Indiewood

Breaking In, In 2025: A Conversation with Creative Executive Andrew Lang

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 13 • Episode 1

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Our candid, fast-moving conversation with producer and Creative executive Andrew Lang reveals what it means to break into the film industry in 2025. As a veteran of indie films and big budget productions, Andrew shares with us his experience from his time at Paramount Players, Montecito Pictures, and Dark Horse Entertainment.

We unpack the turbulent waves of the industry, why legacy IP keeps rebooting, how “risk optics” can greenlight a project, and how the evergreen powers of the horror genre can give new voices a shot.

For emerging writers and veterans alike, Andrew’s insight can help you shape the next steps of your career.

If this conversation helps you see your next move, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a quick review so more indie filmmakers and writers can find the show.

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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_02:

Welcome back to the Indiewood Podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers wear in order to get those films made. Every month I interview one such filmmaker where we talk about their workflow, their process, their creative journey, and uh how they manage wearing multiple hats. And this week, and for the next three weeks after that, I'm joined by a very special guest who I've known for two years now, right? Two years? Give or take? Yeah. And we've worked together for a little bit and we've, you know, uh you've come on to the Indywood Screenwriting Fund education program to do a seminar. But this is the first time we've actually met in person.

SPEAKER_03:

We were COVID acquaintances.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, COVID acquaintances. So uh I'd like to introduce uh a producer and creative development executive formerly of Dark Horse Paramount and Montecito Pictures, Andrew Lang. Thanks for having me. Yeah, welcome to the appreciate it, man. Yeah, it's gonna be good. Because me and you, like when we uh sit down and have chats, we'll we'll just talk for like three hours and like I gotta I have I we gotta go. We gotta like other things to do, but we'll talk about like movies and the industry and you know, and you're always a guy who's likes to talk about older films, which is I think is really cool. But I want to hear more about just to kind of prime the audience and and me too, because I don't think we ever talked about like your trajectory in the industry, which has been cool and fun and exciting, right? Because you worked with a lot of cool IP and like indie in the indie space and the studio space. So tell me how Andrew Lang got into the entertainment industry.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, okay, where do I begin? You were born in I was born in a small town. Um after college, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I got very lucky in that I think I just spammed resumes out and I started interning for a company called Catalan Pictures. And that was the producer who worked uh who's the broken lizard producer. Okay, yeah. So it was just after Super Troopers and oh maybe Club Dread as well, and it was in pre-production on on Beer Fest. Okay. Um and so I worked for them for a bit. Um, I mean the deleted scenes of Beerfest.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure that was intense. I have really long hair in it as well.

SPEAKER_03:

Um and then like that sort of died because I think they were all moving out to LA because they got a Warner Brothers deal, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And they all kind of went their own separate ways. Like now a couple of them are doing Tacoma, uh P. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They sort of come back together every once in a while and they direct TV a lot now. And you know, Chandra Sakhar does a lot of TV. Um but I then, as did many people in New York, was Law and Order. Law and Order SVU is where I sort of cut my teeth with like, oh, this is like how it works. This is what like production is, but also just production office stuff. I started there in the production office. I worked for there for like, I don't remember, a couple of years, a year or two. Um, and I thought I maybe wanted to do the onset stuff, but I didn't. I quickly was like, dad, that's not the place I want to work in like repetitious team, like like like broadcast TV.

SPEAKER_02:

Because also isn't that like it's very gig-oriented where you know your next job is you don't know. Where on like the development side it's you're an employee.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Sort generally speaking, yeah. Yeah, if you can find a good gig in TV, you stick with it. There were people on Law and Order that that have been there since day one. Oh, jeez. You know, there were construction crew and there were grips and everything that had been there from the beginning. Why? Because it pays good and they were never getting canceled. It was never getting cancelled and it was steady. So um so after that, it was sort of a like, what the hell do I do? Um, I'm living in New York and I I sort of started PA ing on like a lot of different things, weird low budget movies, some higher budget movies, whatever was shooting, wherever you could get a day or two, whatever it was. Um, and I'm probably gonna go into far too much detail. Please cut me off. But um a video assist person got into a car accident on the way to set. And so someone on this movie called Gracie, um, the one of the production managers was like, Andrew, get over here.

