Spike Scarberry: Drunk History Meets Screenwriting

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
We need a little slate to like, slap us in or just to
slap us. Just like a hand thatcomes in. Yeah, hand that just
comes in slaps inside the head.
That'd be awesome. Stop, stoptake to get again. This is
Jeannie flat powermeter PipelineArtists. And this is Sadie Dean
from skirt magazine. And we aredoing our next second episode of

(00:25):
reckless creatives podcast,following up our first episode,
which was all about failure, andwell received. I don't think it
failed.
Well, I don't think so either. Ithink it's getting a lot of love
on social media. Everyone thatI've shared it with. You really
liked it. Um, I've sent it to mymom, but I haven't heard back so

(00:52):
I know better than to send it tomy mother. She would cuz she
just loved anything I did. Likeshe would just be like, Oh, it's
great. It's great. It's great.
Because she's a mom. But she's agreat mom. She's 89 we'll have
to have like a mom conversationone day cuz you know, these
people who birthed the recklesscreatives deserve a little
kudos? For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:17):
Yeah. Because there are a lot ofjerk parents out there who
wouldn't let people be reckless?
Yeah. So I hear you've got somequotes for us today. Satan,
Dean.
I do. Yeah, we actually have areally cool podcast. Today we're
interviewing spikes Carberry. Heseems like he's like the jack of
all trades, of screenwriting andTV writing. So I'm really

(01:38):
excited to pick his brain abouteverything that I don't know,
which is a lot.
The first step to being recklessis admitting you don't know
anything.
I know nothing about that. Um,so I have a few quotes here from

(02:01):
both Larry David and FranLebowitz. And we're gonna play a
little game with you, Jeannie.
Oh, God, edit. But first,because our topic today is about
success. And whatever that maylook like to any of you. The
first one I found was from oneof my favorite writers who is
Mark Twain. And his quote is, tosucceed in life, you need two

(02:25):
things, ignorance andconfidence. Yeah. I mean, I
think I lean towards ignorance.
Butthat's my you know, and that's
an interesting question, becauseI interviewed James Kicklighter
the other day, who is adocumentary and filmmaker also
does narrative film, but he didthis, it'll be on pipeliners,

(02:47):
who did this really cool moviecalled The sound of identity and
about a trans opera singer,performing Don Giovanni, in
Tulsa, Oklahoma, what I talkedto him about his younger self
and advice, he would have givenhis younger self and all that.
And he said something reallycool like that, you, you think

(03:07):
when you start that, I'm justhave to make this short film or
make this feature film or dothis, and then I'll have opened
the doors to Hollywood, I wouldhave climbed that mountain. And
then he goes, and then you dothat, and you get up at the top
of the mountain, and you realizethere is nothing but a whole

(03:28):
bunch of more mountains in frontof you. You know, that they're
just like, it's, it's this wideexpanse of things you need to
conquer or try. And he wassaying that for him, he took on
this specific roles director andeditor of the stock, because it
made him really nervous and madethem uncomfortable. And then so

(03:50):
then he knew I have to do this.
And so when it comes to thatignorance aspect of it, I do
think that sometimes when youtap, like, if you knew
everything you know about howwhatever, whatever art it is
you're pursuing, whether it'smusic, or writing, or
filmmaking, or acting orwhatever. Like if, after you've

(04:13):
been in the game for a fewyears, if you had known all of
that, when you first started,would you have done it? And
maybe notyet. I feel like though, as as a
creative, especially withwriting and music, I'm I'm
constantly learning new things,new tricks, or new, just things
about how I can play or conveysomething as an artist. And

(04:34):
that's always really exciting,because there is still a lot
that I don't know, I'm in bothworlds. So
yeah, totally. And I mean, I'vealways maintained to takes
about, like eight years toreally know how to write. I
mean, I'd love to ask Mike thattoo, because he's got some great

(04:56):
advice. He has a really greatcolumn upon Pipeline Artists
sight and I don't have favoritechildren. But I really love
reading his stuff. It's sort oflike the same kind of stance I
took in doing balls of steellike that. I just wanted to tell
people what they needed to hear,not necessarily what they wanted
to hear, knowing that theywouldn't really be happy

(05:17):
sometimes hearing the things Ihad to say, but they were
honest, at least from myexperience. Everybody has
totally different experiences.
So like, I like that raw, honestthing. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
It's really good. It's, it'sstuff that we need to hear. And
it's reassuring to, especiallywhen you just have no confidence

(05:39):
in yourself on certain days, orhours or minutes of the week.
Yeah. Often, I'm sure yeah.
Alright, so I have three morequotes for you. And they're
either from Larry David, or FranLebowitz. Are you ready,
Jeannie? I think so. I thinkI've watched enough Curb Your
Enthusiasm. But I'm not sure Icould tell. I'm gonna get him

(06:02):
all wrong. The first one is,you're only as good as your last
haircut. I think that's Larry.
Now. No, Fran? Wrong. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. SoI'm putting one in the wrong
column. Next. You know, I wasnot told there was going to be a
test. And I think next time I'mgoing to have to test you on

(06:24):
something. I think it'sfair with all the homework you
give on the first podcast. Yougave a lot of former homework.
Oh, to everybody. Did I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. Get back on theirbehalf. Yeah. That's not a bad
idea. I did it though. Oh, Ihave my angry Charlie box with

(06:46):
the Yeah, it's in the otherroom. Oh, cool. I hope that
people did it, too. I'm surethey did. Everyone should listen
to Jeannie. Here's the secondone. Success didn't spoil me.
I'm all I've always beeninsufferable.
Okay, well, that has to beLarry. Now. Are you giving me a

(07:08):
friend? See, now I know. See,here's the thing. So now I know
that the third one has to beLarry.
And this is pretty good,actually. Okay. Which and I was
very surprised when I saw thisone. I was like, that doesn't
sound like Larry David.
So I'm purposely picked one thatwas going to be hard wanting me
to fail.

(07:28):
I believed in Yeah, I alwaysbelieved. Alright, give it to
me. So this one's really good.
Okay. When you're not concernedwith succeeding, you can work
with complete freedom. See, Iwould have thought that was
Fran. I wouldn't believe it'sfrom either of them. It's so

(07:50):
yeah, it was very optimistic.
Yeah, it was. So I'm excited tosee what spike thinks about
success and failure, becausewe're gonna ask them. Great.
Yeah.
Here we go. Well, I was I wasgetting something very important
for this podcast. And it's agigantic Mimosa that I just made
myself.
That is very nice. I was gettingsomething very important for

(08:13):
this podcast. And yeah, Kayla. Iknew there was a reason we got
along. And Oh, there you go.
That's wild turkey. Honeywhiskey hit that wild turkey
going on? No. And by the way, wehave nothing planned. Usually a
good recipe for success there.
Yeah, we were all about failure.

(08:38):
You've already made a mistake.
I'm so glad I feel like I'm setup for such success here. Since
you guys are all about failure.
I trust you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,that's your first mistake. I'm
just the guests here. Sothere's nothing Exactly. There's
no pressure on you at all. ifthis fails, it's all on us.
There you go.

(08:59):
So we're here with spike, scar,Berry, and spike, there's
probably I know, you've gotthese really great articles up
on Pipeline Artists because Iread them. And somebody does.
What I'm actually the firstperson to read them unless you
give them to your girlfriend orwhatever. Why don't you tell for
those people who aren't readingyour articles yet? Those five

(09:19):
people? Um, why don't you justgive us a little, you know, idea
of where your background is andwhere your perspective is going
to be coming from in thisconversation
and why I got invited to be on apodcast is this your first
podcast is actually my secondpodcast only because when I was
in LA, I had two friends whotried to break into the

(09:40):
podcasting world and they didlike a joke podcast, and I was a
guest for that. But there waslike, no topic. So there was
like nothing to wear. Like itwas like, Oh, this guy is
talking about something thathe's actually qualified to speak
about, like a random guy whojoined their podcast, and I
think we ended up talking aboutlike male genitals for most of
the time, as men are Want to do?
That's generally how just likeguys get together, we just start

(10:03):
talking about those things.
But yeah, is that podcast likedocumented somewhere like an
archive somewhere? We'll have tolike dig it up and link to it.
And I really hope not, because Iwant to get it taken down.
Because I really, I don'tremember what I said, as you
know, Genie, gn, excuse me, IOh, god, no Genie, excuse me, I

(10:26):
gotta write the first day youdid the first time. But as you
as you know, I am wanting tojust say whatever is on my mind,
which gets me in trouble all thetime. So I I really don't
remember what I said during thatpodcast. And I'm just kind of
hoping that it doesn't existanywhere. Because it could be
really bad for me. I don't know.
Well, why don't you take anothersip of that Mimosa? I see, I see

