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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3 Responses to “Making Connections in Hollywood, Part 1”
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Hey, where did your first post go? I liked that one.
Connections are definitely valuable in any endeavor. I think you can make it without them if you try hard enough, but it takes way more energy and effort, and a lot more time. Anywhere you go, there’s some tight knot of people controlling things, and if you can break into that circle, you can make it., because they’ll help propel you toward success. Great topic!
I’m a little late responding to this post as I see you wrote the blog in January. But I’m kinda new to this “blog thing” and your blog article struck a cord wiht me.
This is SO TRUE:
“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. ”
My friends read my scripts and love them! But the couple of times I have gotten a break and a read in the industry, my coverage has come back as a “consider” with not so flattering comments.
I agree that readers all have different tastes, and perhaps had another reader read my script (dark comedy) they would have had more favorable comments. But I also think that many of the readers in the industry are worried about recommending anything. And as for the comments, how the heck are we writers supposed to take a one-page-paragraph and figure out how to fix our script? Ugh.. frustrating. But we love what we do… so we keep on plugging along.
I did come upon a company called LitCentral.com. They are not an agency or production company, but they offer coverage services to writers for a pretty reasonable price. The cool thing is that your feedback comes in the form of a bar graph. I have never seen another company do this, so I gave it a try.
They break your script down into story structure elements (20 of them) and then they give you comments broken down by each element and a bar graph showing you what you need to work on. I was able to see the areas of my script that needed work (I received a score of 2 and 3 in a few areas) and I easily understood what I needed to do, since the comments were broken down and descriptive.
So I’m rewriting now based on their comments. So we will see…
Remy — Thanks for your input. Yep, it is a rough road and readers are the toughest critics! Readers are roadblocks and do not well represent what the public wants. But, that’s part of the game. Good luck.