:56
  and closer to something that you can that you can feel comfortable shooting, right,
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  Like, it is rare that you either a buy a script and you're
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  like, I'm gonna shoot this as is no notes or where you say,
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  you know, I'm gonna buy this script and it's only gonna take one rewrite
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  and we're gonna get all the way there. You know, it's most often
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  an evolutionary process. So rather than being the writer who is difficult to get
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  along with and occasionally brilliant and hoping that you really just hit that grand slam
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  you know every time you're up to that, it's so much better to be
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  the writer that's like, look, I may not be you know, I
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  may not write the most genius stuff in the world, but if you give
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  me a set of notes, I can get you most of the way to
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  what you're trying to do. You know, I can get you eighty percent
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  of the way there every time I do a draft. And again that's what
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  becomes valuable because then the development exec can go back to his people, his
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  producers, his studio heads and say, look, we paid this money for
• 15:52
  this work, and look how much better it is further along. It's almost,
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  you know, like where we go from here. It gives them that
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  constant evolution that they're looking for in getting the project more and more ready for
• 16:03
  production. And you know, I've always I've always told people, you know,
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  if you ask me whether I'd rather be you know, a spec writer
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  making you know, a million dollars spec sales, or you know, like
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  this journeyman writer who's getting you know, fifty sixty grand, one hundred grand
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  a draft, but regularly doing rewrites and stuff. I would be that second
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  writer every time, because you know, that's that is where you not only
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  do the work and you and you keep working in this business as a writer,
• 16:26
  but it's also where you make the most connections and the most value in
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  your career. Is Like, the number of people who are like that guy
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  can get me eighty percent of what I need if I hire him and to
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  do it to do a pass, He'll he'll get me what I need in
• 16:37
  that script eighty percent is huge. Like that is a like if you can
• 16:41
  get a script to eighty percent of where you want it to be. That
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  is because most people can't get it to ten percent. Yeah, no,
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  it's it's funny. I my so my very first executive job. I you
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  know, I'm looking at and it's funny because this actually parlayed into a writing
• 16:56
  assignment for me. But you know, it's one of those things and one
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  of the one of the areas that you know, I think is so important
• 17:03
  for writers is understanding writing for budget and understanding you know, what things cost,
• 17:06
  because there are so few people that can do that. But it is
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  like the number one consideration when people are rewriting stuff is trying to hit budget
• 17:14
  numbers in production you know, logistics that they that they have to work within.
• 17:18
  But so that you know, this guy writes, writes a script and
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  I can't remember the details, but it was, you know, the third
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  act is this huge you know house mansion explodes, you know, like like
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  explosions, helicopters, you know, everything. And at the time, we
• 17:33
  were an independent company, so we're like, look like like everything script is
• 17:37
  great. The third act gets you know, quote unquote a little out of
• 17:41
  control and we need we need to we need we need to write it cheaper.
• 17:45
  We need a cheaper version of a third act that you know, that
• 17:47
  doesn't miss any of the you know, the character the important character moments are
• 17:51
  the arcs. But like, but it's just literally cheaper to shoo. So
• 17:53
  the guy, the guy goes back and comes back and turns in is rewrite.
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  And now the third act is like I forget. It's like takes place
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  at like a ski chalet. There's snow, there's more explosions, there's you
• 18:07
  know, gunfire, and everyone's looking at the script going, this is more
• 18:11
  expensive than the last version, you know, and and the writer just didn't
• 18:15
  understand what elements made a cheaper a cheaper shoot. And it's one of those
• 18:22
  things where like that's what I think is so important with you know, with
• 18:25
  writers who are trying to have a career at this is you need to understand.
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  And it's one of the reasons why I took glad you do this podcast
• 18:30
  and there are other business resources out there, because it's not just about writing
• 18:34
  good characters or compelling narrative. It's also about understanding like the business that drives
• 18:40
  the art. So like, if you don't understand how to make those business
• 18:44
  considerations like work. You're not gonna be hired very often because that's what they
• 18:48
  need, is they need someone to say, I need this script rewritten to
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  be shot five million dollars cheaper, but don't lose any of the good stuff.
• 18:53
  You just need to figure out a better way to do it right exactly.
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  So instead of a cast of fat that is going to cost you,
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  you know, a lot of money to shoot that big giant action sequence,
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  maybe you could do it in a different way that they can drop that budget
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  just the bit so everyone's happier. Yeahactly, exactly. Yeah, It's kind
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  of one of those things like, so it's twenty million dollars to shoot it
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  this way, is there any way to to rewrite it so that we could
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  shoot it for say, the eight million dollars we actually have, Because if
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  we can't, then we're going to something else, because I don't have an
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  extra twelve million to give you exact exactly. And I think for writers specifically,
• 19:33
  you know, when you write, I've heard this so many times from
• 19:37
  writers like should I should I, you know, box myself into budget or
• 19:41
  should I just let my imagination flow? And I always tell people like,
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  well, what's the endgame here? Because if it's a specscript to show what
• 19:51
  you can do, then as a writer, then let your let your mind
• 19:56
  flow. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
• 20:03
  back to the show. Understand that the chances of that getting produced is going
• 20:10
  to be milt to none, but you also don't want to box yourself in
• 20:12
  completely. It all depends on your endgame. If you're trying to produce a
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  movie for you know, one hundred thousand dollars and make an independent film,
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  you can't have that giant action sequence in it. That's just not the way
• 20:23
  it works. So you kind of have to work things out a little bit,
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  would you agree, Yeah, well, I mean, and it also
• 20:30
  I think has to do a lot with you know, with the notes or
• 20:33
  the reason you're coming in, you know, to meet And it's one of
• 20:36
  the questions that I don't hear asked often enough by writers, But like you
• 20:40
  know, you come in and there's a set of notes and they tell you
• 20:41
  what they want to accomplish in the script, but very few writers you know,
• 20:45
  will take the time to ask, like, what is your goal with
• 20:48
  this? With these notes? Are just trying to tweat? Are you just
• 20:52
  trying to tweat the story. Are you legitimately trying to make it cheaper to
• 20:55
  shoot or do you care about budget? Like are you willing to blow it
• 20:57
  up? Like in the converse that that has had about a rewrite. So
• 21:03
  often it's only looked at in terms of story and character, and you know,
• 21:07
  it's really important, I think to have that conversation because a lot of
• 21:11
  times sometimes even executives don't know, and more importantly for the writer, it
• 21:15
  also tells you which notes are really important and which ones aren't, because like
• 21:18
  you can kind of go through if you're having a legitimate conversation about the business
• 21:22
  considerations of you know, the notes, and there isn't one for some of
• 21:26
  the notes, then you know that that note is like a personal preference or
• 21:30
  it's something you know, it's something more more subjective versus you know, I
• 21:36
  can't have this shot on a cruise ship because that expenses that that location is
• 21:40
  too expensive or whatever. So the more you can have an open conversation with
• 21:45
  whoever whoever's hiring you about the kinds of notes they're doing, what the motivation
• 21:48
  is for, why why they want it done it not, it doesn't just
• 21:52
  you know, help you as a writer, but it also helps you turn
• 21:56
  in a draft that they that is more likely to do what they want.
• 21:57
  It's able to really hit the areas that they that you know, the things
• 22:02
  that they want. And again, it makes a development executive look like a
• 22:04
  superhero, if you know, if they give you a script and you rewrite
• 22:08
  it and for fifty grand you cut ten million dollars out of the budget,
• 22:12
  like that is that is like hero level stuff for a development executive to be
• 22:17
  able to say, so, it's always worth considering those kinds of things when
• 22:21
  you're you know, when you're considering writing assignments, because that's what so much
• 22:26
  of this business is. The underlying business drives so much of this. Now,
• 22:29
  can you can you kind of this? I want to hear what your
• 22:33
  thoughts of. But I think it's a myth that a lot of screenwriters and
• 22:36
  filmmakers kind of think about when they're writing their their opus, their their big
• 22:40
  screenplay that they're trying to create, and which is there's nothing wrong with having
• 22:45
  ambition when you're writing a screenplay, but there has to be truth, raw
• 22:49
  truth involved with this, and one of them is I've seen this happen so
• 22:53
  many times that they're going to write the one hundred and fifty million dollar epic
• 22:59
  based on an original idea, and they've never sold anything, and the director
• 23:03
  that they might have attached to it has never directed anything close to this budget
• 23:08
  range. And they will spend five to eight years pedaling it around town with
• 23:15
  us is a reel with thousands of dollars worth of concept art, and it's
• 23:18
  going to be the next big Marvel thing, is going to be something just
• 23:22
  like Marvel. And they're pitching it to the studios and they just wonder,
• 23:26
  why am I not getting any traction? Can you? Can you talk a
• 23:30
  little bit about that? Well? I mean it's I was just talking with
• 23:33
  a friend about this the other day. But you know, when you're when
• 23:37
  you are creating projects, you know the two angles that I typically that I
• 23:42
  typically advised people to go on is either, if you want to make something
• 23:45
  yourself, make it as low budget as you possibly can, because the idea
• 23:49
  is, you know, there are a there are an ever decreasing number of
• 23:53
  people that can finance a movie, depending as the budget escalates. Right,
• 23:56
  so if it's a million dollars, maybe they're there's five thousand individuals, companies
• 24:02
  or whatever. They can make a million dollar budget. You know, if
• 24:04
  it's a five million dollar budget, maybe there's two thousand. If it's a
• 24:07
  ten million dollar budget, maybe there's a thousand. If there's a twenty million,
• 24:11
  Like you get into you like, so the more expensive you write something,
• 24:12
  the fewer and fewer places that can actually make it, and until you
• 24:18
  until you literally hit a point of no return, which is you are only
• 24:21
  at a level where a studio can make it. But if you look at
• 24:22
  what the studios are making, they're not doing original stuff much anymore. I
• 24:26
  mean, you know, Disney, by and large, Marvel make stuff based
• 24:30
  on their own IP. Star Wars make stuff based on their own IP.
