I just got a review copy, and I’ll confess that the only thing I’ve done so far is flip through to make sure my quotes are reasonably coherent. And they are — so kudos to the copy editor. As I turned pages, I noticed many things I want to go back and read, including bits by the always-entertaining Josh Friedman and Shane Black. The book also features Frank Darabont, Nora Ephron, Paul Schrader, David Hayter and more than 40 others.

The book is blurby and conversational, like listening to a film festival panel in which the microphone gets handed around a lot. That’s not a criticism, but an attempt to frame expectations. I think a lot of readers will like it, but it’s not a master class or anything.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle editions. There’s also a companion DVD coming, if you really want to see the giant world map from my old office.

I have one of the 18,000 California same-sex marriages that remained in effect after the proposition passed in 2008. But it’s a piecemeal situation: the State of California considers me married, but Illinois doesn’t. Iowa does; Idaho doesn’t.

And as far as the U.S. government, I’m a single man.

This lawsuit challenges Proposition 8 on grounds that it violates the equal protection and due process protections of the U.S. Constitution. And if it turns out right, it could be a game changer like Loving v. Virginia, which struck down state laws on interracial marriage.

When the U.S. Supreme Court decided last week to block video from the trial, I lost my chance to see what was happening in the courtroom. Sure, I could follow the updates on Twitter, but the fortune cookie-length summaries didn’t feel like enough connection to a landmark case.

So I flew up to San Francisco to watch the trial.

The proceedings are open to the public. All that’s required is a civic interest and a photo ID.

There’s already ample online coverage about what’s happening, and what’s being said. But none of them put me in the room. With that goal, I want to provide a sketch of what it feels like to be there, since most Americans will never sit inside a federal district court.

Setting

The 17th-floor courtroom is impressive, both in appointment and scale; you could fit a basketball court snuggly in its footprint. Grooved planks of cappuccino-colored wood stretch up to a barrel-vaulted ceiling. At the front of the room, a massive wall of pale polished stone backs the judge’s bench. A single, undersized judicial seal hangs above. To the right of the judge, an American flag drapes around its pole, making it seem like the cloth is simply tacked to the wall by the brass eagle on top.

The court clerk and reporter sit on an elevated platform directly in front of the judge, a tangle of cables dripping over the edge.¹ The witness sits to the judge’s left. A single podium faces the judge, and it’s from this spot that attorneys must direct their questions to the bench or the witness. There’s no pacing around. There’s also no way to physically approach the judge for a sidebar conversation.

Every courtroom drama you’ve seen has long tables for the prosecution and defense teams. Take those tables and rotate them 90 degrees. Place twelve chairs around each and you have room for a lot more lawyers, each working off a laptop or a black flat-panel monitor. The plaintiffs’ team fills every seat at their table, while the defense has between five and seven staffers at work, with additional support staff at side chairs or tables. Wire shelves hold rows of binders. It’s all very tightly packed. Any attempt to approach the podium means stepping around others.

There is no jury in this trial. The space where a jury box would be has consumer-grade videocameras on tripods² and two sketch artists. One of them, a man who looks like actor Richard Jenkins, keeps raising binoculars to get a closer look at his subject.

Roughly a third of the floor space is devoted to six divided rows of benches for observers at the back of the courtroom. They’re pews, really, which adds to the churchy feel of the chamber. The first two rows are devoted to counsel and badge-wearing media. The back rows are open to the public. Altogether, maybe 100 observers can watch.

Unlike a conventional trial, the plaintiffs (a gay couple and a lesbian couple) sit with the crowd. There is really no other place to put them.

The chamber has no windows. Occasionally, you can hear thunder from the storms, but the room otherwise seems detached from the outside world.

Characters

Everyone springs to their feet when Judge Vaughn Walker enters. Now in his mid-60s, his Cronkite-ish voice would make him a good narrator for a History Channel documentary. Beyond an opening conversation with the opposing attorneys about newly-filed motions, he says little during the day. Based on recaps of previous days’ events, I expect him to be asking more questions directly of witnesses and counsel, but he mostly seems content to listen. ³

You see little visible difference between the two legal teams. They are both predominately white, predominately men, and invariably dressed in dark suits. ⁴ Crossing paths at the bathroom, you are never sure who is on which side. But everyone is polite, holding doors and squeezing tight in the elevator.

For each witness on the stand, one member of each legal team is empowered to speak. Everyone else keeps to leaning-in whispers or silently mouthed words as binders are passed. Post-It notes are passed back and forth, with additional staffers squeezing in through a side door that’s partially blocked by a large monitor.

Witness testimony is often accompanied by demonstratives, PowerPoint slides that show a graph or related text excerpt. Both teams have staffers assigned to getting these on-screen, along with other pieces of evidence such as video clips. The defendants had brief trouble getting video to play with a clip from the Yes on 8 campaign, but the day was otherwise free of technical issues.

Structure

For each witness, there’s a direct questioning, a cross-examination, and a redirect. During each phase, everything is more or less locked down. Attorneys and observers can (quietly) enter or exit the room, but everyone is expected to sit down and shut up. Judge Walker permits laptops and cell phones for email and tweeting, but beyond the light tapping of fingers on keyboards, it’s library-quiet in the room.⁵

That all changes the moment it moves from direct to cross, or cross to redirect. Suddenly, it’s a flurry of pent-up action and re-setting. It reminds me most of film production, with crews swarming the set the moment the director yells cut. Staffers bring new binders and huddle for quick conversations.

The judge calls a ten-minute break in the morning, and another one later in the afternoon. At lunch, everyone heads downstairs to the commissary on the second floor. I have lunch with the plaintiffs. It’s a small world; Jeffrey Zarrillo manages the same movie theaters in Burbank my husband used to run, and we know some of the same people.

While there is a lot of trial coverage online, I don’t see any traditional media all day. No cameras, no tape recorders, nothing.

The day’s work ends at 4 p.m., after the plaintiff’s redirect of Professor Lee Badgett.

Dialogue

In a trial without a jury, attorneys are not trying to elicit sympathy. That’s not say there are not emotional moments; several witnesses have teared up on the stand. But feelings are not as important as facts. Both sides are trying to get things on the record, which means getting witnesses on the stand to say what they need to say.

