Indiewood

From NYU to Working Screenwriter: How to Be The Engine of Your Own Career

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 7 • Episode 1

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Julia Batavia, a screenwriter, novelist, and self-proclaimed one-time director invites us into her creative universe where she shares her experience from her first ever draft to getting repped and hired to write on her first assignment.

A testament to the power of passion and perseverance, we’ll hear about Julia’s humble beginnings as an editorial assistant at Penguin Random House to crafting her own path in the film industry. Julia also shares the ups and downs of navigating a career driven by self-motivation and determination, offering aspiring writers a possible roadmap to success in a competitive landscape.

Join us for our first ever writing only series, where we tackle the intricacies of the entertainment industry from the perspective of a writer.

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A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers

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In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.

Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.

Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.

"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the IndieWood podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers wear in order to get those films made. We are here with a very special guest, because we're going to do something we haven't done before and it's going to be a completely writing-focused series. And my guest this week is a writer, a screenwriter, a novelist, a podcast writer, a short film writer. I think you've done every kind of creative writing, except for journalism maybe, but I don't think journalism is creative writing.

Speaker 2:

Depending on which news outlet you speak to.

Speaker 1:

That's true. That's very true. Welcome to the podcast, julia Batavia. Thank you so much for having me. You're welcome. It's been a long time coming. This podcast has been on for seven series seasons with seven guests, and you're number seven.

Speaker 2:

I love the number seven. It's biblical, isn't it? It's just good luck. That's how I feel it's a good number.

Speaker 1:

It's a good number. It's a good number. Well, you're a good guest. To have so good number for a good guest, I appreciate it. Yeah, well, you're a writer.

Speaker 1:

We met in at UCLA in grad school and we both focus on film and I've always been inspired by your story because it's been a journey. Your career has been a journey that has been completely self-propelled. You've done a lot of things to move the needle forward for yourself and you went from writing a script on your own to getting your own rep through connections you've developed on your own to getting projects set up on your own to getting your own rep through connections. You've developed on your own to getting projects set up on your own. Like, you really pushed your stuff, your craft, your career, your representation yourself, and I think that's very inspiring and I want to explore, explore that a little bit. So, um, let's talk about peter o'toole, okay, because you told me off mic when we were prepping this, this, this episode and and the rest, that that was kind of the, the beginning of it all yeah, very niche peter o'toole.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, tell me about who is peter o'toole?

Speaker 2:

well, those who don't know, so, for context, I this was like 2011 and I was trying to. I I mean, now he's like a persona non grata I was trying to watch every Woody Allen film before we knew everything that was going to happen, but the last movie I hadn't seen was what's New Pussycat, which Peter O'Toole is in.

Speaker 3:

And of course.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I went to film school, I know who he is Lawrence of Arabia, all of that but I was just sort of like blindsided by how funny he was. And it's one of those sort of like lightning strikes you just get inspired by something or someone and you want to know more. So I started watching all his films and then finding whatever books I could about him. You know, eight time nominated, never won an Oscar really yeah, you'd think I think he's the most nominated without a win.

Speaker 2:

um, you know, career alcoholic, like all those things. Anyway, I found a book that his ex-wife had written about their relationship, and that's when it clicked, where I was like, oh, this is the story. It's the woman behind the man, it's the behind the scenes of this relationship, and at the time I was working at Penguin Random House.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 2:

I was an editorial assistant so I was helping other writers sort of realize their visions, and that was already going stale after like two years. But because I worked at Penguin I kind of understood how to get in touch with literary agents and I also knew that IP was important. And maybe that was a self-confidence thing, because I felt at the time I was 25, I didn't feel like maybe I was enough, but if I had a book that I could base a screenplay on, that would be something that no one could refute Because it was already like a finished product. So I reached out to the literary agent who, miraculously, no, he didn't get back to me at first, because your Hurricane Sandy happened, oh no. And so I thought, maybe, thought, maybe, okay, give it a month, let me try again, because no answer doesn't mean no.

