Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 454: What Really Happens After You Write the Script with Michael K. Snyder

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BPS 454: What Really Happens After You Write the Script with Michael K. Snyder · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four fifty four.
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  Speaker 2: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
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  Speaker 2: breath and try again.
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  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
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  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
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  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
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  Speaker 2: Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
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• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: My next guest is a graduate of full Sell University's
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: Film and Entertainment Business programs. He's the founder of Crash Films, Inc.
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: He's an independent film producer. He's a screenwriter. This guy
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: has done so many crazy awesome things, and we're going
• 1:52
  Speaker 5: to get into all that. We're going to talk a
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: lot about screenwriting and development, and also we talk a
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: little bit about networking too, because he didn't just go
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: out to La had a plan without knowing anybody. He
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: actually had a plan in place, and he's doing such
• 2:04
  Speaker 5: some really awesome things. And why don't we just go
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: right into it with guests Michael ky Snyder, Mike, you
• 2:13
  Speaker 5: were the You were the guest on the first ever episode.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: The episode is now considered a part of the lost episodes,
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: the first three are considered the lost episodes.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: You were number one.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: You were my first guest, and uh, it's so good
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: three years later to have you actually back one. So
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: Mike again, I want to say thank you very much
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: for joining us. And it's kind of funny how we've
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: come full circle now, all the way back from three
• 2:36
  Speaker 5: years ago.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Now. I'm so happy to be back on the show,
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: you know, it is it is. It's kind of funny
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: that we that we have come full circle. You're totally right,
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: and just thinking about some of the progressions that we've
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: both made in our careers and how things have changed,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: it's just really interesting. Yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: And it's funny too because when I when we lasted
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: the interview again, it was it was remotely like we're
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: doing right now, but I was in a actual studio
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: doing it and I had nothing but problems there. And
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: now I'm doing it from my office and I and
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: you know, it's just ten thousand times better because I
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: remember when we had the episode and I listened to
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: it and I was like, what the hell happen here?
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: And it was that freaking recorder was not would never
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: work right. So I for the first two episodes, did
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: I use that recorder and this really awesome radio station
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: was sound proof? And then all of a sudden, now
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: it's like you know, I, I mean it just even technology,
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: how it's improved in three freaking years is unbelievable.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: Crazy, Yeah, it is unbelievable.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: So, you know, Mike, since that episode's a little lost,
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: actually it is lost. Sorry, this is the episode is lost.
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: You know, I want to dig a little into your
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: background for those of you, for those listeners who aren't
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: really aware of, you know, all the things that you've done.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: So you know, you were actually a graduate of full
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: Sale University. You graduated in what twenty ten?
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: Oh, man, I graduated Full Tails Film program in two thousand,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: thousand eleven, and then I graduated their master's program a
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: couple of years after that. So I moved out to
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: LA in about two thousand and fourteen, twenty fifteen.
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  Speaker 5: Oh okay. So then, so see I get I just found
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: out I even know you graduated from the master's program.
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: So see I'm finding out to Yeah, so so you
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: moved out to LA. Now we actually met through through
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: trauma through Lloyd Kaufman, and you know, while and that
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: was while you were actually at full sale. So when
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: you were at full sale, do you think you know
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: that you had a lot more opportunities that you wouldn't
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: have had anywhere else, So sort of like to work
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: on a lot of these different movies.
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't really think that, you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: film school in general matters as much as a lot
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: of people want to say it does. I think, you know,
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: given what I know now, if I could go back,
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: I probably would have tried to work a little bit
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: harder in high school and tried to get into like
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: USC or UCLA, just because I feel like, you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: it's it's really all about your network, and if you
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: can get in out here a little earlier, it just
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: makes it so much easier to meet executives or meat
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: agents or meat managers or producers because a lot of
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: them are going to be in the same class as you. Rather,
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: if you're you know, in Florida and you go into
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: a school that anybody you know, it's pretty much paying
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: to go to because it's private, it's it's just not
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: the same pool of resources. That's not to say that
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: they didn't help me get jobs out here and introduced
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: into a lot of people. But I would say that
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: a lot of what I would consider to be my
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: own success is just based on me reaching out to
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: people myself. Yea.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: You know there's an old saying your net worth is
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: your so your network is your net.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: Worth, and that's one hundred per century.
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  Speaker 5: It really is, my honest to God, Even if you
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: do something as obvious as like crowdfunding obviously, and you
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: go out and you're like, well, hey, I need people
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: to to to invest in this project, or if you're
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: doing something like even this podcast or even doing something
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: like releasing a film, if you don't have a network
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: built up, you really don't have any way to really
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: distribute the thing unless you're literally trying to build it
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: as you're doing it, which is Uh, it was just
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: like shooting yourself in the foot.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: That's absolutely right.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: So so when when when you say you should you
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: wish you had applied yourself in high school, uh, to
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: go out to like USC and stuff like that. I mean, no, Mike,
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: I trust me, I feel you. I did the same
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: thing in high school, man, I honestly, and when senior
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: year came around, I didn't give a shit about anything,
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: I I literally man. Like.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: My teachers were like, Dave, if you know, you don't
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: apply yourself anymore, and I'm like, I don't care. I
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: just want to get the help out of here.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: Exactly. That's why I was. I was, I was, I
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: would like that. Before my I was like, that might
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: be eighth grade though, you know, yeah, I went to
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: two different high schools and and uh, you know the
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: funny part is when I was a junior in high school,
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I cook in English. I was in an English honors
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: class because I finally had a teacher who kind of
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: convinced me to apply myself with writing. And she actually
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: did an informational interview assignment where you had to reach
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: out to a professional in your fields or where you
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: wanted to go into the career you want to go in.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: So I was like, well, shit, man, I want to
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: be a you know, writer director. I mean, Spilberg's not
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: going to return my calls. You know, I can't really
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: reach out with Scorsese, So who can I reach out to?
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: And that's actually how I met Boyd with trauma and
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: started working like the conventions in Florida with him, which
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: is just really funny. And I think that was a
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: moment where my mind kind of opened up a little
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: bit where it was like, Okay, maybe she just focus
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: on this and focus on filmmaking and writing and your network.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: So when I went to high school, I mean obviously
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: in Florida, when you go to high school, there's not
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: like a there's not even like a film history class,
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: well like a film theory, like collective. It's all just
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: the brass tacks high school stuff. And I would there
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: was no way for me to apply myself in the
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  Speaker 4: career that I really wanted to except for in this
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: one creative writing class, you know. And I think there's
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  Speaker 4: something to say about the art programs in schools with that,
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  Speaker 4: because I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in right
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: now if I hadn't, you know, higging that course and
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: made that decision. I wish there was more of those
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: types of opportunities for people young students.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it would show you that there's more out there
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: than just sort of like you know, you know, options A,
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: B and C. That's right, so, and you know that's
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: something too that you know. Even when I was in
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: high school, man, we would always watch these movies, all
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: these freaking movies. We would go to like all the
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: local video stores. You know, most people who listen to
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: this podcast know what those were, like the Blockbusters, Hollywood videos,
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, man, and stuff like that. And then but
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: but you know, we would always rent these movies. We'd
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: go out and every Friday, Saturday night or whatever, we'd
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: go out. We'd just be watching all sorts of different
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: movies and all these crazy freaking stuff. And it didn't
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: even dawn on me at that point, dude, that I
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: could make a you know, I could do this for
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: a living. I just figured that everyone who wrote and
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: made movies was like, you know, granted these special privileges
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: by like the President of United States or some crap, you.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Know, right right exactly. It's like it's it's the unattainable goal.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: You know, it's out there, but you have no what,
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: you have no idea how to you know, map your
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: road success in that field. There's there weren't a lot
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: of resources, you know, and it's crazy. It was literally
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: like you go when you watch movies and you think,
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: you know, I remember when I was ten years old,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: I was watching Close Encounters and I'm like, this is great,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: you know, And it was the first time my parents ever,
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: were like, well, you know, someone wrote that movie, and
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: it was like a light bulb off of my brand,
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: Like somebody writes movies. You know, it's just the craziest thing.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: But now I think there's a lot there's a few
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: more resources just years later, and not that many years,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: but there really weren't when I was in high school.
