The Odds
When I first embarked upon a career as a screenwriter everyone I met told me I was crazy. The thing I heard again and again was that it was just too competitive. Everyone and their mother has written a script. The market is flooded with people trying to get recognition for their project. It’s nearly impossible to get anyone to read it, let alone buy it. The odds are just too much against you.
And when I thought about this, it seemed true. I knew I wasn’t a genius or even especially talented. I was just another one of thousands who had this strange desire to write and express my thoughts and eventually, hopefully, get someone to pay me to do it. But I didn’t have a plan for how to actually make this happen. It didn’t seem like something you could make a plan for. I’d sit alone in my room writing and sometimes just feel ridiculous. Was this thing I was writing even any good? I had no contacts. Who was I going to send it to once it was done? What were the chances they’d like it even if I did manage to get someone to read it?
The chances are very slim, of course. It’s hard to get someone who matters to read your work. Furthermore, it’s very unlikely that they’ll think it’s good and worthy of paying you for it if they do. The odds are in fact against you, very much so, and most of the people trying to do this work go totally unrecognized and never realize their dreams. But when I started film school at USC I saw something that made me look at things a little differently.
My first formal introduction to screenwriting came in a class I took my first year at film school. The goal in that first class was for all of us to write the first act of a screenplay. The entire first semester, over 3 months, all we were expected to do was to write the first 30 pages, approximately, of a script. And it became clear as the weeks went on that most of the people in the class weren’t going to get there.
People came in with ideas and then decided that idea sucked and switched to something else, before switching back again. When we were asked to bring in actual pages more than half the class wasn’t able to finish them. Some of the remaining students had finished but refused to share their work with the class. They had already decided that the work they’d done wasn’t worthy of being shared. As the semester wore on many people just gave up altogether. The next semester and in following years I took more advanced screenwriting classes. It surprised me to see how so many people continued to struggle. There were fellow students who had started 5 or 6 scripts and never finished any of them. There were other people who had been dicking around with the same misconceived script for years, just trying to get it perfect.
I think it comes down to two things. First, there is nothing harder than sitting by yourself and, for free, writing something. I know people who work as film editors. This is a talent but it’s just much less taxing emotionally and creatively. The material is all there. Someone else has written it and shot it. You just have to organize it. Usually you’re being paid and even if not, the job has been legitimized somewhat because another person has gone to the trouble of creating all this material. You at least feel like you’re part of something real. There’s a structure present. You’re not staring a blank page.
One of the hardest things about writing your first screenplays is that no one has asked you to do it. You spend part of every day wondering if you’re not just engaged in some sort of self-indulgent, ridiculous folly. I would guess it’s similar to a band or musician who performs cover songs as opposed to their own original material. You can show up in a bar and play “Sweet Caroline” and some of the people there are probably going to enjoy it. But if you’re doing a song you wrote, perhaps even one that’s personal and revealing – you’re vulnerable. People might hate it and if they do, you feel like they hate you. Your ass is on the line. This is what it feels like to write. And in the early stages (of screenwriting and songwriting, I assume) chances are your work is going to suck. You know this on some level and the only way to get good is to write a bunch of crappy material and learn and slowly get better. But you have to show it to people and listen when they tell you the thing you’ve poured your heart and soul into for the past few months is weak or hackneyed or senseless. It’s hard going through this; miserable actually. And most people would rather not.
This brings me to the second thing. The majority of people take themselves out of the game before they even get to step one. I saw this again and again in film school. There were so many people who couldn’t bear the solitude and vulnerability and never even finished the first act of their first screenplay. Then there were people who did something almost as bad. They finished a first draft of their script and then wouldn’t let it go. They continued rewriting it and reimagining it, for years sometimes. They were hesitant to let anyone read it until they’d achieved some vision of perfection that they were never going to reach. Some of these people just couldn’t face the rejection. Others needed this thing, this project. It made them feel like they existed, like they had a purpose in this world. To show it to people, take your lumps and move on was just unthinkable. Either way, both groups were out of the game. They’d taken themselves out of it.