Speaker 1:

Which if someone told me once uh, you know it's true because now, having being on the receiving end of a lot of emails, it's not that I don't, it's not that I, it's not that it's a no for me. When I get an email, I just don't have time, so I put a pin in it. I'm like I'll get back to it, and then I'll get a follow-up and be like, oh my god, that email and at 25 I never.

Speaker 2:

You don't really think that way. You're sort of like how could they not respond? But now you're older and you're like oh right, because there's a lot of other life happening other emails yeah, so I tried him a month later and he actually responded and he said oh, her name was sean phillips.

Speaker 2:

sean's gonna be in town, let's go get coffee and you can meet her. So then, like a month later, I'm pitching to sean about her book and how I want to adapt her life into a screenplay, and I think they thought, oh, like, what's the let's?

Speaker 1:

hear her out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like what's the harm.

Speaker 1:

At this point. You're an editorial assistant for Penguin and you're just writing screenplays on your own. You're no rep, no, nothing.

Speaker 2:

This is pre-grad school this is pre-grad school, post NYU film. So I had had a film background. But right after NYU I went to MTV. Because what do all film graduates do who don't know what they want to do? Go to production. So I was a PA and then an AP at MTV at the reality shows, and that was sort of soul-sucking. Hence the left-hand turn to publishing and then realizing I'd rather be the one creating than editing.

Speaker 2:

So I kind of like got myself, let go of that job, when my boss, who knew how to fire millennials, was like this isn't your bliss, julia, I think you got to go find your bliss. True, true story. And I was like you're not wrong, adrian, yeah, you're not wrong.

Speaker 1:

he made it seem You're not wrong. He made it seem like it was your idea.

Speaker 2:

He did make it seem like it was my idea. He's very wise.

Speaker 1:

And so you, on your own, just reached out to a literary agent for someone who wrote a book, optioned the book. I optioned the book and then started writing the screenplay. And so, within the span of I don't know, six months give or take, in the span of I don't know, six months, give or take, sure, you went from nothing to having an option and a screenplay.

Speaker 2:

For the most part, and I want to say, just because I worked at a literary agency, did not that does not preclude anybody else from figuring out who the literary agent is of a book that you're interested in.

Speaker 1:

You didn't reach out to them and be like hi, I work at Penguin. You just said I'm a writer.

Speaker 2:

I reach out to them. Be like hi, I work at Penguin. You just said I'm a writer.

Speaker 2:

I think I said hi, I went to NYU, or I'm really interested in this story and I don't want to make it seem like you know, nyu is the calling card. It helps, but it's not everything you have to. Really, it came from passion. I wanted to make this into something bigger than what it was the screenplay so but then that took like a year and then when peter o'toole died in 2013, 2014, I was like, oh, I gotta get my shit together so I gotta go faster yeah, I gotta go faster.

Speaker 2:

So I would say 2014 actually was the year I started cold emailing reps and production companies, so I had sat on it for like a while, but then that's when the fire got going and so from those cold emails you sent, at least a couple hundred couple hundred hundred.

Speaker 1:

And what came from that.

Speaker 2:

A lot of no's, a lot of send and we'll get back to you, and no getting back to you. I probably sent 400 cold emails over the course of a year and that just came from going to IMDb and looking up the top 100, you know production companies, or all the agents in the roster of. You know agencies, managers I mean looking for what managers represented writers that I liked. So I knew that maybe there would be, you know, a bit more of a connection and this comes from like blatant naivete. You know I didn't have parents in the industry, I wasn't living in los angeles, it was just sort of a one-man band of reaching out, but I feel like that energy and that approach to the craft.

Speaker 1:

A lot more people need to have that kind of gusto. I think would be the right word to use.