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was sort of like, you know, you have
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: to go to college, you have to do this stuff.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: And when I went to it, you know, and when
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: I went to college, I didn't know. I didn't know
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: anything exactly what I wanted to major in.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: And you know, I bounced around from major to major,
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: but I was always, you know, in my spare time,
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: I was practiced in writing. And I actually the first
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: book I ever got on screenwriting was a book called
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trodier. Yes, and I bought
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: that and that just sort of like opened the floodgates.
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: And now I was like, you know, getting different movies
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: and trying to figure out, you know, how to actually
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: how they wrote that stuff and how I do it.
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: I'll still do it. But but then you start to realize,
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: oh my god, there are people out there who actually
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: make movies. And I actually and at that I guess
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: maybe it was like two thousand and six or seven,
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: I actually really got into it and I was like,
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: you know, talking to independent filmmakers. I found them on
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: on my Space. Remember my Space, Mike.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: Man, Yeah, unfortunately I do. I think minds like like
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: I think, I went went to great length to delete mine.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: I mine was actually deleted for me.
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: And I got to notice one day they were like,
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: we're gonna just terminate all these unused MySpace accounts. Yours
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: is wonderful. And I said, honestly, burn that guy that
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: burned that thing to the ground.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, please take it away. Don't let anyone see this.
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: It's so true. It's a it's I. I have a
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: friend of mine who who still has or he had one,
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: and I was like, my god, man, I go to that.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: That that's like a something from your childhood. That's like
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: an embarrassing moment. You're just like, please never bring that
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: up again. But uh, but you know, I actually I
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: actually met some from filmmakers through my Space, and uh,
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: and and some of these guys were actually in like
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: Jersey and New York, and uh, you know, I never
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: really put two and two together that there there's there's
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: a lot more there wasn't.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: There was a lot more in the.
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: In the whole bigger area. I don't want to say
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: PA because it really wasn't that many and PA at
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: that time. But but like New York and Jersey, there
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: was a few people. Most didn't respond back because most
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: were looking for like producers that could fund and give
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: them money. Some actually money right exactly, And most actually
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: did though, you know, come back and say Okay, here's
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: what you can do. And then I just you know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: went from there. But but you know, what I'm trying
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: to say with all this is it's Simil's what you
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: did with Lloyd and you reached out to him and said,
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: you know, I can you know, I should see how
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: I could actually work with this guy, and you you
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: made an opportunity for yourself.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I took a class assignment and I
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: reached out on my shop in the email, I'm like, hey,
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: I want to do an interview with you over the phone,
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: you know, and just talk about your career and and
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: how you've made something out of nothing and continue to
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: do so. And he responded back with a cell phone
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: number and that was that was it. And then it
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: was just really up to me to keep him pinned
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: down and stay on top of him as much as possible,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: you know, whenever he was in town or I went
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: to New York and that saw, you know, on different things.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: It was it was just to keep to keep the
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: relationship alive.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know, now with technology we're able to actually,
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: you know, keep in contact with people a lot better
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: and so and and also it's a double ed short
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: because then you're you're getting too much contact with with
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: every rip get you once right, Uh. But you know,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: but you made an opportunity. You reached out, even it
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: was for a class or and you made sure to
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: make a contact and I think that's so important and
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: and I think and also you did the professional way.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: I mean, I just had Whitty Davis in the podcast
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: for the second time and we talked about networking the
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: right way. And you know, the first time that you
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: you contact somebody, you shouldn't be asking for something right
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: now totally and uh and you know you you actually
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: were offering something for Lloyd and he took you up
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: on that and then again you know, and here we
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: are all these years later because and because when you
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: when you were on that Troma film, we met through that,
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: because that's when I I met Lloyd Uh, and then
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: we were start talking and then I think, uh, yeah, yeah,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: that's how we meant. And then then uh, there's you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: I've met a few other people through Lloyd d And
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: you know, Lloyd's always doing something on independent films.
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: He's a connector, man. I mean, he's the great connector,
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: you know. I mean he just if he's able to
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: put you on the phone or in the room with
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: somebody that you want to be on thunner in the
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: room with, he'll he'll do whatever he can to be
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: the one to do it, who does it, you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: and and then he'll take all credit for it, which
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: he rightfully deserves. Yeah.
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: And I remember reading his his independent film book and
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: it was just absolutely hilarious and I was like, see,
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: he's he's he's making independent film. You fun. It's not
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: taken too seriously. And you know his and when he
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: was on the podcast, he uh, he said he founded
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: Trauma in Prison with Michael Hurts uh and he was
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: Michael Hurts's bitch and they founded Troma in.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Prison and I'm like wow.
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: And afterwards, the after the interview, I said to it, Lloyd,
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: do you have I think that someone's gonna listen to
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: this for the first time, not hearing of humor trauma,
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: and think, wow, that guy really started moving prisiness in prison.
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: He probably like, I hope no, you know, not far
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: from the truth.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: You know, yeah, yeah, seriously, Uh, you know, I I've
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: you know, and Lloyd is great. He's a very good connector.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: He's always connected and you know, different people and uh,
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: you know again because he connected us and and I've
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: been on different film sets multiple times. And you so,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: you know, after you got off this, you know, just
• 15:32
  Speaker 5: to continue your story, after you got off you know,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: the working on trauma, and you know, you sort of
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: you went back to Full Sale. You know, at what
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: point did you want to did you realize that you
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: wanted to go back for your for a master's at
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: Full Sale at.
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: The beginning, just because it was kind of part of
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: the deal with my parents and just the way that
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: they structured their programs. It was like if you it
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: was like they had a deal, like it was like
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: a bogo, Like if you buy one degree, you know,
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: we can give you this second degree at a certain
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: cost that was thousands of dollars less than it would
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: have been had you decided to do it later. Because
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: every so many years they restructure their programs and they
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: changed the cost. So it just happened to be that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: When we sat down with a representative of Full Sale,
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: they were just they were like, now, if you want
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: to take the master's program in business, you know we can.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: We can.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: We can go.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: Ahead and lump it in with the film program and
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: it'll end up costing you less money later on. And
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: you know, it was like it was like no time.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: You know, it was so quick because it's such an
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: accelerated program that my parents were like, you might as well.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: And I mean at that point it was kind of
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: whatever they wanted to do. I was really doing it
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: more for them. I think I kind of knew that
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: I needed to move somewhere and just start working, but
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: you know, to keep everything cool at home and to
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: put a diplomb on the wall. I was like, yeah,
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: we'll go ahead and do that.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: And you know, again, it's good that you had a plan,
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: because honestly, like you can become like me and you
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: know obviously have no plan and just kind of figure
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: your way out. But but no, it's good to the
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: unip man. There's not really a plan out there, you know.
