January 1, 2026 • 25 mins
In this episode, host Jeff Everett breaks down the real-world pathways for writers trying to break into film and television. From landing a spot in a writers’ room, to selling a script to studios or streamers, to taking the DIY route and making the project yourself, Jeff explains why the process is difficult, competitive, and often misunderstood. He dives into the importance of representation, why unsolicited scripts are rarely accepted, and how agents act as the industry’s filtration system.
The episode also offers a grounded reality check on rejection, persistence, and self-belief. Jeff emphasizes that “no” usually means “not today,” and that success often comes from consistently putting yourself into play—networking, improving your craft, and knocking on the right doors at the right level. It’s an honest, practical guide for aspiring writers navigating the business side of indie filmmaking.
The episode also offers a grounded reality check on rejection, persistence, and self-belief. Jeff emphasizes that “no” usually means “not today,” and that success often comes from consistently putting yourself into play—networking, improving your craft, and knocking on the right doors at the right level. It’s an honest, practical guide for aspiring writers navigating the business side of indie filmmaking.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are a writer. You've written maybe a movie script,
maybe a TV episode, maybe a whole series, or maybe
you just want to be a writer on a big
television series. So the question is, how do you go
about achieving that goal? How do you get into a
writing room, how do you get your script seen and
read and hopefully purchased? How do you get your TV
(00:23):
show to be greenlit? Today, we're going to talk about
that journey as a writer. If you want to be a.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot about
not just the production of movies, but the business. We
are going to tell you the truth and reality of
what really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody,
welcome back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
(00:55):
Jeff Deverett, and today we have a subject that comes
up many, many, many times, speak very very often to
lots of aspiring writers who are actually very frustrated writers
because they're trying to figure out either to become say
a career writer, get a job and say a writing
room on a TV show or something like that, or
(01:16):
get the stuff that they've already written, the content that
they've written, their scripts and or their TV pilots or
their shows actually read and hopefully purchased by some producer
or studio or streaming company, whatever the case may be.
This is a difficult journey. This is become more and
more challenging. It's always been challenging, but it's become more challenging.
(01:39):
I've kind of broken it down into kind of three pathways,
all right. The first pathway is, let's say that you're
a great writer and you want to be hired into
the writing room on say, a big writing room means
sort of the group of writers who write for say
a television show, which would be super exciting. So how
(02:01):
do you get into that room? What is the pathway
into that room? Now I am not a writer, and
I've actually never attempted to go down that path, but
I've spoken to lots of writers who have, and so
between kind of seeing from the inside point of view
as a distributor and financial person in the business and
talking to a lot of writers, here's how I think
(02:22):
that kind of happens. Number one, I would say it's,
first of all, you have to be talented, obviously, all right.
You have to kind of be a good writer. The
disconnect sometimes is is that if you don't have any
writing credits, Like if you're just a newbie your first
time out doesn't mean you're not a good writer. You
could be an unbelievably good writer. It's just you don't
(02:43):
have a track record to prove to somebody that you're
a good writer. So often the writing rooms or the
groups of writers, which is led by usually somebody called
the showrunner, the person runs the show and sort of
has the overall vision for that show, they're going to
want somebody who has a proven track record, somebody maybe
already has some writing credits, and so it's going to
(03:06):
be really difficult if you don't have any writing credits
to kind of get in that door. But I'm not
saying it's impossible, it's just trickier like it is in
even just getting your first job is tough. Let's say
once you maybe have some credits under your name or
something like that, or you don't. If you want to
just knock on those doors in no particular order, I'd
say one of the most important things, I hate to
(03:26):
say it is who you know. Because there is a
lot and lot of supply for those jobs and very
little demand. Those jobs are very far and few between. Yeah,
there's a lot of shows going on. But for I'm
going to say for every writer's job on a writing team,
there's probably five hundred good writers who could fit the
(03:49):
bill and would want that job, and that might be low.
Maybe it's even more than that. So there's lots and
lots of people trying to compete for those jobs and
very few jobs to go around, which is the case
with a lot of things, you know, professional sports, even
say getting into university, you know, the slots are limited,
getting into a film festival, So that's life, all right,
Lots of supply, a little demand doesn't mean you can't
(04:11):
do it. You just you know, hopefully if you know somebody,
it's helpful because if you know somebody, then maybe your resume,
your CV can get a little higher on the pile
to be considered. Or if you really know somebody, you
have a good friend or something like that, maybe they
can actually invite you in and open that door. But
for the most part, I don't think a lot of
(04:31):
people are listening to this podcast probably know somebody, so
that's not going to work. But you know, they always
say it's not what you know, it's who you know.
Especially in Hollywood, and in some cases that's true. Some
of it is what you know, but sometimes it's really
helpful who you know. But let's say you don't know anybody,
all right, So let's put that aside. Basically, you're going
to try to do go through the front door, which
(04:52):
is sending in your resume, a nice with a letter,
hopefully some samples of your work. So who do you
send it to? Well, the truth is there's really nobody
to send it to because they're not going to Those
doors aren't open unless somebody has put out a call
for writers, an open call, which usually never happens. But
generally speaking, those doors aren't open. So the way those
(05:14):
things have to happen. Your stuff has to get sent
in is through some type of representation, a manager, an agent,
maybe a lawyer, somebody who represents you. So often it's
a literary agent who has taking you on as a
client and they want obviously they want you to get
a lot of work because they make a commission off
(05:35):
all the work that you get, so it's in their
best interest to get your work in front of people.
So you need to get a literary agent, let's say,
or you know pretty well connected manager who believes in
you and wants to help you open those doors. That's
how those doors are going to open. It's tricky, though,
I say. It's a long lineup. And by the way,
(05:55):
I don't believe there is any back door. The back
door is you know somebody. Otherwise it's through the front door.