For direct testimony, this is pretty straightforward. The attorney asks a structured series of questions that allows the witness to make the required points.

During the cross-examination, the opposing attorney tries to make his case, either by presenting contrary evidence or drilling into a something the witness said. As an observer, this often feels like hearing the setup to a joke, trying to anticipate the punchline. The attorney asks a series of questions, and you wonder, “Where is he going with this?”

A few years ago, I had to give a deposition in a civil trial. I started the day giving very detailed answers, treating it like an EPK interview for a movie I’d written. Then I realized that every new thing I said introduced four more questions. By the fifth hour, I’d figured out the advice generally given to witnesses: listen, evaluate, formulate, talk. And then shut up.

We have a natural instinct to move things along and fill awkward silences, but the best witnesses take their time, unhurried and unflappable. When asked, “Would you also agree..,” they don’t. They restate their points in simple terms.

It’s nothing like movie or TV courtrooms with their zippy rhetorical boxing. Rather, it’s slow and calculated, like a chess match. During one particularly soporific stretch, the defense asked Professor Badgett to work through a lot of hypothetical math. Written figures are dry; spoken figures are numbing. To her credit as a witness, she cooperated without ever indulging his conclusions. But the audience thinned noticeably as the cross-examination reached its third hour.

The verdict

The trial is expected to wrap up as early as next week, so anyone hoping to see it in person should plan on getting there soon.

Depending on the testimony, it can be riveting or dull. Like church, you may find yourself squirming, trying to find new ways to sit on the benches without your tailbones breaking through your flesh.

But no matter how strongly you feel on the issue of same-sex marriage, it’s a fascinating opportunity to see a part of government that otherwise functions off-screen. I’d recommend a day in court to any interested citizen.

For a broader overview of the issues in this case, I’d point you to an excellent piece in the New Yorker.

1. The court reporter’s transcript shows up in real-time on attorney’s laptops. I found myself reading it at times, amazed at her ability to keep up.
2. The video is carried via closed circuit to a spillover courtroom for the public.
3. Except this: Judge Walker admonishes San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera for an underling’s poorly-executed deposition, saying that the aide needed a “woodshedding.” It’s a really uncomfortable moment, like a professor announcing a student’s failing grade while passing back exams.
4. After a careful census, I decided the men on the plaintiff’s team had slightly longer, shaggier hair.
5. I had forgotten my iPhone charging cable, so I kept my phone switched off to save the battery. This e-chastity ended up being a good thing, as it forced me to pay attention and take notes on paper, which became this sketch. A kind-hearted woman let me borrow her cable to charge up before my flight home.

I met him through Larry Andries, who is also writer/showrunner (but not Jonny’s boss). It was at a birthday party at a speakeasy in Koreatown, complete with a password at the door. So don’t forget that mixing and mingling is a crucial part of the industry.

When I found out what Jonny did, I asked him to write a first-person account for the blog. And here it is.

My name is Jonny Sommers and I’m a 25-year old nascent screenwriter. I’ve been living in Los Angeles for a little over three years. For the past year and a half, I’ve been employed as a showrunner’s assistant on a network hour drama show.

The job is akin to any other assistant gig in Hollywood. Difference is, your boss is running a corporation called a “TV show” and it employs hundreds of people. It’s the showrunner’s job to run the corporation smoothly, to make the best television possible. It’s your job make sure your boss can do their job well. This means:

• managing their schedule
• rolling calls (keeping a thorough call log and forwarding any calls to their cell)
• setting up travel
• coordinating their day
• making sure they are where they need to be and are as informed as possible
• reading scripts and writing coverage (providing a story synopsis and comments)
• taking notes on calls
• getting coffee
• getting gas for their car
• sending gifts
• setting up dinners
• getting that salad from that one place they love
• listening to them vent their frustrations
• being a gatekeeper and sometimes, their confidant.

There’s a large learning curve to the job. When I was new, I made more than my fair share of mistakes.

You cannot forget that word “assistant” in your title. Though you have access to every aspect of your boss’ life, you’re not an executive. Your thoughts, your feelings, and your opinions aren’t particularly important. Maybe one day your boss and you will forge some professional relationship and you’ll become more than an assistant. Until then, be quiet, listen, and make sure your boss looks good.

Your boss can ask you anything at any time and they don’t want to wait for an answer. Maybe it’s the name of an actor’s agent, or the shooting start time, or casting director’s cell number. You need to have all of this information ready.

The job requires long hours. You could be there late into the night. If you’re a clock-watcher, you’re doomed. I don’t mind the long hours because each moment is a chance to learn. It’s not that I have to stay until 2 AM because they’re still shooting, it’s that I get to stay.

Being flexible means your life plans take second place to the job. You will disappoint people because you will often have to blow off the 7:30 movie you planned or explain to your significant other that you’re working late, again.

Gatekeeping and Trust

With the hundreds of people associated with a network show, your boss is a wanted person. Everybody wants a piece of his or her time. Whatever issue they want to talk about, to that person, it’s the most important thing in the world.

It is your job to prioritize their day and protect their time so they can deal with more pressing matters. You’ll need to have a solid working knowledge of Hollywood and its players. Beyond knowing the names of cast, crew and executives on the show, you need to know who’s currently important in Hollywood. Is that person who just left word (industry term for leaving a message) a big movie producer or some no-name agent making unsolicited calls?

The relationship between showrunner and assistant requires trust. Since you are listening in on many of their calls, you’ll have experience with how the entertainment industry works. This also means that you’re privy to very confidential information. Subsequently, people on the show will try to buddy up with you to glean information.

A few years back, a young woman, brand new to Hollywood, somehow landed an assistant position at a major agency. At the end of her first week, she sent her hometown friends a breathlessly gushy e-mail about all the important people she’s met, and the juicy conversations she’s overheard. Unfortunately, she accidentally sent the e-mail to her the entire agency. She was fired on the spot.

The Good

For any open showrunner assistant gig, there might be 200+ applicants. It is the job that most assistants would kill for. Tourists pay fifty bucks a person to get a tour of where you work. You’re surrounded by celebrities. If you freeze your DVR, you might see your name in the end credits. You get to go to various parties and drinks with other assistants. You get free show presents such as sweatshirts, DVDs, screening tickets and so on. Plus, the pay isn’t that bad.

