.png)
Indiewood
A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
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."
Indiewood
Overcoming Career Challenges: How Keep Writing When Things Get Tough
For our final episode with novelist and screenwriter Julia Batavia, we shed light on the gritty realities of a screenwriter in the modern world.
Together, we unpack the myth that simply having an agent or manager paves the way to success, emphasizing the necessity of being your own driving force in the creative world. We’ll hear about personal experiences that highlight the significance of maintaining motivation through the inevitable ebbs and flows of the industry, especially during challenging times like the pandemic. We explore the importance of self-advocacy, knowing when to step back from projects that aren't working, and the power of falling in love with new ones to keep the creative spark alive.
With cautious optimism, we finally discuss the potential for exciting future developments, underscoring how passion and perseverance remain at the heart of creative success.
____
A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
More on:
IG: @indiewoodpod
YT: Cinematography for Actors
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."
welcome back to the indie podcast, podcast about indie filmmaking and the many hats we wear in order to get those films made. This is our final episode with our wonderfully talented uh screenwriter, novelist, podcaster, writer friend friend, good friend, yeah, family at this point uh and one-time director julia batavia I love how you're just gonna keep saying one-time director.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, it was a very uh one-off one-off, but it was important, I think, for, for, and I think everybody should direct a film that they wrote Because it, even if it's on an iPhone, yeah, it shows you what the film could look like. Seeing your words spoken and going through the act of crafting something that you've written into a physical film is also just daunting and a challenge and educational and can do so much for your craft, you know, because then you can hear you're like oh, I wrote that yeah oh, I wrote that.
Speaker 1:oh, my god, you know, yeah, um, it's good. So welcome back, uh, to another episode. We talked a lot about careers and craft and and just stepping out of your boundary as a writer, and the one thing that I think always inspires me about your career, your journey, everything you've done, is how much you've been your engine, how much you've received because of the things that you've done. You've been your own go-getter, your own support, your own manager. I feel like if you told me like, oh yeah, all the rep that I had, that was just me, I would be like, yeah, that tracks, but it wasn't. There were actual amazing reps and you've been repped. You know you had agents and managers.
Speaker 2:Let's put it this way you can't wait for a car to pull up, open the door and say get in. You have to be the car, you have to be the engine you have to be light and clean yeah, sure, it's car's reference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it so I I think both you and I share a common trajectory where we got a lot of success after grad school. We we got hired to do work, we've done things, we've made a career on some level from writing, but then the last couple years have been really tough. Yeah and so I think I wanted to have a conversation about what to do when things get tough notwithstanding a pandemic, as well, yeah, forget the pandemic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that's like the, that's like that. That goes without saying yeah and.
Speaker 1:And so for me, having succeeded at it right, right out of grad school, gotten repped, something was landed at a production company that was, you know, going well, and then the pandemic happened, the project stalled, my rep and I split, and then the project was like, hey, we can't do anything with it because the company was also restructuring, because they didn't know how to survive. And so, coming back to this, you know career that I have and me having a journey of not recovering but just dealing with, you know, the loss it's called persevering, yeah that's a good yeah, persevering in my career.
Speaker 1:I wanted to talk about your journey as well, because you've had also perseverance. You have to yeah, and, and and I. There's something interesting you said when we're doing the prep of this episode for this series, was it's not all sunshine and rainbows?
Speaker 2:no, but I also think anyone who's listening to this podcast knows that. True, I'm just going to talk about it.
Speaker 1:So we'll talk about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:that's a bummer, but we're going to end it on hope. What I want to talk about is the sobering kind of reality, in that a lot of times you listen to people and it's all optimistic and it's all great and I persevered, and look what I did and it's still going, and it's like there are periods where that motivation is not there, the hustle fails, your drive is depleted yeah and that's okay.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make you any less of an artist, it doesn't make you any less of a writer. I think acknowledging and embracing which I've gotten to get better at is essential. Uh, because then you're, if you don't, you're constantly in a state of I could do more. I could do more. Why aren't I doing?