• 24:33
  Disney now makes most live actions are remakes of their animated like movies. Like
• 24:37
  the number of original projects being developed to Disney are is much smaller than it
• 24:42
  used to be. And also and also the budgets of those like Ivan the
• 24:47
  Great whatever that the Monkey movie with Heisenberg that just got released on Disney,
• 24:53
  plus those are they and they make so they make like Mulan and the rep
• 24:57
  done of all their old animated Eye or they'll make something that's probably twenty million
• 25:02
  in below. Yeah, more kind of like touch a Feely really family sometimes
• 25:07
  sports like the Miracle or things like that, and they still do one or
• 25:11
  two of those a year, Yeah, exactly. Like, so what I
• 25:14
  kind of tell people is like, look, you need to aim for the
• 25:15
  lower end of things if you want to have any hope of getting it made,
• 25:18
  because all of the development slots at the much higher level, much higher
• 25:22
  budget, are basically already reserved by people who already know what they want to
• 25:26
  make. So, you know, the business consideration I tell people is,
• 25:30
  look, you're either writing something low budget hoping to get it made, or
• 25:34
  you're writing something super high budget because it's a sample to get hired on,
• 25:38
  you know, an assignment that already exists. But again, you know Marvel,
• 25:42
  Disney, you know Warner Brothers, DC, like, they all have
• 25:45
  their big budget ten goals. They don't need a one hundred. They don't
• 25:48
  need to take a one hundred and fifty million dollar flyer on some original superhero
• 25:52
  they created, because you know, in the case of Marvel, there's what
• 25:56
  sixty eight hundred superheroes they have to choose from already. It's hard to explain
• 26:03
  sometimes because I know that that's it's one of the most it's one of the
• 26:07
  strongest illusions in this industry a lot like the illusion. Well, first of
• 26:12
  all, the strongest illusion is the one that screenwriters, you know, just
• 26:15
  like are off somewhere and they just you know, write down their brilliance and
• 26:18
  you know type fade out, then sell it for a million dollars and then
• 26:21
  disappear until they're ready to sell another one. Like you know, that's the
• 26:25
  number one. But like, but the second one is that, yeah,
• 26:26
  that that you can somehow write a great script and all of a sudden,
• 26:32
  you know, the sea will part, the doors will open, and you
• 26:34
  know, the studios will welcome you in and pay you, you know,
• 26:37
  ungodly amounts of money to make your original project. And that just doesn't really
• 26:41
  exist anymore because you know, at the studio level, the studio already knows
• 26:45
  what they want to make, and they're projects that are already in development,
• 26:49
  and they need someone to execute what vision they're already trying to create. They're
• 26:53
  not looking for, you know, like you we're short on you know,
• 26:57
  franchise type hoole ideas like I should hope someone comes along and gives us one.
• 27:03
  Yeah, that's especially Disney. That's not something that Disney is having a
• 27:07
  problem with at this point in the game. I don't think any creative execs,
• 27:11
  you know, anywhere in any of the studios are sitting there going,
• 27:15
  gee, if only we had some ideas about what we wanted to make movies
• 27:18
  out. Yeah, exactly. But the whole, the whole business has become
• 27:22
  the studio business from when you came into the business, and I came into
• 27:26
  the business, when there was that twenty million dollar I mean, Disney used
• 27:30
  to make twenty thirty million movies a year at twenty million, thirty million,
• 27:33
  then occasionally a few temples, which now the whole business is completely driven by
• 27:37
  temple and spectacle. And that's just the way the business is. And if
• 27:42
  they make a movie for less than one hundred million dollars, that's insanity.
• 27:47
  Like I've s there's rare for that to happen, because I've been saying this
• 27:52
  for years, and I actually wrote it in my book that Disney's Disney's not
• 27:56
  a movie studio anymore. They make about fifteen percent of their revenue from exhibition
• 28:02
  of their films. They're in all the other businesses from theme parks and T
• 28:07
  shirts and hats and and exploiting IP. That's the business that they're in there,
• 28:11
  you know, because the student the definition to me, a definition of
• 28:15
  a studio is a company that makes movies and makes money off of selling access
• 28:21
  to that movie. That was the traditional definition. But that's not what these
• 28:25
  studios are, especially the top you know three or four, like Disney,
• 28:27
  Universal, Warner Brothers. They Disney does it the best, obviously they everywhere
• 28:33
  everyone's chasing Disney well, and it's and it's funny to see how how many
• 28:37
  companies are chasing Disney as well. Where it's not just the studios. It's
• 28:41
  a lot of independent companies are aiming that way too, where it becomes less
• 28:45
  of a focus. Like so when I when I first started working, Beacon
• 28:49
  Pictures was the company I worked for it first, and it was I have
• 28:53
  the distinction of working at a lot of companies like after their heyday, but
• 28:56
  before they have a resurgence. So I was. I was at Beacon Pictures,
• 29:02
  post Bring It On, Air Force one and pre Castle, you know,
• 29:07
  so it was like but you know, at the time, you know,
• 29:10
  Beacon was kind of the quintessential independent company, right, which is it
• 29:14
  had an overall deal Edge Studio that paid them overhead to develop stuff and you
• 29:18
  know, and make it. And that's where so many of the you know,
• 29:22
  so many of these movies came from, which is, you know,
• 29:25
  Disney would have first look deals with all these companies all around town, and
• 29:29
  they would bring them the stuff that they were interested in. Hey, here's
• 29:30
  a really interesting twenty million dollars drama. Here's what you know, and once
• 29:34
  all the work's been done, then Disney could say, it seems like you
• 29:37
  have a good business plan here, Yeah we'll make that one, or yeah
• 29:41
  we'll distribute that, or yeah, we'll give you the money to do that.
• 29:44
  And you know, after the home video bubble burst and studios stopped kind
• 29:48
  of doing overhead deals that and it was it was, it was, in
• 29:52
  effect, independent development kind of went away. We'll be right back after a
• 29:59
  word from our spon answer and now back to the show. And all these
• 30:07
  companies are now working on their own. But it's funny because now you see
• 30:10
  these independent companies trying to replicate the studio model because they know that's where the
• 30:12
  money is. So rather than seeing companies, independent production companies, you know,
• 30:18
  try to develop forty projects hoping to make you know, five in a
• 30:22
  year. You see them really trying, you know, trying to acquire established
• 30:25
  IP that you see them trying to or develop you know, in house IP,
• 30:30
  but then just melk it like crazy. I mean, the number of
• 30:33
  companies I've worked with are consulted for in the last few years where the focus
• 30:37
  wasn't on development, it was getting that one project out there so that they
• 30:41
  then they then could concurrently develop a video game, develop a marketing campaign,
• 30:45
  work with a merchandiser, you know, to get product out there. It
• 30:48
  really has, for better or worse, become this you know this you know
• 30:55
  horizontal you know effect where it's not about constantly putting out new content. It's
• 31:00
  about putting out content that, once successful enough, you can exploit in a
• 31:03
  variety of lateral ways and make multiple revenue streams, you know, in order
• 31:11
  to in theory, get more money to make more movies. But it gets
• 31:12
  really frustrating because then you get, you know again, instead of companies looking
• 31:17
  to make five movies a year, they may only make one because they're so
• 31:19
  focused on the other ancillary markets. And that's you know, really hard.
• 31:25
  I think it's contributed to the decline in the spec market. I think it's
• 31:27
  decline, you know need the decline in you know, writer jobs in general.
• 31:30
  It's been it's been really hard because there's so many other business interests now
• 31:34
  rather than just we need to develop new material constantly so we can make more
• 31:38
  movies constantly. Now, would you recommend a writer instead of writing a script,
• 31:45
  Let's say they have a great idea for you know, world building and
• 31:48
  this very epic story, whether it be in fantasy, sci fi, action,
• 31:53
  whatever it might be, would you recommend they actually just write novels based
• 31:59
  on that story, self distribute or self published those novels at first, or
• 32:04
  get it published traditionally, and they can actually start making money with their with
• 32:09
  they're writing. In addition to now having hopefully an established IP that might make
• 32:15
  it a little bit more appetizing for that screenplay that they already wrote based on
• 32:20
  that work. So they're still making money off of their stories, and yet
• 32:24
  they also have the screenplay ready in hand, so now they can walk it's
• 32:28
  much more I feel it's much more powerful for a writer to walk into an
• 32:30
  executive meeting and go, here's my best selling book that has sold X amount
• 32:36
  of copies because I've self published it. Here's the book series it as a
• 32:38
  big fan base. Here's what I've built, here's the screenplay for the first
• 32:43
  two. Is that a better pitch than here's a screenplay? Yeah. I
• 32:46
  mean it's so interesting you mentioned that because I've actually been I've actually been kind
• 32:51
  of pivoting to self publishing a lot in the last couple of years, mostly
• 32:54
  because I'm working on my own stuff in that vein. But like, it's
• 32:57
  interesting that you bring that up, because I think there's really two There's two
• 33:00
  ways to look at that, And the first is, you know, the
• 33:05
  way that you're describing it is absolutely a viable path, right, which is
• 33:08
  if you develop something that is successful in another medium, that is obviously a
• 33:12
  feather in your cap when you go back to the to the screenwriting element.
• 33:15
  And the other thing that I'd say about that is that, you know,
• 33:19
  what's really important is we all talk about how frustrating this business is, where
• 33:22
  like you are pitching things, you don't get the job, You write stuff,
• 33:24
  it doesn't get made. Like, there is so much failure that comes,
• 33:30
  you know, often through no fault of your own, just just the
• 33:31
  nature of the beast, And there's so much frustration that comes with not not
• 33:36
  getting things made waiting for approval, waiting to step for someone to say yes.
• 33:39
  And I really think that things like self publishing are great because not only
• 33:44
  is it a potential avenue where you can sell and make money on your own,
• 33:46
  but it's also it's also that creative release. It's that you don't need
• 33:51
  permission. You can literally just you know, right the end, you know,
• 33:53
  fade out, click publish, and it's available. People can buy it,
• 33:57
  and the market and your audience can speak for itself. So I often
• 34:01
  kind of recommend writers that have a lot of different ideas and a lot of
• 34:04
  different mediums consider that because it is it's kind of one of those Look,
• 34:07
  if you like writing a lot of different things, maybe focus on the low
• 34:10
  budget stuff for screenwriting, and then write your huge space epics as books.