You’re in proximity to brilliant writers, directors, actors and other industry professionals. When my boss was hiring a writing staff for his show, I was able to get a first-hand look at how he, the studio, and the network, selected the staff. Those lessons will be beneficial when I’m going out for a job as a staff writer, which is my next career goal.

Not all showrunner’s assistants want to write. Some want to direct, produce, or work as a studio executive. Whatever your aspirations might be, this job can help you get there but it doesn’t guarantee that you will. If you don’t make the most of the opportunity, it can pass you by. This job, no matter how cool it is, should be a springboard and not an ultimate destination.

The Bad

There are some weeks when I’m just praying for it to be Friday. Beyond the long hours, the job is extremely fast-paced and very stressful. There are times I feel as though I’m drowning in work and my “To Do List” is growing infinitely.

Sometimes, what your boss is asking for may seem impossible. A friend of mine received a phone call at three in the morning. His boss was in New York City and wanted a private plane to fly him back to Los Angeles at 8 AM. That gave my friend two hours to locate a plane, a pilot, and get his boss on the plane. Somehow he got it done. When his boss arrived to work, my friend was treated with no fanfare. What he did was difficult and impressive but that’s the job. Your boss doesn’t need to thank you, or acknowledge a job well done. This is what you signed up for. If you’re a person that needs constant praise, this job may not be for you.

One executive I know described the assistant-showrunner relation this way: “You’re sort of like my fridge. I just expect it to work.”

From the second my boss walks in the door, to the moment work is done (not when he leaves because your responsibilities will keep you in the office long after your boss leaves) you have to be ‘on’ constantly.

Have you ever been to the circus and saw a juggler juggling fifteen sharp knives? Well, sometimes my job feels that way. Most days start off with my boss rattling off things we need to get done. “Jonny, did we call this person?” “Jonny, are we shooting on the location next Thursday?” “Jonny, can you get my car washed?” “Jonny, did you schedule that meeting?” “Jonny, did you read the pages that came out last night?”

Do your job, wear a smile, and don’t whine. When I first moved to LA, a friend who is a successful writer on a famous show offered me some advice. I asked, “What makes a good assistant?” He answered, “Just shut the fuck up and do your job.” It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

Oh, and you should write, too

The most challenging part of the job happens when the day is over. After a fourteen-hour day of phone calls, endless questions, boring reading, and double-checking schedules, you’re fried. Here comes the second part of the job -– the part where you go home and practice your craft.

There is no such thing as a career assistant in Hollywood and no one is going to promote you to staff writer because you’re really good at rolling calls. You need to be really good at writing. Writing is the only credential that matters.

When you finally get home, you are in complete control of your career destiny. At the end of these long days, writing is the last thing you want to do. Motivating yourself to write in the wee hours, and knowing that you need to get up early to do it all over again, is really difficult. However if you’re serious about making the leap from a Hollywood assistant to a Hollywood writer, you’ll find the time.

It can be tempting to want to share your work with your boss, but there’s an appropriate way and an inappropriate way of advancing your career. The first few months is not time to ask for your boss to read your script. The absolute worst thing you could do is go behind your their back and ask one of their colleagues for a read of your script. The dynamic is akin to any relationship that takes time and trust. Use common sense before you call in any favors. The safe route would be to wait until boss offers to read your script.

Speaking of script, I should really get back to this spec script I’m writing.

I can remember, in the years before moving to Los Angeles, being constantly frustrated with Hollywood “breaking in” stories. I would devour those tales in search of details, steps to follow, at least an outline. But people seemed remarkably cagey about their first step. They gloss over, they skip the details. And now, after eighteen months in L.A., I realize why that is: The stories are useless.

Maybe useless is too strong a word. What I mean is, these stories are not replicable. There is no outline to follow. Hollywood careers all have their own weird combination of factors — luck, skill, circumstance, the flow of the industry, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings. The ingredients may be similar. But the meal is never the same.

So, disclaimers aside, here is my own little story.

I moved to Los Angeles in October of 2007. It was a move I had contemplated for a while, but resisted. At the time, I was living in Portland. And I loved Portland. It had friends, mountains, good coffee and better beer. I wrote a lot. I made a few films. But I finally concluded that script writing outside of L.A. was really just a hobby. If I wanted a career, I needed to wave goodbye to the evergreens and head to the land of sunshine and smog.

On Day One in Los Angeles, I picked up a copy of the LA Weekly. I saw mention of a little thing called the “Writers’ Strike.” And I thought, great. Of all the ill-timed ventures, I just made my big L.A. move two weeks before every writing job in the city was about to disappear. Nice move, Schwartz. Real nice.

Fortunately, I read John’s blog. And he pointed out that the strike was a blessing in disguise for young writers. Under normal circumstances, you arrive in Hollywood, and can’t find a single working writer to talk to, much less reveal the arcane secrets of the industry. Because they are all working. But now they were all standing in a pack, in front of the studios, holding signs. Looking for a little conversation to kill the time.

A week later, I found a temp agency hiring out to the Writers Guild, and pressed them for a job. This sounded like the perfect opportunity. To be around writers every day, networking, supporting my future guild, and getting paid for it? Dreamy.

On my resume, I was a “Volunteer Coordinator.” But to the writers, I was “That Van Loading Guy.” Put simply, the guild operated strike lines at all the major studios. Those striking writers needed signs. A lot of signs. And water. And food. And sunscreen. And chairs, and tables, and flyers, and so on. Every night, vans returned from the strike line in need of fresh supplies. Writers arrived to volunteer, and I put them to work loading those vans.

It was a funny reversal of the Hollywood story. I had just arrived. I was supposed to be getting these people coffee. Instead, I was ordering them to haul water jugs and clean dried orange juice out of vans. One time, a volunteer came up and said, “That was gutsy. Asking Cameron Crowe to haul your garbage.” I thought, “That’s Cameron Crowe?” I didn’t know what he looked like. To me he was just another easy-going volunteer, someone who wouldn’t mind taking out the trash if his guild depended on it.

