You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
Episode number one forty six. Success is not final, Failure is not
fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. With Ston Churchill broadcasting
from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's
your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show
is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services,
Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are and the goals
of the project you are, so we actually break it down by three categories,
micro budget, indie film, market, and studio film. There's no
reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to reading tempole movies when your
movie is gonna be done for one hundred thousand dollars and we wanted to focus
on that. At Bulletproof script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios,
CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free,
Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if you need
your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay
dot com. Well, guys, today on the show, we have Thomas
Dever. Thomas is the head of writer success over at Coverfly, and he
pretty much knows what's going on on the street. He's there talking to agents,
managers, producers on a daily basis and helping screenwriters connect with them and
showing them what they're looking for and so on. And Thomas and I had
a fantastic conversation about where we are in the industry today, what screenwriters need
to do in order to get their screenplay seen, and a lot of little
tips and tricks on how to get your projects out into Hollyweird. So,
without any further dude, please enjoy my conversation with Thomas Dever. I'd like
to welcome the show Thomas Dever. How you doing Thomas, I am doing
well. Thanks so much for having me. Oh Man, thanks for coming
on the show. Man. You know, you and I have been working
together in a in a way for a while now because you guys work you
work with cover Fly, who works with me on bulletproof script coverage. And
why this hasn't happened earlier, I have no idea. So I'm glad you're
here now and we're going to talk all things about the business and how to
you know, I hope that you have all the answers, Thomas, because
the answers, because you know, there's a lot of screenwriters listening right now
who want to know how to make it. And I was told, you
know, so we're going to get into this no pressure. But how did
you get started in the business? Oh? I mean, I feel like
I've got the pretty usual story that I grew up in the Midwest and film
industry was just this mythical thing way out on the West Coast, and pretty
much as soon as I finished undergrad, packed up my stuff and moved out
without really kind of any clue of what I was going to do or how
it was going to work. Just like I think as soon as I realized,
oh, people like actually do this for a living. These are actual
like businesses and I can work at them. Just kind of that was all
I wanted to do, you know, started internship to then reading with a
production company that had first Look studio deal, so really fortunate to get.
That was my crash course on development and coverage and everything that goes into a
film before it gets made. And then from there I started working for a
producer that was working on a Fox search Light film, So then that was
my crash course on how a film actually gets made. And then after that,
I think everybody was kind of telling me, you know, you really
got to work at the agencies. The agencies is what you do, that's
kind of the way that you get into it. I interviewed at two of
them, I won't say which scared the hell out of me, Like genuinely
the interview scared the hell of me. I remember walking out in my like
nicest suit that I could find and telling the HR person like, yeah,
I think you can take my name off the list. I don't think I
can do this because I a little too thin skinned, a little too recent
from the Midwest. So then yeah, so then I just kind of I
think I used the verb mid twenties, my way around the industry for a
little bit of producing some things, continuing to sort of work in freelance capacity,
taught at a film school at one point before eventually finding my way to
this, you know, this little world where we found each other, which
you know, the competition and the coverage space, and truly I went into
it thinking, you know, I remember the scripts that I would write coverage
on at the production company with the studio deal, and like they weren't great.
They really I remember thinking, being a professional screenwriter is very attainable based
on these samples. And so when I went into the competition, I was
expecting like Microsoft word documents and typos and incoherent stories. And I started reading
for them and it was like, oh, this is this is really good
and this one's really good and this writer is amazing, and these writers are
every bit is talented. Like what what's like? My brain couldn't process it.
And I think that's where it all sort of clicked to me of the
like all at once, the sort of barriers to entry not necessarily being your
skill set or your equality of your writing, or your dedication or your discipline,
it's all of these other sort of things, you know, be it
geographic or socioeconomic or you know, you know, these sort of cliches of
who you know in the industry, and then I think the rest is history
kind of. It's just really dedicating to this competition space and then ultimately the
platform that became cover Fly and creating those opportunities and providing that level of access
and insight and resources to the writers that you know weren't fortunate enough to just
have that readily available. Well, what's so fascinating. And I think a
lot of screenwriters don't understand this. They think that good writing and good screenplays
are uni corns, where I mean, you've read thousands of scripts probably in
your career. I've read a ton of scripts over the years, and I've
read some stuff from really accomplished screenwriters, people who have published, like have
produced screenplays, some of them even with some OSCAR nominations. I've read some
of these scripts and they can't get them financed. They can't they can't get
them in and then and it just like it's disheartening. I'm like, wait
a minute, this thing is sitting on someone's shelf for the last ten years.
It is amazing it's one of the best scripts I've ever written, and
no one's financing this with talent attached, And I'm like, what is going
on? Let alone the unknown scripts that I've read from screenwriters who are so
talented, And I'm like, why are some? Why do some pop?
And why do some don't? And it's I mean, I'd love to ask
that question to you, like why do And it's a hard question, like
why does one guy or one gal make it? Oh, get the opportunity
the door opens for them, and the other one doesn't if their talent is
at the same level, you know, as you know, give or take
sure. Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a strange thing, right.
I I love a good craft panel or a lecture and I loved like
craft is undoubtedly more fun than the business. But the business considerations or what
are deciding it because like, of course they are. You know that this
is uh You've brought commerce into it and these are these are companies that are
distributing projects. And that doesn't mean that they're all philistines that hate art.
