{"product_id":"breakfast-with-sharks-isbn-9780609810439","title":"Breakfast with Sharks","description":"What They Didn’t Teach You in Your Screenwriting Course\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eScreenwriters, listen up! \u003cb\u003eBreakfast with Sharks \u003c\/b\u003eis not a book about the craft of screenwriting. This is a book about the business of managing your screenwriting career, from advice on choosing an agent to tips on juggling three deal-making breakfasts a day. Prescriptive and useful, \u003cb\u003eBreakfast with Sharks\u003c\/b\u003e is a real guide to navigating the murky waters of the Hollywood system.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnlike most of the screenwriting books available, here’s one that tells you what to do after you’ve finished your surefire-hit screenplay. Written from the perspective of Michael Lent, an in-the-trenches working screenwriter in Hollywood, this is a real-world look into the script-to-screen business as it is practiced today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBreakfast with Sharks\u003c\/b\u003e is filled with useful advice on everything from the ins and outs of moving to Los Angeles to understanding terms like “spec,” “option,” and “assignment.” Here you’ll learn what to expect from agents and managers and who does what in the studio hierarchy. And most important, \u003cb\u003eBreakfast with Sharks\u003c\/b\u003e will help you nail your pitch so the studio exec can’t say no.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRounded out with a Q\u0026amp;A section and resource lists of script competitions, film festivals, trade associations, industry publications, and more, \u003cb\u003eBreakfast with Sharks\u003c\/b\u003e is chock-full of “take this and use it right now” information for screenwriters at any stage of their careers.As a screenwriter, MICHAEL LENT has sold, optioned, or been assigned to nine feature film projects. Since 1998, he has been a featured columnist for Creative Screenwriting Magazine. His work also appears in the French film periodical Tournages, as well as in Screenstyle. Michael is a frequent judge in script competitions. He lives in Los Angeles.Section 101: Introduction to Tinseltown\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eOverview of Hollywood\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere's an old joke about the studio exec who has read a script and  someone asks what he thought of it, and he says, \"I don't know. I  haven't talked to anyone yet.\" The jest works on two levels:  Hollywood is a startlingly tiny community, and in L.A. everyone plays  the \"six degrees of separation\" game to figure out how you already  know each other, as in \"You just sold Matt at Sony? Ohmigod, I  pitched him on Ninja Clown Posse six months ago. We gotta have  lunch.\" As for the second part of the joke, ideas may be king in  Hollywood, but this place is not about reinventing the wheel. \"Uniquely familiar,\" a phrase coined by veteran producer Joel Silver  (The Matrix, Lethal Weapon), is the stock and trade of Hollywood. In  other words, you should think outside the box, but don't try to bring  your own box to L.A., because over the past hundred years or so,  Hollywood has developed a way to do business and make movies that it is quite comfortable with, thank you very much. The system works in  an imperfect way, but it does work. So there's little use in trying  to force the town to do things your way. The logic behind the  Hollywood development process for a motion picture goes something  like this: no matter where you are making movies in the world, if you  are producing a product for a mass audience, the various funnels  through which your story (the entertainment you are creating) must pass will narrow in order to appeal to the most people waiting on the  other side. Typically, mass audiences reduce characters to white hat\/good guy and black hat\/bad guy. Consequently they like the  familiarity and comfort of a twice-told tale. As we shall see, the  trick for the successful Hollywood writer is to create a script that is intensely personal, yet still manages to resonate with a mass audience by virtue of its universal themes. A quick scan of the  American Film Institute's list of \"America's 100 Greatest Movies\"  shows a number of masterpieces that have accomplished this difficult feat. These are films like Casablanca, The Graduate, On the  Waterfront, Schindler's List, All About Eve, Raging Bull, Midnight  Cowboy, Rebel Without a Cause, Rocky, Platoon, Easy Rider, The  Apartment, Goodfellas, and Pulp Fiction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile most of us are uncomfortable judging, say, Japanese calligraphy or a Wagnerian opera based on our limited exposure to those art forms, we are all experts on Hollywood simply by virtue of having  seen hundreds or thousands of movies in our lifetimes. Few moviegoers  have qualms comparing and contrasting The English Patient with, say, Scary Movie. But from inside Hollywood, what you see is an imperfect system that contains vast armies of smart, usually young people in  their twenties and thirties, working tremendously hard to make mainly mediocre movies. Why? Because moviemaking looks deceptively easy, but is, in fact, very, very hard. It's a highly collaborative endeavor with dozens and often hundreds of people involved. Perfecting your craft to work in tandem with other craftsmen can and does take many years. That's why even great fiction writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald  and Dorothy Parker were never better than mediocre screenwriters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhat Does Hollywood Want?\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think film schools serve as a good training ground, but there isn't really a replacement for doing it.\"\u003cbr\u003e—Brian Glazer, Producer, Imagine Entertainment\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e This book isn't about teaching you how to write. There are lots of  other sources to help you with that part of the process. I will  state, however, that the fastest, most time-honored way to learn  structure and form is to take a favorite movie and, as you view it, type it out into a script. But if you're reading this book, I assume you have already achieved the laudable goal of completing a  screenplay. Congratulations on having written a movie on paper! Now you're ready to ask the next logical question: \"What do I do with this thing that I've written?