And hopefully you know you're you met somebody maybe in
film school, maybe in passing, maybe to film market or
film festival or something like that. You made a connection.
They know somebody who opened the door, who got you
an interview. But from what I've heard, it's pretty tricky
(06:17):
to get.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
In those doors. But you know, I always say no
means not today. So don't worry if those doors are
shut on you just keep trying and hopefully one day
they'll open. And sometimes you meet people in the oddest places.
You know, you don't expect to meet somebody. All of
a sudden, you're in a restaurant or a bar or
something like that, and you're having a chit chat with
a random person beside you, or lined up at an
(06:38):
airport to get on a flight, and they say, oh,
I'm a writer in this writer's room, and all of
a sudden, that's how it happens. It's not a business plan.
It's fate and luck. But you never know. Okay, so
let's go. That's path number one getting into the writer's room,
all right. Path number two is you've written a script
or a TV pilot or TV a whole series or whatever.
(07:00):
You know. The same would apply to if you've written
a book and now you want to submit this. You
want to submit it to, say, the large streaming platforms,
you know, the Netflix and Who's of the world. You
want to submit it to the big studios. You want
to submit it to the production a whole bunch of
production companies who could basically buy your script and make
this movie for you, not for you, for them. They're
(07:21):
just going to buy the script. So how do you
get in front of them. It's the exact same way.
You're going to need representation. These big companies do not
allow for what we call unsolicited material. Unsolicited means that
you sent it to them directly. It has to come
through a representative who they are comfortable with and that
(07:43):
they trust and know for a couple of reasons, all right.
Reason number one is legal reasons. They do not want
to receive, say, your script, and then if you can
prove that they received it, and then you know, a
year later or two years later, they make a movie
and they didn't use your script. They don't want you
to be able to sue them to say you read
(08:06):
my script, you stole my idea, and you didn't give
me any credit for you didn't give me any money
for it. And that happens all the time, used to
happen way more when content and scripts were allowed to
come in unsolicit it. That's why they say no unsolicited
material because legally they don't want to have to fight
that battle. They don't want a lot of people lining
(08:27):
up saying you stole my material, potentially being able to
prove it. But even if you can't prove it, they
don't want to see it. So they just basically say
we're closed. You know, as much as we want good scripts,
we want to consider them, we don't want the legal issue,
all right. That's number one. Number two is they don't
want to waste their time. I mean, if they open
up the doors and said say open submissions, there would
(08:49):
be ten thousand scripts on their desks the next day,
maybe more, because a lot of people have scripts and
are very anxious to put them in the hands of
these people just don't have the time to read ten
thousand scripts. They don't have enough manpower, enough resources to
get through all that material. Unfortunately, they're going to forego
(09:09):
a lot of good material that won't make it to
their desks because they have to use a filtration system
called agents, all right. So the filtration to think of this,
here's the pool of writers. You know, ten thousand writers
here with great scripts. They have to put them through
and filter them through this tiny little funnel here called agents,
all right. So the agents all get through and they
(09:30):
they're the ones who get them, get it through, and
that filtration works. And I'll tell you why in a minute.
But they don't want ten thousand scripts on their desks.
They'll they want they don't even want a hundred, they
want ten. But they're willing to have one hundred, all right,
because they're looking for certain things and sometimes you have
to read a lot of stuff to find what you're
going to get. Even if they were to get the
(09:53):
you know, to allow unsolicited material and not worry about
the legal issues and the volume issues, they just don't
want to be pitched by every single writer who believes
that their script is the greatest thing in the world.
As a writer, you need to believe that. All right,
you wrote the script, this is your baby, and chances
are it's really really good. But so is the next
person's and the next person's. And you know, not every
(10:14):
script is great. A lot of them are crappy. But
as a writer, you actually believe that yours is great.
You know, I was talking to a writer the other
day and they said, you know what, Jeff, I know
everybody writer says it, but my scripts are really good.
Like I just I just know it. I just know
that they're really good. And I kind of smiled and
I said, you realize that I've probably spoken to I'm
(10:36):
going to say, at least two hundred writers over the
last four years, four or five years, as I've been
doing my online stuff, my consulting, in my podcasting. I'd say,
every single one of them said to me, what you
just said. They kind of went quiet and said, you know,
I don't want to be arrogant or sound cocky or
anything like that, but my stuff's really good. It's probably
better than everybody else's. Everybody says that because everybody believes it.
(11:00):
Now is it actually the truth? Is their stuff actually
better than the next person's. Maybe maybe, but also maybe not.
But they believe it. You have to believe it. When
you wrote it, you generally believe it. It's as you should.
