Staying Calm No Matter What Overwhelms You

We are two days away from Sundance and four days away from our Sundance movie entry, LIBERAL ARTS, premiering.  And I’m starting to PANIC — there is just so much to do!

Between the premiere, the party, travel arrangements, dinner arrangements, along with our other Tom Sawyer Entertainment clients and everything else we have to do to run a company, it is nuts. And this craziness could VERY easily turn into being overwhelmed.

The problem with being overwhelmed is that it freezes you into not being able to do anything and instead you just sit there and panic, which is not helpful to anyone.  And let’s be honest, whether you have a movie at Sundance or not, life can easily be overwhelming.

There are four things I do to try to stay calm:

1. Take deep breaths: Remembering to breathe is one of the most important parts of staying calm. If you aren’t breathing properly you can’t get enough oxygen in your brain to think rationally.

2. Prioritize: Part of feeling overwhelmed is the feeling that there is too much to do and not enough time. If you are starting to feel overwhelmed it is important to prioritize what you have to do so you tackle the most time-sensitive things first — everything else can wait.

3. Keep it all in perspective: Life gets crazy and it is important to remember that it could always be worse.  Remember the good things you have going on.

4. Feel good about even the small accomplishments: Feeling good about the small things you accomplished will give you optimism and forward momentum to tackle everything else on your plate.

Hope these tips help you as much as they help me!

Sophomore Film Jitters and What to Do About Them

On October 28th my production company submitted our second movie, LIBERAL ARTS, to the Sundance Film Festival for review.

And while I was nervous when we submitted our first movie, HAPPYTHANKYOURMOREPLEASE, I discovered that submitting the second movie was much, much more nerve racking.  Why is this?

I realized that, when we submitted our first movie in the fall of 2009, we had very little expectation of getting accepted into Sundance, let alone winning the 2010 Sundance Audience Award, which HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE won.

Thus we were very zen about the whole process.  We didn’t spend a lot of time and worry on something that we thought we had a very little chance of getting. This time it is different. It is our sophomore film; there are expectations on us and on the film.

What if people don’t like the film? What if we don’t get into Sundance?  If we don’t get it, does that lessen the value of our first movie winning at Sundance?

All these questions and concerns that we never thought of before started to crop up — making us stressed, nervous and very un-zen. Which brings me to this blog post — the sophomore film jitters — and what to do about them?

I’ve had many people ask me this same question and, until now, I never experienced this firsthand.  The only thing I can suggest is exactly what I did to calm myself:

First, you have to believe that your script or project stands on its own two feet. You can’t spend your time comparing it to the last movie you did.  Otherwise you will never be able to concentrate on your project, and, if you don’t concentrate on your project, there is no chance that it will be the best it can be.

Second, you have to try to get zen about it and just hope that people judge the project on its own merits and are not comparing it to your previous project.  And since you can’t control what other people think, you have to just let that worry go.

Third, you have to keep moving forward.  The more you can focus on moving other projects forward the less time you have to drive yourself crazy with negative thoughts.

We have two more indie movies we are working on putting together as well as keeping busy trying to move all our clients’ projects forward.

That being said, I can’t help but have all my fingers and toes crossed for the new movie’s submission to Sundance!

Comic Con 2011: It’s All About the Fans

Many years ago Comic Con was a small festival to which few in Hollywood really paid attention.  Now it’s grown to a huge behemoth attracting over 120,000 people over four days to San Diego.

And as much as Hollywood people say they are going down to scope out hot projects — this is not true. No one is scoping out projects because all the good projects have already been optioned.

Hollywood people are going to mingle and go to some parties.  But really, secretly, they are going to see the fans.

It is all too easy to work in Hollywood and get caught up into the business so much that you can forget the fans. You can forget what it is like to just go to the movies and get swept up into a fantasy, leaving all the annoying work behind.

But Comic Con is all about the fans. It’s about the people that love something so much they will dress up in costumes of their favorite characters or camp out for days to hear their favorite person speak on a panel.

It’s about the joy of watching their favorite books or ideas or graphic novels come to life.  It’s about being invested in a story so much that you want to live and breathe it — no matter if you have to take time off from work or spend your savings to book a hotel room.

And for the people that work in Hollywood, that’s what we go to see.  We go to remind ourselves why we work in this business and why we do it day after day even when we have bad days and shitty weeks.  It’s for the fans.