• 17:09
  Speaker 5: It's like you just have to figure it out. There's
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: not really a right or wrong way to do this.
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: I think you just have to you have to do it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: You have to just set goals and hit those goals.
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: And those goals can be anything, as long as you
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: know that at the end of that list there's some
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: sort of success and whatever that successes, and that being
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: monetary success. It could just be moving to Los Angeles,
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: from moving to New York or getting a show, a
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: gig on a show or anything. You know, there's not
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: really there's not really a way to teach this.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: And you mentioned, you know, moving to LA and that's
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: actually what I want to ask next, is you know, yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: so you got the Masters and then you moved out
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: to LA. I think you said out twenty fourteen is
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: when you moved down.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: It would Yeah. I mean, I'm horrible at date, so
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: I'm probably butchering it. Well, let's just say that. And
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: basically what happened to is after I was done with
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: the film program, and I went to the masters. All
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: of my film school friends that are moved out to
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Los Angeles. So by the time I was done, you know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: I had couches to sleep on, which is really key
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: when you're moving from you know, Podunk, Florida to one
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: of the most expensive cities in the nation. Is it
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: nice to be able to find somewhere to sleep while
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: you're getting your footing or finding your footing right. And
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: so I host up with the career Development program at
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: full sale and they got me the internship out here
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: and I called by my friends and he was like, man,
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: you can come out here. You can sleep on my
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: couch for as long as you want or need to.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: You know, I know that you're not getting paid anything
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: with your internship. Just just get out here, like that's
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: all we want. We just want you out here. So
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: I flew out and moved in with him. And sorry,
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: by internship, I mean it was interesting. I was running
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: a ten thousand square foot warehouse in downtown Los Angeles
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: for more Tyranny and Anthony Revevar and Sean Wing and
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: a few other actors and Nathan Heeney, who's a great
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: direct photography now, and they basically they pulled their resources.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: They rented this massive warehouse right and it's like really
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: old warehouse in downtown, and they needed some young kids
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: to run it. So there was one other guy who
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: was managing it, and I interned there and after a
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: couple of months they hired me on as his assistant,
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: and then after a couple of months, I got his job.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: So I ended up doing that for a couple of
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: years and opened a second location in Burbank with Stacey Chaer,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: who everyone knows is Tarantino was produced and partner or
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: was and her husband Carrie Brown, who's a really good friend,
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: and we did a lot of really cool stuff, man,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: and it was a lot of fun and I got
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: to meet a lot of really great people my first
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: couple of years out here, which is always nice.
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, And you mentioned having couches to sleep on.
• 19:47
  Speaker 5: That was actually left one of my questions because having
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: that networks as everyone already moved out there, you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: and having those couches to sleep on and places to
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: crash and you know, key, yeah, exactly, it is key.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: And again are your network? Is your net worth? And
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: uh again you you're able to actually, you know, uh
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: go out there and not just be like all right,
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: so what next. I mean I've had friends Mike who's
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: gone out to LA and sort of been like with
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: with no plan and been like, Okay, what next.
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: It's like, well, you're gonna you're gonna suffer if you
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: do that.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you're gonna really really reality is gonna hit you
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: very fast totally. So you now you mentioned you got
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: the you know, the warehouse job. Now at this point,
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: were you always writing scripts and did you maybe have
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: a few scripts to show to two different like maybe
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: producers' agencies.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I I started writing screenplays when I
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: was probably eleven years old, pen and paper. Then I
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: figured out how to adjust the macros and word. Then
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: I figured out, you know, you could get heltics and
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: all these freere Then I found out that there were
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: all these forums and independent script hosting sites online. So
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: I was always putting material out there. I mean, I
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: was just pushing short films and short stories and really
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: shitty features out there and whatever I could just to
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: get reads and get comments, because that's you know, structure
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: is key from that point of view. So by the
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: time I'd moved to Los Angeles, I had some features
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: kind of under my belt, and I had one in
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: particular that I was I think the most proud of
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: been working on the hardest, and basically I started reaching
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: out to people. And while I was out here for
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: those first couple of years, I was also producing short
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: films because I had this awesome ten thousand square foot
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: warehouse that would be rented out for events and films
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: and stuff, you know, half of the year, and then
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: it would just be sitting there if the other half
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: of the year. So I would get my buddy who
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: had read cameras and lenses and all these different things,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: and we would produce short films and we'd write them
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: and produce them. And I had two that premiere at
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: the can Film Festival, you know, two different years. So
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: I used that and I used like kind of my background,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: and I sent an email to Carson who runs Script Shadow.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Some people love them, some people hate him, whatever, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: I attached a feature that I've written that I was
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: pretty proud of, and he agreed to host it on
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: his site for one of the you know, independent hostings
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: that he does, and I would say I got one
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: hundred emails from people that were basically, this sucks. You know,
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: you don't know what you're talking about. You're a donb millennial.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: I mean literally that. And I got one email from
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: somebody who ended up being my manager.
• 22:42
  Speaker 5: But you know, am I want to ask you about
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: the manager email on a second, but I want to
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: before I do, I want to ask you, why why
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: do you think you got so much hate mail? Do
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: you think it was for a lot of fact we
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: know I have I have my own theory about why
• 22:54
  Speaker 5: you got so much hate mail. And my theory is this,
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of people who have unrealized dreams and
• 23:00
  Speaker 5: whenever they kind of see someone coming down the pipeline,
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: it's like a chance to sort of almost like if
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: I could throw off all this frustration and anger and
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: resentment onto somebody else for just even five seconds, I'm
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: gonna take that shot. That's my theory about it. But
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: why do you think you got so much of those
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: angry emails? Yeah?
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: I think at the combination of that, and I think
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: that you know, I may have come off as a
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: little little arrogant because I was like look, you know,
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: I've produced these two short films. You know, I'm like
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: twenty five, twenty four, twenty five years old, and I
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: just could really benefit from hosting the script yaha, YadA, YadA.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: And I think it's a combination of people misreading my
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: inventions and also just what you're saying. It's like armchairs,
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: you know, screenwriter reviewers, screenplay reviewers, they're sitting there and
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: they're rewriting movies in their heads on their sofa, but
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: they're not actually out there hitting the pavement. And because
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: of that inability to motivate themselves, they're haters.
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's that. That's where I think it is. That
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: they they're very angry, they're very you know, and a
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: lot of the a lot of people in this business.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of awesome people.
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: And you and I talk about this, you know, uh,
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: because we talk a lot, and we talk about how
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: sometimes this business stereotyped is everyone is bitter, angry, out
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: to get you. But there's a ton of awesome people
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: in this business, and there are many and it's just
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: and but but it's unfortunate like situations like that where
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: it's like you really see the sort of dark side
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: where it's like, what the hell is this? There was
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: actually a screenwriting group that used to be a part
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: of on Facebook. It was a Facebook group and I
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: think it was it was set a private or whatever,
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: and I remember people would post in there and they
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: would post stuff that was completely wrong, and you would
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: sit there and you try to correct, you know, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 5: just not not like say like, hey, you're wrong, but
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: just say hey, there's another way to do this. They
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: would jump all over people, and finally I said, why
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: the hell am I part of this freaking group anymore?