I mean, it's your work of art, so you should
believe it. What the studios and the streamers are looking
(11:20):
for is not whether you love your material. It's whether
their audience is going to love your material. It's whether
it's going to be commercially viable, meaning it's going to
entertain the paying audience, their subscriber base, or whoever goes
to the movies, whoever pays to see content. They're looking
for stuff that is commercially viable. And when I say
(11:40):
commercially viable, I don't mean just action, thriller, you know, horror,
that kind of stuff. I mean drama can be very
commercially viable. People A lot of people want to see
heavy duty dramas. They want to see documentaries, they want
to see faith based stuff. There's lots of stuff that
people think, oh, this is not typically commercially viable. Because
everybody talks about give me an action, give me a thriller,
(12:01):
give me a horror, give me a sci fi you know,
give me a superhero movie. Yeah. Is all that stuff
commercially viable? Of course it is. I mean at some
point it gets a little tired. But other stuff is
commercially viable too, the dramas and the rom coms and
all the other stuff that people don't usually labels commercially viable. Yes,
there is a big market for it and people do
(12:23):
want to see it. So what makes something commercially viable
is when it's read somebody says wow, an audience would
really enjoy this. As opposed to you reading it yourself
and saying wow, I wrote something great. It's somebody else
reading it and saying, wow, this is fantastic. I was
super entertained. I couldn't put it down. So the studios
and the streamers and everything they need to filter out
(12:44):
this because they don't want to waste a ton of
time trying to go through the volume and deal with
all the passion of the filmmakers. So they forced writers
to go through agents, all right, So they're usually called
literary agents. A literary agent is generally somebody who helps
I'm to get a book published, but they also represent
scriptwriters and TV writers in that type of thing. So
(13:06):
you want to find a good agent who believes in you,
who wants to help you, and thinks that they your
work is fantastic, all right, So they believe in you
and your work, and they're not going to take you
on if they're a good agent. They're not going to
take you on unless that actually happens, unless they actually
believe in you and your work. Because remember they're generally
commission based. They make money when they sell your work.
(13:29):
Right if they don't sell your art, they're not going
to make any money. So they also don't want to
waste their time. Trust me, if they're going to take
you on, it's because they believe in you. So how
do you find that agent? This is also a challenge,
all right. It's a challenge because it's the same chicken
egg scenario that I spoke about a few minutes ago
when I was speaking about getting in a writer's room.
(13:51):
Is generally the agents are looking for people who have
a track record. They're looking for people who already have
done something, already are noticeable, already have credibility in the
industry because they've written something that's either being published or
made into a movie or something like that that doesn't
leave a lot of room for newbe writers, which is
probably most of the people listening to this episode, because
(14:13):
how do you get started? I mean, you got to
get at least one thing going before you have anything
on your resume to give you experience. And it doesn't
mean you're a bad writer because you don't have anything.
It means that you're just getting started, all right. So
the agents are gonna preclude you because you haven't done
anything because they don't want to take a chance. So
what you may have to do, it's super frustrating, it's
(14:35):
ridiculously frustrating. Then they're gonna say, when you've gotten credibility,
when you've gotten published, when you've gotten something made, come
and see us and then we'll represent you. And then
you're going to say to them, hey, guys, at that point,
I'm not going to need you to represent me because
I've already crossed the bridge. You're going to miss the boat.
I need you now, I need you to help me. Now, well,
the going is really tough. When the going gets easy,
(14:55):
then why would it come to you. I've already opened
those doors and hopefully I can submit myself health or
you know, not pay a big commission of an agent
like you, so help me now and hopefully it'll, you know,
blossom into something bigger. However, the agents don't always think
that way. So in order to get an agent when
you're first time writer, you're probably going to not get
sort of the top level agencies, like sort of the
(15:17):
ones in the bigger echelons. You're probably going to have
to go a little bit lower and you might actually
have to go with a somewhat of a newer agent,
somebody who's not as connected in the industry for the
same reason that you're not connected in the industry. So
try to find somebody who one will believe in you
and listen to you, and who is a good hustler
(15:38):
who will get out there and work hard and be persistent.
May not have the expertise and the resume that you
would want them to have, but nor do you, so
that's why it's a good match. And realistically that's sort
of the type of agent you're going to get. Somebody
who's kind of newer at the industry. Now, hopefully that agent,
maybe you know, has a few years of working experience,
(15:59):
maybe they worked for a bigger agent as an assistant
or something like that, and they wanted to break off
and start their own agency so that at least they
are connected to the bigger agencies that can hopefully open
the door for some of the opportunities that you're looking for.
But it could be a step process where you've got
to start a little smaller, hopefully get to the next
step than the next step until you get kind of
(16:20):
hit that home It's like baseball. You got to get
on first base, get to second, get to third. You know,
maybe you get lucky hit a home run to start with,
but often it doesn't happen that way. So that is
kind of getting your work. If you want to get
your work in through the pipeline and get it seen,
you generally have to use an agent, and you have
to use an agent at the level of somebody who
(16:40):
will take you on. All right, So we talked about
getting into the writer's room. We talked about getting your
work seen and hopefully sold and purchased by somebody who's
going to make it. So that would be a production company,
streaming company, a studio, you know, big companies that can
finance those kind of projects movies or TV shows. And
then if you get a lot of know's here and
(17:01):
a lot of knows here, and you get frustrated, and
you are a tenacious kind of person. The third path
would be do it yourself, which is ridiculously hard. Okay,
it's ridiculously hard, but it might be the only path
that you have available to you. So it means become
an entrepreneur if you have a script, let's say, become
a filmmaker, or partner with somebody who's a filmmaker. So
(17:23):
let's say you're the writer, that's your expertise. You're a
great writer, you're not good at raising money. You're not
good at making films. You've never done that, you're not
good at distributing them. But maybe you find you know
a director who's really good at making them, or a
producer who's looking for the next project. And they're probably
not a overly season one, they're probably somewhat new, but
(17:45):
they're very tenacious. They know, they're not worried about knocking
on doors to get the money. And you know, maybe
that's the person who you partner with who will compliment
you because you're going to create the script or you
already have right, and they're going to find the opportunity
to get the money, and get the film made. So
(18:06):
it's a team I've always said filmmaking is a team sport,
very collaborative. Or maybe you're a tenacious, you know, really
industrious type of person and you're an entrepreneur, and maybe
you go and you make the film yourself, you have
a script, and you say, I'm so tired of getting
all the nose here and all the nos here. I'm
just gonna knock on a lot of doors if I
(18:27):
need to, you know, spend the next ten years of
my life knocking on doors. Why not knock on doors
of people who have money, get my script made, or
get my you know, script made into a movie, and
I'll be in the driver's seat. So that's a strategy,
not an easy one. If you listen to all my
other podcasts about finding money, finding financing, getting films made,
(18:47):
getting distributed. This is not an easy road. However, it
is doable, and it puts you in the driver's seat.
