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BPS 332: Screenwriting Secrets from Hollywood with Corey Mandell · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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  Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number three thirty two. Cinema is a matter of what's
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  in the frame and what's out. Now, more than ever, we need
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  to talk to each other, to listen to each other and understand how we
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  see the world, and cinema is the best medium for doing this. Martin
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  Scorsese broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be
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  working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the
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  craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
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  the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now,
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  today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now, unlike other script
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  coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are
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  in the goals of the project you are, so we actually break it down
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  by three categories. Micro budget, indie, film market and studio film.
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  There's no reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading tempole movies
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  when your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars, and
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  Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So
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  if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on
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  over to cover my screenplay dot com. Enjoy today's episode with guest host Jason
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  Buff. Thanks for joining us here today. My guest is Corey Mandel.
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  Corey is an award winning playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ley,
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  Scott, Wolfgane Peterson, Harrison, Ford, Warner Brothers, Universal, twentieth
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  Century Fox, you name it, he's written it for you. I'm really
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  excited to talk about to talk with Corey today because he is writing at the
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  studio level and we really even though this is indie film, it's really important
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  to know what it's like writing at that level and how things work, uh,
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  you know, things like getting an agent, the importance of having a
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  manager things like that, and you know, it's it's it's really talking about
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  something that I didn't know a whole lot about, even though you know,
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  i'm as many of you, I'm also a screenwriter aspiring screenwriter, so it's
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  it's good to know even though my aspirations are more towards indie film. Anyway,
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  I learned a lot from from Corey and I think he's actually a really
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  good teacher as well. He teaches a workshop. If you go to Corey
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  Mandel dot net and that's Mandel with two l's, he's got a workshop there,
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  and I highly you know, I think he's got some some great things
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  to teach. I think you should definitely check out his classes. And he's
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  had a lot of success stories, so check that out. Here we go,
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  here's my interview with Korey Mandel. Well, I guess the first thing
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  we should start out with for people who are not familiar with you and your
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  your side and your work, if you wouldn't mind just giving us a little
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  bit of background in your career as a screenwriter. Sure, so I went
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  to you see a film school and listen back in late nineties, and it
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  was really fortunate to launch my career by having really Scott hired me to write
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  Metropolis. I was still in film school. It was just a need to
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  be in a room with herdy. Scott haven't hire me, flew me to
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  London, first time I'd ever flown the first class, the first time the
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  news first class existed. You know's moving on like top from the noodles on
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  a good day. And so really committed to making Metropolis and it was a
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  front page variety and ultimately didn't get made, which is a whole long story.
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  But but you mentioned me, and he mentioned the script in very positive
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  way on the front page variety. So if you're looking to launch your career,
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  having your discussed very nice things about you and your scripts on a front
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  page variety not a right. So let's step one DWAs you have that with
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  step on my Mom's day. And so then I became you know, the
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  super hot writers in the town for seven minutes. And and I started next
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  project with the Wolf Peterson who was just finished Air Force one, and I
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  did a project for him. I did a project for working title, so
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  I basically ended up doing over eleven years. I did nineteen for hire,
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  a studio project, and you know, for some of your listeners who maybe
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  are a little new to the studio game. Basically, what that means is
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  I would get hired I have an original idea that pictures the studios, they
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  buy the idea, they hired me to write it, or what was more
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  often the case, they had a project, they had a writer or a
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  couple of writers, weren't hardly excited about where it was going, so they
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  would hire me to come in and rewrite it. I would also sometimes get
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  hired to adapt novels or graphic novels, and then occasionally I would do production
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  rewrite, where you're actually on set when they're making a movie. You don't
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  get credit, but you get a really nice paycheck and you are rewriting structure
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  or comedy or characters on set. So that's basically for someone who's going to
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  work in the future film business under assignment, that's kind of a range of
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  the kinds of things you do. Now, what was the process before you
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  got that project with Ridley Scott? I mean, how how did you even
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  get into that world? Yeah, that's a great question. So what has
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  happened is I had written the script at when I was at ust LA,
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  and one of my teachers was running development for Meg Ryan. And again this
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  is like ninety eight and Meg Ryan is a big star and written the script,
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  and I somehow convinced the her name's Kathy Raban to take a look at
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  the script, and she read it and she really responded to it, and
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  she talked to Meg when about it, and Meg really responded to it.
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  Meg wanted to do it. So then you get the phone call that everybody
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  wants, which is you know, Kathy Rayven called me and said, Meg
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  Ryan, you know, very potentially interested in your project. Who's your agent?
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  And of course I said, I don't have an agent, and then
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  she said, would you for me to help you get an agent? And
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  then like, let me think about that. Yeah, I would like that.
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  And you know, the thing is the key to get in an agent,
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  and it's easier said than done. Is not for you to be chasing
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  the agent, for the agent to be chasing you. Now, probably the
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  easiest way to get an agent to chase you is to write something and gets
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  a major piece of chaleng attached. Again, easier says than done. I
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  understand that. So in that situation, I literally have THEA and William Morris
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  and I see him like pomp agent, like clearing their schedule to meet with
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  me. So I did have over the next couple of days, and I
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  chose to go with ICM with an agent named Dan Terrence, who's awesome and
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  so, you know, to put in a perspective Dan Terrence at this time,
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  she represents KLi Cory, who when they get an award for Selma Louise,
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  she represents you know, it's Foreman, you know, and then little
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  me a full intimidating that it was really exciting, and then you make a
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  long story short somewhat short, uh hight. So Meg Ryan is attacked.
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  Now we have directors fighting for the project. We suddenly have studios fighting for
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  the project, Like this is going to be a big script, so I'm
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  going to make all whole bits of money, pay atomic student loans, get
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  a car. Life is good. And then a movie comes out that's in
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  the same genre and somewhat similar but really not that similar, but somewhat similar,
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  and it tanks the tanks at the box office, and suddenly mc ryan
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  or someone on our team's asides, maybe I don't want to do this,
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  And then suddenly the mc ryan says that suddenly the directors are like, well,
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  maybe I don't want to do this, And then if the studios are
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  like, well maybe I know want and I remember to help the cards exactly.
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  And the one thing I'll say for your listeners and I I'm sure that
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  you have people will sten to be found through this, and you also people
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  who are kind of new to the game and everyone in between. I'll just
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  say that the experience I just went through. I constantly get calls from students
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  and writers I work with who goes to the same thing as I do.
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  Get as close as you can without it actually happening, and you feel potentially
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  like to something wrong with you or your curse. And the thing is,
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  when you start to talk to a lot for writers, you realize it's a
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  pretty typical experience. And so so at the end of the day it was
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  not going to sell, which was crushing, But you know, I had
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  a writing example, I had an agent, and I think most importantly I
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  had credibility because the script I had attracted a major star, and so that
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  gives your credibility. So my agent says, you have any ideas for you
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  know, a kitch, We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
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  And now back to the show, because now you have this credibility,
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  Let's see if we can't sell a pitch. And I said, yeah,
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  this is an idea I've always loved and so I wanted by her and she
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  said, yeah, I think that can have traction in the market place.
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  And then she pulled out you know, have a paper and a pen.
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  She was, Okay, let's do the fun part. Let's make our dream
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  list. If you could sell this pitch and work with anyone at all,
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  who would it be? And the very first thing I said, Scott,
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  and she said great to a great choice. Who else is We made our
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  list with like major a list and it's sort of like, okay, that's
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  our dream list. Now let's start making a list of maybe one more practical
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  folks in case the dream list as a kind of and but I got we
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  went, but she was start with her the Scott, since that was your
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  number one choice. I went there and that was the development executive. They
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  really responded to the pitch. They brought me into producing partner at the time,
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  Mimi. She responded to the pitch and literally two weeks later and it
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  was a little embarrassing, but I get a call and I've been up really
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  late and I'm like half to sleep on the phone where you think it's ten
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  thirty and my agent says, we're leasing challenge and you'd like to hear your
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  pitch at eleven thirty. And it's like when it take me forty five minutes
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  to get there and after shower and shave and all that. So I said,
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  oh, that's exciting, but can I go in later today, like
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  at three? And there's a long pause where I'm sure my agents think,
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  team, why do I find this person? And then very nicely, very
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  nicely, she says, Corey release in town if he'd like to hear your
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  pitch at eleven o'clock. In there, I went, oh, of course,
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  yes, I will be either. And I don't know how, but
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  it really worked in my favorite Cason, because I wasn't nervous. I was
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  everything just to get there. I'm literally in a room pitching it really before
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  I think type I could process that that's through the sky because he was a
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  big vera like fill it and of course yeah, any boded in the earth.
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  So in the room he said, if you don't mind, I'd like
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  to buy this and I'd like to flow you to London and work with you
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  on the structure and write it, you know, and it's like, welly,
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  let me check my schedule. I work. Yeah, our people can
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  talk and we'll figure it out. Yeah, so let me ask you can
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  I can? I just pause on that for one second, and I want
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  to make sure we talk about a lot of different things. But one thing
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  that we're talking about right now is the pitch. Ya, So is there
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  any sort of I mean you're in your car, you're driving up, You're
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  going to see you know a legend. I mean you have to be nervous.
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  How what does what do you do to like make it all work out?
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  I mean, what's your pitch? I mean, how's it worked?
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  You're going to tell you to How do you work prepare theselves for a picture
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  and not get nervous? Or is me the actual? How do you?
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  Yeah? I mean what what is what? What do you say? I
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  mean? How how do you take your screenplay and put it? I mean
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  what is that like a five minute six minute pitch to do? Or right?
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  So this is not a stream place. So you know, when people
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  are pitching, they have a risk. So generally, if you have an
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  idea. You've got two avenues, right. You can spec it, which
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  is to write the script on back and then that's the thing that would be
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  shown to people, the actual script. Or you can pitch it where you
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  haven't written it yet, you have an idea. You're talking people through the
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  through the idea, and then if they like it and they believe in you
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  as a writer, they'll buy the pitch and then they'll hire you the writer.
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  Generally speaking, or those you know listeners who are kind of new to
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  the game, you don't get invited to pitch these days unless you have credibility.
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  So, and it's even more so than when I was pretty here,
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  and so generally they're only going to listen to a pitch and buy a pitch
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  from a writer that they are extremely confident can deliver on the actual script.
