More on meetings, why you should be in LA, and industry growth.

It's been interesting seeing the passionate reactions to the post I wrote last week about why aspiring writers still need to move to L.A. I honestly didn't expect quite so passionate a response because I felt like it was a topic that had been covered a number of times. My assumption was that the new followers of this site would take it in, but that most readers would go, "Oh yeah, we've had this talk."

What I didn't expect was that this would blow up as much as it did on Twitter, to the point that a lot of working writers I follow ended up discussing it - and largely agreeing with it. Even knowing what sometimes happens on Twitter, it was unexpected to see some really aggressive responses spitting venom at those writers for daring to say this. I think that most people who bothered to read the entire article took it to heart, but there is definitely a vocal minority who registered their displeasure with a lot of rage.

The dissenting opinions typically fell into one of the following categories:

1) "No, you're wrong." - no effort made at refuting the points I made in my post. No effort at providing a counter-argument. Just "you're wrong." Persuasive.

2) "Well, Gary Whitta/Justin Marks/C. Robert Cargill/etc don't live in LA and they're successful!" - Marks spent a decade building his career in L.A. and didn't move away until after he was hired on THE JUNGLE BOOK, and he still regularly comes back to L.A. for meetings. He's made a name for himself, so he can be absentee. Whitta and Cargill came into the industry after making names for themselves in other aspects of it (and in Cargill's case, he pretty much had director Scott Derrickson demand he write a script for him.) There are unique circumstances like this for most of the names people threw at me.

Also, my whole post was about how just finding exceptions doesn't disprove the rule. Amy Purdy didn't have legs and was runner-up in a dancing competition, but that doesn't mean every amputee stands a chance of keeping up with the cast of the next STEP UP movie. So when someone responds to a post about exceptions by saying, "Hey, I found an exception!" it suggests they kinda missed the point.

3) "You're just trying to keep people from becoming competition!" - Geoff LaTulippe had the best comeback to that, saying something to the effect of, "I don't need to discourage people to come to LA in order to protect my job. Lack of talent does that for me."

4) "There are plenty of indie filmmakers who live outside of L.A. so you're full of shit!" - I wasn't talking about indie film in my post, so it's weird to try to move the goal posts here. We're talking about being able to make a living as a writer, and that's very, very hard to do in independent film. Indie film is often very low budget and the writer is not going to make a great deal. Yes, the exception is if one happens to write My Big Fat Greek Wedding or a Slumdog Millionaire AND if the writer's deal some how cuts them in on the success of that film. It's hard to overlook that the indie film successes make up only a fraction of the indie films actually produced. Indie screenwriters tend not to be rolling in dough - at least not from their films. If you knew the right indie filmmakers you might be able to see your stuff produced, but writing a $500K feature is not the sort of thing you'll quit your job for.

5) "Moving to LA is hard! It's expensive! I don't want to uproot my family!" - Not really addressing any of the points I made. I'm telling you what you need to do to have the best shot at making it. You're telling me why you can't do it. Your inability to follow through does not make my point any less true.

Here's the hard truth, folks. You think moving to L.A. is hard? It is a fucking cakewalk compared to how hard it is to become a writer strong enough to sustain a career. Moving to L.A. is the easy part of this plan. Anybody can move to L.A. It's WAY easier than getting a sale.

The responses weren't ALL dumb, though. Landon recently wrote me with what is a fair question:

With the current film industry growth in places like Atlanta and Vancouver, do you think in the next 20-30 years that we might see some small time screenwriting opportunities pop up in those cities? Or do you believe the vast majority of screenwriting opportunities will continue to be in and around LA for the foreseeable distant future?

Twenty to thirty years is always hard to forecast out. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the film industry growth in Atlanta and Vancouver will have basically no impact on screenwriting opportunities. They're production hubs, but they're not where the real business of TV and Film is. L.A. is always going to be the center of that aspect of the industry, just as the American financial machine is always going to have Wall Street as its Mecca.