So it's not for everybody becoming the entrepreneur the filmmaker
take on all that challenge and financial risk. That is
not for everybody, especially the faint of heart. But it
is an option, and I've seen lots of frustrated writers
(19:11):
who have attempted to go down that path. Now, sometimes
it's worked, but sometimes they get even more frustrated because
as frustrated as they are that their scripts are not
being considered and purchased, it's even more frustrating that they
have a great script and nobody wants to finance it.
So that's a tricky, tricky road to go down. Also,
So where does that leave us? I want to kind
(19:33):
of paint the positive note, not all the negative stuff.
By the way, the negative stuff, I always say, when
you get a lot of nose, you got to treat
those as you can't be personally rejected by it. All right,
it's part of the industry getting nos. And my expression
is no means not today. No we're not going to
give you the job in the writer's room. No we're
not going to license your buy your script from you.
(19:55):
No we're not going to give you the money to
make your own movie. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Lots of nose, but no means not today. Maybe you
just got to wait until the right person comes around,
the right opportunity comes around, and hopefully you get a
Yes it's not guaranteed, but often in this business, it
takes a lot of no's before you get a yes.
So just be aware of that, all right, that's the norm.
(20:17):
And anybody who tells you, oh, I was able to
do this, this, and this, they're the people who also said, oh,
I'm able to win a lottery by buying one ticket.
Like I bought one ticket and I won the lottery
a billion dollars somebody did. Okay, one person out of
ten billion or whatever, you know, five hundred million people
that happened to. So if that's your business plan is
(20:38):
to you know, be the one who wins the lottery.
I don't think it's a great business plan, but it happens.
It's called luck. It happens. So getting lucky doesn't hurt either.
It's nice to get lucky once in a while. But
the way you get lucky is you put yourself into play,
all right. You don't get lucky by sitting in your
apartment and moping and dreaming and aspiring to be this
(20:58):
great Hollywood writer and not knocking on any doors. All right.
You get lucky by knocking on these doors, knocking on
these doors, knocking on these doors, and at least putting
yourself into play, getting yourself out there to let people
know that you've got this great material and that it's available.
In another episode, I used the expression that my dad
(21:19):
used to say. My dad had this expression, used to say,
if you want to get hit by a big truck,
you got to play on the highway. So that's a
really negative way of saying you've got to get out there.
You got to put yourself out there. If you want
to get an opportunity to come to you, the opportunity
being hit by a big truck, you got to go
play in the highway. Put yourself out there. The analogy
(21:42):
is not a great one. It's a negative one, but
the point is is well taken. That nobody's going to
come knocking on your door if you're sitting on your
couch in your apartment. So getting out there, putting yourself
out there and getting either an agent or finding financing
for your film, or you know, trying to get into
the writer's room through an agent also is not easy.
(22:03):
It will not be easy. It's super challenging. Tell me
anything in life that's not super challenging. Let's say you
want to be a professional athlete. You're going to have
to go up against you know, ten thousand other young
guys who are just as good as you in the
sport and also want that one position that's available in
the NBA or the NFL or whatever sport they're going for.
(22:24):
You want to be an actor, same thing you want
to be. You know, a doctor. How do you get
into medical school? There's five thousand other people who applied
to the same medical school. Everything's competitive. Just you give
it your best shot. You got to believe in yourself.
You got to believe in your work and very importantly,
have a litmus test for your work. Okay, just because
you love your work doesn't make it fantastic. It's a
(22:47):
good start, all right, And maybe your mother loves your work.
That's also a good start, Kate. But it's not enough,
all right. You need somebody else, not just one person.
You need to kind of get your work validated. Let
other people read it, people who are going to be
honest with you. Don't give it to people who are
going to be polite and tell you what they want.
(23:07):
You know, what they think you want to hear. Oh,
it's great, it's wonderful way to go. You're the best
writer and everything like that, which that might be the case,
but you need some honest feedback, like it was good,
but I wasn't totally entertained. I'm not sure this is
nearly as good as the stuff that I see on
TV or whatever the case might be. Get some honest
feedback so that you can fine tune and hone your
(23:28):
work and become really good at what you do. Then
when you put it out there, you know that you're
putting your best foot forward. Hopefully the doors will start
to open. So I think that if you aim at
the right level, you see the big picture that it's tricky,
you see the kind of the three pathways, and just
aim at the right level, which probably is get an
(23:50):
agent at the level that you're at as a writer.
All right. They're not going to be the top agent.
They're not going to be the best agency to start
with because you don't have the experience yet. All right.
And if you're an experienced writer, you're not listening to
this podcast, probably you're well on your way. You're already
probably busy in a writer's room or sold many scripts.
So this is basically for inexperienced writers, all right, don't
(24:11):
set yourself up for disappointment and frustration by constantly knocking
on the wrong doors where nobody's going to answer it,
because because they don't. You got to understand why they
don't want to funnel you through knock on the doors
of the level that you have some traction. A young
new agent who is aspiring and hungry hopefully can get
(24:32):
you into the door maybe at a bigger agency or
and they can get you to a bigger agency unless
they say you do these steps and then hopefully that
gets you where you want to go. Bottom line is,
believe in yourself. Make sure that you're a good writer,
you know, as good as you can be, and be
very persistent. Just believe in your dream and stay at it.