• 34:15
  You know that that you don't need to spend money to shoot in film because
• 34:19
  it's a book. It's words on a page. So I think that it's
• 34:23
  definitely a good idea to consider other other avenues to, you know, to
• 34:29
  get interest in a project and then kind of come back to it. The
• 34:31
  second part of that, though, that I would warn people against, is
• 34:35
  there's a real mentality, you know, kind of like with the networking shortcut
• 34:38
  that we talked about earlier, people want to shortcut this process. And the
• 34:43
  way that often comes in is they what a lot of writers translate what we
• 34:47
  just talked about into is, oh, if I have it as a book
• 34:51
  first, then that means it's popular and I can I'll have it easier time
• 34:53
  selling it. And you know, the truth is one not only is it
• 34:58
  like you have to have a a bona fide like bestseller. You can't sell
• 35:01
  ten thousand copies and have it really moved the needle for anyone, because you
• 35:06
  know, it's one of those let's think about this, ten thousand copies even
• 35:09
  if all ten thousand people bought a movie ticket at ten bucks and you want
• 35:14
  to make a hundred million dollar movie, and you want to make a hundred
• 35:15
  million dollars now, but you only have you know, one hundred thousand in
• 35:17
  sales. That's not gonna You need to have legitimate, like like earth shattering
• 35:22
  numbers to impress people. But the other the other flavor of that that I
• 35:25
  see a lot is oh, if I if I write it as a book
• 35:29
  first, then I'm licensing it rather than selling it to the studio. So
• 35:34
  I can reserve all these rights and everything. And I always like again,
• 35:37
  I think you know my pet peeve is you know, business stuff, because
• 35:40
  it's one of those things where on the business side of things, when you're
• 35:45
  doing a negotiation, there's so much trade off for what you're doing. Like,
• 35:49
  no one, unless you're jk. Rowling, unless you're Stephanie Meyer,
• 35:53
  you don't get to dictate the terms of the agreement. So the more greedy
• 35:58
  you are with holding things back, less likely someone is going to A want
• 36:01
  it or B give you what you're asking for. So I see so many
• 36:05
  writers be like, well, if I write it as a book, then
• 36:07
  it's existing IP. So that'll get my foot in the door because I can
• 36:09
  say it's existing IP, and then I can make a better deal for myself.
• 36:13
  And sorry, like when you've only sold fourteen copies to friends and family,
• 36:16
  Like, you're not going to get a better deal at the studio than
• 36:19
  buying it out right if that you know? No, I mean when I
• 36:22
  laid out that the scenario, it's a long game. That's going to take
• 36:27
  it while. To build up a fan base, you've got to I mean,
• 36:30
  you've got to build basically a business around your your writing, and it
• 36:35
  can work. I've seen it work. I've seen filmmakers. I've seen screenwriters
• 36:38
  create podcasts out of their screenplace and turn that into you know, existing ip
• 36:45
  where now you can monetize the podcast but also start building an audience. There's
• 36:49
  so many ways for an ambitious, entrepreneurial screenwriter to get their work out there.
• 36:57
  But there's it's just one big thing that you have to worry about is
• 37:00
  work. You got to do lots of it, and it's gonna take the
• 37:04
  other thing time and patience, Like this is not a short game. We're
• 37:07
  talking about years, not months, years for you to build this up to
• 37:14
  the point where if you've written four or five books over the course of three
• 37:17
  years, you've built up an audience around your work. Let's say there is
• 37:22
  a series, Let's say there's a podcast. Let's say there's other ancillary products
• 37:24
  that you've built around this story, which, again, everything I'm saying is
• 37:30
  is completely doable in today's world and very affordable to do, to the point
• 37:34
  where an executive is panning scanning around Facebook and you pop up on their feet.
• 37:37
  They're like, what the hell is this, And all of a sudden
• 37:39
  they go to the website, They're like, what is this? They got
• 37:42
  a whole world here, they've got product lines. Now we're talking a completely
• 37:45
  different conversation where now an executive or a potential investor, somebody is now calling
• 37:52
  you because they're interested in what you're doing, as opposed to look at me,
• 37:55
  guys, look at me, look at me. I need you,
• 37:58
  I need you. Just like now, I'm just going to do my own
• 38:00
  own thing and I'll wait for people to come to me. And from my
• 38:02
  personal experience, that's exactly what has happened to me when I started in the
• 38:07
  film Hustle five years ago, where I was drenched in desperation Jakar for a
• 38:13
  lot of my time here in La when I first got here because I didn't
• 38:15
  know any better. And when I opened up indie film Hustle and Bulletproof screenwriting
• 38:20
  all that stuff, all of a sudden, I started getting contacted by people
• 38:23
  about my projects, about things because I've built out this thing online and I
• 38:28
  can provide value. And that's the key value. What can you provide besides
• 38:32
  the story? Because everyone's got a story, right well, I mean it's
• 38:36
  you know, and and the word entrepreneur entrepreneurial is such a great you know,
• 38:39
  a great phrase for this, because you know, writers are all independent
• 38:43
  contractors. We are we are our own business owners, we are our own
• 38:45
  brands. Yes, and you do like you have to. You have to
• 38:51
  create excitement for your for your work. And it's funny because some writers are
• 38:57
  only want to write, right, and some entrepreneurs only want write screenplays.
• 39:00
  And that's fine, but then, but then your version of that hustle is
• 39:04
  writing script after script after script and hoping someone noticesns. And for people who
• 39:08
  want to do that, like that is totally fine, like that's that's their
• 39:13
  bag, Like that's great, but you know, I am more, I
• 39:15
  am personally more interested in other avenues of things. So the you know,
• 39:21
  writing things in different genres, writing things in different mediums, books, you
• 39:24
  know, whatever, trying things on my own, you know, web series,
• 39:28
  short films, you know, like any of that kind of stuff increases
• 39:31
  the chances or at least I like to think it does, of someone seeing
• 39:35
  you in a non standard way, because if you only write scripts, the
• 39:37
  only way you're going to get discovered is if someone reads your script out of
• 39:42
  a stack of other scripts and says, oh my god, that's really great.
• 39:44
  Let's meet this guy. But again, you never know when you know,
• 39:46
  some executive is going to be, you know, messing around on Facebook
• 39:50
  or Twitter and someone's going to say, oh my god, have you seen
• 39:52
  this thing? This web series is hilarious. We'll be right back after a
• 39:55
  word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Or like this graphic
• 40:05
  novel is my favorite thing I read this this year. Have you ever heard
• 40:07
  of it? Like, that's the kind of stuff that I think that if
• 40:10
  you are, if your priority is being a creative person, you know,
• 40:15
  a creative professional, there shouldn't be any limitations on the types of projects you're
• 40:22
  willing to do or tackle, as long as they're interesting to you, because
• 40:24
  every everything you put out is another chance for someone to discover you in a
• 40:29
  different way, and there's another audience to be drawn, and you can have
• 40:31
  arguments and debates over you know, what's the best way to do that,
• 40:35
  what's the streamlined way to do it, what makes sense what doesn't. But
• 40:37
  the truth is like it's such a moving target that no one ever can tell
• 40:40
  you, like no one, no one has yet figured out a way to
• 40:44
  say if you do ABC and D, you'll be You'll be successful, because
• 40:47
  if they could, we would have all doniminy. Oh. So you know,
• 40:52
  the only thing that's left to do is to try a B, C,
• 40:54
  D, E, F G hi J, you know, and hope
• 40:58
  that you know, someone somewhere sees and is like awesome. That's why I
• 41:01
  want to talk to that guy. I think, you know, I mean,
• 41:05
  sure, up to you, but I think that a mind shift needs
• 41:08
  to happen with screenwriters in today's world because and this is just my opinion,
• 41:13
  I love to hear what you think about it is that if you're constantly waiting
• 41:16
  for someone else to give you permission, someone else to make your dreams come
• 41:21
  true, you are giving way too much power to the industry. You're giving
• 41:24
  way too much power to somebody you've never met to make you happy, to
• 41:30
  put food on your table, all of that stuff. I'm much more in
• 41:34
  the camp of building something myself, being able to express myself as an artist,
• 41:37
  monetize that art in a million different ways. Now online that you can
• 41:43
  do that and start just doing even if you're not making a lot of money
• 41:46
  at first. Just do the work, Just keep working, keep pumping out
• 41:51
  content. Keep if it's a podcast, if it's you know, if it's
• 41:52
  a story podcast, if it's a web web series like you said, if
• 41:57
  it's books, if it's graphic novels, whatever, just keep pumping stuff out
• 42:01
  because eventually, if you keep at it, you will build something of substance.
• 42:06
  You will build something that will be able to generate enough revenue so you
• 42:09
  don't have to uber that you don't have to do that job that you don't
• 42:14
  want. And then if something happens great, and maybe you even want to
• 42:19
  reach out to a few people, I'm like, this is what I'm doing
• 42:21
  things like that, but you're not, like, if I don't get that
• 42:23
  call, my life is over. And I feel that's the problem with filmmakers,
• 42:29
  with screenwriters and everybody in this business. You're always waiting for that permission
• 42:31
  from somebody. Where in today's world, like when you and I came into
• 42:36
  the business, that wasn't an option, Like there wasn't an option to self
• 42:39
  publish, to do a podcast, to do web series, to actually create
• 42:43
  revenue streams from your art. This is very, very difficult. But in
• 42:46
  today's world, absolutely you can. I'd love to hear what you think.
• 42:51
  Yeah, no, I mean it's one of the things that you know,
• 42:53
  the the shift that I think ultimately has happened, you know, on a
• 42:58
  larger scale, is you know it is it has gone from an industry,
• 43:01
  or at least the idea of breaking in creatively, whether you're talking about publishing,
• 43:05
  write, you know, screenwriting, filmmaking, whatever, has gone from
• 43:07
  a problem of access to a problem of standing out right. And it's well,
• 43:14
  you asked me to choose which one I would like. I would so
• 43:17
  much rather have the problem be figuring out how to get an audience for the
• 43:22
  content I'm able to make, rather than the problem be I need someone to
• 43:25
  give me permission to make what I want to make. So it's it's why
• 43:30
  I tell everyone that you know that wants to the things about making an independent
• 43:34
  movie or whatever, like, like, I am so into that idea of
• 43:37
  doing it yourself because you can like like's like you said, you and I
• 43:42
  didn't have that option, you know, growing up. I mean even when
• 43:44
  I went to film school, it was the beginning of like the digital age,
• 43:47
  so people were just starting to be able to affordably make stuff and not
• 43:50
  have to, you know, spend money on film stock and developing it a
• 43:52
  lab and stuff. So you know that the last few years of being able
• 43:58
  to or the last it's not a few years and anymore, I'm old.