If you’re a screenwriter thinking about getting into the business and worried about competing with the thousands of people who have ever sat down to write a script you needn’t worry. You’re not competing with the people who have written one. You’re competing with the vast minority who have somehow managed to write ten or twenty or even more. And even then, it’s still hard. This business isn’t like others where if you work hard and are especially dedicated you’re guaranteed some measure of success. Among the determined, focused people who write 10 or 20 scripts many never get rewarded for it. And you have to put this out of your mind and just forge ahead and hope you get lucky eventually. Sure, there’s the occasionally the rare genius who just gets it and sells his or her first or second script. But for everyone else you have to write a bunch, not get bogged down for years with any of them, show them to whoever you can, take the rejection and then write another one and another one and another one.
I’d like to use the example of my friend, Vlas Parlapanides and his brother and writing partner, Charley. They have an interesting story that I think illustrates some of what I’m saying here and that also gives some perspective beyond my own experience. I’ve known and been good friends with Vlas since college. Vlas and Charley are perhaps best known for writing the movie, “Immortals”. If you google them you’ll see photos of them at the premiere in nice suits, both smiling and handsome. They look like winners. They’re standing on a red carpet. The movie cost 100M dollars to make and was the #1 movie the week it was released. But I watched how it happened from the beginning.
Part of the reason Vlas and I became friends is we both started talking to each other about being filmmakers in college. I went the film school route. Vlas lived in New York at the beginning. For most of his 20’s he worked as a PA on commercials. A few times he ran out of money and had to move home and work as a substitute teacher at his old high school. My journey in LA during and after film school wasn’t much better. It’s hard going through this in your 20’s. You see friends who have real jobs and who are starting to have real lives. Many of them are starting to make money. They’re going on vacations and dating and leasing nice cars. There was none of that for Vlas or me. We were both broke. Any money we came across was used to pay the rent for a few months so we’d have time to write.
In the beginning, Vlas and I would send each other our scripts. I’m not sure what his impressions were of mine but his were bad. That said, every time I turned around he was pumping out a new one. I must have read 4 or 5 of his scripts. I’d read his scripts and try to give him constructive notes but the truth is they all sucked. I didn’t tell him this but I thought it. When I read his work it made me wonder if mine was as bad because if so we were both fucked. But then, one day, out of nowhere, he sent me a script and it was good. It was amazing how far he’d come from the previous one. I’ve been told by people who are fluent in another language that there’s a moment where it just clicks. That’s what it felt like. But even then, it’s not like his work was done. Years and years went by. More scripts were sent my way. They all had a command and a professionalism to them now. But some were quite good and others were misconceived or just deficient in some way.
Then, Vlas started writing with his brother Charley and they both moved to LA. More years of struggling and writing scripts and not getting anywhere. Charley got married and Vlas asked if he could move in to my condo and rent my spare room. I saw up close how he lived. At this point he was into his 30’s. He had no money. He never went out to eat. Occasionally his mother would send him a few bucks to help him get by, which he told me he felt terrible about. He worked as a caddy at the Bel Air country club to just barely pay the bills. Charley worked as an assistant to a director. Not like a First AD on a movie set. I’m talking about the personal assistant who picks up dry cleaning and drives last night’s date home. But they both really busted it. They were constantly writing. Charley would come over and they’d go into the little room Vlas was renting from me and work. They’d be in there for hours every chance they got.
Eventually they showed me a script they’d written that was really good. And what’s more it was commercial with an original, big concept. It was the kind of thing that couldn’t be ignored. They sold it for a nice chunk of money but not life changing money. Vlas quit caddying and bought a used BMW, which was the big splurge. Charley quit his day job. Apart from that, everything was the same. Vlas still lived in my spare room. Every day Charley would come over and they’d get to work.
They had a real career now but even so, things didn’t get easy. The script they’d sold didn’t get made and got caught in development hell. They took a bunch of meetings and booked a job or two but pretty soon that dried up. One day they told me they were going to just sit down and write a script involving Greek mythology. I can’t remember what they were calling it but for months it was just known as “The Greek Mythology script”. It sounded crazy to me. I didn’t know anything about Greek mythology but certainly didn’t want to see a movie about it and assumed no one else did either. Vlas and Charley were in the beginning of their careers. They needed to write something big and commercial to keep the momentum going. It felt like a wild idea and a big chance to basically close up shop and get bogged down in this project.