(24:55):
If it doesn't happen, no problem. Listen to my episode
of Plan A, Plan B. All right, don't necessarily put
all your eggs into the basket of being that writer.
While you're doing that, you can do other things. You
can have a life, you can have a job, You
can do this. You don't have to necessarily be a
full time writer, or at some point maybe you do
while you're writing, okay, but while you're knocking on doors
or being represented, you can have other things going on
(25:17):
in your life, Find that balance and stay with it
and hopefully those doors will open. So good luck. As always,
I welcome your feedback here, questions and your comments, and
please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. See you
next time.
You are a writer. You've written maybe a movie script,
maybe a TV episode, maybe a whole series, or maybe
you just want to be a writer on a big
television series. So the question is, how do you go
about achieving that goal? How do you get into a
writing room, how do you get your script seen and
read and hopefully purchased? How do you get your TV
(00:23):
show to be greenlit? Today, we're going to talk about
that journey as a writer. If you want to be a.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Successful indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot about
not just the production of movies, but the business. We
are going to tell you the truth and reality of
what really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody,
welcome back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
(00:55):
Jeff Deverett, and today we have a subject that comes
up many, many, many times, speak very very often to
lots of aspiring writers who are actually very frustrated writers
because they're trying to figure out either to become say
a career writer, get a job and say a writing
room on a TV show or something like that, or
(01:16):
get the stuff that they've already written, the content that
they've written, their scripts and or their TV pilots or
their shows actually read and hopefully purchased by some producer
or studio or streaming company, whatever the case may be.
This is a difficult journey. This is become more and
more challenging. It's always been challenging, but it's become more challenging.
(01:39):
I've kind of broken it down into kind of three pathways,
all right. The first pathway is, let's say that you're
a great writer and you want to be hired into
the writing room on say, a big writing room means
sort of the group of writers who write for say
a television show, which would be super exciting. So how
(02:01):
do you get into that room? What is the pathway
into that room? Now I am not a writer, and
I've actually never attempted to go down that path, but
I've spoken to lots of writers who have, and so
between kind of seeing from the inside point of view
as a distributor and financial person in the business and
talking to a lot of writers, here's how I think
(02:22):
that kind of happens. Number one, I would say it's,
first of all, you have to be talented, obviously, all right.
You have to kind of be a good writer. The
disconnect sometimes is is that if you don't have any
writing credits, Like if you're just a newbie your first
time out doesn't mean you're not a good writer. You
could be an unbelievably good writer. It's just you don't
(02:43):
have a track record to prove to somebody that you're
a good writer. So often the writing rooms or the
groups of writers, which is led by usually somebody called
the showrunner, the person runs the show and sort of
has the overall vision for that show, they're going to
want somebody who has a proven track record, somebody maybe
already has some writing credits, and so it's going to
(03:06):
be really difficult if you don't have any writing credits
to kind of get in that door. But I'm not
saying it's impossible, it's just trickier like it is in
even just getting your first job is tough. Let's say
once you maybe have some credits under your name or
something like that, or you don't. If you want to
just knock on those doors in no particular order, I'd
say one of the most important things, I hate to
(03:26):
say it is who you know. Because there is a
lot and lot of supply for those jobs and very
little demand. Those jobs are very far and few between. Yeah,
there's a lot of shows going on. But for I'm
going to say for every writer's job on a writing team,
there's probably five hundred good writers who could fit the
(03:49):
bill and would want that job, and that might be low.
Maybe it's even more than that. So there's lots and
lots of people trying to compete for those jobs and
very few jobs to go around, which is the case
with a lot of things, you know, professional sports, even
say getting into university, you know, the slots are limited,
getting into a film festival, So that's life, all right,
Lots of supply, a little demand doesn't mean you can't
(04:11):
do it. You just you know, hopefully if you know somebody,
it's helpful because if you know somebody, then maybe your resume,
your CV can get a little higher on the pile
to be considered. Or if you really know somebody, you
have a good friend or something like that, maybe they
can actually invite you in and open that door. But
for the most part, I don't think a lot of
(04:31):
people are listening to this podcast probably know somebody, so
that's not going to work. But you know, they always
say it's not what you know, it's who you know.
Especially in Hollywood, and in some cases that's true. Some
of it is what you know, but sometimes it's really
helpful who you know. But let's say you don't know anybody,
all right, So let's put that aside. Basically, you're going
to try to do go through the front door, which
(04:52):
is sending in your resume, a nice with a letter,
hopefully some samples of your work. So who do you
send it to? Well, the truth is there's really nobody
to send it to because they're not going to Those
doors aren't open unless somebody has put out a call
for writers, an open call, which usually never happens. But
generally speaking, those doors aren't open. So the way those
(05:14):
things have to happen. Your stuff has to get sent
in is through some type of representation, a manager, an agent,
maybe a lawyer, somebody who represents you. So often it's
a literary agent who has taking you on as a
client and they want obviously they want you to get
a lot of work because they make a commission off
(05:35):
all the work that you get, so it's in their
best interest to get your work in front of people.
So you need to get a literary agent, let's say,
or you know pretty well connected manager who believes in
you and wants to help you open those doors. That's
how those doors are going to open. It's tricky, though,
I say. It's a long lineup. And by the way,
(05:55):
I don't believe there is any back door. The back
door is you know somebody. Otherwise it's through the front door.
And hopefully you know you're you met somebody maybe in
film school, maybe in passing, maybe to film market or
film festival or something like that. You made a connection.
They know somebody who opened the door, who got you
an interview. But from what I've heard, it's pretty tricky
(06:17):
to get.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
In those doors. But you know, I always say no
means not today. So don't worry if those doors are
shut on you just keep trying and hopefully one day
they'll open. And sometimes you meet people in the oddest places.
