Indiewood

Momentum in Screenwriting: Overcoming Industry Gatekeepers w/ Andrew Lang

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 13 • Episode 3

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Breaking into the film industry as a screenwriter shouldn’t feel like decoding a riddle. We invited producer and development executive Andrew Lang to lay out the paths that writers can take to get ahead in their careers. From how reps filter the chaos to which competitions actually signal quality, we map the routes that move a script from inbox to meeting.

If you’re a writer outside the industry hubs, this conversation can be a roadmap you can use to refine your approach to the industry. Subscribe and/or share with a writer who needs a beacon to navigate this ever-evolving industry.

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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 Indywood Podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers wear in order to get those films made. Every month I am joined by one such guest where we talked about their creative process and how they thrive in the medium of film. This month I am joined by producer and creative development executive Andrew Lang, formerly of Dark Horse Comics. I'll get this. Paramount Pictures and Montecita Pictures. Andrew, welcome back.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so the last two episodes we talked about notes and we talked about like the zeitgeist of the industry and whatever the hell is happening nowadays. Um and I think it's really helpful for writers to kind of really get a grasp of how to succeed in the industry, how to break into the industry. And I and I think it's also helpful for directors, but uh I think for this episode, this is a good uh a segue to to this episode's topic, uh talking about how writers can find producers and how producers find writers. And I guess we can start there. Uh like how how do you find new writers?

SPEAKER_03:

The annoying answer is I find writers from reps.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

But that's not always true. That's not true, because it's not always true. He met, I wasn't rep.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And I've we talked about this before, but I don't I don't remember what it was a blacklist script. Right, right. There's always going to be some catalyst for not catalyst, some some mechanism for getting a a good script to be seen. Yeah. If it reaches a certain threshold, like that one of yours did, it got read by people. And, you know, it gets meetings and it gets you onto the thing, and then you know, you you keep going from there, right?

SPEAKER_02:

So I guess reps aside, like what are the mechanisms that you have used, blacklist aside, to find writers or to kind of like see material?

SPEAKER_03:

Um It's your gener I mostly I would say that mostly it's like competition-y type things. It's your nickels, it's your, you know, blacklists, it's um anything where there might be some like honestly, like someone cataloging and categorizing things and saying, there's a competition. We had a screen running competition, and these ones, these are our winners. These were our top 10, these are our top 20. You'll find that people just like will go, like, yeah, well, I read stuff. I'll read those. I'll get in, like, I will take a look at those. Um I I don't know that I can speak very well to kind of like pitch fest round table things. I'm not sure that I can speak to the efficacy of those uh of those endeavors.

SPEAKER_02:

I feel like for those, your stuff has to be so good. I mean, it has to be like you have to be in the pocket, your script has to be like top tier, it has to be a good idea, like instantly communicable. And if it's not, you know, because the producers in those pitch meetings or pitch fests, they're meeting like 50 to 100 people every more, maybe less.

SPEAKER_03:

So, like if you've got a great high concept idea, you know, that that that like cuts through, great. But if you've got something that might feel a little bit more generic in its like log line, if it's like two Starcross lovers meet and they fall in love, like that's people are gonna perhaps roll their eyes at it, but like what was the thing in that that makes it unique? Oh, it's in this setting, it's these groups of people. Like, um Crazy Rich Asians was a pretty generic love story, little bit of a little bit of like extra sauce on it, with like him being like uh super rich and she being, you know, like the couple of dynamics, right? It's like pretty women, but yeah, a pretty generic idea, but in execution and in writing, so not what you would expect that to be, because it was telling it from a point of view of like Singaporean people and like a culture there, and something that you're like, this is just good, this is great, this is a thing I haven't thought of before, I haven't seen on screen with people that are like you know, very pretty people in a in a in a great locale, like that changes the diet the that thing from what could possibly be an incredibly like run-of-the-mill log line.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um I'm glad you mentioned the log line stuff because I really want to unpack like what you see before you even start reading a script. Yeah. But for example, just to kind of give uh your perspective to people that are trying to get seen, you mentioned Blacklist, which is like the platform. You mentioned Nichols, like, do well in nickels. Okay, like that's uh you know a feat in and of itself. But also, are there any other competitions that you've personally be like, okay, let me just see what the winners are?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I I can't speak to other other no, no, not that I can pull off the top of my head right now. They're out there and you know, agents and managers and the people the folks are reading them. I don't know that it's like it becomes a bandwidth issue for many people where it's like, I don't know that I can always devote my time to looking at every smaller competition and seeing pulling people from that. Um, but plenty of reps do because reps are always looking to sign people, they're always looking for good ideas, they are always looking for marketable, sellable scripts. So like they'll be checking them, they'll be you know involved.