Atlanta and Vancouver, as well as New Orleans are hot spots for shooting thanks to tax incentives that drive down production costs. Those love affairs are only going to last as long as it's financially viable to stay. It's really no different than the production companies that shoot a lot of movies for cheap in Bulgaria or Budapest, and that's been going on for decades without the business end of things packing up and leaving L.A.

This is where the powerbrokers are - the agents, the studios, the decision-makers. If your job requires an interface with them - and as a screenwriter it does - Hollywood is the place you want your roots. If you were trying to work on a crew, then moving to Atlanta or one of those other places probably makes sense.

I heard from a lot of people via Twitter after that post. Some of those who agreed with me were people who regretted not moving out to L.A. sooner when they could have capitalized on their own heat. One writer had been a Nicholl finalist and regretted not making the leap when people still cared who they were. There were a couple other people who'd tried it at a distance and wanted to turn the clock back too.

You might take 150 meetings just to get that one meeting at a production company that likes your script. Think about that - 150 meetings. That's not something you can squeeze in during an occasional week-long visit to California. Then there's the "shit happens" factor, the reality that a lot of meetings get bumped and rescheduled several times - especially when you're a low priority. Being told your meeting on the Warner lot is two weeks later is no big deal when you live in Echo Park, but when you're from Wicker Park... I trust you see my point.

If you write a good script, there's a strong possibility that many of your meetings won't be about making that script so much as they're a "hey, we like your writing. Maybe we can find something to work on." That usually means feeling out their tastes and pitching a new idea they like. When that happens, you'll probably be writing on spec. Should you find yourself in that position, make sure you know if you are able to take that script elsewhere should these people say no. If they hand you a graphic novel and tell you they'd love your take on it, you won't be able to do anything with that intellectual property elsewhere.

There's also the possibility that they're going to have multiple writers working on different pitches and treatments for that I.P. simultaneously, which again means more meetings without any guarantee it'll lead somewhere. Then after all that, they'll need to make your deal to write it - or they'll have you write it on spec and you're praying to God that some studio somewhere falls in love with it.  If you're not writing it on spec, you'll probably be pitching it, and again, that means more meetings.

Time. Meetings. And very little cash. Being out of L.A. only prolongs this process.

I think people have this idea that you can just write from your hometown, send the script in, and two days later get the response, "Great! We're going to make this script! It'll be a movie. Tell us when the next script is ready." Your average film is the result of so many meetings, development sessions and general glad-handing that you need to have a presence in town. It's the invisible part of the process that many aren't aware of, but is critical to a writer's sustainability. I don't see that aspect packing up for Atlanta, nor do I imagine it being conducted over Skype.

And to wrap up, I want to collect a series of tweets written on Tuesday by GOING THE DISTANCE screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe. It fits neatly into our discussion of the advantages of being in L.A. versus everywhere else.  Geoff gave his permission for me to do so. The only alterations I have made has been in combining some sentences into paragraphs.

Allow me a couple Twitters in a row here to tell you a story. [The] story is about how important both professional and personal relationships - which often end up being the same thing - are in ths industry. And it's a pretty good reverse flowchart of how just LIVING in LA drastically improves your position as an aspiring screenwriter. So come along with me on this journey back in time, won't you?

The project that's currently getting the bulk of my attention is set up at one of the major studios. It is my first project with them. This project was set up with two production companies, one of which was founded by a music industry icon. It is my first project with them. So how did I come to partner up with this company? Through the second production company involved. Production Company A came to Production Company B with an idea, because B owned the rights to an article of that exact subject matter. They hit on the shell of an idea they liked, and decided to go out and find a writer. I was suggested first by the producer at PC B.

Why was I suggested? As it turns out, this producer used to be at a different major studio, and was overseeing another project there.

Why was that project there? Because one of the producers on THAT project had a strong standing relationship/track record with the studio.

At the time it was purchased, the Producer on my CURRENT project wasn't even aware of me. They took a chance because of the relationship. Now, how did the producer on the EARLIER studio project know me? We have the same agent. In fact, she was going to write the very project I ended up attached to, but she got too busy, so she farmed it out. I was on the farm!