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  So for newer writers, you're not pitching these days. You're specting. You
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  want to prove not just that you have a great idea, but you could
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  execute on it. So yeah, So what had happened is I went in
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  there and it looked like a forty five minute pitch and it was basically giving
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  him the characters and the world and the story and everything that happens and trying
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  to do it in a wom that was most engaging as possible. And then
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  he asked me lots of questions and we had a connversation and we were really
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  talking through everything. I was there for a couple of hours, and at
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  the end of it, you know, he had really had a really clear
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  vision of what my vision was and what I was going to go and write,
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  and he says, yeah, So then he lost the pitch, so
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  I get a certain amount of money for that. And then also they hired
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  me to write it, so I get money for that. So it's basically
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  like you have an idea for a script and before you write it, you
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  sort of vent it to make sure there's a market for it, and if
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  someone's interested enough, they'll buying the idea, and they hired you to write
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  the script. And that's why common in TV, and it happens in features,
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  but generally is only you're going to happen for a writer. You have
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  a certain level of credibility, okay, And what is the now for writers
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  who are trying to understand what the relationship is with you and your agent.
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  Your agent is the one that got you in the room there in the first
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  place. Right, Yeah, so agents are your salesforce. Agents are going
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  to sell your script and or they're going to get you in the right rooms
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  with the right people for pitches or for writing assignment. So that was the
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  other thing is let's say that you write a script and it goes out in
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  the market place and everybody loves the script. They think you are a fresh,
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  original voice, great characters, great structure, but nobody buys the script.
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  It's just it's not sitting what they're looking to buy. But everyone's like
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  as a great stress. So at that point, you know the agent will
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  send you on a round of meeting And that was around The meetings could be
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  twenty the thirty. And there's kind of three kinds of meetings. They are
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  all going to be happening. So one I've called a general relationship where someone's
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  registr up and they're blown away by it. They're not looking to hire a
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  writer for a project. They're not really looking to buy a bitch. There's
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  no there's no money that's going to come out of this beauty. But it's
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  a relationships. They'll be meeting. They just really love your script and your
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  writing. They want to get to know you. They trying to figure out,
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  you know, if you're the kind of person they want to work with,
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  if you're crazy or not. There's a lot of crazy writers out there,
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  and they just sort of, what are you interested in? And let
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  me tell you the kinds of things that we're interested in, because down the
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  road they truly would like to find a way to work with you. And
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  some writers get disappointment because they'll pick that meeting and they realize, somewhere here
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  in meeting, I'm not going to get hired. There's no money that's going
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  to come out of this. And those writers are they don't set relationships are
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  really because you know, maybe six months later that person is looking to hire
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  someone. The fact that that you had a really good meeting with them and
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  they really want to work with you, that could lead to a job.
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  So so you write a script, everybody loves it, it doesn't sell.
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  You go on around the meetings and one type of meeting is this relationship building
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  meeting. Another meeting could be they really loved your script. If you have
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  the right idea, they buy a pitch from you and they would help you
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  develop it. So that's a meeting where you're going in and they're like,
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  hey, what ideas do you have in your pitching? That's what that's what
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  the meeting it was because the Scott Another kind of meeting could be we loved
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  your script, couldn't buy it, but we have we have the rights of
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  the scraphic novel, or we have the rights of this article, or we
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  have an idea that we've been kicked in around internally, or we have a
• 17:51
  script that somebody wrote. We want a pretty big rewrite and we want to
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  make it darker, or we want to make it we want to make the
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  characters kind of a character or whatever. And you seem like you could be
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  a good person for that. And so then what happens is you're basically being
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  invited to audition. It's like an after audition. So then if at the
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  script, you'll read it and you'll come back in and you'll say, this
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  is what I would this is how I would change it, this is my
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  addition for it, and they're other writers do this as well, and then
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  they're going to pick the writer who they vision that they like the most,
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  or if it's an original idea that they have or an article saying thing you're
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  going to go home, you're going to come back in and you're going to
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  pitch what you would do with this idea or what you would do with this
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  article. And you're generally competing against other writers. So what the agent says
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  is they're going to try to sell your script. Often that means packaging,
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  putting elements, you know, to make the more exciting. They can go
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  out and there's a script with a star, script with a director, and
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  concurrent to that, they're going to send you on meetings. And again,
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  these meetings could be a relationship building, they could be you pitching or original
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  ideas. It could be them looking to hire a writer. And you go
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  through a round of those and maybe somewhere along the way you'll launch your career.
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  You'll sell a pitch, they'll get hired to write something, your script
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  will actually sell. All of that's possible. It's also very possible at the
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  end of that none of that happens. You met a lot of people,
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  you've got a lot of great relationship, but at the end of the day,
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  you didn't get a job out of it. And then what you do
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  is you're going to have to give your agent another really great script and you're
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  going to go through a second cycle, and you've got a better chances of
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  lunching a career at the second time around and the first time because you have
• 19:44
  relationships, and also you're no longer on trick Tony. You've now proven that
• 19:48
  you are capable of writing more than just one great script. We'll be right
• 19:53
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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  But it's possible at these second rounds you still haven't watched your career, so
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  you have to write another great step and go through a third round. As
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  a lot of agents will say, if you go through three rounds of meetings
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  and you haven't landed at your first job, there's a good chance or something
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  wrong with you. It's a good chance that you're. Yeah, not everybody
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  plays all with others, you know, And if you were seeing as defensive
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  or arrogant or just someone that people don't want to work with, then you
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  know, no matter how great your writing is, it's probably not going to
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  happen. But assuming you played all with others, and what I certainly see
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  if my students and clients, you know, I have a third round of
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  meeting, they're getting there. They're shot now what you do if that shot
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  the whole different story. Okay, Now, you wrote a very good screenplay
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  relatively early on, and you're coming even before your career had kind of even
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  started. What were the things that you know brought you to that level of
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  writing? I mean, were you just born a good screenwriter or what happened
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  at school that really made you able to write a good screenplay? Like?
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  That? A great question. And you know, there's so much misinformation out
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  there because I have a lot of friends or managers and I'm not gonna out
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  anyone here, But what happens is there's this myth that if you're a great
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  writer, once you start writing, you write great stress and it's just not
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  true. I know so many writers who I mean, I'm talking Academy Award
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  winning writers. I'm talking writers who created big hit TV shows. I'm talking
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  about writers who make millions of dollars who it seems like everything they write it's
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  just amazing. And there was five or six years where they weren't that good,
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  and they were just getting a little bit better and a little bit better,
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  and they were doing the right kind of training, but they were being
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  mentored, and then what happens is after five or six years, they finally
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  are writing at a level where they can be taken seriously. They solve script
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  and they will just say or their manager will make up some story like that
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  was the first thing they read, and they just forget about all the development.
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  No, And that's really important people to hear that, because it's a
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  really abuse of message otherwise, because if you don't realize that and you buy
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  into the fairy tales and people are doing it strategically, it makes you sex
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  here and it makes you more desirable as a writer just to be selling who
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  naturally is a great fighter, like after everybody, everybody who wants to work
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  with natural talent. So it's in people's interest to for ken they have natural
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  talent. But it's just I don't know a single successful writer who didn't start
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  out as someone who had a lot of potential that kind of sucked and was
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  taught and was mentored and got better. And so in my case, you
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  know, and as a writer, I wouldn't I wouldn't talk about this way,
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  but I'm wearing my teacher cat, so I'll be I'll be completely honest.
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  What happened. I was in film school and I never write anything,
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  and a friend and I kind of wrote a strip together and it sold as
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  a USA cable movie starting in Virginia Madsen. And it was a great concept
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  and if we were just a little bit better writer, probably could have sold
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  it as a feature. But at the time, as the very first thing
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  I wrote, a co wrote, it was a friend. So I kind
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  of thought I was God's gifts to writing, because no one else in my
• 23:37
  film school class sold anything. Okay, it was USA cable, but it
• 23:41
  paid pretty good. It was Virginia mads and it got made. It was
• 23:44
  very successful for a cable movie, I mean for your first time out,
• 23:48
  at least for me. I was thinking, that's not so shabby. So
• 23:52
  my friend and I had a big falling out, so or collaboration ended a
• 23:56
  whole another long story. But so now I'm so and I write the script,
• 24:03
  and I'm in a writing group and they're like professional working writers in this
• 24:07
  group. They were all very honest with each other and I showed it to
• 24:11
  them. They really liked it. They had some notes, they had a
• 24:14
  few issues, so inter rewrite shows them some notes, rewrits, you know
• 24:17
  how it goes. But I eventually got the script to a point where they're
• 24:19
  like, this is great, this will sell, this will launch your career.
• 24:25
  You know, I'll show it to my agent if you want. This
• 24:26
  is so, this is when the best scripts ever at And of course I'm
• 24:30
  thinking, who am I to argue with a sentisment? Right? And so
• 24:34
  I showed the film full professor and he reads it and you know, same
• 24:38
  thing, fact thing I ever read. It definitely going to sell. I'll
• 24:42
  get it to you know, help you get an agent. So at the
• 24:45
  time I was working for this manager, and almost as a favor, I
• 24:52
  said, you want to read the script, like I must say, I
• 24:55
  was like entering. I wasn't represented Viker, and so we read the script
• 24:59
  and we met and never forget he said, it's it's it's pretty good for
• 25:07
  like a journey first draft. You don't want to show anyone in the industry
• 25:11
  the script. You only get one person impression. The scripts not that good,
• 25:14
  but it has potential. And I this is like a weird disconnect for
• 25:18
  me because I not when I've been told by everybody else. And when he
• 25:22
  said, is you're professional writers, professors, friends being honest with you,
• 25:30
  but they don't know how hard it is. The great thing it business.