The work was simple. The kind of work that is only made bearable with chit-chat. So there was a lot of it going on in the basement of the guild. And in Hollywood, I have often found chit-chatting to be synonymous with networking. I had always thought of networking as a particularly vile form of communication, reserved for slick, soulless Hollywood types. But in practice, it’s really just a habit of making friends. And eventually, friends may be in a position to help you.

100 days later

The strike ended after 100 days. Unemployment loomed. So I emailed all my writer friends, and started hunting for that elusive first job. And finally, a job came through. One of the van-loaders was a writer on “The Office,” and he got me a job in the post production department. As a P.A. I loved the show and was excited to work there. I learned a lot in a short span of time. Problem was, I wanted to write. And I wasn’t learning about writing.

About two months later, a second opportunity arrived. Another writer from the guild (okay, full disclosure, this writer happens to be my girlfriend) passed my resume along at “Cold Case,” where they were looking for a writers’ P.A. This was much closer to what I wanted. I jumped at the chance.

Let me explain the job, at least as it plays out on “Cold Case.”

As a writers’ P.A., you are the lowest person in the writing department. Meaning coffee, lunch runs, and photocopies. But, at the same time, you are right where it’s all happening. Your work is all for the writers, and you will inevitably get to know them. You’ll see how they shape a script from concept to production draft. You learn the language, the techniques, and the pace of TV writing.

Now, I don’t know about other staffs, but the writers at “Cold Case” were also amazingly supportive of my own fledgling career. They gave me great critiques, which helped sharpen my material. A few of them passed me along to their agents, which was huge. As someone who has cold-called every agency in town (just before my L.A. move), I assure you it goes nowhere. You need a personal connection. And the writers at “Cold Case” were willing to recommend me, for which I am extremely grateful.

While working this job, I wrote a “Mad Men” spec that was well received. One very generous writer (from my guild days) thought the script was good enough to pass on to showrunners. Thanks to her belief in me, and a strong script, I landed two showrunner meetings in my first year in Hollywood. Neither worked out; one show wasn’t picked up, the other said close, but no thanks.

But getting those interviews was huge. It put me exactly one step away from that elusive dream of writing for a TV staff. Also, it impresses people. I was suddenly getting read by more agents and managers, because they heard about these meetings.

At this point, I had a little buzz, but nothing tangible. My spec was good, but not enough on its own. I met with agents, and was told repeatedly that I also needed a great original piece. So I buckled down, did my research, and wrote a one-hour dramatic pilot. In the process, I gained new respect for the art of the pilot episode. Setting up a unique world, a great cast of characters, a full season of conflict, and a satisfying story arc in 59 pages is no small task.

The here and now

As I write this, I have just completed that pilot. I have been getting notes from writer friends. I passed it on to agents in hopes of representation. And last week, I finally secured a manager. He agreed to manage me only because I had a personal recommendation, a good spec, showrunner meetings, and a good pilot. All these factors finally made me an attractive client. And I couldn’t have gotten good management without them.

Eighteen months ago, I had no idea what a Hollywood move would do for me. Now, after a lot of legwork, I at least have a toe wedged in that ornate mahogany door. I ain’t there yet, but the path looks a lot clearer than it once did. And for that, I feel pretty good.

As of a few weeks ago, I’ve been living, working, and scraping by in Los Angeles for two years. Looking back is an interesting thing, because for me it all seems more daunting after the fact. It brings up thoughts of “Wow, I got to work on that?”, “Gosh, was I naive,” or “I put up with that for how long?” Some of the jobs I’ve had have been badges of honor, others, badges of courage. But everything, good and bad, has been a master’s course in the film industry and life.

So where did I leave off in the last post? Ah, an indie film, fifty dollars a day. After that I jumped on to another project as a set PA, a beach volleyball movie which shot, appropriately, on a beach for a month. Every time I watch Lost, I have the utmost sympathy for that crew because trudging through the sand for twelve hours a day is rough. Probably the fittest I’ve ever been though. At the end of that grueling shoot was an opportunity I didn’t think I’d be so lucky to get. The line producer asked me if I wanted to be the director’s assistant for an indy horror feature he was prepping. As an aspiring feature director myself, this was the holy grail of jobs.

Being very hands-on in the pre-production process was a great learning experience. I got to be involved in casting, crew interviews, stage rental, set building, scheduling. The director was a first-timer, so there was a lot of trial and error. I learned what to do and more importantly, what not to do. I also received my first uncredited, unpaid rewrite on the script, which I’m still proud of. This job happened to take place during the writer’s strike so I was lucky to be working. At the end of 2007, I was riding high on good feelings and a good credit.

The strike

Then 2008 came and work was slow. Really slow. Fallout from the writer’s strike hit productions hard, and after a full month and a half of not working, I began to stress out a bit. I couldn’t imagine having to get a normal job, but it was looming over me. Luckily, I was invited to PA on The Remnants for John, which honestly was one of the better shoots I worked on in 2008. After that, the ball got rolling again with back-to-back work on a couple of Hallmark MOW’s.

At this point in my career, these two PA jobs were crucial because I found out that I wasn’t learning anything new anymore. I was pretty good at PA’ing, but it was no longer a challenge. I was feeling starved to create something of my own. I hadn’t directed anything since college because I was so concerned about being able to subsist on PA wages and get steady work. I had finally accomplished that. I hadn’t applied to a job for almost a year because my contacts were broad enough that I was getting calls for work often. I was writing, but only on weekends because that was all I had time for. Working fourteen hours a day, sometimes six days a week left me no time to do what truly makes me happy.

So in the spring, after the second Hallmark gig, I adapted a short I wrote my junior year of college into a pilot for a sci-fi web series. I used my friends and contacts to gather a crew, auditioned actors willing to work for meals and credit, rented some equipment, and produced it. It was my first time working with trained (and good) actors and a knowledgeable crew. It was stressful and strenuous, but on the drive home from Burbank after we wrapped, I was happier and more excited than I had been in years. I once again knew I was on the right path and my place in the world was set. It was exactly the boost I needed.

