John August

Los Angeles

Starting a screenwriting career outside of LA (or New York, or London)

Film Industry, Follow Up, Los Angeles, QandA

In a [recent episode of Scriptnotes](http://johnaugust.com/2016/dig-two-graves), we shared stories from screenwriters who managed to build careers while living outside of Los Angeles, New York or London.

We had more contributors than we could feature in the episode, so here are a few more tales from the trenches.

—

**Chad from Nashville, TN:**
After studying film in college, I moved from NY back to Tennessee to get better at writing screenplays. It took eight years of writing to win Slamdance’s competition. I had been a finalist in others and even won a smaller festival, but they didn’t really matter besides being a barometer for my writing progression. But with the Slamdance win for my horror screenplay JUG FACE, I was able to get most anyone to read it.

I contacted a producer who had made other horror films that I felt my movie fit in with. At the same time, I had been in preproduction on a horror short and was about to shoot it the very next weekend after speaking with that producer. Three weeks later, I sent him the completed short and he called me that night and said we were going to make the movie with me directing it. Five months after that, we shot JUG FACE and it premiered at Slamdance the very next year. The film went on to get world wide distribution and did pretty good for an indy horror film.

Since then I’ve gotten management and have had a number of projects fizzle but have finally made the move to LA to make things happen. My family and I landed here six weeks ago.

—

**Alan from Connecticut:**
I am a produced screenwriter with screen credits for two Lifetime movies. I have lived in Connecticut my whole life and attended an online college program through the Academy of Art based in San Francisco.

After graduating, I worked on several spec scripts and began the long process of manual queries. I placed in a few screenwriting competitions, but they led no where. I finished a MOW Thriller and used IMDB Pro to get production contacts for niche low-budget companies. After getting a few hits, I used my spec to get my first assignment and it was produced into the film “Her Infidelity”.

All of my meetings, contracts, and contact has been done through phones, email, and faxing. It has worked out fairly well. I have other projects in development, but have not reached a point where I am screenwriting full-time yet. I also edit wedding videos and do a lot of freelance writing to help supplement my screenwriting career.

I may not be a traditional screenwriter, but I am happy and proud of my credits and hope to have more in the future. I just wanted to let you guys know that I have had screenwriting success without stepping foot in California and am still in continual development on projects.

—

**Chris in Arizona:**
I live in Arizona and recently got hired for my first feature. I had done a few episodes of TV prior to this and as all aspiring writers do, submitted many scripts for competitions and what not.

Unfortunately the show I was originally hired to do never made the light of day (due to the writers strike a few years back), but I have to always assume it’s the norm.

Regardless of that I worked as an exhibitor, a fancy way of saying I worked for a movie theater company. The way things really began is I started building relationships with people in the industry when our theaters would do research screenings and I was assigned to coordination and handling the “talent”. An easy job for me. I started out speaking with many post production supervisors and would ask for introductions to producers, editors, and directors during screenings. Not to pitch or be annoying but the chance to say my name, them to see my face, and do what I was supposed to do for my job.

Over time many of these industry professionals would use our locations consistently and began calling me directly on my cell phone for scheduling changes, requests, etc.. Eventually relationships became more and more relaxed and I was able to have more casual conversations which eventually led into THEIR inquiry of my enjoyment of my job. I never approached anyone myself but allowed the conversations to flow naturally. I didn’t want to be the norm of what I assumed they were used to.

Basically it was a right place, right time, situation for a lot of things but it happened outside of the traditional locations.

—

**JJ in Chicago:**
I’ve managed to make some money screenwriting from out here in Chicago. So far it has only been in independent films.

It started when I sent a spec to a producer friend in LA. He passed it to another producer who happened to be looking for someone to do a rewrite on his script. He asked for more samples and I was hired a few days later.

After forming a relationship with that producer I’ve been hired for a few more projects since that first one.

That said, I still have a day job and am finishing up another spec with hopes of making it into the big leagues one day.