SPEAKER_02:

It's also harder when the festival has like multiple categories and like okay, what what are the winning scripts for ABC Festival? And it's like here's 20 scripts, and I'm like, uh, my reading list is 20 scripts today. I'm not gonna pick one. Yeah, and that's always hard to do. But you know, if you are a writer like in the middle of the country or you know, in a place that isn't connected to the industry, that's a good place to start. Like see how you can do in the festival.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So coming back to that like concept or that idea of like the log line or the the the synopsis or the treatment, when you get a piece of material, like what's the first thing you're looking for as a um gateway, a gate keep to gatekeep, like so you're not wasting time reading 20 pages of a script. Like what's that is it a log line that sparks interest? Or is it a pitch or a synopsis? Like, what's a writer? What's the most effective thing to do?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, look, if like hopefully there is a completed script. Yeah. Right? There sort of has to be.

SPEAKER_02:

Are you gonna read a completed script without seeing a log line?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We er everyone would. But I think that if if I got an email that said, here's a log line for a movie, and there's usually sort of the your log line and then a blurb. Is it going by the email? A little blurb that'll say, like, look, this is a story thematically about this thing. And it's tonally as this meets this. A little descriptor to kind of just provide a little extra, you know, a little extra something so that you know what it is that you know you have. If then that's followed up with just a treatment, oh, that's a that's a downer, that's a bummer, a synopsis or like a short, like no, not a short story, but like something where it's not finished. If it's like because if you like that idea, let me read that idea, but you don't have it, oh, okay, see you in six months when you finished it. Like, you know, I then I'm just waiting for the full thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's a question that I wanted to ask real quick, just to dive deeper into that, because this is a separate firm, kind of separate. What's your turnaround for a piece of material? Like, okay, it's good, you want to read it, but like how much time goes by before you're like, uh what? What was that script again? You know, where it's just gone, you know?

SPEAKER_03:

It varies.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

It really varies.

SPEAKER_02:

Like three to six months, like you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Wait, are you are you do you mean is it like when I get it to when I read it? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02:

So like someone pitches you something, like, hey, I have a log line. Here's uh, you know, diehard on um uh on Mars, right? Right? And you're like, great, let me read it. And they're like, cool, I have to finish writing it. Yeah, so like how long are you going to wait or until that, until you've just moved on to something else?

SPEAKER_03:

You can wait as long as you want. If you like it, wait for that writer to finish it. You'll be doing other things. A producer or an executive's working on other things. Yeah. So when you come back to them with that fully finished script, they'll they're gonna go, oh, awesome, cool. I remember that. Chances are you remember it. I do everyone's got a weirdly uncanny memory for memory for like, wait, that was the thing about the thing, right? It's like, yeah, it is. Right, exactly. If you liked it and you sparked to it, you're gonna remember it.

SPEAKER_02:

How about for notes?

SPEAKER_03:

How long should it there be for a turnaround for notes to a writer?

SPEAKER_02:

Let's say you nothing's an active production, but you have interest in a script and you're like, hey, let's work a little bit on this. I feel like there's something there, let's get it up to here. Uh, you know, and it was here.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's get it, you know, let's get it up to there, and then then then we can start sending it around to some directors and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02:

So, like, how long if if someone takes a year and they come back to you, how do you react to that versus like three months?

SPEAKER_03:

To execute notes or to finish a script? Execute notes. Oh, that's a bad sign. Yeah, okay. If it's taking a long time, like if it's if it's more than two months, it's like okay, oh, well, do I sort of hate because I don't want this to sound like like sort of so negative, but it's like if it's taking you more than like two months to turn around some notes, how much do you really care about this? Like, do you if do you do you really want to do this then?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, unless you're like a rocket scientist, you know, and your day job is you know saving the world from asteroids.