Speaker 2:

It's the like ask for forgiveness, not permission. And from about the 400, I got two responses who were interested and I ended up keeping both of them, because one manager was based in the UK and I thought, oh well, peter O'Toole, he's British. And then one was based in Los Angeles. So they, oh well, peter O'Toole, he's British, you know British. And then one was based in Los Angeles, so they had to work together for a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So, in the span of a couple years, the trajectory was you're an assistant at a publishing house, to then Unemployed, unemployed but then repped and with a screenplay under your belt that's based on an option, on a book yeah, that you completely built on your own, yeah, yeah. So then, with that I don't want to say ammo, but with that kind of experience, with that support, there we go. How did grad school happen?

Speaker 2:

I wanted to go, I wanted to move to Los Angeles and I didn't want to start from scratch because, having gone to NYU and then all my friends left, it's like, oh, I have to like make all new friends in this city. This is daunting. So I thought wouldn't it be great to have a foundation to build a community from? And I love learning, I love taking classes.

Speaker 1:

I always think there's more to discover and UCLA At the time was like top three for film yeah, and I was like I don't want to go to USC.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, that USC or a fi. I only applied to UCLA really.

Speaker 1:

I did USC and UCLA, but I wanted UCLA.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I ended up getting in with a pilot. This is why I like no career that you've had is a waste of time. I got into UCLA with a pilot. I had written based on my experience at Penguin. So if I hadn't had that, I wouldn't have had this material and then I wouldn't have gotten to UCLA.

Speaker 1:

And so, within UCLA, a couple of other things happened. You wrote a couple scripts which were also very similar to the Peter O'Toole script because they were Biopics, for the most part, all based on famous men, damaged creative men. Damaged creative men and the women who support them.

Speaker 2:

It's a trope I'm not so into anymore. You've evolved as a writer. I've evolved as a human, as a writer, but it was very hot at the time.

Speaker 1:

you have to say and you say hot, but those scripts, I think, pushed your career forward in a way that not a lot of people witness. And it's not that because you wrote about famous men, creative, damaged men, I'm sorry, it's that you I mean from my perspective created the engine of your own career. You never went out to other people and were like hey, here's a script, find me work. You were like I'm going gonna create this on my own, and that happened with a project called um eiffel. Well, and before that we'll get to eiffel, but before that it was, uh, sergeant, yeah, so let's talk about sergeant that was another lightning bolt that happened in college.

Speaker 2:

I was taking a modern art class because I also think it's like so crucial to like divest yourself into creative endeavors that have nothing to do with your medium. So I love modern art and I saw a painting by John Singer Sargent called the daughters of Edward Darley Boyd.

Speaker 1:

Tell me a little bit about, like the two sentences, a little bit about Sargent, cause he wasn't just a painter.

Speaker 2:

He was, uh, an sentences a little bit about Sargent, because he wasn't just a painter, he was an expat. He was American, but his family lived overseas in the 1860s to 80s.

Speaker 1:

Why is he interesting as a character to write a movie about?

Speaker 2:

He's interesting because he was a mirror to high society in Paris in the 1880s. If you think about Instagram and the feed, he was the Instagram feed for Paris. He was the go-to filter. Basically, If the salon, which is where all the artwork of the year was displayed, wealthy people would have their portraits commissioned and it was their social capital. And John Singer Sargent was excellent at painting high society and making them larger than life. He was the guy, and then he had this very famous painting Portrait of Madame X. That destroyed him professionally and yet it now is held up as one of probably the greatest portraits of his generation.

Speaker 1:

So you took that modern class and you saw the painting, I saw the painting and then I sat on it for like seven years, To be honest.

Speaker 2:

I so, when you say college this was at NYU yeah. I saw that painting in college. I knew there was a story, and it evolved it first was about that family, but I didn't know what to do with it. I also don't think I had the skill set at the time to actually realize it. And then, years later, I wrote the script and then it it changed to be less about the girls in the painting and more about Sargent the man, another artist, another, you know, damaged creative man.

Speaker 1:

How did that script push your career forward. And how did that kind of evolve your connection to rep, your connection to producers?