(10:48):
where this is going. Exactly.
Just gonna loosen you up thatyou say anything you want to say
like, Don't hold back. Andmeanwhile, we haven't even found
out anything about you yet.
Other than I have no filter,which I'm sure will become
readily apparent as this goeson. But to answer your question,
my name is spike. I like longwalks on the beach and

(11:10):
candlelight dinners and dynamicstorytelling and all forms. I
was the kid who at six years oldwas sitting about two inches
away from the televisionwatching Luke Skywalker blow up
the Death Star. And I was like,yep, that's what I want to do. I
want to make movies for the restof my life. I want to give
little boys and little girls andlittle every gender identity in

(11:30):
between kids out there, the samefeeling of that I could just fly
that that I got from watchingthat movie. And I was hooked. I
knew that that was my that wasmy my destination. That was
where I was going to go in life.
I had this like roaring fire inthe pit of my stomach that I had
to make it out to Los Angeles.
And I had to be part of thebusiness. So I graduated film

(11:52):
school in three years a yearearly because I did Summer
Sessions because I wanted to getout there as fast as possible.
drove across the country didn'tknow anybody. And it's funny. On
my drive to LA I think somewherearound Iowa or something. I said
to myself, you know, spike, ifyou end up in television, you're
a complete failure. You shouldjust like go home, back to the

(12:14):
east coast and just like livethe rest of your life as a
barista at Starbucks orsomething. If you end up in
television, why did you thinktelevision was a failure?
Because at that point, premiumTV had not become a thing. I was
so obsessed with movies. Trustme, this will come back at some
point. I will Yeah, my wordsTrust me. Because I spent the
majority of my career intelevision actually after the

(12:37):
peak TV movement, and all ofthat happened. But essentially,
I got to LA as a bright eyed 21year old kid stayed with cousins
on their couch while I internedat a bunch of places ended up
getting a job at a financier,learned how little movies get
get money and how they get madeand sold overseas and how much
money you can make selling thoselike crappy little Wesley Snipes

(12:59):
action movies to like Uganda,like people make bank doing
that. It's surprising just howthat business runs. But from
there, I went to an agency wentto a production company that did
a superhero franchise went thenonce I realized that the movie
industry was not quite what Ithought it was went to a
television network for like fourand a half years. Which is where

(13:22):
I got the the most of myexperiences the you know, the TV
landscape kind of boomed andbecame just as good if not a
better place for premium contentthan then the movie screen was.
And so after about nine years ofthat, and we can get into all
the whys, and how's this thinghappen? I just kind of I burned
out on the business, I saw whatthe beast was. And I knew that

(13:44):
there was nothing that I coulddo to change it. And I knew that
while Yes, there was a pathwayfor me to like, work for 2025
years and like climb to the topof the mountain and then finally
have that decision making powerthat I was so hungry for. At
that time, I realized that myfire had just gone out, I just I
didn't, I did not want tocontinue doing that anymore. I

(14:06):
was living such a miserableexistence toiling away in the
machine that is Tinseltown. ThatI just could not to see myself
continuing with it any longer.
Eventually, the company that Iwas working for got acquired by
a larger company. And wheneverthat happens, there's always
layoffs and the company knewthat I was unhappy. So I think
that they made the easy cutwhere they were like, we're just

(14:26):
gonna lay this guy off, we'regonna give him a very nice
severance package, we're goingto let him go his own way. And I
had a decision to make was Igoing to jump back into the
field and try it, try it againin a different company knowing
more than likely how I was goingto feel because that was a
pretty clear cycle for me atleast. So I decided that I knew
how this business made me feel.

(14:47):
I wanted to see if a differentindustry made me feel otherwise.
So I've moved back to the eastcoast during the pandemic where
I started a coaching businesswhere I now work with amateur
writers who want to get into howYou would want to get coached by
somebody who's been on thedevelopment side, worked at the
network's worked at the studioshas passed on their scripts more
than likely. And I teach them,Hey, this is how you actually

(15:11):
impress the people who arebehind that desk. This is how
you actually get their attentionfrom the mind of somebody who's
done that. And so that'sbasically what brings me here
today. And then at some point, Ifound Matt, who introduced me to
you, and now I write articleswith no filter for Pipeline
Artists, that that's how we gotconnected, Jean.

(15:32):
Yes. And I love that. Now youwere in the business side for so
long. And one of the things thatsatine I talk about a lot, not
necessarily on the podcast,because we just started this but
in life, that, you know, the thewriters not understanding
anything about the business. Doyou also write like, I want to
ask that question. I was askedthe same question do you write?

(15:55):
It's something that the shortanswer is yes, but it's much
more of a hobby at this point,because like when I was
transitioning from West Coast toEast Coast, I stayed with
basically, here's a funny story.
So when I got laid off, I wastrying to figure out what I was
going to do next. And I had noidea. And so I'm thinking, do I

(16:16):
get another industry job? Do Iget a job someplace else? If
that? If so, where is it? Likethe world is my oyster, I could
go anywhere, like I don't evenknow where to begin looking. And
so one night as I was havingthis existential dilemma, I was
on Facebook and I saw an ad.
Have I told you the story, GenieOh, okay. And the ad said,

(16:37):
relax, eat well, advancedscience. And I think to myself,
well, this has to be bullshit.
It has to be fake. So I click onit, because what else are you
going to do? Yeah, it was notfake. It was an actual ad for a
medical study sponsored byHarvard, Boston Children's
Hospital and a bunch of otheruniversities that essentially
was paying people money, actualmoney to live in Boston, while

(17:00):
medical researchers studied yourbody while you ate their food,
lost weight. And then they didlike medical tests on you. Oh,
my God, can I do this study,they were paying $10,000.40
pounds. So I was like, Well,that sounds fun and interesting.
And I never would have thought Iwould have done that. So I
applied I got in. And that's thestory of how I drove to Boston

(17:23):
to live in a hospital slashhotel for six months, while
researchers studied my body fedme food and like, I had to lose
weight for them. You know, I'mbasically staying in a hotel
with a bunch of dudes and wehave nothing to talk about, but
our life experience and so thefact that I had come from
Hollywood came up there weremore than one screenwriter in
this group. Two people trying towrite a smoke three people

(17:45):
trying to write a screenplay.
And so me I know it's completelyshocking but I told them about
what I did my side business andworking with writers and doing
contest judging and things likethat. And they kept telling me
is like, Man, you know, so muchabout story you should write you
should write you should writesomething. And I I hesitated

(18:06):
with that for a very, very longtime. And it's because I know
intimately Well, the plight ofthe professional writer like I
know, yes, you can talk aboutlike, they're the Aaron Sorkin's
of the world. And they're, youknow, all of these a level
writers who make millions ofdollars to write a screenplay
or, or to write novels or thingslike that. They're the minority,

(18:28):
like the the the math, themajority of Hollywood people are
just are just people. They'rejust working Joes who are trying
to get a paycheck. And I've seentoo much of them struggle. And
so like, when people were like,you should write something you
like, you know, this, like youcan break in, I was just like,
but do I want to? Because one ofthe things that pushed me out of

(18:49):
Hollywood is I looked around me,and I was like, nobody's happy,
like everyone's miserable doingthis, like, why am I continuing
to, to kill myself over a dreamI had when I was six years old.
Just because I want to follow mychildhood dream, even though it
doesn't make sense when I'm 26or 30, or whatever age I was at

(19:11):
the time. So I didn't reallywant to push for the idea of
being a professional writer,even though I think that I have
knowledge that could benefit mein that right. Only because I
felt like, what's the pointlike, I know, professional
writers struggle. And then justto see, you know, people like
all of the trials andtribulations of the business,

(19:33):
being intimately aware of howthe business works and how much
luck goes into, you know, aprofessional writing career. Not
to say that there is no skillinvolved. But to say that luck
is not a vital aspect of what wedo would be naive. So that's why
I didn't want to like commit tobeing a writer professionally,

(19:54):
because I was like, I just Idon't see myself being happy in
that way. That being said, Ihave it In my head, one of the
things that I learned, one ofthe many things that I learned
upon leaving Los Angeles wasthat I didn't love movies,
necessarily what I loved wasstorytelling. I love the feeling
when a story grabs you andtransports you to another world

(20:15):
and just makes you completelyforget about your own and you
lose time in it. That's the bestone for me. Yeah. So I
definitely enjoy, you know,being a narrator. And I have
ideas of my own that I wouldlove to get out on paper,
because quite frankly, they'vebeen bugging me for years. But
I'm not going to hinge myfinancial success on it. I just
I can't I can't. I'm tooanalytical to just take the full