SPEAKER_02:

Can you do this tonight?

SPEAKER_03:

It's an overnight shoot, three cameras, and it's a soccer sequence. So it's like there's like track laid out the entire length of the field. We need you to hook everything up and like get playback for everything. Can you just do it for us? And I said, Yes. Yes, yeah, I shall. Didn't know how to do a thing, right?

SPEAKER_02:

No, no, go home and like Google, watch YouTube videos. Yeah, I've done that.

SPEAKER_03:

Brother, this was pre-smartphone. So I couldn't even do that. It was literally just look at stuff and go, uh, I think I got it.

SPEAKER_02:

Connect into out and out to end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So I was like, okay, great. So I did that. And then um the guy whose equipment with WAS was like, hey, do you want to keep doing that for me? And so I said, sure. And so then basically it was like commercials, TV shows, movies, doing it that. He got me into a union local 52 in New York. Um and I was, you know, a a dues paying union member for many years. Um and I lived and worked in New York doing that for for a long time. Um, but I hit a wall because I wanted to do the development side. So I had to essentially pack it up and just go, all right, well, look, it's not there's nothing here in New York that can forward this. And no one takes a crew member seriously. You know, someone who shows up and drags cable out of gutters, they're not really gonna take that guy seriously in any capacity, right? I can't walk into the HBO offices and go, here's my resume, like, right? Bring me on. No, not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02:

So I had to What what like where did that desire for I want I want to get into development come from? Was it just being on set and like I want to make this, but on the other side of the thing?

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't I don't know that I could pinpoint it. I I thought that working on set was a step to doing that. And I think that maybe not on the West Coast out here, but at least on the East Coast in New York, a lot of people look at that as like one of the steps to getting onto the development side. I don't think it's r like a a necessarily viable path to doing it, but I think a lot of people are like, well, I'd rather be involved and then like maybe, hopefully, but it's New York. It's a f it's where you make things, it's not where you create you it's not where you create them, with some exceptions.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Um and so I basically packed up and had to start again and come out here.

SPEAKER_02:

That was 2011 when you came out here.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh twel twelve uh 2012, 13. Okay. Um and I uh had to start again and hope for the best. And I landed a couple of internships simultaneously. I tried to make them work as best I could. And then I I look, it's you know what they say, right? It's when luck meets opportunity and I was an intern at a company and some guy walked out because he probably should have walked out rightly off of off of a president's desk. And I was an intern and they pointed at me and said, Hey Andrew, can you just do that?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And I was like, this is a goddamn theme of my life, but sure, no problem. And I was there for like nine months, no no worries. The boss was not great to work with, but like whatever, I didn't care. Um and then I got lucky. Uh somehow a resume got to a startup studio and that was a company called Broad Green Pictures, and I joined that and I was there for a number of years, but I was pretty early in, I was in the single digits of the hires. I think I was eight or nine. Um, and that thing ballooned to like, you know, 75, give or take. Never really made great movies, never really kind of hit what it should have hit for a variety of reasons. Um, but when I sort of saw that was not going the right direction, um, someone said, Hey, the Monacito picture company is looking for someone. Would you be interested? And I being a comedy snob slash failed comedian myself, I uh as a as a person who did a lot of UCB in New York, I was like, hell yeah, it's Ivan Reitman. I would be stupid to not say yes to anything with that. So I went and I interviewed and I I I I got the job. And I was at that place for a couple of years and then um sort of uh went with someone to Paramount for a couple of years and that was in an uh I won't get too deep into the imaginations of it, but it was a Paramount Players, which was an attempt at a restart of like a niche, like like kind of like a shingle for like indie stuff. No, not even indie, but it was more like look, it was this other thing created by the now head of Paramount Brian Robbins, which was supposed to serve as B.E.T. Comedy Central VH1 and make films sort of like under those umbrellas. Um they did the sequel to What Women Want, What Men Want, which was a BET film. That was the attempt.