—

**Isaac in Portland, OR:**
I graduated long ago with an MA in Film Studies but decided soon after that what I really wanted was to become was a novelist. I pursued that for a number of years, getting five books published, but none that were successful enough to keep me from simultaneously working various day jobs. My first real exposure to the movie industry came when one of my books, Tokyo Suckerpunch, was optioned, first by Fox Searchlight and later by Sony. Talking to folks who worked on it and reading various scripts that emerged from its long development process de-mystified screenwriting a bit for me. I started reading every script I could get my hands on, thinking maybe this was something I could do one day.

I wrote the requisite terrible first script that I showed to maybe two people before burying it. The next script I finished I uploaded to the Black List site. That one attracted the attention of a manager. The next one went out and won a few fans around town. I flew to LA for some generals. The script after that was eventually optioned by an independent production company.

My manager encouraged me to come up with some TV ideas. I was wrestling with a sci-fi pilot for months when I decided to take a break and from that and write this crazy idea that had been germinating in my head for a long time — a Michael Jackson biopic told from the perspective of his pet chimpanzee, Bubbles.

That script blew up in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Within a couple weeks of BUBBLES hitting the town, I was back in LA for a whirlwind water bottle tour — meetings with execs, producers, agents, directors (the experience underscored what you often tell listeners about finding an agent — when you’re ready for one, they will find you). The script ended up atop the 2015 Black List and eventually sold.

I’ve been steadily working since, though given that I’m less than two years into my career as a professional screenwriter, it remains to be seen whether I can maintain any kind of career longevity living outside LA. Moving there is not really an option for me at the moment — I have two young children and love living in Portland. But I spend a week in LA about every three months and my reps understand that if something comes up and I have to hop on a plane tomorrow, I’ll be there. I spend a lot of time on Skype and on the phone, but so far being at a geographic remove hasn’t hurt me in any way that I’m aware of (major caveat: all my work so far has been in features rather than TV). I’ve been told by more than one exec that I’m lucky because writing features is maybe the one job in the industry where you can live pretty much anywhere.

—

**Raj in Toronto:**
I myself am not a working screenwriter, but I am a producer and have had a successful and busy career in film and tv living exclusively in Toronto, and producing only original content. I work with and engage with scores of screenwriters who live locally and earn a living through domestic (i.e. Canadian) work. Some writers (and producers and directors too) split their time between the US and Canada — either on a calendar basis (e.g. several months here, several State-side) or on a per project basis. Even more stay and work here 100% of the time.

Toronto is replete with the head offices of broadcasters, production companies and distributors, all of which can and do trigger millions of dollars of original production.

One issue we share with the US is that if you want a career in film and tv in Canada, and you live outside of Toronto or Vancouver, it’s possible but very difficult to stay where you are. If you decide not to move to either city, you do have to spend much of your time travelling to pitch and take meetings.

One major difference in Canada is that we have no studio system. Instead, we have a vibrant community of smaller independent producers and prodcos.

—

**Ryan in Vancouver:**
I am a thirty-four-year-old working screenwriter, living in Vancouver, Canada. I have a literary agent here, and have somehow cobbled together a living writing for Canadian broadcasters, and for TV movies. I wrote for a couple of tween sitcoms that were shot and created in Vancouver and later sold to Disney and Netflix. I’ve also picked up the odd independent feature writing gig.

That being said, I do still aim to head to LA (this is the year, I’m thinking), and I have started making more use of the screenwriting competition circuit (at least the bigger festivals, etc.). On that note, I actually just learned that a feature I wrote is a Semifinalist in the Austin Film Festival’s Best Dramatic Screenplay category. #NotSoHumbleBrag. I’m hoping it will help in my quest for a US agent. Time will tell.

—

These stories follow a pattern we discussed on the podcast. It’s more challenging to get your foot in the door when the door is thousands of miles away. But it’s not impossible.