If you are a writer, write something that you like and that you want to see and that you can’t wait to be swept away by — because that is the joy of being a writer.  It’s the joy of creating something for the fans.

TV Staffing Season Meets the Cold Call

We are right in the middle of TV staffing season,  which is when all agents and managers are trying to get their clients staffed on network and cable shows.

The only problem with this is that there are thousands of writers who would kill to be staffed on a show (a steady paycheck and all the free meals in the world).  And there are very few shows getting picked up, which means very few writer slots.

And to make matters worse, because there are so few shows getting picked up, higher-level writers are taking lower-level positions so then there are basically no slots for an emerging writer.

What’s a manager or a writer to do?

First, if you are a manager/agent or a writer, read all the pilot scripts.

If you are a writer, there will be some you connect to more than others, and these will be the ones you want to focus on.

If you are a manager or an agent, then you also need to read all the pilots because, when you are calling the executive covering the show, you can say “I have read this pilot script and here is the reason I think my writer would be great for the show.”

Big agencies send hordes of writer candidates to executives, and this overload of candidates can be very daunting. If you can send one or two perfectly targeted writer candidates, executives will be so much happier.

In television, there are a lot of players who all need to be covered.  There are the studio, the network, the producer and the showrunner.  If you want your writer to have a chance of being staffed, than you have to cover everyone.

Of course it’s impossible to know every producer, studio, network and showrunner involved in every show each year.  This is where the art of the cold call or email comes in.  You must cold call people if you want your client to have a chance at being staffed!

And the art of cold-calling is all about matching the right project to the right person or connecting the right two people together. 

It’s about knowing exactly what you have and, at the same time, knowing exactly what someone else needs.  This way that when you connect it’s mutually beneficially to both parties. 

This is the trick to cold calling or emailing anyone.  The best and most productive networking relationships happen when you can demonstrate that what you have is not a waste of people’s time but in actuality is something that they need (whether they know it yet).

Once More into the Breach — Starting Production on a New Film!

We are going back into production this summer on our next film, LIBERAL ARTS, that Josh Radnor wrote, will direct and is starring in.

I can’t believe it’s been two years since HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE shot; it really seems like yesterday.

And now that we are back in pre-production again, I am realizing that, with every production, the more you do it, the better you get at it and the more experienced you become.

You take the lessons you have learned from the last production and apply these to your new one. Like who worked well on a budget and who didn’t? Which crew member worked with the director and who didn’t? How many PAs do we need to really be efficient?

And every day on this new film, we are constantly asking ourselves what could we do better this time around?

And the same is true for writing or anything else you do (directing, acting, stand up, etc). You have to take your past experience and, when starting the next project, ask yourself what could you do better this time? How can you improve?

So take every new project or rewrite or outline you are asked to do as a chance to improve your skills and get better.

You can’t expect to get it perfect the first time you do something (we certainly didn’t with our first movie).  But you can draw from that experience and use it to your advantage for the next time!

Speaking Engagement at Writers Junction Series!

I’m excited to announce that I will be one of the speakers in a month-long Writers Junction series hosted by former development exec Daniel Manus, now of No BullScript Consulting.

“The Executive Series for Screenwriters: Making Hollywood Work for You!” will run on several evenings in May from 7 to 9 p.m.  You may buy tickets for single evenings or for the entire series at http://theexecutiveseries.eventbrite.com/

I will be speaking on May 10th on the topic “The Keys to Getting and Keeping Representation” and I look forward to seeing you then.

HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE Opens Tonight: The Art of Letting Go

Our first Tom Sawyer Entertainment movie ”happythankyoumoreplease” opens this weekend in Los Angeles at the Landmark Theater http://tinyurl.com/htympla and in New York at http://tinyurl.com/htympnyc.  It opens the following weekend, March 11, in Chicago http://tinyurl.com/htympchi

The past two years has been a whirlwind with this movie.  We closed the funding in January of 2009 and then raced into pre-production so we could shoot in June of 2009. Then we had to rush to edit it in order to submit it to Sundance by October of 2009.

Then it won the Audience Award at Sundance in January 2010 and we closed a distributor deal.  But then we had to switch distributors.

Now after almost two years the movie is finally coming out this weekend.

As this is an indie movie without millions of dollars of advertising money behind it, most of the advertising has been through social media and guerrilla marketing.

This past week the director (also writer and lead actor) Josh Radnor and the producers have been doing tons of press, screenings, q and a, and everything possible to get the word out.