\" How will you realize your dreams of  making a living as a writer in Hollywood with a chance to see your work on movie screens all over the world? That's what this book is  about.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the first realizations that arrivals to the movie capital of Planet Earth make is that despite having the world's biggest stage,  Hollywood is an amazingly insular place. Catch-22s abound, such as  that \"no one important will read your work unless you have an agent, and you can't get an agent to read your work unless you are referred  to them by somebody important who has already read your work.\" So, as  soon as you get here, intent on befriending anyone with access who  will read your script, you discover that everybody seems to be a  producer or working on a hot deal. You feel as if you're chasing your  tail as you deal with some of these people, because, although they  promise the moon, from them you see very little in terms of money or the all-important access to the real players of the town. It's so  hard to find out who is really who. Believe me, you will get  frustrated as you try to cut through the miasma--\"What's the deal  with this !%*$ town? What is really going on?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI know exactly how you feel because I've been there, and I want to  tell you right now that if you learn from your hard-knocks  experiences and persevere, these early days in Hollywood will become  war stories that you can share and laugh about later. As mentioned in  the introduction, during my first ten years in the film business, I  have co-produced one movie, sold outright one screenplay, taken on  four production company and studio assignments, and optioned or  \"rented\" my work to producers five times. What follows is my very  first war story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"What Just Happened?\"\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI arrived in September and, several weeks later, landed my first pitch meeting at a production company based at Warner Brothers. The  company had made two successful films in the past two years, one of  which is still considered a minor classic. Initially I had used my film school alumni contacts and then the big-budget script I had just completed as a sample to get a meeting with the senior vice-president of the company. The VP told me right away that although they really  liked (\"loved!\" is the way the exec put it) the script I'd written,  the project was well out of their budget range. However, they had  German funding for a science-fiction project in the $2.5-$3-million range for which they believed I might be perfect. So I was asked to come back in a week with three ideas based on the one-sentence  \"concept\" for a story they had given me. To be honest, I have  forgotten what the concept was, but I think it involved a single  location in a futuristic, postapocalyptic society--people hiding in a  warehouse with a killer android\/alien\/mutant on the loose. Something  like that. Later I was to learn that a week is actually quite a lot  of time by Hollywood standards, but back then it seemed incredibly cruel and short. Working frantically for five days and nights  straight, I turned in my best three stories on time, then went home to bed and waited. And waited. One week and then two excruciating weeks of silence followed. And then, finally, the call came. It was early November. I suppressed tears of joy as the VP told me over  lunch that they wanted to go forward with one of my story ideas. In  fact, the contracts would be submitted to the production company's  business affairs department that very day; and I should anticipate a  \"deal by Christmas\" that would pay me a total of $30,000 up front, in  addition to an opportunity to earn a production bonus if my script was made into a movie. The VP smiled and said he intended to fast-track this project. We would get started as soon as the contracts were signed, most likely right after the New Year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Nope. It will never happen,\" said the jaded veteran director who  lived in my building. I had already lined up a young, aggressive  entertainment lawyer to handle things from my side, and all was right  with the world. A few days later my fiance and I were on our way out  to celebrate our good fortune when I ran into this director in the parking garage. \"I know the chief accountant for the company. They're  dead broke over there.\" \"That isn't what I've been told,\" I said  haughtily, while wondering to myself what this guy's problem was.  \"We're fine, so you're fine,\" was the gist of the phone conversation  I had with the VP the next morning. I hung up feeling silly, but in the back of my mind I wondered if I had detected just a whiff of something in the executive's power pep talk. Sure enough, the VP  began to avoid calls from the lawyer and me in the ensuing weeks,  before phoning me one morning in early December to say that no  projects were going forward at this time. In fact, he was leaving the company, but he hoped we could find something to work on together where he was going. That was it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePostscript: My deal never got off the tarmac, and the production company closed shop soon after, but the exec and I did indeed find  another project to work on. Through this I learned the valuable  lesson of never celebrating before he check clears, as well as to be a little more low-key (and a little less public) about any \"success\" I might have. I used to run into that director long after moving out  of the building. \"Hey, Mr. Deal by Christmas!\" he would shout at me  from across a crowded restaurant, guffawing and mock-toasting me with  his water glass. (Avoiding his level of cynicism was another important lesson.) Later I discovered that the scenario of a production company promising more than it can deliver is well known to nearly all veteran screenwriters. But such a situation is hard to  imagine until you've gone through it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEffort, Access, Timing\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe old saw that you must \"know somebody\" in Hollywood to succeed isn't completely untrue. Having a famous relative does help, at least  initially. Sooner or later you'll be judged on your own merits.  \"Talent always wins out\" my old film professor used to say. Success  in Hollywood can be boiled down to a trilogy of components: Effort, Access, and Timing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEffort is the diligence you exercise by writing every day, as well as  by pursuing all the various career opportunities that may come your way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAccess comes from continually educating yourself about the process, then finding the right decision-makers who may be interested in your writing, and immersing yourself in their world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTiming is about having the talent and skills to seize opportunities  when they are presented. If you can combine timing with effort and  access, you and your work can be in the right place in the right time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere's a story of how I used and then failed to use these components. In my first year as a Hollywood writer, I worked long into the night to finish a new script (my second \"Mr. Professional\" project). This script incorporated everything I was learning about the craft, post-film school. That diligence paid off when I attended an industry screening of a new movie, and met an ambitious young assistant to a well-known director whose work I had long admired and felt very passionately about. That introduction or \"access\" led to drinks with the assistant whereby I pitched my new project. Not only did he like the pitch, but he agreed to read the script and liked that, too.  Another hurdle was overcome a couple weeks later when the assistant called breathlessly one Friday morning to say, \"I just pitched your project to my boss, and he's interested. Get me a two- or three-page  synopsis tomorrow so we can make his weekend reading.\" Talk about great timing! But I had never done a truly professional synopsis of a script, and I didn't have one ready with this particular project. So I struggled mightily over the next seventy-two hours to boil my movie  first down to twelve, then six pages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEarly Monday morning I faxed a four-and-a-half page synopsis--two  pages too long and two and a half days too late, as it turned out.  When I called the assistant, he simply said, \"Michael, you're not  ready for this,\" and hung up. He was slow to return my subsequent  calls, and then stopped all together. Clearly my efforts, while  noble, were undercut by my inexperience. Thus I had failed to fully  take advantage of an opportunity when it was presented. Of course,  it's quite possible that the director would have passed on the script  based on my synopsis, but at least I would have been one more step  further in the process. In the end, I at least took comfort in the  fact that responsibility for this failure clearly rested on my own  shoulders. That meant it was a lesson to heed and something that I  could address. I spent the next two weeks writing formal synopses for  all my preexisting work.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMake no mistake--it takes a certain kind of person to follow his or  her dreams here in sunny California. Aside from cloudless skies and chronically pleasant weather--the thrill of pumping gas into your  Ford Festiva while standing within ring-toss distance of Al Pacino, who does not drive a Festiva--Hollywood is a very tough place to make an easy living. The cost of living rivals New York and San Francisco.  Many people have more than one job. Meanwhile, the craft of  filmmaking is difficult to perfect--the results can be very unforgiving. And if the craft is unforgiving, the industry is even more brutal.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMy First Hollywood Lessons\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1. Attend screenings and premieres where I might meet industry contacts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2. Know the market and make sure I'm offering a suitable project to  my potential buyer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3. Follow instructions and recognize the importance of making my deadlines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4. Recognize my mistakes and take the time to correct them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePassion vs. Pa$$ion\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome writing that we writers do for the market may be less than  satisfying creatively. However, no writer should feel compromised  artistically just because he or she must pay bills or dues. Conversely, some writers can develop pa$$ion for a paycheck by  writing exclusively what they think studios want to buy at the  expense of fully realizing their craft with themes that resonate or  ambitious characters that are fully fleshed out. While Hollywood  screenwriting can be very lucrative financially, solely running to  the whistle of money will guarantee neither career longevity nor  satisfaction. That's where passion comes in. Passion (not pa$$ion) is  still caring about the end result even after you've completed draft  after draft of a project. Passion means that you're willing to \"go  back in\" one more time to get it right. When financial concerns  dictate what most studios and movie producers are willing to make,  the most direct impact is on the filmmaker. First, we creatives  delight in spinning words into images. Telling visual stories is our  particular passion. And passion is what agents, producers, and  executives alike seek out. It is a powerful ally in choosing the kind  of projects you want to do and the kind of career you want to have.  Passion is the manna of inspiration from heaven--a currency passed  from writer to producer to executive, then director and actor, down  the line from key grip and best boy to editor, on to the promotions  department and, ultimately, to the viewing audience. And therein lies the rub.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44865990426853,"sku":"NP9780609810439","price":21.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780609810439.jpg?v=1767723040","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/breakfast-with-sharks-isbn-9780609810439","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}