(20:40):
on dive and completely becreative. But I do dabble in in
some in some forms ofstorytelling. We'll see if
anything ever happens with it.
But but that's sweet. And I verylong answer to your question.
No. And I've had the pleasurehave a sneak peek at some spikes
graphic novel. Um, he's got ayou have a really great writing

(21:03):
voice, like really great. And I,I, I think the world would be
entertained by the stories thatyou have to tell, just to kind
of back up for a second. Likeyou had this dream, the 66 year
old kid as his dream. I mean,you've now come gone to the east
coast. So left Hollywood, do youin fitting with our theme of our

(21:25):
first episode? And we're alsotalking a little bit about
success today, like what thatmeans to you? Like, do you? Like
how would you define failure andsuccess? Oh, wow, what a
question. Um, dad. Okay, you canhave another sip of your Mimosa.
I just, I think the questionthat I'm still figuring out how

(21:47):
to answer for myself, because,like I told you, for the longest
time, my success was entirelydriven by career accomplishment.
Like one of the issues that Ilearned about myself, one of the
things that I'm trying to fixnow is, when I was in LA, I
didn't think of myself as spikescarb. Every human being, I
thought of myself as spike scar,Berry, film producer. And when

(22:11):
the Film Producing aspect of mylife wasn't going well, aka,
most of the time. I wasn'tfeeling good about me. And so
that was not a healthy way tolook at success. But in terms of
figuring out what success isnow, I mean, I the only thing I
can think of is just to give thestereotypical answer, just be

(22:31):
happy. And I definitely thinkI'm more I'm definitely more
successful today than I was twoyears ago. Do I think I'm
perfectly successful yet? No.
But I'm getting there, I'm, I'mbuilding a better life for
myself day by day, brick bybrick, trying to trying to get
to the place I want to go,working out this answer in my

(22:53):
head. Now that comes down tofreedom. Like knowing when I was
in LA, there were so many thingsI couldn't do. Like I was
surrounded by this awesome city,we had all these things going
on, there was always a pop upbar or a show at the Pantages
or, or, you know, a cool eventat the beach, they would have
the Cirque du Soleil coming in,they have things came to Los

(23:15):
Angeles, I could rarely affordto do them. Like I rarely had
the money, because I was payingridiculous amounts in rent gas
was over $4, a sandwich was 12bucks, not including the drink
or the chips or whatever elseyou wanted to get. I could
rarely afford to actually go tothe pop up bar, without in the
back of my head being like, youshouldn't be spending this

(23:36):
money. So I didn't becauseagain, I'm too analytical to
just say, EFF it, you know, YOLOas some of my friends do. So,
for me, what I want in my futureis I want a future where I'm
free to do anything that Ichoose, go wherever I want to
go. And one of the reasonsreasons I left LA is I could
more easily achieve thatfreedom, not in the third most

(23:59):
expensive city in America. Yeah,I could achieve that much more
easily in a city that doesn'thave a high cost of living. So
yeah, I can't afford to livehere. It's It's insane. It's
insane. Yeah, I mean, I've kindof did the same thing as you
spike where I remember I movedto Silver Lake of all places,
because it was the hip place tobe. And I found a great spot

(24:22):
that was like right around thecorner from my favorite bar. And
then I moved there. And I neveronce visited that bar and
actually have a meeting withMatt next week. And it's
basically a coffee shop that wasacross the street from my house.
And I was like, I rememberwalking by there, but I could
never afford to go in I couldn'treally afford to go to 711

(24:45):
because it was too expensive. Ithink that's really cool that
you were able to pivot inHollywood from a different
perspective, from yourperspective after being in the
trenches for so long and givewriters and creatives That
perspective of like, this isreally what happens. Brace
yourself. It's not all glitz andglamour, but you got to put in

(25:08):
the work and just be ready forwhatever is gonna happen because
it, whatever is gonna happen,and it's either gonna be really
great or it's gonna be terrible.
But I think you can learn fromthose things and hopefully not
be so miserable from theoutcome.
I gotta say, when I go into LA,I can set up myself with

(25:31):
meetings, people know, I don'tlive there. So it's almost like,
oh, gene is gonna be in townthis week, I need to make sure I
have time to meet her. So like,I ended up some of my friends
who've been in LA for 10 years,say to me, you know, more people
here than I do, because becauselike when you're there, you
don't always do the stuff thatthey say. You can
serendipitously run into peopleor whatever. Like, I don't want

(25:55):
to make the trip across countryuntil everything's opened up
again. Because it defeats thepurpose. Like if I'm going to go
all the way out there, I want tosee as many people as I can see,
and one of the things I wouldalways do is if like I met, I
meet a bunch of people and onsocial media, so if I knew a
casting director, and I knew anactor, and I knew producer and I

(26:16):
knew an indie filmmaker, and Iknew whatever I would, I would
kind of try to figure out whoshould meet each other. And I
would say, okay, on x night, I'mgoing to be in Studio City,
let's all meet at this bar thistime. And then they would come
together, they'd see me, butthey would see each other and
meet each other. And then they'dhave warm and fuzzy feelings

(26:38):
about me because they metsomebody who could help them in
some way.
And also, I was mostly anassistant coming up toward the
end, I was basically, I don'twant to say I was a development
executive with out the title,but I was doing all the things
that development executives dojust without the title. For me,
I don't I like there's not muchother than just like the knowing

(27:00):
somebody at that company that Ican provide them just being a
general contact for you. Theymight be like, Oh, well, this is
somebody with credits, I couldbring that to my boss, and I
could look good. Or she mighthave a spec sometime that gets
really hot, but I know her andthen she'll slip it to me first.
So there's like, this is anotherissue in the Hollywood system is
that everyone's out forthemselves, which again, is like

(27:22):
life. But I always tell peoplethat Hollywood is like real
life, but like amped up to 11because everything is just more
intense out there. And soeveryone is looking out for
themselves. And so everyone'slooking out for that thing that
can help them the most. And thenwhen you leave, and you can't
help them anymore, your contactlist like drops to basically not
when you realize because youknow it when you're there. But

(27:43):
when you realize that the onlyreason people were talking to
you is so that they could havehad a contact at Warner Brothers
like you were their contact atWarner Brothers. And now that
you're not at Warner Brothers,they need to find a new one of
you. They weren't trying toactually be friends with you.
They're being friends with theposition that you held. Yeah,
that's a little depressing.
Yeah. And something that Sadiesaid that I'm trying to remember
now cuz I wanted to go back toit. Talking about living in LA

(28:03):
not being able to go anywhere.
Crap, I forgot what it was all Iremember in a second but you
made a really good point aboutsomething Stadion. I wonder,
was it the not going to the bar,the coffee shop that was right
across the street? Or Yeah,there's something about that,
but I think it was around that,but I forgot exactly what it
was. We have a commercial thatcomes on every time. It's a
reminder to take your vitaminsfor optimal brain power.

(28:31):
Because I do that a lot. Like Iknow what I'm supposed to say.
I'll be like, okay, we need likethat. What does that mean?
commercial? Like, you know,whatever that thing is to come
on to rely on me, and thenyou'll, it'll come back to you
for sure. Just to not completelydeter people who do still to do

(28:51):
this for a living, like frommoving to LA or all of that kind
of stuff. Like what advice wouldyou give the person who is like,
you know, what, that may havebeen your experience spike, but,
you know, maybe I've got a trustfund, or maybe I've got big
savings, or maybe I've gotwhatever, I'm going to move. But
So how should those people besttake advantage of that decision?

