There's a little more I can add, maybe a little more than that. Basically, as I said on the last one, there's some rules to what anyone can do. I posted a hell of a lot of my good screenplays and nobody wanted them.
So what's the basics?
The best way is to know a producer. Yeah, sure Jim, easy enough.
Well, there are people who do that and they usually are living in Los Angeles. Actually I preferred Sherman Oaks, lovely little town in the heart of the Valley. And a lot of actors who live there, as well. That blows your chances if you're in Pendelton, Oregon. Although it's a very nice town.
You've read my trips to LA and should get some information from what I've thrown around. And I've said many times, if you're going to LA, find a friend, like my past friend Phil. Remember our short film Cooperage, the barrel factory.
And like before, find someone who can do something better than you. And of course you have to do something that they can't do. It turned out to be directing for Phil and for me, writing. I'm a loner of sorts, don't really hang out with other writers but that's what goes on all the time anyway.
I'm very good at writing fast, I have 40 screenplays that I think are good. Well, maybe not so good but I like them. Of those screenplays I think that about 8 really good scripts and the others so-so. I also know that writers write differently, some fast, some slow, some take a year or more. Men, women, kids, whatever. So don't really think that some people are better and some are not. I know a friend who felt so strong his screenplay was, that he would immediately have a sale.
Nobody wanted it.
And as far as I know, he couldn't find a buyer anywhere, and still shows that screenplay to anyone would read. About 15 years.
My earliest script were that horrible girl/fight screenplay that I still don't watch it.
But I do have 40 scripts that are shootable.Not necessarily great movies but reasonable ones. I've always thought I would sell scripts to anyone who would pay me, of course the ones that aren't all that good. Some may need fixing, like putting cell phones in the story.
Honest. I still have a few.
And even at that, I was still writing all the time. I'm not good at writing on the road nor between writing scripts and stopping. I write fast and am happy with that.
So back to these guys who want you to pay them to open the gates to the Virtual Pitchfest. The one I told you before. And like I said, I don't know who those people who are seen in the photos telling you that you can make it. There's a guy called Ed Saxon, whom I've never heard of, and a guy names Steve Long who I never heard of either.
Actually I saw them at FVP that showed us how we will be successful. All I did was find another writer like me and the rest looking for someone to join him or herself because they have almost a good story.
I judge these kind of things that say there's some real writers there but then who wants to be the only real writer there.
And as you know, I spent about $200 for 110 scripts that nobody wanted.
What they "looking for" is something new and interesting. I'wasn't happy spending the money even though there's their pitch...
375 + Pros to Pitch
Writer's Love Us
Guaranteed Acces
Hotlist Contest.
Yeah, I'm unhappy that nobody wanted my scripts, but I can take it because I've got those 40 screenplays. It's good to be like this with that much. I have a script for almost every movie idea.
Okay, not that much.
But that's the deal. You're buying a piece of cake without eating it.
And what's the secret?
There are people who do get a script I'm sure, just in terms of the amount of writers that don't.
After all this, it still comes back to what I started with.
Find a friend, someone who has as much hunger as you do.
And watch old movies, not the 80's but the 40's. Watch John Ford movies as much as the 60's writers, where a lot of writers and directors came from film school
And go to film school if you can. I never did. I went to Henry Ford college in Detroit for two years taking psych but also a woman I chased around. We never lasted long but we still talk to each other.
And of course consider that our short film that ended up in the 76 Academy awards. When I taught at UCLA a while back I always said that I failed film school and filmed a barrel factory that did a lot more.
So... a few things.
Partner up with someone
Go to film school if you can afford it. And there's other ways as well.
Go to festivals and take week-end courses.
Write. And then write another screenplay. And another.
I have a book on screenwriting also, a little bit behind but the rules in film are shown all the time.
Another thing; look around your world, you'll see so many pieces of life that way.
Next, I'll show you how I fell for my Grade 6 teacher, she was a knockout. And how I wrote a screenplay about her and my grade school buddies. It's a good lesson about writing about real people without making them too real.
More next.