It just means that there's there are considerations and what happens here other than simply
what is on the page. And I think that you can find a ton
of examples of those of projects that were you know, not in demand and
then you know, wait a few years and suddenly they they are. And
your script that everyone was passing on is a lot with that, because the
one thing I would say to your question is you can't like so much of
it is out of your control, like so much of it is out of
your control. I don't know anybody that can write fast enough to either anticipate
or accommodate like the trends, which of course are going to be changing on
a on a regular basis. And I also don't know if I've met a
screenwriter that can pander, you know, that that can write something just because
they think it's popular and not really have hard I recycled a cliche that like,
look, if it wasn't fun for you to write, it's really not
going to be fun for me to read, watch or watch or watch,
right, And I think anybody can see through that. So really, I
think our approach to it, you know, if you sort of consider whether
your goal is getting staffed on a series or signing with representation or getting your
project option or sold, like the less step of that is a decision maker
reading it and responding to the material, and there's nothing that you can do
to make that happen. Like, there's literally nothing that you can do.
They're either going to like it or they're not. And so if you accept
that, like the final stage of this you have zero control over it,
sort of puts in perspective, put your energy towards the things that you can
control, right, which is the material that you're putting out, the putting
out the best possible version of it, network and creating those opportunities getting in
front of those decision makers, I guess, to increase the odds of them
responding to it, and increasing the odds of this scenario that you have no
control over. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
now back to the show, because I would say the two most common things
that I have seen in the sort of writers that quote unquote make it,
which is maybe like a separate discussion of what making it means, but the
two most common things that I've seen is one they just they work their ass
off, like they truly just when when I meet the sort of most successful
or busiest writers or highest level writers that I know, it's like, oh,
hey, what have you been up to, And they're like, well,
i just did a draft of this feature, and I'm doing a polish
on this treatment, and I'm also going out with this other thing. And
that's just in like the past couple of weeks, you know that it's just
you have to crank out the material, and it is just it's really the
discipline and the dedication to it. And then the other tree is just a
clear focus, like a really clear kind of focus on what their strengths are,
what their goals are, what they want to do, what they're good
at, and this kind of on this knack for not ever getting knocked off
of that that that not having a sort of like ten step plan that goes
to hell if step two doesn't go as you thought it was going to that
it's just like, yeah, I'm going to be a staff writer and oh
this didn't pan out, so I'm gonna try this pathway and getting an opportunity
that's not like a literal one to one of what they're trying to do,
but seeing like, okay, here's the parts of this that can move me
towards my goal. So that's what I'm going to get out of this opportunity.
And and so that's the closest thing that I can sort of identify in
terms of commonality. Yeah, and again that I love that you said that.
What is the definition of success? And so many screenwriters think it's getting
that million dollar spec script or two million dollar specscript or but you know,
I always look at success now and this is maybe just because I'm I'm a
bit older. Now, it's just like, can I make can I Can
I make a living doing what I love to do? Can I keep the
roof over my head, you know, food on the table, send my
kids to school, you know, lived a comfortable life. I don't need
millions. Can I just do what I love to do? And that's a
that's a disconnect for a lot of screenwriters because they're sold so oftenly they're sold
the lottery ticket. I always use the term lottery ticket mentality. They're sold,
you know. And it goes back to Shane Black and Joe estra House
back in the nineties when they were pulling in two three four million dollars.
Uh A a picture or a script? Do you know the story? Do
you know the do you know the story? I have to tell I haven't
sell the story on the Shadow. I don't just to that, like what
you're gonna say that like the industry that Blake Schneider describes and saved the cat
where it's just kind of like I just popping off ideas. Oh yeah,
yeah, yeah, Like that's the industry that I want to work in,
because that's Oh god, that was it was seeing at the moment. No,
it's great. There was a story I heard from from a friend of
mine about how Shane Black and his last that movie, Last Action Hero,
which is got the record four million. You got four million for that?
He do you know that he sold that that script off of a cocktail napkin
idea? It rings a bell. It sounds like I read this in a
great Land article way back when it was I just heard this. I was
at aff the other day and I was talking to somebody at the bar and
I know that I know that, you know, I know it's a it's
a reparable person I'm talking to. So they're like, this is how it
happened. Apparently the agent of Shane said, hey, do you have an
idea for a movie, And he's like, yeah, I'll have a great
idea for a movie. He goes, write it on this cocktail napkin.
He wrote the log line on the cocktail no script, log line on the
on the cocktail napkin. And then that agent called every studio head in Hollywood
and said, I've got Shane Black's next script on a cocktail napkin, and
you need to come to my office and you can read it in my office.
And wait a minute, he goes, you can't send anybody, it
has to be you. So all the six or seven major studio heads all
came down to the office read it, and there was a bidding war off
of the log off of the cocktail napkin log line and ended up being four
million for Last Action Hero, which then, of course did not do well
and Shane Shane had a little rough time for the next decade until he came
back. We got we got nice guys. Eventually, No, we know.
What brought him back was kiss kiss Bank Bank. There we go.
Sorry, kiss Kiss Bank Bank brought him back five years. But he was
out. But he was out for about I think he was about fourteen years.
Like he would like, he couldn't get arrested. He couldn't get arrested.
It was seriously. But then he finally got kis kiss bank Bank made,
and then that launched him back into you in the good graces. But
that was and I used that story as a as an example of the insanity.
Now, I think that was the height of the the being drunk.
I think it was just being drunk on these specscript situations back then. Sure,
yeah, I mean, well, uh, that story's uh, that
story is way sexier, right, Oh god, it's super sexy if you're
if you're sitting at home, because writing is such an isolating thing, right,
it's literally you, you and the screen and the keyboard. It's it's
so lonesome that I feel like it's more romantic to picture just coming up with
this once in a generation idea and then the the millions of dollars based off
of that. I think that's maybe a more enticing story to hear than just
yeah, you just like you work your ass off every day and you take
these sort of progressions, these progressive steps with with your career, and you
sort of grind your way up to them. That's not sexy at all.