You know, you don't expect to meet somebody. All of
a sudden, you're in a restaurant or a bar or
something like that, and you're having a chit chat with
a random person beside you, or lined up at an
(06:38):
airport to get on a flight, and they say, oh,
I'm a writer in this writer's room, and all of
a sudden, that's how it happens. It's not a business plan.
It's fate and luck. But you never know. Okay, so
let's go. That's path number one getting into the writer's room,
all right. Path number two is you've written a script
or a TV pilot or TV a whole series or whatever.
(07:00):
You know. The same would apply to if you've written
a book and now you want to submit this. You
want to submit it to, say, the large streaming platforms,
you know, the Netflix and Who's of the world. You
want to submit it to the big studios. You want
to submit it to the production a whole bunch of
production companies who could basically buy your script and make
this movie for you, not for you, for them. They're
(07:21):
just going to buy the script. So how do you
get in front of them. It's the exact same way.
You're going to need representation. These big companies do not
allow for what we call unsolicited material. Unsolicited means that
you sent it to them directly. It has to come
through a representative who they are comfortable with and that
(07:43):
they trust and know for a couple of reasons, all right.
Reason number one is legal reasons. They do not want
to receive, say, your script, and then if you can
prove that they received it, and then you know, a
year later or two years later, they make a movie
and they didn't use your script. They don't want you
to be able to sue them to say you read
(08:06):
my script, you stole my idea, and you didn't give
me any credit for you didn't give me any money
for it. And that happens all the time, used to
happen way more when content and scripts were allowed to
come in unsolicit it. That's why they say no unsolicited
material because legally they don't want to have to fight
that battle. They don't want a lot of people lining
(08:27):
up saying you stole my material, potentially being able to
prove it. But even if you can't prove it, they
don't want to see it. So they just basically say
we're closed. You know, as much as we want good scripts,
we want to consider them, we don't want the legal issue,
all right. That's number one. Number two is they don't
want to waste their time. I mean, if they open
up the doors and said say open submissions, there would
(08:49):
be ten thousand scripts on their desks the next day,
maybe more, because a lot of people have scripts and
are very anxious to put them in the hands of
these people just don't have the time to read ten
thousand scripts. They don't have enough manpower, enough resources to
get through all that material. Unfortunately, they're going to forego
(09:09):
a lot of good material that won't make it to
their desks because they have to use a filtration system
called agents, all right. So the filtration to think of this,
here's the pool of writers. You know, ten thousand writers
here with great scripts. They have to put them through
and filter them through this tiny little funnel here called agents,
all right. So the agents all get through and they
(09:30):
they're the ones who get them, get it through, and
that filtration works. And I'll tell you why in a minute.
But they don't want ten thousand scripts on their desks.
They'll they want they don't even want a hundred, they
want ten. But they're willing to have one hundred, all right,
because they're looking for certain things and sometimes you have
to read a lot of stuff to find what you're
going to get. Even if they were to get the
(09:53):
you know, to allow unsolicited material and not worry about
the legal issues and the volume issues, they just don't
want to be pitched by every single writer who believes
that their script is the greatest thing in the world.
As a writer, you need to believe that. All right,
you wrote the script, this is your baby, and chances
are it's really really good. But so is the next
person's and the next person's. And you know, not every
(10:14):
script is great. A lot of them are crappy. But
as a writer, you actually believe that yours is great.
You know, I was talking to a writer the other
day and they said, you know what, Jeff, I know
everybody writer says it, but my scripts are really good.
Like I just I just know it. I just know
that they're really good. And I kind of smiled and
I said, you realize that I've probably spoken to I'm
(10:36):
going to say, at least two hundred writers over the
last four years, four or five years, as I've been
doing my online stuff, my consulting, in my podcasting. I'd say,
every single one of them said to me, what you
just said. They kind of went quiet and said, you know,
I don't want to be arrogant or sound cocky or
anything like that, but my stuff's really good. It's probably
better than everybody else's. Everybody says that because everybody believes it.
(11:00):
Now is it actually the truth? Is their stuff actually
better than the next person's. Maybe maybe, but also maybe not.
But they believe it. You have to believe it. When
you wrote it, you generally believe it. It's as you should.
I mean, it's your work of art, so you should
believe it. What the studios and the streamers are looking
(11:20):
for is not whether you love your material. It's whether
their audience is going to love your material. It's whether
it's going to be commercially viable, meaning it's going to
entertain the paying audience, their subscriber base, or whoever goes
to the movies, whoever pays to see content. They're looking
for stuff that is commercially viable. And when I say
(11:40):
commercially viable, I don't mean just action, thriller, you know, horror,
that kind of stuff. I mean drama can be very
commercially viable. People A lot of people want to see
heavy duty dramas. They want to see documentaries, they want
to see faith based stuff. There's lots of stuff that
people think, oh, this is not typically commercially viable. Because
everybody talks about give me an action, give me a thriller,
(12:01):
give me a horror, give me a sci fi you know,
give me a superhero movie. Yeah. Is all that stuff
commercially viable? Of course it is. I mean at some
point it gets a little tired. But other stuff is
commercially viable too, the dramas and the rom coms and
all the other stuff that people don't usually labels commercially viable. Yes,
there is a big market for it and people do
(12:23):
want to see it. So what makes something commercially viable
is when it's read somebody says wow, an audience would
really enjoy this. As opposed to you reading it yourself
and saying wow, I wrote something great. It's somebody else
reading it and saying, wow, this is fantastic. I was
super entertained. I couldn't put it down. So the studios
and the streamers and everything they need to filter out
(12:44):
this because they don't want to waste a ton of
time trying to go through the volume and deal with
all the passion of the filmmakers. So they forced writers
to go through agents, all right, So they're usually called
literary agents. A literary agent is generally somebody who helps
I'm to get a book published, but they also represent
scriptwriters and TV writers in that type of thing. So
(13:06):
you want to find a good agent who believes in you,
who wants to help you, and thinks that they your
work is fantastic, all right, So they believe in you
and your work, and they're not going to take you
on if they're a good agent. They're not going to
take you on unless that actually happens, unless they actually
believe in you and your work. Because remember they're generally
commission based. They make money when they sell your work.