How did I get on that farm (in other words: with my agent)? She was the very first person one of my friends, a producer at a major prodco sent GOING THE DISTANCE to when she initially read it, literally days before it sold to New Line. How did I make THAT friend? Through one of my best friends at New Line, where I started as a reader. The same guy I developed GTD with.

How did I meet THAT friend? He was one of the very first people I met in LA, at a Dodgers' game, introduced to me by my mentor.

And how did I meet my mentor? On a screenwriters' Internet message board, way back in the late 90s.

My mentor started as an aspiring writer, moved out to LA, optioned a script, became an assistant became story coordinator at New Line and then several years later hired me. We'd stayed in touch the whole way through and he liked my writing. It was as simple as that.

So that's about 10 layers of an industry relationship onion there. It all started off with a personal connection I made on a message board. Five years later, I moved to LA. The next two levels up in that story? People I met here, on the ground, within six weeks of touching down.

Would ANY of that have happened to me if I'd stayed in PA, hoping to become a writer from my parents' house? No. Christ, no. I had to move here, act like a person, meet people, establish relationships, and then make the most of my opportunities when I had them.

Anyway, some had been asking for a practical example of how being in LA helps writing careers. That was my arc. Hope it helped to read it.

PS - I don't say it enough, but I owe many of the best things in my life to said mentor, @lukeryansays. I'm nowhere if he doesn't pluck me.

This blog turns six! - There's still much more work to do

Today this blog is six years old. Honestly, I'm kind of surprised it's lasted this long and that so many of you fine people still drop by to read every new post. It's funny to think that when I started it, I wondered if I'd have enough material to keep me going six months.

Some of you have possibly noticed that the blog output has slowed a bit. That's largely due to the fact that I've exhausted a lot of the common topics and questions I could cover related to screenwriting. I've been able to compensate for that over the last few months as it's Oscar Movie season and I've had a full buffet of great movies to discuss.

The other big sea change is that it's become more and more common for people to use Twitter as an output for their musings and advice. I still like the idea of a permanent archive on the blog, partly because it allows new readers to discover those nuggets long after the fact. Even so, I know I've had plenty of times where I've tossed off a good rant on twitter and found that got it enough out of my system that I didn't feel the need to come back here and flesh it out. I'm trying to be better about that.

Ah, Twitter. I really can't believe that I still have yet to plateau in terms of followers. As I write this I have over 27,700 followers and the last time I checked, only a few percent of those were deemed "fake." It's flattering to see evidence that people are still discovering me and interested in what I have to say.

I bring this up because even more than through this blog, I've made a lot of great friends and contacts through Twitter over the last six years. It's absolutely been one of the best things I could have done for my career. I've made some good friends, including fellow aspiring writers, actors, and working writers - including a showrunner or two. I definitely recommend trying to build your own social network. It takes time but if you use Twitter right, you might find a few doors opening up for you.

As it's Awards Season, it feels appropriate to conclude this look back with a few thank yous.  There's not enough space here to acknowledge everyone whom I've met and become friends with due to this blog, but there are a few in particular I want to call out.

I did my best to put this list in random order, but I have to start with Scott Myers. About five months into the life of this blog, Scott was the one who really put me on the map when he featured me and gave me a very generous plug on the only must-read screenwriting blog, Go Into The Story. For almost five years, my relationship with Scott was completely through emails and tweets. I met him just over a year ago and it was a genuine delight to find he was everything you'd expect. Scott is the screenwriting professor I wish I'd had in college, running the sort of blog I could only dream of reading when I was taking my first steps into screenwriting. As I implore you often, please visit Go Into The Story regularly.

Hollywood has a reputation for having a lot of assholes. Some of that is earned, but my first-hand experience has been that there are a significant number of sincerely giving people. Over the years, a very high percentage of the working writers I have met have been some of the kindest, most helpful people out there. There's this myth that working writers are out to screw over aspirings. I've never seen any evidence of this, and the people I'm about to name-check are the furthest from that:

Eric Heisserer was one of the first working writers whom I got to know through Twitter, following his reaction to a tweet about the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET reboot. He later consented to an interview about the film and also authored a guest post about the life of a script in the studio development process. Even today, that post stands as my third-most-popular post of all time. On a one-on-one level, Eric has also been giving enough of his time to read some of my work and offer help where he could. He didn't do it so I'd blog about it, he's just that kind of person. Publicly he's very giving in offering the occasional screenwriting knowledge drops on Twitter, and I encourage you to follow him for his regular insights.