Some writers have found competitions to be a good way of attracting the interest of managers. But we have yet to find one that got started based on a query letter, unless writers are eliding that detail.

While some working screenwriters are staying out of LA — often flying in regularly for meetings — quite a few pack up and move here. I call this the Nashville effect: moving to where the business is.

Thanks to all the writers (and producers) who wrote in to share their stories. We may feature more in the future.

There are no black beans in France

Follow Up, Geek Alert, International, Los Angeles

Before I moved here, I knew that some common American foods were rare in France. Plain Cheerios, for example, can only be found in specialty import stores where they sell for €12. Same with boxed macaroni and cheese.

I’d read that kale was only [recently re-introduced][kale] to France. While I love kale, I can live without it for a year. France has plenty of other delicious green vegetables.

But France doesn’t have black beans. And this is a problem.

I love black beans. I eat them almost every day, ((I’m the one person you know who still eats Tim Ferriss’s “slow carb” diet.)) as does my daughter. For years of her life, most of her calories came from black beans and rice, lovingly prepared by her Honduran nanny.

In Los Angeles, black beans are ubiquitous. Any given supermarket will offer six brands of canned beans in a variety of sodium levels. My favorite is from Whole Foods, where you get a discount when you buy a case of 24. That’s every month for us.

So our first week in Paris, we went looking for black beans.

The stereotype of France is that it’s a bunch of tiny little shops. A butcher here, a baker there. And while those definitely exist, there are also a ton of supermarkets. There are at least ten in easy walking distance of our apartment, each of them bigger than your average Trader Joe’s.

Inside you’ll find aisles of candy and cookies, including American brands like Oreos. Head over to the refrigerator case to marvel at more varieties of yogurt than anyone could ever sample. In one corner, you’ll find Chinese and Thai foods. Near the pasta and rice, you’ll find quinoa grown in Ethiopia.

But you won’t find black beans.

We looked in [expat forums][forums] and [food sites][chowhound] where we found others struggling to find black beans, and other foods from Latin America.

Ultimately, we were able to find dried black beans (haricots noir) at two stores: a [Peruvian market](http://saborcanela.com) in the 15th, and a chain of organic groceries called [Bio c’Bon][bio]. They cost about €4 per pound — considerably more than the U.S., but hardly a deal-breaker.

Dried black beans aren’t nearly as convenient as canned, but it’s not that much work to cook them. Just follow any recipe you find online or, if you want maximum flavor with minimum effort, invest in a pressure cooker.

Back in Los Angeles, we use an [Instant Pot IP-DUO50][cooker-us]. I was happy to find Amazon has a [220-volt version][cooker-euro] for Europe and the UK. They look like crock pots or rice cookers, but with lids that lock on tight. Pressure cookers seem intimidating, but trust me, they’re easy.

### And suddenly, it’s a food blog

Here’s my recipe for making a big batch of black beans in a pressure cooker:

1. **Dump one pound of dried beans out on a tray**, or a wide bowl. Pick through them, tossing out anything that doesn’t look like a perfect black bean. Sometimes tiny stones end up in the bag. I don’t know why, but it happens. So don’t skip this step. It takes two minutes. (You may find beans in 500 gram bags. That’s about a pound. It works out the same.)
2. **Rinse them** in a bowl or a colander. Can’t hurt. Plus it makes them look all glossy rather than dry and dusty.
3. Dump the beans in the cooker. Add **one small yellow onion**, cut in half. (Or half of a larger onion.) Add **2 tablespoons of olive oil** and **3/4ths of a teaspoon of salt**. This seems like too little salt, but really, it’s fine. Add **one dried bay leaf**. (They’re called “laurel” in French, which is awesome.) Then add **six cups of water**. That’s 1.5 liters.
4. Attach the lid and turn on the machine. **Set the timer for 37 minutes**. Let it start. The little valve in back should be set for “pressure” not “vent.”
5. Walk away. Return in about an hour for delicious black beans.