(29:14):
Oh, this actually you remindedme the thing that said he said
that. Cuz you were you weretalking about, about how you're
you living in Los Angeles, andlike, you can't afford to live
there. And the entire idea beingthat if you don't go You'll
never know. Like my breakup withla was painful, it hurt. I'm not

(29:35):
going to tell you that it wasn'tlike I had to go through a
grieving process of my olddream. And I went through that
and I came out cleaning theother side. But I don't regret
doing it. Because I know that ifI didn't do it, if I just went
into another industry straightout of college, and I was now 30
year old guy. I'd still bethinking about Hollywood. And

(29:55):
having done it now. I know thatit's not the thing for me. What
advice do I give to people whostill want to go out there and
do it? I think what I just said,like you like, I can tell you
what it's like, until I'm bluein the face, you're not gonna
believe it until you go throughit yourself because you haven't
experienced the thing that I'veexperienced. Now, there's a lot
of common denominators in peoplewho work in the business, who

(30:17):
all kind of say most of theexact same stuff. But the human
brain isn't really wired to hearother people's pain and then
believe it there. It's wired tosay, Oh, this is happening to me
now, I need to avoid this. So Idon't think even if I told them,
all the stuff that I'm sayingabout my horrible experience
with it, that it would register.
So you should still do it. Justknow. The advice I would really

(30:38):
give is just know that it's noteverything. Because one of the
big, big issues with Los Angelesin the film industry in general
is that there's a it's neverdirectly stated. But there's a
feeling and like a subtext tothe whole industry of
superiority of like, oh, we'rethe tastemakers, we work in
Hollywood, everyone thinks towhat we do is so cool. And if

(31:02):
you can't make it, well, thatjust means you couldn't cut it.
That's not the case. Sometimesthe industry is isn't for you.
It's not for every personalitytype. I could still be out
there. Like I knew enoughpeople. I've had enough career
experience where I'm sure thatif I wanted to get that next
job, I could have done it. Ijust I made the choice to value

(31:23):
myself and my mental health morethan that. There's not there's
nothing wrong was saying I wantto do something else. It's a big
country. It's a big world, likeHollywood is its own little
Hogwarts. things that matter inHollywood, oftentimes don't
matter to the rest of the world.
And don't don't get seduced intothinking that they do. I have

(31:47):
a question for you spike. Withwith the state of the world. I
mean, now it's kind of gettinghealthy again. But do you see a
trend that writers or filmmakersare spreading out outside of LA
and still able to work in theindustry at the same capacity as
they were before?

(32:08):
In order to keep the businessrunning? I'm sure people had to
do pitches over zoom. I'm surethey had to do general meetings
or resume, I feel like ifanything, my guess would be that
it probably normalized it. And Idon't think as a writer, you
have to live in LA. Because likeGina, you talked about that idea
of like, you could just randomlyrun into somebody at a coffee
shop or at the Century CityMall. That like never happened

(32:29):
to me, right. And obviously,like I said, I was poor, didn't
go out a lot. I'm an introvert,not a natural networker. Like,
it seems that you are. But Idon't think that that happens as
often as people say that itdoes. I feel like if if
Hollywood wants you, it's gonnabe because of your material. The
connections are definitely animportant part. Don't say that.

(32:49):
Don't Don't let me tell you thatthey're not. But if you write a
great script, you've written agreat script doesn't matter if
you lived in LA or Alaska. LikeI think that you'll be able to,
to make something of yourself.
So I would hope that the answerto your question say to you is
yes, but I don't know. 100%.
Yeah. And like the other thingpeople always talk about a lot

(33:10):
of writers and you've discussedthis in one of your articles,
one of your first ones, aboutpeople stealing their ideas.
Like, like, there's a lengthyarticle that you can go read on
Pipeline Artists about that.
That's by grow, but it's thatfire. Yeah, like, maybe just
give a little, a little quicksynopsis of why. That is not

(33:30):
something people should freakout about quick synopsis.
It doesn't happen. Yeah. Longsynopsis. As I said in the
article, has it happened before?
Of course it has. Of course ithas, but the the times where it
does get such outsized levels ofattention that it totally, like

(33:53):
over blows the entire problem.
The issue is that studios, andI'm going to basically repeat my
article, studios don't pay forideas. Like if I'm a studio head
and Genie, you have an idea fora movie about a squirrel, and
the squirrels hoarding nuts forthe winter, and then all of a
sudden, a farmer chops his treedown for firewood, and his nuts

(34:16):
are gone, he has found a way tosurvive. If you were like, hey,
I've got this idea for you. I'dgo cool. You're gonna write it?
And if the answer is yes, Imight pay for it. But I'm not
paying for your idea. I'm payingI'm pre paying for your script.
Hollywood pays for well executedideas. Like you bring me an idea
which then I have to go find awriter to execute it well means

(34:36):
nothing to me. I like it. Soit's it's a bunch of time that I
have to waste trying to findsomebody who's available who can
do this type of movie. It's abunch of money I have to waste
trying to see if this this ideaeven comes out well. It's just
not something that reallyhappens. And if you're worried
about being at a coffee shop andanother writer, hearing your
idea, and going in and stealingit again, there's there's

(35:00):
counterpoints to that, becauseit takes like, three to six
months to, to write something.
And so if you've got the scriptready, and they're still writing
it and your scripts good, Imean, you will need to have the
connections, but you have theadvantage there in terms of
getting it sold. And even then,let's just say that the writer
goes out and they write an idea,or they write a script off the

(35:21):
premise of your idea, theexecution is going to be
entirely different. They'regoing to have different
characters, they're going tohave different subplots. There
are like, a base idea, being thesame as something else does not
mean like that someone stole it.
If you want to look at the KungFu Panda situation where you can

(35:41):
trace back to the father being agoose, and the trainer being
that little lemur monkey, andthe the the ultimate wise one
being a turtle, then Okay, maybeyou have a, you have an example
of someone really stealing everylittle aspect of your idea. But
unless someone's going throughand taking lines of dialogue, or
specific characters, andspecific storylines, and

(36:02):
emotional plot points, ifsomeone just takes the premise,
and then does an entirelydifferent take on it, then sorry
to tell you, that's not stealingyour idea. All that is, is
saying, I'm taking this premise,and I'm doing my version of it.
And there's nothing wrong withthat. So it's not something that
really happens enough thatpeople need to worry about at

(36:22):
that level, but at the level ofpeople who worry about it, way
more than they should.
It's like ideas aren'tcopyrightable, either. So I'm
curious about your clients thatyou work with? Are they all
screenwriters or just some ofthem write novels or graphic
novels? Or are they mostly allscreenwriters?
Most of them are screenwriters,I have one novelist client, who
I'm working with that one takesmuch more time because novels

(36:46):
are much wordier. But thegeneral idea is still the same.
The narrative formula that mostyoung writers who are emerging
need to know is going to remainconsistent throughout the entire
process. Mm hmm.
Yeah. I mean, I'm a big fan ofpeople crossing over and trying
different things. Because, likeyou said, like screenwriting is,

(37:08):
I mean, it's almost like theindustry is set up to say no,
and, yeah, and so. But you'vegot this story, the spec script
on your hard drive, why notadapted into a novel? And even
sell publish it if you can'ttraditionally publish? I mean,
there's, there's, you know, it'sall whatever you feel like doing
now? I mean, I feel like now ofall times, every option is

(37:34):
available to explore.
Well, I would also say to it'snot even that, yes, you're
right, all options areavailable, but you got to think
about what Hollywood values,hollywood values, guaranteed
return on their investment,because the the price of
production in the last 10 years,basically, since I've been in
Hollywood, has justastronomically blown through the

(37:56):
roof. The roof isn't even a goodenough analogy. It's blown
through the stratosphere, ittakes so much money, so much
content being made now that therentals have gone up, the price
of that has gone way up, thecost of a good crew has gone
way, way up the cost of buildingmaterials because of the
pandemic has gone way, way up.
Like it costs real money. Likeobviously, like when people

(38:16):
start saying, Oh, you know, thedifference between an episode
that costs $3 million, and onethat cost $8 million? I mean,
it's just millions of dollars,who cares. But when you start
timing, timing that times 12times 24 times 36 mean those
numbers add up. So Hollywoodneeds guaranteed return on the
millions of dollars that they'respending. That's why they care
about China so much because theycan look at China and say, all

(38:38):
right, we can know prettyclearly how much money we're
going to make from there withthis type of movie. So if you're
coming like again, if youJeannie have a spec script, and
you're coming to me, and you'relike, hey, I've got this really
great story, people are gonnalove it. Am I gonna buy that? Or
am I gonna turn around to thebook franchise that has 25
million young adults who loveit, and who Oh, by the way, it's

(39:01):
got fans. In the actingcommunity, I already know that
there are like five actors withname value, who liked this book
series would probably want to bein the adaptation for it. Oh,
and this a director brought itto me and he's pretty talented.
So which 1am I going to go toone of the issues I always found
very frustrating is the peoplewho are knocking on the front
door a there's a lot of them andbe the front door isn't what

(39:23):
matters. Hollywood is lookingnow for things that have fan
bases that they can go and adaptthings to, because they can then
turn that into guaranteed returnon their investment. So if you
want a better chance of gettingyour story sold to Hollywood
specifically might want to makeit a book, you might want to see
if you can get an audience in away that is cheap, where the

(39:44):
publisher only has to print hardcopies, rather than spend 50
million plus dollars turninginto a movie.
What kind of advice would yougive a writer who is interested
in IP like a video game or Maybean underground comic book that
that has an undergroundfollowing if they wanted to
acquire those rights to thenshopped around into adapting it,

(40:08):
what is what is the maybe rightway or wrong way to not go about
it or go about it,the wrong way to go about is
100%. Just doing it. Like thereare lots of instances where
we're like, you could be thearmy and just do it and be fine.
But that's that's the wrong wayto go about it. Because I can't
tell you the number of instanceshaving worked at a buyer where