Speaker 2:more I think the umbrella here is I've been on a journey with different representation and management. At times I felt like I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. I was with then, I was with, then, I was with, then I was with, and currently I am not with anybody same. And there's a fallacy that an agent or a manager will uh, you're set, you're secure. And people who've had and have lost understand that that's not true and a lot of people think, oh, if only I can get a manager, then I'll be good. And, coming from the other side, I got there and, yes, I was put up for projects that I would not have otherwise been put up for. That I didn't get but still was able to pitch on. But anything really came from a still self-generative state and you're sort of like now you just have people to go. Look what? Look at my stuff. Isn't it neat, like you know? Uh, these are my gizmos and gadgets, my who's, it's and what's it's.
Speaker 2:Look at my stuff, yeah, and so that's that's the privilege of having management and an agency, but also can be a trap, because you can become complacent you can start to expect that they will do things for you, um, and that's simply not the case, or at least in my experience, being still a sort of starting out writer, not someone who has the name cachet that can just get a meeting based on, like eric roth, where you know yeah I mean any, even people who have been staffed on like multiple tv shows that are just players yeah, you know, I wouldn't put myself in that category, even having been at big places.
Speaker 2:It can go away, yeah, and, and a lot of times it does. And then you're left having to think about well, who am I without this external validation? Who am I when I don't have this sort of cadre of name brands as identifiers for my art? And that can be difficult you have to go back to. In a way it's freeing, because then, all of a sudden, you're not worried about what other people think anymore because you have no one to be accountable to. You have to be accountable to yourself again and start again from, perhaps now, a more enlightened place of what really matters. What do I want to write if I'm not worried about what some agent is going to think? And, by the way, the script that won UCLA showcase the one that we both did so well in was a script that a manager at the time advised me not to write and I thought, well, I'll just do it anyway. And look what happened.
Speaker 2:So, there's a lot about intuition as well, which I don't think we've touched. A lot about my woo-woo, divine, divine intervention and timing and all of that.
Speaker 1:But intuition hand in hand with passion you've always had a good sense of like I'm. I want to do this. Well, you know what I think it's passion I. I don't think it's anything but because you have been told don't do this thing. It's not going to sell. And you're like I want to do it. Yes, and you did and it does well. And I think it does well mostly because of your passion for it.
Speaker 2:No one would advise you to write a script about Peter O'Toole's ex-wife, a painter from the 1880s like those are those were the first two passion projects. No one would have told me to do, but because I cared so much about them, I wanted to make them universal. That and we see films like this get made Mm-hmm Turner, like we see the theory of everything. I mean there was a period where, like this, there's a biopic the decade of biopics. Truly and there's so many more I could Ray Quote oh my God, Endless yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, there's this idea of you not you, but the general you like going through a process of gaining things for your career but then losing things for your career. There's also an instance where you have to walk away from things, yeah, and you've had that experience.
Speaker 2:You have to walk away when you feel like you've turned every stone you could. I mean, there's this. Don't give up as a double-edged sword, because that insinuates that you can't choose to walk away because you've changed your mind. I could have continued down this path with certain people at big companies, because the cachet, you know, should have been enough, but me, in my capacity at that time, I couldn't do it. Um, I walked away from a creative partnership, which I haven't talked about really at all, but that was another thing. 2022 was a year of things that fell away Management agency, creative partnership.
Speaker 1:And not just fell away, but, like you, stepped away as well.
Speaker 2:Sure, stepped away is more agency. Yeah, it's more proactive, yeah um fall away.
Speaker 1:Feels like you have no control over it, but maybe, like you, distanced yourself away. I don't know there's a, there's a word for it, but I think people are will understand. Yeah, but you know, you mentioned something interesting because when we were doing the prep for this, for this, for this episode, specifically, that you were working on this project, you were putting so much energy into it and you were working on spec for free and your decision to walk away in part not the whole reason, because there was also a lot of other factors at play that I'll let you kind of talk about.