You don’t need to release the pressure valve. It will come back to normal by itself, at which point the lid will unlock. The beans inside will be hot and steamy, so keep your face away when you first open it.

With a spoon, retrieve and discard the onion and bay leaf. You’re done.

This recipe produces way too many black beans to eat at once. Fortunately, they freeze well. And they’re significantly tastier than even the best canned black beans.

### You American monster

I suspect that about ten paragraphs back, several readers rolled their eyes and asked, “Why don’t you just eat something else, something French?” or “Why live in a foreign country if you’re just going to make it like Los Angeles?”

These people have a point. I suspect they also don’t have kids.

Also, living abroad is about cultural immersion, not assimilation. If we insisted immigrants only eat the dominant foods of the U.S., we wouldn’t have Tex-Mex or pizza or Chinese take-out, all things we now take for granted.

Black beans are the food of my So-Cal culture. It’s great to have them back.

In my next installment, I’ll be teaching you how to make Cheerios from scratch. ((Step one: gather sawdust.))

[kale]: http://www.thekaleproject.com/the-kale-project/

[forums]: http://www.expatexchange.com/expat/index.cfm?frmid=211&tpcid=3321434

[chowhound]: http://www.chowhound.com/post/black-beans-france-490284

[bio]: http://www.bio-c-bon.eu/fr

[cooker-us]: http://amzn.to/2bTcPw2

[cooker-euro]: https://www.amazon.fr/Instant-Pot-Autocuiseur-programmable-technologie/dp/B00OP26T4K/

Adam Davis, year 10

Education, Film Industry, Follow Up, Los Angeles

adam davisI first met Adam Davis in 2006, back when he was finishing up at Drake University, my alma mater. He loved movies, and was wondering whether he should bite the bullet and move to Los Angeles. I said yes, definitely — but he should prepare to work his ass off when he got here.

Adam took my advice to heart, and got to work. Along the way, he wrote up recaps of his [first year in Hollywood](http://johnaugust.com/2007/starting-out-in-hollywood), his [second year](http://johnaugust.com/2009/adam-davis-year-two), and his [fifth year](http://johnaugust.com/2012/adam-davis-year-five).

Unbelievably, it’s now his tenth year in Los Angeles, so I asked him to recap what he’s accomplished, what he’s learned, and what he would have done differently.

—

Exactly 10 years ago I arrived in Los Angeles for a summer internship at Marvel Studios and quickly realized this town and industry was for me. I was turning twenty-two and was driven by the surefire fact that I was going to make my debut feature film and have my manager or agent by twenty-three, just like Robert Rodriguez. Because I was one of those young genius savants, not one of those poor shlubs that actually had to work years at honing their craft, right?

Let’s just say twenty-three was a mighty depressing birthday. Ah, but twenty-seven, that’s when I would strike it big like my other idol, Quentin Tarantino! As you might guess, birthday number twenty-eight was even more depressing. Nothing big was happening. Nothing I could tell people about. But what I was doing in all those years was the work. I was writing, trying to get better with each script. I was directing one short a year, when I could afford it. I wasn’t out doing drinks, I wasn’t networking like crazy, I was just doing the work. Because I needed to get better.

I got sidetracked of course, captivated by those stories of a self-published novel that was becoming a movie. A bidding war over an indie comic. The funding contests. The screenplay competitions. Maybe, just maybe, if I tried another door, I’d finally win the prize. So I adapted one of my features into a novel and self-published it to a whopping five mediocre reviews and zero dollars. I adapted script ideas into comic pitches and submitted to rejection. I submitted projects to funding contests that set you back a couple hundred bucks. Rejection. I submitted to the Blacklist. More rejection. I tried making videos for YouTube. No one cared. Was it me? Was it everyone else? Was there just too much competition and content? I felt like I was trying everything and failing, but the one thing I always came back to was the work.