That's not I don't want to hear that, Thomas. I want to hear
the cocktail napping story, Thomas, I don't want to hear I have to
work hard for this. Yeah, and that's I mean, that's the thing
is it's uh and you know, even with the even with that, I
feel like it's not like it's not like they pulled Shane Black's name out of
a hat, right. No, no, no, he was he already
exactly there lethal weapon ten to fifteen years before that of the of the grind
to get to it. But no, absolutely, and I think that that
is the I understand the allure of thinking like that, but but the truth
is, or at least the more common thing that we're seeing is he is
just it's a job like anything else, and it's difficult, but you know,
And so I'll give you another another story that might illustrate what we're talking
about. When Shane was passing around lethal weapon, every studio passed on lethal
weapon, every studio passed on lethal weapon, it was a young from my
understanding, was a young Chris Moore who was the OSCAR nominated producer of Goodwill
Hunting and Project green Light, you did all that stuff. He read it
and said this is great, and he forced it up the ladder and got
someone to finally take a real look at it again and got it financed.
But it was passed on. Everybody passed it because it was such an Buddy
Cops were essentially the new The buddy cop really came in within forty eight hours,
and that was only probably a couple of years prior to that, so
it wasn't the thing yet and people passed on it. So it was just
like you had a champion and then of course the talent was there and then
everything else blew upon and yeah, and I think that that kind of goes
back to it, right, which is when I was just saying a few
minutes ago, though, like, hey, the last step of this you
have no control over that was even a script is incredible as lethal weapon.
It's getting two exacts that are just not responding to it, but you keep
sending it out, You keep sending it out, you keep working on it
until it finds the one and you just find that one champion and that's really
kind of all you need sometimes, well, yeah, I mean find finding
that champion and finding we all need champions. Everybody needs a champion. Spielberg
had a champion, you know, Nolan to Shane, everybody all these guys
have champions. You know, if it wasn't for Steven Soderberg, Nolan wouldn't
have gotten I think was it's Omnia, which then of course got him Batman
and then the rest of the SCE history. You know. So, but
you need someone to just go hey, it's okay, but you got to
keep grinding. And that's the thing that people, the screenwriters specifically don't understand,
is the grind. It's it's the grinding day in, day out,
do the work. I think the other thing is too and I always I
always tell screenwriters this that if you if you have if you've been working on
a screenplay for seven years, you're not a professional screenwriter anymore. You should
you need to have ten At seven years, you shl have like five ten
screenplays. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back
to the show. Yeah, I mean even to like what you were saying
earlier though, because I think that's one of the things that like we so
cover fly with A We have a dedicated team of people and we offer free
consulting for screenwriters. And that's whether you're a professional screenwriter. That's hit a
you know, hit a rut or you're just an emerging screenwriter, we'll you
know, we'll consultant will help kind of come up with a focus and a
plan moving forward. The first question I ask everybody is what's the dream?
Like, genuinely, what's what is the dream? If I could start not
like what you think you're supposed to be doing based on trends or what you
think is realistically attainable given your circumstances, Like genuinely, if I could like
sprinkle pixie dust or stat my fingers, what would you be doing? Because
like, let's figure out a way to do that. You know that if
your dream is to just make indie films that you write, direct, produce,
that's an awesome dream. Let's figure out how to make that happen.
You're probably not going to make that happen by cranking out pilots and trying to
get staffed in a room because you think that that is like the more viable
pathway, and you're going to do a lot of work and probably be unhappy.
Right even with that, your goal is to write and direct your own
and like, look, if you can find a way through that that,
it's like, okay, I'll use this to ultimately get back to the goal
do that, but it's you know, do do you know like what you
were saying that like finding a way to be happy with it. And I
think if your goal is to just self finance and make your own projects,
like do it instead of living up to this like that the only measurement of
success is selling studio specs or something. It's you know, that's that some
person's dream, But that doesn't have to be yours, right, No,
And I think that what you said was is so wonderful. It is being
happy doing what you're doing. Because I mean, I always wanted my goal,
my dream, if you were going to ask me that back when I
was twenty two. I want to direct feature films. That's all I want
to do. I want to direct feature films. But I jumped into post
production because I was a way to make a living, and I was very
grateful for that, but I was probably in there a lot longer than I
should have, and I should have really fought a lot harder to get out
of just doing editing or color grading or post supervising or the other stuff that
I was doing to make a living, to the point where I got so
unhappy. I was bitter, I was angry. I was I always tell
people the angry and bitter story, which anytime I speak, speak in front
of all ARTI how many people here know an angry, bitter screenwriter? And
then everyone raised their hands. I'm like, if you didn't raise your hand,
you're the angry and bitter screenwriter. Everybody else knows so. But it's
because you become angry and like that person is like, oh, I'm working
in a I'm working in a writer's room. I've been pounding out these pilots.
It's horrible. I'm on like this fourth or fifth level down a show
somewhere, you know, in the middle of the country or whatever, and
I hate doing what I'm doing. What I really want to do is well,
you just said I want to I want to write, direct, produce
in direct indie film, because that's that's the thing. I think that there's
this h I don't know, there's this perception that gosh, we're getting like
so philosophical here, and it's like, good, this perception and money is
going to make you happy, Like genuinely, post people do pretty well.
And if you were on top level projects, I'm sure I did I did.
I did fine, I did, I kept I my my I was
good for a long time. UH with post Post, I can't say anything
negative about it, but I wasn't happy doing it. Just as the same
thing. If someone paid me a million dollars a year to uh to you
know, push a broom around all day, the money would be great.
But at a certain point you're just like, this is not what I want
to do. This is not why I'm here now, And you start asking
the question, well, why am I here? Am I here to make
money? Am I here to be happy? Now we're really getting deep into
phil because that's I mean, usually it's funny. Now we're going through like
the progression. It's like we're deconstructing a cover flight consultation call. There's another
question that I ask right like you and I were saying before we fired it
up, like we're crazy, right, this is this is the sity industry.
