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Screwing the Pooch

Amelia called to warn me that work was about to dry up. It’s like having an inside man at a company I already work for, but it’s helpful. She told me nobody at the company would tell me when scripts dried up, and she was right, but at least I had some warning. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but they don’t even soften the blow by easing off. It went from a steady three scripts a day to a steady zero scripts a day.

Amelia mentioned that, because of the dealings Murdstone & Grinby has with other companies, they may help me find freelance work elsewhere when our work slows down. It sounded great to me, so I told her I’d ask as soon as they stopped sending scripts.

“Hang on,” she said. “That might not be such a good idea.”

Zuh?

She gave me more warnings: if Murdstone & Grinby like me — and they do — they won’t want to lose me. If I asked for help, she said, Jim Taggart (the Director of Development, a.k.a. my boss) would be cordial and understanding and promptly do nothing, because they don’t want to lose me. She added, “They’ll probably just come back at you with the excuse that if you’re reading scripts for, say, Endeavor, and they get an Endeavor script they want you to read, that’s a conflict of interest.”

“But wait,” I retorted, “couldn’t they just send those scripts to someone else — like you?”

“Yeah, but they’d forget and —”

“Trust me,” I said, “I wouldn’t forget. Couldn’t I just reply to them that it’s a script from a place I’m working for, so they should send it elsewhere?”

“Well, yeah,” Amelia said, “but it’s just an excuse they’ll be using.”

“But if they give me an excuse and I tell the same things I just told you, wouldn’t they be a little more understanding?”

Amelia sighed. “I think maybe I should talk to Jim for you.” Initially it sounded like she was changing the subject, but it occurred to me that she was not-so-subtly suggesting that me talking to Jim myself would end badly. I mean, I guess it makes sense: if they want to make up excuses but I have an answer to all of them, it’s just going to piss them off. They want me to swallow the shit and slink away. Amelia was a little more tactful than that, mentioning that she’s worked with them longer and more closely. She felt if she broached the subject — not asking directly but just feeling out how they feel about it — she’d come across as someone concerned about a friend rather than someone trolling for information or asking on my behalf.

The following afternoon, I got an e-mail from Jim. The first paragraph thanked me for my hard work. The second paragraph said that Amelia mentioned I had some scripts she thought he should look at, and he’d be more than happy to once things settled down. Everything was going according to —

Wait — what?!

I called Amelia and asked what the hell happened. She told me that, when it came time to talk to Jim, it occurred to her that the business all but shuts down during the holidays, so Murdstone and/or Grinby could troll around for people to hire me and it wouldn’t amount to anything. She told me I should wait until the post-holiday flurry dies down and then ask. I started to wonder why any of this strategizing mattered when she insisted they wouldn’t even help me.

That was neither here nor there. Where did this script thing come from?

“I’m trying to help,” Amelia said. “I was straight-up honest with him. I said you have a great sense of characters, dialogue, and comedy, but you write horrible, tedious second acts.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

“It’s true,” she grumbled.

I don’t know that it is true — she read what many others regard as my best script and hated what she felt was a “pointless diversion,” even though in my mind it’s essential to the protagonist’s development from stunted manchild to adult. It works for others as well as it does for me, but I don’t dismiss her point. It makes sense, but the only ways I can think of to “fix” it are really contrived and hacky, and since nine out of ten readers agree it works, I just left it alone. I do love how, in her eyes, my entire body of work suffers from second-act problems when she only griped about it in the one script. Although I guess she griped about the whole story in another script, so that’s two bad apples. Anyway…

“So based on that rousing recommendation, Jim sent me an e-mail saying he wants to read ‘some of my scripts,’” I said.

“Are you shitting me?”

“…no?”

“What a fucking asshole,” she snapped. “I talked you up for at least 20 minutes, and he acted like he could give a fuck. And then, as soon as I leave, he turns around and e-mails you.”

“Yeah, so… What the hell did you think I should send him?” I mean, she hated one of my scripts and has been a bit more critical of the others than anyone who’s read them. I like that — maybe the others who read them are lobbing softballs, or maybe she just has a different point of view. Either way, I haven’t had someone as tough on my work since Callie, and I’ve always held the opinion that that’s the way to make someone a better writer. But it left me wondering what, exactly, she thought the company would like.

“Send them your most commercial script,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be good. They hate good. It just has to make money. I know Jim says to send him more than one, but it’ll take him forever to read one. It’ll take him even longer to read more than one, and he’ll just feel guilty about it and resent you.”

What? This is one of those things I’ll never understand about the industry. I know nobody has any respect for writers — especially writers with no credits — but why ask someone for something and then not read it? Is this some sort of perverse power trip, or has it become so ingrained in the industry that I should just roll with it? I mean, when I send them coverage, they don’t wait six months to read it — they read it as soon as they get it. Because it’s time-sensitive. Well, what if I’ve written the glossiest, most commercially appealing piece of shit on the planet? What if they sit on the script for so long that, before they know it, a bidding war has broken out to get this script, and they could have had it for a rock-bottom price? I know I’m not a great writer, but they don’t know that. They think I’m a great reader, which theoretically translates to great writer. It’s not like I’m some asshole off the street. I do related work for them, and they claim to love it. So why do I have to wait? And why does Jim get to resent me because he feels guilty for not doing something he should have done instead of just doing it?!

None of this matters much. I just think it’s retarded. I know it’ll take forever to read my script, and I don’t care. I thought about the right script to send, and seeing their track record with action (including one action-comedy), I elected to send my action-comedy script. It may not be my most commercially viable, but it seems more up their alley. I don’t know what I expect, though. Not to get it sold or even optioned. Maybe they’ll respect me 5% more. I don’t know.

I have this lingering fear — the reason I felt so apprehensive when I received Jim’s e-mail — that he’ll read the script and decide it’s so terrible, they should question my skills as a reader. In their mind, I’ll be the guy who can build a compelling case about anything but is so clueless about all the important elements of a screenplay, who cares how compelling my case is? I’m just full of shit.

I’m sure it won’t go down that badly, but I’m not exactly pressuring Jim to give it a read.

Tags: Amelia, Director of Development, freelance work, Jim, Murdstone & Grinby, questions, reader job, reading

Posted by Stan on December 29, 2008 2:29 PM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Career-Based Rambling, Friends: Can’t Live with ‘Em | Digg It