• 25:33
  They don't know the bar they have to ship. And by the way,
• 25:36
  that's the late nineties. The bar is a lot higher today. And he
• 25:40
  said every time he got the script, it gets coverage, and that coverage
• 25:45
  gets database, everyone shares it. So it's the script, not like the
• 25:48
  script is good, but it's not amazing. And there's a big difference between
• 25:53
  good and amazing, and in this industry, nobody cares about good. So
• 25:57
  he basically said, all work with you if you're willing to put the work
• 26:02
  in to help you, help make the script what it needs to being,
• 26:04
  to help you become a better writer. And I was really honestly torn at
• 26:10
  that time because I was thinking maybe his opinions just not vowed compared to everything
• 26:15
  else. And so he suggested something that I suggest all of my students and
• 26:21
  clients, which is, you really think you're scripts ready because you only get
• 26:25
  one first impression, and that's the most cherished asset you have is your first
• 26:30
  impression. So what he suggested is go hire studio readers, like literally hire
• 26:36
  people who I hire someone from them, imagine someone from like Horner Brothers,
• 26:40
  like actual working readers, pay them under the table. I think it's like
• 26:45
  a hundred bucks and have them view the coverage report. They would actually do
• 26:48
  the script not in tracking is not their coverage report goes to you, nobody
• 26:52
  else because it's not officially in the system. You're paying them to do the
• 26:57
  coverage report, gave Wold actually really do if the script had come through the
• 27:02
  system. So I didn't have the money to do it, but I did
• 27:04
  it. And when the coverages come back, one of the things they would
• 27:10
  do is they'll evaluate the writer and it'll say recommend consider her path. And
• 27:17
  I think they all came back path on the writer, which was a real
• 27:22
  kick to the guy. But at the same time, I was so appreciative
• 27:27
  that I knew that, you know, and I didn't make the classic mistake
• 27:32
  of listening to everyone telling me how great it was. Find someone took it
• 27:36
  up the marketplace, and now suddenly, you know, my name for script
• 27:40
  path is what everybody it has in the record. So I worked at that
• 27:45
  manager, and you know, it's a year and a half, And in
• 27:48
  that year and a half, I learned everything I didn't know, and I
• 27:52
  learned what my weaknesses were and worked really hard trying in the stress and after
• 27:56
  a year and a half a brutal work. This manager was not a pleasant
• 28:02
  person and he did not he was smart. He didn't know how to work
• 28:04
  as writers very well. So it was a brutal experience, but I learned
• 28:07
  a lot. And at the end of it, he's like, I think
• 28:12
  it's now ready. I'll pay for the coverage, and he he paid for
• 28:17
  some people to do the coverage, and the coverage is all came back.
• 28:19
  Recommend, recommend, recommend, And that was the script that I then shown
• 28:23
  Kathy rad and all this happened. So no, I, as a writer,
• 28:30
  I would I would have said the following. I went to film school
• 28:34
  in the producer's program. It wasn't the screenwriting program. I didn't think I
• 28:37
  could be a screenwriter. I took a class where they made us writing screenplay.
• 28:42
  I didn't want to because I was supposed to be a producern detective writer.
• 28:47
  I took the class. I wrote the script, the teacher read it.
• 28:51
  Next thing, you know, Meg Ryan's cash, Next thing you know,
• 28:55
  by the way that all of that is true. It's all true,
• 28:59
  and it's just I just took out that year and a half writer boot camp
• 29:03
  art. Well, okay, can you can you explain kind of what happened
• 29:10
  between the version that you thought was good that your manager didn't think was very
• 29:14
  good, and the one that he finally thought was good. I mean,
• 29:15
  what changed. It was just learning a lot about story structure and character development
• 29:22
  and conflict and all the things that I work with writers now and I coached
• 29:27
  them through this process. And the thing is, there's such a big gap
• 29:32
  between good and amazing. And there are a lot of writers who, you
• 29:37
  know, they'll read some books, they'll read some scripts, they'll watch law
• 29:40
  moves and TV shows. They have with us some natural abilities. They worked
• 29:44
  hard, they house plans or in a writing group, and they can get
• 29:47
  themselves up to good or maybe really good, but they can't hip themselves up
• 29:51
  to amazing. And it's order to gain and it's different for each person.
• 29:53
  But we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 30:03
  to the show. You know, everybody has inherent strengths as a writer.
• 30:07
  Everybody has inherent weaknesses, and everybody has blind spots and blint spots or weaknesses
• 30:14
  that you don't know that you have. So when I'm working with someone,
• 30:18
  the first thing is to help them understand what their blind spots are so at
• 30:21
  least now they're known weaknesses as opposed that unknown. But then really important thing
• 30:26
  is helping people get dedicated exercises and dedicated practice so that they can turn weaknesses
• 30:34
  into strength. And it absolutely can be done. It takes time, it
• 30:38
  takes training, and the key is to work with someone who can help coach
• 30:42
  you through that because the thing that fast for a lot of people is a
• 30:48
  lot of the books and classes they're teaching rules and they're feaching paradigms and formulas,
• 30:55
  and the industry is moving so far away from that. You know,
• 31:00
  most agency managers won't even look at you if if that's what you're doing,
• 31:06
  because that's not something they can work with it anymore. But also, be
• 31:10
  you learn a bunch of rules in a paradigm, you feel educated, but
• 31:14
  you haven't become a better writer. It's not that insight out process approach,
• 31:18
  which is what are my strengths, what are my weaknesses, what are my
• 31:22
  blind spots? And then how do I tread weaknesses and to strength. That's
• 31:29
  that's the road to transformation. And the thing is manager, especially good managers,
• 31:34
  that's that's what they will do. They'll you know, they have their
• 31:38
  client base, they're making money, they have their b team, they know
• 31:42
  they'll they'll take some people they think have potential and they'll develop those writers exactly
• 31:48
  the way I'm talking about. Or you can get mentored by you know,
• 31:55
  a success the writers can help coach you through that process. Unfortunately, a
• 31:59
  lot of us classes and the books do the opposite. And that's probably sounds
• 32:04
  really self serving because at some point I'll do commercials for my workshops and for
• 32:07
  my workshops, and I get that, and you know, and so if
• 32:10
  you want to take all this with with a cymical game of call, I
• 32:14
  understand. But the thing is what I endeavor to doing my workshops is to
• 32:19
  help people have to get a card training that they would get if it had
• 32:23
  a manager or a mentor. And obviously, and I tell everyone that if
• 32:29
  you have a choice between my workshop and an actual manager or a writer who
• 32:32
  can mentor, you obviously go with the manager or the writer, because like
• 32:37
  that's better than the workshop. The workshops is there for people who aren't able
• 32:40
  to get that at this point. And so I get a lot of in
• 32:45
  the face student, you have a lot of education in the realm of rules
• 32:50
  and paradigms, and they're writing they're not overcoming core weaknesses. So they keep
• 32:55
  writing scripts that are similarly flawed, and they're writing formulaic, predictable, generic
• 33:02
  kinds of scripts, which is exactly the wrong kind of script to workout.
• 33:14
  Okay, Now, so I assume things like save the Cad and all those
• 33:19
  things are kind of like, you know, you would consider that really going
• 33:23
  in the wrong direction, that people aren't looking for that sort of thing anymore.
• 33:28
  Yeah. So, and again the thing is, it's not what I
• 33:31
  say, but AGNs the managers saying, right, because otherwise it's like I'm
• 33:37
  somebody in the saying, oh, don't listen to that teacher or writer.
• 33:42
  Come listen to me and spend your mind, you know, right. So
• 33:45
  it's like, Okay, it doesn't matter what it's what I say, and
• 33:49
  that is an agency managers say. And so the reality is agents and managers
• 33:54
  in this marketplace, in feature and in TV are looking for pitch perfect authentic
• 34:00
  script, and they're looking for scripts that are authentic, which means authentic characters
• 34:07
  but an authentic voice. It's a script we haven't seen before, it's a
• 34:10
  story we haven't seen before. That is pitch perfect execution, very difficult to
• 34:15
  achieve this as a writer. But putting out aside, these scripts go virole,
• 34:21
  which means when someone writes the script like this and shows as its own
• 34:24
  industry, they talk about it and they say it's all the friends, and
• 34:29
  a script gets passed around and there's a buzz, and that's what's required to
• 34:34
  brace the writer out of all of the light noise that everybody's trying to break
• 34:37
  in the business. So if I'm an agent and I find you, and
• 34:43
  now I'm getting on the phone, I don't know, you might have fold
• 34:47
  a bunch of stuff out of my lot, might have a lot of credibilities.
• 34:50
  Let's just say you're a newer writer, nobody really knows who you are,
• 34:53
  and you don't really have any credibility. Again, I'm not saying that's
• 34:55
  true for you, but let's just say that's true. So I'm an agent,
• 35:00
  I'm now calling everybody's saying you got to read Jason script. And I'm
• 35:04
  basically putting my credibility on the line. I'm chasing people to read your script
• 35:07
  and they'll eventually do it, but they're busy and they'll get to it eventually.
• 35:12
  As opposed to if you write a script that everyone's buzzing about. Everybody's
• 35:16
  talking about, but I'll you write that's It's like what used to be the
• 35:20
  Blacklist, those Blacklist script everybody's talking about the script. Everybody's buzzing about those
• 35:24
  scripts. Now people are calling me the agent things. How come I'm not
• 35:28
  meeting with you know, Kason. I want to meet with Jason. That's
• 35:30
  a whole different game, and more importantly than that is. So let's look
• 35:37
  at this way. If you're an agent, let's say you have your basic
• 35:43
  like me, your sort of basic client. And so here's here's how the
• 35:47
  Corey Mandel game worked. There be a writing assignment. You would call and
• 35:54
  say, I think Corey is perfect for this and here's why. And they
• 35:58
  probably have heard of me. I've got a track record. They say,
• 36:04
  sure, we'll put Corey's name on the list. So I now get to
• 36:07
  compete for that job. I was rage is to doing the same thing.
• 36:10
  Bunch of writers are competing for that job. I don't get it. So
• 36:15
  now you're calling somewhere else and you're getting me to compete for another job.
• 36:19
  You're putting energy and eventually I book a job and you get ten percent of
• 36:23
  my money and I made really good money, So you're making ten percent of
• 36:28
  really good money. Okay, that's not too terrible as an agent, but
• 36:32
  you know, my agent also represents Aaron Sorkin. So first of all,
• 36:37
  when Aaron Sorkin makes a tremendous amount more money than I do, number one,
• 36:42
  so right away, much more valuable players. But number two, how
• 36:45
  do you get Aaron Sorkin a job? Yeah, answer the phone winner,
• 36:49
  and everybody's right. He's an a less writer. So a basic working writer
• 36:54
  is always chasing job. An aimless writer, everyone's chasing him. So someone
• 37:00
  calls my agent and then we stopped this novel. We think Aaron perfect for
• 37:06
  you know, I don't know exactly what my agent does, but he probably
• 37:07
  said this Czern's cloak is probably really high and you would read to it.
• 37:13
  And then I'll give Aaron the book and see if Aaron make interested. I
• 37:15
  mean, you would rather have one Aaron Sorkin than twenty Corny Mandel. And
• 37:22
  so as an agent, you're looking for people who have the potential to be
• 37:28
  a list writers in both TV and future because that's where all the money is.
• 37:34
  And someone who follows save the cat or other such sort of paradigm formulas.