(40:29):
we we bought something believingthat the controlling party had
the rights and they didn't. Andthen we had to save egg on our
face and go ahead and get therights. Because we already
announced that we had boughtthis thing and then realized,
Oh, wait, this person didn'thave the rights to that thing.
So definitely don't do that. Ifyou if you're looking at like
underground property. I mean,the best way is just to reach

(40:51):
out to the to the creators andsay, Hey, I'm a big fan of this.
I'm an I'm a screenwriter, Ireally want to get my take a
shot at this, can we do like asix month option agreement just
so I can hammer out a script andand see how it goes. And you
also, if you if you're that bigof a fan of it and you want to
write the script first, you canand then just know that you

(41:12):
can't do anything with it untilyou get that permission. But
then if the author says yeah,sure, you can, you can have it
for six months, go ahead, thenat least you can wait a month
and pretend like you wrote it ina month, and then send them the
finished copy that you worked onfor six months. That being said,
I do think that the chances ofthat succeeding is going to be
pretty slim nowadays, justbecause everyone knows that IP
is the name of the game. And sogiving up control of a property

(41:35):
like that, it's going to be apretty big thing. So again, if
it's underground and supersmall, and the writer doesn't
know any better, they might doit. But if the writer has any
any brains about them, I don'tthink that they would take that
that option.
So like what's the biggestmistake you see people doing or?
And what's like the thing aboutthe industry that surprised you

(41:57):
the mostbiggest mistake in people's
screenplays like in their actualwriting? Sure, let's talk about
Kraft for a second. Becausewe've been talking so much about
the business.
In my experience, most writersare doing the same six things
wrong. And if you're asking forthe biggest mistake they make,
I'm going to give you two thatare tied the top number one is
they don't focus enough onleading with emotion, they lead

(42:21):
with plot, they lead with whatthe character does. And that's a
big mistake. Because if I'mreading a script, you have to
remember, I'm opening it up forthe first time fresh every page,
like if if a page is a minute,which is the approximate time
that it should take or at leasttake to film. If I'm on page 20.
I've been with your story for 20minutes. You the writer, on the

(42:45):
other hand, have been in thatstory for weeks, months, years,
you've been thinking about howevery character feels and the
emotional plot points that theyhave. And the traumatic
childhood that made them whothey are, you care about that
person. And that's why you lovethe story so much. You've got to
make me care as much as you doas fast as possible. Because me

(43:06):
just saying, Okay, thischaracter is now walking their
dog. And this character is nowdoing a thing. And that thing
makes them do another thing. Andthat thing makes them do another
thing. I don't I don't careabout that. But if you can say,
Oh man, this character is supersad because their their mother
died. And you can make me thereader feel sad to that the
mother died, then I'm like, Oh,I feel something. I wonder how

(43:31):
this is going to turn out. I'minvested now in this character
sadness, I don't want them to besad, I wouldn't be happy, I'm
going to keep turning the pageto see if they become happy. I'm
generally not going to keepturning the page to see if a
character diffuses a bomb.
Because again, if a whole bunchof people that I don't care
about are going to are might diebecause of this bomb might go

(43:51):
off. But I don't care aboutthem. Why would I read about
them, you have to make thereader care. Because that's
number one. And the other numbertwo is simply basic structure,
like knowing how to structure astory, knowing how to bring in
conflict, knowing how to have ahave conflict, because so many
writers, one of the commonmistakes I see is that young

(44:12):
writers care, love theircharacters so much. They're
like, I don't want anything badto happen to them. And so
they'll they'll inject conflict,and then three pages later the
conflict is solved. And thenthere's no plot engine for the
rest of the movie. And so I'mlike, Okay, cool. Why did you
solve this so fast, like thiswas your film, and you solve it
in a theme. You need to drawthat out, you need to make sure

(44:36):
that there is something goingon. And the second act is about
them solving that thing. It'snot something that just happens
like in the blink of an eye. Sowhat I try to do with my
business is I try to break downactual films. I try to sit
through an entire film with myclient and say, Alright, this is
the inciting incident. This isthe problem. Look at the
emotional anchor point here. Nowlet's look at how the second act

(44:57):
of this film is all About thischaracter prop this this
character having a problem thatthey're trying to solve. And
then the third act is do theysolve the problem or not? And I
think that when you can actuallywatch a successful movie, it
might seem obvious, but it'sobvious because it's, it's well
done. Like, that's why the moviegot made is because they hit on
all of the very obvious markers.

(45:19):
And then when you startcomparing it to their material,
that's when they go, Oh, I seewhat I'm not doing here. Yeah,
some writers get mad at mebecause they go well, you're
just being very formulaic. Likeyou're you're wanting to be like
every other writer. And I say,Well, hey, is that a problem?
Like, if you get a job as aformulaic writer, who continues
to churn out, you know, specsthat are that are all the same
vein, are you gonna be mad atme? Because you're gonna be

(45:40):
making hundreds of 1000s ofdollars every time that you
write one of these? So is that aan issue? And then B, I don't
think it's formulaic. I thinkyou're using the same stuff that
Homer used around the campfire,when he talked about the
Odyssey, you know, like thereare, there are fundamental
building blocks of storytellingthat have existed since the
beginning of time since thebeginning of three act

(46:02):
structure. And I think thatthere are lots of people out
there who just need to learnthose fundamental building
blocks. Okay, so I can justchuck this entire thing. Chug,
chug, chug, chug. I can'tactually do that. No, no, I
don't think you could do that. Ilike that you, you lead off with
the emotional part of it.
Because I think people aredefinitely afraid of that.
putting themselves like that onthe page. They'd rather like.

(46:25):
They think the movies robot, thebig explosions, or whatever it
is, right. But yeah, you gottacare. Cuz I know. I've read
hundreds and hundreds ofscreenplays. And you're just
like, yeah, 20 pages in? Why doI care about our main character,
if you don't care as the writerto put in that time? Correct?
Yeah, the things that I say allthe time to my clients is, it's

(46:48):
not on me, as the reader to finda reason to give a shit about
your story. It's on you, as thewriter to give me a reason to
give a shit about what'shappening to your characters. If
you can't do that, then there'sno if JK Rowling couldn't make
people care about Harry Potterbeing with his demented step,

(47:10):
uncle or aunt or uncle or aunt,or whatever it was, and make
them say, Man, I really wantHarry to get out of this house,
and then he gets the chance togo and join this magical world
of wizarding, no one would haveread that book, it would not
have become what it was. So youhave to, you have to connect
with the audience. And you haveto give them a reason to care
about what your character isgoing through. You have to if

(47:31):
you don't do it, no one, likepeople might read your stuff,
but they're not going to enjoyit. You know,
there's a piece of advice thateverybody gets, like, write what
you know, you know, well,sometimes what you know, is
really boring. And if youhaven't lived, like a really
interesting life for, you know,just you just sitting around
doing nothing, and what youknow, was that much and so like

(47:53):
the right what, you know, thingreally drives me crazy, because
you can research anything, youcan you can go experience,
stuff, travel, whatever. Buteven if you can't do that, I
mean, we have this beautifulthing called the internet. You
know, the Library of Congress,like Google, I've never heard of
this. What is this thing? Whatis this thing? And there's so

(48:16):
many ways, like so it, it makesme crazy when people get so hung
up on that. The other thing thatmakes me crazy, is when people
say, if you write a greatscript, the cream will rise to
the top as if it's going tomagically get discovered,
without you putting it out theresomewhere. Or, you know, it's

(48:36):
like, you're you can't justwrite this amazing screenplay. I
mean, you can, that will belovely. But no one will find it
unless you put it out there.
Correct. Because I agree withthat second point, the cream
will rise to the top. But thatassumes that you put it out into
the ether and into writingcontests and into into people's
hands where they can say, Oh,this is the cream that has risen

(48:58):
to the top because I like it somuch. So I agree. Yes, that's
true. But also, it's true thatyou need to do something with
it. I will also say in terms ofthe right way, you know, aspect,
I'm going to say I agree withyou, but only to an extent
because you're right, you canresearch how spies do things
until you're blue in the face.
And you can know alright, I feellike I can write realistic spy

(49:18):
movie. But, again, going back tothe emotional point, no one's
gonna care if you can't connectthe audience with that emotion
that's going through, that thecharacter is going through. So I
would say, right, what you know,from an emotional standpoint,
yeah, if you if you just wentthrough a horrible, horrible

(49:39):
grieving process about losingyour grandfather, and you know
how it feels and you know whatyou had to overcome, coming to
terms with the death of thisperson in your life, right, a
spy movie about a spy who's on amission while he's dealing with
the death of somebody who reallymattered to him. Show him trying

