This snippet basically sum's it for me:
"Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it’s lonely. Yes, you give up many other things that are important to you. But that’s what being an [entrepreneur] is."
Just fucking figure it out
41–50 of 90 posts
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#42Disclaimer: Everything I know about Hollywood I learned from watching Entourage...
A big difference between breaking in to the script writing world and breaking in to the web app / internet startup world is the amount of effort required to evaluate your work.
A new web app / start up can be evaluated in a few seconds. We do it all day long on this website ("Check out my new project...").
A new script for a movie or show probably takes a few hours to read (excluding Michael Bay movies...). That's a huge commitment to ask of someone. You always see producers / director being asked to "read my script". That's a lot of work.
So, my guess is that all the work to start at the bottom and build relationships is required because the people you need help from (producers / directors etc.) need to like you before they will invest the 3 hours in reading your script. Michael Arrington doesn't need to like you to take 5 seconds to look at your MVP page.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#43I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills. This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. Yo…
Supply and demand; the supply of people who want to be writers is too high, and you are going to have to go to great lengths to distinguish yourself or get really lucky. As others point out this may not be the only way in, but don't expect anything to be easy or even merely hard, because every metaphorical door into the place is jammed tight with people trying to get in. We get the same effect in our industry with ga…
Spot on. Any time some industry insider tells people they need to work like slaves to get a good position has no idea how economics works. Instead the industry insider should be telling people we have enough people looking to break in and you should work in some other industry until ours settle into a more manageable supply/demand ratio.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#44Best advice in this article: stop driving and take public transport. This applies to hackers as well as writers--really, anyone who can do creative / useful work on a laptop. If a typical commute is 30 minutes by car or 1 hour by public transportation, you may feel like you are losing an hour a day leaving your car at home, but you are actually gaining an hour of time if you bring your laptop, assuming you want to spend at least 2 hours a day working on things on your laptop outside work. Other upsides: cheaper, less stress, safer, better for the environment.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Supply and demand; the supply of people who want to be writers is too high, and you are going to have to go to great lengths to distinguish yourself or get really lucky. As others point out this may not be the only way in, but don't expect anything to be easy or even merely hard, because every metaphorical door into the place is jammed tight with people trying to get in. We get the same effect in our industry with ga…
I think this is a common problem for any programming job that's particularly visible or technical. Most programming jobs are boring, frankly, and there are a lot of very smart people in the industry fighting for the few stimulating, high-status, technically-challenging jobs. For example, anything to do with aerospace seems to have competition that puts the games industry to shame.
Obviously it depends on your definition of high-status, but I know a lot of people hiring developers across a range of sectors for technically challenging jobs, and they all have trouble hiring talented people.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#46I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills. This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. Yo…
"I know nothing about the entertainment industry..." Then maybe you shouldn't speak about it as if you do. I have heard the same advice in this article from a number of people working as tv writers (either reading articles, or as part of my mfa in creative writing), and it does seem like the vast majority of them only got where they are by "working their way up". The idea that you can just make something good enough…
> The amount of good content that is generated by writers is overwhelming and, in fact, incredibly easy to ignore. Not saying you can't point to success stories of people who produced their own stuff. You can just point to more stories of people who lost a lot of money producing their own stuff and have nothing to show for it. Building relationships certainly seems to be a more reliable way to go about breaking into the industry.
Obviously, the answer is to write terrible shit, because no one is putting any of that heaping pile of good content into consumable products.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because I don't believe that there are fantastic scripts out there not getting made. The crap we see is the best there is, sadly. (I have several friends in the movie industry.)
I read this in the article, " You have to be an amazing writer, the best writer people have ever read… and you have to have a large Rolodex of personal/professional contacts who will hire you, rehire you, support you, recommend you." Based on what I see on TV I have to believe that the Rolodex counts for far more than the writing skill because there's a ton of crap getting produced. On the bright side, there's way mo…
"Based on what I see on TV I have to believe that the Rolodex counts for far more than the writing skill because there's a ton of crap getting produced."
Like, for example, "Reality Binge" or "Celebrity Drive-By"? Which happen to be the author's two shows (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1941257/).
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#48I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills. This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. Yo…
It's not really an entertainment industry thing. Someone who's paid his dues by getting a PHD from CMU is more likely to get a job at Google than some guy who just read books on his own. Sure the guy who read books might create some startup, get some heat, and get bought out by google. And that can happen to a writer outside of the industry. But all things being equal, the smart money goes on the PHD. And sure, every…
It's the same thing in piles of fields ranging from sports to law - you have to work your tail off in the beginning for a very marginal shot at getting into the top rungs. Want to be a doctor? You're putting in 80-hour weeks as a resident. Want to make partner at a top law firm? Better be ready to spend a decade putting in half again as much work as your bosses. Want to be the next Michael Jordan? Better bust your ass off every step of the way, from high school tryouts all the way through college. That's 7 years of eating, sleeping, and breathing basketball to even have a shot at the pros.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this is a common problem for any programming job that's particularly visible or technical. Most programming jobs are boring, frankly, and there are a lot of very smart people in the industry fighting for the few stimulating, high-status, technically-challenging jobs. For example, anything to do with aerospace seems to have competition that puts the games industry to shame.
Obviously it depends on your definition of high-status, but I know a lot of people hiring developers across a range of sectors for technically challenging jobs, and they all have trouble hiring talented people.
Every time I'm advising a young person or young people I always underline that there are challenges everywhere. If I just describe my job, it sounds terrible, very business programming oriented, but in fact in order to make it work I'm pushing myself very hard, lots of server and coordination problems, retrofitting code never meant to do this and doing it in the most developer-time effective manner, and even pushing the cutting edge a bit in some ways. It's as interesting as games programming could be and a lot less stressful, and like you say, there's stuff like this all over.
Re: Just fucking figure it out
#50I know nothing about the entertainment industry, but this idea of 'putting in your dues' by working your way up from a menial position based on personal relationships has always seemed naive. Either you can do something or you can't, and working as a dogsbody isn't going to impart those skills. This advice seems like the equivalent of telling someone who wants to be a game programmer to start in the QA department. Yo…
I honestly reminds me of two talks from Startup School. One from Tom Preston-Werner of GitHub. He talked about "luck" and how part is chance and part is you. He moved himself to Silicon Valley to improve his luck. He also talked about the basic steps he used to "work his way up" to a success:
http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272178966
The other was from Brian Chesky of AirBnB. He and his co-founders basically did whatever they had to, including selling novelty cereal boxes, to move up. He started his talk by saying how he was "powerless and obscure" and the moves he and AirBnB made, including joining Y Cominator to get to where they were profitable and "on the map" http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272180383
We may not start out by fetching coffee for Paul Graham's 3nd assistant (I doubt he has one), but we do all have to start from somewhere and make whatever moves we have to in order to move up. That may involve toiling at night, moving to SF or elsewhere, or whatever. But it still just needs to get done.
Enough said, I've got some coding to do this Saturday night.