• 37:42
  These scripts do not become a list writers. So when you look at
• 37:45
  scripts that have launched a lest career like Juneo, like you know, American
• 37:54
  beauty, like Madneting, we can go on, and they're not following the
• 38:00
  paradise. They're offensive. Scripts are original. And so I'm an agent and
• 38:07
  somebody has written to one of these formulas that a lot of summer movies are
• 38:13
  going to follow. And by the way, just between you and me,
• 38:15
  I wrote a lot of summer movies and I often would follow formulas because if
• 38:20
  you're working for Warner Brothers and they're doing Next Man five, they're not looking
• 38:25
  for American beauty, I think, so so many can sort of secut on
• 38:28
  that hero's journey paradise. The thing is, let's say you're an original writer,
• 38:36
  a new a new writer, and you write one of those scripts.
• 38:38
  It's not as easy as it looks to really make it interesting. It's not
• 38:42
  as easy as it looks to fault. It's sort of like idea, not
• 38:44
  as easy as it looks to follow the form. So let's say you can
• 38:46
  do it. Let's say you can do it, And so people would script
• 38:50
  a brand new writer, Like, hey, this guy can smartly follow a
• 38:53
  formula. Who cares? Really? Who gives it that? You know what?
• 38:58
  Because there's a lot of writers that can do that. And some of
• 39:01
  those writers are like Corny Mandel who has worked for really big people, and
• 39:07
  like Ribby Scott and we'll seeing through the They've always want to work with me
• 39:10
  again. So like, that's gives me a lot of credibility. I have
• 39:15
  a track record where I've worked under deadline. I've did in situations before I'm
• 39:19
  turning a script in the studio called me and they want a completely different direction
• 39:23
  and I can pull that off. I've proven that I could pull that off.
• 39:27
  So I have a huge advantage over you. And then of course the
• 39:30
  person who wrote Guardians the Galaxy has an enormous advantage over me, you know,
• 39:36
  because they've written something that's made a tremendous amount of money. My point,
• 39:42
  there's people who can follow up. There's a lot of people can follow
• 39:44
  up paradigm. They have a track record. You don't, So why does
• 39:47
  anybody care? Nobody cares. That's the agency are constantly sending me people to
• 39:52
  my classes. It's like I can't brace somebody into the business because they followed
• 39:59
  a conventional paradigm. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:07
  and now back to the show, because nobody will read that, like nobody
• 40:13
  cares as opposed to you write a script that nobody's seeing before. It's really
• 40:20
  fresh and exciting, and it gets people's attention. It's what's called a head
• 40:23
  turning script. Now, I worked with someone who spent you know, a
• 40:29
  year and a half well to write that script. Wrote that script. They
• 40:31
  didn't sell, and they got offered like, oh, I think it was
• 40:36
  like three hundred crand to write Canda Bear three year Canada there a four and
• 40:39
  he like calls me like, I don't know if I should do it or
• 40:42
  not because they worked so hard to be able to write to this level.
• 40:45
  Now they're offering me a lot of money to do a formulaic you know,
• 40:50
  paint by the number scrapped, and what do I do? And my answer
• 40:52
  was, my job is to help you to get to the point where you
• 40:57
  have that decision. Because you make the decision like I could, I think
• 41:00
  it will go either like personally, meet, I just really took the job.
• 41:04
  I always took the money. I don't think that was smart, but
• 41:07
  that's what I did. But my point is the disconnect that a lot of
• 41:13
  people make is there's just people that are like code breakers. They go,
• 41:16
  look at all these movies coming out in the thumber. I decoded what happens
• 41:21
  on every page. And then they teach this paradigm and then writers go,
• 41:24
  well, I should write script that you know is commercial. If I want
• 41:29
  to break in the business, this is what the studios are in summer,
• 41:32
  I should write script like that. And it's the exact opposes that's true.
• 41:36
  Agents will tell you. Most of the clients I signed, I signed off
• 41:43
  of scripts that I was really confident I couldn't sell because they were different their
• 41:46
  original Like Harriic Singer wrote the script The Sky Respall. It is so violent,
• 41:52
  so dark, that nobody was going to buy the script, like nobody,
• 41:57
  but everybody had to meet this guy, had to meet the guy who
• 42:00
  wrote it, and people want to find a way to work with it.
• 42:04
  And so he was booking assignments and making what I think is nine six figure
• 42:07
  income year in and year out, and kept writing original material and eventually one
• 42:13
  of those one thing he wrote got made as an American hustle and now I
• 42:16
  was, you know, a big ay of us writer, probably making in
• 42:20
  you know, millions of dollars, But for many, many years he was
• 42:24
  a working writer making six figure income off of a script that didn't follow the
• 42:30
  paradigms, didn't follow the part. It was just so original and so dark
• 42:36
  and so messed up in a good way that everybody topped that script right.
• 42:40
  Everybody said, have you read this? Guy? I saw, You've got
• 42:43
  to read this st That's what agents and managers, you know, that's what
• 42:47
  they want. They want something different and original. And even if that is
• 42:55
  a sample that you use to start writing break down the middle, save the
• 43:00
  cat somewhere strips, fine, but you can't. It's really difficult to break
• 43:07
  in the business writing a strip like that because it's a dame that doesn't it
• 43:12
  just nobody cares. Can you talk a little bit about, for example,
• 43:20
  when you're looking for people who are trying to break in as screenwriters, you
• 43:23
  know, what are the essential things that they need to do if they're I'm
• 43:29
  assuming what you're saying is people need to submit just amazing samples. I mean,
• 43:35
  let's say you don't have a vehicle where somebody like Meg Ryan wants your
• 43:38
  screenplay and you're you're just going the direct way and saying, I want to
• 43:43
  find an agent to you know, to support me. What is the what
• 43:47
  kind of spec screenplay do you think they that were kind of like work for
• 43:52
  them? Well, so what works for people? Again, it's it's perfect
• 43:54
  authentic, and authentic would be you know, a script that you could have
• 44:00
  written this completely original so you know, you know, David Tyler wasn't sent
• 44:06
  around going I wonder what'll sell in the marketplace? That bet a scripts about
• 44:09
  you know guy as a stuttering problem. That the King's speech was just something
• 44:15
  that he was really impassionate to write. He had you know, he's publicly
• 44:19
  discussed that he had had a stuttering issue and there was just a very personally
• 44:24
  important script to him and he wrote up strip and uh, you know,
• 44:30
  he wasn't trying to gain the marketplace. He was just writing a script with
• 44:32
  an amazing character, amazing story that was he was really impassionate about. And
• 44:37
  you read that script, it doesn't read like any other script. It's like
• 44:40
  you read American Beauty. You don't tell another one of these scripts. There's
• 44:45
  just something original about it and different, and it doesn't have to be a
• 44:49
  quirky character piece. Again, this guy is following, you know, about
• 44:52
  the end of the world, and these priests are just going around killing people.
• 44:54
  And it's very dark and it's very violent. It's certainly about Juno from
• 45:00
  a total point of view, but there's just something you hadn't seen that before,
• 45:06
  and there's something unique and powerful. And so we look at a script
• 45:08
  like Groundhog Day. You know, it is a classic rom com, but
• 45:14
  it just doesn't You don't read that suspect script, you know, after we
• 45:17
  had another rom com script and it killed myself. It's is different. There's
• 45:22
  just something different and original and exciting and fresh about it. That's the kind
• 45:29
  of script. And the thing is when I go and speak at again,
• 45:36
  you know, I always hear writers complain, Oh, it's so hard to
• 45:38
  get an agent's hard to get a manager. No one wants to read at
• 45:40
  work, No one wants to represent me. The only want to represent known
• 45:45
  commodity. Thing is that that's just not true. I've the last a couple
• 45:50
  of days that are being with managers and they all have the same complaints.
• 45:55
  We can't find enough new, really great writers, you know, and they're
• 46:02
  all like, who your students shouldn't read. They're there. They cannot find
• 46:08
  enough. There's so many opportunities for writers, to particular in TV, but
• 46:14
  more and more in features. The thing is, it's not looking it's not
• 46:17
  looking for new writers. That's that's pretty easy. And it's not looking for
• 46:22
  new writers who thinks they're really great, because that's a lot of those people.