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: And it's fun.
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: It can't all be negative, Yeah, you know, it has
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: to be. It has to be. There has to be
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: optimism because it's such a hard industry to break into
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: that if all people are bringing is negativity, you're just
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: going to stop someone from potentially a cheat air dream.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: And it's almost too like when when uh, you know,
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: when you're actually producing a film, you know, if you
• 25:20
  Speaker 5: have people around you who are constantly just being like
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: problems spotters and not problem solvers, you know, there's those
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: are the type of people that you.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Got to like.
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: Jettisid from the project as soon as possible.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Oh totally, man, it's it's you can boil it down to,
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: you know, don't bring me the problem, bring me the solution.
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: Really Yeah, yeah, you hit the nail right on the
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: head mic and uh, you know. And so so as
• 25:43
  Speaker 5: you sort of go back to tell that script shadow,
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: you got one email that was from a manager who said,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: you know, I want to talk to you.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it was like, I think you showed a
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: lot of talent on the page, a little bit about me,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: gave me the background, and he was like, let's, you know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: let's grab some coffee. And we went and we got coffee,
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: and I thought he was great though. I was really
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: knowledgeable and nice guy, and you know, I kind of
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: just pitched myself as hard as I could, and at
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: the end of the meeting he was kind of like,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: all right, what do you want to do? And at
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: this point I had an idea of what I wanted
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: my next project to be, and had I chose something
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: that I felt was, you know, probably not going to
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: get made. But if I could partner with the right person,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: I could get in front of the people who would
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: potentially make it, and that would open all the other
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: doors for me. And it was a script I wrote
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: called The Mouse who would be king, And it's the
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: story of Mickey Mouse and how Walt Disney developed and
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: created Mickey Mouse. That it ends with creations of Mickey Mouse.
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: And I wrote it in a very Roger Rabbit way,
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: where you see what he's thinking and all these different things.
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: And so I told him that, and I was like,
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: it's never going to get made, but let's put it
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: out there. Let's take meetings and let's get into development
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: because you know, we have time. We can do this now.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: Kind of like what that mean? He was like, all right,
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: let's do it, and we shook hands and we went
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: from there.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: So and then where did you go from there? Did
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: you go to start actually going too like all these
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: different like pitch meanings and stuff.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we beat out the story. You know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: I had the story because I grew up in Florida, right,
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: and we went to Disney World all the time. And
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: at Disney World they have an exhibit called One Man's
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: Dream where you can go in and it's like a
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Disney museum. And then there's this movie at the end
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: where it basically explains how Walt had created Oswald the
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: Lucky Rabbit and it was stolen from him or you know,
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: he didn't really understand the full the paradigms of his contract,
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: and Universal owned it and he put all this working
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: through it, and he's like, I should own this because
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: I put all was working through it, And on the
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: train ride back home to tell his team and his wife,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: he started coming up with Mickey Mouse. So I knew
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: that that's what I wanted to end the movie with.
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Like I had my end. Then I had the idea
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: of Walt Disney going on a train and having like
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: this just epiphany of Mickey Mouse, and the way that
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: I wanted to dramatize it was to actually have Mickey
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: Mouse walk on the train car with him. So we
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: beat out the story and we you know, I read
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: a bunch of books and kind of just filled my
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: manager's head with all this knowledge that Didney that he
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: didn't otherwise know. And then we wrote it, and I
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: wrote drafts and drafts and drafts and drafts while still
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: working at the studio, and he was like, finally, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: we nailed it down, and he started tending it. He
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: sent it to agencies, sends, production companies, executives, producers, all
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: sorts of people, and then the real game began and
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: I started taking meetings.
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: So how long was it before you know, you talked
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: to the manager, you able to beat it out, and
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: before you got meetings? How long was that whole time
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: seriod there?
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Man?
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: I mean I really knew the story, so I think
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: it was kind of an easier development process. And it
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: was just he and I, so there were weren't a
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: lot of coats in the kitchen. I mean probably a
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: six month seven months, and then I started taking meetings.
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: So when you actually started to take these meetings, what
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: were some of the what was some of the feedback
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: that you were getting.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: I everyone loved the script. It was it was something
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: where they were like, you know, we love the script,
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: and we want to know what else you're working on
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: and if we can find something to work on together.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: And I started developing, Like I developed a TV show
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: with one guy that didn't go anywhere. I developed a
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: TV show with Image Movers, which is Roberts and Max's company,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: that didn't go anywhere. And then I took that, and
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: I took that somewhere else, and everything kind of led
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: into other projects. Every every meeting I had, every conversation
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: I had ended up giving me something else to work on,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: or they had something that I could fit into, or
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: I showed some sort of interest in a project that
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: they brought up in the meeting. And then you know
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: that that's really key is you go in there and
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: of course I'm nervous, you know, and I'm moved out
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: here to do this, and I'm going inter meeting with
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: these big guys, right and they can be very intimidating,
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: and the key is really to sell them on what
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: your brand is and what your personal story is.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: And if you can do that, they're going to try
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: and find something that they have that almost feels like
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: a perfect fit for you, and then you have to
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: capitalize on it. And none of those projects went anywhere,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: but they led to other conversations and other development things
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: and other specs that led to where I am today.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: So you use that Mickey Mouse script and that sort
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: of became like a calling card script to get your throat, yeah,
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: to get your foot in the door. And they were saying,
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: you know, did they say to you, hey, Mike, we
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: love you know? The mouse would be king what else
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: do you.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: Have Yeah, I mean there was a little bit of that.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: It was like what else are you thinking about? Like
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: what else are you writing? And then based on that,
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: it was like if I was writing something that was
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: sci fi, they would say, oh, we have this sci
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: fi thing, or we or we're looking at this book,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: what do you think about this book? Or for instance,
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: when I went to Image Movers, it was more so
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: about the fact that I used to box and I
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: was an amateur boxer, and they had a producer who
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: had optioned all of FX tools short Stories and FX
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: toolvote million Dollar Baby, right, so they had optioned all
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: of them except for a million Dollar Baby because obviously
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: Warners had that, and they were like, would you be
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: interested in trying to build a TV show based on
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: these short stories? And of course you say yes, and
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: astarted developing that and when that fell through, I took
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: all of the FX tool references out of what we
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: had been working on and I wrote a spec pilot
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: just without all those references that I filled it with
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: my own personal experiences from boxing, and then that pilot
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: became my TV calling card and then we sent that
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: out to everybody.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: And so when you set that out to everybody. Did
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: you sort of have like a whole another round of
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: meetings with like the same Oh yeah, askment companies or
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: was it different masage.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: It's kind of like a like an album, Like you
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: write an album and then you go on a tour
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: and you do all these concerts. Like that's kind of
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: how I look at it. You write a script, you
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: give it to some of your manager or your agent,
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: they send it around to everybody, and then people finally
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: get back to home and they want to meet with you.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: And then you go on a tour, you know, and
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: then and you're basically going to all these different generals
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: and all these different meetings and and hoping that something
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: turns into something else. You know. I never feel like
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: the specific project that I'm going in with is going
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: to sell, you know, I'm not there to sell that project.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: I always feel like I'm there to sell myself as
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: a writer and to get on something either they already
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: have or just open that line of communication where I
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: can pitch them something later on.
