Hi, guys, Last night, the Writers Guild hosted a panel on How To Succeed Without Representation, open only to Writers Guild members. It was packed, with an overflow audience watching on a monitor in the next room. In truth, it was two panels -- one representing websites where you can list your script, the other a trio of movie producers. I was in attendance, but felt a lot was left unsaid that could have been valuable. So I just wrote the following email to the Guild: Thanks for putting on the panel last night. It was good to hear what the panelists had to say. I felt, however, that the audience was left with essentially these messages, which left them less empowered than they might have been: 1. List your screenplay with four services and hope that, among thousands of other such listed scripts, yours will somehow be noticed -- and, if noticed, optioned or bought for money thats more than token. Essentially, a role of the dice against long odds. 2. If youre not represented, most producers will not take your call, email or fax. And if they do like your work, theyll ask you to write their project for free or, at best, scale. This is hardly a message of how to succeed without representation. And to an audience made up entirely of Writers Guild members, the overwhelming majority of whom once had agents (and presumably, successful careers) and now do not, it risks leaving them feeling powerless and despairing. I strongly think there should be another presentation called Succeed Without Representation, Part Two -- A Whole Lot More You Can Do. There are some messages that I think would be important to convey, based on what Ive learned and am doing now: 1. How to take a spec pilot, sell it as a trilogy of novels, position it to be a bestseller and utilize that to get it made as a TV show or movie. 2. How to get nominated and/or win major awards and utilize that to help reinvent your career in TV and film. 3. How to write books with major A-listers that gain you the attention of Hollywood. 4. How to reach out to your audience to directly fund your projects. 5. How to build your own studio and start shooting your own work. 6. How to attach name talent to your projects. 7. How to cut yourself apart from the herd with a big vision that engages and enthuses the audience, press and your fellow writers, 8. How to publicize yourself via the media to promote yourself and your projects -- even ones not yet completed. 9. How to get Hollywood to meet you on your terms -- those terms being a career that pays you well and gets your work to an audience of millions of people around the world. On reflection, I think I may offer that as a class sometime in the future. Seems like something that could be of use to a lot of folks... All best, Marc
Posted on: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 20:47:27 +0000
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