If you just know John Gary from Twitter, you probably have this image of him as the cranky pessimist who's the first one to say why the latest screenwriting development is a half-empty glass. But you'll have to look hard to find a more passionate advocate for writers, and someone more determined to make sure that naive aspirings aren't taken advantage of by charlatans and scams. He also regularly takes on what he calls The Hope Machine - the parent of the pie-in-the-sky fantasies that writers have about how easy it'll be to gain fame and forture from their writing. John doesn't tell you want you want to hear - he says what you NEED to hear. Like me he's seen the business from the inside as both a reader and a writer, and you would ignore the wisdom from that experience at your peril.

Along the same lines, I consider Geoff LaTulippe a must-follow. You can never accuse Geoff of not speaking his mind and while his blunt and aggressive nature sometimes gets him into trouble, he's very open to answering questions from aspiring writers on Twitter, on his podcast Broken Projector and on his personal website. If memory serves, Geoff might have been the first pro writer to reach out to me with an offer to read my script, and I know that's a courtesy he's extended to a few, perhaps many, others.

Justin Marks is a working writer who I first came to know via Twitter. We seem to approach things from a similar point of view and it's rare that there's a significant gulf in our opinions. (Justin once quipped that "we could pilot a Jaeger together.") I finally met him last year and it was a relief to learn that our rapport extended to our face-to-face interaction. Justin's got two big projects in the future: The Jon Favreau-directed Jungle Book movie coming in 2016 and the sequel to Top Gun, still unscheduled as far as I know. He's another one whose tweets can be a good insight into the business, so give him a follow.

F. Scott Frazier was one of the first writers to reach out to me to meet in person, and I'm glad I dropped the mask to do so. Scott tends to do his good deeds without advertising them, but I know he's gone out of his way to be a mentor to some writers. Like many others I know, he definitely believes in paying it forward, and frankly, he's prolific enough that it would be understandable if he didn't want to take the time to do so. I'd be remiss if I didn't plug my interview with him.

When people come to me asking for a coverage referral, I point them at Amanda Pendolino and ONLY Amanda Pendolino. Like me, Amanda's gotten a number of years as a script reader under her belt while trying to build her own career. She gives really sharp notes, and in a manner that always feels constructive. I recently gave her a script that I'm pretty sure wasn't her cup of tea, but she made a passionate, persuasive case for her opinions without making me feel like I'd been eviscerated. That's rare. On top of that, she's a great writer who deserves to be on staff somewhere. I know if I was a showrunner, she'd be one of my early draft picks.

Speaking of showrunners, Jeff Lieber is another favorite twitter-buddy. Currently one of the showrunners on NCIS: New Orleans, Jeff is one of the creators of Lost, as well as the creator of Miami Medical and was a showrunner on Necessary Roughness. He's used those assignments and others as fodder for his Showrunner Rules, which he regularly doles out on Twitter. You can find the whole archive here and his feed is always a valuable read.

The people I've named already are all great writers, but one writer whose work just knocked me on my ass was Brian Scully. I gave a spotlight post to his brilliant script MERCIFUL last year and soon after that, Brian landed management with Verve. I'm currently in the weeds on a very dark script of my own and I can honestly say that MERCIFUL has been like that rabbit they use to get the greyhounds to do laps around the track. I've read plenty of scripts that have inspired me and taught me, but MERCIFUL is one that really pushed me to be better and to not be scared to take chances.

Through my association with Go Into The Story, I also came to know Nate Winslow. Scott Myers calls him "future super producer Nate Winslow" and not without good reason. Nate is a savvy guy who's worked on a number of film projects, most recently at Defender Entertainment. If someone's smart, they'll snap him up to be their Creative Executive because he's got a great eye for projects. There are some people who you can just tell when you meet them that they have what it takes to make their own good fortune. With Nate, I know it's only a matter of time before he puts together a project and becomes one of those guys everyone is trying to get their scripts to. He's another one who keeps me motivated, if only so I don't feel like I'm standing still next to him.