Is you know that I I admire the conviction that I had in my
early twenties that I'm just like, oh, I'll pack all of my possessions
and just driving to a state two thousand miles away. But like those you
know, asking writers, it's I ask what what is the like what do
you sort of see coming up in everything that you write? And not just
like a format in a genre, but like genuinely like what themes? What
like philosophical or stylistic consistencies? Like what are your projects like and what are
they about? Followed up with like why is that? Because this is not
something that you just think about or something that you're interested in. This is
something that you are compelled to express in the form of feature screenplays and pilots
and shorts and and usually if we're you know, talking with you, not
just that you're doing it pretty well. So like where that's coming from?
Somewhere there is coming from some sort of innate need on your part to express
this. And and so I think that puts in full scope just how I
don't know, just like how much passion is behind this, that that if
you're trying to put it towards something that your heart isn't in, how much
it is going to take out of you and why it is going to make
you and just sort of suck your soul to the point that you were talking
about, because this isn't I don't know, this isn't like a job that
you can just like, Okay, I'm done. At the end of the
day. You're putting your whole heart and soul and your life into this.
Could you imagine if you could just check out? Could you imagine you just
can you clock out at five? And like, Okay, I don't.
I'm not a filmmaker anymore. I'm not a screenwrite anymore, to know,
Thank God, let me just care, let me just let me just get
a beer and drink and just chill and think about anything anymore. No,
it's I've called it a disease. It is a disease that you get bitten
by the bug and that bug, and once you're bitten by the bug,
it will never ever ever go away. It can go dormant for decades,
but eventually it will re surface in one way, shape or form. And
I do this because I've talked to sixty five year olds who are seven year
olds who's like, I'm retired now. What I really want to do is
direct and it happens. And there's really I don't even know what other industry
there is that that has that kind of insanity, you know, like,
look, I did the same thing you did. I did a little bit
later in life. I didn't do it in my mid twenties. It in
my early thirties where I packed up, moved cross country to California, new
two people, and this was my plan. My plan was I had to
rent an apartment in North Hollywood where one room would be where we slept and
the other room would be where I put up my editing system. And I
was just gonna show up. Now, mind you, I had, I
had a decade of stuff behind me before I showed up. But even then,
I just, for whatever reason, I started working and I started working.
I started working and it worked out, but it could have very easily
crash and burned. Oh yeah, I mean it's it's the same thing.
But I think that, like like you said, I mean, it sort
of goes back to the Hey, you have this like unwavering focus of what
you're going to do, and you don't have the sort of steps figured out,
but you're just really not going to be denied because yeah, because your
heart is in it to that point. And it is always fascinating, you
know, to find so many people that are really successful in other fields that
this is like a hobby for them, or this is something that they're pursuing
and this is you know, I but that's I don't know, that's what
kind of makes it. That's definitely what makes it so cool. You know,
I think of all the I mean, I tell people all the time,
I think I've just got like one of the greatest jobs that I of
all the ways that you could kind of get up and earn a living and
pay your bills. I get to get up every day and with an entire
company full of people do something that we like, genuinely truly care about,
and get to be with people that love the same things I love. And
that's that's what's so fun about stuff like this, you know that you were
saying, you know, getting together at Austin Film Festival, we just we
kind of find one another. You know, there's this this this little like
family that seems to emerge around the screenwriting community. Yeah. Absolutely, and
uh, without question this when when I started helping people with my podcasts and
with my websites and things like that, my life changed. And I think
I'm blessed just like you. I get to do what I love to do
on a daily basis, and uh, while I pursue my own projects and
I pursue my own you know, books and stories and other things and things
that I like to do. Now, one thing that a lot of screenwriters
don't really get is the absolute necessity of networking and being able to make those
connecttions but make them in a very organic way, is opposed to hey man,
I hear you're a producer, here's my script. Yep. Yeah,
like I just met you, like you you know, it's like it's ridiculous.
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a I don't want to
generalize writers, and I'll say this that I used to be the exact same
way. I think that there's it's not that networking just makes a lot of
people uncomfortable, because let's let's just call networking what it is, which is
talking to strangers. It's you know, it's it is starting a conversation with
a stranger and and putting pressure on yourself to build a connection and a short
amount of time. And as a person that like my undergrad degree is in
English, I sat in the back. I spent most of college just reading,
you know, so I believe, like yes, going and talking to
people that I didn't know was like my worst spirit at some point in time,
so I think that there's a reluctance to do it, and that's what
kind of fosters this idea of like, oh, it's just you just have
to know this person and they just give these jobs to their friends and things
like that, when it's like, like there's certainly a degree of that in
the industry, but there's like to put in perspective that if you're an exec
or a producer or a showrunner or someone around those people, you're going to
get a stack of like two hundred scripts for one spot maybe and they're all
going to be good. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. Yes, it's very common that you
break the tie, so to speak, with the opinion of a person that
you trust, or a person that you know, or a person that you
like or a person that you just you know is not going to let you
down in that situation. So take that for whatever it's worth in the scope
of networking. But to what you were saying, Yes, for some reason,
the like sentiment around networking seems to be just pitching any stranger that like
returns eye contact with you, And I feel like there is you've all been
at a networking event, regardless of how big it is, where there's just
a person there that's just kind of on like a loop of just like they
give their project and their spiel to this person, and then they give their
project and their spiel to this person, and it's like, I think,
surely someone listening to this right now is like like they're feeling this like chills
down there. They're cringing, cringing. Yes, you know what it is
like to be on the other side of that. So like, yeah,
don't don't be that person. To me, I always say, go in
with questions, go in with learn about who this person is, what they
do, what's important to them, what they're working on right now, do
they have any problems that you can solve, Do they have any projects that
you can help on, And like trust that if they're working on something where
there is a world for you to collaborate, it's going to come up by
asking those questions that if you're you have this amazing horror feature spec and you
start, hey, so what do you do, what sort of projects do
you work on, what types of movies do you like, what types of
materials do you respond to? And they start saying, God, I just
love horror films, and we've got to finance here, and we're trying to
find something like this that fits your project. That is such a better way
to bring up your material and mention it to them versus going in and just
being like, I've got a horror feature. This is what it's about,
and you should read it. And here's that. And it's like, I
work in TV. Why are you yelling at me? You know? Or
also a screenwriter. I don't know what you want me to do. And
I was like walking It's like walking off to the Jason Blum and going,
hey, I've got this dog safe Christmas script. That's I think you'll be
perfect for it, Jason. And and the funny thing is I this is
always infuriating. I get cold emails about pitching projects to me. I have
no power. I can't finance your script. I'm not looking for projects to
produce. All you got to do is listen to three or four of my
podcasts or just read a couple articles and you'll understand who I am. And
people are just so desperate that they just just start throwing things out and and
it just gets deleted automatically. But you start like emailing, you know,
you get an IMDb pro account, you just start emailing people you script.