Going back home, for work

The next big job I got was something of a long shot. Back in Minnesota, my dad had crew members from the new Coen Brothers movie scouting his work for a location. Of course, being the wonderful man he is, he tried pitching me to them and handed off my resume for consideration. Figuring they’d just toss it, I asked around, got some email addresses, and sent off a cover letter and resume of my own. Amazingly, I got called in for an interview and was told that if I wanted to work in my hometown for a month, they’d be happy to have me. I flew home, surprised my parents and indulged myself in homemade meals. Being able to observe the Coen’s in action was an experience I’ll never forget. The way the crew worked, how silent the set was, how great everyone was, that’s something I’m going to try to emulate as much as possible on my sets.

Strangely, during the month away, I started missing L.A. I had the itch to get back. It slowly becoming winter in Minnesota didn’t help, so I hightailed it back and got my last job of 2008 as a PA/Driver on a new P. Diddy reality show. During the hours spent sitting in my minivan, something vague crystallized itself in my mind: I didn’t want to PA anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I regret not one single job I had. All of them were great learning experiences, I made some friends, got solid contacts, and learned the ins and outs of production which will benefit me in my directing career. But at this point, I believed it was the wrong path to continue heading down. I needed more time. Time at night to write, time on weekends to shoot. I needed something steady, something I could work my way up in so if none of my dreams came true, I’d at least have a career. I needed to be able to make more contacts on the development and agency side for when I was ready to think about getting an agent.

Marvel

Overall, I needed a more well-rounded life. The true epiphany came when my dad told me that I couldn’t keep living like a monk, just working, coming home, writing, watching movies. I needed to grow. So I decided to contact an old friend at Marvel and see if there was anything going on. I learned that they needed some help with their move to new facilities in the new year, so I was hired on. I eventually got hired into a full-time position and that’s where I’m sitting at today. I got exactly what I wanted and needed, which doesn’t always happen in life. I’ve got a steady job, which is a true blessing in these times and enough extra time to write and start producing. I’m doing what I’ve never been able to: write every single day. I’m working on a new feature, but most of my time is spent retooling my sci-fi web series with a new concept. Right now I’m writing the first thirteen episodes, and in a few months I and my creative team will start casting with the goal of self-producing and self-distributing on a shoe-string budget.

Truthfully, in the back of my mind, I’ve always had the slightly “tortured artist” mentality, like I needed to be miserable in one part of my life in order to be creative. But now, I’m busy working, writing, having a social life, dating, having more fun and I’ve never been more productive. I don’t know what wisdom I can impart on anyone. Each person’s path and situation is different. But for me, I had to really listen to what the small voice inside was saying. I had to look at myself in the mirror, find out my truth, what would be the best for me and go after it, leaping over detours as they came. After two years, I feel like I’m still very much in the beginning stages. But it’s being here that’s teaching me everything I’ll need to propel to the next plateau. I know I’m on my way, the right path materializing with every step I take. And I’m taking them. To crib a classic Marvel line: ‘Nuff said. At least for now.

They basically treated their indie film like an indie band, going gig to gig and selling out of the back of their car. It worked, more or less, but it demanded an amazing amount of chutzpah and commitment, which not all filmmakers are going to be able to muster.

While I was at the labs, I was in the midst of making a low budget feature, which I’ve now completed, and also self-distributed throughout 34 markets.

Along with some of my cast and crew, I accompanied the film on the road for 3 months in order to help market the film in each city. We basically set the whole thing up like a band would do for a tour, supplementing the screenings with intensive grass-roots marketing and also using social networking sites to create a viral buzz prior to our arrival.

Our entire model was conceived around the concept of using the theatrical release as a tool for the ancillary benefits it can provide: building a fan-base for future projects, acting as a platform and catalyst for DVD and download releases, and providing a ton of press exposure and validation for the film to name a few.

As such, our overall goal for the tour was to break even. We felt that if we could sustain the touring of the film for the entire 3 and half month tour, the real reward would be the opportunities that would develop by maintaining the film’s limited theatrical life for as long as possible, and in as many different places as possible. I compare it a lot to when companies will build a brand, in order to create a name for themselves amongst their target audience, or when a politician will it the road to raise awareness of his campaign.

In the end, we sold a little over 9,600 tickets, as well as 800+ DVDs, despite only having them available at the last 11 screenings.

We split our ticket sales directly with the theatres, and used niche-oriented marketing to keep promotional costs down, and in the end, we grossed around $32,000 theatrically. After factoring in all the expenses, we found ourselves with a profit near $11,000. As a result, we’ll be touring again in the fall & spring, while also bringing a handful of other films with us in an attempt to make this a repeatable and sustainable distribution model.

You can check out more info on the film here; www.boxeldermovie.com. Plus there’s more verbiage on the aforementioned self-distribution stuff if you’re intrigued. We’re creating a postmortem document similar to your blog post in regards to the tour.

Again, excellent post and viewpoint on the matter, and thanks again for all that you do.

At the screening, he started to fill me in on the last twelve months, but I was sure that his experiences would be especially valuable to readers, just as Adam Davis’s recent essay had been. So I urged him to write it up. Once again, Kris took me up on my suggestion.

I started writing as a way to pass the time during my first summer away at college. What began as a diversion soon became my obsession. A year or so later, that obsession led me to the amazing, uniquely writer oriented, Austin Film Festival. I chose a panel on pitching and was delighted to see that the writer of Big Fish (one of my favorite movies) was on the panel. Though, I have to admit, I knew nothing more about John August than what was written in his short bio in the festival program. As the panel began I was blown away by John’s ability to give honest and immediately useful advice. He was able to knock down many of the walls around the industry that countless books and “insiders� had constructed in my mind. I changed my plans so I could attend the rest of the panels John was participating in. Eventually I got up the courage to step up and introduce myself.

I blurted out my name nervously and proceed to elaborate on my dreams of writing and the epic fantasy, action adventure, and science fiction movies I would help create. I wanted to make movies that entertained first and had a message second. I wanted to bring back the good name of the blockbuster and the popcorn flick. I pleaded with him for wisdom and any advice on how I could start my career and become the writer I dreamed I could be.