Speaker 2:

Well, it was sent by my manager at the time to a man who was working at cia at the time and then he sent it to a producer he had worked with who had produced things like boys don't cry, um big in the indie scene. He really loved it. So it sort of it sort of lived with this producer for a few years, going out to different places, trying to get you know, garner interest, and it actually I mean, it's such a slow process but it did end up at a very prestigious production company for about a year of me rewriting it and working with a director which ultimately I ended up having to step away from because it just became too overwhelming and I I didn't have the bandwidth to continue yeah, I couldn't do it.

Speaker 1:

I feel like there's a whole episode in that statement on its in itself.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, you going from all this support, all this rep, all these kind of successes from things that you've just created on your own, yeah to then kind of getting the opposite, and I think we'll talk about that maybe later, later in the series, sure, but before, before we do, before we jump into a, an episode two and three and four, uh, what about? Uh, eiff, so you're still in grad school and then you get an opportunity to write something about the man who built the Eiffel tower.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, um, that came to me because at the time I had reps and they were these producers were looking for a writer to write, uh, this project and the, the manager, had sent them my work and they liked it and we had a conversation about you know, where are we landing in terms of theme, in terms of story, like what's what's interesting? Because I actually didn't think it was very interesting at the beginning. It's like, uh, how can I click into this? And I found a way, in a very genuine sense, that I felt I could add to the story. So that's an example of like at the beginning, when I'm talking about Peter O'Toole, this is like when I sent all those cold emails, I wasn't selling myself, I was selling the project because it's a very what's the word, it's not a fun take, but in the beginning, like, no one cares who I am, because I'm from Adam, they don't know me and it doesn't matter where I went to school A lot of people went to school at good schools.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't matter anything. I mean, it matters that whoever's reading my email thinks they can sell what I am trying to sell them. And then, eventually, you've established yourself a little bit so that people know what you're capable of and they come to you asking can you write something for them? So that's sort of the Eiffel, eiffel, if I'm going to be actually phonetically correct, but I'm going to sound like a jerk if I just the Eiffel, eiffel, if I'm going to be actually phonetically correct, but I'm going to sound like a jerk if I just say Eiffel, but I mean Gustave Eiffel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, tomato, tomato, right. Or how do you say tomato in French? Tomate, Tomato, tomate, right. There we go. When we met in grad school, you were just coming off of Peter O'Toole. You had an option under your belt, you had reps that you found on your own, and then, when we were making our way through grad school, all these amazing other things happened. I think what always inspired me was that you came in already prepped for success. When I was there, I had just written a couple of screenplays. I was trying to do, you know, do do everything on my own, and it was hard for me to find support in the industry. And so when I saw you, you were like, oh, I have my own production company that optioned a book. And I was like what, how are you, my friend?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, I was like it wasn't.

Speaker 1:

I didn't realize that that was a thing you know. Yeah, and I think, looking at the industry now, post pandemic, post strike, in whatever weird world we live in when you are looking at writers now that are in the same position, you were right after Penguin.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

What would you say to them to help them build their own engine, their own career engine, their own engine for their screenwriting?

Speaker 2:

It has to come from passion. Okay, there's no other fuel that's going to keep you going. In the face of all of that rejection, all of that uncertainty, for whatever reason the Peter O'Toole story, the Sean Phillips story I felt a compulsion that it was bigger than myself, that I didn't matter but the story needed to be told and I was going to do whatever it took to get that out there and I was going to convince whoever I had to that it was important. And any person listening to me is like who cares about Peter O'Toole? Who the hell is this guy? But then I would start talking about it and say why it's important that we talk about Sean Phillips and how this woman could have been Maggie Maggie Smith yeah.

Speaker 2:

Judi Dench, vanessa Redgrave this was a woman who came up with the that group of actors but, she happened to marry Peter O'Toole, so her talent was kind of sidelined and I think a lot of people feel that way, that their journey has been sideswiped by whatever life circumstances. So it's actually not about Peter O'Toole, it's not about England in the 60s. It's about feeling that loss of full potential. It's about feeling trapped in a relationship and that's where the nicheness of the biopic falls away, because the theme is universal and that's what propelled me.