• 44:00
  The last couple of decades, the last couple of decades have seen, you
• 44:06
  know, it just consistently get cheaper and easier to shoot. You can learn
• 44:09
  to do animation at home now, you know, with after effects, which
• 44:13
  cost you twenty bucks a month or whatever. You know, you can learn
• 44:15
  to shoot on a go pro camera that's four hundred bucks. You know,
• 44:20
  you can learn to like, there are so many ways that you can do
• 44:22
  stuff yourself. And again, like, I would so much rather have the
• 44:25
  problem be too much content and being and being seen above above the the mess
• 44:32
  of like, you know, crappy projects that will never get made because people
• 44:37
  everyone thinks they can make a movie and it turns out no, they can't.
• 44:40
  You know. It's I would so much rather have the problem be getting
• 44:43
  visibility for your good quality stuff, one because I think that tends to happen
• 44:47
  naturally anyway. But two it's an easier problem to have to have something that
• 44:52
  exists and be like I just need to figure out how to get people to
• 44:53
  see it than it is to be like, I have this thing I really
• 44:55
  really want to do, but Oh my god, I need someone to give
• 44:59
  me the money to do it. I need to raise money to do it.
• 45:01
  You know, it's no I was was going to ask you, do
• 45:05
  you as an executive, as someone who's worked in the business, if you
• 45:07
  see somebody do everything we're just talking about that has it's spent a couple of
• 45:10
  years building out their own IP, building out novels, building out like a
• 45:15
  little world, like a little mini Disney, maybe a couple T shirts here,
• 45:19
  maybe a graphic novel there. And they've been able to do all of
• 45:22
  this. Uh, isn't that much more impressive to you? Like, wouldn't
• 45:25
  you just want to have a conversation with that person to just figure out,
• 45:30
  like, how are you doing it? Because I've had those meetings. I've
• 45:31
  had a studio executives call me there just like dude, how are you doing
• 45:36
  this? Like I just want to know how you are running your business?
• 45:39
  Uh, and then we'll talk about your projects. But I mean, it's
• 45:44
  I feel it's much more impressive. It shows a lot about the person,
• 45:46
  and it shows a lot about their work ethic and their It says volumes about
• 45:51
  who they are as an artist and as a business person. Yeah, I
• 45:54
  mean, and I think that's that's true more than anything, because it is
• 45:59
  a visibility and like and view into the kinds of things that they're interested in
• 46:04
  and the kinds of things they're working on. Like, the really hard thing
• 46:07
  is as a screenwriter, it might be comparable if you had meetings with people
• 46:12
  and they were to ask you questions like, so, how many scripts have
• 46:14
  you written? You know, like how many of you sold? You know,
• 46:16
  like what how many how many paid gigs have you gotten? But they
• 46:20
  don't ask those questions. So it's hard to contextualize, for a for an
• 46:24
  executive that you're meeting with. If you're just a screenwriter, it's hard to
• 46:29
  contextualize whether you are incredibly experienced or this thing you're meeting on is you know,
• 46:34
  like a like you lucky swing right out of the gate, or whether
• 46:37
  it's you know, something you kind of got to handle on but you just
• 46:40
  kind of lucked into. Like, it's really hard to take a meeting as
• 46:45
  solely a screenwriter. And again, unless you have a ton of credits to
• 46:49
  your name that people can look up say, you know, look, you
• 46:52
  were in good hands here, Like my work speaks for itself, you know,
• 46:54
  because you're otherwise relying on you know, either word of mouth or your
• 46:59
  agents to kind of put your name out there and say, well, no,
• 47:00
  no, he did a really great uncredited to rewrite on this thing,
• 47:04
  or he did an amazing draft of this movie that's you know that the option
• 47:07
  expired and it's dead. You know, Like, it's really hard to contextualize
• 47:12
  all of the hard work and the good work you put in as a screenwriter.
• 47:15
  But if you are the kind of person that is again entrepreneurial in developing
• 47:19
  other things, it is so much easier to again point to things and say,
• 47:22
  you know, point to the hey I made that thing, and say,
• 47:24
  hey, look like I have this website, I have this you know
• 47:28
  book series, I have this you know this this wiki page that is all
• 47:31
  about the crazy, you know, interconnected world that I've written in my sci
• 47:35
  fi graphic novel series. So I think that that makes it more interesting,
• 47:39
  because again, if you're just looking at scripts, the script has to speak
• 47:43
  for itself, and you have to hope that the guy or or gal reading
• 47:47
  it loves that one script enough to want to meet you right or has heard
• 47:52
  enough good things about you over the years to be like, I got to
• 47:54
  meet that person because other people have worked with him and say he's great.
• 47:58
  But yeah, like I said, you know, if you're doing a bunch
• 48:00
  of your own things in an entrepreneurial way, you increase the chances that someone
• 48:05
  will come across it in an unconventional way, like just living their life.
• 48:08
  Link. You know, someone sends you a link, or someone says,
• 48:10
  hey, have you checked this out? It's more likely to get checked out
• 48:14
  because not a lot of people will. Even when you say you got to
• 48:16
  read this script, it's amazing. It's hard for be able to find time
• 48:19
  to read one hundred and night pages, but to watch it two minutes,
• 48:22
  you know, YouTube clip like sure, like y'all, I'll put that on.
• 48:27
  And and then once they once you catch their attention, then when they
• 48:30
  find you online and find your presence and find the things that you've made again,
• 48:35
  see you in that like, oh my god, you made this,
• 48:37
  and he did this and he tried that and that's interesting, Oh how'd that
• 48:38
  turn out? So then even if it's not you know, I sold one
• 48:42
  hundred and eighty thousand copies of my of my sci fi novel. It's maybe
• 48:46
  not, but like, but you have something really interesting going on here,
• 48:49
  that people seem to respond to, and that's worth the conversation most often,
• 48:52
  Right, and I love you said something two words that really resonated with me.
• 48:58
  I think we should dig into a little bit of a little bit it's
• 49:00
  being just a screenwriter, the courrncept of being just a screenwriter. I want
• 49:05
  to dig into a lip because I agree with you. I think, Oh,
• 49:08
  I'm going to ask you the question, do you think being just a
• 49:10
  screenwriter is enough? If you're starting out, you know it's because if you
• 49:15
  have credits, if you're old school, if you started in the eighties or
• 49:19
  the nineties or even the early two thousands, you have you have something under
• 49:21
  your belt. That's a different conversation. But just starting out now, unless
• 49:25
  you've got the next you are the next pulp fiction, you're the next Tarantino
• 49:31
  or Sorkin' or Shane Black, unless you're that which nine nine point ut of
• 49:39
  ten is not going to be that person. Do you think that a screenwriter
• 49:44
  should be more than just a screenwriter? We'll be right back after a word
• 49:51
  from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I think it depends
• 50:00
  on the interest. I don't think that there's anything wrong with being just a
• 50:02
  screenwriter. I think there are people out there for whom writing screenplays is the
• 50:07
  only thing they want to do and feel called to do, and that's there's
• 50:12
  there should be no shame or stigma attached to that. But I think it
• 50:16
  is a harder path now than it used to be. Screenwriting jobs are fewer
• 50:21
  and far between. You know, it is harder and harder to get your
• 50:23
  name out there as a screenwriter. It's harder and harder to get your name
• 50:27
  on stuff that actually gets produced and get you get credits for. So I
• 50:30
  think that it is harder to be just a screenwriter and not have other irons
• 50:36
  in the fire. That's not to say that it can't be done, and
• 50:38
  that's not to say that it shouldn't be done. If that's if that's really
• 50:40
  what you feel like your career is aimed towards, and you know, most
• 50:45
  importantly, I think that it's important not to not to force yourself into a
• 50:51
  category that you don't like. I cannot count the number of writers that assume
• 50:54
  they need to be writers and directors because that's how they get stuff made,
• 50:58
  but have no interest in directing, and voy it shows when they try to
• 51:00
  make a short film right. So it's kind of one of those things where
• 51:06
  I always kind of tell people like and it's it's funny because I just had
• 51:09
  this conversation with a friend of mine where he was asking, you know,
• 51:13
  does it make sense to always kind of be writing the same type of project
• 51:15
  or to like to do a whole bunch of different things. And I think
• 51:19
  there was a time where being just a screenwriter who only wrote screenplays in one
• 51:23
  particular genre might have been the way to go, because you know, you're
• 51:27
  the horror guy, you're the common guy, you're dialog of punch up guy.
• 51:30
  But I think more and more I think that it is more advantageous to
• 51:36
  be someone who has a wide variety of interests and even more has a wide
• 51:39
  variety of mediums they're interested in, because again I think that it's I think
• 51:44
  that in this changing landscape where I mean, in the last decade, you
• 51:47
  know, TV has completely overtaken film in terms of like the number of productions
• 51:52
  that are out there and the type of content that is being out there,
• 51:54
  and there's nothing to say that you know, ten years from now, it
• 51:57
  won't be something else video games, It might be animation, but like who
• 52:00
  knows, Like with COVID animation might really take off. It's hall of deck
• 52:05
  filmmaking. It's hollow deck filmmaking. That's it's all going to be holograms and
• 52:08
  we're going to be inside the story. That's the next thing there you go.
• 52:12
  Yeah, so you know, And and the fact that there's so many,
• 52:15
  so many changing variables. I think that the again, the more irons
• 52:19
  you have in the fire, I think, the more likely you are to
• 52:21
  find success. It may be unconventional success that you don't expect, like,
• 52:24
  it may be one of those things where and it's funny because talking about all
• 52:29
  the self publishing writing that do in like, I cannot tell you the number
• 52:32
  of writers I know that self published books and make in excess of a quarter
• 52:37
  million dollars a year and you have and you have never heard of that exactly.