No one was going to hand success to me, that much I had learned. But people could help or provide advice if I asked. So I took a chance and reached out to a successful writer that I had a few pleasant interactions with and asked him to lunch. I just wanted to know what his path was. The conversation was informative and fun and out of that came a request to read a script my writing partner and I had written. Turns out a stuntwoman he knew, Heidi Moneymaker, was looking to have an action script written for her to star in. He liked our script enough to pass it along, Heidi read it, liked it, we had a great lunch and walked away with a pro bono writing gig and a production company tentatively attached to produce. That project stalled and eventually died, but we had another solid script under our belts and a new relationship. We still wanted to do something with Heidi, so we came up with an action/horror short film idea called NO TOUCHING starring her and her friend, Zoë Bell. We pitched them our idea over sushi and they agreed to star in it and produce with us.

To fund it, we ran a Kickstarter campaign and miraculously raised the $30,000 we needed in 15 days. Family and friends really stepped up to help us reach our goal, but things were rocky the night before the campaign ended the next day. We were down $2,500. Everyone we knew had pledged, so it was up to fate. I went to bed not knowing what we’d do if we failed. That would be the end of it. All that hard work and nothing to show for it. My mind raced. Could I pledge the rest myself? Put it on a credit card? I had no answers so I went to sleep, preparing myself to jump into action in the morning. And then something amazing happened in the middle of the night. Unbeknownst to us, a Xena: The Warrior Princess fan page on Facebook had found the campaign and posted about it, since Zoë was the Xena stunt double. And by this random occurrence, one fan graciously put us over the edge. In the morning I woke up to numerous texts and voicemails saying that we had done it. It still remains one of the most surreal events that’s ever happened to me. I’ve never considered myself lucky, but this seemed like a textbook example of it that I’m forever grateful for.

So we were well on our way to shoot it in fall of 2014 when Tarantino’s Hateful Eight intervened. Zoë got whisked away earlier than expected to begin training and we had to make the hard decision to push a full year due to her and Heidi’s schedules. I was devastated. One year! This was supposed to be the project that got my foot in the door and I had to postpone for one year! What was I going to do with one year? 2014 was ending. In a half year I would turn thirty-one. I had set milestones for myself, all of which I had failed to meet. Thirty-one was approaching 10 years of true, constant effort. Thirty-one was my breaking point.

So I had a tough conversation with myself. I had to wait a year. There was nothing I could do about that. So what could I do? I had not accomplished my goal of directing a feature film by the time I was thirty so I promised myself that I would finally do it before I turned thirty-one in July. That gave me 6 months to write and direct it. Which I had no idea how I was going to pull off, but I knew I had to. There was no other choice.

In January I began writing the script for an idea I had, a single location drama called CONFERENCE CALL and wrote a first draft by the end of February. As I rewrote I began the pre-production process, looking for crew, reaching out to actors, asking people for help and things started falling into place. The project was a quickly moving train and anyone wanting to be a part of it had to be willing to jump on and run with it. And the best people did. There were temptations, offers from actors of connecting me to this or that producer who might be able to get funding if I cast them, but I stuck to my guns. I couldn’t wait for anyone. I was self-financing it which meant we only had the budget to shoot it in 4 days and we had to make that happen.

directingAs I kept up with the momentum and ran headfirst into production, I was able to lock down the perfect cast, the right crew and an amazing location. I didn’t, couldn’t, stop and things somehow kept falling into place. The cast and I rehearsed the script like a play for 2 weeks because we had to shoot quickly, only allowing them a few takes per scene. And the script was ninety-five percent dialogue, being a group of people stuck in a room together. But the cast was up to it and they performed better than I could have ever imagined. At the end of June, after 4 grueling days spread out over 2 weekends, we had everything in the can. Apologies in advance for getting way too honest here, but on the last day of shooting I came home and all I could do was sit in my car and cry for a solid 5 minutes. They were happy tears, grateful tears, because somehow I had done it. I had finally accomplished my biggest goal.

