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In the Spotlight
Do Trendspotting and Action = Success?
by Jaden
Inspired by reading “Punk Rock Your Life: The Simple Six-Letter Word That Determines Success” by Copyblogger Brian Clark as a guest writer for Zen Habits, my passion for punk rock and the pondering of success flared; I want to expand on the topic for screenwriters.
Brian ended his post with: “Why did I just tell you a story about punk rock and independent music? Well, lots of people can spot trends and have great ideas, but only some do anything about it. So, what’s the six-letter word that determines success in life? Action.”
On what one chooses to take action is a matter of opinion and preference. One does not have to like whatever is the latest trend — usually I don’t. Success can be found in any genre or any ground-breaking or old thing.
Action is one serious deciding factor that can lead to success, for without action, a person has nothing, but in and of itself action won’t ensure success. Nor is success founded on innovation.
Think about coffee and burgers… I mean how many more chains do we really need? Yet new ones start up all the time to the open arms of success. These new businesses take action, yes, but burgers and coffee are nothing new, rather it is the business model and marketing that earns their success.
Does jumping on the bandwagon of something cutting edge equal success? Definitely not!
Screenwriters, I would advise avoiding current trends because by the time your script is finished, sold, and made into a movie, it will be so passé that audiences may be turned off. If you are going to jump on the train du jour, you better have a quick route to the final product or you might be left in the dust with a big flop on your hands.
The risk-takers and those who are on the fringe earn my respect, but they are not the people raking in the dough, not at first anyway. Initially, there are more obstacles to breaking into the industry for them, but the reward and career longevity for ingenuity are greater.
There are millions of copycats (musicians, writers, filmmakers, painters) who spend their life in action, yet achieve little or no success. Action and trendspotting alone are not enough.
Whether your product or idea is new or not, ultimately, does not matter, it is whether you have a successful marketing and business plan. As an artist, often you will have a team of people who handle these things. Unless you are an artist like Picasso or Warhol, or even a person like Paris Hilton or Britney Spears, your brain probably can’t handle the self-promoting part of the biz and it shouldn’t. You need to surround yourself with a strong team of agents, publicists, and people in your industry.
“The Future is Unwritten” is an excellent music 
documentary that illustrates these points. It is about the lead singer of The Clash and how he had to make some cutting choices along the way to achieve success by the orchestration of his manager.
When I was in college, I worked in a nightclub. The first time Korn played there, the only people in the huge place were a handful of my heavy metal friends who were always there and could dig on the new sound that until this point had never been heard (heavy bass with screaming angry vocals contrasted with gentle eerie vocals).
Several months later, Korn played the exact same show to a full house spilling over with 2,000 + people. Why? They did a publicity stunt with the local radio station announcing a cheap $3 entrance. Their song and this ad ran every day, many times a day for a month. Next thing I knew, Korn became a huge success.
A band called Far who played the same sound and shows as Korn, debatably with more talent, fell into obscurity. Why? No marketing. No strong representation.
Who else came through the joint? No Doubt, Marilyn Manson, and many more who also started out with nothing. What catapulted them to great success? It was not only the action of playing music, but rather great gimmicks, good managers and marketing angles.
It is often the people behind the scenes working their magick who hoist artists and entertainers to such heights. Success and fame are not accidents, they come from calculated plans created by hard-working driven intelligent business-minded people.
In regards to screenwriters specifically, you can be in the action of writing for your entire life. You can even write stories of better quality than any Oscar winning screenplay. You can go to every single movie and gripe about how much better you write. Without the right direction, without the right representation, without the right filmmakers, and without the right marketing strategy, you could easily remain in writer obscurity for all eternity.
No one is going to pound down your door and say: Look world, I have found the greatest writer of all time! Those sorts of success stories are myths. Your success relies on some talent, lots of work, staunch determination, and intelligent alliances with people who are masters of marketing, publicity, and the business. Oh… and how could I forget, you’ll need a lot of LUCK!
Making Connections in Hollywood, Part 1
by Jaden
As my first official post about Hollywood and screenwriting, in honor of my friend Melissa from WritingForward.com who is walking me through this whole blogosphere madness, and without whom, I would still be pulling out my hair, let’s talk about CONNECTIONS and how important they are.
We have all heard the phrase: It’s who you know, not what you know. To a degree, this is very true in Hollywood, just as much as it is anywhere else in the world. Getting a job is always easier when you have a recommendation from the inside.
Everyone’s aim in Hollywood is to make money, as it is the aim for any business anywhere. Somehow in this quest, in Hollywood in particular, people lose their way, people make really bad choices, both in life and of scripts. Hollywoodians tend to think with their heads instead of their guts or hearts when it comes to buying scripts. The question they ask is: Is this going to make money? Whether the script is any good or not is sometimes irrelevant, unfortunately.
An industry friend read one of my scripts. He said he couldn’t put it down, he loved it, and how excited he was about it; but after he gave it to a reader at his agency and the coverage came back not so glowingly, he got scared and pulled out completely. What happened to HIS initial reaction? Granted, it was not the best script on earth. I would say the coverage was fair to harsh. Everyone has different tastes. But the fact is, far worse scripts have been bought and made money. Had my friend wanted to push the script up the line, based on his initial feelings, it could have been made and done well enough; who knows?
Point is, friends can and will only do so much for you. They won’t stick their neck out for you if their head might get cut off for a bad choice. Nobody wants to lose their job or all their money for you. Fear is rampant in Hollywood and it stifles the arts.
Sometimes strangers will help advance you more than your good friends.
Think of it like this. When we know everything about an actress’s private life, it detracts from her performance on screen because all we can think about are the five people she slept with this year, the DUI she got, and that time she was caught shop-lifting; nobody in the audience is buying the whole nun act.
Likewise, when friends or family read your work, they know the source of your inspiration, they know how your brain works, and they can’t stop thinking of that one time on your birthday when you were vomiting all over yourself, so it is hard for them to appreciate your work objectively. Whereas if you are submitting your screenplay to someone who knows nothing about you, he can make a judgment based solely on the quality of your work.
Instead of spending years trying to make connections in Hollywood, put that time into your craft. If you have no product or no skill, you have nothing to sell! It does not matter how many people you know.
First learn your craft and create a SUPERIOR product, then worry about who you know.
TERMS:
READERS are people (like me) who are paid to read your script.
COVERAGE is a document provided by the reader. Coverage can vary, but generally has these elements: a logline, a PASS / CONSIDER / RECOMMEND box checked, a summary of the story, and a detailing of strengths and weaknesses. In one minute, instead of two hours, a producer or agent can decide whether to spend any more time with your script.
LOGLINE is a few words to sum up your entire script. Example: “Giant squirrels from Sirius attack Earth.”
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