SPEAKER_02:

So kind of like uh Touchstone for Disney, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Some some I think that's the kind of hope. Yeah, it's something like that. Um But then Brian Robbins left and went to go run Nickelodeon, and then you know, it's sort of everything kind of started to die on the vine a little bit there, and uh, you know, there were there was not a lot of movement there. It was no upward mobility at all. And so I ended up at luckily, knock on wood, I ended up at Dark Horse where I was for the past six years. Um and Dark Horse was a different thing because it was like, you know, I had gone from a buyer at Broad Green Pictures to a seller at Montecito Picture Company to a buyer at Paramount, and then I was back at a selling company in a production company uh of of Dark Horse Entertainment Um using the IP library of Dark Horse comics and you know, some originals. You know, that's yeah, that's sort of that's a brief summary.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, I like that. And the reason I want to talk to you is because you have this like unique experience of just loving classics because you're always like, hey, you've seen this movie? I'm like, I don't know what that is. You know, and you're like, oh, it's you know, I I we'll I'm sure we'll like pick well you'll pick up. I think as I joke with you, I'm always like it's a Charles Bronson movie. I know what Charles Bronson is, yeah. But uh and and so the reason why I want to talk to you is because you have this like breadth of experience from many, many different companies that are doing like a variety of you know niche things, but also like bigger things, and then you like you know lived in IP for for many, many years. Uh and I think you have a really unique perspective on the industry as a whole, which I think is very valuable to like up-and-coming writers and up-and-coming directors, just to kind of like what's the and tapping my wrist here, like what's the pulse of like the of the zeitgeist, right? Yeah, yeah. And I mean I wanted to get your take on it, because like IP was the biggest driving force for the film industry for many, many years, and now it's kind of like indie horror or something.

SPEAKER_03:

So I don't think indie horror is ever going away. Yeah, it that that's I I think I feel like I've said this to you a billion times, like that that horror's evergreen. Yeah, that's not going away.

SPEAKER_02:

Someone said the other day, I was like, is is horror the only way you can break in now? Because I feel like everybody who's breaking in was like, Oh, I'm gonna make this small horror film where something unique happens and you know, bomb, boom, whatever. And then you're doing like Shazam, because that's what David Sandberg did.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you know he means flights out a short and that gets expanded to the movie, and then he's off to the races.

SPEAKER_02:

And then he's doing Shazam. And now he's doing Until Dawn, I believe. Yeah, Until Dawn, which was like based on the video game. Yeah. And that's all practical, most of mostly practical, which I think is really, really fun.

SPEAKER_03:

But obviously Jordan Peel, um um Zach Krager, I mean Sam Raimi was a literal just like DIY horror guy as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Who were the guys from Australia that did the the the shaking hands with a mannequin? Talk to Talk to me. Talk to me, yeah. The Philippo brothers. Yeah, yeah. So like the same thing, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

So theirs is an interesting one because they were also YouTube guys as well, but yeah, the point stance.

SPEAKER_02:

And I feel like at some point that was sci-fi. You know, you had I think 2009 was primer, you know? That was earlier.

SPEAKER_03:

Really? I think it was like 04, right? That was a Sundance movie in like 04. I think. Okay. I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but like Primer, and then you had uh Brett Marlin did a film uh called the or called Another Earth. And like that eventually got to not that film, but her that gave her the trajectory to do the AO for for Netflix. And so do you see the quote unquote zeitgeist changing at all again? Or how do you see it like now in whatever this weird world that we live in now with with like the streaming bubble popped, and then AI is a thing, and then and I know you're like because you're not pessimistic. That's not the right word. You're like a realist, but like you wanted you want it to be good and and fun and exciting.