• 46:25
  It's new writers who really are amazing. I mean, if you look
• 46:30
  at the script for Juno, you look at the script for American Beauty,
• 46:35
  you look at the script for Madness. Yeah, yeah, sorry, my
• 46:45
  phone did the word thing? I do it, sir? I mean,
• 46:47
  these are these are amazing scripts. So like I know the guys that wrote
• 46:57
  they wrote the spect script for the Nix, the TV show. I mean
• 47:00
  that script was really great. And Stephen Sodenberg, who had retired, we
• 47:08
  got that script and read it and that lured him back. People still talk
• 47:14
  about the Game of Firms pilot script. It is just an amazing piece of
• 47:19
  writing. The Americans. I remember that pilot went around child and everybody was
• 47:24
  about Everybody was talking about that script. And the thing is there's a lot
• 47:30
  of skill and the build it goes in the writing at that level at the
• 47:34
  highest level, and if a new writer can write to that level, managers
• 47:45
  are looking for them. The the scarcity here and I'm sorry, I used
• 47:53
  to be in the colonists of socimbis with an old pattern. The scarcity is
• 47:58
  not on a So now this is really important because if they're if the scarcity
• 48:04
  was on that front, which is what everybody thinks, which means you've got
• 48:08
  all of these new writers who can write an amazing trips and there's just not
• 48:13
  enough agents and managers to go around. If that was the case and you
• 48:17
  were one of those writers, how do you persevere? Well, Luck,
• 48:23
  connections, relationships, that's what those that's what if you're a new, amazing
• 48:30
  talent as a writer. And I'm not saying you're gonna sit at home and
• 48:34
  they'll find you, but I'm just saying getting the manager is actually easy because
• 48:38
  they're looking for you. HBO has executives who are out going to len at
• 48:46
  play, looking through YouTube. They're they're looking for fresh, original, new
• 48:52
  voices. The thing is, there's obviously a lot of people out there that
• 49:00
  want to be writers, having an original, unique voice and take have passion
• 49:05
  about this, have read books. There's a lot of those people, that
• 49:12
  percentage of those people who can write pitch perfect, who can write the level
• 49:17
  that people are looking for, you know, is one hundredth of one percent
• 49:23
  at best. And so the key is I think a lot of writers get
• 49:30
  taken advantage of because there are businesses out there that basically say, what stands
• 49:37
  between you and a career is access, and don't worry. I can help
• 49:43
  solve that part. You know, I'm going to have this pitch best or
• 49:45
  I'm going to shop your scripter, I'm going to list your stricter, I'm
• 49:49
  whatever. I'm going to help you get access. If you're willing to give
• 49:52
  me some money, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
• 50:00
  And now back to the show. So, you know, there was a
• 50:06
  pitch back that I used to go and teach at and I'm not doing it
• 50:08
  anymore. I just don't feel good about doing it because there's you know,
• 50:13
  five to six hundred people coming to LA paying hundreds and thousands, not hundreds
• 50:19
  of thousands, hundreds or thousands of dollars, and they get the pitch in
• 50:23
  front of people, and they get five minutes to pitch in front of the
• 50:27
  selling. Well, no one's going to buy their pitch, but what they
• 50:29
  might do is like your pitch, like your energy, like you geez,
• 50:34
  can you write at all? They will be that blunt about it. If
• 50:37
  that, they'll say, give me a writing sample, and then it's that
• 50:40
  writing sample is amazing or close to amazing, then we'll bring you in for
• 50:45
  a meeting and it really start to see if something can be either. And
• 50:47
  it was just talking to all those executives and a lot of them are like,
• 50:50
  yeah, we're just not going to do this anymore because we've gone through
• 50:52
  three or four years worth of these. We've asked for a couple of hundred
• 50:57
  writing samples, and so far now writing sample was anywhere near good enough for
• 51:02
  us to bring that person in. So this is a complete waste of time
• 51:07
  for everybody involved. So now, obviously, if a listener, if they
• 51:14
  are in a position they're at that point zero one and one percess. They're
• 51:16
  a new writer, they don't have a track directors, they don't have an
• 51:20
  agent manager, and they are writing pisto perfect effect, and they're able to
• 51:24
  do this. Sure, if there's someone can help them get some access,
• 51:30
  why not. But the reality is for most weill just spending so much time
• 51:36
  and energy and maybe money trying to solve the access part of this, as
• 51:42
  opposed to spending time and energy figuring out where they are as a writer and
• 51:50
  less they need to do and get to become a bet a writer. So
• 51:52
  it's sort of like people are spending all this money to get interviews for surgeon's
• 51:59
  job because they really want to be a surgeon because it's it's good money and
• 52:01
  it's good benefits. They've never been in medical school, so yeah, you
• 52:05
  can spend all this money and get an interview at the hospital, but they're
• 52:07
  ever going to hire you, you know, as opposed to spend your time
• 52:10
  and energy actually getting medical training so that you're qualified for the job. There's
• 52:15
  so many people out there who just aren't qualified and they're not doing the training
• 52:21
  to get there. Now, do you think that getting a manager is an
• 52:25
  important step to like, I mean, should you try and do that before
• 52:30
  you try to go find an agent? You know, get get you in
• 52:34
  shape? For for all bunch of reasons. Agents, especially these days,
• 52:42
  they are sells people. They are not there to help your careers, are
• 52:45
  not there to develop you. They're not there to take your script and say
• 52:47
  it's it's close, but it needs to get better. They're just a sales
• 52:52
  force and the manager is someone that is going to help develop you, help
• 53:00
  understand your career. So the first thing, yeah, I would definitely go
• 53:05
  for a manager before you get an agent. First of all, a manager
• 53:08
  will let you know when you're ready for an agent, and they'll protect you
• 53:14
  and not and keep you from agents until you're ready to help develop you.
• 53:16
  If they're a good manager, careful a lot of bad managers are they able
• 53:20
  to assume it's a good manager, and then when it gets to the point
• 53:22
  where you're ready for an agent, they'll know who's a good agent for you.
• 53:29
  Because the thing is is all agents have a superpower of they'll sit in
• 53:32
  a room and somehow know what it is you want to hear and tell you
• 53:37
  what you want to hear, even if it's not true. So a manager
• 53:43
  is going to know you, your personality, your writing, and they're going
• 53:46
  to be in a place to help figure out what would be a good agent
• 53:52
  for you. Is there any way to make sure that you're finding the I
• 53:55
  mean a good agent, I mean where where is that kind of where do
• 54:00
  you find them? Well, so the thing is that you don't Okay,
• 54:05
  you don't find nature because I mean sorry, I was talking about a manager.
• 54:08
  Where how do you like, how do you go about finding a manager?
• 54:13
  Right? So it's actually not that hard. So the one thing you
• 54:20
  want to be careful about. I'm starting to see more and more of these
• 54:23
  management companies are just taking advantage of people. So like you don't want to
• 54:27
  find some managers that's charging you. You don't want to manager that's taking ten
• 54:30
  percent of anything. You know, it's like one manager it copan is actually
• 54:36
  like taking if you're an editor or a web designer, they're gonna take ten
• 54:40
  percent of your income. So there's there's these scams out there. You got
• 54:45
  to be careful of that. But that aside what you're looking for. It's
• 54:51
  not hard to network. It's not hard to find out like who the good
• 54:53
  management companies are. And so you know the management companies, you reach out
• 55:00
  them and you just reach out to like the lowest person, like the the
• 55:04
  intern or the creative executive who's reading strips. It's the lowest person on the
• 55:09
  food chain. You have a nice little thirty seconds, lend minute, a
• 55:14
  little presentation. You call enough of them, there's a big chance to find
• 55:20
  one or two of them. They'll take a look at the script. It's
• 55:22
  really means we'll to take a look at first couple of pages to see if
• 55:25
  you can know how to write, and if your script's amazing, you know,
• 55:30
  there's a really good chance that that you'll hear back from them. The
• 55:35
  thing is is, I know a lot of those people. A lot of
• 55:37
  those people are my students, and they'll tell you ninety nine percent of the
• 55:40
  time, yeah, they're amazing. App is how bad the scripts are?
• 55:45
  You know, it's not amazing. It's not amazing. If there's writers out
• 55:50
  there that think they're where they are, there's writers that think the script is
• 55:52
  really great and it's not. What they find amazing is like how wide that
• 55:58
  gap could be. So it's not it's not hard at this point to get
• 56:06
  people in management companies, especially like the lowest level person to take a look.
• 56:12
  And if you live in LA like these folks who like these newer people
• 56:16
  to manage with company, they're networking, so they're always going to network events
• 56:21
  to go in the writers build events or at screens or at certain parties.
• 56:23
  It's not hard to get plugged into that circle. If you live in LA.
• 56:27
  And if you don't live in LA, that's okay, you don't have
• 56:30
  to move to LA. You know, with the Internet, it's not hard
• 56:34
  to find out who these people are and reach out to people via Twitter and
• 56:38
  Facebook and email, and it's just it's it's not that hard to get people
• 56:43
  to read script. I'm not saying it's easy, But what I say is
• 56:49
  training yourself to be able to write the kind of script that when somebody reads
• 56:53
  it it has a positive outcome for you. That's so much harder been getting
• 57:00
  someone to read the script. And the mistake the biggest intakes that writers make
• 57:04
  is that you go out to management company, you get someone to read your
• 57:07
  script. It's just not that good. It's probably it like, it's probably
• 57:09
  not going to read in those scripts and a database the stuff. So suddenly
• 57:14
  maybe you have got to just burn your bridges there. You might have burned
• 57:16
  your bridge elsewhere. Your first impression is prescious, and you're like a minor
• 57:25
  leaguer and when you get pulled up to the majors, you have to hit
• 57:30
  all the running your first time. That's not how it works in baseball,
• 57:31
  right, It's you're a minor leaguer you show a lot of potential, you
• 57:35
  go out to the majors, you strike out the first time, they probably
• 57:37
  don't send you back. It's probably get the batting coach they work with you.
• 57:40
  You strike out enough times, they're going to send you back. It's
• 57:44
  not like that here. There's so many writers one who wakes in the business.
• 57:47
  There's so many people that it's sort of like you get your shot,
• 57:52
  and if you don't not get out of the park, you might not get
• 57:55
  those shots. Fact, here's something that's pretty chilling, and I'm not going
• 58:01
  to quote the name because I don't have permission, but not that long ago,
• 58:07
  talking to an agent at a at a one of the bigger agencies,
• 58:12
  and they said something that this. I think it's really important for listenings to
• 58:16
  hear this. He said. If you you think, they said, if
• 58:23
  we read the script from a new writer and we don't think that script is
• 58:28
  just pitch perfect, authentic, now kind of represent that writer. Ever,
• 58:34
  they're blacklisted. And at first I got kind of a set because I know
• 58:39
  for fact that if writers can engage in the right trying of training, they
• 58:45
  can dramatically improve and so okay, so this writer maybe isn't where they need
• 58:50
  to be today, but two years from now or two years from now or
• 58:53
  four years from now, they might be an amazing writer. And so I
• 58:58
  just got a set. You know, the teacher in me got really set,
• 59:00
  and I started to push back, and he knew exactly where I was
• 59:04
  going and shut me down and said, no, no, you don't get
• 59:06
  it, because we made a strategic decision to not be in the stupid writers
• 59:12
  business. And that's when I was like, whoa, Okay, now I
• 59:15
  don't know what you're what are you talking about, because because it's really simple,
• 59:17
  it's just point. You know, if you get hired by Voltane Peterson
• 59:22
  to write the script, you have a deadline, like at some point you've
• 59:24
  got to turn that script in no matter what, and you got to make
• 59:29
  it as good as you can. But you've got a deadline. He goes,
• 59:30
  if you're trying to break in the business, there's no deadline. So
• 59:35
  if you're trying to break in the business and you have moved mountains to get
• 59:37
  me to read your strict or someone else in my agency, if that script
• 59:43
  is not pitch perfect, authentic, you're an idiot, and we don't want
• 59:47
  to represent stupid writers. Because even if they're writing includes, they're so stupid.
• 59:52
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. Now back to
• 1:00:00
  the show. And stupid writers they just take more time and energy, they
• 1:00:06
  create more messes. It's just you don't want to be in a stupid writer
• 1:00:09
  business. And I would respectfully disagree with this person because I work with writers
• 1:00:16
  and I know that a lot of writers go out with scripts when they shouldn't.
• 1:00:21
  And it's not because they're stupid. It's just because they're insecure. It's
• 1:00:24
  because they're impatient, it's because they're delusion fold, it's just they're listening to
• 1:00:30
  their own people, because I know what it's like if you're writing group or
• 1:00:34
  your teacher is telling the script, or even worse, people spend money.
