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Just fucking figure it out

scriptmag.com

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Re: Just fucking figure it out

#21

Post by chegra84 »

This guy doesn't even include Pareto principle in his guide to success. This guy has us working most of our time getting coffee.

I say, better to write the script without a job and produce a 2 min trailer with your friends and show a couple people, than to work for months serving coffee that you hate and only to work on a script you can't complete.

[I don't support balls to the walls philosophy, only do stuff that gets results, be ruthless about efficiency. Activity is not productivity.]

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#22

Post by mbateman »

apl wrote: post #14
Tichy wrote: post #4

So if somebody comes up with the greatest script on earth, but doesn't work 17 hours a day as a slave for some TV producer, his script will never be made?

Correct, correct, correct. Television (and music and film, for that matter) are hardly a meritocracy. What ends up on screens and CDs isn't determined by quality, at least not primarily. There are fantastic scripts out there, masterpieces that will never get made. Crap gets turned into two-hundred million dollar blockbusters. [EDIT: This gets voted down why exactly?]

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.)

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#23

Post by chegra84 »

apl wrote: post #18
Tichy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And marketing is making coffee for Michael Arrington?

Wrong analogy. If you build a web app, you need paying customers. If you write a script, you need to get a producer to read it, like it and finance it. Different aims require different kinds of marketing - for writers it's networking on the producer-level.

Which doesn't necessitates serving coffee.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#24

Post by CamperBob »

callmeed wrote: post #3

Reminds me of Gary V's line: "stop watching 'effing Lost" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4

Believe me, that's at the top of my list of Things to Do Right After I Get My Time Machine Working. Go back and invest in Apple and Microsoft, bet on the Saints to win the Super Bowl, and try my best to convince the LOST writers that they'd be better off playing World of Warcraft instead.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#25

Post by dasil003 »

chegra84 wrote: post #21

This guy doesn't even include Pareto principle in his guide to success. This guy has us working most of our time getting coffee. I say, better to write the script without a job and produce a 2 min trailer with your friends and show a couple people, than to work for months serving coffee that you hate and only to work on a script you can't complete. [I don't support balls to the walls philosophy, only do stuff that ge…

The Pareto principal is relatively easily applied by young programmers, but how can young screenwriters apply it? It's an industry of relationships. If they are a great writer they might get attention, or their brilliant script might never be read. If they aren't actually talking to people in the industry they'll never know, and if they aren't actually working in the industry the only way to talk people is to randomly harass them so their first impression of you is annoyance. Under that lens, getting people coffee might actually be the best 20% for an entry-level screenwriter.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#27

Post by gamble »

I 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. You're better off just becoming a programmer. Create a game. Someone with a kick-ass demo is going to get ten times as many interviews as a guy who spends the same time pumping his connections.

Maybe I'm naive about the way television works, but if I wanted to be a writer in TV I'd start by trying to write something that was so good, people couldn't ignore me. And if I couldn't find someone to produce it, I would try to produce it myself. More than one career started with a film that only cost a few thousand dollars to produce. And if it didn't work out, at least I'd have spent the time doing something creative and productive rather than wasting my life fetching coffee and dry cleaning.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#28

Post by atomical »

gamble wrote: post #27

I 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…

Well, if you define good as something that is not only a great story but in a list of themes that executives are looking to put up on the screen, then yes, that's probably all it would take.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#29

Post by jamesbritt »

mbateman wrote: post #22
apl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct, correct, correct. Television (and music and film, for that matter) are hardly a meritocracy. What ends up on screens and CDs isn't determined by quality, at least not primarily. There are fantastic scripts out there, masterpieces that will never get made. Crap gets turned into two-hundred million dollar blockbusters. [EDIT: This gets voted down why exactly?]

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 more stuff than I can reasonably keep up with, so the relatively small amount of good stuff is maybe about enough.

Re: Just fucking figure it out

#30

Post by jerf »

gamble wrote: post #27

I 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 games programming. Nothing about games really especially calls for endless deathmarches or 18 hour days with no overtime pay six days a week, any more than any of the many other industries in which programming is as critical or perhaps even more critical (there's more to games than programming) but somehow manages to get done in 40-ish hours a week. It's just the endless hordes of young programmers who think it's what they want to do driving the price through the floor by inflating supply until there's just no incentive for EA to treat them any better; they're not just replaceable, they're aggressively replaceable.

I really recommend against any of these careers, the risk/reward just isn't there. The risk is much higher and it turns out there are many, many other jobs out there that are just as rewarding, except without the possibility of fame for a small percentage of jobholders.

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