SPEAKER_03:

No, I can be a disappointed optimist. Yeah, that's the word you use. Disappointed optimist. No, I can't I good or bad, I call myself a cynic, but I call myself a I I call myself a disappointed optimist. Because I want things to be great, I want things to be good, but like there's a realism that you have to be aware of. As far as like what look, that's the the name of the game is all is like how do you keep a track of what the hell is selling and where it is and what people want. And I don't know that anyone could really say what that is in 2025. I think in previous generations and years, you might have been able to pinpoint it a little better, but I don't know that you can because I think the industry's be to m from my point of view, and I'll caveat everything I'm gonna say by saying this is my opinion. I might be wrong as hell, but this is the way I see it, is that that um I don't think anyone is leading from the front. They're leading from behind. Yeah. And they are they want what works and what they have seen work before. I think few places want to take a risk on trying something new that might be the thing that makes it break out. There's of course exceptions to that, right? Jordan get out went around to every place in town, and every place in town said, no, we're not making that. But then one, you know, one guy was like, yeah, let's do it. And of course that, you know, kind of reinvigorates and, you know, creates a career for for him, right? Um So it's not that it doesn't exist, but I think, and I feel like I've said this to you before, there's just there's not a there's a lack of swashbuckling now. Yeah. There's a lack of people that I I think are willing to just like roll the dice on something because they like it.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you feel like it's a money thing or is it just like a risk aversion thing because it's a risk aversion thing, I think.

SPEAKER_03:

But I think it's subsequent to that is it's a money thing.

SPEAKER_02:

My uh a free pro a previous guest, George Huang, who's a writer director and and's been doing it for about 30 years, we talked a lot about, you know, like how what do you see the evolution in your pers from your perspective? Because like you you did a film in the 90s and now you just did a film in 23, 24. And he's like, well, yeah, nobody's taking risks anymore, but also because like the industry's wrong mostly from like the pocketbook, where before you had artists and you know they saw something on a napkin, like, I like that idea, here's a million bucks. Yeah. Like let's go make it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um nowadays is it's different. Although I'm seeing specs every now and then pop up for I think what look when there's a good spec, it's gonna sell.

SPEAKER_03:

When there's a good spec, it's gonna get some attention. Doesn't mean it's getting made, yeah, but it means it at least gets some attention and it gets out there into the industry. But I don't think there's any more days of like, you know, a guy I love, a guy I love Don Simpson, of like being in a meeting and saying, what's that idea you had? It's like, oh, it's about an out-of-town cop who comes to Beverly Hills. He's like, write that. Like that's I like that. Let's do that. Like I think those are gone. Um and it's it, yeah, it's pocket, pocket governed, but like risk aversion of aversion governed. Because why would any executive want to take a chance on an original idea when they can say, I will make the movie based on whatever name the IP, right? And go like, but I know that that was a popular piece of IP. I as an executive took the right risk. You can't fault me for the risk I took. Look how popular that IP is. Those dolls sold 23 million last year alone. Like it was guaranteed to hit, right? They're safe. Versus, you know, the risk on the original. Like and but and it's like all due respect to Sinners, did well. It was an original, great. It's Ryan Kugler. It's a guy that you know is going to hit a home run and at minimum, you know, a triple. Like you know you're gonna get something good out of that original idea. That's not a risk on like an uh a spec that might be just so weird it might work. Like a new director or a new director, right? Again, like someone took a chance on Zach Krager, and guess what?

SPEAKER_02:

It it worked. I feel like people need to take more chances on not only like scripts and directors, but also like the small film. Because you can make a film for six, for you know, under ten, let's just say ten million dollars, and have it be successful. You know, have it find an audience where maybe like, okay, well, it didn't do a billion dollars, but like you made your money back, you made some pocket change.