• 32:59
  Speaker 5: And so when you know, you're building relationships, relationships, so
• 33:02
  Speaker 5: now you're and so now they know when you come
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: to the door, like oh, you know, there's Michael K. Sledder.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: He's he's guy was so, you know, brought the whole
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: Disney project and he's done this and you know so
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: and you you know, so they're sort of you're building
• 33:14
  Speaker 5: a good reputation for yourself.
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you could. This whole countered relationships and it's really
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: all it is. You know, somebody who I met, you know,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: five years ago and was a you know, creative exac
• 33:26
  Speaker 4: somewhere is now you know, VP production out of a studio, right,
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: and I can go to them and be like, you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: just just by just because I've kept in contact with
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: all these people throughout the years. And then they move
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: up and they change, and their mandates change, and you
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: never know when you're gonna have something that fits their mandate.
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because you know, you know, tastes change, you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: And now everybody, I swear like the number one question
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: and the number one thing I hear from doing this
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: podcast is you know, always have a TV pilot ready,
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: because now they all they want something. Everybody wants something episodic.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: Now. Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I knew with some
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: producers who they don't want a pilot, they want to
• 34:06
  Speaker 4: pitch and the specific networks who they have to deal
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: with or whoever they've worked with has you know, their
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: mandate is, you know, we want to hear the pitch
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: and then develop the pilot because there's money. And then
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: some producers are like, we only want to take a
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: spec pilot out. You know, we don't want to pitch,
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: we don't want a bible. We just want to get
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: the spec and then take that out. So it's really
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: you know, everyone's different, every network's different, every company is different.
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know now with everybody else getting into
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: the game, like you know, like Amazon, I mean even
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: even from a few years ago, you know, an Amazon,
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: there's always rumors that Walmart is going to get into
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: the custom content game. And I mean you just see
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: all these these different players now popping up, and all
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: the other players are still there, like your Netflix, you know,
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: and and and in Hulu and all your big your
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: big studios. So it's just you know, now it's like
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: you have a lot of options as a writer.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: That's great, yeah you do. It's just you know, getting
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: into the conversation.
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: So as you talked about getting into the conversation, you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: you had just recently pitched a treatment for a sequel
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: for a very well known movie. And I know you
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: can't talk too much about it, but uh uh, you know,
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: can you just tell, you know, all the listeners about,
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: you know, what, what the treatment was that you pitched.
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, totally so Bigically what happened is, I'll go
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: back and kind of preface it with another story. I
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: was sent an article from you know, by my girlfriend
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: about this SeaWorld orchid trainer named John Hargrove who worked
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: at sea World for fourteen years and became like this
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: elite killer whale trainer and quit and he wrote a memoir. So,
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, of course, again growing up in Orlando, I
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: have pictures of myself as a little kid, like sitting
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: on shammou, right, you know. So I'm like, I don't
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: want to see Blackfish. I don't want to know anything
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: about it. I know it's probably terrible, but I don't
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: need that guilt, you know. So she's said me this
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: article and I read it, and I was so drawn
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: into that rabbit hole, but I just I totally just
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: jumped in and I bought his book and I read
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: it overnight and I started like, as I'm reading the
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: book on like highlighting themes that I see in my
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: head and different things, and he's the author is just
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: so interesting. A personal story is so interesting beyond the
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: fact that he worked at Ye World. And the day
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: after I read it, my girlfriend was in Long Beach
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: and just randomly, it's really funny, met the author, who
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: doesn't even live out here, and she went up to him,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: was like, you gotta pass to my boyfriend. He's got
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: a great idea. You know, how to turn your book
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: through a movie. He can do it. We can do
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: it together, you know, give him a call. So before
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: he could call me, I'd already like hyped up a
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: pitch you know of why I should write this movie
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: and what my version of his story is, which was
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: essentially to take audiences into the tank with him and
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: grow that emotional connection that he had with the Killer Will.
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: And so I sent him the email called me the
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: next day and we talked for like four hours and
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: just became really good friends, and he was pretty much like,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: all right, where do I sign? So from there, we
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: wrote a thirty page treatment and he took that and
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: we pitched it all over town to all different companies,
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: and the consensus was, this movie is great. You know,
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: this idea is great, but we need you to spect
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: the script. So I spec that feature out and then
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: we sent that back and it just it just at
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: that point, you know, this is a matter of a
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: few months, just to go back to what we were
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: just talking about. Those companies had already changed their mandate
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: and it was like, well, now we're looking for thrillers
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: or now we're looking for Netflix or Amazon, and we
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: don't think this fits that mandate, blah blah blah. So
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: it's fine. So we sent that around and and I
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: had met with an executive at Ellen Pompio's company, Calamity.
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: Jane Pompio is Meredith Gray on Gray's Anatomy, and we
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: had talked about a couple of projects and she is
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: a big anti SeaWorld person. So you know, they only
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: have a TV deal with ABC, they don't do any films.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: So I reached out to my manager, you know, on
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: my My girlfriend is like, you need to you need
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: to send it over to them. And I'm like, well,
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: they only have a TV deal, and she's like, just
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: do it. Just do it because the moral of my
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: life and right now is my girlfriend Rachel's always right
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: to be comple be honest with you. And every time
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: she tells me that I need to do something she's
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: and I disagree with her and I end up doing it.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: Everyone benefits from So I've learned that the hard way,
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: but she's always right. And so we sent it over
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: to them and they called and they were like, we
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: love this. You know, we don't know how to do this,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: but we love this, and we want to reach out
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: to someone else to try and see if we can
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: partner with them because we don't make movies. And it
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: just so happened that person that they wanted to reach
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: out to was Lauren Schuer Donner, who of course is
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: the amazing producer of all the X Men films and Deadpool,
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: and she produced Free Willy. And she's the wife of
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: Richard Donner, who everyone knows is the director of Superman,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: the Omen Bethileppin, The Gooney's all that, and they're big
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: anti activity, anti fur anti zoo, all that. So we
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: went down the line with them and they were interested,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: and at the end of the day, it just wasn't
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: something that they felt they wanted to go down again
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: because they again, they produced Free Willy, and they got
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: kind of attacked for that at a time, and they
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: were like, we don't really want to do that again.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: So my manager went in and he met with the
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: head of their company and he was like, well, what
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: else Mike want to do? And my manager started talking
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: to him about a couple of projects that I had
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: that everyone considers to be ambling in tone, as in
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: seven Spielbert's Pression Company, of course, and he was like, well,
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: we wanted to do a Doonies too for a long time,
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: and we've heard a lot of pitches and we've got
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: a lot of treatments. So I'm basically every writer.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: In Hollywood, and nobody can get you know, Dick and
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: Stephen and Chris Columbus to agree on their version of
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: the sequel. What do you want to do that? And
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: my manager's like, yeah, of course he wants to do that.
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, he's kidding me, right. So I get a
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: call and my manager and he's like, what do you
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: think about the Goonies And I'm like, are you serious? Like,
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: of course I want to do there. I mean, of
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: course I want to throw, you know, throw my cards
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: in it. And really try to throw in my hand,
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: but it was quite a challenge. So we sat down
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: and I watched the original movie a dozen times again
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: and came up with a with an idea for a
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: new Goonies movie. Not exactly a sequel, I wouldn't I
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: wouldn't really say, but sort of like, how do I
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: force awakens the Goonies? Right?