• 52:42
  They're not like, they're not you know, at Barnes and Noble.
• 52:46
  And it's one of those things where I think that it it is going to
• 52:52
  it's going to require someone to be able to accept the fact that it that
• 52:55
  the reality doesn't match the dream. And we talked about that weekly where it's
• 53:00
  like the dream is you know, I you know, I write a screenplay.
• 53:02
  Whenever I feel like it, I sell it. I show up for
• 53:05
  the premiere, get my picture taken, do a bunch of interviews, then
• 53:07
  go back home and write another screenplay. Like yeah, that's that is already
• 53:13
  unrealistic and off the mark from what reality is. But it was it was
• 53:16
  real. It was unrealistic when it was happening, which is like the eighties
• 53:20
  and the nineties when the spec boom happened. It makes me want to shake
• 53:23
  those people and say, which writer told you that this is the way it
• 53:27
  was because I don't know anyone who this this experience is indicative of, you
• 53:31
  know, but I think it's going to take so people have already kind of
• 53:37
  accepted, I think, and moved into Like if you're talking with people who
• 53:39
  have seriously taken their writing career seriously as a screenwriter, and they have realistic
• 53:45
  expectations, then they now know, you know, it's it's a slog.
• 53:50
  There's a lot of disappointment, there's a lot of false starts, Like they
• 53:52
  have a more realistic sense of what that job is. But I think it
• 53:55
  could potentially shift even more in the future where now it became Look, if
• 54:00
  you are a creative person, if you are a writer who writes stories,
• 54:04
  then you may be writing things in a variety of different mediums and you never
• 54:07
  know what may take off. It may be a web series for which we
• 54:09
  have a Patreon at pays your bills. It may be you know, you
• 54:14
  know, in independent book sale where you get seventy percent royalties at Amazon at
• 54:16
  pasuer bills. It might be screenwriting where you get a huge six figure paycheck
• 54:21
  every couple of months. Or you know, if I had to put my
• 54:22
  money on it, probably a combination of everything, where you know, in
• 54:28
  order for me to quit my day job. And by the way, I
• 54:30
  love day jobs. I don't understand why more writers feel like they can't have
• 54:32
  them. I'm like, I love the fact that my writing is extra money
• 54:36
  and not O got it? Can I pay the mortgage, you know,
• 54:37
  with my writing check before I need to get another one. But for me
• 54:43
  to get comfortable with leaving my day job and being a full time creator,
• 54:46
  that has to come with obviously a certain amount of income to support my family,
• 54:50
  you know, my bills, my responsibilities, and I don't more and
• 54:52
  more I don't see that as coming from just screenwriting, you know, I
• 54:55
  see that coming as you know, my tax return at the end of the
• 54:59
  year, most likely in situation is going to look like, oh, okay,
• 55:01
  here's a you know, here's a you know, fifty k rewrite I
• 55:04
  did on a screenplay, and here's the eight rand I made on Amazon from
• 55:07
  my book sale, here's the you know, the the twenty five hundred from
• 55:10
  my Patreon account, and you add up all of those sources of revenue to
• 55:15
  get at a level where you can support your family. And I think that
• 55:20
  again, the writers who are like, I only do this one thing and
• 55:22
  I can only do that are going to have a harder time because each of
• 55:25
  those revenue streams is becoming harder and harder to succeed at. So the ones
• 55:30
  that are open to doing multiple ones and and you know, seeing where that
• 55:34
  revenue comes from, are going to be the ones that are able to survive
• 55:37
  as full time creators more easily because they're not relying on that that you know,
• 55:43
  that that real rare circumstance where like God, I hit it out of
• 55:45
  the park and that one that one arena. So you're suggesting people hustle service
• 55:50
  what you're saying they have to hustle at the risk of quoting what's on your
• 55:53
  hat? Yes, I think I think a hustle might be the appropriate word
• 55:58
  for it. Well, I mean, I'll use an analoge of what happened
• 56:00
  in my career. I started off as an editor, and I was just
• 56:05
  a commercial editor. I just did commercials in Miami when I first started out,
• 56:09
  and then when I came to LA I realized that, like, oh,
• 56:13
  everybody here has a final cut machine. Everyone's an editor here. I'm
• 56:16
  going to go into color grading, so I now it can edit. And
• 56:20
  then I started color grading because it was less competition in color grading. And
• 56:22
  then when everybody started getting more color grading systems, I'm like, well,
• 56:25
  you know what I'm going to go, so do post production supervision because I
• 56:29
  kind of understand the whole thing. So now I do three jobs in posts,
• 56:31
  and then I'll also do an online Editorial'll be on the editorial too,
• 56:35
  so like I could package and master films as well to get it all out
• 56:38
  there. Oh and I see I'm doing some VFX. I'll just become a
• 56:40
  VFX supervisor as well, because I could do VFX on the independent films.
• 56:45
  So now I was because of that, I was always eating, I was
• 56:52
  always working because I spread myself out and I know guys who were like,
• 56:55
  no, all I do is edit promos. All I do is I'm just
• 57:00
  a trailer editor, or I'm just I only do TV. Like they really
• 57:05
  specialized and that was a very old mentality to do. And when things started
• 57:07
  to close down, there real was only promos and they couldn't get work.
• 57:12
  They had to start from scratch as opposed to really diversifying their skill set and
• 57:17
  and what services that they can provide to a potential client. And I agree
• 57:23
  with you one hundred percent that writers. Now, if you're a writer,
• 57:29
  you should write. And there's so many either between side hustles of writing blog
• 57:35
  posts, writing other things that you can get on a freelance basis through upwork
• 57:39
  or fiver or things like that, just to write and get paid to write.
• 57:44
  There's books, there's podcasts you know from your books, there's web sites.
• 57:47
  There's so many ways to start generating revenue. And the then additional like
• 57:52
  you said, oh and I can maybe do that rewrite for twenty thousand or
• 57:55
  fifty thousand dollars and putting it all together. At the end of the year,
• 58:00
  like oh man, I had had a pretty good year as opposed to
• 58:01
  the old school mentality of like, I just screenwright, and I only got
• 58:06
  two screening right jobs, and I made one hundred grand this year, which
• 58:08
  is not a bad thing, but for whatever reason, if those two jobs
• 58:13
  go away, I'm screwed. Yeah. Well, I mean it's it,
• 58:16
  you know. And it's to the point of, you know, again,
• 58:19
  treating treating your career like a business. You are you are the brand,
• 58:22
  you are the business. And if you were in, you know, in
• 58:27
  any other field, the idea of only having one stream of income would be
• 58:30
  insane. If you were in financial services and someone said and a financial advisor
• 58:36
  was like, you know what you should do. You should pick one stock
• 58:37
  you really like and put all your money in that, like like you would
• 58:42
  not hire that guy again. And the same thing though, like, the
• 58:45
  same thing is true of a place like Disney. If Disney decided at one
• 58:49
  point we're not going to do anything else, no theme parks, no merch,
• 58:52
  no whatever, We're only going to put movies in theaters like they would
• 58:54
  like, there would revolt, like, you know, so it's kind of
• 58:59
  one of the things where again, if you are a serious creative professional and
• 59:04
  you see yourself as a company or a brand or something like why would you
• 59:08
  not also think that diversification is important for you? Why would you think that
• 59:12
  only screenwriting is the only way forward and the only source of revenue you can
• 59:15
  have rather than looking for other ways? And you know, you have a
• 59:21
  number of other you know services, And if you had a bunch of people
• 59:22
  on this podcast that have other you know businesses, and you see that all
• 59:25
  the time. You know, someone is a writer and a script consultant or
• 59:30
  and a you know and they do coverage work and they have an online course
• 59:32
  or something yeh, or they have an online course or they work at day
• 59:35
  job like that. Like that mentality I think is so important. And I
• 59:38
  have so many writer friends I know that feel like they are a failure as
• 59:43
  a writer if they if they can't make ends meet from their screenwriting every year
• 59:47
  and they they say, you know, gee, I had I had a
• 59:50
  good year the day before the year before, but this year I made zero,
• 59:52
  you know, and it's been a real struggle. We'll be right back
• 59:57
  after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And
• 1:00:05
  I always kind of go, why don't you go out, Like why don't
• 1:00:07
  you go out and get something else that will help, you know, pay
• 1:00:10
  the bills, or will help pass the time, or you know, will
• 1:00:13
  help make you feel creatively fulfilled, Like there is no reason you have to
• 1:00:16
  only stay in one lane when every other, you know, financial advice in
• 1:00:22
  every other area of your life is diversified. Diversified. Diversify so that you
• 1:00:25
  can both manage, you know, manage disappointments and also you know, you
• 1:00:30
  know, and and mitigate risk, like you should be doing that in your
• 1:00:34
  creative endeavors as well, without question. And that was what I did with
• 1:00:38
  post Like I was a director, but directing jobs were few and far between,
• 1:00:43
  and they you know, like just like getting that screenwriting gig, getting
• 1:00:46
  a directing gig, you know someone's going to give you two three hundred thousand
• 1:00:50
  dollars, Like it's a lot of to you know, for a budget to
• 1:00:52
  do a commercial or do a music video or whatever. I couldn't survive on
• 1:00:57
  just doing that, so I always had post production as my base then.
• 1:01:01
  And because I was able to build that business up as a directorc and go,
• 1:01:05
  oh, by the way, if you hire me as a director,
• 1:01:06
  I'll throw in post or I'll package it altogether. I was just gonna say.
• 1:01:12
  The other benefit is, you know, is additional areas of expertise that
• 1:01:15
  then become you know, value ads to you know, to what you're doing.
• 1:01:19
  And again, you know, maybe it's not maybe it's not as you
• 1:01:22
  know, if it's an if it's a super low budget indye, then yeah,
• 1:01:24
  maybe it's like I'm the director and also the post supervisor and also the
• 1:01:28
  colorist. Well yeah yeah, yeah, yeah No. But for commercial work,
• 1:01:30
  for commercial work for music videw or for client work for even even series
• 1:01:35
  like I've gotten I did a series for Legendary where I did everything and and
• 1:01:39
  it was a good budget. But if it wasn't me doing everything, we
• 1:01:44
  couldn't have done it because the budget was too low but was perfect for me.