SPEAKER_03:

Like I think that will exist. Yeah. So that'll always like it's either big or lar or small. But like those movies will exist. I think that there's just look, there's a there's a lack of wanting to take the risk, and it's like it's logical, it's understandable, and it's explainable why you don't take the risk. I just think it's boring. Yeah. I just I just I just think it's like it's like where are the swashbucklers? Where's your Bob Evans? Where's your Tom Pollocks anymore? Like, where are your people that want to go like, you know what? That's that's the that's the that's the thing we should be doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I I remember uh I forget where I heard, I think maybe you told me this where like, you know, um maybe it was Paramount, but I forget like the executive who ran the studio came in to like the person who owned the studio and like owned a bigger company and was like, we made we had the best year that we've ever had. And they're like, Cool, we've made that much on like paperclips, you know, uh in like some other subsidiary that they own. So like f just film isn't like a money-producing thing to those people that own the studios, which why'd you buy a studio in the first place?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I think people always the the the the the glamour gets it it's bright in their eyes.

SPEAKER_02:

That's what it is, you sell the glamour, you know, and like when you sell the script, you don't sell like, oh, it's it's it's inexpensive to shoot. Like, no, you sell because it's fun and exciting. Yeah, you know, and I I think and then we'll talk about this in uh a f a future episode, um, where like how do young writers now just do that, break through whatever this wall is now that's like all ever evolving.

SPEAKER_03:

We'll get to that later.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well it's that's a different episode. Should we yeah, we we got a couple minutes till yeah until this episode ends. Um but I I really want to kind of focus this this this talk, like this moment on like that environment and how people should look at the environment. Because some of them are looking going, I don't know what to do. Yeah you know. And uh it's also spreading out across the world, which I think is also nice because it gives people an opportunity to succeed that don't live in Los Angeles or New York, you know, like oh I'm in Toronto or I'm in Atlanta or Louisiana, yeah. Uh wherever those industry markets are, and like now all Ireland's popping off for Hollywood Productions.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. For productions, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But like we had a friend uh who was an actor and a writer uh move to Ireland, is booking more than she ever did here.

SPEAKER_03:

An actor? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But also like that makes his right and like has now a career as a writer.

SPEAKER_03:

The writing is going to be the more difficult side. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_02:

I hope writing never leaves Los Angeles, for my sake.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I don't know how it could. Outside of like what like two hubs, like maybe like LA and New York and maybe your London or something like that. It's not going to. Well, that's an interesting You know, you might have productions going in Toronto and Vancouver and Atlanta, but like there's no writing there's no agency, you know, again that gets into that. It's like, yeah, it's it's just not going to.

SPEAKER_02:

Well there's something to explore there. Like, how do you see as a as a producer and as a development executive, how do you see the writer uh in this industry? Like, are they safe to stay in Los Angeles? Do you have to go to LA as a writer in order to kind of not break through, but you know, um have a career? Well, rephrase, because you can have a career out of state, but like I guess breakthrough, do you have to move to Los Angeles?

SPEAKER_03:

That's a good question. Because it's a really good question. Because I like the annoying answer I have is probably. Yeah. But do you need to? No. But you probably should. It's probably helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Because look, the fact is, is that it becomes about exposure and your networking and your just knowing people. Because whether or not if you come out to LA, you're gonna start playing pickleball with some guy who is a writer or knows a rat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing, right?

SPEAKER_02:

I have a friend who's a writer and he was like, I'm gonna go to a drink at this like hotel bar. Met the guy who produced uh long legs, and like now they're working together on the thing. Like, okay, can you make that guy in Oklahoma? You're not gonna you're not gonna do that in Nashville.

SPEAKER_03:

It's just not gonna happen. So yeah, you're going to have to. You could probably dip out once you know people. Like if you have representation and you've you've had some some level of success in however you want to term that, doesn't have to be a sold script, but it's like a known rider. I know people that dip.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

They go to Charlotte, you know, there's a in Colorado, wherever it is, because it's as cheap. Zoom, Zoom means you can.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And you can just fly in. You know, there's uh people in Austin that live and work, right? There's writers that work there, but they know they gotta make a f a flight to LA every once in a while to do the rounds and just talk to people and blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's nicer to have meetings in person, I think. I mean, that's why I do the pod in person because you know, doing a Zoom, there's just something missing, you know, yeah from the the interaction in the world.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it was great. We used to do meetings in person all the time. The office was busy. There were people in the waiting room.