That is not the way to do it. The shotgun approach doesn't work.
You've got to be more surgical. Well yeah, and that's that. I
mean, we take the same approach because we do consult. I mean,
the thing is like, am I going to pretend that queries have a high
rate of success? No, they do not. However, we've worked with
writers that have one hundred percent found success with queries. Because I think that
there's a there's a good way to do it. And so if you you
know, so much of what we do is like one, be really concise
and articulate. Get get through who you are while you're emailing them and what
the ask is as quickly as possible. Because if you're emailing a person that
works in the entertainment industry, there's a good chance that they have like two
hundred emails in their inboks, and if they open it up and it is
five paragraphs of boiler plate, like even if you are a dead center bullseye
of what they're looking for right now, they just don't have time to do
that and they're going to delete it and to like what you were saying with
it. It's always like here's who I am, Here's what I do,
here's where I'm like emailing you. I love it if you know, if
it's a fit, I'd love for you to take a look at my script.
If not, no worries, knowing that most people are not going to
respond, But you might have a person that is looking exactly for that,
and you're respectful and got to the point and they're like, yeah, sure,
send the script. At this point they've requested your material versus it's the
equivalent of like put again, put yourself in their shoes and use common sense
of like catching the script in the initial email. How would you feel if
a person walked up to you on the street and was like, hey,
I heard that you can help me spend two hours reading this script and giving
me your thoughts on it. Your your response one hundred percent would be it's
awfully presumptuous to you to just assume that I'm going to do this, and
yet that that's kind of the common practice of queries, right right, it's
it's it's a fairly insane It's insanity, man, it really is. And
and so I also wanted to ask you this because I actually had this question
from a screenwriter the other day. Should a screenwriter sign a submission release form
if they're submitting to a producer or a company or something like that, they're
The thing is like, they're they're common practice. You know that they're they're
commonplace. So don't think that you're signing your life away. You know,
I guess read it and make sure you're not signing your life away. But
I am guessing that somewhere in all of them, there's going to be a
cause that it's like, look, if you a year or two, five
years from now, see that we have a project that looks really similar to
something that you submitted to us, like, you can't sue us. And
the reason that's the case is because you can imagine what companies would be opening
themselves up to if they didn't do that that if you you know, they're
already I think getting sued all the time for people trying to claim that.
But if every script that was submitted to them, that any line or story
or beat or commonality that like appeared in a project that was later produced,
that's why they're doing it. At the same time, I I don't think
that you have any problem in signing it. I think that there's no I
don't know anybody that isn't looking for an amazing script and if they read your
script and love it and really respond to it, they'll work with you.
Because I think that there's a perception among writers or a fear that oh,
they're going to read it and like my idea and steal it. And it's
just like, I don't know, I don't know if I've really seen that.
I don't really know why they why they necessarily would do that. But
at the same time, I totally get where the fear is coming from.
Yeah, I mean I've had heard of some people's ideas getting stolen or and
when I say stolen, it's more like, you know, they took a
couple of kernels and sure, all of a sudden, now they have something
new. I mean, I remember when we were the years ago, when
I had a script floating around that got to Sony and I said, they
asked for it because they'd seen one of my one of my films, and
I said, I submitted it to them, and they're like, oh,
we're going to pass because we have something similar in theme, and then two
years later that movie came out which was not not anything like not anything like
my script at all, but there were ideas and themes there. So you
have to protect yourself as I guess what you should one hundred percent protect yourself.
You should. It's one of the biggest things that I think is valuable
about a platform like cover fly, because you you know, we have the
writer platform where you can host your projects and your bio, and then we
have an industry facing portion of it where they can search for writers and projects.
But we really closely monitor the activity on that side of it, and
so if somebody downloads your script, we have a timestamp of when they downloaded
it. And this isn't necessarily a commercial for the data protection that is cover
Fly. It's it's to drive home the point that like, yes, you
should be precious with your material and and I think with a submission release form,
passing it along through a friend or having them request it is always going
to be the better option. So I would advise that with it, I
will say by no means am I an attorney, and you should always check
with an attorney. Absolutely likely taking my advice. The consensus is you can
cannot copyright an idea, only the execution of an idea, because I do
think that like most screenwriters I know have had like an idea that they were
super excited about and then they see like a trailer they read in the trades
an idea that it's really similar. And I'm not going to pretend that that
doesn't just like it happens all all the time. Are you kidding me?