(49:59):
to complete this mission withthe cool spy stuff, while on the
back of his mind distracting himfrom what he has to do all the
time is crap. My grandfatherjust died. This man was
everything to me. And I lovedhim so much, because you know
how that feels. There's a greatline in Have you ever read on
writing by Stephen King? Oh,yes, it was one of the first

(50:20):
writing books I wrote. It's,it's the best writing book I've
ever read. And there's a line inthere where he talks about
writing as telepathy, likeyou're punching keys, and you're
taking an image in your head,and you're putting it on the
page and your mouth isn'tmoving, you're trying to take a
image and putting it in someoneelse's brain, I want you to do
the same thing with emotion,whatever you're feeling, you

(50:43):
need to put that feeling on thepage, and you need to like
transfer it through paperthrough magic into somebody
else. That's what's going tomake them continue on in your
story. So you need to find theemotion that you're feeling.
Make it again, take it from yourbody and put it into paper, and
then send that paper off forsomeone else to take that

(51:05):
feeling that you got in orderfor for you to be successful.
Because otherwise, like me andsad we're talking about, they're
just not going to care. Yeah,it's just not gonna care.
I've written some things thatI've had never had experience
doing that stuff before. But Ialways have thought about if,
what emotionally Can I relate toabout the circumstance that this

(51:27):
person is going through. Andthat's always like the
connecting factor. So that youcan write about something like a
going to the moon, which I'veobviously never done, but if I
could find some emotionalconnection to the character,
something that's happening intheir life that I can click to,
then it can be definitely morecompelling, right. I'm writing

(51:48):
historical novel, historicalfiction novel right now and play
taking place in the 1700s. Andyeah, what do I know about that?
You know what I mean, but like,finding out that, you know,
certain aspects about hispersonal life have been really
fun, because it's like, oh,yeah, I can connect to that you
may have been lived in the1700s. But those same personal
problems, maybe not thoseprofessional problems, but those

(52:11):
personal problems that arehappening are still happening
today to people because we'reall human,
right. And I'm sure that you'llagree with this, Genie, it's the
idea with emotion, you have toshow it not tell it. Because if,
like, if, if there's a characterwho's afraid for their life, and
the scene is there in theirhouse, and they go to their
roommate, and they go, I'mafraid that my crazy boyfriend

(52:33):
who I just broke up with mightkill me, that's, that's weak,
that's cheap, no one's going tofeel that. But if the scene
starts with the roommate comingin, and hearing a commotion in
the other room, and going tocheck on them, and it's the girl
going into her closet, and justgrabbing all her clothes, and
just tossing them in a suitcase,and zipping it up, and I've been
packing it and she's runningaround, and she's just crazy,
and she's grabbing all herstuff, because she's so afraid

(52:55):
that her boyfriend or exboyfriend is gonna come over
there and killer then you'reshowing the reader Okay, this
this character is actuallyafraid for their life I need to
care about what's what'shappening here. It brings the
the reader more fully into theworld. And once to me, that's
the, that's the magic key thatkind of unlocks a lot of writers
potentials, I've had two clientsspecifically, who have struggled

(53:19):
in the beginning. And then oncethey kind of learn the lesson of
like, showing the reader why tocare, that's what I feel like so
far, in my experience is likeopening the door, and kind of
given them like the aha moment.
And every script that I've read,read from them after that was 10
times better. It's neverperfect. There's always notes,
but like, once they grasp thatconcept, things tend to come so

(53:41):
much easier. In my experience.
You said a badge, that I knowsafety loves notes. Oh, I
thought you were gonna say exboyfriend. Now. Nobody likes
those words. Nobody likes thosewords. No. Can you tell them a

(54:02):
Moses is starting to kick ingetting up?
Yeah, I love notes, notes. Andthe note behind the note. Yes,
the note behind the note isalways critical in the art of
taking notes and how to actuallyapply them to your work.
I will say I think that you'reright, the art of taking notes
is especially for someone whowants to be a professional
writer, a understanding that asa professional writer, you're

(54:25):
writing for somebody else.
Because if you're writing foryourself, then you can write
whatever the hell you want. Butif you're writing to get paid,
you need to write to satisfy theperson who's paying you and
really coming to grips with whatthat means. And knowing that the
story starts out as being yours,but then it's going to evolve
into being somebody else's, is areally important thing. But then
the idea of understanding whatthe note is actually saying

(54:46):
because you know I've been doingthis for 10 plus years now, I
can tell you without a doubt,the notes I gave in the early
part of my career, were not asgood as the notes I give now.
It's just not even close and IFeel like being through practice
through doing it. hundreds upon1000s, maybe 10s of 1000s of
times now, I feel like my notesare pretty clear. And generally

(55:08):
when I, when I give a note onsomething, I don't just give the
what to change, I give the whyto change it. But not every
person has that that ability inthat clarity. And so saying,
okay, they want me to take outthis subplot in the second act,
but I think it's reallyimportant for the emotional
knowledge of the character. Whydo they want me to take it out?

(55:29):
I think the note is actuallysaying, the second act drags on,
let me try to pace it up. Let metry to find something else to
cut that's going to get to itfaster, so I can keep this thing
that I want. And still give themwhat they're actually looking
for, to kind of get through thisthing faster. Sometimes you're
right, sometimes you're not. Butyou do need to figure out what
people are actually saying withtheir notes. Because there's,

(55:49):
there's layers to a script,there's the topical plot stuff.
And then there's the thing is,things that are happening
underneath. And sometimes youhave to find the deeper dive
into what those things are.
I love getting feedback, and Ican like read your book then.
And I like getting really honestfeedback like i don't i and then

(56:14):
I like to sometimes I cry. Andthen I'll be like, Okay, I'm not
sure I'm buying into what youwant me to do. But it's just a
scene, so I'm going to write itand, and then in writing it and
trying it on, you can all of asudden a lot of times ends up
being Oh, okay, and I won't haveexecuted it the same way they

(56:37):
wanted me to or they suggestedthat I did, but I found a way to
execute it in a way that workedfor me emotionally, story wise,
whatever. And then it was likeNow I understand why you told me
to do this, you know, so youhave to try it before you really
understandthe note behind the note. I
during the pandemic I I boughtmasterclass which was mostly a
waste of money in my opinion.

(57:00):
But I listened to the NeilGaiman masterclass, which again,
I love Neil Gaiman. He's myfavorite author, I've got the
entire Sandman series righthere. And like three other of
his books, like I think he'sprobably one of the greatest
living authors, there was onething he said that I really
thought stood out, which was, ifyou give it to 10 people, you're

(57:20):
the thing that you've written,and eight of them come back, say
the exact same thing. That's apretty consistent problem, you
should probably listen to thatnote. But if you give it to
eight people, or 10, people, andeight, they all come back saying
different things. That's justopinions. And then your opinion
supersedes theirs. But that'sthe note that you follow the one
that where you can tell, okay,this is what the audience and

(57:41):
mass thinks. And that's not myintention for it. So let me work
on that. That's the importantpart of that. You know, when
you're given notes, by adevelopment executive, it's
always your choice whether totake it, but you also need to be
wary of the fact that,especially if you're a
professional writer, these arethe people who decide if you
move on to production or toseries. And in production, and

(58:03):
in series come, the more moneycomes the promise of continued
paychecks. And so yes, you cansay, I'm not going to take that
note, or I'm not gonna take anyof these notes, I'm just going
to cut around the edges, becauseI think it's good enough. But
again, if you're a professionalwriter, writing to make other
people happy, then you mightneed to take notes that you
don't want to make, you mightneed to change things you don't

(58:23):
want to change. In order to getyour overall goal, which is get
paid.
I think we kind of came fullcircle on that. It's, you know,
reading what, you know, to acertain extent, right, and what
you enjoy and doing somethingthat makes you happy in this
industry. But also there is thatidea of success of all you want
a paycheck. So do you just giveinto the machine and turn out

(58:44):
the stuff that kills your soul,just so you have a roof over
your head.
And now it means generals andmeetings and going out on, you
know, open writing assignmentsand pitching my idea and writing
things that aren't my ideas andrewriting other writers and
taking writing credit away fromanother writer. I mean, there's
some like, ugly, icky thingsthat you have to like wrap your

(59:08):
brain around that this is whatbeing a professional
screenwriter is.
It's how the sausage gets made,man. I mean, I mean, that's
life, right? We all have skills,and we're trying to get
compensated for our skills tothe highest possible dollar
value. Hey, one of the thingsthat I don't think a lot of
writers realize is once you makethat first sale, that's probably
what you're going to be doingfor the foreseeable future.