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and uh, I think again, because I don't know
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: how how. I don't want to go to in depth
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: of it, but there's there is one thing I want
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: to say that that it was I think was awesome
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: that you did and when this was since since will,
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: when I Willi's treasure was found, the town itself was
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: basically had become Hey, nobody, it's not special anymore because
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: there's no more there's no more treasure to.
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: Find, right Toltally, it's it's how do you tell this story?
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: You know, thirty something years after the first movie took place,
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: and it also you know, I love the Goounies and
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: everyone loved the Gunies, but it's a it's a product
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: of it of the year it came out, right, and
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: you really it would be really hard to make that
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: kind of movie today because there's just constraints with the
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: way that budgets work and just having an all kid
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: casts and all these different things. So it was really
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: how do I in a way bring the magic and
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: tone of the original into today's marketplace and into today's
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: kids in the world of today's kids, And then how
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: do I bring select members of the cast back and
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: have them involved. So I don't know, I don't know
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: if the movie will ever get made. I don't know
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: if they'll ever be a new Gooney's movie, because it's
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: hard for everyone to agree on something. But you know,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: decas it and he's reading in I'm just waiting to
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: hear back from him now. So do you ever think, Mike,
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: that you would ever maybe use this treatment as a
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: sort of like a pitch for other projects? So maybe, like,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: you know, if you ever they ever said, hey, Mike,
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: what else if you were working on You'll say, hey,
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: I've worked on this Gooney's treatment for for you know,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: and I pitched it to Richard Donner.
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: And you know, would you ever at any point ever do.
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: Something like that. Absolutely every conversation I've had since I've
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: brought that up in the room, you know, because everyone
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: collectively loves the Guneyes, So when you bring that up
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: and if you know, they want to kind of know
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: what the basis of the pitches, and you know, without
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: giving too much away, you give that to them and
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: then they can kind of see how your mind works
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: when adapting other material. You know, source material, which is
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: key right now because that's what everyone's doing. And it's
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: actually funny because of the project that I'm most excited
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: about and currently developing that I can't really say the
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: name of what it is and who the players are,
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: but it's two veteran producers who made, you know, a
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: lot of movies, and it's an adaptation of a classic
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: story by a well respected author. And I partially believe that,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: you know, it was sort of a combination of Beneath
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: the Surface, which is a cer World movie, that script
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: getting me in the door with them, and then me saying,
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: you know, oh, by the way, right now, I'm also
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: writing a treatment and pitching a Gooney sequel, and here's
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: kind of how I'm doing it and how I'm adapting it.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: So so so as you know you're going to these
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: pitch meetings and as you are sort of working on things,
• 44:06
  Speaker 5: you know, one of the things that you and I
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: always talk about is development and you know sort of
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: and sort of managing expectations. So what are some of
• 44:13
  Speaker 5: the things that you know, you can sort of discuss about,
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: you know, development, Like let's just say, for instance, let's
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: just give a scenario example. Let's just say that somebody
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: does buy a script. It's a completely original specscript, they
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: were to buy it. You know what, what are some
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: of the things that happened at development.
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: It's interesting. I think a lot of people, myself included,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: kind of always felt or or or still feel that
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: once you get to the point in your career where
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: you're actually meeting with the real producers, you know, not
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: just the assistance or anything like that, but the actual
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: people who can sign a check, that everything just changes.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: But the reality is, you know, the ceiling just gets higher, right,
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: so you climb up to the top of Everest, only
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: to realize is that there's another like, you know, six
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: hundred miles that you can't see because it's so freaking tall.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: And that that's how it feels. So I think, you know,
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: when someone comes along and they buy a spec, they're
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: gonna do one of two things. If it's a big spec,
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: like if we're talking, you know, Blockbuster Temple, they're going
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: to hire a studio writer to do a polish. And
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: that's partially two. If it's a if it's a big
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: studio and they're they've got shareholders that they have to convince,
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: it's that it's like, well, we'll have the Coen Brothers
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: come in and they'll do a polish on all the
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: dialogue and everyone will be happy to give us the
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: money to make the movie. If it's a smaller contained
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: kind of genre film, like a ten qulverfilled lane or
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: something like that, then it's a whole different conversation. Then
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: then you could be the sole writer, unless they hire
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: a writer director who wants to come in and do
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: a polish as well. The other end of the coin
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: is when in the situation I'm in now is that
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: it has something pitched to me. You know, So I
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: go in and I pitch five movies, and they want
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: to one of the movies I pitch, and they also,
• 46:01
  Speaker 4: but you know, but first we want to do one
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: of the ones that we're looking at with you, So
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: they pitch me the movie. Then it's you know, I
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: got to look at the source material, which is a book.
• 46:11
  Speaker 4: I got to figure out how am I going to
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: add my voice or you know, what's my style with
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: this source material, and then it just begins this really
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: lengthy process of development that nobody really understands, and I'm
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: just still learning it as I go, because one, every
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: executive and producer is different, and two it's just not
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: something that anybody ever talks about in film school or
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: anywhere else. So in this circumstance, it's it's very much like, Okay,
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: read the book and then give us an outline, right,
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: that was the first thing. It's like, give us an
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: online of how you would adapt it. So then I
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: sit down and I write, you know, like a ten
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: to twelve page outline and it's basically in pros that's
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: just how I write my outlines. And I send it
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: over to them and they're like, okay, great, well come
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: into the office. I'm gonna talk about it. So go
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: in the office. They tell me what they love, they
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: tell me what they don't really like, and then they
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: tell me, you know, kind of how to help structure it.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: Because a lot of the studios, and this is fairly true,
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: then you know, they categorize writers in two different categories. Right.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: One is a writer who can write character, and the
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: other is a writer who can write structure. And the
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: key I think is to really understand character, because they
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: can give you the structure if you can come up
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: with the characters, and.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: You can come up with what the real story.
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: Is behind everything and why you need to tell this
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: story and why these characters are going throop what they're
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: going through and not just you know, bye page twelve
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: for at the inciting incident, blah blah blah blah blah,
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: save the cat. If you can come up with the characters,
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: they are paid to kind of look at it like
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: math and look at it like plotting. So they're going
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: to look at what you give them and they're gonna say, okay,
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: so do you think this section of your outline is
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: like the first five pages? And you say, yes, that's
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: first five pages and then blah blah blah, and it
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: helps you. It helps them to plot it in their
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: mind from a producing standpoint, whereas use the writers should
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: be thinking about the characters. And when I look at
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: a lot of movies and I see you know that,
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: and I'm just unhappy with the screenplays, it's because they're
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: coming at it from a complete structure and you know
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: stand or POV and not from character. And I can
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: see it when I watch the movies. And I can
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: also see complacency where it's like, you could have made
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: that better, but you didn't because of one or two things. One,
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: you're getting a paycheck and it doesn't matter because you
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: know they're gonna market a shit out of the movie
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: and million, million of million people are gonna see. Two
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: because you're nervous.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: You're in the room with these guys.
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: They have a bad idea and you're afraid to tell
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: them no, or you're afraid to say yes, smile and nod,
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: go home and find out how to best tweak their
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: ideas that are worse than the story. And that, to
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: me is what development is. It's this long process six
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: months to a year, where you're beating out the story
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: with producers in the hopes that at the end of
• 49:13
  Speaker 4: this process they're either going to hire you to write
• 49:16
  Speaker 4: the script or they're going to make a deal with
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: you where you spec the script and then once the
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: project gets funded, then you get paid. Yeah.