Speaker 1:But you had this experience where you were meeting with these stakeholders and executives who were talking about big purchases they were making for the company and for their lives, and yet you were working on spec, and had worked on spec for so long, and it's, at that point, less of a, you know, issue of the finances and more of an issue of, like, the principle, respect, the respect.
Speaker 2:Look, everyone has a straw that breaks the back, and that was mine.
Speaker 2:I just couldn't do it anymore because I had been paid to write things and yes, for that project you weren't no, I wasn't and this was a passion project and I think getting out of the mindset of you should be so grateful, mm-hmm, you know you're in the room with these people. You should be so grateful just to grovel and write for free. Sometimes, yes, that's a very strategic decision. Sometimes you are fully being taken advantage of and it does not matter how cool these people are. Um, you have to do what's right for you yeah I did what was right for me at the time.
Speaker 2:Do I still think about it sometimes and I'm like, oh, could I persevered a little bit more, maybe.
Speaker 1:But I, but there's no guarantee that things could have been different.
Speaker 2:No, and I had no gas in the tank.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Creatively or spiritually.
Speaker 2:Creatively. So there was sort of there was nothing to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I think you know for folks listening it's if you are in a position where you feel like you're being taken advantage of and maybe that there's an opportunity for you to stick it out and maybe something will happen, in the end you can make the choice to walk away from something. Because as a creative, you can only do so much, you can only kill yourself so much for the art before you're actually dead.
Speaker 2:You can only kill yourself so much for the art before you're actually dead and you have to really reconcile what it is you're sacrificing, what it is you're willing to bet on, because some of these things are just necessary to do. Putting in the time for free I totally get it, I've done it, I continue to do. Um, putting in the time for free I totally get it, I've done it, I continue to do it. And some things you know you can step away from, and it doesn't mean you didn't try hard enough and it doesn't mean the project didn't mean anything to you.
Speaker 1:it just means that the timing is wrong because there's always and we'll come back to this. I think this is the theme of the entire series. There's always a time for something. A project will find its footing in time. It will, if it's meant to be.
Speaker 2:Or it won't. I mean that's also the like the it goes. I mean it's part of the package deal of this industry. Some projects just will not happen, like like jordofsky's dune.
Speaker 2:Sure, people talk about it on every effing level, like there was a point I had been trying to push this project through for like five years and they wanted to just keep doing X, Y, Z and I said, you know, maybe we should just let it go. And I never heard from them again. There was no fighting me for it. There was no. No, Julia, you should. It was silence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, the the, the eternal ghost.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's you, that's part of it like, and so I think the key is trying to fall in love as much as possible with new projects, because that's, I think, really how I viewed and how I've had the energy to continue is like it's.
Speaker 1:it's a it's love, it's a labor of love yeah whatever I'm doing um and there are many projects you've done, because you've done the peter o'toole script, the sergeant script, and then you wrote a script about more than brando and and those three scripts all found life in some capacity and then maybe just didn't work out or you left them where they are. And just because those scripts were written but haven't gone anywhere yet doesn't ever mean that that was a waste of time.
Speaker 2:No, and for what it's worth. One of them has since come back from the dead.
Speaker 1:Well, we'll touch on that a little bit. I, I will, we'll. We'll have the audience guess which one it is.
Speaker 2:We won't tell them but what's behind door number one? What's behind door number two?
Speaker 1:but uh, the interesting thing is about having a career without rep, without, like, industry support and I'm using my fingers in air quotes, um, quote-unquote industry support is that sometimes you then become your own advocate, and I think this is something you've done for your entire career. For me, after parting with my rep, after kind of, you know, finding myself alone, yeah, you know after all the support, I was like, do I do?
Speaker 1:And then I just didn't write for a while and I picked myself up, wrote some stuff, sent it out into the universe through uh just a bunch of avenues to people I've met before. Uh, through cold, uh query emails, cold emails yeah, cold emails, cold emails. And then I emails cold emails yeah, cold emails, cold emails. And then I also threw it up on the blacklist for like 130 bucks and then through that I got meetings, people wanted to talk and then I still maintain those friendships and I'm working with a company right now to make a, to make a feature. Uh, you know, that's uh, um, its own thing, independentent.
