How to Play Nice with Others…Especially Execs

Whether we are meeting a new writer at a pitchfest or in a meeting or technologically like through virtualpitchfest, the biggest fear that every development executive has is – is this person going to play nice? Is this person speaking to me going to be someone that I am want to deal with for the next 1-5 years of my life? If I give this person my card, is he or she going to abuse that priviledge?

Now I have listened to thousands of pitches and met with hundreds of writers, and for the most part, they were all great. But I’d say out of 3000 pitches, I’ve had 20 or 30 writers that just didn’t know how to play nice.  But lately, there have been a few more than usual, so I figured I’d just nip this in the bud. 

What does that mean – play nice? Well it means the following:

1.     You’re going to respect the pass. If you have pitched me (whether in person, or over the internet) and I politely pass and do not ask for the script, you need to take that as the answer. While I always admire persistence, there’s a thin line between that and being pushy or annoying. There is probably a reason I passed – whether it’s the writing or it’s something we are developing already or it’s just not the genre we are looking for, etc. –you asking 3 more times or begging is not going to change my mind. It’s only going to reinforce the pass.

2.     If you have my card, you’re not going to call every day or every week or even every month to pitch a new idea or re-pitch an old one because you’ve made changes.  Do not pitch the same project to me more than once unless you have done a complete page one rewrite. And never pitch it more than twice.

3.     If you don’t like the response you get, you’re not going to send off an angry email telling me how development executives are evil and stupid. I have gotten hate mail and I usually enjoy it, but does anyone think the best way to get a second chance is by challenging and insulting me? Come on. If you can’t play like adults, go back to sitting at the kids table.

4.     You’re not going to give out my information to your whole writing group or class or every writer you know. You worked to get that card - they didn’t.

5.     No MyStalking. Just because we had a lovely 5 minute conversation and I asked to read your script, that doesn’t mean I want to be bffs. It doesn’t mean I want to add you to my friends list on Facebook or Myspace or any other site. Yes, those sites are for networking. But, I don’t accept requests from random writers I don’t know personally (or who aren’t professional famous writers of course) on my facebook because I don’t want to be pitched through those sites. And neither does any other exec, and there have been a rash of facebook queries in the last few months. Not the right way.

So – why DON’T I just take 10 minutes and read the first 15 pages? It’s not that big a deal, right? Well, it’s simple math actually. Let’s say I get pitched 100 scripts in any given day at a pitchfest. Maybe –MAYBE – I’ll ask for 10 scripts. That means I’m passing on 90. If for all those passes – scripts I wasn’t interested in – I had to read 15 pages…that would take roughly 900 minutes. That’s 15 hours. Why and how could I spend 15 hours reading 15 pages of scripts that didn’t interest me? You need to respect our time and there are just not enough hours in the month. Sometimes a person’s sob story wins me over, but their script…never does.  

We all realize how hard you have worked on these scripts. And every writer thinks that if they can just get someone to read 10 pages, we will love it. And while our opinions are completely subjective and occasionally wrong, they do come with at least a few years of experience and a different perspective from yours. And we can often tell within a 5 minute pitch – even without reading the script – how that script is going to read. Writers hate when I say that because they think it somehow devalues their talent or their hard work. Perhaps it does, even though it’s not meant to. But I am right 85% of the time and I like those odds.

You all remember the golden rule of the sandbox. Well - here’s the golden rule of screenwriters – pitch unto others as you’d like others to pitch unto you.

The Carrot in Front of Your Face

Our whole industry is based on a Bugs Bunny Cartoon. That silly wabbit was constantly being led around by a carrot on a stick placed strategically just out of grasp, though it seemed so close. This is the very essence of Hollywood and why thousands of people – from the homecoming queens to the techie geeks – swarm towards Los Angeles every year. And it’s why people who have been here for 5, 10 or 15 years, stick around, even if they have yet to find success, money, or fame. We all come out here with these five year plans – mine was to become a TV writer (oh well) – but when five years comes and goes in what seems to be a blink of an eye and you’re nowhere near where you thought you’d be…you have to find something that keeps you going. Enter, the Carrot.

We’ve all read the piece in Variety about that boy from the Mid West who graduated college, moved out to LA on a Friday and sent his first script (which he wrote in two weeks) to his old roommates’ friends’ brother who happened to be an assistant at William Morris, who loved it, brought it to his boss, who also loved it, who gave it to a junior exec at Imagine or Bruckheimer or some studio one week later, and BAM – that lucky fresh off the boat fucker is eating so many carrots his face turns a lovely shade of orange.  But for most, it’s a much longer chase. 

When I moved out to LA just a few months after graduating college, I came with a few suitcases, a few thousand dollars – most of which I spent on my car – and tons of good friends who had also made the transition. And we used to all hang out at alum-friendly bars and have parties and reminisce and commiserate. And there were probably a good 50 of us from my graduating class (or the year preceding us) that while we all weren’t close friends, we felt this connection and we were always happy to help each other. Since that time, probably 60-70 percent of them have since left the business or moved back East. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t hack it – it was because they stopped caring about the carrot. They stopped visualizing it. Some just stopped enjoying chasing it. And others realized it wasn’t the right carrot for them. For some, their carrot included family, babies, and buying a house instead of isolation, long hours and eternally renting. I don’t blame them. And while I miss some of them, the rest of me is happy they are gone because it means there’s one less person chasing that damn vegetable, so perhaps my odds just got a bit better. 

This infinitesimal possibility is what keeps us all here. Because you just don’t know when or where or how you are going to get that big break – but it’s coming. Maybe it’s this next project you find, or write, or direct. Maybe it’s this little indie project you acted in for free. Maybe it’s this new assistant job for a bigwig studio exec. You just never know. The entertainment industry is really the only industry where you can be working 70 hour weeks for $450/wk one month and be a millionaire calling your own shots the next. And we all think it will happen to us. And just when you start realizing that it’s not going to…your best friend signs a multi-picture deal at a studio or her pilot spec gets bought or he books a role in a studio movie…and then you’re faced with an even bigger problem – trying not to hate your friend.  But that’s a whole different story.

I know I’m supposed to be the bitter blogger – and I am. But in some ways I’m just as optimistic and hopeful as the rest of the inhabitants of this crazy town, because while I have yet to be paid what I’m actually worth, I can feel it coming. And I’m not leaving until I at least get a taste of that delicious carrot.