And last, but certainly far from least, I consider myself fortunate to have gotten to know Black List founder Franklin Leonard. I take a very dim view of most services that ask screenwriters to pay for them. I don't typically trust coverage companies because you can't really trust who's reading those scripts, and it's rare to find such a company where the person in charge has a significant amount of credibility to put on the line. When Franklin told me he was expanding the Black List's mission to including hosting and review services for aspiring writers, I was skeptical. After he laid it out for me, I became a believer.  A few half-wits have accused my endorsement of the site of being the back-scratch that was redeemed by payola. I can assure you I have no official affiliation with the site, nor have I ever taken any sort of money, bribery or whatever you want to call it. I endorse the Black List because I believe in it and in what Franklin Leonard is trying to do.

I've been fortunate to meet many successful people. I've worked for a number of industry pros who were very good at their jobs and have been able to produce films for most of their adult lives. I want to tell you what sets Franklin Leonard apart from them. Those men and women are very adept players within the existing system. Franklin Leonard is a guy with the will and the forethought to change the system. The Black List is constantly evolving and expanding, carving out partnerships with management companies, studios and producers. More than that, Franklin is possibly one of the most above-board and intelligent people I've met out here. There's nothing phony about him, and if we had more Franklin Leonards, that wouldn't be a terrible thing for our industry.

Franklin is smart enough he could probably be very successful just playing the game as it is. Instead he's forging his own path. I'm glad that writers - both aspiring and professional - have such a driven advocate. I know he's going to continue to push to make the Black List better. I once said to him that he must be proud of everything The Black List has become and his reply was, "There's still much more work to do."

Those who succeed are often those who are rarely satisfied.

These people I have named all have a few things in common. In one way or another they have all provided support and inspiration, and I've been lucky to get to know them. And there are still plenty more whom I don't have the space to name here. I also would never have met ANY of them, had I not started this blog six years ago and stuck with it even when I was getting only 50 hits a day the first few months. I would be a poorer individual for not knowing them.

If you have good fortune, pay it forward. When you deal with others, know there's little to be gained from being a dick. When you reach a goal, start formulating the next one, pushing yourself even harder than you did before. Most of all, don't let yourself become too satisfied with whatever you accomplish.

Thank you all for six great years. There's still much more work to do.

The need for truth in "based on a true story"

Let me give you a little background to this post.  A little over a week ago, my friends Geoff LaTulippe and Scott Beggs over at Broken Projector discussed the issue of fidelity to the truth in content that's labeled as "based on a true story." In particular, they were discussing the case of a twitter account whose author claimed to be dying of terminal cancer.  Those who followed the feed found it to be inspirational and quite moving, and they were saddened when a final tweet announced the author's passing.

It didn't take long for people to begin questioning the veracity of the account.  As the story became less and less plausible upon examination, the followers started to feel duped and hoodwinked.  Geoff and Scott batted this issue around, with Geoff essentially taking the position, "Who cares? Does it matter?"  Is there a responsibility to be 100% accurate when telling a story that's ostensibly based on actual events?  They invited their listeners to write in with their thoughts on that debate.

This happened to be an issue I've given a lot of thought over the years, so I dashed off a not-small email to the fine gents.  On their show this week, they gave the issue another airing and encouraged me to post the letter in full on my blog. Then to drive home the point, they got on Twitter and attempted to get their followers to bully me into posting it.

Message received.  What follows is the email I sent them, with a few revisions and additions for clarity:

The first time I can ever really remember thinking about this question was when I was in middle school and ran across a Roger Ebert piece on JFK. The whole piece is worth reading in full, but I'll reproduce a few key paragraphs below:

"Their criticisms all boiled down to a couple of key points: They felt Stone's movie was based on unsupportable speculation, and they believed his film's hero, former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, was an unscrupulous publicity seeker who drummed up his celebrated case against Clay Shaw out of thin air.