Speaker 2:Which just goes to prove that you are your own instigator. You are your own engine, regardless of if you have fancy titles and fancy labels and attachments.
Speaker 1:Sometimes your name has more weight. That's all it is.
Speaker 2:Sometimes your passion has more weight. True, I think passion is the key word here, yeah, in this, in this series, because it propels all motion and sometimes you have to step back and take time off yeah, you said something interesting.
Speaker 1:uh, in prep you were like you're not that special, not me, but generally you. Hate to break it to you, yeah, but you know what I feel like I disagree with that. Okay, Because we can look at both of our careers and be like we're not that special. We're trying, but I think what makes us special is the passion we bring for the craft.
Speaker 2:But the stories here's what I mean when I say you're not that special to a stranger.
Speaker 2:You are not that special yeah it's only when you are able to show your passion and really communicate what you want to do and who you are that they are able to start to understand you are a special person because everyone's a cynic, nobody has time. That's why, when you're pitching your yourself, your project, you, everyone, no one's special but but it's like an onion peel the onion. Yeah, shrek, yeah, you're special, you are it. Just there's there's a hurdle in this industry to make people notice and unfortunately, I think that's more common than not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and there's also a lot of writers, a lot of creatives, a lot of artists that have to break through that initial barricade of you're not special.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's more easy to not care than it is to invest time and energy. So that is the guard that most people have up. They're going to dismiss you as nothing special, but your goal is to prove them wrong.
Speaker 1:I think that's been my mission with whatever I've done prove the cynical, objective reader viewer wrong, that they will care, that they will connect to what I'm trying to do and what I believe in yeah, we talked a lot about things we've left behind and there are scripts in my past that I have left behind just because the timing wasn't right, or maybe these things will never get made, because there's a script that I wrote that's got to be like a 100 million dollars because it's a big epic.
Speaker 1:You know right and I'm like, is anybody gonna make that now?
Speaker 2:maybe, but you know what? The fact that you wrote it, the fact that you got that out of your head and onto the page, that's the win. Yeah, if we want to really distill it and take it down to the tangible, it's alive on the page yeah, and who the hell knows, truly, who the hell knows?
Speaker 2:but then that comes, then you have to be practical, then you have to be proactive in that. All right, so I've done this thing. It's a hundred million dollars. What am I going to make first? Yeah, that is a hundred dollars, ten thousand, and then you build up.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of my superpower as a multi-hyphenate Right now, working as a writer, pitching these things, working with production companies on rewrites and original stories, but also having the opportunity to do my own shorts, to do my own micro-budget features.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:That's something we can do, and I think now we have more opportunities, now that the streaming services are scrambling for a new normal and indie films are like.
Speaker 1:well, we'll just go back to making indie films thank god yeah, yeah, about time, yeah, and so thinking about these projects we've left behind that don't really die, they're there, they're alive, and sometimes people find them, and I think for you, recently, this has been the story where one of those three men that we've talked about, that you've written about, and the women that support them, the women that support them. Someone found the script in the wild. You put it out there and someone read it Someone that has a stake in the industry, someone that's a creative and they reached out to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, out of the blue. But then, if you're going to ascribe to divine timing and you know, coincidence and all of that, maybe it's because I made space in my life for something like that to come back, because there was a lot of clutter, there was a lot of indecision, there's a lot of doing things for the wrong reasons. Maybe that only came about because of that. I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's a little woo-woo, and I'm a little, and I still like it, though I you're totally right because there's been moments in my life where I've asked the universe for something and then, six months later, I was like here you go look, I'll reground this.
Speaker 2:So what I'm trying to say is if things aren't working, push them aside so you have space, mentally and physically, and spiritually for other things to come through. Because if you're solely focused on this one idea and I've seen it, people who are like, for ten years have been trying to do this one script and it's like, well, have you thought about writing something else? No, no, no, this is the thing.