John’s answer was not a surprise, but it was an answer I dreaded. He told me to move to LA. To move away from the cheap apartments and light traffic of Texas and brave the ever growing expanse of Los Angeles. I left the festival and debated the decision until there were only three days left on my lease, and I would be forced to move out. My parents wanted me to work in New York, so that I could live close to them. I could even live in their house in Jersey until I found a place. NY had always held a certain lofty position in my head as a city made for writers, but I knew that John was right. The subject matter and the style of my writing was more in tune with the studios in California.

Unfortunately, as has been the case far too often, my expanding stomach led me to a different answer. It came in the form of two fortune cookies at a cheap, all I could shove down my face, Chinese buffet. The first said, “Spend this year with your family.� The second continued, “Don’t be afraid to act now.� Well who was I to argue with the wisdom of prepackaged, American made, Asian cookies? I packed what fit in my boxy little Scion and left for NY.

I don’t regret the six months I worked in Manhattan. NY is without a doubt a city every writer should spend some time in. You can’t walk down the street without a thousand stories striking your imagination. I worked each day with a constant monolog running through my mind – describing the people, the sights, the smells. Ah the smells… like an expert wine taster you develop the ability to name the location and ingredients of the putrid perfume of alcohol and urine that give each corner of Midtown its distinct flavor.

Despite the unappealing smells and the layer of exhaust that forms a visible cloud of carcinogens in the belly of the Port Authority buss terminal, New York is still a charming, surreal city that I’ll remember fondly. Even though the city overflowed with creative energy, I knew I was not where I was meant to be. I met many artist, musician, and documentary film makers, and they were all passionate and creative people, but every person I met that was doing what I wanted to do – write and make movies – was visiting from Los Angeles. So, after a month of planning, I quit my job, repacked my motorized shoebox, and made my way from one coast to the other.

I’ve only been in LA for three months now, but I already know I made the right decision. In three months I’ve worked on the set of a commercial and a feature film. I had an internship at the production company responsible for amazing movies such as Kill Bill and Good Will Hunting, and recently I got an assistant job at a small talent agency. Though none of these experiences have been writing relate, they have given me insight, contacts, and a feeling of participation in an industry that was once impregnable.

The best part of living in LA is the realization that anything can happen. You never know who will have a contact that can push you that one step closer. While working as a boom operator on an independent feature, I made small talk with one of the actresses between takes. I explained how I really wanted to write, and I pitched her some of my screenplays. By the end of the day she gave me her card and asked me to send her a copy of “my quirky little thriller,� as I like to call it, Sex and Pudding. It turned out that she was part of a new independent production company, and they were looking for scripts to pitch to investors. Less then a week later I received a call from her producer. We are now working together to get the project financed.

There is the strong possibility that the movie will not get made. If A-list producers and writers struggle to get their movies in front of an audience, how can an unknown writer with and unknown production company do any better. It is this impossibility that makes movies magic. Whether the movie gets made soon or not, I’ve already got the high from that first phone call. That first call when the producer said she loved my screenplay. It wasn’t a compliment from my mother or a friend or a competition I paid to enter. It was a compliment from another creative person that was willing to risk their time and energy in my story.

I have by no means “made it� as a writer, so my advice is limited to my experiences so far, but maybe these three suggestions can help others about to make the trek to the magical land of sun, stars, and smog.

1. Change your cell phone to a Los Angeles number as soon as you get out here — preferably with a 323 or an 818 area code. I spent the first month and a half living on Craig’s list, mandy, and other similar sites. I couldn’t even get an e-mail rejection. The day I changed my number I got three calls for gigs.

2. Befriend the assistants and others just above you. Now if you have Jerry Bruckheimer eagerly listening to your pitch of “Lord of the Rings meets The Matrix, but with talking animals� than by all means use that opportunity, but don’t waist your time stalking celebrities and producers, begging them to read your work. Get their assistant’s assistant to read it, and you’ll have a better shot.

3. Don’t be afraid to pitch and talk to others about your script. I’ve met a lot of people that are afraid of getting their ideas stolen, but if no one ever hears about your project it will never get made. As I discovered, you never know who can help get your script to the right people. Even if nothing happens you’ll get practice pitching which can never hurt.

Looking back it is clear to me why it took me so long to finally make the move to Los Angeles. I was afraid. Not afraid of the move or of leaving my friends and family, I was afraid of loosing my excuse. The excuse that I needed to be in LA that it was my location not my writing that was the problem. If I moved to LA the only thing holding me back would be my own skills and ambition, and that terrified me. I’ve learned in my short life that the thing your most afraid to do is probably the thing you should be doing.

I’m not going to say that everyone of you that wants to be a screenwriter needs to pack up and move to Hollywood. Many great writers and directors have proven that with enough drive and passion you can make a movie anywhere, but for me it was the change… the step I needed to really push me forward. Don’t let fear hold you back. Yes, it is risky to uproot your life to fight for a dream, but risks are what make our lives adventures worth having stories about. Live your life so you have stories to tell, even if they’re made up along the way.

Questions, suggestions or encouragement for Kris? Leave them in the comments below.

Adam took me at my word. I’ve had lunch with him a few times since he’s moved here, and after our last batch of Baja Fresh, I asked him to write up his experience so far.

Every year, a few thousand recent college grads move to Hollywood, hoping to get started. Here’s how Adam did it. He’s very much mid-process, but notice how much he’s hustling to get his next job. How you can never tell who is going to pay off as a contact. That’s how it works.

With a goal of becoming a writer/director, I moved out to Los Angeles in late March with my friend from college to try to get work on sets as a production assistant. The first few days were an exhaustive apartment search, and luckily, we were able to find a place in Culver City within the week.

As we waited for our internet to be hooked up, I was able to piggyback on someone’s wireless signal and started the job hunt. I went to my three favorite websites, craigslist, mandy.com, and entertainmentcareers.net. Every day was spent sending out resumes and cover letters for any and all PA jobs I could find. Features, shorts, commercials, music videos, it didn’t matter.

The first week was terrible. No calls, nothing. The feeling of impending doom of being jobless, or even worse, having to get a regular job, was awful.

But in the second week, I started getting calls. I interviewed to be a PA on a short film that was shooting in late April for two weeks with a pay of $20 a day. Having nothing at the time, I agreed to it. But it still didn’t solve the problem of having a job now.