But they believed in the idea and got to work. They pounded it out day after day. I heard them right down the hall, battling it out and occasionally yelling at each other the way brothers do. That script became Immortals and that’s a long story too that involved many twists and turns. It’s not like they finished the script and sold it and went into production. There was all sorts of drama around the sale of it and finding a director and getting paid and so on and so forth. It was a several years long process, with Immortals alone, that led to them standing on that red carpet at the premiere.
My overall point is that none of what came before that premiere was glamorous. It was really hard. It was so hard in fact that, in my opinion, if what you’d been hoping for was some money and a night on the red carpet at the end, when you got there it wouldn’t be worth it. I bet they’d say the same thing. It’s bigger than that. It’s about having the germ of an idea and somehow through force of will and luck and the magic of creativity making it real. That movie was a big affair. It employed hundreds of people. It generated 227M dollars in worldwide theatrical box office and millions more in ancillary markets. It all started though with two Greek guys from New Jersey who didn’t have any money or connections sitting in a small room banging their heads against the wall and sometimes banging each other against the wall.
And that’s a beautiful, amazing thing; just that something like this can happen, that it’s possible in this world. They brought their dream to life. They created something out of nothing. That’s why you do this. That’s the reward. And it doesn’t happen unless you have the determination to start and finish 6 or 7 sucky scripts that your friends don’t even like before you write a good one. And then even after that to keep writing more. It doesn’t happen unless you’re able to believe in what appears to be a delusion; which all evidence seems to prove is a delusion. When years have gone by and you haven’t even gotten a whiff of success. When you’re poor and ignored and your mother is sending you money she can’t afford to send so you can eat. It doesn’t happen unless you’re able to ignore that voice in your head saying that maybe this is all just a self-indulgent folly that will never amount to anything. Nothing happens without that mysterious thing that makes you keep going. And in my experience, whatever that is, very few people have it.
And when I thought about this, it seemed true. I knew I wasn’t a genius or even especially talented. I was just another one of thousands who had this strange desire to write and express my thoughts and eventually, hopefully, get someone to pay me to do it. But I didn’t have a plan for how to actually make this happen. It didn’t seem like something you could make a plan for. I’d sit alone in my room writing and sometimes just feel ridiculous. Was this thing I was writing even any good? I had no contacts. Who was I going to send it to once it was done? What were the chances they’d like it even if I did manage to get someone to read it?
The chances are very slim, of course. It’s hard to get someone who matters to read your work. Furthermore, it’s very unlikely that they’ll think it’s good and worthy of paying you for it if they do. The odds are in fact against you, very much so, and most of the people trying to do this work go totally unrecognized and never realize their dreams. But when I started film school at USC I saw something that made me look at things a little differently.
My first formal introduction to screenwriting came in a class I took my first year at film school. The goal in that first class was for all of us to write the first act of a screenplay. The entire first semester, over 3 months, all we were expected to do was to write the first 30 pages, approximately, of a script. And it became clear as the weeks went on that most of the people in the class weren’t going to get there.
People came in with ideas and then decided that idea sucked and switched to something else, before switching back again. When we were asked to bring in actual pages more than half the class wasn’t able to finish them. Some of the remaining students had finished but refused to share their work with the class. They had already decided that the work they’d done wasn’t worthy of being shared. As the semester wore on many people just gave up altogether. The next semester and in following years I took more advanced screenwriting classes. It surprised me to see how so many people continued to struggle. There were fellow students who had started 5 or 6 scripts and never finished any of them. There were other people who had been dicking around with the same misconceived script for years, just trying to get it perfect.
