John August

Archives for 2011

Newly arrived in Los Angeles

First Person, Los Angeles

Matthew Hickman was born and raised in rural Georgia. After dropping out of law school, he started working an hourly-wage job at a UPS store, and saved money for a year in hopes of moving to Los Angeles to begin a screenwriting career.

Several months ago he arrived in Santa Monica, where he now works at another UPS store, writing in his off hours. He recently published a [novella on Amazon Kindle](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LLIEZW/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=johnaugustcom-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=B004LLIEZW”) and has just started work on his second feature length script.

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first personmatthew hickmanI want to stress my beginnings here because I know that for many of you, getting to L.A. is the battle before the battle. I think many of John’s readers may have a sensation similar to what I felt in the time I read this blog before I moved to L.A., and that’s one of isolation. In the middle of reading all this talk about getting an agent, pitches, script revisions, options, treatments, and copyrights, many of you probably feel left apart entirely from the ability to act on your ambitions. I know I did.

How it starts
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As I sit here in my two hundred square foot studio, water is boiling on the stove. I live in a guest house attached to someone’s guest house. I’m not completely broke, but I do eat a lot of spaghetti these days. I don’t have much money to go out with friends, much less go out looking for them.

On the other hand, I recently paid eleven bucks to see a screening of The King’s Speech followed by a Q&A with David Seidler, Tom Hooper, Colin Firth, and Helena Bonham-Carter. The next week it was Darren Aronofsky between screenings of Black Swan and Pi. At my day job I’ve had conversations with Marcus Dunstan, Lester Lewis, and others about advice for new writers. I’ve met Jessica Biel without knowing it, and walked by Paul Haggis on an empty sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon. If I hadn’t been wearing a Cookie Monster t-shirt at the time (don’t ask), I probably could have exchanged a few words with him about what it takes to succeed here. Lastly (and most importantly), I’ve met countless other transplants from Normalville, USA looking to carve out their place in the entertainment industry.

All this has happened during my first four months in Los Angeles. These are a few of the trade-offs I’ve gladly made for a shot at what most of you reading this column want: to be a screenwriter.

Unlike a lot of the first-person columns you’ve been reading the last few months, I haven’t accomplished much yet as a screenwriter. I don’t have any writing credits to my name, none of my work has been optioned. Hell, I don’t even have an IMDb profile. But I have made one significant step toward that dream of being a working writer we all harbor: I made the jump and moved to Los Angeles.

For those unconvinced about the benefits of moving here, see the above paragraph for examples of why you should rethink your position. I’m not just namedropping (Jessica Biel aside).  If a guy freshly transplanted from the foothills of Appalachia can run into all these people, imagine who you could meet here.

And I don’t even have a car.

[Read more…] about Newly arrived in Los Angeles

Best commenters on the internet

Meta

I just want to take a moment to say thank you.

Looking back at the comment threads on recent posts, I’m struck by how thoughtful and polite the responses have been. Particularly concerning Justin Samuels, there was every opportunity for the discussion to get ugly and off-topic. It didn’t. That’s credit to you.

Compare these comment threads to anything on AICN or DHD. Their comments are mostly one-liners with random punctuation. Our comments are relevant, paragraphs long, and composed of complete sentences.

I think it’s a virtuous cycle; readers spend the time to leave quality comments because they see other readers leaving quality comments.

Stuart and I monitor the threads, trying to make sure readers are following Living Room Rules. Truth is, we rarely have to nix a comment. Thank you for that.

Suing to get an agent, cont’d

Film Industry, Follow Up

Justin Samuels, the guy who [filed a lawsuit](http://johnaugust.com/2011/suing-to-get-an-agent) against CAA and WME for not representing him, just [wrote in](http://johnaugust.com/2011/suing-to-get-an-agent#comment-190743):

> Mr. August, you’ve no idea what other things I have or haven’t done to break into the industry. You’ve no proof that I haven’t previously lived in Los Angeles. You don’t know if I’ve had internships or not, or if I’ve done other industry jobs or not. You’re making assumptions without having evidence to back them up.

That’s not an excerpt. That’s the whole thing.

True: I have no proof that he hasn’t done those things. I also can’t prove Amelia Earhart never French-kissed a squirrel. But I trust my hunches.

If Justin is writing in to set the record straight, couldn’t he, you know, *set the record straight?* For instance, he could say when he lived in Los Angeles. Or had an industry job. Or won screenwriting competitions. Or applied for studio-backed diversity programs.

He’s given me no reason to assume he’s done anything other than write scripts, query letters and lawsuits. Maybe he’ll read this and fill in the details.

Justin followed up his first comment with another one specifically about internships:

> I should say something about internships. Internships are often unpaid, meaning the intern is working for free. Exploitation at its finest. Its okay if the intern has parents who are willing to subsidize or is on a government program, otherwise the intern may end up sleeping in a cardboard box (the intern maybe unpaid, but rent, food, gas, and other necessities are never free).

> So basically, one need not apply for an internship if one doesn’t have either parents or the government to cover one’s expenses.

Here Samuels has a point. Unpaid internships favor those with enough money that they don’t need to get paid. It’s a concern I’ve seen raised in many industries, particularly ones like art and publishing that are centered in high-cost cities like New York.

But I’d argue that unpaid internships are actually a very small part of the Hollywood ecosystem. All the interns in Los Angeles could get Raptured tomorrow and the town would function just fine. A much more fundamental part of the film and television workplace is the front line of PAs and assistants who toil long hours for a wage that, while meager, is livable.

Justin, if you’re sticking around, the 80+ commenters on the original thread probably have questions for you.

I’m not in Transformers 3

Meta

questionmarkOkay, this time I definitely saw you appear in the new Transformers movie, no question. You play a soldier guarding the government facility where Frances McDormand works. Right?

— Ben Sitzer

answer iconI swear it’s not me.

My first thought was that it was my [doppelgänger from Salt](http://twitter.com/#!/johnaugust/statuses/19602822577), [Steve Cirbus](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1783121/), but he doesn’t show up in the IMDb credits for Transformers 3.

The truth is, I have a very familiar face. In daily life, I’m fairly frequently confused with someone’s cousin’s roommate. But if anyone can figure out the name of my double in the latest Michael Bay opus, please share a link.