"These points are no doubt well-taken. I believe they are irrelevant to the film, which is not a documentary, not a historical study and not a courtroom presentation, but a movie that weaves a myth around the Kennedy assassination - a myth in which the slain leader was the victim of a monstrous conspiracy. The pollsters tell us that most Americans believe this anyway. Even Tom Wicker, down deep in his piece, says he does not believe the Warren Commission's finding that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Well, who does? And yet the image of Oswald as the lone killer has been the official establishment myth for 28 years. Is it such a terrible thing Stone has done, to weave a countermyth?

"Here on the movie beat, I always sort of quail when anybody makes a film that ventures out of pure Hollywood fantasy and into the real lives of the experts in the front section of the newspaper. I'm sure to be treated to many analytical studies of the factual accuracy of the film, in which the writers may be sound in their knowledge of history, but seem to have little idea why they or anyone else in the audience really goes to see a movie. People will not buy tickets to "JFK" because they think Oliver Stone knows who killed Kennedy. And when "Babe" comes out this summer, and inspires all sorts of disillusioned analysis on the sports page, that movie's factual accuracy will have nothing to do with the tickets it sells, either.

"People go to the movies to be told a story. If it is a good story, they will believe it for as long as the movie lasts. If it is a very good story, it may linger in their memory somewhat longer. In the case of "JFK," which I think is a terrific example of storytelling, what they will remember is not the countless facts and conjectures that the movie's hero spins in his lonely campaign to solve the assassination. What they will remember (or, if they are young enough, what they will learn) is how we all felt on Nov. 22, 1963, and why for all the years afterward a lie has seemed to lodge in the national throat - the lie that we know the truth about who murdered Kennedy."

A perspective like that is why I'm generally pretty forgiving about "inaccuracies" in movies like CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. When the distortions are in service to the story and as long as nothing truly batshit happens like aliens rescuing the ship, I can live with some fudging in terms of specific characters and attitudes. But then I can't help but remember that in another review of a movie based on a real-life incident, Ebert muses that "for an entire generation, this will be how they remember the truth." I can't remember the film or the real life incident, unfortunately. But I get where this is coming from - if APOLLO 13 implied that the malfunction was the work of Russian spies looking to cripple the NASA space program, that would be beyond the pale, no matter how much drama it made for.

So to some degree, I think that the need for fidelity in filmmaking varies with the scope of the incident and the significance of the incident to the larger world. It'd be easy to say a blanket "Who cares?" but I don't think it's that black-and-white. Now just to contradict myself, I'll revisit an issue that was batted around a few weeks ago.  The whole story with THE BRINGING really strikes me as distasteful. To take a real life incident where someone actually died and use their real names while wrapping it up in a supernatural context strikes me as really distasteful. Even though this real-life story is relatively unknown (I hadn't heard of it until the film), it bothers me that the script seems to capitalize on that tragedy when it would be so easy to change the names and merely allow the story to be vaguely inspired by the real incident, as most LAW & ORDER eps are.

And yet, I don't have a problem with the myriad of time-travel stories that deal with someone going back to the Kennedy Assassination, even when the story reveals that the traveler ends up being the assassin. I recognize there are a lot of contradictions in my stance.

With regard to the internet hoaxes discussed on the podcast, I think that it's ridiculous to get fired up over things like if Diane in 7A was real or not. If someone was using that viral lie to solicit money or otherwise profit from it, then I'd have an issue. In general, most harmless Twitter hoaxes don't bug me. This also includes THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I thought it was brilliant how they tried to add some verisimilitude to the whole thing by building that internet rabbit hole for people to fall down if they attempted to do an internet search on that story.

When it comes to someone like James Frey, though, fuck that guy. I mean, it turns out that lying to Oprah is the least of that guy's sins, but I think once you've gone on Oprah and tried to pass your hack writing off as a real memoir, you deserve what you get when people call it out. If the BLAIR WITCH filmmakers appeared on Oprah under the pretense they wanted to raise awareness about these missing kids and how Maryland was doing nothing to find them, then they'd be rightly drawn and quartered when the truth came out.

