Guest post by Jane Evans
I am sitting in London wrapped upon dressing gown and slippers sipping tea and writing.
It’s my favourite thing in the world to do.
Except sitting in a swanky bar in LA with Jon Hamm at the next table.
HOW DID I GET HERE?
My background is advertising, (in Mad Men terms, I’m Peggy), I was the first girl in the creative department 5 times. For thirty years I’ve sold everything from tampons to Maserati’s. I know the importance of a brand.
I also know that it will only get you so far, you have to have the product to back it up.
I have been writing screenplays since 2006, mostly at 3am (did I mention I’m a single mum who runs her own business) I even tried to crack Hollywood once before. I wrote films, and TV shows, webisodes, short films, period pieces, bio’s, horror stories and full on indie dramas.
It was all lost in the hard drive disaster of 2012, thank goodness.
In 2013 we moved to London to follow my daughter Ella Bee’s dream of becoming an International recording artist.
I decided to follow her lead and give my dreams a shot too. I knew I had good ideas, I’d been making 30 second films for years, but I knew my writing had to improve. I enrolled in the Write the Pilot course at the National Film and Television school. I got so much out of it I did it twice.
I gave myself a year, I sat down every day from 8am till 4pm when the kids were at school and wrote, even if it was rubbish (which a lot of it was). At the end of that year I had two screenplays and a pilot for a twelve part TV series.
I also gave myself a target, I had to have made some money from screenwriting by the end of the LSF or I had to go back to advertising.
I made £80 for being joint winner of Pitch Factor so the universe provided the sign to carry on.
(I really do have to learn to be more specific with dollar values in my visualisations!)
IN FOR A PENNY IN FOR A POUND
OK, so now I’m on the couch surfing portion of my retirement savings.
The next day at the LSF I had a table read of my TV series. One of the judges from Pitch Factor asked if he could join the read, to be honest I had no idea who he was, I even asked him to take a role because we were short an actor.
My first leading man.
He turned out to be a big deal, and he loved my projects and he became one of a team of people who encouraged and helped me get to LA.
“Mr. Hollywood” made me focus on what I wanted to achieve, who I wanted to meet and taught me to sell harder to an American audience, to never forget it’s a business and to set and respect boundaries.
Hollywood loves that, in the last week I have heard, “ Wow, you’re doing all this on your own dime?” and “I never look at a writer that hasn’t put their living expenses on a credit card to write.”
Hollywood loves a gambler. But 99% of luck is hard work.
Before you come to Hollywood do your hard work.
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT
Hollywood is a place where dreams come true, but rarely overnight or on one quick trip. Make sure you have attainable goals (but don’t forget to dream big).
Mine were: Get representation, an agent/manager/both.
My wish list was: Get a high profile actor attached.
My lottery prize was: Selling a script.
I would strongly suggest you make a date for when you will return (preferably within six months) and tell everyone you meet you’re coming back. This shows you are serious and realistic, the biggest fear agents/managers/producers have about oversea’s writers is – they’re overseas.
PREPARE!
Don’t waste your time coming to LA with just one project (unless you’re under 21). There are millions of screenwriters with just one script. Nobody cares about the story you ‘have to tell’ – Hollywood’s a business, they want writers with lots of stories to tell.
If you haven’t done your 10,000 hours to really hone your craft don’t even think about it, you are up against the best of the best who have been doing it for years. You have to have a unique voice, original concepts and grammatically perfect, written to length, fully bound, American letter sized scripts with your WGA number printed very clearly on the front.
And never come with a first drafts, if you haven’t done at least three re-writes with notes from readers you respect (not your mum) you’re going to look like an amateur.
Research, research, research, find out who is producing films like yours, check out the Hollywood Press to see what’s being made and by whom. You will be tested.
Work out who you want to see and get on the phone, write a script if necessary and charm the gatekeepers, get in with the assistant and you are half way there.
Perfect your pitch, the American’s love a hard sell, don’t be afraid to blow your own trumpet.
You need three pitches:
Your twenty second pitch, for networking events, chance meetings and anyone who drives you anywhere. Everyone loves a pitch in LA and everyone knows someone.
Your minute pitch. If you have a ten minute meeting you want to get to the questions as quickly as possible.
The twenty minute in person pitch: As above, but you must really know your shit.
Know your story and characters inside and out. Be quick with your answers, don’t give massive detail, paint your pitch in broad brush strokes and don’t waste anyone’s time.
Ah, time. It’s a tricky one, in LA everyone runs 15 minutes late, but you MUST be there on time and if you get held up in traffic (which happens) don’t stress – call, they’ll understand. Most of all, be flexible, the people you are meeting are busy working on real projects with real deadlines and real problems, if they run in to one, the last thing they will want is a young writer being snarky.
Yes, I said young writer, I can’t tell you how many times I was described as a young writer in meetings – I felt 25 again. A young writer is not about age it’s about experience and you must never forget, no matter how good you are, that you are at the bottom of a very big ladder.
You are the lowest priority in an exec’s busy day. A lot of time you will be bumped, usually you will reschedule but sometimes you’ll get dropped completely. Don’t panic, just send them a short email stating the goals of your meeting and your short written pitch.
Have I said short too much?
The most important thing about Hollywood is time is money. So keep it short. Meeting’s. Emails. Treatments. Pitches. And let them do the talking, they love to talk.
BE HOLLYWOOD.
If you can afford it, stay at a ‘star spotting’ hotel in Beverly Hills. It looks good when you ring up to make meetings if you’re staying somewhere really professional, then head down to a flea pit in Venice for your meetings down there – you really don’t want to do traffic.
If you can’t afford to stay at a swanky hotel, get dressed up and hang in the bar, talk to people – you can makes some of your best Hollywood connections over a margarita.
HAVE A VACATION
Actually, have a few margaritas, one of your objectives should be to have a good time, it’s the only outcome you can control.
I came back from LA with a whole heap of new contacts, some memorable experiences and renewed friendships. I even had a trip out to Joshua Tree. I meditated on the beach at sunrise, took photographs and videos. I got inspired.
Did I mention I sat in a bar next to Jon Hamm?
I also had 8 days without my kids which I haven’t done since 2010.
Almost as good as selling a script. Almost.
NICE GUYS SEND BAD EMAILS
Everyone is lovely in Hollywood. To your face. They have a thing about energy and if they like yours they will go with it. Just know that as soon as they get back in the office and hit the real world anything can happen.
Don’t get over-excited about a meeting until you have sent the ‘thank you for your time’ email and got the response.
It can say the absolute opposite of what was said in the meeting.
And it’s usually on the last day of the trip.
But don’t be put off. You’ve obviously got your pitch right. Now it’s just a numbers game.
IT AIN’T OVER TILL IT’S OVER
As soon as you get home every single person you met needs to be emailed to thank them for their time and give them a progress report, any scripts that have been promised need to be sent, any recommendations, referrals need to be actioned immediately.
If you need to polish your scripts, get the ‘Brasso’ out. You’ll have got a lot of feedback and some great contacts to send your perfected script to.
Start planning your return, look for new people to see, ask the new people you know for recommendations and do everything you can to get your script out there.
If you’re lucky you can come home to London, wrap yourself up in your dressing gown, grab a cuppa and start writing something new, knowing there’s people in LA doing all that for you.
Jane Evans
http://www.janee.london
twitter.com/janee
Posted by a member of the London Screenwriters’ Festival team.