• 1:00:38
  They go online and they hire someone to do coverage of the script and script
• 1:00:43
  consultant. And if people have really good, impressive credit. Well, the
• 1:00:49
  thing is is if you're online marketing yourself as a reader or script consultant,
• 1:00:54
  that's probably a big part of your business. And so you want to repeat
• 1:00:59
  customer earth and happy customers are repeat customers. So a lot of these folks
• 1:01:02
  have reputation for skewing everything positive. I'm not saying that's true of all of
• 1:01:07
  them, but a lot of them. And so you know, someone will
• 1:01:13
  go online, find someone who used to work at dream Works and Warner Brothers
• 1:01:16
  and pay this person X amount of money and then this person says, your
• 1:01:21
  script's brilliant, you should go out to the marketplace. I can't understand how
• 1:01:25
  that writer would feel confident. And that doesn't mean the stupidest means they're a
• 1:01:30
  little big, a little naive, but they're not stupid. So but the
• 1:01:35
  point is people get blacklisted, yet your first impression means so much. And
• 1:01:43
  every agent managers everything in the money feeling concess and kind of workshops. They
• 1:01:46
  always say single biggest mistakes that writers make new writers is going out to the
• 1:01:52
  marketplace before they're ready. Right, So can we I want to change gears
• 1:02:04
  for just a second and talk about actual the actual writing process and some of
• 1:02:08
  the ways that people can improve. Now when you talk about not using these
• 1:02:12
  paradigms and things like, you know, the structures that are kind of pre
• 1:02:15
  built and it's kind of like writing by numbers or whatever, you know,
• 1:02:21
  for a lot of people, and a lot of the screenwriters that I've talked
• 1:02:23
  to that are not at the same level you are, but they're writing independent
• 1:02:27
  films, they kind of rely on that stuff to you know, when they
• 1:02:32
  go into the abyss and they're trying to put that together their story, they
• 1:02:36
  use that sometimes to kind of put things together and figure out, you know,
• 1:02:39
  how everything's gonna look. What is your advice for you know, let's
• 1:02:44
  say, for example, before you're ever writing and sitting down and you know,
• 1:02:49
  writing the actual screenplay, what is your process for building that blueprint and
• 1:02:53
  that structure of your story before you begin. So that's a great question.
• 1:03:00
  I'm gonna have to respectfually say, like that would be an entire podcast in
• 1:03:04
  itself, but here's what I'll say. So, you know, I got
• 1:03:08
  hired to write Metropolis where us got at the tapline. I'm in London,
• 1:03:12
  Like it's the second night. We're having dinner, and the producer leans over
• 1:03:16
  and says, hey, I know you you go to easily stump store.
• 1:03:20
  Yes, I do, because you've learned that three S structure of byss and
• 1:03:22
  that point and all that stuff. But I'm like, yes, I have,
• 1:03:25
  because if you try and write Metropolics to that, yes you've different work.
• 1:03:30
  I will fire you so fast your head will stand and I'll bring me
• 1:03:32
  in a real lighter and I I thought he was joking, and I started
• 1:03:37
  laughing, and then he said, I am not joking. You know it
• 1:03:42
  So fortunate no part of the day took me under their wing and they taught
• 1:03:45
  me storyline and or damnic story structure because it actually finished the story and all
• 1:03:52
  back traffic. So you know, Leamon was on the front page Variety that
• 1:03:55
  really Scott was making it. I got invided all these big cardis around.
• 1:04:00
  I was the guy for like seven minutes, and I was then already actually
• 1:04:03
  in my agents the house, and you know, Calichory's there, you know
• 1:04:06
  s Form and all these writers who like had careers I could only dream of,
• 1:04:13
  and it was shocking. They all just make fun of the writers who
• 1:04:17
  follow these paradigms. And so one of the things I do when I feel
• 1:04:20
  like because a lot of my students have had that paradigm hammered into them,
• 1:04:28
  is I'll bring in an agent from an agency and I'll ask them to bring
• 1:04:31
  in of all the writers they signed in the last year, to bring in
• 1:04:35
  the scripts that they signed those writers off the because okay, if it's Calichorius
• 1:04:43
  Selman Ludies. If it's Salpla codius juno, you know, you can your
• 1:04:46
  listeners, can you get access to those scripts. But a lot of time,
• 1:04:50
  you know, Fasaric singer and it's the guy's fault and that script didn't
• 1:04:54
  get mad and there's a good chance that's not sitting there on the internet.
• 1:04:57
  So a lot of writers when they get signed. You know, I worked
• 1:05:00
  as a writer, just recently coached the writer through the TV pilot. It
• 1:05:03
  didn't sell, but it got her all these meetings and she's got a four
• 1:05:08
  hundred thousand dollars overall deal at on the studio. But you're not going to
• 1:05:11
  find that script online. So data's will bring in the script that they signing
• 1:05:16
  people off of. And then I just have everybody go through the scripts and
• 1:05:21
  you can take any of the paradigms that you want, and just how many
• 1:05:25
  of those scripts all the paradigns And the answer is usually none, or you
• 1:05:30
  know, one or two, but very rarely. That's where we start in
• 1:05:34
  my costs, because it isn't about well, Corey says this thing, and
• 1:05:40
  this teacher says that thing, and this is just said that thing. You
• 1:05:43
  know, it's just about what the reality is in the market spe I think
• 1:05:46
  a big reason that people follow the paradigm is an it's easiest to really understand
• 1:05:55
  organic story structure and story design. It takes. It takes training and skill
• 1:06:00
  because the whole nother, like a lot of people think what they want to
• 1:06:02
  do is plotting. People don't understand they're interesting plotting and the story. So
• 1:06:06
  a plot is this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens,
• 1:06:11
  and then this happens. And you're trying to make those things interesting or
• 1:06:15
  funny or scary or thrilling, you know, whatever kind of script you're trying
• 1:06:20
  to Okay, and you're very focused on this happens, and this happens,
• 1:06:24
  and this happens. Oh, and then this happens, and wow, this
• 1:06:27
  happens. That's the plot. Story is the whole difference that makes it interesting.
• 1:06:31
  The story makes it meaningful and impactful, and memory a whole different way
• 1:06:38
  of thinking about it. And it's the integration of story and thought. And
• 1:06:42
  there's just a lot of training and skill sets that go into it. It
• 1:06:45
  can be taught, it can be learned. This is the kind of work
• 1:06:48
  that the top managers do with their rights. This is and here's the quick
• 1:06:54
  well commercial plug. It's what I do in the workshop. And so a
• 1:06:59
  lot of people don't have that training. So then their only options is follow
• 1:07:04
  paradise or just follow their instincts to sort of follow their impulses instincts, or
• 1:07:10
  allow the character around. But here's the thing. If you follow your characters
• 1:07:12
  around, they'll do a lot of interesting things. It's just not going to
• 1:07:15
  turn into a really compelling story, which hardly and if you follow your instincts
• 1:07:20
  and impulses, you can write a really interesting first draft. But there aren't
• 1:07:28
  many people in the world whose instincts and impulses consistently drive to a successful story.
• 1:07:33
  There's a lapis into it's perfect authentic. So you know, I think
• 1:07:40
  for a lot of people, their choices are follow up paradigm. We'll kind
• 1:07:45
  of make this step up and follow my instincts, and that second option generally
• 1:07:51
  does not lead to subtest. So that's why they follow the paradise. How
• 1:07:59
  people follow our agents, so that it's been lied too, you know,
• 1:08:00
  they've been told this is what readers look for. You won't be considered by
• 1:08:04
  an agent if you don't do this, and it's the opposite. In my
• 1:08:08
  current class, I've got like four different readers, and they each one and
• 1:08:12
  I didn't say that. Each one all on their own said, you know,
• 1:08:15
  to the class, we've been told to throw away any descripts the quality
• 1:08:20
  paradigms because nobody's interested in those kinds of descripts or writer especially I'm a TV
• 1:08:26
  for it, so it takes, you know, if I do an entire
• 1:08:32
  eighth week workshop in stories of science, So it's it's not feasible for me
• 1:08:40
  to answer that question in the short space. But for the listeners, you
• 1:08:46
  know, what I would say is and don't take my word for it.
• 1:08:50
  You don't know me. I'm pretty this guy. But maybe if you don't
• 1:08:55
  know means and I but don't take the other. Don't take any other guests
• 1:08:59
  on this podcast word for it. That's my opinion. Don't take your teacher's
• 1:09:01
  work for it does take some famous gurus. Don't don't see anyone's word for
• 1:09:05
  It's too important. Get your hands on scripts that have lost careers. That's
• 1:09:12
  not that hard to do. If you network around, you can reach out
• 1:09:15
  to writers and stay able to be possible to see the script that launched your
• 1:09:16
  career. It's not that hard to get or if you know agents or managers
• 1:09:20
  or you know someone orks for an agent, a maeragers, it's just not
• 1:09:23
  that hard in the electronic PDF world to get your hands on script. But
• 1:09:29
  that's gonna be that's how far is that going to be from the ones that
• 1:09:31
  are like the published ones that you see. It's like, now, that's
• 1:09:34
  yeah, it's different, Robin as this the we're looking for the script that
• 1:09:40
  last somebody's career. We're looking for the script that you're an unknown writer,
• 1:09:43
  you wrote a script and a manager and you know, read the script that
• 1:09:45
  I'm gonna work with you or adapt the script that wm me or Cia you
• 1:09:50
  know as signed you off of We'll be right back after a word from our
• 1:09:57
  sponsor and now back to the show. Or so for instance, in my
• 1:10:08
  case, you could find Metropolis online. The script that launched my career.
• 1:10:15
  You cannot find outline. So the script that got me into a room for
• 1:10:20
  really Scott to hiring me and write Metropolis, you can't that script. You're
• 1:10:25
  not going to find outline. But you know, Metropolis is a script that
• 1:10:28
  you could find out life. But you really want to go back to the
• 1:10:30
  script. Anyway, My point is you look at those scripts and then take
• 1:10:34
  any of the paradigms that you want and ask yourself, now, it's different
• 1:10:38
  with like if you start looking at lower budget genre film, yeah, you
• 1:10:43
  know you are going to see a lot of paradigm. It says it's a
• 1:10:46
  different game, it's a different arena. Although that said, you know,
• 1:10:53
  if somebody wants to write a thriller script like you, I suggest trying to
• 1:10:59
  write an l elevated roll of script that isn't just you know, page from
• 1:11:02
  the numbers. You know, for instance, clients a lance. Now it
• 1:11:06
  doesn't really care because it's adapted from a novel. But let's just say it
• 1:11:11
  wasn't adapted from a novel, Like that's a really thrilling script, but it
• 1:11:14
  has elevated characters elevate. You write a script like that, you have a
• 1:11:17
  shot in the majors. You have a shot to launch a career. And
• 1:11:21
  if it doesn't happen, you know, you can always go down and well,
• 1:11:27
  I guess times happens kind of a it's always expensive to make a you
• 1:11:32
  know, but just a you know, a script like et Matina, you
• 1:11:39
  know, very contain one location, what two three characters. That's that's the
• 1:11:45
  kind of script. It's an elevated script. You know, I'll scars like
• 1:11:47
  that's a great script. And it's not just Paine by the number script.