• 49:27
  Speaker 5: And you know, there was an article, I think it
• 49:28
  Speaker 5: was a wal Street journal about how you know why
• 49:31
  Speaker 5: do so many of these these big budget movies feel
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: the same. And that was the answer, was they think
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: that there's too much, you know, save the cat structure
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: in there because it's all structure.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, and that's great. I mean, you need structure,
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: but you should be the story guy. The writers should
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: be the story guy. The writers should be the person
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: who makes the audience feel for the themes and the
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: characters and the film or the TV series.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: The executives, the.
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: Suits, the money people.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: They should be the structure guys and girls. They should
• 50:12
  Speaker 4: be the people who are looking at it from a
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: plotting pov so that when they call a director who
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: comes in, they can beat out the acts with the
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: director and he totally understands what they're saying. It's like math.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: Let them do the math, but you have to provide
• 50:27
  Speaker 4: them with the numbers.
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: So and you know, I was talking to somebody about
• 50:32
  Speaker 5: this too. Was you know, if you look at movies
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: in from like the seventies and the eighties, you know
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: there's there's all these you know, really unique movies and
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: you sort of as you sort of get to the
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: sort of end of the nineties to now, you can
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: see the big difference. And the big difference is it's
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: almost like with now they want to sort of have
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: creativity controlled where they know sort of what they're going
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: they want to have it. So it's almost like the
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: project is handheld from all these steps and they're sort
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: of like, Okay, you know now on page seventeen, this
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: has to happen. On page twenty five, this has to happen.
• 51:04
  Speaker 5: Stuff like that, right, right, totally.
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: It's interesting. I mean, I've never thought about writing like
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: that ever in my life. I've never I've read all
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: these books, and I've taken all these classes, and I've
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: and I understand the logic, but I've never truly approached
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: writing that way. I've always approached it as what is
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: the story? Why is the story relevant? And how do
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: I fit these characters and these things in just today's marketplace.
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: That's the only math I ever do. I don't worry
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: about what happens by page thirty, with page twenty five
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: or page sixty, not at least until after I've written
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: out an outline or a treatment or even a first draft.
• 51:39
  Speaker 4: Then I start to think Okay, how can I whittle
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: this down? You know, how can I get the action
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: started earlier? But I I the key is really to
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: just do it, get it finished, and then you can
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: always go back and correct it.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like Tarantino on the Coln Brothers. They don't write,
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: you know, by that either, you know, I know there's
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: a lot of other like Kevin Smith, Robertriguez, I know,
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: he's those don't those guys don't write by the whole,
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: like you know, hey, we have to have this happen
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: by this page and stuff like that. And I think,
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: you know, yeah, and I think what it happened is
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: I think as you sort of try to crack this nut,
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: so to speak. I think that's where you see guys
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: like Sidfield and Blake Saider to save the cat, they
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: sort of wonder, you know, okay, how did they write this?
• 52:20
  Speaker 5: There's somebody whoever script it is, how do they write
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: this script? And what are what doct what are all
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: the good things that they have in common? So these
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: scripts that are you know, the top one percentile, what
• 52:29
  Speaker 5: are they actually doing versus what they're not doing? And
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: I think that's then that's where all these systems come from,
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: like you know, and that's where all these books come from.
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, smart understand, and it's far to read the books
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: and the smart to kind of get what you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: the end goal is and and understand the structure. But
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: I just I don't think anything should ever be approached
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: with structure in mind. First. I'm not saying you should
• 52:50
  Speaker 4: have a first act that goes, you know, eighty pages,
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: but I am saying that, you know, if you look
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: at some of your favorite movies, like you just said,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: they're not really going off of any structure. They're going
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: off of what's the best way to tell the story.
• 53:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think also that I think that's why
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: independent film now is sort of having, you know, it's
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: sort of why you know, crowdfunding and everything else. I
• 53:16
  Speaker 5: think its actually becomes more popular. That's gonna be where
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: you know, more people are gonna say, you know, I
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: could just crowd follow my movie for maybe twenty thirty
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: forty thousand dollars and at least shoot it the way
• 53:26
  Speaker 5: I want to, rather than rewrite it and try to
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: actually you know, sell to an agency or whatever.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, And I mean you can you can definitely
• 53:33
  Speaker 4: do that and there's definitely ways to modifyze that and
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: build the career off of that. I think my approach is,
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: how can I get into the system and not change
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: the system, but just bring that storytelling approach into the
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: system with some of the bigger titles and bigger films,
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: and to not be complacent and just say yes to everything,
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: but to find the best way to tell the stories.
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: Because if you find the best way to tell a
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: story and you can pitch it to an executive or
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: producer and they know that what you're saying makes sense
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: and is right, they're not going to tell you no.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: They don't want to make a bad movie. Like the
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: goal isn't to make a bad movie. You just have
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: to be ten steps ahead and be willing to tell
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: them your idea. Yeah, it's uh, that is you know.
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: Key is is sort of how to communicate, right, So
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: how do you communicate something without actually, you know, nobody
• 54:30
  Speaker 5: wants to say no, but you also can't say yeah,
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: So you have to communicate in a different way.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: And I remember, yeah, I mean it's risk management. You know.
• 54:37
  Speaker 4: You have to give them a way that they can
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: tell their boss, or tell their financiers, or tell the
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: studio that they have to deal with. You have to
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: give it to them so that they can they can
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: express the idea or the story or the structure or
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: whatever you're presenting them with in the best way to
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: their bosses.
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: Right, yeah, yeah, because that way, you know, obviously it's
• 54:59
  Speaker 5: sort of you know how they nobody wants to be
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: the person who says no. Because I was reading a
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: book about this a few years ago and they said,
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: you know, if you you don't want to tell you know,
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: the next Vince Gilligan no, and then you know, if
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: you if you work for that, that that studio and
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: then all of a sudden needs a hit. And then
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: he comes back and says, now, aren't you that person
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: that said no to me?
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Hell?
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: Aren't you that guy? Totally You're totally right, So you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: And Mike, I just wanted to ask one I have
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: I have a few more final questions. I know we're
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: starting to get on out of time, as I see
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: the count. I didn't even I realized this, This conversation
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: flew by. I didn't even realize how long we were talking.
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, for writing competitions, what do you
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: think are some of the top writing competitions out there
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: right now for writers, ah oh Man.
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it all depends on what your
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: goal is. If your goal is to get some representation,
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: then I think, you know, Nichols is always great because
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: it's such a well respected contest. I think that the
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: tracking boards contests are really great. I know a lot
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: of people get reps based off of that. If you're
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: trying to make some money, you know, put a little
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: bit of money in your pocket, then I think there's
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: a lot of genre based writing competitions that have money prizes,
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: and maybe their contacts aren't as good as some of
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: the other ones, but you're going to get some money
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: out of it. So I think it's really how you
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: how you want to approach it. Do you want to
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: build a career and get representation or do you want
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: to get like forty g you know in the in
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: the bank.
• 56:23
  Speaker 5: And you know, because I know you went through the
• 56:25
  Speaker 5: you know, Script Shadows website and you were you know,
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: I was just wondering, you know, because I know again
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: as we were talking about opportunities, you know, all the
• 56:32
  Speaker 5: different opportunities out there, and you know, that's that's why
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: I asked that question, just to see because every time
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: I turn around, this new writing competition opening up, and yeah,
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: I don't know a lot of them, you know.