When I saw when I saw Clerks by Kevin Smith, I was working in
a video store, I'm like, son of a bitch, what did I
got? I had this idea? Why didn't I just execute it? Well?
There you no, truly, and so I'm I get it. I
feel the pain of writers in that situation. What I will say, though,
is that I don't want to say that ideas are cheap. We'll be
right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
But good ideas are good. Ideas are easier to come by than the execution
of good ideas. Truly, I think most screenwriters I know come up with
like five blockbusters in the shower and on their way to work in the morning.
You know, it's just like you're coming up with these ideas, and
really the tough part isn't executing it, so as tough as that can be,
it sort of goes back to what we were saying earlier of like you
got to be cranking out material, because man, if you're just kind of
hinging all your hopes on one project, you are kind of opening yourself up
to that, right, You are sort of opening yourself up to like,
oh, I have to make this one thing go versus like really utilizing your
talents to give yourself multiple opportunities. Yeah, And I wanted to ask you
as well and kind of put this to rest for so many screenwriters out there,
this is my opinion. I'd love to hear yours. I get asked
all the time, how do you protect your screenplay? I go, you
register it with the Library of Congress. That's the only one that matters.
You could do it with the WGA, that's nice, but the WJA does
not hold up in court. The Library of Congress. That's the only one
that you have the boom and it's that and you can and again, you
can't do the idea, but you can do the actual screenplay. It's the
only way I know of and that I always recommend what about you sure,
I mean, and that's I mean, that's you're probably gonna do that,
right if your film is moving into any sort of production, right because at
some point, unless you're just kind of shooting the project yourself, somebody else
is going to need to own the script and they're going to help there.
Yeah, once it gets into production, that's a you have to have that.
That's part of the chain of title. But prior to that, while
you're pitching and things like that, to make you feel better as a screenwriter,
you want to have the production spend thirty five bucks, forty bucks,
get a covered and don't mail it to yourself. That doesn't work. That's
that's a myth. Don't mail it yourself because that's the thing. I think
that, like what you said there is it's making yourself feel better and giving
yourself the peace of mind to know that you have protected this version of this
story. Otherwise, I think it's always good to have a paper trail,
right, And because I know that getting getting an attorney can be prohibitively expensive
for a lot of emerging screenwriters. Why it's just it's kind of like cover
your basis to as much as is necessary for it. You know, if
you're in the sort of like talking stages of a project and there's no real
money on the table, you probably don't need a fifteen page contract, right
to like to find terms of what you know. But I think always just
be really clear. And I think this goes into a lot of what we've
been saying, whether it's like working with a producer with a collaborator, especially
when you sign with representation, because that's a whole separate discussion we get with
writers is just be really clear about being on the same page of expectations,
because I think that that's where a lot of problems come from, right which
is with I think a lot of writers with producers are being afraid of getting
taken advantage of, or afraid of their material being mishandled. Which is why
you know, before you embark on a working relationship established, if the expectation
is like, Okay, we want to, we want you to, we
want to develop this with you, does that mean one draft and a polish
or does that mean like infinite read writes until I'm happy with it over some
nonspecific period of time. Because if you think one thing and they think another,
the project's kind of doomed before it even gets started. And same applies
to working with a manager or an agent, which brings me to my next
question, the agent and manager conundrum, where there's so many screenwriters think that
all you need is Ari Gold from Entourage and if they represent you, they're
going to get you the million dollars, they're going to get your career in
a skull. And people are like, how can I get an agent?
How can I get a manager? I'm like, and I always ask them,
how many scripts do you have? I have won and a couple of
ideas. I'm like, you're not ready for an agent. And I've known
writers who've won the Nichols, who placed in the Nickels, who've placed in
multiple big and they get signed and they go nowhere because the management is like,
should I push Shane Black or should I pull should I push Bob who
I just signed? Talented? But what's gonna be how am I gonna make
what am I gonna make the most money from? Where's my money? Where's
my R O Y and R O D? You know going to make the
most sense? So can you please kind of demystify the whole agent manager thing?
For people. It is undoubtedly the most popular question that we get and
I don't. I actually don't know what's even a close second. It is
always how do I get a manager? Right? That is the that is
the the holy grail of emerging screenwriters. And I get it right because I
think that the perception is I think you're sort of feeling that for a stration
of being on the outside looking in the lack of access, the lack of
opportunity, and like, yes, a manager and agent can solve that.
But if there is this perception that like, Okay, great, I signed
with the manager, I cracked my knuckles, I put my feet up,
and I just wait for the deals to roll in, that's definitely like not
the case. Right. Like it is, you're going to be facing a
lot of the sort of same struggles, and even the writers that we do
know with representation are still having to grind and get to that next step.
I can't remember. I can't remember who said this to me, because I
would give credit if I could recall. But I think we made the comparison
of like you view getting a manager like having an accountant, Like does your
career you have money? Does your career necessitate having a manager right now,
and in the same way that it's like, if you've just got like your
ten nine and your W twos, you can probably file your own taxes right,
and you can, you can get your own opportunities and develop your material
and build that. But if your career gets to a point where you need
a REP, it's just a much clearer kind of pathway right and getting to
a point where you need a manager and need an agent. And that's not
to say that people don't sign with representation very earlier in their very early in
their career, but it's usually much more common that you've built top a degree
of sort of like momentum and opportunity, and the managers not just kind of
picking somebody starting somebody from scratch, because I think with you know, a
couple of things one think about it from the perspective of the manager. To
go back to the queries, We've seen a lot of writers that approach reps
and the consensus is, hey, you should sign me as a client because
I really want a manager. And it's like that doesn't like, what does
that do? I mean? I think to them, right like, look,
this is their job, this is their livelihood, that yes, it
is art and it's passion and it's emotion, and it's this thing that they
deeply care about. But this is also their livelihood. This is how they
pay their bills, and their job is to assemble a roster of clients and
projects that are going to make money that they collect a commission on. So
it might not be the sole determinant in their decision, but it's going to
be a portion of it. So if you you know, if you understand
that, yes, they need to respond to the material, but also have
this idea of where your career is going to look right and sort of have
these opportunities and what working together is going to look like. Getting to the
part that you're a working writer in that conversation because the other I think it
goes back to the sense of indie filmmaking, which I special place in my
heart. My heart is always in indie filmmaking and will be in indie features.
The economics of it don't always make sense to have a rep. Because
if I'm a rep and I get ten percent of your projects and your deals,
and you make a low budget feature, let's just even say grand,
yeah, one hundred grand, right, and so you if you're making any
money as the writer director, you know, it's let's say you get fifteen
grand, right, which is now there's no way that you take fifteen percent
of the budget. Let's say that you get five grand, and you're probably
working on that project for like at least a year. That means that their
commission is five hundred dollars for one year. That even if they love you,
love the project, care about the material, it just it's really tough
to dedicate any jobs anything right to five hundred dollars over twelve months, versus
something that's going to yield that. But I don't I don't want to taint
the perception because I really I think so much about it too. Is just
finding that right fit, is finding the person that gets you, gets your
material, gets this sort of vision for your career, and you can work
with and building that relationship. At the same time, don't underestimate your own
ability to generate those opportunities. We come across writers all the time that have
gotten their projects sold, that have gotten themselves staff done, series that have
episode credits, that are getting sort of meetings with major studios and streamers,
and there's no really one way to do it. It's just a lot of
networking and leveraging relationships and sharing their material and maximizing those relationships that getting themselves
to that point. The discussion of pursuing representation becomes so much easier, right
because if you're you're kind of painting this picture of like, hey, here's
what my career is going to look like, it's much easier when it's tangible
and you're working in a writer's room versus just off of like the samples.
If that makes sense, Yeah, it does make sense, and I want
to ask you as well. So many screenwriters will walk into a room,
you know, like let's say, let's say perfect scenarios. They get a
manager. Manager gets them a meeting at a studio because they had one sample
script that they loved, and they're like, I like this guy's voice or
I like this guy's voice. Let's get them. Let's get them in and
let's have a meet. They come in, they're like, okay, what
do we love this script? We can't produce this, this is it's unproducible.
What else do you have? So that's the moment where a lot of
deer in headlines because they're like, wait a minute, that took me three
years to do and I don't have any I have three ideas. And if
you have three ideas, you're pretty much dead in the water because everybody has
ideas. Everybody in that room has ideas. But you can't produce an idea.
You got to produce a script. So how many scripts, in your
opinion, is a good number projects that you should walk into with a meeting
like that, like real, like real real things will be right back after
a word from our sponsor and now back to the show. Yeah, I
mean it's I guess, uh. Two answers to that, Like one,
the idea thing is interesting, I guess I won't say. But one of
the more prestigious writing and directing fellowships. I've spoken to writers that have been
through it, where the first couple of weeks is literally no writing, no
development, just ideas, and they make you come up with a bunch of
ideas and then they throw them out and make you come off with new ideas.
And speaking to the writers that have been through that program, they say
that is the most difficult part, more so than notes and writing and rewriting,
because you're just you're you're getting down to like the marrow of who am
I as a creator? Like what is my twenty fifth idea? Or is
my twenty fifth new fresh idea? But I think that puts in perspective of
just like the standard that you have to sort of hold yourself to as well
as like I think after a certain point you get good at generating those ideas
knowing it to your question with a you know, the two parts of it,
I would say the samples. I think most people really want to see
what you can do and whether that is it. I would say at least
too maybe you know, if you've got like fifteen, it's sort of like,
oh man, this person just kind of like how like polished or any
of these even if they are polished, the perception of seeing fifteen I think
so at least to probably like three or four. But really the more important
thing is having a consistency and like what your voice, what your talent is,
what your perspective is, and showing how it applies consistently but in different
means. You know, there is no shortage in the world, but especially
in Southern California, of people that can write just a really excellent, tight
feature or one hour half hour pilot like that is not hard to come by.
So if you're going in with like, oh, I can write a
feature, you're kind of short changing, you know, right right in the
horror future writer, like, great, you're the one we've been waiting for.
You Bob or Bob Bob really has no clue. But like, truly
as sentimental as it sounds, like, what no one else, literally no
one else in the world has is how you tell this story. Your perspective,
your experience is what you are bringing to the page. And as much
as you can articulate that as well as display that on the page, whether
that's across four samples there two, whether it's across a you know, one
hour procedural and a thriller feature. I think that's kind of the key to
it. And then within that meeting, Yeah, that's every general ever,
right, which is we love this is the greatest thing ever, but it's
not what we're making right now. So let's spend the next like fifty nine
minutes figuring out what to talk about here. And I think it goes back
to what I was saying about networking, right, which is, if you
don't take the effort to understand and you should have done you know, hopefully
you've done some research before the meeting, But if you don't make an effort
to understand what is it that they're working on right now, what is it
that they're developing, what is it that they're maybe struggling with or really looking
for or excited about, and what do I have that fits that? I
think that's again, it's a much easier discussion to have because you know what
you have in your arsenal. And if they happen to be looking for this
high concept project that you've only kind of fleshed out a little bit and maybe
only have a treatment for, you can get to that by asking those questions.
Whereas if you just fired off, oh, I've got like a comedy
feature sample in this one hour, you're now like zero for three with them,
Whereas you have this idea that they wanted to develop with you, if
you could have just sort of like worked to that in the conversation, and
that's kind of typically the advice we give for generals and things like that.