• 1:11:51
  It's just what you're looking for is first of all, we're looking for characters
• 1:11:59
  that are authentic and some pal and whenever view characters that have to do certain
• 1:12:02
  things on certain pages, certain events have to happen, then they're not going
• 1:12:08
  to feel authentic. Secondly, you know, I used to be a studio
• 1:12:13
  reader and it's like you knew a script and it's like, Okay, here
• 1:12:18
  comes a big surprise event. It's so not surprising. Okay, here comes
• 1:12:23
  a big you know, insight into if you just see it coming from my
• 1:12:26
  la. And when you you know, writers are only working on one script.
• 1:12:30
  They don't understand the piles of the scripts that are moving through readers lives.
• 1:12:33
  And so when you've just read fifty scripts that are structured pretty much the
• 1:12:39
  same way, they all just get forgettable. They all feel generic, and
• 1:12:43
  then no one comes. So I was on a screaming kind of a little
• 1:12:47
  while ago, and the person some writers like, I'm writing it on a
• 1:12:50
  more spread and this expert to stop stop right now. Do just think no
• 1:12:56
  one's going to buy an more script, No agent's going to be a better
• 1:12:58
  house. But here's the thing that that person luckily didn't listen to that person.
• 1:13:01
  They broke that script and they just got fired by a team of agents
• 1:13:05
  at c A. I have no idea if that's more script becaself. Probably
• 1:13:10
  not. But it's got PA. They're not Rea, and they're taking lots
• 1:13:15
  of meetings. Because here's the thing. I'm a reader and I'm going through
• 1:13:17
  a pile script and suddenly there's this dward script doesn't have the insane incident.
• 1:13:21
  Page ten doesn't have that, not only the abyss on a certain page,
• 1:13:26
  but this kind of a bis or the fault fault low beat on the mids
• 1:13:30
  whatever. It doesn't. It's not constructed that way. It's not different for
• 1:13:33
  the sake of being different. It's different because it's an authentic story that's unfolding
• 1:13:40
  its own tape, and it has a reason for the way it structured it.
• 1:13:45
  And I just never seen a script like this. It's like, the
• 1:13:49
  next week i'm driving home, I'm thinking about that script. I ain't thinking
• 1:13:54
  about everything else. So when my boss or my friends who worked at another
• 1:13:58
  production company says, you read anything good lately. That's the script I'm going
• 1:14:01
  to talk about. That's the script that I will remember, and that's the
• 1:14:05
  script that people start talking about. That's the script that can launch your career.
• 1:14:11
  So now that said, I have a lot of clients who write those
• 1:14:15
  kind of scripts. They don't sell, they take meetings, nothing happens,
• 1:14:19
  or at another script like that doesn't sally take meetings. Maybe then the agent
• 1:14:25
  says, Okay, we really kind of took a shot at really launching you
• 1:14:29
  big. You know, maybe this next script, we do want to bend
• 1:14:32
  it a little bit more towards conventions. Let's take your unique voice. Let's
• 1:14:36
  not write a fourth square straight down the middle of take the cat script.
• 1:14:40
  Let's not do that because I will just be ignored. But let's take your
• 1:14:45
  sensibility and your abilities, and let's see if you can't bend it a little
• 1:14:47
  bit towards something a little bit more conventional than see to happen. But that's
• 1:14:53
  that's the plan. B. It's not the plan A. Right plan A
• 1:14:58
  is write something that blows people in it what you've seen before. If people
• 1:15:00
  go, oh my god, even if I can't buy this script. I
• 1:15:03
  want to meet this writer. I want to work with this writer. I
• 1:15:05
  love this writing. I would love to work with this writers. That's your
• 1:15:09
  job. Get a bunch of relationships, to get a bunch of people excited
• 1:15:12
  about you. Maybe that turns into a job, maybe it doesn't. But
• 1:15:16
  if it doesn't, you have all these sands who want to work with you.
• 1:15:18
  They're buy another script, a whole another shot, has something happening somewhere
• 1:15:24
  down the road. Yeah, and I've seen this with someone like clients to
• 1:15:29
  students. Then they'll have that conversation with their agent or narager and maybe then
• 1:15:32
  they will say, all right, why don't we write to this target.
• 1:15:38
  There's a little bit more of a commercials target, so we can at least
• 1:15:41
  get you some money. You can at least start to get your track record.
• 1:15:45
  But while you're doing that, keep writing your original stuff on the side,
• 1:15:48
  because when one of those things break, that's how you become an aimless
• 1:15:53
  writer. You know. So you think about Earns Target, you think about
• 1:15:57
  Alan Ball, you think about Davis Side like Clay the script that makes them
• 1:16:01
  or Eric Singer, you know, and you look at a script like American
• 1:16:05
  hustle. It's not following the paradigm. It's not conventionally structure script. It's
• 1:16:10
  so uniquely structured, spread with unique strider of scripts. And now even the
• 1:16:14
  A S Rider. You know, the guys who wrote The Knick, they
• 1:16:19
  they had in the late next career. They're doing comedy. You know,
• 1:16:23
  they're not competing for jobs or landing jobs making good money. They write the
• 1:16:27
  script the Nick. It's perfect authentic, you know, not following the paradigm's
• 1:16:31
  altfolling the formula. It's original, it's unique. And now after the first
• 1:16:36
  year of the NRE, you know, studio heads are taking them out to
• 1:16:42
  dinner, stars are taking them outrecture, taking out basically a scent of them
• 1:16:46
  chasing jobs. Sure, jobs are chasing them. And that's what happens when
• 1:16:55
  you write one of these scripts and it hits, and yeah, be lucky
• 1:17:00
  for it to hit. But even if it doesn't hit, it gets you
• 1:17:03
  in a room with a really scott to pitch stuff. So that's why you
• 1:17:08
  get the marriage are looking for this. So all I know is that I'm
• 1:17:14
  getting more and more people in the industry sending me writers to work with me.
• 1:17:18
  Because people will say these writers have all a great sense of dialogue.
• 1:17:24
  You can really write actions that can really do common They can really do this,
• 1:17:27
  they can really do that, but they don't know. They're just formulized.
• 1:17:31
  I get a lot of MFA students who've been taught that sort of traditional
• 1:17:35
  film school approach, which really made sense in the eighties, made a lot
• 1:17:40
  of sense in the nineties, kind of stopped making sense seven years ago.
• 1:17:45
  And now it's the kiss Aten, Now, what what's the difference with your
• 1:17:53
  students? Can you tell the ones who are going to have success and the
• 1:17:56
  ones are gonna probably drop off? No, And I've really tried to stay
• 1:18:02
  blind to that. I really think it's important that when I work with everybody,
• 1:18:08
  it gets the exact same focus and exact same enthusiasm. And the other
• 1:18:12
  thing, though, is I have worked with people who I privately thought were
• 1:18:18
  some of the worst writers I ever like, just like privately was like,
• 1:18:24
  I just don't see that their mountain is so high to CLI like, their
• 1:18:29
  weaknesses and blind slots are so abundant, and I've seen them become amazing writers
• 1:18:38
  and and go on, and I'm not going to name names obviously, but
• 1:18:42
  have really good careers certainly it's not true of all of them, but it's
• 1:18:46
  happened enough that it's got me to realize my suspect, doesn't it. It
• 1:18:55
  doesn't matter where you start. It matters where you enter, and it matters
• 1:19:01
  how committed you are, how growth mindset you are, how willing you are
• 1:19:06
  to put in the work. But put in the right amount of work.
• 1:19:10
  There's a kind of work because that's where dedicated factors comes in. So a
• 1:19:14
  lot of people buy into this idea that if you want to be really good,
• 1:19:17
  just keep writing. The more you write, the better you'll get.
• 1:19:19
  It's not true for most people. The more they write, they certainly start
• 1:19:25
  learning from mistakes. They certainly do get somewhat it's better, but there's core
• 1:19:30
  weaknesses and blowing spots they don't know. There's just consistent mistakes they make.
• 1:19:38
  But so the more they write, they just end up with a larger pile
• 1:19:43
  of similarly to flawed scripts, they get a feeling they can't get past.
• 1:19:47
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
• 1:19:55
  the show. A lot of my students come from that space, and so
• 1:20:00
  what they get excited about is are there actual exercises that can teach skill that
• 1:20:09
  can teach tools that can make them actually significantly get better. I'll see if
• 1:20:15
  you are, because we've been talking this sort of exactly and I have to
• 1:20:19
  go in a little bit and it's been a while, but i'll give if
• 1:20:24
  we have time, I can give one example of one of these skill sets.
• 1:20:27
  So at least this is at all left in the app track. Okay,
• 1:20:31
  yeah, I mean that would be good. Okay. So one of
• 1:20:34
  the skill sets is what I would call creative imization, and it basically goes
• 1:20:40
  down like that. Most writers, when you write, you can work from
• 1:20:45
  a conceptual place or an intuitive place, and these are very different muscles and
• 1:20:51
  very different approaches, and most writers are wired to work one or the other.