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: I mean I don't. I'm not really familialuse I don't
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: enter a lot of them. I mean, I think Blacklist
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: is great if you have the money to spend on evaluations.
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: So I think I think Blacklist is still a very
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: good asset. Like I said, I love the guys at
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: the tracking board. I think what they're doing is is great.
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: And they have a lot of great managers and agents
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: on their review boards that that do judge these scripts,
• 57:06
  Speaker 4: and they do sign writers and give them other opportunities.
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: And I know that from a genre pov, like if
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: you're doing a horror script or a sci fi script,
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: is probably great genre contest. I don't that are offering
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: cash prizes or or you know the opportunity to pitch
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: a producer or or you know, producers are partnering with
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: these contests. I don't. I just I'm not well versed
• 57:27
  Speaker 4: in in their names and what they are exactly, But
• 57:30
  Speaker 4: I agree that they're popping up every day.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah, particularly the Bloodlist that came out of nowhere, and
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: when I heard about what that is, I was like, Wow,
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: that's a fantastic idea.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good one for sure. And by the way,
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: for those.
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: Listing the blood List is uh, actually I realized that
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: I said it, like there's probably actually explained what we do.
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: So the bud List is the is the is the
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: ranking of the top horror unproduced horror scripts that are
• 57:56
  Speaker 5: out there. And this was put together by I think,
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: is it Kelly Marshak is there or Kelly marsh Yeah,
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: it's uh, it's she actually put this together, and it's
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: it's sort of like the Blacklist, but for horror scripts.
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: And uh, you know, gu horror is so underappreciated man,
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: And and I was just having this conversation that I
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: day is like some of the best directors come from horror,
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: like even someone like Spielberg, Like if you watch his
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: action sequences and like Jurassic Park or some of the
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: even the close Encounters and et they're all tension and
• 58:24
  Speaker 4: horror based, Like it's all about building the anticipation for
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: the scare or the reveal, and that's all classic horror filmmaking.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: And I think that the genre is totally underappreciated, especially
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: when you look at so many great directors who come
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: from it.
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's so true. I mean, if you'll go all
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: the people who started off for horror and uh and
• 58:45
  Speaker 5: you know it was like particularly like guys like Sam Raimi. Uh,
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: they started out totally.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, look at his career like it's it's it's amazing.
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: He has the career that anyone could dream for.
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah he does, and uh.
• 58:58
  Speaker 4: You know, and he's a great guy.
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and and and he's he's been, you know, making
• 59:03
  Speaker 5: all these great projects and uh. Now look he's got
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: the Evil Dead TV series.
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: And uh, exactly, and it's great, you know, and he's
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: doing great things with it. He's just just launched Skydance Television.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: You've got a whole in the TV you know, profession company.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: And he's really taking advantage of the wonderful opportunity that
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: is today's current TV mark.
• 59:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And uh, you know that's when now you know,
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: you're we're talking about episodic stuff and that's something else too,
• 59:29
  Speaker 5: is a game because everyone I swear Mike, it's always
• 59:31
  Speaker 5: about you know, hey, feature films are great, but you know,
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: do you have anything episodic? Do you have anything that
• 59:37
  Speaker 5: like a TV pilot that can you know, go on
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: for eighteen years like, uh, you know, but but yeah,
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: totally yeah, yeah, And you know that's that's always something
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: on too in the back burner that I've always been
• 59:47
  Speaker 5: making sure I have at least a couple of you know,
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: TV pilots and uh yeah, exactly, you know, anything, you know,
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: just just making up, you know, just just in case
• 59:56
  Speaker 5: they actually say, you know, hey, you know, what else
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: do you have? And you know you're ready to be prepared.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: And I also think, like as we you know, we
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: talk about expectations and development and all and networking and
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: all the stuff that we've talked about, I think being prepared, yeah,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: you know, I think you'll agree with this. I don't
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: think you're ever really one hundred percent prepared. You can
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: just do what you can do, and if and and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 5: sooner or later, if he keeps trying, you're going to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: be in the right place at the right time.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: You gotta love the process, you know, you gotta love
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: the process. You gotta be willing to get a day
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: job if you need some money. You gotta be willing
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: to sleep on a couch if you don't have a
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: place to stay. You just gotta love the process of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: hitting the pavement, finding representation, and then taking that and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: exploiting that to the ends of the earth to meet
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: all these traditions and executives and then hoping that you
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: get into development. And then you have to learn from
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: love the process of development, which is hard because there's
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: not a lot of money in it, and you know,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: if there is any at all, it's it's not a
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: ton up front. So you have to really love the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: process and love how it feels to crack a story
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: and to negotiate for plot points with executives and defend
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: your case. You have to learn to love that, and
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: if you can learn to fall in love with that,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: then the rest of it is is Kate.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 5: Very well, said Mike. Mike, so we're just about out
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: of time, and I agree, Mike, you have to love
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: that process and you're just in closing way. I just
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: want to ask, you, know, work, if you'll find you
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: out online.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: I'm always you know, I'm on Facebook, Michael kse Snyder,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: I'm on Twitter at m K Snyder nineteen ninety I'm
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: always looking people to reach out and connect and if
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: I can help, I'm more than happy to. I'm always
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: looking to collaborate on different things and help put the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: pieces of the puzzle together.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and everyone, Mike is a fantastic guy. I've known
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 5: Mike for years now, and as I'm going through my
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: just to my mental role decks, Mike, I think I
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: might might have known you longer than anybody else. No, no, no,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: though there's two of the people have had on a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 5: podcast where I've no longer than you. So you're like,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: you're like number, You're like the third or fourth person
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 5: in live people I've known long. I love it, but uh,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: because I just remembered there's a friend I had on
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 5: here for middle School episode one with Chris Pireminico and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: Chris actually you know, Chris actually was a producer on
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 5: Game Over and he also actually now teaches film and
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: TV production, and that was that was a fun interview.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 5: And I'll give you this little snid bit. It was
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: just funny because he he's like, I'm in I'm teaching now.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: He's like so, so he's like, don't curse, don't tell
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 5: any weird stories before and I'm like, oh Jesus christ Man,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: that's all I do. Is curse and tell. Yeah, if
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: you take that away from me, I'm not Dave Bullets anymore.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 5: All I do is Chris tell weird stories.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: That's awesome, that's You're right. Uh, I love it.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, very very true, Mike. Uh, and Mike again, I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: want to say thank you so much. You and I
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: have been friends for years.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 5: You know, you're somebody whose opinion I really trust and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: I really, I really just know that you were going
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 5: to hit a huge, colossal grand slam soon enough.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: Thanks man, I really appreciate that and the feelings mutual,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: my friend. You know I think that. Yeah, your opinion
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: is one of the opinions I value more than many others.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: You know, I send you work before other people see
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: it because you're that guy man, you have you have
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: great taste.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: Oh, thank you, Mike. I appreciate that. And everybody, everybody,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: make sure you go check out Mike. Seriously, this guy
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: is always on the ball. He's always doing something really
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 5: really cool. So please go check out Mike and Mike.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: Anything I'm gonna come back on, please let me know.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 5: I'd love to have you on. And uh, I wish
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: you the best of luck man everything.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Thanks Man, I will. I'll take up on that.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: It sounds good, buddy. I take care of you too,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: my friend.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: Forward slash four four.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to guys, as always,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: keep on writing no matter what.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: dot tv.