Speaker 1:

As simple as that, really like yeah I feel like anybody who's gonna ask like oh, how do I make it in in screenwriting in 2024? And and maybe you don't? Maybe the answer is you know, you become a multi-hyphenate which is what this podcast is about and you write your own stuff and you create your own stuff and you, you try to make your own film instead of just writing it. Maybe that's the answer.

Speaker 2:

Making it also is so subjective. That's true, right. What is success to you? What is success If it's reaching certain benchmarks, if it's finishing a script, writing fade out? If it's collaborating, finding a collaborative partner? It can't. There is no, no, there. There, gertrude Stein, like you're always gonna get somewhere and think there's somewhere else. I need to go true. So what I would say is it has to be genuine. You can't be creating for the market, you can't be creating for what you think other people want to see, and it's like the nerdiest thing you can do. It's like this is for me.

Speaker 1:

You know what's interesting? I'm going to go completely like out of the realm of entertainment.

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

You know, when you are like looking for a partner, and someone will tell you like, oh, when you know, like you'll know when you'll know, and you're like that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and like how, like, how stupid do you think I am? Yeah, when you know, you know. And then you meet someone you're like oh, when you know, you know.

Speaker 2:

And it can be that way not just with romantic partners. It can be that way with subject matters that all of a sudden you're just like, oh, I can't snap, but I tried to. How is? How is this missing this? Is a missing piece in my life yeah um, I also will say, like, audacity to just put yourself out there, uh is a big thing and it takes, it takes courage, it takes the oh sorry, you know. Like, even if it's feigning, oh, I didn't know.

Speaker 1:

Like, yeah, oh no, I couldn't. I didn't know I could do that. I mean I couldn't do that yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know. One example, briefly, is I went to the american film market, first quarter of ucla, because we got passes but you can buy passes to these things and I remembered, or I looked up the list of who the stalls were and one of the companies there I saw we had sent the script to. We had sent peter o'toole uh, a life apart is the script name. We'd sent a life apart to them and I thought, oh, I'll go say hi because they hadn't responded or they're like, oh, we'll get back to you. And I went to the booth and no one was there, so I waited how did you wait for it?

Speaker 2:

probably 20 minutes, okay until a producer came in bedraggled sunglasses been partying like who the hell are you? Oh, I'm julia. You know, you guys have my script and he's like huh. And then we started talking and that began like a four-year working relationship. We took it as far as it could go.

Speaker 1:

Um, but if I hadn't just sat there if you didn't have the audacity to go up to, to go to afm one, to show up at a booth where the people just like, ignored you just wait and then waited and then talk to the person who came in, hung over from a party the night before it's those things, it's like putting yourself in those positions to you know, make the dominoes line up yeah, well, speaking of audacity, I want to talk to you about the other things you've done, because you came into grad school as a screenwriter and then, coming out of grad school, you were like I want to direct, let's write a book, let's do a podcast.

Speaker 1:

You were hired to write a podcast. Granted, it was a creative podcast, it was very close to film, but I want to discuss those other things that you've done, that kind of, you know, have creative bridges to screenwriting and to the creative craft of writing yeah but we'll save that for um episode two.

Speaker 1:

Julia, thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week so glad to be here, yeah, all right, take care everyone. Till next time. Bye. Thank you for joining us at the cfa studio for another series of the anywood podcast. You can find the podcast wherever you find your podcasts or on youtube at the cinematography for actors youtube channel. See you next week from the cfa network.

Speaker 3:

cinematography for actors is bridging the gap through education and community building. Find out about us and listen to our other podcast at cinematographyforactorscom. Cinematography for Actors Institute is a 501c3 non-profit. For more information on fiscal sponsorship donations because we're tax exempt now, so it's a tax write-off and upcoming education, you can email us at contact at cinematographyforactorscom. Thanks.