• 1:01:47
  Right. But then but then that that experience also translates into if you
• 1:01:51
  just want a director job, I mean, if you're going up for you
• 1:01:53
  know, directing a Marvel movie or whatever, like, that's a completely different
• 1:01:57
  thing. You can also then say, but I've worked in post. I
• 1:02:00
  understand what a post supervisor does, I understand what a VFX person does.
• 1:02:04
  So you're not going to have a problem with me not understanding and appreciating the
• 1:02:08
  value that other people add and like being able to communicate with them and being
• 1:02:13
  able to effectively execute those areas become really really important. And I mean I
• 1:02:19
  kind of have that in my job too, which is, you know,
• 1:02:21
  I work in primarily business afairs, and there are an awful lot of people
• 1:02:24
  I work with that have only ever worked in business afairs, so they don't
• 1:02:29
  understand the larger context beyond like negotiating the agreement and getting you know, getting
• 1:02:32
  the deal done. And as someone who has spent most of his career bouncing
• 1:02:37
  around, I've worked in creative, I've worked in physical production, I've worked
• 1:02:39
  in operations. One of you know, at the risk of stuting my own
• 1:02:45
  horn, I think one of my strengths, as you know, as an
• 1:02:47
  executive is having experience with that whole process so that I can say, I
• 1:02:52
  understand why Creative is asking us for this thing. I understand the limitations that
• 1:02:57
  we need to go back to them with. I understand, you know,
• 1:02:59
  from a lead perspective, why we can and can't do that. I understand
• 1:03:01
  from working with post why that's like like why we can't do this, but
• 1:03:05
  maybe we can do this instead. And it's such a valuable skill to be
• 1:03:10
  able to say not just here's the one thing I do when I do it
• 1:03:13
  well, but here's the thing I do when I do it well, and
• 1:03:15
  I do it well because I understand all of the different moving pieces I have
• 1:03:19
  to interact with and can help explain and work with those areas because it's just
• 1:03:25
  again, this is such a collaborative business. Even if you're a one man
• 1:03:28
  show, you know, doing your own thing, like, you still have
• 1:03:30
  to work with other people. And the more you can understand what where they're
• 1:03:35
  coming from and what their needs are, like, the better partner you're going
• 1:03:38
  to be with them. And those again, those are the people that get
• 1:03:40
  hired over and over again. Is that that guy gets me. He understands
• 1:03:44
  that I need that I have budget constraints to care about. And it's not
• 1:03:45
  just about you know how good the script is. You know that post guy
• 1:03:49
  gets me because he knows I need to stay on budget no matter what.
• 1:03:52
  But I don't have a lot of money and I need to make the most
• 1:03:53
  of what I have. You know, Like, those are the kinds of
• 1:03:55
  thing the people that get hired so often because they give people value. Yeah,
• 1:04:01
  I mean, I can't tell you when I was working with directors who
• 1:04:03
  were just directors and they had no idea about the post production process. It
• 1:04:09
  used to drive me mad. It just it would be just so upsetting because
• 1:04:13
  it'd be like, well, we're going to do this and this, well,
• 1:04:14
  I don't know how to do anything of that. I'm like, dude,
• 1:04:16
  sister, your business man, like, this is what you do,
• 1:04:19
  why don't you I don't think you don't have to be an expert in what
• 1:04:23
  I do, but you should have a conversation, like basic conversation, read
• 1:04:27
  a book man. The funniest story I had in film school was so my
• 1:04:31
  film school had two different tracks. There was the production track, and then
• 1:04:35
  there was the like the studies track, right, and so one makes money
• 1:04:40
  and one track makes money the other most track doesn't make funey well exactly.
• 1:04:44
  So what ended up being funny is the production track was all for the you
• 1:04:46
  know, aspiring directors that you know, you know, they wanted to make
• 1:04:48
  their own films, and the studies track was where I ended up going because
• 1:04:54
  there were so many more interesting classes. There was a production management class,
• 1:04:57
  that's where the writing classes were, Like, there were so many different areas
• 1:04:59
  that I was interested in, and it was so funny because by the time
• 1:05:02
  film school ended, I was the go to producer on all my friends shows
• 1:05:05
  because they were all on the production track, but none of them knew how
• 1:05:09
  to like actually make the thing. They just knew how to, like most
• 1:05:12
  of them knew how to boss actors around, and they knew, you know,
• 1:05:17
  some of them kind of paid attention to cinematography class so kind of got
• 1:05:20
  a sense of like angles and light and lenses and stuff like that. But
• 1:05:24
  beyond that, they couldn't tell you, you know, how to do a
• 1:05:27
  schedule or a budget, or where to show up or the logistics of having,
• 1:05:30
  you know, a company move. So it's funny, how you know,
• 1:05:35
  it's funny how like you said, people who want to be just directors
• 1:05:39
  or you know whatever and have no interest in learning the other areas. Like
• 1:05:43
  that's where the real value is is even if you do even if you haven't
• 1:05:45
  spent a decade doing that job. A director that knows what each person that
• 1:05:49
  works for them does and what their capacity and requirements are is such a valuable
• 1:05:55
  addition because they're the guy that can be like, yeah, okay, I
• 1:05:58
  get it, Like you're stressed out, you're over budget, you know,
• 1:06:00
  what do you need me to do? Or gee, like the schedules,
• 1:06:02
  you know we're running behind to day, what do I need to do to
• 1:06:04
  catch up? And that's the stuff again, that you know that has that
• 1:06:09
  makes you a working professional rather than you know, someone who occasionally gets work.
• 1:06:14
  And you know, like I cannot count the number of directors that I've
• 1:06:16
  worked with that you know, especially on big studio movies, that they get
• 1:06:19
  sidelined when they can't deliver on time. It's just like, okay, great,
• 1:06:24
  like you had fun doing your creative stuff. We're going to go finish
• 1:06:27
  the day now because we have eight more pages to shoot. You know,
• 1:06:29
  it's just right. And that's the other thing, going back to the screenwriting
• 1:06:32
  aspect of it. I think a screenwriter who understands production, or at least
• 1:06:38
  understands, like we were saying earlier, understands costs and what things do cost
• 1:06:44
  and time and things like that when they're doing a rewrite, when they're when
• 1:06:47
  they're hired to do a polish, and if they, like you said,
• 1:06:50
  if they can shave dollars off and still able to tell that story, you
• 1:06:56
  will work constantly because it's all about for the for the studio or whoever's putting
• 1:07:01
  out the money. It's about ROI return on investment. If you can return
• 1:07:08
  more money to them, then you will always work. And that's why you
• 1:07:12
  know directors writer directors like Robert Rodriguez has worked constantly throughout his career because he's
• 1:07:17
  able to produce high quality products. You like him, don't like them,
• 1:07:21
  irrelevant, Tyler Perry, a lot of people don't like his stuff. He's
• 1:07:26
  laughing all the way to the bag. He just I think I just read
• 1:07:30
  somewhere that he shot forty two episodes of his show in like four or five
• 1:07:35
  days, like crazy, Like I'm just curreus. I would love to just
• 1:07:41
  be a fly on the wall to see how he's doing. I'm assuming it's
• 1:07:44
  very play like where it's just like boom boom, boom, boom boom,
• 1:07:46
  and they just cover the hell out of it and we're out the door.
• 1:07:49
  But his audience is good. And look at a writer. Look, that's
• 1:07:53
  a perfect example of what we're talking about. Look at a writer who wanted
• 1:07:57
  to be a screenwriter, who wanted to make movies, but it and break
• 1:08:00
  in. So what did he do? He started writing plays and when Noah,
• 1:08:02
  and then he started producing his own plays. Then he would go on
• 1:08:05
  tour with his own plays, and he built something up for himself, and
• 1:08:09
  built up this community, and built up this this uh you know, this
• 1:08:13
  world, this ecosystem, if you will, of all the stuff that he
• 1:08:16
  was doing with media and all that stuff to the point where he finally got
• 1:08:19
  a shot with Diary of an Angry Black Woman, which then exploded, and
• 1:08:24
  then he leveraged that and then and then over the course of the last twenty
• 1:08:27
  years, he's literally built quietly, he has built this empire where now he
• 1:08:30
  is the only executive excuse me, the only filmmaker I know. And I
• 1:08:36
  don't even think Lucas had this. Lucas had other toys, but he built
• 1:08:42
  an entire studio for himself. Yeah, it's so funny. So like I
• 1:08:46
  worked with the producer this one time, and again most people probably wouldn't wouldn't
• 1:08:49
  know his name, but like he had a very similar to like kind of
• 1:08:54
  like the way Jason blund did his Blundhouse, where like, yeah, he
• 1:08:56
  had a formula for the way he made stuff, and he had made a
• 1:08:59
  lot of money making movies over the years, to the point where he had
• 1:09:00
  bought himself basically you know a lot, you know it, like it's like
• 1:09:04
  a where he could shoot, and he had a backlot built and everything.