I think it comes down to two things. First, there is nothing harder than sitting by yourself and, for free, writing something. I know people who work as film editors. This is a talent but it’s just much less taxing emotionally and creatively. The material is all there. Someone else has written it and shot it. You just have to organize it. Usually you’re being paid and even if not, the job has been legitimized somewhat because another person has gone to the trouble of creating all this material. You at least feel like you’re part of something real. There’s a structure present. You’re not staring a blank page.
One of the hardest things about writing your first screenplays is that no one has asked you to do it. You spend part of every day wondering if you’re not just engaged in some sort of self-indulgent, ridiculous folly. I would guess it’s similar to a band or musician who performs cover songs as opposed to their own original material. You can show up in a bar and play “Sweet Caroline” and some of the people there are probably going to enjoy it. But if you’re doing a song you wrote, perhaps even one that’s personal and revealing – you’re vulnerable. People might hate it and if they do, you feel like they hate you. Your ass is on the line. This is what it feels like to write. And in the early stages (of screenwriting and songwriting, I assume) chances are your work is going to suck. You know this on some level and the only way to get good is to write a bunch of crappy material and learn and slowly get better. But you have to show it to people and listen when they tell you the thing you’ve poured your heart and soul into for the past few months is weak or hackneyed or senseless. It’s hard going through this; miserable actually. And most people would rather not.
This brings me to the second thing. The majority of people take themselves out of the game before they even get to step one. I saw this again and again in film school. There were so many people who couldn’t bear the solitude and vulnerability and never even finished the first act of their first screenplay. Then there were people who did something almost as bad. They finished a first draft of their script and then wouldn’t let it go. They continued rewriting it and reimagining it, for years sometimes. They were hesitant to let anyone read it until they’d achieved some vision of perfection that they were never going to reach. Some of these people just couldn’t face the rejection. Others needed this thing, this project. It made them feel like they existed, like they had a purpose in this world. To show it to people, take your lumps and move on was just unthinkable. Either way, both groups were out of the game. They’d taken themselves out of it.
If you’re a screenwriter thinking about getting into the business and worried about competing with the thousands of people who have ever sat down to write a script you needn’t worry. You’re not competing with the people who have written one. You’re competing with the vast minority who have somehow managed to write ten or twenty or even more. And even then, it’s still hard. This business isn’t like others where if you work hard and are especially dedicated you’re guaranteed some measure of success. Among the determined, focused people who write 10 or 20 scripts many never get rewarded for it. And you have to put this out of your mind and just forge ahead and hope you get lucky eventually. Sure, there’s the occasionally the rare genius who just gets it and sells his or her first or second script. But for everyone else you have to write a bunch, not get bogged down for years with any of them, show them to whoever you can, take the rejection and then write another one and another one and another one.
I’d like to use the example of my friend, Vlas Parlapanides and his brother and writing partner, Charley. They have an interesting story that I think illustrates some of what I’m saying here and that also gives some perspective beyond my own experience. I’ve known and been good friends with Vlas since college. Vlas and Charley are perhaps best known for writing the movie, “Immortals”. If you google them you’ll see photos of them at the premiere in nice suits, both smiling and handsome. They look like winners. They’re standing on a red carpet. The movie cost 100M dollars to make and was the #1 movie the week it was released. But I watched how it happened from the beginning.
Part of the reason Vlas and I became friends is we both started talking to each other about being filmmakers in college. I went the film school route. Vlas lived in New York at the beginning. For most of his 20’s he worked as a PA on commercials. A few times he ran out of money and had to move home and work as a substitute teacher at his old high school. My journey in LA during and after film school wasn’t much better. It’s hard going through this in your 20’s. You see friends who have real jobs and who are starting to have real lives. Many of them are starting to make money. They’re going on vacations and dating and leasing nice cars. There was none of that for Vlas or me. We were both broke. Any money we came across was used to pay the rent for a few months so we’d have time to write.
In the beginning, Vlas and I would send each other our scripts. I’m not sure what his impressions were of mine but his were bad. That said, every time I turned around he was pumping out a new one. I must have read 4 or 5 of his scripts. I’d read his scripts and try to give him constructive notes but the truth is they all sucked. I didn’t tell him this but I thought it. When I read his work it made me wonder if mine was as bad because if so we were both fucked. But then, one day, out of nowhere, he sent me a script and it was good. It was amazing how far he’d come from the previous one. I’ve been told by people who are fluent in another language that there’s a moment where it just clicks. That’s what it felt like. But even then, it’s not like his work was done. Years and years went by. More scripts were sent my way. They all had a command and a professionalism to them now. But some were quite good and others were misconceived or just deficient in some way.
Then, Vlas started writing with his brother Charley and they both moved to LA. More years of struggling and writing scripts and not getting anywhere. Charley got married and Vlas asked if he could move in to my condo and rent my spare room. I saw up close how he lived. At this point he was into his 30’s. He had no money. He never went out to eat. Occasionally his mother would send him a few bucks to help him get by, which he told me he felt terrible about. He worked as a caddy at the Bel Air country club to just barely pay the bills. Charley worked as an assistant to a director. Not like a First AD on a movie set. I’m talking about the personal assistant who picks up dry cleaning and drives last night’s date home. But they both really busted it. They were constantly writing. Charley would come over and they’d go into the little room Vlas was renting from me and work. They’d be in there for hours every chance they got.
Eventually they showed me a script they’d written that was really good. And what’s more it was commercial with an original, big concept. It was the kind of thing that couldn’t be ignored. They sold it for a nice chunk of money but not life changing money. Vlas quit caddying and bought a used BMW, which was the big splurge. Charley quit his day job. Apart from that, everything was the same. Vlas still lived in my spare room. Every day Charley would come over and they’d get to work.
They had a real career now but even so, things didn’t get easy. The script they’d sold didn’t get made and got caught in development hell. They took a bunch of meetings and booked a job or two but pretty soon that dried up. One day they told me they were going to just sit down and write a script involving Greek mythology. I can’t remember what they were calling it but for months it was just known as “The Greek Mythology script”. It sounded crazy to me. I didn’t know anything about Greek mythology but certainly didn’t want to see a movie about it and assumed no one else did either. Vlas and Charley were in the beginning of their careers. They needed to write something big and commercial to keep the momentum going. It felt like a wild idea and a big chance to basically close up shop and get bogged down in this project.
But they believed in the idea and got to work. They pounded it out day after day. I heard them right down the hall, battling it out and occasionally yelling at each other the way brothers do. That script became Immortals and that’s a long story too that involved many twists and turns. It’s not like they finished the script and sold it and went into production. There was all sorts of drama around the sale of it and finding a director and getting paid and so on and so forth. It was a several years long process, with Immortals alone, that led to them standing on that red carpet at the premiere.
My overall point is that none of what came before that premiere was glamorous. It was really hard. It was so hard in fact that, in my opinion, if what you’d been hoping for was some money and a night on the red carpet at the end, when you got there it wouldn’t be worth it. I bet they’d say the same thing. It’s bigger than that. It’s about having the germ of an idea and somehow through force of will and luck and the magic of creativity making it real. That movie was a big affair. It employed hundreds of people. It generated 227M dollars in worldwide theatrical box office and millions more in ancillary markets. It all started though with two Greek guys from New Jersey who didn’t have any money or connections sitting in a small room banging their heads against the wall and sometimes banging each other against the wall.
And that’s a beautiful, amazing thing; just that something like this can happen, that it’s possible in this world. They brought their dream to life. They created something out of nothing. That’s why you do this. That’s the reward. And it doesn’t happen unless you have the determination to start and finish 6 or 7 sucky scripts that your friends don’t even like before you write a good one. And then even after that to keep writing more. It doesn’t happen unless you’re able to believe in what appears to be a delusion; which all evidence seems to prove is a delusion. When years have gone by and you haven’t even gotten a whiff of success. When you’re poor and ignored and your mother is sending you money she can’t afford to send so you can eat. It doesn’t happen unless you’re able to ignore that voice in your head saying that maybe this is all just a self-indulgent folly that will never amount to anything. Nothing happens without that mysterious thing that makes you keep going. And in my experience, whatever that is, very few people have it.