SPEAKER_03:

There's all there's always gonna be something. There might be something where like, you know, I've I've I've bit worked with writers and they're like a parent has died in the middle of writing it. And it's like, don't sweat it. Yeah. We understand, all good. But if if I received your script of Die Hard on Mars, and I was like, shit, I love this. This is really cool. But what here's my notes bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, four or five things, and I don't see you for like six months, like that's gonna be a little weird of like there will be a deflation, and there's gonna be a maybe a loss of like some inertia of like, well, I was really excited about this. Like, you know, the whole the turnaround should have been a little faster. And again, I just understand that you're being asked to turn around something for no money, most likely. So there's you know, again, there's a give and a take, there's an understanding that like no one you they're not expecting it one week, but you know, timely.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, yeah. I feel like that's the uh the theme of the industry is like, what's the answer to this question? I don't know. You know, what do you want it to be? Yeah. I mean, uh uh like short but fast, but good, but not bad, uh, which is it's vagueness. The the industry is like full of vague answers.

SPEAKER_03:

I do feel like there's a relative it kind of explains a lot about the industry. It's like it's answering a question with a question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, you know, I always used to joke, like on set, it was hurry up and wait. Um, you know, it was like we're in at 8 a.m. and it's like great, we're all set up for to shoot by like 8.25, but no one's out of their wardrobe, their trailer until 9.30. We all hurried up to wait. There's you know, there's a bit of that, you know, the the similar kind of thing that happens in this where it's like you want things to move forward quickly, but that doesn't necessarily mean immediate has to be, but it can't be like too far out. There's a it's more about like efficient moving rather than speed in moving.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like it's either six months or ten minutes, you know what I mean? Like and maybe in between, I don't know. So back to the initial, like the original conversation for this episode, just finding writers. And we talked about like the log line and you know uh what you kind of see. So you're gonna be able to do it. Yeah, the interest in the project.

SPEAKER_03:

It's like if if if if if I if I get something in an email that says like, here's a log line and here's a thing, I want that script. And I go, Oh, that sounds interesting. That I spark to that thing, I want to read that script.

SPEAKER_02:

Do you ever sell or do you uh uh think that there's ever I mean I'm sure there's exceptions to this, but where someone pitches and they get like they're like the the studio or the producer's like great, write it, here's money, like we'll pay you to write it.

SPEAKER_03:

Does that happen? Yeah, yeah, that's gonna happen in like half a percent of cases, if not fewer. That's going to happen to big name people or in the very crazy likelihood that it's going to happen to someone who has the most incredible idea possible. I have only ever seen an in-the-room pitch get sold once at Paramount. We bought something, um, never got made. I think we got a script off of it. I think I'd left Paramount by the time the script came in. But I remember asking old friends, like, whatever happened to that thing? And they were like, ah, the script wasn't that good. But they bought that, and again, but the only reason they bought that script in the room and paid someone to write it was it was uh I don't know that I should say name. Just a big big name writer, an incredibly big actress and her production company. Did she write it? No, she did not write it, she was a producer on it, and she is one of the biggest of all time. Yeah. Interesting. And that's the reason why that got an in-the-room purchase. It amounted to nothing. People got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to write trash in the end.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a weird uh uh thing with like when you have that established relationship or you're hype in the industry, you have sa had success. I remember um a producer at Legendary, one of my former professors at UCLA, he said he worked with like a big writer, and the first draft came in and was like, What is this? Like, what is this? It's bad, it's trash. Like it's not a great script. And then through the writing process, they like ironed out all the things and kind of you know, a throwback to the previous episode. Things happen in a rewrite. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I've had writers that I know who were had finished 60% of a script and then it was due the next day and they turned in a full script. So I know that they wrote 40% of a script overnight.

