Blofeld
08-28-2002, 03:19 PM
"No one can teach what will sell, what won't, what will be a smash or a fiasco, because no one knows. Hollywood's bombs are made with the same commercial calculation as its hits, whereas darkish dramas that read like a checklist of everything moneyed wisdom says you must never do -- ORDINARY PEOPLE, THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST, TRAINSPOTTING -- quietly conquer the domestic and international box office. Nothing in our art is guaranteed. That's why so many agonize over "breaking in," "making it," and "creative interference."
The honest, big-city answer to all these fears is that you'll get an agent, sell your work, and see it fully realized faithfully on screen when you write with surpassing quality ... and not until. If you knock out a knockoff of last summer's hit, you'll join the ranks of leser talents who each year flood Hollywood with thousands of cliche-ridden stories. Rather than agonize over the odds, put your energies into achieving excellence. If you show a brilliant, original screenplay to agents, they'll fight for the right to represent you. The agent you hire will incite a bidding war among story-starved producers, and the winner will pay you an embarrassing amount of money.
What's more, once in production, your finished screenplay will meet with surprisingly little interference. No one can promise that unfortunate conjunctions of personalities won't spoil good work, but be certain that Hollywood's best acting and directing talents are acutely aware that their careers depend on working within quality writing. Yet because of Hollywood's ravenous appetite for story, scripts are often picked before they're ripe, forcing changes on the set. Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity."
Story -- Robert McKee
The honest, big-city answer to all these fears is that you'll get an agent, sell your work, and see it fully realized faithfully on screen when you write with surpassing quality ... and not until. If you knock out a knockoff of last summer's hit, you'll join the ranks of leser talents who each year flood Hollywood with thousands of cliche-ridden stories. Rather than agonize over the odds, put your energies into achieving excellence. If you show a brilliant, original screenplay to agents, they'll fight for the right to represent you. The agent you hire will incite a bidding war among story-starved producers, and the winner will pay you an embarrassing amount of money.
What's more, once in production, your finished screenplay will meet with surprisingly little interference. No one can promise that unfortunate conjunctions of personalities won't spoil good work, but be certain that Hollywood's best acting and directing talents are acutely aware that their careers depend on working within quality writing. Yet because of Hollywood's ravenous appetite for story, scripts are often picked before they're ripe, forcing changes on the set. Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity."
Story -- Robert McKee