John August

QandA

Good day jobs for writers and others

Film Industry, QandA

What are good “day jobs” for writers, actors or others looking to break in in LA? Are there certain jobs that provide flexibility and are not entirely draining of the soul?

–Ron
Myrtle Beach, SC

To me, the criteria for a good day job are the following:

1) It should pay enough that you can live, but not much more. If you’re raking in enough money for a nice new car, there’s less motivation to pursue your “real” career.

2) You shouldn’t work with crazy people. Life is too short. There are enough insane people in the film industry; you don’t need them in your day job too.

3) Some flexibility. You need to be able to take a meeting on 24 hours notice.

4) Not too physically, emotionally, or intellectually draining. You need to have enough juice left to do your real work after hours.

5) Tolerable enough that you don’t dread going to work, but you’ll happily quit when given the chance.

Obviously, the cliché for actors is to work as waiters. In truth, this can be a good choice. If you work nights, you have your days free for call-backs and classes, and there’s always the hope that a big producer or director will notice your striking talents while you refill their passion-fruit ice tea. For almost exactly the same reason — being noticed — many actors deliberately avoid restaurant jobs, on the fear that the same guy they auditioned for this morning will recognize them. Writers are in much the same boat, although since writers are almost never good-looking, there’s very little chance they’ll be discovered at Mastro’s Steak House.

The other classic choice is to work as an assistant, answering phones and making copies. This is what I did, as did Rawson and Dana, my two-former-now-powerful former assistants. If you work for the right person, in or out of the film industry, this can be a good job. But for every good boss, there are two or three psychos, so it’s a risk. But you’ll almost certainly learn more as an assistant than as a waiter.

Beyond these two paths, there are a thousand other things people do as day jobs in Los Angeles: dog walkers, tutors, computer fix-it guys. Two of my friends index books, which pays well but is crushingly boring. Another friend is a freelance business manager, handling the daily accounting for rock stars. And many screenwriters work as readers, writing coverage on other screenplays while writing their own.

In finding a day job, ask yourself what other people always say you’re good at. Then do it. But never stop paying attention to your real career: the one you’re not getting paid for yet.

Finding a writer

QandA, Rights and Copyright

   I have this vision of a modern version of famed movie CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. My vision has a multicultural cast with actor/comedian Wayne Brady playing the starring role (Dick Van Dyke’s character). I need a writer. How can I find one? And at what price?

–Les Williams

On the scale of marketable ideas, that’s not bad, although I suspect in this remake-crazy culture, someone’s already working on it. Regardless, I’m sure Wayne Brady and his representatives are happy that you’re out there, working to find him roles.

Ignoring for the moment that someone actually owns the underlying rights (probably MGM, but maybe Ian Fleming’s estate), I see two main paths which you could take in pursuit of a screenwriter to implement your vision.

First, you could find a screenwriter who is already somewhat successful. I’m not talking Robert Towne or Callie Khouri, but rather a writer who got credit on Eddie Griffin’s latest movie, or a Mandy Moore vehicle. Since you’re not bringing a lot to the project other than your enthusiasm, you may have a hard time convincing this writer’s agent to take you seriously. But I’d bet out of a list of 10 candidates, you’d find at least two writers willing to hear you describe your vision for the movie. And if it’s as good as you think it is, maybe one writer will say yes. Working together, the two of you either write the script as a spec, or approach the rights holder and convince them to commission a script.

The other option would be to find a screenwriter without any produced credits, and convince her to write the script for you. Maybe you pay her a few thousand dollars, maybe you don’t. Either way, you work together to create the best possible script you can, with some sort of written contract between you clarifying that you’re attached as a producer. When it’s finished, you approach the rights holder and convince them that your script will make the definitive multi-ethnic CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG for the new millennium.

How do you find this newbie writer in the first place? You might have luck with online screenwriting forums and workshops. As long as you can read the writer’s work, it doesn’t matter where they live. Another good option would be to find writers who’ve won (or made the final rounds) in one of the many screenwriting competitions, such as the ones sponsored by Final Draft or the Austin Film Festival.

Which way is better? Honestly, they’re both difficult. But a producer’s job is always difficult, and many of today’s top producers started their careers exactly this way, with nothing more to offer than their imagination and tenacity.

Elephant and Columbine’s actual events

QandA, Story and Plot

I just saw Gus Van Sant’s ELEPHANT and at the end there was a disclaimer saying that any similarity to actual events or persons is completely coincidental.  How can he say this?  I know it’s not a retelling of the Columbine story, but it sure shares a resemblance.
 

–Brad Sorensen
Ottawa, ON

I’m curious how Van Sant would answer, and whether there was any discussion about exactly what the end crawl should say. The phrasing of “any similarity to actual events or persons is completely coincidental,” is pretty much boilerplate these days, designed to protect against libel and defamation in case Hannibal J. Lector of Boise, Idaho gets annoyed that people mistake him for a devious cannibal. Most movies say something like this, sandwiched between the American Humane Association disclaimer and the IATSE logo.

Was it fair to use the phrase in this case? In my opinion, sure.

Although the Columbine shootings were certainly the inspiration for ELEPHANT, the story itself — that is, the characters, the scenes, the dialogue — was fictional. The movie didn’t purport to be about that particular Colorado high school, but rather the culture of high school violence. The Columbine killings were “the elephant in the room,” but were never directly addressed in the sense of Michael Moore’s BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. While another filmmaker might choose to phrase it differently, one can understand Van Sant’s desire to draw a distinction between his movie and the real events that happened at Columbine.

Getting a pitch meeting

Dead Projects, Pitches, QandA

You mentioned that you went in to pitch for How To Eat Fried Worms and that it was the first script you were paid to write. Well, say a screenwriter has written a number of scripts and they want to pitch their ideas to a studio. How does one go about that? You can’t just waltz into Dreamworks and start spouting off lines right? So, what does one do? Set up a meeting? Could it be THAT simple? Calling and setting up a meeting?

–Josh Caldwell
New York

It always starts with a meeting, and generally these are set up by an agent or manager. In the case of FRIED WORMS, it was set up by my friend Jim Whitaker, who was working as a junior executive at Imagine, the company run by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. He had read my very first script, and thought I might be the right person to adapt this little kid’s book the company had just optioned. So it was my friendship with him that got me in the room. But it was my take on the story that got me the job.

I’ve written in other places about the mechanics of a pitch, but generally it works like this. Pretend you just saw a great movie, and you wanted to convince your skeptical best friend why he should see it. What would you say? That’s a pitch.

Now usually, before you even go into a pitch meeting, some of the groundwork has been laid. For instance, before I pitched BIG FISH, the executives at Sony read the book, so they had some idea what the project was about. Even in the case of a completely original idea, it’s good if the recipient has been told what kind of movie you’re pitching — a thriller, a comedy, a futuristic prison romance, whatever. For something like TARZAN, which I’m writing now, we had a few phone calls to discuss the overall tone and approach before we even set the meeting.

And almost always, the people hearing the pitch want to read your writing ahead of time, so they know you really can write. In the case of FRIED WORMS, I was at a real disadvantage in this regard. The only writing samples I could show were my first script (a tragic-comic romance) and the novelization of NATURAL BORN KILLERS. The other writers pitching for the job were true comedy writers, many of them working on THE SIMPSONS. Ultimately, I got the job. Even though the movie still hasn’t been made, I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity.