Adventures in the Screen Trade

by William Goldman

  Even the greenest of agents serve a tremendously valuable function--since very few people in the business will read a script that is unrepresented, because of legal reasons.

  Let's say you've written a zombie picture and someone at UA reads it cold and, a year down the line, UA announces they're making a zombie picture. That's how lawsuits are born. Most studios, before they even go near an unrepresented piece of material, will send out a form to the writer that the writer must sign and return, thus clearing the studio, in theory, of potential legal action.

  Agents also know as much scuttlebutt as anybody. More, probably. Not just which studios are looking for a love story--all studios are always on the lookout for love stories. But which star wants to change his image and try something else. And which director is getting killed with alimony payments and needs a job fast. And which studio executive is going to get fired, so don't go near him. (Because when he is fired, those projects he has accepted become anathema to his successors and forget about the movie ever happening.)

  And all the decent ones, green or veteran, have a wonderful sense of career guidance. I've been with Evarts Ziegler for fifteen years, and whatever my career has been, he is enormously responsible for it.

  "But what goddam good is career guidance when I haven't got a career yet?"

  Okay, let's set about trying to get an agent.

  (1) You better have something written that's as good as you can do. A screenplay, in proper form and--don't laugh--legible. If you have more than one screenplay, better yet. Not that you're going to show the agent two, not at the beginning. But if he reads one and is at least intrigued, he's liable to ask for another sample of your work.

  (2) Find out who and where the agents are. How? Easy. Contact the Writers Guild of America, either the East Coast branch in New York or the West Coast branch in Los Angeles, and acquire their list of accredited agents. I am looking at such a list now. It is dated July 1981 and it is nine pages long and lists, I would guess, the names, addresses, and phone numbers of at least two hundred agents.

  (3) Study the list. Really go over it and over it. Bewildering, but keep at it. On the first page, for example, there are only five entries. "Agency for Artists"--forget about them for now; and the same, again for now, with AAG--Artists Agent Group. But "Adams, Limited, Bret"--that may be of value. Bret Adams is a name. And that's what we're tracking down now--names.

  Because any point of contact, no matter how distant, is infinitely preferable to no contact at all.

  Do you have a lawyer? Probably you don't. Do your parents? No? Well, somebody in your family must have come in contact with a lawyer sometime. Call that lawyer. Ask did that lawyer go to grad school with anyone who ended up in some form of show-business law? If the answer is yes, throw yourself on the mercy of the lawyer you know to contact his old buddy from Virginia. If he will, fine; if he won't, and he probably won't, thank him anyway and think some more.

  Did your mother go to high school with anyone who ended up as a performer? Probably she didn't and if she did, probably you knew that already. But did she go to high school with anyone who ended up working for a performer? Doubtful. But maybe she went to high school with someone who once did makeup for a local tv talk show. If she did, have her renew that acquaintance, or do it yourself. Nothing will come of it.

  But if you want an agent, get used to frustration.

  And rejection.

  A lot of rejection.

  But maybe--unlikely, but it's within the realm--somebody knew somebody who knows Bret Adams.

  No? On to the next.

  Buddy Altoni. He's next. Anyone have any way at all of getting to Buddy? How about Velvet Amber? Or Fred Amsel? Or any of the B's or C's or down the line.

  No? Keep at it.

  By the time you're done you will have come up with zip. But at least you're in show business, baby.

  (4) Even if you luck out and make a contact, how can you know if the agent's any good?

  Tough to answer, because I can't really define what a "good" agent is. As close as I can come, it's someone who believes you have talent and will hustle for you.

  But you can find out who the successful agents are. Being an agent is really about signing clients. So find out who handles important clients. If you'd want to know who Lawrence Kasdan's or Alvin Sargent's agents are, all you have to do is call up the aforementioned Writers Guild and ask. You don't have to be a member. Just pick up the phone and dial. They'll tell you. It's a service they willingly perform.

  There is a lot of information that is available to you. But Dan Rather isn't going to tell it on the nightly news. You have to think and act and, most of all, hustle.

  Pester is the password here. Remember the character Lucy in Peanuts? Make her your image. She wouldn't have any trouble getting an agent....

  One final suggestion: You're a writer, write a letter. You've already found out who handles either people who are successful or whom you admire, write the agent and tell him who you are and what you want.

  I think everybody that's been in the business awhile gets "help" letters from young people. Here are two I've recently received:

  Dear Mr. Goldman:

  I've got this fantastic screenplay going that I've been guaranteed six hundred thousand dollars for when it's done, but I need the bread fast and I'm a slow writer.

  So if you'll do the rest of it with me, I'll cut you in for half. Have we got a deal?

  Well, there's no coherent reply you can make to a letter like that. You can pray that the man with the butterfly net catches up to that kid before he does permanent damage, but that's it. It's loony tunes.

  Here's the second:

  Dear Mr. Goldman:

  I am a young Australian writer--a newcomer both to New York and to the craft of screenwriting. In the past year and a half I have written three screenplays (more accurately, two and a half--the first was a one hour thing commissioned by an Australian director who had seen a short story of mine.)

  I also wrote a feature-length script of Troilus and Cressida, knowing full well that costume dramas are not a hot ticket with the studios. I was right, however, in thinking that the executives would be more likely to show interest in work from an unknown, if they recognized the subject. Thus I've been able to get Troilus read by production v.p.'s at Fox, Paramount and MGM. They were positive about the quality of my work, but the consistent refrain is that it would be too expensive to produce.

  My other screenplay is a better prospect, commercially, being a spy thriller dealing with a paranoid who comes into possession of some important government documents. I sent it to MGM last week.

  So you see, I am neither an absolute beginner, nor totally naive about the business aspects of screenwriting. Since I am without an agent, however, I do have a lot of questions about how to proceed from here. If you could spare an hour or so to talk to me, I would appreciate it. I promise not to ask for introductions to anybody or beg you to read my work.

  There may be no great profit in such a meeting for you, but perhaps it would not be entirely disagreeable. I am not a fool nor (despite the evidence at hand) am I by nature a forward person. The tradition of older writers advising younger is both long and honourable, and I hope you will consider my request in that light.

  I don't know what you think, but there was no way I couldn't meet with that kid. I had no way of knowing if he was telling the truth or not, he might have been a hustler from Sandusky. But the idea of assuming that studio executives would know the subject matter of Troilus was terribly appealing.

  For whatever reason, the letter worked. We met, I answered questions for an hour, I don't think I did him any good, but he got what he wanted from me.

  Obviously, I'm not an agent. But that kind of letter--thoughtful, serious, I think talented--might have triggered something positive in an agent as well. They do, after all, need clients to survive. It also might not have worked. If not, don't hate them.

  Theirs is not an easy life.

/>   Just a couple of reasons to indicate what I mean. I was calling Zig once not long ago, and it was late and I was bitching about something, probably the standard screenwriter's whine: "They don't appreciate me." Whatever. In the middle of my spiel, I could sense his tone changing and just like that I had a thought. And I stopped talking. He asked me why and I told him: "I just realized something: Nobody ever calls you with good news."

  And that, I suspect, is true. Clients just don't phone in or write and say thank you. Rather, they think, "That lazy son of a bitch, having lunch when I call, why isn't he out getting me a job, hell, he takes ten percent, why doesn't he do something." So there is that, the lack of gratitude that goes with the job. And there is something else, a truth they must live with every day of their lives.

  Clients leave them.

  Every agent knows that every client will, at some point, become dissatisfied. One top Hollywood agent I talked to almost never mentions a client's name without preceding it with an expletive. Most aren't that open. But the reality is a constant they must endure.

  I was at a gathering once where a star was chatting socially with an agent not his own. And the star was being funny and charming and we all listened and laughed and then the star began to tell a story that had happened to him that day, on a taxi ride in from the airport, and--

  --and the agent said, quietly but with amazement, "You mean they didn't send a limo?"

  The star shrugged and said he didn't want one and went on with his taxi ride material. But I was watching and I saw the look that passed ever so briefly when the agent cut in with the limo line.

  It did not surprise me when I learned, shortly afterward, that the star had changed agencies....

  Bread

  Anywhere from $11,110 to maybe a million....

  Meetings

  Whoever invented the meeting must have had Hollywood in mind. I think they should consider giving Oscars for meetings: Best Meeting of the Year, Best Supporting Meeting, Best Meeting Based on Material from Another Meeting.

  One studio, and this is typical, recently announced that they had one hundred and eighty-three projects in development. Do you know what that figure represents to people in the business?

  Heaven.

  Look at it logically. Of those one hundred and eighty-three projects, maybe ten, at the outside, will ever happen. And only one person at that studio has the final "go" decision. Well, what are all the other executives supposed to do with their time? How can they justify their salaries? And how can producers fill their days?

  Meetings are everyone's salvation.

  I suspect that those one hundred and eighty-three projects represent--at the very least--well over a thousand meetings.

  Studios rarely initiate projects anymore. So let's say you're a producer and you think the time is ripe for making The Little Engine That Could.

  So you take a meeting with your agent. The agent says, "Well, animation is awfully expensive nowadays, can you do it live action? I hear Eastwood is a train freak, he might be great for the engineer." The next thing then is to set up getting an option on the rights.

  Now, once you've got the rights, you take a meeting with a studio executive. Could be lunch at the Polo Lounge, could be over breakfast coffee. You kibitz awhile about the Rams or the Lakers, and then you lay it on him: The Little Engine That Could.

  And the executive, no fool, says, "Look, we're not into animation, go see Disney." And you say, "Who's talking animation, I'm talking adventure, suspense, a picture for everyone. And Eastwood might be available--I mean, everybody knows what a train nut he is."

  Now you wait while the executive has a meeting with a fellow executive. And they spitball awhile, first trying to figure out what they can get for Richard Pryor. That out of the way, the first executive says: "Eastwood in a train picture, we know how loony he is over trains." The second executive says, "God knows Silver Streak took in a ton. And so did Von Ryan's Express." And the first executive says, "On the money, only I think The Little Engine That Could will be bigger than both," and then, before his peer can bring up animation, he adds "Done live--action, adventure, the whole ball of wax." And the second executive thinks before saying, "Well, God knows it's a classic, I wonder what sales might say."