• 1:09:08
  And it was funny working with him because so many of the notes were,
• 1:09:10
  you know, I don't have an airport set, but I do have a
• 1:09:13
  coffee shop, a restaurant, a you know whatever, So make it fit
• 1:09:16
  in one of those very corman esque, very corman esque exactly, but you
• 1:09:19
  know it. It was one of those things where again, like you may
• 1:09:23
  look down on the fact that he makes, you know, kind of cheesy
• 1:09:25
  movies that are all kind of the same, but like his model was,
• 1:09:28
  I don't spend a dollar over a million dollars to make it because I sell
• 1:09:31
  it to the cable networks for one point five and I do that eight times
• 1:09:35
  a year. Like I don't, like, there's nothing stupid about that business
• 1:09:39
  model where you're making five hundred grand eight times over every year like clockwork,
• 1:09:45
  you know, and you have your model, you know what you're building,
• 1:09:46
  you know what you're shooting. Like it's just it's it's funny how often how
• 1:09:51
  often people try to like divest creativity from business. We'll be right back after
• 1:09:59
  a wh from our sponsor and now back to the show and see them like
• 1:10:08
  see them as as negatives or opposite sides of a coin, where it's like,
• 1:10:12
  oh, if you do something that's smart business, it can't possibly be
• 1:10:14
  creative. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Doing eight movies a
• 1:10:16
  year with the same sets and making them all seem different is about the most
• 1:10:20
  creative thing I can think of to do, much more than like, I
• 1:10:24
  have an original set that I built for you know, this one movie,
• 1:10:27
  and then I tear it all down at the end. And again, if
• 1:10:30
  you're Spielberger, Nolan or you know, or these giants, that's great,
• 1:10:34
  but that's not that's the exception to the rule. And not everybody is ever
• 1:10:40
  gonna be Spielberg, and no one's you know or Cameron or Skazy are any
• 1:10:45
  of these giants. You you gotta build your You gotta walk your own path
• 1:10:49
  and build your own world. I think, and I think we are now
• 1:10:53
  in the age of the entrepreneurial screenwriter, the entrepreneurial filmmaker, the film entrepreneurs.
• 1:10:59
  I call it because that is the way forward. I think a lot
• 1:11:03
  of people are still writing and making films or trying to make films like it's
• 1:11:09
  nineteen ninety seven and that world is gone literally now literally gone with COVID.
• 1:11:16
  Yeah, it is so much it's so much harder to work within the system
• 1:11:20
  when there is so much stuff out there. And again, it's about attention.
• 1:11:26
  It's about getting someone who again is in a position to pay you to
• 1:11:30
  do something. It's about getting their attention and getting their interests. And again,
• 1:11:33
  like you know, there are there are you know, there are some
• 1:11:38
  executives I know that are old school, like you know, I read scripts
• 1:11:43
  and that's all I do every day. And then I find a good script
• 1:11:45
  and I need the writer and that's it. But I mean, like I
• 1:11:46
  said, there are so many more executives I know now that have diverse interests,
• 1:11:50
  you know, and they're constantly watching web series and surfing YouTube and looking
• 1:11:55
  for you know, TikTok or whatever like whatever the new thing is, trying
• 1:11:59
  to find interesting, you know, interesting voices so that they can come in
• 1:12:02
  and talk to them. And I do really wonder how like I would be
• 1:12:08
  curious. And again I don't work in development, so I don't have any
• 1:12:10
  any hard and fast numbers on this, but I would genuinely be interested in
• 1:12:14
  you know, if you look at the total number of meetings and executive takes
• 1:12:16
  these days are creative exact? How many of them are? You know what
• 1:12:20
  I am? I am a screenwriter. I write screenplays. You read my
• 1:12:23
  screenplay, liked it, and now you want to meet with me, versus
• 1:12:26
  like, Hey, you're an interesting content creator that I found somewhere else.
• 1:12:30
  I really want to I really want to see you know, see what you
• 1:12:32
  can. I just want to have a conversation with you and talk and see
• 1:12:35
  if there's anything there, right. And I think the second conversation is much
• 1:12:40
  more interesting for me, at least than the first one because and I think
• 1:12:45
  we could leave it at this. If if you're able to express yourself creatively
• 1:12:51
  as a writer and make money doing all these other things that we're talking about,
• 1:12:57
  whether it's writing novel, self publishing, you know, web series,
• 1:13:00
  graphic novels, podcasts of your stories, whatever those other avenues are. If
• 1:13:05
  you're able to build a small business around your art, whatever that is,
• 1:13:11
  and that art could bring in fifty to seventy thousand dollars a year or whatever
• 1:13:15
  the number is for you to be able to provide for you and your family
• 1:13:19
  whatever that Because depending on where you live in the world, that number can
• 1:13:21
  vary whatever that. If you can do that and keep doing that for years,
• 1:13:28
  year after year, why are you so concerned about making it big somewhere
• 1:13:33
  else. You're you're living the dream at that point, and then if someone
• 1:13:40
  shows up, great, But you're happy in this process as opposed to being
• 1:13:45
  so on. I mean, I don't know about you how much how many
• 1:13:46
  writers you know are just angry, bit or unhappy because it hasn't worked out
• 1:13:51
  the way they wanted to, because they've been sold a raw deal or this
• 1:13:56
  illusion that we've been talking about, where you write this specscript, get a
• 1:14:00
  million bucks and just go off and you know, into your Hawaii Hawaiian palace
• 1:14:04
  somewhere, you know, in surf all day and then right when you want.
• 1:14:08
  That's not a really practical thing. And I think they've been sold a
• 1:14:11
  raw deal. I think they've sold a myth and they're pissed about it.
• 1:14:15
  Where I think is if you're able to build out a business around your art,
• 1:14:17
  whatever that is, then you're happy. And that took me a long
• 1:14:24
  time to figure out because I was the angry and bitter filmmaker for most of
• 1:14:29
  my career, and I always say, if you don't know an angry and
• 1:14:30
  bitter filmmaker, if you don't know an angry and bitter screenwriter, you are
• 1:14:34
  the angry and bitter story writer. No, it's true, Like I think,
• 1:14:40
  yeah, to leave it, you know, I think that the constant
• 1:14:43
  evolution of your expectations is something that's really important, you know. And I
• 1:14:45
  was the same way, you know, I when I graduated from film school.
• 1:14:49
  You know, again you have the sights on you on a screenwriter writing
• 1:14:51
  you know, writing Marvel movies, seeing my name on screen and stuff like
• 1:14:55
  that. And what's funny is over the years, I you know, obviously,
• 1:15:00
  and then I hit that disappointment that everyone does where it's like, okay,
• 1:15:01
  that that my life didn't work out the way that I just you know,
• 1:15:04
  assumed it would at twenty two. But then but then you start thinking
• 1:15:09
  about really kind of the things that are important, right, you start getting
• 1:15:13
  your you know, your bucket list of you know, experiences together. And
• 1:15:15
  it's funny because you know now that now that I've worked at Marvel, you
• 1:15:17
  know, one of one of the nice perks is that they credit all of
• 1:15:20
  their in house people on their films, right, so you know, It's
• 1:15:25
  one of those things where it's like, I have gotten a credit on a
• 1:15:28
  Marvel movie. Does it say credits executive you know, halfway down the crawl
• 1:15:30
  rather than you know, written by sure? Is that really that important to
• 1:15:34
  me that the you know, the writing credit is. Is that the only
• 1:15:38
  thing that will make me happy? No, not so much, you know,
• 1:15:41
  I you know, I've always I've always loved studio lots and I've worked
• 1:15:44
  on one now, so you know, you know, that bucket list is
• 1:15:46
  done. You know, I've been paid for my writing, like not a
• 1:15:48
  lot, but I've gotten a check that says, you know, for your
• 1:15:50
  you know, for your writing services. And it's just been important to reevaluate
• 1:15:57
  once you do have that, you know, that hard crushing reality check of
• 1:16:00
  like things not working out how you want and finding out what really is important
• 1:16:04
  to you and deciding, you know, what makes you happy. And for
• 1:16:09
  me, it's one of those things where like, I really enjoy my day
• 1:16:12
  job at Marvel, I like the people I work with. I love those
• 1:16:14
  movies. So the chance to work more work on them, even if it's
• 1:16:16
  you know, you know, vetting the names in the end crawl, which
• 1:16:19
  is like not terribly exciting, but like it's something that I find immensely satisfying
• 1:16:24
  and I enjoy. It's something that I don't I wouldn't mind doing as a
• 1:16:27
  day job until I, you know, until the day I retire. And
• 1:16:30
  then on top of that, I'm able to supplement it with creative projects that
• 1:16:33
  interest me. I can make a short film when I want, I can
• 1:16:35
  write a script, I can write a book, and most importantly to me,
• 1:16:39
  I don't ever have to worry about that thing being a financial success because
• 1:16:43
  I have a day job that pays my bills for me, so everything else
• 1:16:45
  is just on top of that. And what's been really nice about that is
• 1:16:50
  to me, that is my definition of a successful life. It's my successful
• 1:16:55
  career where I have found a way to be happy and content with the thing
• 1:17:00
  I have achieved and able to set more realistic goals than just being like,
• 1:17:02
  oh my god, if I don't if I don't have a written by credit
• 1:17:04
  on a Marvel movie before I before I retire, like my whole life's meant
• 1:17:09
  nothing up to this point, you know. And it's hard because that in
• 1:17:13
  comparison to a lot of writers I know that are full time writers and won't
• 1:17:15
  allow themselves to do anything else, like full time screen writers that won't take
• 1:17:18
  a day job or whatever. And I just see so much struggle and so
• 1:17:21
  much frustration with you know, the living paycheck to paycheck, or the feast
• 1:17:26
  or famine nature of the business. And it's just I always think it's important
• 1:17:30
  to really, like really reevaluate those things that are important to you. And
• 1:17:33
  for me, writing is important, but it's not so important that I can't
• 1:17:38
  also, you know, pay the bills of the day job, or find
• 1:17:41
  other ways of feeling like I've met certain thresholds for success that I have for
• 1:17:45
  myself. And I think these days that's that's what a lot of writers and
• 1:17:48
  other creatives are faced with, which is you need to figure out your definition
• 1:17:53
  of success. And it's probably not going to be what you originally thought it
• 1:17:56
  was. You're probably not going to make your money from where you thought you
• 1:17:58
  were. You're probably not going to make the the fame and fortune from where
• 1:18:00
  you thought you were. It's probably going to come in a different form.