(13:29):
Right if they don't sell your art, they're not going
to make any money. So they also don't want to
waste their time. Trust me, if they're going to take
you on, it's because they believe in you. So how
do you find that agent? This is also a challenge,
all right. It's a challenge because it's the same chicken
egg scenario that I spoke about a few minutes ago
when I was speaking about getting in a writer's room.
(13:51):
Is generally the agents are looking for people who have
a track record. They're looking for people who already have
done something, already are noticeable, already have credibility in the
industry because they've written something that's either being published or
made into a movie or something like that that doesn't
leave a lot of room for newbe writers, which is
probably most of the people listening to this episode, because
(14:13):
how do you get started? I mean, you got to
get at least one thing going before you have anything
on your resume to give you experience. And it doesn't
mean you're a bad writer because you don't have anything.
It means that you're just getting started, all right. So
the agents are gonna preclude you because you haven't done
anything because they don't want to take a chance. So
what you may have to do, it's super frustrating, it's
(14:35):
ridiculously frustrating. Then they're gonna say, when you've gotten credibility,
when you've gotten published, when you've gotten something made, come
and see us and then we'll represent you. And then
you're going to say to them, hey, guys, at that point,
I'm not going to need you to represent me because
I've already crossed the bridge. You're going to miss the boat.
I need you now, I need you to help me. Now, well,
the going is really tough. When the going gets easy,
(14:55):
then why would it come to you. I've already opened
those doors and hopefully I can submit myself health or
you know, not pay a big commission of an agent
like you, so help me now and hopefully it'll, you know,
blossom into something bigger. However, the agents don't always think
that way. So in order to get an agent when
you're first time writer, you're probably going to not get
sort of the top level agencies, like sort of the
(15:17):
ones in the bigger echelons. You're probably going to have
to go a little bit lower and you might actually
have to go with a somewhat of a newer agent,
somebody who's not as connected in the industry for the
same reason that you're not connected in the industry. So
try to find somebody who one will believe in you
and listen to you, and who is a good hustler
(15:38):
who will get out there and work hard and be persistent.
May not have the expertise and the resume that you
would want them to have, but nor do you, so
that's why it's a good match. And realistically that's sort
of the type of agent you're going to get. Somebody
who's kind of newer at the industry. Now, hopefully that agent,
maybe you know, has a few years of working experience,
(15:59):
maybe they worked for a bigger agent as an assistant
or something like that, and they wanted to break off
and start their own agency so that at least they
are connected to the bigger agencies that can hopefully open
the door for some of the opportunities that you're looking for.
But it could be a step process where you've got
to start a little smaller, hopefully get to the next
step than the next step until you get kind of
(16:20):
hit that home It's like baseball. You got to get
on first base, get to second, get to third. You know,
maybe you get lucky hit a home run to start with,
but often it doesn't happen that way. So that is
kind of getting your work. If you want to get
your work in through the pipeline and get it seen,
you generally have to use an agent, and you have
to use an agent at the level of somebody who
(16:40):
will take you on. All right, So we talked about
getting into the writer's room. We talked about getting your
work seen and hopefully sold and purchased by somebody who's
going to make it. So that would be a production company,
streaming company, a studio, you know, big companies that can
finance those kind of projects movies or TV shows. And
then if you get a lot of know's here and
(17:01):
a lot of knows here, and you get frustrated, and
you are a tenacious kind of person. The third path
would be do it yourself, which is ridiculously hard. Okay,
it's ridiculously hard, but it might be the only path
that you have available to you. So it means become
an entrepreneur if you have a script, let's say, become
a filmmaker, or partner with somebody who's a filmmaker. So
(17:23):
let's say you're the writer, that's your expertise. You're a
great writer, you're not good at raising money. You're not
good at making films. You've never done that, you're not
good at distributing them. But maybe you find you know
a director who's really good at making them, or a
producer who's looking for the next project. And they're probably
not a overly season one, they're probably somewhat new, but
(17:45):
they're very tenacious. They know, they're not worried about knocking
on doors to get the money. And you know, maybe
that's the person who you partner with who will compliment
you because you're going to create the script or you
already have right, and they're going to find the opportunity
to get the money, and get the film made. So
(18:06):
it's a team I've always said filmmaking is a team sport,
very collaborative. Or maybe you're a tenacious, you know, really
industrious type of person and you're an entrepreneur, and maybe
you go and you make the film yourself, you have
a script, and you say, I'm so tired of getting
all the nose here and all the nos here. I'm
just gonna knock on a lot of doors if I
(18:27):
need to, you know, spend the next ten years of
my life knocking on doors. Why not knock on doors
of people who have money, get my script made, or
get my you know, script made into a movie, and
I'll be in the driver's seat. So that's a strategy,
not an easy one. If you listen to all my
other podcasts about finding money, finding financing, getting films made,
(18:47):
getting distributed. This is not an easy road. However, it
is doable, and it puts you in the driver's seat.
