Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... (23 page)

The awful truth? Hollywood cares very little about critics, because critics have very little to say about whether or not a movie is a hit. And here's another terrible secret: Critics are often wrong. A short list of movies bashed by critics include:

It's a Wonderful Life

Bonnie and Clyde

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
(1971)

Blade Runner

Point is: You will have a movie made one day. And given the nature of current critical etiquette — especially for any movie considered simply “entertaining” or “genre” or “just for fun” — you too will be scorched by critics. Most recently, the movie
Four Christmases
faced this dilemma. This was cited in the first
Cat!
book as a great example of a concept that worked; it went on to attract top talent including Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, and Sissy Spacek; opened #1, sustained #1 status for three weeks, and grossed over $120,000,000 in the U.S. alone.

It got a 22% favorable rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Lighting their cigars at Warner Brothers, the executives who greenlit this movie are literally laughing all the way to the bank, and
Four Christmases
will be a holiday perennial that will do just as well or better in its DVD release. Rotten
who
?

Strike Back U. teaches us to have a thick skin. If you are so lucky to join the exclusive club of writers who've had a movie made (an odds-defying feat in itself), you will soon realize how everyone who isn't in… wishes they were. You entertain millions of people, and uplift and enlighten with your work. Don't let any critic kill your spirit. Don't empower ignorance and jealousy.

No criticism can stop you from achieving your goals…
and no critic knows the whole story.

There is no “I” in team, and writing partnerships prove it.

The pros and cons of being a pair — or trio — are spelled out in this elective detailing one of the most rewarding relationships in the film business.

On the plus side, a partner — or partners — takes half or more of the workload off your shoulders. He or she is right there with you in meetings, someone to complain to when business is bad, and your best bud to celebrate with when the going is good.

On the downside, you are partners, which means you split all monies and residual payments (the difference between “and” and “&” on any writing credit can mean millions of dollars). And if you disagree, or if you suddenly can't stand to look at this person, you're stuck.

Rules for finding and maintaining partnerships include:

► Aim high. Find someone who is a better writer than you are, or has skills you don't have. If you're a whiz at structure, work with the person who's great with character or dialogue.

► Have similar goals. It's a terrible surprise to learn your partner harbors a secret urge to direct and has been using this relationship to further that desire, so find out early.

► No quibbling. Lame is the partnership where progress is stalled because one of you stands on a line, nuance, character, or scene. Discuss, yes. Argue, sure. Shout, of course. But settle it. And move on.

In the day-to-day operation of your partnership it's good to have office hours, set times where you go to work, have lunch, and agree to stop. The best partnerships aren't personal; rare is the team that also socializes after hours. We are friendly, not familiar.

And when it comes to techniques for actually writing:

► Over the shoulder. Literally you work in the same room, taking turns as each of you takes a whack at the scene, writing over the other, one after the next, reading aloud till satisfied.

► Draft swap. You take the first pass, write it all the way into rough draft, and hand it off to your partner. He takes the next whack at it, until you are ready to polish together.

► Long Distance. Technology allows partners to write together and not be in the same room. There is even software (Zhura) that facilitates you both being able to see the page as you take turns writing, while you talk (or don't) via the usual means.

The best meeting etiquette is to remember there
is
no “I” in team. The most successful partnerships think “we” not “I,” and the best ones soon forget who wrote what — and really don't care. You must respect your partner, and vice versa. And like any good relationship, you will get sick of each other at times — but mostly you both enjoy the process.

Breaking up is hard to do. And one of the downsides of partnership is
not
knowing who did what. Now each of you has an agent, and a stack of scripts with both your names on them, that neither writer can fairly use as samples of his work. Some great partnerships that went south include the husband and wife team of Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, with each going on to individual success, but with the community wondering, really, who was doing what all along? And some of the greatest partnerships, such as Billy Wilder — who worked with I.A.L. Diamond, Raymond Chandler, and Charles Brackett — were about a director working with a writer to create something for him to direct and produce. The Coen brothers and the Wachowskis each work this way.

Unique variations on the writing partnership have been attempted by super talents such as Ron Bass (
Rain Man, My Best Friend's Wedding
), who hires a team of writers and has them under contract in a kind of atelier. It's much like a Renaissance painter who might run a studio that bears his brand but to which multiple apprentices contribute.

There is always a new way to work together. At Strike Back U. we encourage all such collaborations. Not only is there safety in numbers, but a solid partnership can turn out great work fast, and with the least amount of writer whining.

The best teams are 1 + 1 = 3. You are better together than you are apart. Each owes everything to his or her better half, who sat with you while you went through your divorce, put up with your annoying o.c.d. habit of always making sure the page breaks look nice, and let you down easy when the joke you try dies a miserable death. There's nothing better than true partnership, and the best ones pay tribute to this unique bond. Yes it's true:

There's no “I” in team…
… but in a
good
team there is plenty of I. O. U.