• 1:18:02
  Are you okay with that or not? And I don't know about you,
• 1:18:05
  but when I when I didn't get to the Oscars at twenty five, uh,
• 1:18:11
  I said, I was sitting at home being like, man, I
• 1:18:13
  should add it, you know, and then I'm like, well, I'll
• 1:18:15
  wait till thirty and then you push to thirty five, and then you always
• 1:18:18
  have that conversation You're like, oh, man, Miss Spielberg made Jaws when
• 1:18:21
  he was twenty seven. You know Orson Wells. Maybe you know Citizen Kane
• 1:18:26
  when he's twenty three. You know, Tarantino was with thirty one when he
• 1:18:29
  made or thirty when he made a Reservoir, you know, And every year
• 1:18:33
  that that, those lines just keep going back and back to until you finally
• 1:18:38
  just go, you know what, I'm just not those guys. I got
• 1:18:41
  to walk my own path. And when you become comfortable with that, life
• 1:18:45
  becomes a lot more pleasant in this business. And I think that's where a
• 1:18:48
  lot of the pain comes from. When you're you're just holding onto these ideas
• 1:18:54
  that you've been taught or you've heard of growing up in this business, and
• 1:18:59
  when they don't come to fruition, which by the way, ninety nine point
• 1:19:02
  nine percent of people don't get there the dream exactly the way they want it,
• 1:19:09
  it's heartbreaking. Yeah, Like I can't remember who you saw it on
• 1:19:12
  Twitter? It was. It was about a month ago now, but there
• 1:19:14
  was a survey going around about how old they got there, directing, producing,
• 1:19:19
  you know, like writing gig and like it's so funny because like the
• 1:19:24
  stereotype of the assumption is that, you know, everyone that makes it in
• 1:19:26
  Hollywood is you know, some you know, twenty three year old fresh out
• 1:19:29
  of college, you know, success story. And the reality is I think
• 1:19:31
  they said that of all of the like the Oscar winning directors of the last
• 1:19:34
  ten years, like the average age is like forty one where they directed their
• 1:19:38
  first film, you know, And it's just it's like it is, And
• 1:19:42
  maybe it's reassuring because I'm you know, approaching forty you know, in a
• 1:19:45
  little over a year, so you know, maybe that's reassuring to me.
• 1:19:48
  But you know, whether it's that or whether it's author saying I didn't write
• 1:19:51
  my first book until I was forty four or fifty. Like there is no
• 1:19:56
  you're not out of time. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 1:20:00
  sponsor, and now back to the show. You're not just never frying like
• 1:20:11
  you could break in any time. It could be your next project, it
• 1:20:14
  could be your tenth project from now, Like there is no hard and fast
• 1:20:16
  rule, as long as you're willing to still go for it and still again
• 1:20:19
  to quote your hat hustle, you know, like you can break in with
• 1:20:26
  anything at any time, you know. And that's what motivates me to keep
• 1:20:29
  going, is you know, the idea that that an opportunity could be just
• 1:20:32
  around the corner that could pay off. Absolutely. Listen. I made my
• 1:20:35
  first feature of forty one. So it took me twenty years to break through
• 1:20:40
  the mental block of making a feature film and I just got went out and
• 1:20:44
  did it. So and that's my path. And by the way, the
• 1:20:46
  first thing you do is not going to be reservoir Dogs. It's not going
• 1:20:50
  to be paranormal activity. It's not going to be iron Man. It's not
• 1:20:55
  going to be this monster cultural hit that that you dream about it could be
• 1:21:00
  and if you and if that's you, please call me you can come on
• 1:21:02
  the show. But but generally speaking, for the rest of us, it's
• 1:21:06
  not that. And you just have to be okay with that and keep going
• 1:21:10
  forward on your own path, cause you're not gonna be Orson Wells. You're
• 1:21:13
  not gonna be You're not gonna be Tuarantina, You're not gonna be Sorkin.
• 1:21:15
  You're not gonna be Black or Joe Estra House those That's not the world that
• 1:21:20
  we live in. You know, look at Jordan's Look at Jordan Peele.
• 1:21:24
  He was in Comedy Central doing skip comedy for years and and all of a
• 1:21:31
  sudden he became this generation's Hitchcock, like literally overnight, like coming from comedy
• 1:21:39
  and He's just like, I'm gonna write like one of the better horror screenplays
• 1:21:43
  ever written. Oh yeah, I'm gonna do that now, and I'm gonna
• 1:21:45
  also direct it, like you see, I just want to people listening it.
• 1:21:48
  I promise you Jordan Peele did not sit down and go, you know
• 1:21:51
  what I'm gonna do about a decade of comedy on a cable network, and
• 1:21:57
  I'm gonna do really well on that. But then I'm gonna shift gears and
• 1:22:00
  I'm gonna do horror, and I'm going to be rebrand my entire self as
• 1:22:02
  a horror guy because that's what I really love. I guarantee you that wasn't
• 1:22:08
  a conversation. It just kind of happened. Now. I'm gonna ask you
• 1:22:13
  a couple of questions. Ask all my guests, what is the lesson that
• 1:22:15
  took you the longest to learn, Whether in the film business or in life.
• 1:22:20
  I think it's probably applies to both the film business and life, but
• 1:22:25
  it's it's basically kind of what we were talking about, you know, like,
• 1:22:29
  don't wait for someone to give you permission to do something, and the
• 1:22:32
  corollary to that, which is like, no one is going to advocate for
• 1:22:35
  you better than yourself. I spent a lot of years waiting for people to
• 1:22:40
  like recognize my hard work and waiting to reward me for your genius, your
• 1:22:44
  genius, your genius, for my genius. Yeah, exactly. And it's
• 1:22:48
  funny because I learned that from my I learned that from my parents, who
• 1:22:56
  both came from this world where you work at a job and you do a
• 1:23:00
  good job and the company takes care of you until you retire. And that
• 1:23:02
  is most definitely not been my experience in the regional world lately. But you
• 1:23:08
  know, I spent a lot of time just saying, well, look,
• 1:23:10
  if I just do a really good job and I come and I show up
• 1:23:13
  to work every day, eventually, like you know, I will get all
• 1:23:15
  the things that I want. And it took me a long time to realize
• 1:23:17
  how often that's just not true. People go, oh, thanks for doing
• 1:23:20
  the work, appreciate it, have a good day, and you have.
• 1:23:24
  I've had to fight for everything that I've wanted by hard work, you know,
• 1:23:28
  dedication, you know, persistence. And it took me a long time
• 1:23:31
  to realize that, you know, I was waiting around for someone to give
• 1:23:35
  me permission or recognize that I was able to do more than than I was
• 1:23:41
  doing. And now that I've kind of learned that lesson, it's a lot
• 1:23:45
  easier for me to advocate for myself and go out there and do the things
• 1:23:49
  I really want to do, because you know, I know that the inspiration
• 1:23:54
  in the enthusiasm is going to start with me. Now, what are three
• 1:23:59
  screenplays that ever screenwriters should read. I think the three scripts that I think
• 1:24:03
  affected me the most and are great examples of you know, people writing that
• 1:24:09
  great script that really got them noticed, was Passengers by John Spates. Is
• 1:24:13
  Fantastic Story of your Life by Eric Heiser, which became Arrival, which she
• 1:24:18
  got nominated for an Oscar for was blew my Mind. And then my friend
• 1:24:24
  Bob Sines wrote a script called Orphans that got made into an indie movie called
• 1:24:28
  extracurricular Activities last year. And he has had that script as his calling card
• 1:24:32
  script for twenty years and he still gives it to and they still email them
• 1:24:38
  and say, oh my god, that's one of the best scripts I've read.
• 1:24:40
  The twist at the end just blew my mind. So and it finally
• 1:24:43
  got made, and it finally got made. Yeah, they spent twenty years.
• 1:24:47
  It got optioned I think eight or nine different times, like it just
• 1:24:51
  never like it was a true like if you ever wanted you should have him
• 1:24:56
  on the podcast at some point, please about please process yes, because he
• 1:25:00
  is like the quintessential like twenty year overnight success story where everyone's like, oh
• 1:25:04
  my god, you got your movie made. That's great, and he's like,
• 1:25:06
  yeah, twenty years after I optioned it the first time, Absolutely,
• 1:25:11
  Bob was going to be I'm gonna Bob is going to be on the show.
• 1:25:13
  If Bob wants to be on the show, I want to have Bob
• 1:25:14
  on the show. And now, where can people find you and the work
• 1:25:17
  that you're doing. Most of the stuff I do these days, I'm on
• 1:25:20
  Twitter most often, I'm at j Willis eighty one. I also have a
• 1:25:25
  somewhat defunct blog All Rights Reserved WRI I T e S, which is where
• 1:25:30
  I kind of post articles on the business of writing whenever I can think of
• 1:25:33
  that, and then ultimately I'm I'm working on a business of writing book that
• 1:25:39
  hopefully will help some people out, hoping to have it published by the end
• 1:25:42
  of the year. But follow me on Twitter, that's where That's where I
• 1:25:45
  make most of my announcements and make most of my rants on the business send
• 1:25:48
  of things. I need to talk to you about your marketing because when you
• 1:25:51
  say the defunct blog, you blog, it's just generally not very appetizing.
• 1:25:58
  Like I feel like I couldn't in good say it was active when I think
• 1:26:00
  the last post was like from February of this year, So well, that's
• 1:26:04
  fair. There's been a lot of people who stop posting in February because of
• 1:26:08
  obvious reasons. It's just like the world is upside down. It wasn't for
• 1:26:12
  lack of wanting to update this on the website. Let me just say that,
• 1:26:15
  Jeff Man, thank you so much for being on the show. I
• 1:26:18
  really appreciate your your take on the business and hopefully some screenwriters listening right now
• 1:26:25
  will start thinking about taking their career in a different path that can make them
• 1:26:30
  happier and more successful. So I do appreciate your input. Man. Thank
• 1:26:34
  you so much, my friend. This was a pleasure to be on the
• 1:26:36
  show. Thanks so much for having me. I want to thank Jeff for
• 1:26:40
  coming on the show and inspiring the tribe to think a little bit differently about
• 1:26:46
  how you can make money with your screenplays. If you want to get links
• 1:26:50
  to anything we spoke about in this episode, please head over to the show
• 1:26:54
  notes at any film also dot com forward slash seven forty six, and if
• 1:26:58
  you haven't already, please head on over to Filmmaking podcast dot com. Subscribe
• 1:27:02
  and leave a good review for the show. It really helps us out a
• 1:27:06
  lot. Guys. Thank you again so much for listening to guys. As
• 1:27:09
  always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out
• 1:27:13
  there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Indie
• 1:27:15
  Film Hustle podcast at Indie film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:27:19
  E F I L M h U S T L E dot com.