I had another interview for a feature which was supposed to start pre-production at the beginning of April, and got hired on in the art department. That was going to pay $50 a day, which I was ecstatic over. The day before I was supposed to start work, I got a call saying that the movie had been pushed back to August 1st.

So again, no job. Wanting to get on set and make connections, I took a job in the art department for a music video for no pay one weekend. I was told that they had more jobs that paid coming up and if you worked for free they would get you on the paying job. Since April, I still haven’t received calls for a paying gig from them. I’ve received many calls for more non-paying jobs, but none that pay.

But overall, it was a very interesting shoot where I got to spray the band members with chocolate-tinted water to simulate black rain. Just something you don’t get to do very often.

Becoming a little desperate, I started calling people that I had worked with and met last summer, when I had an internship with Marvel Studios. I had worked on a feature for a few days for free, and I called up the 1st AD, who remembered me. He said that the film he was on was fully staffed right now, but if anything came up, he’d let me know.

A day later, he called saying that he needed me to be a key set PA for three days. I snatched up the opportunity, and worked on Dead Air, a zombie horror film.

After that, work on the short film started. It was called The Legend of My Heart-Shaped Anus, a quirky comedy being submitted to Sundance. It was great working with such a small crew because I got to learn a lot about lighting and cameras. And instead of being a PA, I turned into a grip and electric. Wrangling cables, setting up lights, carrying stands, everything. In one scene, I got to drop heart-shaped poo, made out of chocolate, onto two puppets fighting. It sounds strange, but it makes sense when you see the movie. I started thinking that perhaps the mark I would be making in Hollywood is to drop various incarnations of chocolate onto people and things.

Then May rolled around. I applied to more jobs and had a few more interviews, one with Lionsgate in the office of the CEO. They were looking to groom future studio execs, and since I expressed my interest in the creative side, I was told that perhaps a desk job wouldn’t be the best thing for me. I knew that to be true, and I’m very glad they picked up on that and let me know.

Then I had an interview scheduled with a guy who needed a personal assistant as well as a PA on his TV show. I went to the coffee shop we selected to meet at and he never showed and never answered his phone. So that was another one that didn’t work out, but it was for the best because I had an interview to be a PA on a shoot for Fox Reality’s Average Joe: Reality Revealed. I got the job and got to help the producers out with some pre-production for the shoot. We shot the interviews that weekend, and apparently I impressed them enough because on Monday they brought me on board to be an assistant editor since I know Final Cut Pro.

The editing job lasted from May through early July, and during that time I was given enough freedom to work other PA jobs as they came up. The 1st AD that got me on Dead Air, called me to work on a PSA, so I worked as a PA during the day, then went straight to the office to edit through the night. I did that for three days, and luckily my brain didn’t explode due to lack of sleep.

Later in June, a contact that I met last summer during my internship called me with an opportunity to work on the new Judd Apatow produced film, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I jumped at the chance, and got to work on my very first big studio flick. That single night on Forgetting Sarah Marshall was the most fun I’ve ever had on a set.

I then got a job as a PA on an indie feature that’s hopefully going to Sundance, Thunder Geniuses, so I had to end my time at the editing job. Thunder Geniuses shot at a studio, a school, and then in the woods for two weeks and it was the most demanding shoot I’ve been on so far. But it was also extremely rewarding since I was able to make some great connections with a lot of people that can hopefully get me work in the future.

After 18 grueling days, we wrapped and I got a call from the editor of Average Joe: Reality Revealed, asking if I could come back and help out with some more editing to finish up the project. That’s what I worked on last week, and this week I’m not sure if I’ll be working on it again, since we’re almost finished.

I also got a call from my contact to work on the new Will Smith movie, but I had to turn it down because of my previous commitment with the editing job. But my roommate was able to take my place, so that’s a benefit.

I’ve been applying for more PA jobs, but hopefully I’ll get to rely on applying less and less since my network expanded greatly after Thunder Geniuses. But as of right now, I’m back to updating my resume, searching the internet for jobs, and debating whether or not to bug my contacts for work yet. But that’s what I like about the job and the life in Los Angeles. The uncertainty and the excitement of never knowing what’s going to happen next or who might call with the next awesome job. I’d prefer nothing else.

It’s not one game really, but rather a genre of videogames in which the objective is to place and upgrade a series of automated kill-bots (towers) in order to obliterate wave after wave of bad guys (creeps). The latest incarnations are all Flash-based, which is uniquely insidious. Normal videogames can be wiped from your hard drive; these games are always just a click away in your browser.

The best Tower Defense games are made by Paul and Dave, who recently quit their “day” jobs to devote themselves to ruining productivity on a full-time basis. Dave’s Vector TD is free for the cost of a Orbit gum commercial, and is fairly classic, with a series of maps that constrict the creeps’ path (and limit tower placement). Paul’s Desktop TD is a good example of the “mazing” or “freeform” variety: on a blank field, you use towers to herd and direct the creeps to their death. It’s crazily popular because it offers the illusion of optimization. It seems like there should be one ideal map, which keeps you playing and testing — and going back to the discussion boards. But any small change in the underlying variables would ruin the winning strategy.

The genre isn’t new by any means. Starcraft introduced the Protoss Cannon — generally the cheesiest way to win any fight — while Warcraft III’s development system led to a lot of good Tower Defense games. Flash Element Tower Defense is probably the closest incarnation.

Why do I bring up Tower Defense, other than to derail other screenwriters’ productivity?

Well, it occurred to me, “What would the movie version of Tower Defense be like?” Is it a castle siege movie? An Aliens movie? A zombie thriller? And then it struck me.

It’s 300.

You have wave after wave of differently-styled Persians channeled through a narrow opening, no consideration to their lives. You have the towering Spartans, who simply defend their position and watch the bodies (literally) pile up. Just like in Tower Defense, the big worry is whether there will be a leak. From the beginning, you know eventually the defense will fail. The creeps will win; it’s just a matter of when.

This isn’t a slam on the movie, really. 300 knew what it was doing, and did it admirably. But watching it, I kind of felt like the guy invited over to check out the latest Xbox game on the big screen, only to find his friends unwilling to give up the controllers. It was still exciting, but not quite the experience I’d wanted.

