Screenwriting: The Ultimate Start-Up
Make no mistake screenwriters are preeminent entrepreneurs. Let's take a look at this bold claim.
Hello everyone! And welcome back!
It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?
I suspect many of you thought I was done!
Ye of the little faith!
THIN ICE is still coming at you from Hancock Park in the shadow of Paramount Pictures.
For those you who are new, THIN ICE was born out of my frustration during the 2023 WGA Strike. I needed an outlet to process the on-going evisceration of my “religion”. A religion whose world-renowned sobriquet is (was?) “Hollywood” … aka the film & TV business… that has been centered in Los Angeles since Europe was ravaged by World War I.1
The Money Men of Wall Street and the Tech Bros of Silicon Valley did more damage than a World War.
When the strike ended and the landscape was still burning, I went to Italy for a month. A pressure release valve of a trip, but also a time to reflect and search the soul. The “industry” was in free fall (still is, witness Warner Discovery’s $9 billion write-down of it cable networks), I felt I needed a more focused reason to keep THIN Ice going Or rather a reason to carve out the necessary time to continue publishing.
My last few posts were stabs in the dark, not truly directed, so unsatisfactory. THIN ICE needed a new raison d’être. There are 44(!) unfinished drafts in my Substack dashboard… that’s a lot of half-cooked spaghetti thrown against the wall. Idea pasta that may or may not see the light of day. So I was carving out the time, but something preventing me from completing my thoughts and observations.
Anything and everything was a diversion. After launching my ‘80s Comics podcast - COMICS ROT YOUR BRAIN - lsat February, the feedback from its growing fan base gave me an inkling on how to evolve THIN ICE. What that is, is coming soon! I finalizing the edits on four new pieces so the rollout going forward will be consistent.
In between the editing, I’ve been mulling over various directors’ work and creating YouTube videos on what inspired them (below is my examination of John Carpenter’s favorite films. Did you know he’s a massive Howard Hawks fan? What?!).
Early in my journey to be a filmmaker, I’d find a director I was curious about, track down as many of their films as I could, and watch them in chronological order to see how said artist mastered their craft. I’d read interviews to see what films and other artists/art forms had an impact. This expanded my growing list of “Must Watch” movies.
Sounds like a lot of sitting in front of the TV or going to repertory cinemas (when we still had those, at least, in LA). Well, yeah, it was. Watching films over and over again from a directing perspective, for the rhythm of the work, is quiet different than what you might do as a writer. There’s something revelatory when you watch a film that was made before the aesthetics mandated creating for a smaller screen creeped into the execution. More on this an upcoming post.
The “why” behind the films these directors selected is what interested me. Our most prominent, if not trending, filmmakers consistently cite films from before 1990 (with an smattering of films clocking in up through 2007; a key date in Hollywood’s history). Upcoming issues of THIN ICE will explore what I was thinking about while making these videos. And you’ll see the new vision taking shape in real time!
So stay subscribed!
And now on to the screenwriter as entrepreneur claim.
As a kid, I marveled at inventors; Garrett Morgan, Alexander Miles, George Washington Carver and dozens of others set fire to my sense of wonder and excitement. These mere mortals imagined wild and crazy feats of engineering that changed the world. “How” was all I could ask myself.
Years later, while reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, he pointed out that most well-known, society-changing inventions were the result of, perhaps, dozens of people who had tried to invent a given thing (like the photographic camera) and failed. Yet their attempts floated into the idea space ether (talked about in various circles) and fueled the imaginations (or solved problems) of the one person who eventually “got it right” and who was then christened “the inventor” of X!
The details of how the typewriter came to be are fascinating. The one of the final tricks was laying out the keyboard to slow down typing speed.
Why slow it down?
So the gaggle of hammers with the letters on them had time to strike the sheet of paper and then return to their starting position before the next keystroke jammed up the works. If you’re old enough to have used a manual typewriter, you might remember how if you hit too many keys at the same time, the hammers would jumble up and need to be pried apart by hand.
The QWERTY keyboard design was the slow-down solution. Someone then had produce and market that version of the idea as the most effective iteration of the device. A version that would supersede the alternative key layouts that were around in the early days of individual printing machines.
Many times inventors competed against each other and/or stole ideas. One of the most infamous rivalries was between Edison and Tesla. Their competitive head butting is the stuff of legend. There’s a fun movie, THE CURRENT WAR (2017), that dramatizes their testy relationship. You also might want to check out Nolan’s THE PRESTIGE (2006), David Bowie’s Nikola Tesla offers some telling quips about Edison’s deviousness to steal from him, and the act of terrorism Edison, indirectly, perpetrates gives Hugh Jackman his tragic magic trick.
The successful inventor must also be a savvy entrepreneur. You have to know how business works to get your idea funded by venture capitalists and then marketed to the public. There’s a lot at stake with a new invention to get it to be a hit with the public, more than just having engineering know-how. And history is filled with “better” versions of any given invention that failed to take off due to business blunders (Betamax vs VHS is a classic one).