So it's not for everybody becoming the entrepreneur the filmmaker
take on all that challenge and financial risk. That is
not for everybody, especially the faint of heart. But it
is an option, and I've seen lots of frustrated writers
(19:11):
who have attempted to go down that path. Now, sometimes
it's worked, but sometimes they get even more frustrated because
as frustrated as they are that their scripts are not
being considered and purchased, it's even more frustrating that they
have a great script and nobody wants to finance it.
So that's a tricky, tricky road to go down. Also,
So where does that leave us? I want to kind
(19:33):
of paint the positive note, not all the negative stuff.
By the way, the negative stuff, I always say, when
you get a lot of nose, you got to treat
those as you can't be personally rejected by it. All right,
it's part of the industry getting nos. And my expression
is no means not today. No we're not going to
give you the job in the writer's room. No we're
not going to license your buy your script from you.
(19:55):
No we're not going to give you the money to
make your own movie. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Lots of nose, but no means not today. Maybe you
just got to wait until the right person comes around,
the right opportunity comes around, and hopefully you get a
Yes it's not guaranteed, but often in this business, it
takes a lot of no's before you get a yes.
So just be aware of that, all right, that's the norm.
(20:17):
And anybody who tells you, oh, I was able to
do this, this, and this, they're the people who also said, oh,
I'm able to win a lottery by buying one ticket.
Like I bought one ticket and I won the lottery
a billion dollars somebody did. Okay, one person out of
ten billion or whatever, you know, five hundred million people
that happened to. So if that's your business plan is
(20:38):
to you know, be the one who wins the lottery.
I don't think it's a great business plan, but it happens.
It's called luck. It happens. So getting lucky doesn't hurt either.
It's nice to get lucky once in a while. But
the way you get lucky is you put yourself into play,
all right. You don't get lucky by sitting in your
apartment and moping and dreaming and aspiring to be this
(20:58):
great Hollywood writer and not knocking on any doors. All right.
You get lucky by knocking on these doors, knocking on
these doors, knocking on these doors, and at least putting
yourself into play, getting yourself out there to let people
know that you've got this great material and that it's available.
In another episode, I used the expression that my dad
(21:19):
used to say. My dad had this expression, used to say,
if you want to get hit by a big truck,
you got to play on the highway. So that's a
really negative way of saying you've got to get out there.
You got to put yourself out there. If you want
to get an opportunity to come to you, the opportunity
being hit by a big truck, you got to go
play in the highway. Put yourself out there. The analogy
(21:42):
is not a great one. It's a negative one, but
the point is is well taken. That nobody's going to
come knocking on your door if you're sitting on your
couch in your apartment. So getting out there, putting yourself
out there and getting either an agent or finding financing
for your film, or you know, trying to get into
the writer's room through an agent also is not easy.
(22:03):
It will not be easy. It's super challenging. Tell me
anything in life that's not super challenging. Let's say you
want to be a professional athlete. You're going to have
to go up against you know, ten thousand other young
guys who are just as good as you in the
sport and also want that one position that's available in
the NBA or the NFL or whatever sport they're going for.
(22:24):
You want to be an actor, same thing you want
to be. You know, a doctor. How do you get
into medical school? There's five thousand other people who applied
to the same medical school. Everything's competitive. Just you give
it your best shot. You got to believe in yourself.
You got to believe in your work and very importantly,
have a litmus test for your work. Okay, just because
you love your work doesn't make it fantastic. It's a
(22:47):
good start, all right, And maybe your mother loves your work.
That's also a good start, Kate. But it's not enough,
all right. You need somebody else, not just one person.
You need to kind of get your work validated. Let
other people read it, people who are going to be
honest with you. Don't give it to people who are
going to be polite and tell you what they want.
(23:07):
You know, what they think you want to hear. Oh,
it's great, it's wonderful way to go. You're the best
writer and everything like that, which that might be the case,
but you need some honest feedback, like it was good,
but I wasn't totally entertained. I'm not sure this is
nearly as good as the stuff that I see on
TV or whatever the case might be. Get some honest
feedback so that you can fine tune and hone your
(23:28):
work and become really good at what you do. Then
when you put it out there, you know that you're
putting your best foot forward. Hopefully the doors will start
to open. So I think that if you aim at
the right level, you see the big picture that it's tricky,
you see the kind of the three pathways, and just
aim at the right level, which probably is get an
(23:50):
agent at the level that you're at as a writer.
All right. They're not going to be the top agent.
They're not going to be the best agency to start
with because you don't have the experience yet. All right.
And if you're an experienced writer, you're not listening to
this podcast, probably you're well on your way. You're already
probably busy in a writer's room or sold many scripts.
So this is basically for inexperienced writers, all right, don't
(24:11):
set yourself up for disappointment and frustration by constantly knocking
on the wrong doors where nobody's going to answer it,
because because they don't. You got to understand why they
don't want to funnel you through knock on the doors
of the level that you have some traction. A young
new agent who is aspiring and hungry hopefully can get
(24:32):
you into the door maybe at a bigger agency or
and they can get you to a bigger agency unless
they say you do these steps and then hopefully that
gets you where you want to go. Bottom line is,
believe in yourself. Make sure that you're a good writer,
you know, as good as you can be, and be
very persistent. Just believe in your dream and stay at it.
(24:55):
If it doesn't happen, no problem. Listen to my episode
of Plan A, Plan B. All right, don't necessarily put
all your eggs into the basket of being that writer.
While you're doing that, you can do other things. You
can have a life, you can have a job, You
can do this. You don't have to necessarily be a
full time writer, or at some point maybe you do
while you're writing, okay, but while you're knocking on doors
or being represented, you can have other things going on
(25:17):
in your life, Find that balance and stay with it
and hopefully those doors will open. So good luck. As always,
I welcome your feedback here, questions and your comments, and
please subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. See you
next time.
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