SPEAKER_02:

And that can happen. And you can have good material ish. Ish. Like you can do it a couple times. Like maybe you can do it better when you're younger. Like I can't do that anymore. I've written a script in like a week, you know, from idea to first draft. First draft. And like there was some fun stuff in there. You can't do that anymore. Nope. Nope. Okay. I just these all bones. Yeah. So okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, but the the next the sort of the sub-issue or the other issue about how I discover writers or how I get to know writers. Um I would say, and again, I sort of speak partially in that I was lucky in the rarefied air of like I worked at an established company or companies, and there was already a relationship with myself and with the company, with reps, with managers and with with agents around town. So that is how you how I would get everything. So outside of the like, you know, trying to find new writers or you hope you do, and there's plenty of managers that take on new writers. Yeah. I've gotten plenty of scripts from managers and some agents where it's like, here's the first thing this person has written. I read a short thing they they did and I I signed them, and this is their first thing they wrote, and we're sending it out. Here it is.

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's your first gate gatekeeping moment where like someone's trusted them with this. Yeah. And and they've been vetted on some level.

SPEAKER_03:

I would say it's rare for a writer to know a producer without a without management or a rep involved in some capacity. It does happen, of course. There's just going to be writers that know producers directly. I mean like that, yeah. Right, right. It's because it does happen, but that's a rel, I would say that's just on the more rare side of that, because um a rep's gonna give you more exposure, they're gonna send you out, they're gonna have you take meetings, they're gonna have you pitch on things, they're gonna have you in you know, doing doing more things, and a relationship with a producer will yield far less opportunity because that producer is locked into having to deal with the slate of the projects that he has, or you know, in my case, it was like comic books only, and you had to kind of stick pretty strictly to what you had to work on, and so you know the writer, but you've got to wait for the mystical alignment of when that person's available and willing and go, I've got this thing, are you interested? You know, and that's alchemy at that point, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And and and reps are something I wanted to kind of touch on as well because they kind of tie everything together, yeah, all these relationships, and you know, I guess that's what they're there for. Do you see a difference in agents and managers from your perspective?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, there's a difference. I think that you could argue in a general kind of 50,000-foot view that they kind of do the same thing, that they're relatively interchangeable, you know, wink wink. Um, I think that the during the strikes, I think you saw a lot of agents like leave and become managers. Yeah. So like ultimately, yeah, exactly. Ultimately, there's a very slight difference in what they do. An agent might be more about getting you a job, and a manager might be more about like working with you on your stuff and producing it and helping it along and helping your career along. Uh, but I mean they you know, again, I'm speaking relatively broadly, like they kind of all do the same thing. Yeah. Um there's good ones and bad ones. I was gonna ask if if you prefer working with a rep. I prefer working with managers. Okay. I find them more approachable. Okay. I think agents can can just sort of uh, you know. I don't want to speak out of terms, but I get it. Yeah, I feel like manager, uh excuse me, agents are uh more driven by the dollar and by what job there is and what they can slot a writer into. Interesting. You know, like the an agent will get a TV writer a job. They're going out for it, they'll send them out for it. You know, and an agent will help you if you there's an open writing assignment on a on a feature that we have set up at a studio. Uh go talk to agents because agents will be like, this person's available, this person's available, we'll get this person in for it, we'll send this person. I'm also gonna call the the executive at the studio and talk to them about my writer that I'm sending you to read right now. So that's about like slotting someone in with a need versus like a manager might be like, I always found it better to talk to I liked talking to managers more because they were a bit more amenable to figuring something out with you.

SPEAKER_02:

I think they have a more creative approach to the, you know, they're they're more like career-oriented and job-oriented.

SPEAKER_03:

I just found them better to talk to in that regard. Yeah. If I have a comic book that's completely just like, what do you do with this? And they're like, you could have a conversation with about that, about that person a little bit easier. But again, case by case, you know, company by company for sure. It's gonna be very different. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be really different. There's de definitely different cultures at CAA to WME to UTA, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

Is there a difference for you, uh, and when you were at Paramount, Montecito, and then Dark Horse for like finding scripts versus writers? Because sometimes like you like a piece of material and you want to make that, and sometimes you find a writer. So it's both.