(And as indicated, my disgust with Frey is at an extreme because of the story in the link above. I think people who prey on naive writers are the lowest of the low.  Taking advantage of someone's naivete in order to get them to sign over basically all rights to their creative work with an insulting low pay scale is really offensive.  As far as I'm concerned it's indefensible.  For a fellow writer to do that to people who look up to him as a mentor is about the slimiest thing ever. So yeah, fuck that guy.)

So I don't know. I think it would help if there was agreement on what consisted a major inaccuracy in an adaptation. I'm tired of every Oscar season turning into hit piece after hit piece on these "based on a true story" films. Sometimes the changes are major, but when we get to stuff like nitpicking deliberate timeline inaccuracies or composite characters, it gets out of hand.

In the second podcast, Geoff touched in this and said that he had no issue with those kinds of articles if they approached it from a more academic standpoint.  In other words, if they come from the angle of "Look at what they changed and understand why some of that was necessary," it could be educational about the process of writing a script.  Too often, these pieces carry the subtext of "They changed a few facts so this movie doesn't deserve an Oscar."  I'm not sure that should be one of the main criteria when evaluation how effective a film is as a piece of drama.

So what are your feelings on adapting true stories?  I'm curious to see where some of you draw the line.

Hear me discuss Amazon Studios on the Broken Projector podcast

I really should have linked to this sooner considering that posts about Amazon Studios tend to be among my most-viewed.  This week, I had the honor of being the guest on Scott Beggs and Geoff LaTulippe's podcast Broken Projector.  Screenwriter Justin Marks also joined the conversation as we weighed the pros and cons of Amazon Studios' new venture into producing 14 pilots and then crowdsourcing the development of those pilots.

You can find the embedded post here.

You can download it directly here.

You can subscribe via iTunes here.

Broken Projector is one of my favorite podcasts, so it was a great pleasure to be invited on the show.  If you love movies, this is a podcast you need to be listening to every week.  As a bonus, you now know the proper "voice" to hear in your head as you read Geoff LaTulippe's tweets.

Do pro writers try to sabotage aspiring writers?

Every now and then - usually in the darker corners of the internet - I see one belligerent jackass or another accusing pro screenwriters of trying to sabotage other aspirings.  Sometimes this is prompted by posts like one written by Geoff LaTulippe last week.  In it, Geoff lays out the long odds against one ever making it as a pro writer.  I guess that this provoked a few people into accusing Geoff of trying to discourage aspiring writers because he "doesn't want the competition."

Sigh.

This is one facet of an ugly attitude that I really, really despise, which is the "Fuck the pros!" retort.  I've met a lot of pro screenwriters in my time out here and I'm hard-pressed to think of any who weren't incredibly nice people.  I'm sure there are a few egotistical jackasses out there (they exist in every profession), but the vast majority of TV and film writers whom I've met have been very friendly, and often very encouraging to aspiring writers.  This is often tempered with some harsh realities, true.  But I've never met a writer who seemed driven to scare other writers away just to thin the herd of competition.

Putting aside that direct experience, there are other reasons to doubt a pro is trying to scare people away.  For one, being good enough to make it as a writer is HARD.  Let's say that maybe one percent of those who aspire to be writers are actually strong enough to be a threat to the working writer.  Is it really worth that working writer's time to set up some incredibly time-consuming resource like an advice blog, just so that a tiny fraction of those people who visit will be tripped up by disinformation?

Anyway, I bring all of this up because of a few blog comments from a recent post.  Brainman asked:


This relates a bit to the blog post by Geoff LaTulippe where he sort of offered aspiring writers some encouragement through discouragement. He was then accused of attempting to discourage writers so that he'd have less competition. Many came to his defense on twitter, and I recall F. Scott Frazier saying something like "a rising tide lifts us all".

I'm just a naive outsider, but I'm inclined to believe working screenwriters over aspiring ones. I do have trouble fully understanding how it can be true that more writers "breaking in" more often helps those writers that are already working. Could you shed some light on this for me so I can get it through my thick skull?