By December, the film was finished and submitted to festivals. CONFERENCE CALL premiered at the Pasadena International Film Festival in March of this year and was nominated for Best Feature. The festival run since then has been pretty limited, as a micro budget movie about the film industry with no stars in it is a tough sell, but I know there’s an audience out there for it. It may take me a while to find the best way to reach them, but I’ll keep trying. And if nothing comes out of it, it will still have served its purpose. I learned more than I’ve ever learned through that process, I worked with some amazing actors that I’ll be casting for years to come, and I now had an answer to that question I knew I would be asked when trying to get a directing gig, “Well, have you ever directed a feature?” Yep. I have.

In the fall of 2015 we finally shot NO TOUCHING. Through Zoë and Heidi’s connections, we were able to add Jake Busey, Tracie Thoms, Kevin Daniels and Doug Jones to the cast. Shooting action and horror on this scale was another great learning experience and because of the feature I had the confidence to work with a much larger cast and crew.

It’s interesting to have two very different movies going through the film festival circuit at the same time. NO TOUCHING has gotten into more festivals than CONFERENCE CALL because it’s a short, which means higher acceptance rates, a genre for a wider audience, and has notable faces in the cast. It’s played a couple fests so far this year and coming up we’re playing in the San Diego Comic Con Film Fest as well as Fantasia and some others we can’t announce just yet.

For NO TOUCHING, running the festival circuit is all about getting the word out about the film before we eventually release it wide online and meeting people and making connections. And it was about trying to attract a manager or agent. Until it suddenly wasn’t.

It didn’t happen because of our social media efforts. It wasn’t because an agent saw it at a festival. It came down to something very old-fashioned. A friend who saw the short and believed in it enough sent it along to an agent he knows. She liked the short and one of our other scripts and set a meeting with us. And at the end of a great meeting she did the unthinkable and said she wanted to sign us in the room. We said yes. Much jumping and high-fiving happened in the elevator down to the parking garage.

My path was never going to be through a novelization, a graphic novel, a tweet or a competition, although that works for others. As much as I fought it, it was always going to be the old-fashioned way, through someone’s belief in the work and kindness in passing it along.

So after 10 years, I’m finally getting that beginning I’ve always wanted. Soon will come the general meetings, the water bottle tour. But I’m ready for it now. I know that I would have crashed and burned had I been given this opportunity back at twenty-two, when I thought I was ready. Honestly, I sucked back then. I had a lot of heart, but I sucked. All I know for certain is that I suck a little less now.

Campaign statements and residual statements

Episode - 217

Go to Archive

Film Industry, Follow Up, International, Los Angeles, News, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, WGA

John and Craig discuss the WGA election results, and take a look at the issues that dominated the campaigns. What is a paper team? Do screenwriters really retire? And why does it take us so long to get paid?

We also dive into the mailbag and take questions on visiting Los Angeles, backend and residuals, and what an unrepped writer should do if there is interest in her project.

T-shirts are being folded and packaged this week, and should be in the mail by the time next episode airs. Keep a lookout in your mailbox, and be sure to pack them for Austin.

Links:

* [WGAw 2015 election results](http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=5938)
* John and Craig [on The Black List Table Reads podcast with Franklin Leonard](http://blacklist.wolfpop.com/audio/39626/john-august-and-craig-mazin)
* Melissa Mazin will be at the [Austin Film Festival 2015 Screenwriting Conference](https://austinfilmfestival.com/festivalandconference/conference/)
* [Reaper Miniatures](https://www.reapermini.com/), and [Miniature Painting 101](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB0292071C3B38CAC) on YouTube
* [All the ‘Happy Birthday’ song copyright claims are invalid, federal judge rules](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-song-lawsuit-decision-20150922-story.html) from the LA Times
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) sent in by Luke Yoquinto ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))

You can download the episode here: [AAC](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_217.m4a) | [mp3](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_217.mp3).

**UPDATE 10-2-15:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2015/scriptnotes-ep-217-campaign-statements-and-residual-statements-transcript).