Under a certain lens, screenwriters are the pinnacle of inventor-entrepreneurs.
Notice the similarities. Screenwriters must come up with a unique concept (but not too unique), hope/believe it’s marketable, create an early-stage prototype (writing the script), beta test the prototype with a curated audience, and then hunt for financial and marketing partners to bring the envisioned version to life and to the buying public.
The beta testing stage is the trickiest part. This is when you inflict your nascent, often-times-ugly invention on to others. This is the moment of truth (we all know about Josh Olson’s “I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script”… a reminder that getting your prototype reviewed is one of the most difficult things to do in Hollywood).
This stage is where your idea gets whipped like a runaway slave and beat like a mangy dog, over and over again.
This is the phase where the kinks get worked out.
Or not.
Maybe the idea crashes ‘n burns. This incubation stage could take as little as four, five months to as long as four or five (or ten) years. The beta testing stage is one of the most confounding stages of invention development.
Due to the nature of the film & TV business (“give me something fresh but familiar”), ideas aren’t protectable; the finished screenplay is (by and large) protectable — but not always.
Writing the script “on spec” requires 100s of hours of work, investment in an invention that might never come to fruition. But inventors don’t think about that. What keeps them going is the dream of seeing their invention on the shelf at a store (on a theatre marquee) or available for viewing on Amazon or HBO or Apple’s iTunes.
Once you’ve done a sufficient amount of beta testing (you’ll never know if it was enough until after this stage), you swap your inventor hat for the entrepreneur hat. Now you have to find creative partners.
These could take on many different shapes or forms, but you need those partners to move the boulder up the hill. These partners must provide value, value that others recognize; praising your invention is not enough. Due diligence is required. Strict and brutal due diligence. Or you’ll end up spinning your wheels and if that happens for too long, your faith might waiver.
Once you’ve enlisted your creative partners, if you’re savvy enough to seduce a venture capitalist (which in this analog could be a studio, a network, or an indie investor group) with the new “package”, then your invention will command millions of dollars and employs 100s (maybe 1000s) of people for as little as a year or up to however many seasons can be squeezed from the idea.
If you’re lucky enough to lock in sufficient backing, then you have to produce the damn thing (but take a backseat during this process), and then watch as your team unveils your invention to the market all before some other savvy son of a bitch does the same with a similar idea, only better.
In essence, each screenplay or TV project is a mini-business on its own.
Your invention incurs costs (at every stage, actually), hopefully generates revenue, and now has more stakeholders, angel investors, and C-Suite executives than you can shake a stick at; many who will act as if they were the creator or the prime innovator. Suck it up and deal with that, but take note of whose ego is ballooning disproportionately.
You may be the founder of the business of selling your invention, but the CEO reins will quickly be taken away from you (best to think of it as willingly given up) so the CEO (e.g, the producer) and his team can get the train running. The director is the president, the acting talent are stars of the marketing department.
And you pray to God, Allah, and the Four Winds all these new “true believers” know what they’re doing with your invention, that they can move it as quickly as possible into the production, marketing, and distribution phase.
Conversely, if your project is rejected by the money men, their go-betweens (other producers or maybe your reps), and/or the marketing people, you will not know, truthfully, if it’s the execution that it didn’t work, the type of invention (genre) might be considered “dead”, too expensive or otherwise not what the marketplace wants.
The true reason for rejection isn’t revealed because the money men and the go-betweens might want first crack at your next invention (so you better be working on one).
Something else you won’t know is if the money men and their go-betweens have placed a bet on a far-too-similar invention that is further down the development road or they “owe” another inventor their loyalty (in which case they might do something pernicious like buy your invention only to shelve it).
Another hurdle you might face is, you just plain don’t have the human-capital resources (industry connections) to get your invention in front of the right people who can present it to the venture capitalists and their go-betweens. Or maybe your reps have a different strategy -- that they don’t share with you -- on how to get the most decision-maker eyeballs on your invention.
Consequently, your project, effectively, dies. Your invention is tossed in the scrap heap. And you, the screenwriter/inventor, must start all over again.
From scratch.
You can’t let the crushing sense of defeat, the constant second-guessing effect your belief (too much) in your ability to conjure up the next invention. Which you might have to do two, three, four or a half dozen times a year. If you’re smart, you’ll have two or three inventions — other whole new businesses — in various stages of concepting, beta testing, and shilling.
It’s a fool’s game to put all your hopes on one project.
You have to start over from square one even if your first invention successfully dodges all the bullshit and makes it to the marketplace. It’s unlikely that you’ll get enough upfront fees, royalties, and profits to be set for life. But do you want to be set for life? Or just comfortable so you can keep on inventing?