(59:29):
Because like, let's say like yousaid, you write a spec. Let's
say you write like, indie horrorspec. It's not something that
you normally do, but you justtried it, it turned out really
well and you sell it your agentsells it. What do you think
after that sale, your agentsgonna send people as your
sample, they're gonna send youthey're gonna send people the
sample that sold they're gonnabe like, hey, look, this is the

(59:51):
spec that sold. Lionsgate isproducing it. It's got this
director on it, it's in theprocess like that's the
impressive sample and so Whatare they going to use a horror
spec for horror, openassignments, horror rewrites,
things of that nature horrorfranchises like, you might want
to write dramatic stuff like,True Detective. But if you

(01:00:12):
haven't written something that'sgotten traction in that vein,
your agent can't get you thosejobs because no one's going to
hire you to write True Detectivebased off a horror sample. But
these emerging writers out theredon't necessarily realize how
the business works in the senseof like, yeah, you might write a
specific genre really well. Butthen you need to recognize that
that's the those are the jobsthat you're going to get moving

(01:00:34):
forward from, from thatI don't, I don't really know how
I feel about emerging writers. Icertainly like it better than
aspiring. I cannot stand thatexpression. Because it's like,
if I'm putting words on thepage, I'm not aspiring to write
I'm writing.
Yeah, I'm actually writing. Thisis the conversation that you and

(01:00:55):
Matt and I got into and I wouldlove to get Sandy's opinion on
this. Yeah. Coming up in thebusiness, Satie. I got very used
to saying baby writers. And babydoesn't mean anything in terms
of age, or in terms of gender,or in terms of race. It just
means your career stature, like,if you're a writer, who is
writing specs and hasn't soldanything, you're a baby, you

(01:01:16):
don't have any experience yet.
And once you make that sale, youstart gathering the credits and
you start moving up and all of asudden, you're not a baby
anymore. You're a workingprofessional writer. But Matt,
showed me a Twitter thread thatwas getting quite a lot of
traction, possibly based off oneof the articles I wrote where I
say baby writer, can I say it alot. And people were
complaining. I don't want to beknown as a baby writer. I'm not

(01:01:38):
a baby infant infant tantalizingme. I don't like it, I think and
people were commenting thatemerging, was more correct. Now
I have problems with emergingwriters. Because as you were
saying, Jeannie, I feel like youcan't tell me you're emerging.
Like that's like an NFL player,or like a football player

(01:01:59):
wanting to play in the NFL andsaying, Well, I'm an emerging
NFL quarterback. Well, you don'thave an NFL job. You don't have
an NFL tryout. You're just a guywho wants to play quarterback.
You can't tell me you're anemerging talent. The NFL tells
me that like the NFL tells meOh, you signed to a team. Okay,
you're an emerging talent. Youjust like that. You can't tell

(01:02:21):
me you're an emerging writer.
But that is apparently thepolitically correct. Take the
stance nowadays. And I'm justcurious about it. Because quite
frankly, I don't like saying it.
And I would like to find areason to stop.
Well, I think just like anyTwitter trends, emerging writers
can probably last another weekuntil they find something else.

(01:02:44):
And baby writer. Yeah, that'ssomething I've always heard.
I've never been offended by it.
And to genies point. I mean, ifyou're an emerging writer,
you're a writer. So just saythat you're a writer, but I
think it's just depends on whereyou are in your stage in that
career as a writer, if only itonly took nine months.

(01:03:07):
Right, right, exactly. Andoftentimes, I will say, young
writer only because like youmight be a 40 year old who just
decided to start writing twoyears ago, two years out of 40.
You're pretty new to that idea.
And so you're still young inyour career as a writer, as
opposed to like Neil Gaiman,who's been writing for like 3040
years now. And he would just addmassive amounts of success. So I
don't think that young writer isoffensive either. But I'm also

(01:03:30):
this is why I don't go ontoTwitter very often, I only go to
check once my articles getposted to see what people say
about them. That'sforced him to come back. Like I
started tagging him and things.
I'm sure he was getting alerts,like, I haven't gotten a Twitter
alert in forever.
Basically, it was like I loggedon it was like you have 20 plus
alerts and I'm like, Oh, god,what did I say that blew up? Am

(01:03:52):
I getting cancelled yet? I knewit was gonna happen one day.
Well, I wonder like, writers whoare born seasoned. Do they
prefer to be called veteranwriters does that age them out?
People will say veteran scribeI mean, I've definitely heard
like deadline articles, theywould say like this veteran
scribe is repped by this placein that place. So I don't think
it ages them out. I think itjust it's like a it's like a

(01:04:13):
level of stature like you'veleveled up but you've achieved
better in the status in thebusiness. So
yeah, I mean, I don't I don'tbecause then when you're saying
like even you're saying,aspiring writer, emerging
writer. I don't really know thatthere is a good appropriate
label for that, which I think ishard for people, you know,

(01:04:38):
because they want to be able toidentify as a writer you know,
like that's that's also part ofit, you know, they want which is
Satie had given a quote beforeyou came on. See now I need my
prep gin and vitamin confidence,it was about confidence and say

(01:05:03):
the quote, and then I'll finishmy thought.
Yeah, it's a Mark Twain, quote,if it goes to succeed in life,
you need two things, ignoranceand confidence. Yep.
And some perhaps, labelingpeople labeling themselves as
writer, whether whatever youpreface it with, helps give them

(01:05:26):
that confidence to keep goingbecause it's what they they want
to do. And maybe maybe forpeople identifying as a baby
writer doesn't quite give themthe confidence that they need
it. So it's like,yeah, I can understand that
point. And again, I would say,if you want to call yourself an
emerging writer, go ahead. Don'texpect me to call you an

(01:05:50):
emergent. until I've, I've givenyou until other people have
bestowed that upon you. And thenthat Mark Twain quote, Sandy, I
think is actually very similarto another Neil Gaiman always
comes back to Neil, quote, wherehe said, in order to be a
successful writer, you need tohave the confidence of an eight
to 10 year old boy, the abilityto not know at all what you're

(01:06:10):
doing, but you don't care. Youjust do it anyway. And that,
like allows you to try thingsthat you would never have
thought might work or that youwould. Other people might tell
you, it's not gonna work. Andthen all of a sudden you try it,
and it does work. And then youbecome a superstar overnight.
And I think that, you know,that's like, perfect timing.

(01:06:30):
Because last night, we watchedbig, haven't seen big in so
long. And so as I'm watching it,and I'm watching him he has,
it's like that age, where youhave no inhibitions. So he's
just like testing the toys,doing all the things that come
naturally to him. He's notworried about what other people
think or what they care abouthim. And I think that's that

(01:06:52):
thing, if you can write likethat, like Stephen King says,
and I'm writing right with thedoor shot, like don't worry
about what people think Don'tworry about anybody else reading
this just be authentic, andreally poured onto the page, you
know, and not filter yourself.
And just like just like youspike, unfiltered. Oh,

(01:07:13):
my mind just comes for notknowing when I should shut up.
However, if you ladies can'ttell my Mimosa is almost gone.
So whatever. Big like nuclearbomb questions you wanted to ask
him this, now's the time.
We did have one coming in.
Because I remember you mentionedGenie, before you popped on

(01:07:34):
Spike was something aboutcontracts and knowing your worth
as your writer? How do youestablish yourself and ask for
money? for projects,man? Do we need to pause while
you go for another one? I don'thave any more orange juice left.