F. Scott Frazier gave a response that I found quite sensible.  Since I'd hate for that to be hidden and forgotten in the comments, I felt it merited being "promoted" to this post:

First off, let me say while I wish I could take credit for "a rising tide lifts all ships" unfortunately while my sentiment was the same, I said it in a much more awkward way. Someone else said the tide thing, and then I slapped myself in the forehead for not thinking of it first... 

The answer to your question / query about why working writers would ever want to help aspiring writers, and how any advice we give can be taken at face value is somewhat long, but I wanted to break it down piece by piece. In doing so, it's going to be a little over-generalized, but this is the basic idea behind why I believe what I believe. 

First off, let's say there are two ways writers build a career in the feature business: by selling specs and booking jobs. (Again, overly general, but let's start from there...) 

1) Selling specs is not a zero sum game, that is to say if I sell my spec today, you can still sell your spec tomorrow. In fact, if you look at the trends, you can see that spec sales usually come in waves. Studio A buys a hot spec, so Studio B doesn't want to be shown up and they buy one too. The more specs sell, the more other specs sell. Yes, of course, studios and buyers have budgets for each year as to what they can spend on buying scripts, but the chances of Studio C buying your script and running out money to buy my script are so infinitesimally small there's no reason in even worrying about it. 

2) On the other side of the equation, there are jobs, which unfortunately are zero sum games: if I get the job, you can't also get the job (but that doesn't account for rewrites and polishes which are a whole other can of worms). However, when jobs become available not every writer in town goes out for them. Lists are made, lists are cultivated -- winnowing down writers over everything from quote, genre, availability, desire, etc. So the idea that any professional writer would attempt to sabotage aspiring writers' careers because of the worry they might one day end up on the exact same on the exact same job is again, so infinitesimal as to worry about it... 

Anecdotally, I've never known any writer who got pissed or upset with another writer for getting a job. 

In all honesty, I personally think worrying about the veracity of advice from professional writers is akin to worrying about someone stealing your script. All it does it take time away from writing for something that, once again, is so unlikely to happen.

Read screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe's blog!

Earlier this week, screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe launched his new blog and one of his first entries was a reposting of something he said on the Done Deal Pro discussion boards.  Entitled "Mom, Dad? Where Do Movies Come From?" It attacks a myth I've also derided on this blog - the idea that Hollywood is only interested in buying terrible scripts.

I can’t stress this enough: most of the writers working professionally in Hollywood are on a scale from very solid to fucking amazing. Sure, there are some hacks, and sure, we all wonder how they got there; you’ll have that in any profession, creative or not. Hell, I’m probably one of them.

But for the most part, when you go to see a movie that just absolutely blows, you can bet good money on the fact that it didn’t start out as a piece of shit. Is this always true? Of course not. Generally? I certainly believe so.

[...]Most terrible movies start off as really, really, really good scripts.

For more, check out the rest of the post, where Geoff gives a painstakingly detailed breakdown of the development process that most scripts face on their way to production.  And while you're over there, bookmark Geoff's blog.   It promises to be a repository of straight-shooting advice that Geoff has gained via his time as both a professional screenwriter and a studio reader.  In fact, he's even soliciting questions, so if you've got any burning queries you'd like answered from someone who's sat on both sides of the development desk, now's your chance.

Even better for us, Geoff is incredibly blunt and he's definitely no bullshitter.  I don't expect much sugar-coating in his answers.  If you follow him on Twitter at @DrGMLaTulippe, you probably already know that about him, though.

Friday Free-For-All: Yom Kippur at WME

Twitter is a funny thing.  Recently in one fell swoop I got to interact with childhood crush Danica McKellar AND make a frenemy-for-life of screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe ("Going the Distance").  This occured when I beat him to the correct answer of one of Danica's regular anagram tests, prompting him to say, "I can't wait to hit you in the mouth."

Bring it, Geoff.

Frankly, I'm not scared of him, but in the interests of detente, I'd like to feature his new short "Yom Kippur at WME," starring the incomparable J.B Smoove.