Speaker 1:This is the thing you're really limiting yourself, yeah, and it's to your detriment that you don't vent, venture off and try something new that's why I think in grad school, when, when all the new new folks came in, they were like anything you've written, anything you're thinking about writing, put in a box new, new, new, new For these next two years, new ideas only. And some people didn't like I didn't do that, you didn't do that. We were just like let's do it anyways.
Speaker 2:Well, to be fair, I came in with the idea but I hadn't written pages. Yeah, well, okay, I'll give you that it's a gray area. It was an idea that I was like, oh, now I have a structure in which to flush it out.
Speaker 1:That's what I will do well now, having you be open to the universe, to new things. This project came back and and You've met with the director, you've met with talent, you met with a producer and things are moving forward.
Speaker 2:Let's say, cautiously optimistic. You know, maybe next year year I'll have more to talk about in greater detail we'll have you back on in a year and be like how did things go?
Speaker 1:yeah which of the three men did we did, we did succeeded yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the bottom line is stay open. Who knows, lightning could strike. To quote meet joe black. What anthony hopkins?
Speaker 1:great movie. Yeah, it's like uh, what's that phrase? Uh, luck is, opportunity meets, preparation is that, yeah, that's bob evans yeah, so you've prepared extensively and you're open to the opportunity. So we could call that luck, but I think it would be a divine intervention.
Speaker 2:I think that anyone is capable of having things like this happen and they do happen all the time. It's just about trying to put yourself in positions to meet new people, trying to remain inspired by exploring different mediums, watching documentaries, going to museums yeah, I mean any, even scrolling on your phone, it doesn't matter, as long as you're trying to figure something out. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like Do the artist's way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been on my the artist's way. Yeah, it's been on my list for like five years now.
Speaker 1:I'm on week two and it's going. It's tough but it's going well so far.
Speaker 2:No, I mean it's Julia Cameron's got. She's no, she's no joke. Another quote that I love, that I wanted to share. We'll have a quote off the end of this episode Broadcast. It's about Susan Sontag.
Speaker 2:And she said, don't worry about being obsessive, she loves obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art and I think I've had to be obsessive. It's part of my personality. You have to be obsessive in your goal to see something through to completion, to see a project through, to do the research, to reach out to the people. I'm not talking about, like you, baby, reindeer shit. I'm talking about the obsession that propels you to create and want to share that creation. Yeah, and that's a good thing. I mean I wouldn't shut up about these guys that I'd written about for years and my friends were like can you please talk about something else?
Speaker 2:Yes, you're like a trivial pursuit card deck of information about these guys, but I wanted to tell anybody who would listen.
Speaker 1:And now one of them is hopefully fingers crossed, knock on wood going to be a movie.
Speaker 2:We'll see, but that's sort of beside the point. You're cautiously optimistic. You're not going to get me excited on this podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, on that note I think we'll end and we'll leave everybody with notes and thoughts and advice on craft. Hopefully, some folks will learn from your journey of perseverance and being your own engine and maybe we'll, you know, see some.
Speaker 2:Just reach out to people, reach out to you Email, email, julia, no, don't email me. Don't email me.
Speaker 1:Don't email me, but email people that you want to be seen by and even if they don't answer no answer doesn't mean follow them in a month and then, yeah, don't be weird, not every week not every day, don't be you know, don't be like you haven't replied to my last email.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, be cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, be cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, be cool and charismatic, don't be weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's the tagline.
Speaker 1:Be bold, keep learning. I think that's also another thing. Keep learning, never stop learning, try new things.
Speaker 2:Neither of us are where we want to be, but then there is no place to be because it's all an extension of learning.
Speaker 1:Be bold keep learning, keep writing. Julia, thank you for your time your advice for your story and we'll see you in a year yeah, you got it sure, thank you for listening everybody. Uh, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:See ya.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us at the CFA Studio for another series of the Inwood 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.
Speaker 3:From the CFA Network Cinematography for Actors YouTube channel. See you next week. From the CFA Network. 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 nonprofit. 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 cinematography for actorscom. Thanks.