THE OUTSIDERS “GETTING INTO HOLLYWOOD AND STAYING IN”

I sat nervously across the table from Joe Cohen at CAA; I had never been there before and the stakes were higher for me than for anyone else in the room – why? Because I was the Outsider, the only one in the room who had never been to their offices and quite possibly the only one who wouldn’t be allowed back if our pitch didn’t go as planned.

 

 

And it didn’t.

 

After eight months spent developing our pitch for a cable television series everyone at Management 360 was excited about, we were told by Cohen himself that our property would be best served as a film; that cable was not the best fit for us at the moment and that Michael Mann had been trying to sell a property with elements similar to ours but no one would touch it. This was enough to send me over the edge, mostly because I had imagined the piece as a movie, to begin with, and way before this process got started. Eight fucking months and we didn’t even have a script to show for!

 

 

The movie business is unpredictable, completely out of my control and I knew that going in. What was truly unexpected, however, was how quickly the tides on this would change. My partner and I felt deflated and were clearly depressed – we didn’t call it that, of course; we called this phase “regrouping time”; which meant we both needed time to shake all the negativity off before going over the material and start re-envisioning the project as a feature film – and of course, never speak of it again; but before we even got there, we sparked the interest of a former Film Nation Entertainment executive now working for the television group at Amazon – Yes, you read that right, television – WTF, right?!?

 

So guess what? This outsider went back to CAA a lot less nervous and with a potential buyer waiting on the sidelines. Good story? I think so. Unusual? Probably not. What it does illustrate, however, is that despite how closed-off this industry seems to be to writers outside the business, there are a million different ways one can devise to break through and make an impression. Have the rights to a great idea and don’t have an agent? Find a writing partner who does. Not sure you can share the creative process with another writer? I’d say bite the bullet – especially if you can negotiate to have the final say on the big creative decisions. You are a writer… figure out a way in!

But getting in is only the beginning; I have three projects in development and still feel like I don’t belong; maybe because I’m an outside-the-box writer and that can make it harder for studio executives to trust me – especially since all I like are ideas that feel controversial. Would I like to “feel” more commercial to the studios? Yes, but these are the type of stories I like to tell. Would I like to remain employable? Yes, but in the end losing battles on my own terms has always felt better than losing them on somebody else’s. So, in my humble opinion, your biggest challenge won’t be getting in – it will be to find out the type of writer you’d like to be and then stick to it as you navigate the wild white waters of the Hollywood studio system.

See you all next week!