As stated earlier, agents tell writers they will spend the first half of your career putting you into a box and the second half getting you out of it. Hence this elective, for what happens when the box the agent put you in is a coffin… and the agent is hammering the nails?

If you are uncertain if your agent's time on Planet You is growing short, try taking this simple, if teasing, pop quiz:

1. When my agent calls and tells me I have a meeting with “one of the Wilsons,” I assume he means…

a. Owen

b. Luke

c. Mr.

2. The last time my agent called, it was to inform me…

a. I had just sold a big project to the studio

b. I had just received an offer from a top producer c. I owed the agency money for postage

3. My agent represents me because of…

a. My years of experience

b. My multi-faceted talent

c. My incriminating photos from the Disney retreat

If you answered (c.) to any of the above, it may be time to switch agents. Your rep has lost interest, or doesn't know how to sell you. It's painful but true: It's time to commit
tenpercenticide
.

But how do you handle the time honored “agent switch” — and still keep your integrity intact?

We hate sneakiness at Strike Back U. Our motto, translated from the Latin, is “ethics, ethics, ethics” because we know that when the points are totaled, it is better to have played the game honorably.

And yet…

If you really have decided to switch agents, you have to play this horrible game… without telling your agent you're doing it. Like looking for a job while remaining at the one you're in, you become less attractive if you have no home.

So you must keep your foot on base till you're ready to go.

Odds are if you are on the market for new representation, part of the problem is your lack of heat. You have to do something that will raise your temperature without your agent, so that you can bring yourself and your new ideas to someone else.

This means letting it be known you are “
in play
.” And this is where having a lawyer or a manager who is also aware of these problems can really help. Maybe you're just overly sensitive? Maybe you just have task avoidance about the latest assignment your agent got you that you're stuck on? It's usually best to get someone else's opinion about your situation because you are not always the
best judge. And if you think stirring things up will generate new heat, the word quietly gets out.

“In play” means that if anyone out there is interested in representing you, they may now consider it fair game to take you to lunch to talk about your career — not that this hasn't stopped them from doing so before. Only you had kyboshed that before. We hope.

Nothing is worse than an agent flirt.

If you are serious about switching agents, great. But don't schedule a meeting with one and be coy about it. If you want new representation, fine; if you just want lunch, buy it yourself.

And get ready for action. The pitch from possible new agents will be overwhelming.

All kinds of new techniques for representation will be laid at your feet, for example (drum roll), the agent “team”! Someone to represent you in TV, in new media,
and
with corporate America (meaning you can write commercials on the side). Mostly what the new agency will be stressing, without being petty, is how your current agent does not appreciate you, and how they do, and will serve you better.

Will they?

What you are looking for is not the dazzling wheels and gears of the new agency, but the who. Are you sensing that the new guy or gal across from your Chinese Chicken Salad gets you? Is there a burning desire in your heart that is not being met, a lack of attention to, or staleness in your current relationship that will be revitalized or enhanced with this new person?

It's a gut reaction.

Return to your earlier course work in HEAT AND YOU: AN OVERVIEW. Review your one-, five-, and ten-year plans and see how they are being met by your current agent. But remember, the new agent really, bottom line, doesn't have any more contacts or insights than your last agent, only different ones. And remember too, as far along as you are in your career, nothing's changed:

Whaddya got for me?

The Big Picture
: “Get me Beach Nuts!” One of the best cautionary tales about Hollywood ever,
The Big Picture
captures lunch with an agent (Martin Short as Neil Sussman) that still rings true.

Maybe before any of this dance with a new agent begins, you should come up with something like a new spec screenplay, a virgin no one's seen that you'd be willing to show a new agent if she says the right things. But be careful, too. Agency
coverage
is forever. When you hand a script to any agent, you must assume it will be turned over to agency readers, reviewed, and catalogued for better or worse, and even be made available to studios. Ideas we can share forever, but actual scripts — especially virgin specs — are gold, and their value decreases the moment you hand one off to anyone.

You also want to know: Who are your contacts? Who can you get me to that my current agent can't? Only you can say how important this is, based on your present and future goals.

At the end of the day, you can call up your new suitor, or let it be known through the person who set up the meeting, that it's either a go or not. Strike Back U. recommends that you always be open to finding those people who can help sell you best. But switching
agents is like plastic surgery: Don't get addicted. An agent face lift will only help revitalize you so much, but if you start switching as a matter of course, your lips shot up with Botox and your eyes lifted with every new makeover, you can look like what you've become: used goods. Avoid this. Switching agents, like getting an agent, only takes you so far. The real work is the writing skill you must forever be improving.