SPEAKER_02:

There's a morale to that.

SPEAKER_03:

There is like a heightened thing that was like, oh, there's that actor. Holy that person's really handsome in person. And then you got a meeting with that, and then after it's a writer, and it's like, well, those two actually know each other. Look at that. You know, just the things that come from like the intangible of like just being around.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and you can form those meetings and or form those relationships easier, especially when you're going in person. Running into people on the street.

SPEAKER_03:

Doesn't mean you can't, but if you expect the same kind of results, you know, you you're kind of you're kidding yourself a little bit, but you can within reason.

SPEAKER_02:

So like with IP doing whatever it's doing nowadays, like dying on the vine, to use you your your verbiage, and like horror moving forward and and just uh with like what works right now is the sort of the general? Maybe like what do you see as the the the like the the pulse of the industry from a creative standpoint?

SPEAKER_03:

Again, good question because like I like someone someone far smarter than me, I'm sure, has the exact answer, but like I don't know that anyone's right though to when I say even though I say that, I don't know that anyone's right about like actually it's this because look, when whenever I have spoken to any studio or um or production company or whoever, um like an executive at Warner Brothers or a producer at like 21 Labs or name name your name your entity, you always get very, very similar asks and wants. Hey, we're looking for something that's like Wolverine. We're looking for a thing that's and it's like it's always the same couple of things. They want an action thriller, they want a horror movie, they want a YA romance, and and it usually and it it seems to boil down to most companies all kind of look for the same thing. There's some exceptions to that where there's certain companies, your bombhouse, that might focus specifically on certain product. Um so I don't know that there's a really a great answer of like what works because like everyone's kind of looking for all of the same thing. Um so and I also don't think I IP hasn't run its course, but I think large legacy IP is already now getting repeated. We got a Harry Potter TV show coming out. It didn't end that long ago and we're rebooting it. Like in our lifetimes, and in well, I've probably everyone's lifetime, there's a very good chance we see like a Game of Thrones reboot. Like we're gonna just start rehashing those those big legacy IPs again. And none of us are ever gonna be involved in stuff like that, except if we are perhaps if there's writers out there that work on TV shows and get staffed in writing. But we're not gonna be invest we're not gonna be involved in that anymore. But IP is not, I think legacy IP is kind of like almost set in where it's gonna be, unless some giant company buys some giant company and it moves around. Paramount buys Warner Brothers. Well, Paramount now owns Harry Potter and a lot of other things, right? But IP will always there's always gonna be novels, there's always gonna be some new form of a thing that comes out, a novel, a book, you know, there's gonna be a book, there's gonna be a a comic book, there's gonna be a you know, something sort of small that maybe doesn't sell, you know, a billion copies, but might cut through.

SPEAKER_02:

There's something that's interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it might be 50k that it sells, but like the story it's telling that thing is like that's pretty cool. That's gotta get made.

SPEAKER_02:

Just to like end on this thought, what like as a as new writers come into this industry and having just finished the Indoid Screenwriting Fund program, um, like the they're they're new writers trying to find their uh one voice and two their place in the industry. Do you like as I have a friend who options books and writes scripts on them? And then other people who are like, I'm gonna write this hundred million dollar like epic, you know, about Gilgamesh or something, and that's gonna like break me through. And I know specs like that, they if they're good, like they can lead to other things. But when you look at the industry and you see new writers come in, like is there any thought to what they should not focus on, not write, but like what do you see breaking through that's interesting to you or has been interesting to you in the last like couple of years?