• 1:20:56
  So conceptual writers and intuitive writers. That's so conceptual writers tend to write
• 1:21:01
  outside in and in. Tutor writers send to work inside out. Conceptual writers
• 1:21:08
  send to When they're working, they're very focused on what other people will be
• 1:21:14
  thinking. They're very focused on plotting, They're very focused on logic, making
• 1:21:18
  sure things, make things are properly set up, pacing, having interesting things
• 1:21:24
  happening. Contutor writers have a very different navigation. They are working from an
• 1:21:30
  authentic place. They're working from a place, So what's interesting to them,
• 1:21:34
  what's true to the character, what would the character really do? A very
• 1:21:39
  different space. A conceptual writer tends to be somebody who would say, I've
• 1:21:43
  got to figure out my story before I write it, where an in tutor
• 1:21:47
  writer would say, and you know, write my story so that I can
• 1:21:51
  figure it out. Very different and so their scripts get there's a different experience
• 1:21:59
  screen the script. For instance, let's talk about characters. Conceptual writers invent
• 1:22:04
  their characters. They design their characters, and so the characters never feel real,
• 1:22:12
  they feel invensive. They on some levels feel a little bit like puppet
• 1:22:16
  who've been created at least some times to serve the plot. And these writers
• 1:22:24
  often have great ideas, they concepts, good plotting that where they're following short
• 1:22:30
  in the marketplace. If their characters aren't strong enough. Intuitive writers, it's
• 1:22:34
  a very different experience. Intuitive writers don't invense the characters. They don't design
• 1:22:41
  the characters. They discover their characters, and their characters are like real people
• 1:22:46
  to them and real people to us, and they speak like real characters or
• 1:22:54
  real people, and you can feel that they are like real characters. Black.
• 1:23:00
  The intuitive mine is so focused on what is authentic, what the characters
• 1:23:03
  really do. These writers can't construct strong stories, so they have great characters
• 1:23:12
  always in search of a strong story, where conceptual writers have all the story
• 1:23:15
  worked out that they don't have strong characters, and it gets worse than them
• 1:23:20
  with conception. Most conceptual writers, when you read their work, there's all
• 1:23:25
  all this interesting thing happening, all these interesting events are happening. It's just
• 1:23:30
  not interesting because you don't feel anything when you read it, because they didn't
• 1:23:35
  feel anything when they read the the different space that they're working in here.
• 1:23:41
  And so you've got these writers who can get half of the equations but not
• 1:23:45
  the other half. And here's the problem. Everybody always write in a way
• 1:23:51
  to try to get the best possible script. You know, if you've been
• 1:23:55
  hired by selling a studio or a network, you obviously want to write the
• 1:23:58
  best possible script. If you have an agent or a manager, you want
• 1:24:01
  them to love your script and champion it and take it out and change your
• 1:24:05
  life with it. If you don't have an agent or a manager, you
• 1:24:08
  want to write a really great script that you can get an agent or a
• 1:24:12
  manager. Or what was kind of new in the game and you're like,
• 1:24:14
  I'm not ready for an agent or a manager. You're probably trying to write
• 1:24:17
  the best possible script so that you can feel that you're not wasting your time
• 1:24:23
  and that people you show your script to, yeah, maybe you know there's
• 1:24:26
  going to be issues with it. At least the kind of feedback you guests
• 1:24:30
  leads you to believe you might have a shot and this isn't just a stupid
• 1:24:34
  dream that they're chasing. So we're going to always try to write the best
• 1:24:39
  scripts that we can write. And so what we do, knowingly or unknowingly
• 1:24:45
  is we played our strength and hide our weaknesses, which is what we should
• 1:24:49
  do. You know, if I'm trying to write my best possible script,
• 1:24:53
  I should play to my strength and hide and my weaknesses. Well, over
• 1:24:56
  time, my strengths get stronger and stronger, and my weakn to get weaker
• 1:25:00
  and weaker, and it's a big reason why writers can't get there. They
• 1:25:03
  can't get to that level they need to get to. So one of the
• 1:25:05
  skill sets that teach in my workshops is you're going to write to your weakness
• 1:25:12
  and hind your ship. So if you're a conceptual writer, You're going to
• 1:25:15
  work from a very intuitive place, so you can develop and strengthen them intuitive
• 1:25:18
  side, and so your intuitive side as strong as your conceptual side. By
• 1:25:21
  subversi, if you're an intuitive writer, you're working conceptual side, and so
• 1:25:27
  the first step is identifying your weak side and developing that, focusing on that
• 1:25:33
  until it becomes as strong as your strong side. And then the second step
• 1:25:38
  is the actual creative integration, which is learning how to integrate these two sides
• 1:25:44
  so that you can now write great characters and great story. Because pitch perfect
• 1:25:47
  authentic, authentic means you have to be a rock star on the intuitive skill
• 1:25:53
  set as an intuitive writer, and pitch perfect means you have to be a
• 1:25:57
  rock star and a conceptual side. And most people are not integrated, and
• 1:26:02
  they're writing practice leads to disintegration. So you know, you talk because structual
• 1:26:08
  writers and you at what you're working on. It's always conceptualters hanging out in
• 1:26:13
  the same space. You know, they do horror films, high concept horror
• 1:26:15
  films that you thrillers, sci fi, big idea common these actions big plot
• 1:26:21
  driven, concept driven material because they can kind of hide the fact that they're
• 1:26:29
  not that great. A characters, the dialogue. Two diviriters are writing small,
• 1:26:33
  quirky character emotional type material where it's all about the characters and the dialogue
• 1:26:42
  and the emotion, kind of hiding the fact that they're not really that good
• 1:26:45
  at story structure. Well, the thing is, there's a lot of people
• 1:26:48
  out there who can write really good emotion character stuff that can't do story structure,
• 1:26:55
  and nobody really cameters for the most part about those rights. We're looking
• 1:26:57
  for writers that can do both. When of my students directing a soulment's coming
• 1:27:02
  out in two weeks or heart structing as film for paramount comedies, texting it's
• 1:27:09
  called drunk Weddings, it's just being really hot. And so there's a buzz
• 1:27:14
  about this guy, and you know, he was complaining to me because he's
• 1:27:16
  reading all these scripts with me for his next project. And there's all these
• 1:27:19
  scripts. He says, they're really funny, great jokes, great structured,
• 1:27:25
  great idea, that characters they just feel like stock characters and there's no heart
• 1:27:30
  to it. And I'm just not gonna cook my career bag in up to
• 1:27:33
  one of these scripts because and then I read scripts that like they are great
• 1:27:40
  characters and there's a sense of like heart to it, but it's just there's
• 1:27:45
  no story, there's no stakes. The structures all over the play because it's
• 1:27:49
  so hard to find someone that can do both. And then his complaints hears
• 1:27:54
  all the time because I finally find one of those scripts and of course he's
• 1:27:59
  spoken for, you know, and and you know it's been bought by the
• 1:28:04
  major player. You know, the big players. They're buying up all these
• 1:28:09
  scripts because either they want to make it or they want to keep up and
• 1:28:13
  coming competition from Build and makes those scripts. So you know, if someone's
• 1:28:18
  listening to this and they're so great at a character, an emotion and dialogue,
• 1:28:25
  if they can get better at structure and actually tell interesting stories like American
• 1:28:29
  Duties, you know have both very rarified company and they will be fought after.
• 1:28:34
  Vice the versa. If you have someone listened to this and they're really
• 1:28:36
  good and they love horror film, they love it constant horror film or thrillers,
• 1:28:42
  love budget or studio level comedy action would have you you can get better
• 1:28:47
  at the character, firm and the and have some genuine emotion in there,
• 1:28:54
  man, you stand out. You stand out because there's just so a few
• 1:28:58
  people that can do them. So that an example one of the things that
• 1:29:00
  work up in the workshop, and it's called creative integration. You know,
• 1:29:04
  for those of you listening, if you're interesting in this, going on my
• 1:29:08
  website it's Coreymandel dot net. You know, I teach something called professional screenwriting
• 1:29:15
  the Workshop, which is the Foundational Workshop, and it teaches conceptual and then
• 1:29:19
  through the skill set for eight weeks. And sorry inference in the commercial that
• 1:29:26
  I'll help you quick with it. We do it. We do it in
• 1:29:29
  LA, in Santa Monica, and if you don't live in LA, or
• 1:29:31
  if you do so in LA, we do it online using web acts.
• 1:29:34
  So if you take another online clapses. This is like real time. So
• 1:29:38
  it's like going to a quick and mortar class. You can see and hear
• 1:29:41
  everybody. You just get to be at your computer and can We've had writers
• 1:29:45
  taken from all over the world. We'll be right back after a word from
• 1:29:49
  our sponsor and now back to the show. The uh. The June ones
• 1:30:01
  are sold out. We tend to be about six months out. She'll be
• 1:30:04
  doing them in September and those are starting to sell out. That there's still
• 1:30:08
  spaces if you really wanted to do the June one. You can email my
• 1:30:13
  assistant and she could put it on the waitlist, and sometimes a spot don't
• 1:30:16
  open. So my website Corey Mendel dot net and my assistant is Lisa,
• 1:30:24
  So she's Lisa at Corey Mendel dot net. If you want to email me
• 1:30:29
  Corey at Corey Mendel dot net, and those emails are on the website,
• 1:30:33
  which is callymndell dot net. Everything I suggest is signed up for the newsletter.
• 1:30:38
  We will often we do that once a month interview an agent or interview
• 1:30:42
  manager will interview letter to sold script. So that might be of interest.
• 1:30:47
  But and I know that we were talking a long time. I think,
• 1:30:53
  you know, let's see what's their spons is from your listeners. Maybe people
• 1:30:58
  to think of a big blowhard, but if you for it, people are
• 1:31:00
  interested in this stuff you want. I'm happy to come back and talk about
• 1:31:04
  more of the skills. I think we talked a lot about sort of the
• 1:31:08
  marketplace and agents the managers are thinking and looking for. And we talk a
• 1:31:12
  lot about mistakes. People make it and let me have to accomplish. But
• 1:31:15
  we haven't really And I know this is what your latter questions were but this
• 1:31:20
  ulthor subject of Okay, how do you actually do it? What are you
• 1:31:24
  skill? I could certainly talk more about that if you want it. You
• 1:31:28
  know, if there is interest from your listeners and you want to have me
• 1:31:30
  back, I'd be happy to do it. Yeah, man, that would
• 1:31:32
  definitely be great. I mean there's even the stuff that you were just talking
• 1:31:35
  about that I would love to go further into detail with. But yeah,
• 1:31:39
  we would need more time. So but yeah, I really appreciate it,
• 1:31:42
  and we you know, let's definitely do like a part two sometime when we
• 1:31:45
  get more into actual screenwriting and structuring and all the you know, the nuts
• 1:31:49
  and bolts of it all. Love to do it all right, man,
• 1:31:53
  Well, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot for coming on the show,
• 1:31:55
  and you know, I want to thank Jason so much for doing such a
• 1:32:00
  rate job on this episode. If you want to get links to anything we
• 1:32:01
  spoke about in this episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting
• 1:32:05
  dot TV. Forward slash three thirty two. Thank you so much for listening
• 1:32:10
  to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
• 1:32:13
  to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcasts at Bulletproof Screenwriting
• 1:32:18
  dot tv.