Screenwriters must do this dance dozens and dozens of times over the course of a career; and that career can be fantastic or it might be mediocre, or, more than likely, it’ll be abysmal, thankless, and a supreme waste of your precious time. The same amount of time, work, and effort goes into the invention creation process regardless of the outcome.
Yet, you do it ‘cause there’s something that nags inside your soul to keep inventing.
In the TV domain, your invention might go through all the steps — even if you have the proof of concept made (a pilot produced) - and the project still might not go to market. The audience never gets to weigh in on the viability.
Your blood, sweat, and tears were destined for an audience of maybe a dozen (the executives at the “venture capital” entity). No name in lights, no red carpet, no nothing.
The silver lining in the TV crapshoot is, if your project doesn’t get to the finishline in the process, it still might snag the attention of a Thomas Edison-type (e.g., a showrunner), who recognizes your ability, and he then entices you to come work at his Menlo Park lab to help develop one of his creations.
This isn’t a bad thing. You can make a good living working in someone else’s workshop. Well, you could before Netflix crippled irreparably disrupted the TV business. Change is a good thing, right?
The one of the top worst aspects of being a creative inventor is how you’re valued.
Let’s say you create the amazing idea, craft an arresting prototype that gets people (and the money men) excited, your idea triggers funding and production. It all goes awesome. And the final full-blown version of your invention is a hit with the public.
You’ve grabbed the brass ring, your invention has generated 10x in revenue over the all-in investment. Your compensation for the core creative spark will be dwarfed by the venture capitalists’ (studio) first-dollar take, their go-betweens’ (the producers) take, and even the factors of production’s (director and stars) take is a higher priority. More pieces of the pie are sliced off by your “people” (rep commissions) despite them most likely doing very little. Even if they don’t do the bare minimum expectation for what the pound of flesh they get, these players are required for you to even play the game.
As veteran TV showrunner Jeff Melvoin likes to say, the most creative writing done in town is in the accounting department.
At the red carpet, star-studded debut of your invention, you know you have a small window to use this spotlight to launch your next invention. It’s thankless. Even less than thankless in the wake of the Streaming Arms Race.
But entrepreneurs are dreamers.
They imagine all the things we use.
They imagined the smart phone your reading this article on.
Inventors don’t get dissuaded by capital crushing everything and funneling all the available money into the hands of the oligarrchs. The inventor-entrepreneur has a specific calling to alleviate humanity’s suffering through art.
It’s a damn shame that vulture capitalism set fire to the infrastructure. But the savvy inventor-entrepreneur will wake up tomorrow with a new idea and start the cycle again.
It doesn’t cost him/her anything… except time in front of a computer screen. But we all do that anyway all day and all night.
HOW’S THE WORK?
What is “work” these days? The industry is struggling to emerge from the smoldering ashes of the Streaming Arms Race. One of the biggest follies ever perpetrated on any industry ever. It was on the scale of the Tulip Mania in The Netherlands during the 17th century. Note, the Dutch empire was on its way to a fast, shallow grave once the bubble burst.
I have some things cooking. A new short story is the only work I feel like talking about, at least, vaguely. It something I started years ago, and want to revisit it. I had recent success with another short story, and I do like writing in prose, from time to time.
I’m doubling down on directing a short film in the first quarter of next year. It’s of primary importance for my career, for my sanity, for my inner child. More details to come.
Maybe.
During the recent Emmy Season, Netflix published all of Steve Zaillian’s scripts for his acclaimed RIPLEY (you can read them here, I don’t how long Netflix will keep this link active though). The last time I read all the scripts for a miniseries was for CHERNOBYL; although Craig only had five scripts…
CHEAP DOPAMINE
Ever since I watched BATTLE OF THE PLANETS as a kid, I’ve been enthralled with so-called “adult” animation. I thought after AKIRA’s release in 1988, there’d be a new wave of more PG, PG-13, and even R-rated animated films. However, Pixar dropped TOY STORY (1994) and cemented the American mass audience’s taste for YA animated films. Only.
Yet, the world outside of Hollywood’s thrall shirks off the “its for the whole family” mantra that chokes most of the work done in the US. My buddy Pavel hipped me to this French sci-fi animated film, MARS EXPRESS. It’s cut from the BLADE RUNNER cloth, but with some interesting updates, and has some AKIRA thrown in.
MARS EXPRESS’s animation is strong, clear, and inventive. Its characters are original (enough) for the story to whiz along and surprise you. Its action is clever and thrilling. Its themes about humanity’s ability and appetite to co-exist with intelligent machines does remind you of BLADE RUNNER (and dozens of other films and stories). What’s interesting about MARS EXPRESS is how one the main characters who had died before the story starts was exists inside a robot body. How the story explores the pros and cons of this form of continued living is touching and tragic.
HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
but then drag you for days
like a broken man
behind a farting camel.
—Hafiz, 14th Century Sufi poet
And that, my friends, is it for this week.
Check your inbox next week for a new installment of THIN ICE!
Until then… “Shut Up And Deal.” …IYKYK