SPEAKER_03:

A lot of things swirling around in my brain. Because Charles Bronson remakes Bronson remakes um just remake Mr. Majestic. Um I the the sort of the big heading I feel is write something interesting and unique, which is a really annoying heading to tell people. Hey, just write something that's great. Yeah, and write good. Write good. Be good at writing. Yeah. Um, but what I think I I think the nuance of it is like can you take an idea and and how can how can you spin out that idea into a unique character or um maybe even like the format of what you're writing and like, you know, is there an interesting way to tell that story? Something that would make it stand out. You know, like there's there's a spec that I really loved from maybe like seven, eight, nine months ago, maybe a little bit more. I forget the title of it, but it was about it was like it's this spec. It's a romance spec about two people who there's like one night of the year when you're allowed to have sex, and it's these two people meet and they're going to help each other get to the person they want to have sex with, but of course they end up together. Yeah. And it was a weird sci-fi high concept rom-com.

SPEAKER_02:

Like that.

SPEAKER_03:

And I really loved it. Company didn't want to pursue it because they didn't think it was big enough, but it's getting made. Yeah. Like there's a couple of casts attached, there's a director, it's going. And it's like, yeah, that's a great idea. That's a fun idea. You're taking the purge meets, you know, to all the boys I've lost, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Like you're like I'm not perfect. But you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03:

Like it's a great idea with a pretty unique, high concept, like core thing that grabs you, but you are making it unique and and your own. Yeah. Um and so I think that like that's the annoying thing of like what do writers do? It's like that. It's like that. Try to figure out what your theme is.

SPEAKER_02:

Do the quirky weird thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um, because look, at worst case scenario, like 90, I don't know what percentage now. That's me just making up numbers. You are going to write that is an advertisement for yourself. You can never forget that like you might write something and you go, I want to sell this.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Hold your horses. Chances are that is people reading and going, we like the writing. Yeah. How about we do something else? We don't think that's makeable, but like, let's do something else. So you got to remember that as well. That is a showcase of what you can do. You're putting in a lot of effort so people read something and go, let's write something else, which you know can sound like a bummer, but it's the way it works.

SPEAKER_02:

I feel like that's a good piece of advice for a lot of young emerging, young and emerging writers because I think I meet some folks and they're like, I just want to sell a script. And I'm like, I get it, because I've been there. Who doesn't? But how are you gonna sell something when the buyer doesn't know you or your voice? Yeah. I think that's so critical. And

SPEAKER_03:

you know yeah there's hierarchies yeah you know no one knows you can execute no one knows it might be a great script that might sell sure sure sure however you're on the bottom rung you gotta show who you are and they I kind of maybe the hidden thing behind it all is that they want you to write a second so that that you can prove you can do it again. Yeah you know we just have two samples that are the sophomore album is really hard for bands.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah it is yeah the sophomore slump is really hard can you do it again uh I've had the sophomore slump for a couple of a couple of scripts and then like a couple of scripts that came out good. Well on on that note on that advice like write right good uh no write uh exciting write fun write new write unique but do it not to sell but to showcase you as a and your brand and your voice and who you are as a person as a creative.

SPEAKER_03:

I will always advocate for do doing doing the shit you want to do doing the art you want to do. If that means it's hyperviolent or gory or weird like yeah why not you know like make it something that's going to grab people you know because people read hundreds of scripts every day. Yeah yeah yeah if there's an action sequence where you want to see like oh it's a little too much to be like decapitate that person in a scene like do it. Do it come on just do it come on just do it just do it because it's going do do something that you think that you would want to see because like what else we got to do? We're we're here doing this for the love of the game. Like do it let's go all in. Yeah just do it.

SPEAKER_02:

On that note Andrew thank you thank you for coming in we'll see you next week and we'll see we'll hear or talk to everybody listening next week uh and uh goodbye. Thank you for listening to the Anywood podcast. You can find us anywhere you find your podcasts or on YouTube on the Cinematography for actors YouTube channel. See you next week.

SPEAKER_01:

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 cinematography for actors dot com.

SPEAKER_00:

Cinematography for actors institute is a five oh one C three 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 actors dot com. Thanks