In terms of videogame addiction, Tower Defense is a lot less dangerous than WoW. For starters, there’s a “pause” button, so it’s possible to answer the phone. It’s also short. A game is five or ten minutes. The open-endedness of WoW is what’s cost people their careers. Tower Defense is like a twitchy Mine Sweeper, or Sudoku without the false sense of being good for you. It’s a time suck, though, which is part of why I’m writing about it. Having explained it, I probably won’t want to play it as much.

Probably.

In the cab leaving the airport, I saw a giant jet landing. Something about our relative speeds and angles created the illusion that the plane wasn’t moving forward at all. Rather, it was gracefully floating straight down.

It was levitating, basically. I pictured Magneto with his gloved hand stretched out, fingers bent, a look of weary concentration in his eyes.

Anyway. It was cool enough that it needed to be noted.

It was the third day of production on The Movie, which had already endured freak rains, poison oak, rattlesnakes, bee swarms and a mountain lion. None of which could compare to this little girl.

The soon-to-be-fired pre-teen was a stand-in for our eight-year old actress. As a stand-in, her entire job was simply to reflect light and not be annoying. She failed.

She was über-annoying: a cross between Pippi Longstocking and Nellie Olsen. Whichever way I looked, she was there. While I was discussing wardrobe with an actress during lunch, Demon Girl pushed her way into the actress’s trailer, just for a look.

I promptly told the first A.D. that I wanted the brat gone. When she somehow showed up on the set after lunch, I clarified my earlier statement: I never wanted to see that little girl again, beginning immediately. A white production van arrived to whisk her off to whatever circle of Hell or Reseda had spawned her.

Was it really this little girl’s fault? Perhaps not. She was, after all, eight. Her parent-slash-guardian was alarmingly lax, considering the aforementioned rattlesnakes. And there’s a compelling argument that children should not be stand-ins at all. ¹

But that’s not the point.

I offer this story of juvenile termination to illustrate the single most important skill I developed while making The Movie: I learned to care less.

It seems anti-social — anti-human — to argue for less compassion. But in order to direct the film, I consciously decided to harden my heart a little. And by Zeus², it helped.

In ordinary life, I’m nice, to the point of obliging. I tend to treat people in my life like guests at a never-ending dinner party I got roped into hosting. I want everyone to be comfortable, yet at the same time, I secretly want them to leave.

I find myself apologizing for things completely out of my control, like the weather, or the incompetent baggage clerk at Newark.

A friend of mine, who is one of the more emotionally-intelligent people I’ve met, labels this behavior “over-functioning.” I take responsibility for things that I should better leave alone, and reverse-delegate tasks out of a skewed sense of fairness.

This is a questionable strategy for life. But it’s a flat-out awful strategy for directing a movie. A director’s first and only concern needs to be getting the story into the camera — damn the cost, fatigue, frustration and hurt feelings.

So I changed.

I decided that while I was on set, my only responsibility was to the movie, and my ability to direct it. With this philosophy in hand, many decisions became easier.

It didn’t matter why the little girl was annoying. It wasn’t my job to figure out what her malfunction was, or why her parent-slash-guardian wasn’t keeping tabs on her. The little girl was getting in the way, and thus, she had to go.

When the the focus puller tripped during a complicated Steadicam shot, Ordinary John would have insisted that he get checked by the medic. Director John didn’t. Mr. Focus said he was okay, so we kept shooting. I could see he was hurt, but that wasn’t my responsibility. He was a grown-up, and it was his decision. He could take care of himself.

The real test of this new philosophy came while we were shooting at my house. Normally, the presence of any stranger in my home sends me into full host mode. ³ But when it came to The Movie, I let it go. The house was just a location; the crew was just the crew; it wasn’t my responsibility to find more toilet paper.

The real surprise of my Month of Caring Less was that I found myself caring much more deeply about the things that actually mattered.

Without the background noise of a thousand little niceties, I could focus much more clearly on what I wanted to happen in front of and behind the camera. I could talk to actors about motivation in very precise terms, because all I cared about was their moment, not the long-simmering feud between the gaffers and the camera department.

To be clear, I didn’t become an asshole. I think.⁴ I only yelled three times, which is three more times than I would normally yell in a year, but well within guild standards. After the little girl, I fired three other crew members, not because they were bad people, but because they weren’t doing what I needed them to do for the movie. Which was all that mattered.

And now that we’ve wrapped? I’m probably a little less obliging, a little less eager-to-please. I expect more out of people, and am quicker to express my displeasure when someone isn’t performing.

Still, there’s no doubt I’ve gotten softer. As I recently wrote to that better-adjusted friend:

I’m worried that the theoretical actors and crew of my theoretical movie might feel exploited by a decision I don’t need to make for months if ever. This keeps me awake at night. Not North Korea. This. Bah.

Which, in a way, is fine.

I think part of being a writer, or an actor, is letting yourself feel things without judgment. A director leads an army into battle; a screenwriter leads characters into danger. They’re vastly different jobs, which require different temperaments.

But I’ll definitely keep part of the experience with me. After you’ve cared less, you recognize a certain dishonesty in a lot of what passes for sociability, and the opportunity cost of too much pleasantry.

For example, the first day of shooting, there was one crew member I was certain wouldn’t work out. He was uncomfortably weird and grumpy. Yet as I watched him work, I realized he was just really into his job. Essentially, he was doing what I was doing, putting the movie first and everything else later. He was too focused to be friendly. But he ended up being a lifesaver, solving problems in seconds that could have taken minutes.

So what did I learn in making The Movie? It turned out, I could care less. And both the film and I were better for it.

1. I had asked about using an adult little person for a stand-in. Apparently, it’s not uncommon, but we couldn’t swing it in time.
2. In appreciation of Richard Dawkin’s [The God Delusion](http://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618680004/sr=8-1/qid=1160776464/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6262160-3232047?ie=UTF8), I’ve decided to stop referring to the Abrahamic God and start spreading the wealth to other mythical deities.
3. If I haven’t offered you something to drink within the first minute of your arrival, either I’m off my game, or I’d rather you leave.
4. I guess technically, I shouldn’t care if I did become an asshole.