(01:07:56):
So I can't you can just drinkthe champagne.
Throughout three completelyhonest, this was an entire
bottle of champagne. So I don'thave any more champagne left?
Um, that is such a trickyquestion. Say it. I don't know.
I think that that's one of thosecase by case basis thing. You

(01:08:19):
have to be okay with the idea ofthem dropping you. So going back
to the confidence idea, you haveto be confident enough in your
writing ability to get anotherjob if that one doesn't play
out. So you kind of have to actas though you have options when
you don't. I mean, I'm a bigbeliever in in artists getting
paid what they're worth.
Unfortunately, hollywood doesn'tfeel the same way Hollywood to

(01:08:43):
bottom line business. Andespecially for like directors
you have to pay actors you haveto pay crew you can skimp on a
lot of times people try to skimpon writers fees. And this is one
of the issues that the WritersGuild of America has had for a
very long time is that writerswriters pay has not been going
up in, in appropriate equalfashion to the price of the cost

(01:09:06):
of movies and the cost of othertalent. So this is why I think
that it's much if I was evergoing to be a writer in 2021, I
would not make it my mainhustle, I would have either a
business on the side or a dayjob that fulfilled me that paid
my bills and I would write in myspare time because in the in the

(01:09:27):
day and age of strict budgetsand micro budgets and the
frickin Jason blem model whichis paying nobody until I
absolutely have to. There's ahigh chance that you're not
going to get paid and i've i'veseen those fights play out and
they're not always pretty. Sothere's no clean cut answer to
that one.
You know, a lot of people equatemoney with success. And in it

(01:09:50):
you know, when you're writinglike when I first started
writing and I would writearticles or you know, guest
blogging on somebody's site orreviews of things or whatnot. I
was starting, I had no publishedclips, nobody wanted to pay me
anything. They thought they weredoing me a favor to let them,
you know, to let me write forthem. And you with exposure gene

(01:10:11):
exactly, you're getting exposureand exposure. And that just
makes me want to vomit. But Irecognized in the beginning, I
didn't have any hand, you know,like I had no hand, I was a baby
writer. It was like, wow, liketoo bad. Like, I had no hand I

(01:10:34):
had nothing, nothing I could do.
So what I did for all you peopleout there who are in that spot,
and you're looking for publishedclips, especially if you want to
write for magazines, or whateveronline sites or whatever to get
that your voice out there, whichI would also recommend because a
lot of people discovered me as aas a, as a, you know, wanting to

(01:10:56):
read my novels or read myscreenplays, because they read
my articles. So they knew Icould tell a story in 1200
words, so they wanted to seewhat I yes. So they wanted to
see what I could tell in largerwords. That's actually the story
of how both my writing partnerand Doug Richardson first read

(01:11:19):
my work because they werereading my articles and script
magazine, and they're readingthe blogs that I would write on
my own website. And DougRichardson after about six
months of knowing him, I neverasked him to read my stuff. He
was reading my articles, and hesaid, Cosby's calls you up one
day and he goes, you know, youcan write, like, I want to read
this script, you know, and I'mlike, Okay, and then he ended up

(01:11:41):
coming on to the project becauseit gave me notes. And he liked
the way I took notes, and thensaid, Can I come out and help
you with this? You know, and wenever got it produced, but it
was a what you want to talkabout a masterclass. I mean, a
masterclass working with him,and Tom Shaw met him. He was
like, incredible. But so what Idid, but go circling back to the

(01:12:02):
articles in the very beginning,I would ask people who anybody
wanted me to write for free? Iwould say, okay, but can you go
on my LinkedIn and like, writeme a recommendation? Like, can
you do like, so at least I wasgetting something for it. And,
and that made me feel like I wasbeing valued. You know, because
that recommendation meant moreto me than 50 bucks, you know?

(01:12:24):
Yeah. And you're working totrade in that point. Right?
Right. And then that gets youthe next job. Because then
you've got now I've gotpublished clips, I could put up
on my site, that to use to queryother publications that would
pay me money. So right, like, itwas a win, win.

(01:12:45):
And just like, like going backto the Hollywood working in the
business side of it, likeeveryone has to intern to start
to make the relationships andthat's how you're getting paid.
You're not getting paid inmoney. You're getting paid in
relationships. And when I wasstarting out there was the whole
fight about well, is unpaidinterns really an ethical thing
to do? Should we be doing itthere was the whole lawsuit

(01:13:05):
about asking for free work forthings like that, because it
didn't follow the laws? And Iunderstood it, but in the same
sense, yeah. I mean, like,you're, you have nothing to
offer those people at thatpoint. I mean, it though the
article is a slightly differentthing, because you are giving
them content to put on theirwebsite. But you're working on a
trade of, of at least value toyou where you're getting

(01:13:28):
something out of it. Now, youcan't do that forever, you can't
work for free forever, becauseat some point you have to eat
but just starting out, I don'tthink there's anything wrong
with with writing for free.
Since I've been publishedpublishing on Pipeline Artists,
there have been two or three, Ithink two outlets that have come
to me and said, Hey, we want youto write for us and I'm looking
at their pay scale. And I'mlike, why would I go to you?

(01:13:50):
Like there's, there's no,there's no incentive for me to
do that. Like, I would ratherjust continue to publish my
ideas on Pipeline Artists. Yay.
Yeah. Congrats. Like, there yougo.
And I want to actually likecircle back to the reason your
stuff is so good. And like whatI was, and I actually Oh, say

(01:14:13):
the balls of steel article forscript magazine. Because it's
that your and this is the sameapproach I take with balls of
steel, which I think the book iscoming out June 1, by the way,
what is balls of steel though? Idon't know balls of steel is a
article I was writing prescriptmagazine for like 10 years. And

(01:14:34):
like a like a like a seriesseries like regular series about
how it takes balls of steel tobe a writer to be in this
industry. And you've gotten justto live like damn true, right?
Yeah, that's so yeah. And, but Ithink why your stuff is so
popular, speaks to exactly whatyou recommend to your writers,
who, who your clients. It'sgetting to the authentic core.

(01:14:58):
You know, you're you're notsugarcoating anything, you're
going right to it. This is andyou're passionate about what
you're writing about, becauseyou want to help the reader.
Like you want them to learnsomething. And so you're not
like, Oh, well, yeah, maybe,maybe Oh, yeah, don't worry
about I'm just gonna steal yourstuff and then move on, like you

(01:15:19):
go into like to really explainto them so they understand,
like, you know, what's going onhere, and, and how to look at
things. And I think that's why,just like if you're writing a
screenplay, you know, yourgraphic novel or whatever, when
you tap into that authenticity,people love it, and they
resonates with them, and theycome back for more.

(01:15:40):
Totally, totally, yeah, no, Ilook, the articles I write for
pipeline are what I would tellpeople pretty consistently, if
they if they saw me in person,though, the exact same thing.
They're just more well plot outand probably more articulate,
because I have a chance to goback and edit them and make them
sound pretty. They also probablycontain about 20% fewer curse
words than I would probably putin like a normal conversation.

(01:16:02):
One of the things I tell myclients is, don't give so much
of a shit about someone likesyour work just right. Like, if
you like what you're writing,the chances are that someone
else is going to as well. And soyou're not writing to make
someone out there happy you'rewriting to find 1 million people

(01:16:24):
who are like you and resonatewith your voice, and you're
there to make them happy. Ifthere's any. I have many
thoughts on the contentexplosion that we're going
through in terms of televisionand streaming and having
500 600 700 However, many showsthere are now out on the web and
being produced. But if there'sanything that that showed is

(01:16:46):
that you don't need to be 100million people's favorite show
to be successful. If you can be1 million people's favorite.
That's all it takes. Help meless than that. If you're going
to be 500,000 people's favorite.
That's enough. Like for BigLittle Lies. What was the sequel
to that? Was it like brokenmirrors or something? I'm drunk?
I can't quite remember that. Idon't remember. shards, like

(01:17:08):
like, like pretty shards orsomething like yeah, whatever it
was like the sequel to that gotall this acclaim and Hollywood,
everyone's talking about it. Youknow what the numbers on that
were less than a millionviewers. Nobody watched it. But
it's like, it had enough of afollowing. And it was on the
right network with the rightpeople to where it's still got
all this buzz, because it hadall the right elements even

(01:17:32):
though it was a very niche show.
You don't need to be everyone'sfavorite perfect example. Again,
one of the shows I worked on atmy last company and I won't name
the name cuz I'm not quite thatdrunk yet. But that show
survived for five seasons. Weonly pulled in like a million
viewers in episode. Like wedidn't pull in that many. But

(01:17:54):
for us that was good enough. Itwas a metric that worked. It
kept us going we made a profiton that. And we made extra
viewers up not in the the actualair but we made it up in the in
the the repeat viewing and thegoing on our website and
watching the episode there withcommercials. We made bigger
numbers than that. But the thehardcore fans who watched it

(01:18:14):
every week, whenever it came onthere, I think was like 1.1 May
at one point to like a reallygood episode. You don't need to
appease the masses, you justneed to find your core audience.
And if that core audience is bigenough, you're going to be
valuable to somebody in house.
Spike, thank you so much for soperfect timing. He just is with

(01:18:35):
the last the last gope thank youso much for hanging out with us
this afternoon and chattingabout all this and I think you
might be onto something. I thinkwe might have to turn this
podcast into like a like a drunkhistory. Like we make.
Yeah, big. All of our guestsdrink all throughout the show

(01:18:58):
and see where they go.
Yeah, maybe we'll just have youcome back and talk about you
could talk about Neil Gaiman.
I loved it. I love it. This isgreat. I really enjoyed it. Nice
meeting you Sandy. Always goodtalking to you. Jeannie. I
cannot wait to send you mylatest article. Oh, yeah. So I
might start another one whoknows the world is my oyster or

(01:19:20):
you can start it before yousober up. We'll see how that one
turns.

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