  Now the executives set up a meeting with the top salespeople and they kick it around. "Sure, Eastwood loves trains and Eastwood in action is money in the bank, but this is kind of a kids' picture, would the two audiences conflict?" "What if they didn't conflict, what if they combined?--What if they turned out to be Star Wars plus Every Which Way but Loose?"

  The salespeople ask for a little while to run a couple of surveys, check sales and title familiarity, etc.

  The salespeople work their magic and eventually they might decide it was worth a shot. So they meet again with the executives and give their findings, and finally the first executive will have a second meeting with the producer, at which they discuss the parameters of the development deal. Including how much they'll pay for the writer of the first-draft screenplay.

  Which is where we come in.

  What this chapter is really about is this: behavior in meetings. There are really two kinds of meetings involved here: (1) the audition meeting, when they're thinking of hiring you, and (2) the creative meeting, when the script is done and everybody wants changes.

  (1) THE AUDITION MEETING

  The proper note to strike in the audition meeting is a mixture of shy, self-deprecating intelligence and wild, barely controllable enthusiasm.

  This combo is not something the majority of us were born with. It's not easy to come by, especially if you're young or starting out or, most importantly, if you need the job. If you do, if you actually need it, that fact must go with you to your grave, because they sense things Out There and they will never hire you if you are desperate. Because they then know you don't care about their project; you would take anything they offered.

  You walk into the executive's office with your producer leading the way. Introductions follow. Then the standard circling chitchat: "Been here long?" "Actually, I was born in Westwood." "A native? Are they legal?" Chuckle chuckle chuckle.

  During this sizing-up time, the executive is trying to answer one question: "Who is this asshole?" He knows you're not Mario Puzo because Puzo wouldn't be there talking about taking twenty-five thou for an iffy project like this. The executive undoubtedly has read something of yours--a treatment, a story maybe, an earlier unmade screenplay. And he's talked with the producer who has probably glanced at the same material.

  But are you the one?

  That's what they're trying to ascertain. Screenwriting is not something at which you necessarily improve: You may be as good as you're going to get your second or third time out.

  Are you the one?

  Are you the man in all the world most liable to bring to life this combination of a child's fantasy and a Clint Eastwood bang-bang picture? Because if you are, and you write a screenplay that captures the star, then the producer gets rich and the executive gets a big boost up on his career.

  It may seem casual, but there's more riding on this meeting than you ought to think about.

  Eventually, after five minutes are fifty, there will be a pause, and the executive will then ask it: "What do you think of the material?"

  Do not say "I think it's my favorite book and will make the greatest movie since The Battleship Potemkin."

  Something like this is much better: "Well, of course as you know I'm kind of new at this, I'll probably never know as much as you guys, but of course I've read the book and I wrote my senior thesis on Movement in Contemporary Juvenile Fiction, and this will probably sound stupid, but when the train gets the toys across the mountain, I cried--I don't mean buckets, but there were tears. I guess probably as literature it isn't Alice in Wonderland, and this isn't to knock Alice, but, well, it never moved me."

  Are you the one?

  You won't know till your phone rings....

  (2) THE
CREATIVE MEETING

  There is one crucial rule that must be followed in all creative meetings: Never speak first. At least at the start, your job is to shut up.

  This transcendental truth came to me early on in my movie work and quite by accident. I was involved with a film that was, I thought, set. The studio had said "Go," preproduction was well under way. I was feeling pretty chipper because everything had gone as well as it could--a few skirmishes, an occasional outbreak of hostility, but bloodshed had been kept to a minimum.

  And I get a call from the producer, saying, "Look, I'm in town, I'm free Saturday, save all day, we've got some things to talk about."

  Save all day?

  That was the phrase that echoed as I marched down to the Sherry for the meeting. I went to his suite, we ordered coffee, and I tried very hard not to let him know how nervous I was: I thought the script was okay and had no idea what he wanted or how in the world (or if) I could fix it.

  Because of his "Save all day" warning, I bought a notebook. (Never enter a creative meeting without a notebook.) And I opened it and took out a pen and got ready to face the firing squad. I said, though I didn't know it, the magic words. "Tell me everything you have in mind," I said, and I took the top off the pen and prepared to write.

  I didn't know it then, either, but the meeting was over.

  Because suddenly, he was unarmed and I had this weapon with dread stopping power: my notebook. I was going to take down everything. All his wisdom. Record it then and there.

  And, like most producers and executives, he had nothing specific to say. They are generally not equipped to deal with the intricacies of a script--any more than I could deal with the problems they face.

  What he offered was something like this: "I think we have to watch out in case there are any sags," he said.

  I repeated "Watch sags" and wrote the words.

  "Gotta keep the pace up."

  "Pace mustn't flag," I said, and wrote that down.

  "And our main guy has gotta always be sympathetic."

  "Sympathy for hero."