After all the craziness over the last two years, the release weekend is finally here.   And of course I woke up this morning in a panic with thoughts like “Will the movie do well? Will people like it? Will they actually go see it or will they download it illegally?” running through my head.

This is where the art of letting go comes in. We have done everything in our power to get the word out and get people to see the film. Now it’s up to the audience to (hopefully) like it and spread the word.

I had to take a deep breath, relax and let go. We’ve done the hard part.  Getting a movie financed, made and released in today’s marketplace is a tall order.  The rest is up to the audience….

That being said, go see the movie this weekend and support indie filmmaking!  (You know how important the first weekend is for independent movies.)

For more info about the film, visit http://www.happythankyoumoreplease.com

See you there!

Today Is Tom Sawyer’s 5 Year Anniversary! I’m Finding This Very Hard to Believe …

But it’s true!

And in a nice twist of fate, the next couple months are bringing our company full circle in a lot of ways.

Our client Jason Ubaldi is going into production on the movie he wrote called THE LOWENFISH PARTY. The funny part is that we took this script as a spec in our second week of business. There was a lot of buzz and it went into all the studios — and, unfortunately, it did not sell.

But we believed in this script and didn’t let it die.  And five years later it’s going to be made!

And our first movie HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE comes out March 4th. It won the 2010 Sundance Audience Award and, while we had some hiccups in the distribution plans, we couldn’t be more excited that Anchor Bay is releasing it!

Don’t get me wrong.  It hasn’t all been sunshine and moonbeams.

There were a lot of lows too: the writer’s strike, the de-facto actor’s strike, the recession, the never-know-when-or-how-we-are-going-to-pay-our-bills, the three assistants in three weeks, etc.

But in looking back over the last five years, here is what I do know:

Every day I get to work with my best friend in the world and I get to work on projects and with clients that I absolutely love. I get to read books, watch movies and watch television for my job! (For the record, whoever says that is not the best job in the world is lying.)

And while it’s true that the industry is in transition and nobody knows what is going to happen and who knows what the next five years will bring …

All I have to say is I am excited to see what happens next!!

The Power of Passing on an Entertainment Industry Deal

Saying no is a scary thing. If you say no you could miss the next great thing!

In fact, this is why a lot of agents and executives will never actually call you back on a project because they don’t actually want to officially pass.

But there is also a power to passing because — as my business partner is fond of saying — you are defined by what you don’t do and not what you do. And recently we put this to the test.

One of our clients was sent a pilot for him to star in and asked to test for the part. We didn’t love the role so we politely passed.  We also said, if it were a straight offer, that would be one thing.  But our client shouldn’t test for something he didn’t love.

That simple pass sparked the president of the network to ask for a meeting with our client to talk about the role.
When our client went in for the meeting, the president of the network, the director and the show creator were there.   Our client expressed his concerns, and the president said that there might be a better role for him in the pilot and they were going to rework this new role specifically for our client.

And then the best news: The network was going to make a straight offer.
It was a win-win for everyone all starting from our saying no. Our client got a better role in the project and a straight offer, and the network  got an actor they really wanted.

 

Year-End Review and What 2011 Will Bring for Hollywood

December is here so it’s a good time to do a year-end review and discuss what next year might be like:

The biggest thing is that I don’t see the business ever going back to the way it was. With a continued recession I don’t think studios or networks are going to be shelling out the kind of big bucks they once were.

Sure the big actors and directors will get their quote.  But that crazy money that was around for emerging writers/actors or even the middle writers/directors is just not there anymore.

However, the good news is that I really see the DO-IT-YOURSELF culture reign supreme.  I have previously mentioned examples on this blog of people who took matters into their own hands (directed a short, shot a pilot, made a submission tape) and landed themselves a big job or sale. I see more and more of this happening.

Also, buyers are looking for people who can really add value. If you are a writer-director-actor, great! The more you can show that you can do more than one thing — the better for you.

Additionally, buyers want to see visual presentations. Doing a script or prepping a presentation is just not enough these days; people want to SEE what they are buying.  So I expect to see more and more visual presentations that will help get material sold.

The irony is — as with everything in this business — no one really knows anything. I’ve seen projects get sold or movies get made that for the life of me I can’t figure out why. Which just goes to show you that as many tips or predictions that one can give — it’s all a crap shoot.

The best advice I can give is work on projects you love, think visually, and try to add value (a presentation, a sizzle reel, etc.) to each and every one of your projects.

Here’s to a great 2011 for everyone!

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