SPEAKER_03:

It's it's all yeah. The answer is yes. The answer is um on the buying side, you want a project. Doesn't mean you don't meet with a writer, and if they pitch you something and you go, that's a that's a pretty good idea, like you know, come come back to me when that's like a completed thing. Um, I would say that you know you gotta do both. Yeah. In my position, you have to do both. You you're always looking for a spec, and the spec market's so weird now, anyway, and they really only want to send specs to like the big companies. They want to send it to 21 laps and to Roy Lee and to Vertigo and to you know Blumhouse only. You know, they want to keep it very like pure in that way, so they're not always gonna reach out to number 50 on their list of coming to Dark Horse and sending it to me. Um, but you're always looking for that spec, but like, you know, you've got to develop with like the good thing about being a producer is you will get to develop stuff. It's not always about sending a writer off to go write and finish it alone. Sometimes, and I've I've brought ideas to writers, you know, and you try to develop it and you go, like, in good faith, working with someone to try and figure out an idea that you had or that idea with that writer, and you go, Oh, that's a good one. Like, let's let's see if we can figure that out. Um, you've got to do all of it.

SPEAKER_02:

I appreciate the insight because I think a lot of writers don't learn how to like navigate that nebulous world of I finished writing a script, and then it's on the big screen. Like, what happens in between? Yeah, you know, if you don't go the festival route. Yeah. So my question, my final question to you would be Um When a writer and a producer meet, and and maybe in your experience, sometimes a writer's like, let's make something, let's go, like, let's go do the thing. Let's let's here's a script, like read it, and let's make it. Uh, which feels a little too eager, and like I I totally get it, right? And some people are just like, I wrote a script and I want to sell it. And I'm like, good luck. Uh, you know, two thumbs up. But but how do you I guess in your experience, uh the relationships with writers that you've had, how what was the most successful approach to nurturing that relationship? Specifically from like a per like a professional point of view. So what like instead of the writer coming to you every week with an idea, you know, how can emerging writers and younger writers work with a producer to nurture professional relationship without kind of being thirsty for lack of a better word?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean that's that's an interesting because I think there's a like there's always a fine line of being too friendly and too personal, yeah, and thinking that you're like real life friends versus work colleagues colleagues. And you what it's a hard thing to navigate, you know, you know, because we've all been in jobs in real life and and in this industry where you're like you think you're great friends with someone you work with, and then you don't work with them and you never freaking see them again. Yeah, so I think how do you do that? Like, I think there's nothing anyone like me, a producer, a manager, an agent, will never not say, Yeah, let's go grab a meal or a coffee. Totally. Why not? Um, but yeah, like I mean, what's the number per month? Like that's a that's a difficult thing because it yeah, some people would just be like, oh god, I don't want to do this again. But I don't think anyone would ever turn down like simple email communication of like, you know, I wrote this thing, here it is, or I had this idea. I don't think it's ever wrong to stay in contact with people. Um, you know, I think the the one of the things that I do notice a lot is that like I have tried with writers that I fucking love and to try to develop something with them, and it's just sometimes it doesn't work. Yeah, and the timing isn't quite right, they're not available, or they took we talk about something and it's like, oh, that's a really good one. Do you want to try and figure that out? And it's like, oh, I got this other stuff I have to do. There's like that's the nature of it, it'll always be a misstep industry. Yeah. But I think if you like the overall is like for me, is like, but if you're going with your best foot forward and it's genuine and you know, then then like always do that. Um just know that like everyone's gonna get annoyed at some point. There's nothing wrong with yeah, annoying someone.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's just friendships in general.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's just friendships in general, and that's the that's work friendships, and that's regular friendships, right? Um, I think that it's but like if you want to work with that person, like remember that they are a work colleague and come with something and be be be willing to like say, like, hey, uh you want to develop this with me. Yeah, like you know, I it'd be good. Like, I you know, I liked doing that thing with you previous. Like, let's try and figure that you want to try and figure this thing out with me. I think this could be really good. Yeah, chances are they're gonna say, Yeah, sure, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02:

I I guess the other thing to end on would be like don't be afraid to ask. Like, no is fine, no is a okay answer to to get, but sometimes most of the time, people will be like, Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, yeah, and and you'll work with them on something and it'll be good. And yeah, and I guess if you're trying to maintain a relationship when you don't have anything, have lunch every six months. Yeah, it's fine. Just get a coffee and just have a have a zoom meeting. Yeah, have a zoom meeting. On that note, thank you, Andrew, for coming in. Thank you, everyone, for listening. See you next week. 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:

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