Yes, the water bottle tour, if you're lucky enough to go on the
water bottle to her, that's good. Zoom to her now right, Yeah,
now it's a zoom to our way. Now it's a zoom to you
bring your own bottle? Uh with you. Now I'm gonna ask a few
questions, ask all my guests. Uh, what is the lesson that took
you the longest to learn? Whether in the film industry or in life?
Oh, my goodness, we're really it's tom. I guess I'll give both.
I think I think in the film industry, it's just it's kind of
seeing it for what it is. And I mean that in the best sense,
right, It's like it's an industry industry, right, you know?
And and I think that any time that you are asking people to in you,
to give you money, and in some cases a lot of money to
make your project or to write a project, you do have to understand that
there's a degree of business that goes into it. To recycle all my metaphors,
I say, you know, Nike doesn't just like design a shoe and
then put it on the shelves and hope that people buy it. There's there's
an entire presentation of why Nikes are cool and why you should buy them,
and why they're better than other shoes, and that's why you sell them and
like to a sense, that's what you have to do as a screenwriter,
and there's no substitute for excellent writing, and the writing always comes first.
But I think the tough lesson is like understanding the business circumstances that go into
most decisions, but accepting that that's okay, that is something that you can
use to your advantage, and that doesn't mean that you have to I don't
know, rue that it's all about the money and that you can navigate it
and and understand that to your advantage in life. I think, like you
and I were talking before we started, I just think like getting getting a
little older, you like calm down a little bit. I think is kind
of trust that, like, look, things are going to be okay.
I've had enough sort of like one year, five year, ten year plans
that just kind of like go out the window, perhaps none more spectacularly than
in March of twenty twenty, when I, you know, have spent the
past year and a half in counting at home. And I think that's really
kind of informed the philosophy that we impart to writers, which is like just
remember what's important, remember what the ultimate goal is. Don't make it harder
on yourself by like defining the steps along the way as well as saying that
you have to do it. There's no timeline on this. You know,
there's tons of people that break in in their early twenties and their mid thirties
or later. You know, just just have focused on what you're going to
do and try and take steps towards. That's That's the best I've gott in
terms of a life philosophy. Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough?
What are three screenplays every screen writer should read? I'm going to go back
to. I'm thinking of my Uh, I'm thinking of when in my reader
days, when I was reading at reading at Kevin Mescher's company. It had
already come out, But I think that the screenplay for Little Missed Sunshine is
just brilliant. It's like it's a it's a novel. I don't know if
we can retroactively give it like a Pulitzer or something. No it is,
it is. It is a brilliant It is a brilliant script and a brilliant
film. Yeah, brilliant. And it's UH to just to just sort of
have this really this like dark, quirky comedy that is this also deep exploration
of Pristian philosophy that is like readily apparent on the first page and then perfectly
executed for the rest of the script. That was the first one that came
to mind. I remember reading the script. This probably dates me, but
I remember reading the script for Crazy Stupid Love acript also and a great script
that when I read it, and I forget what draft I read, was
like near identical to the film that they ended up producing, like down down
to the like lines of down down to like specific words of just sort of
I say that one not necessarily for like a philosophical or thematic of just like
this is what a produced screenplay looks like. This is a read the screenplay
before I saw the film, and then I saw the film and it was
like, oh, that's like verbatim that these guys just like got it up
onto the screen man. Then the last one, I feel like I should
give a shout out to a cover fly writer. No, I mean this
is three of all times, so you don't have to feel all time,
so they're not they're not whole. I mean, we'll be right back after
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I guess
that's problem now, I don't know how much it's changed, but again from
my like the last Duel, which is finally coming out, I say,
that's a sort of put in perspective, like there was some major talent attached
to it when I read that script ten years ago and it is just coming
out now, and I think it had kind of made the rounds then,
just in the sense of, like I say that one to maybe just be
cheesy, and that it can sometimes it is like some really a list people
were on that script, and it still took ten years, you know,
to just right. You know, I'm so pumped to see it because it
was amazing and the fact that I think that's a testament to reading hundreds,
if not thousands of screenplays since then, that I still I still remember it,
and I don't know, I just gave myself goosebumps with it because there's
there's a there's what we love about it, right that it's just all about
building that connection with the with the material that that it does stick with you
years and years after the fact. Thomas, it's been a pleasure talking to
you, man. I know we can continue talking for three hours more,
but I truly appreciate I know you have a young one that you're taking care
of, so and you're probably exhausted, and you're probably exhausted. I've got
a I have a two month old daughter, and so I've noticed that I
just kind of start a sentence now and it just I forget, I forget
how I started it, and I just kind of go and till every run
out of steam. So hopefully your listeners and your viewers that this made,
that this made sense and bearing with me, No, I by all means,
I think before we run out of time, head over to cover fly.
Yes, get the account set up. You know, that's always kind
of the first step, regardless of where you're at in your writing career,
what you're looking to do, just by creating the profile completely free to do
so, we can find you and direct you to the resources that are that
are most useful to what you're looking to do and and our team will be
able to support. And one of those resources, of course, is is
the coverage service that we were talking about beforehand, bullproscript Coverage. Yeah.
So I sure, I truly, I truly appreciate you, brother, thank
you for doing all the good work you're doing with screenwriters out there and helping
them navigate this shark infested, you know, alligator snapping kind of world that
it is, unfortunately, but I do truly appreciate you man. Thank you
again, my pleasure well to thank Thomas so much for coming on the show
and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Thank you so much,
Thomas. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this
episode, head over to the show notes at bulletprooh Screenwriting dot tv, ford
Slash one for six, and if you haven't already, please head over to
Screenwriting podcast dot com. Subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
It really helps us out a lot. Thank you again for listening guys,
as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.