In April of this year, I celebrated my 2 year anniversary of moving to Los Angeles.  It was a huge risk to pack all my belongings into my Honda Civic and head out with no place to live, no job, and no friends or family.  All in the hopes to work in this crazy business we call “Hollywood.”

In March of this year, I was hired as an assistant editor on a feature film written, directed, produced, and starring a famous child actor from the 1980s. He was on a sitcom that my family and I watched every week. No, I won’t share with you who it is.

After two weeks of organizing the footage during production, I was asked to cut a few scenes while the editor was out of town. This director came in one day and asked to see some of the film. I showed him what I had been working on and he seemed to be pleased with my work.

When the editor came back in town, he announced that he wasn’t going to be able to finish the movie. As bizarre as it sounds, the director asked me to cut the film.  What a moment.  (BTW, I was at Disneyland when I got the call.  How awesome is that?)

It has been a great pleasure working with this director. The film is lower budget and I’ve really enjoyed the challenge.

It wasn’t my first rodeo. I cut Dangerous Calling along with Josh. And I’ve cut numerous short films over the years. But this was my first shot at cutting someone else’s film. Serving someone else’s vision. And I have to say — I LOVE IT.

It sounds like one of those stories you hear about. Being in the right place at the right time. I call it the hand of God. But whatever you want to call it, it happened and I now have a second feature under my belt as the editor. It feels great.

I get paid to make movies!  I would never have had this experience if I hadn’t taken a risk.

Here are a few quotes I recently discovered on risk:

“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum” ~  Sir Walter Scott

“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.”  ~ Theodore Roosevelt

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap in the dark to our success.”  ~  Henry David Thoreau

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”  ~ Robert Kennedy

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”  ~  Mark Twain

—-

Take a risk. It’ll pay off.

Josh and I have been writing screenplays since I started taking film classes in 1999 – we’d work on my homework together.  Before this time, the short films we would do were always on the fly.  “Now say – ‘You will die like dogs.’”  Basically just kids recording their play time on video.

We starting writing features when I graduated in 2004.  Over the last 7 years, we’ve learned a lot about screenwriting and have picked up many tips and tricks.  But one of the best things we ever did to improve our craft and our output was to join a Writers Group.

At first we weren’t too keen on the idea of paying to be in a group of people who we didn’t know and weren’t too sure of their “ability.”  What if we were the smartest people in the room?  (We screenwriters can be so naively arrogant.)

But after our first meeting, we were hooked.

The way our group works is this: every week one member of the group brings in a project they are working on. It can be a full screenplay or only a partial.  It can be a treatment, an outline, a TV pilot, a pitch, etc…  We assign characters to the room and then read the script aloud.  Afterwards, we spend about an hour giving feedback and spit-balling ideas on where to go.

And I’m not talking about the “that was good” or “I didn’t like it” kind of feedback but really helpful and constructive tips on how to improve your writing.  These people speak the language of cinema.

We’ve brought in our script 4 times over the last 7 months.  The first time was the first act, then the first half, then the first two acts, and just recently we brought in a complete draft.  (To call it a first draft is inaccurate since we’ve rewritten 50% of the script about 30 times.)

The benefits of joining a group are huge.

1.  Honest feedback

Your Mom and your spouse love you too much to tell you that your work is anything but brilliant.  If we listened to them, our latest script would have been sent out to the town with only the first ten pages written because it was SO brilliant that no one needs to read more than that.  They’d pay us to finish it.  Uh huh.  Moms and Spouses can be naive too.  But we love them for it.  We need someone in our lives who makes us feel like we are brilliant.

Your friends have too much at stake to tell you the honest truth.  I try to give honest feedback when a friend passes me his screenplay but it is really hard.  I don’t want to hurt their feelings.

A writers group provides you with a room full of strangers to tell you the truth.  They have nothing to lose by telling you how terrible your script is.  (Though our group is very nice about it.)

2.  Deadlines!

Every 10 weeks, we have to schedule when our next reading will be.  Because we don’t want to waste the time of these people we’re in the room with or waste our own money, we want to bring in something drastically improved.  Having a deadline and incentive to improve does wonders to keep us writing.

3.  Guidance

I couldn’t imagine trying to get something “industry ready” without honest feedback from people who know what industry ready IS.  We’re usually way to close to a project to look at it objectively.  A writers group full of professional writers (or hopeful writers who have been doing it for years and years) is a sure way of double checking your work.  They make you ask the hard questions.  Is this the best that it could be?  Because if it is not, no one will notice you or your script.  The odds of selling a spec are tremendously against us.  I don’t want make it harder by sending out a mediocre screenplay.

4.  Overall improvement

Every week, we hear screenplays and then listen as 10-15 writers give their thoughts on what worked and what didn’t.  THIS IS SO VALUABLE!  I can’t stress enough how much we learn by listening to these writers talk about how to fix a problem with the structure, characters, dialogue, etc…  It is so true what they say about who you surround yourself with.  It rubs off.

It is also incredibly valuable to share our own ideas in the group.  This can be incredibly intimidating.  What if it’s a crappy idea?  So what.  We hope to write for TV one day.  We’ll have to get used to quickly throwing ideas into the pot.  Bad ideas can lead to good ideas.

Looking at someone else’s script that has problems and trying to solve those problems helps us to improve our own problem solving skills and use that in our own scripts.

—

I highly recommend joining a Writers Group.  It will cost you money.  But it is incredibly worth it.  Make sure it has a mentor leading the group – you don’t want the loudest person in the room to dominate.  Having a mentor/leader keeps everything on the right track.  Our mentor has been in the business for over 30 years and is incredibly smart and talented.  Make sure to sit in on a group before you pay the money so you know what you are getting.  If you ARE the smartest person in the room, find another group.

Join a group!

And – Put your BUTT in the SEAT and start writing.  EVERY DAY.  Check out the post I wrote on this subject last year around this time.  It sure paid off.  We’re nearing a completed script that is almost “industry ready.”

The film industry can be brutal. The odds against success can be really disheartening. Just about everyone you meet out here is an aspiring writer or director. If you were to dwell on the odds, it would be tempting to give up and go back home.

So how do you beat those odds? Some would say it’s all about constantly finishing scripts and getting them in front of people. Eventually your body of work will get you work and something will sell. That’s a fine strategy, but I think it’s far more important to focus on doing great work.

If you can churn out three great screenplays a year, you’re a genius. The rest of us all wish we were you. However, more than likely it’s going to take a lot more time to write something excellent. Don’t rush the process by trying to achieve quantity of scripts. Quality is the goal here.

Remember, it only takes one script to open the doors of Hollywood. M. Night Shyamalan’s whole career is based on the strength of his script for The Sixth Sense. I recently read an interview with Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3.) He spent a year writing Little Miss Sunshine and then revised it for 4 years before he felt it was ready to hand out. Once it was ready, he gave it to one person. One. Arndt said that almost overnight all the big directors were reading it. Spielberg, Zemeckis, etc. Behold the power of a great script.

What are you working on? Are you going to settle for good? Or are you aiming for great? Remember it only takes one great script to launch your career.

This past Monday, Josh and I had the honor to interview Dave Smith, the founder and director of the Walt Disney Archives.  We met with him in his office on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank.

We were there to cover the 40th anniversary of the Archives for InsidetheMagic.net.  We’ll be posting the majority of our coverage over there.  But I wanted to share with you Dave’s answer to one very important question.

I asked Dave what he had gleaned over the last 40 years of studying Walt’s life that would indicate what made Walt Disney so successful.  This is what he said:

“I think the basic quality about Walt is that he was a genius in knowing what the public wanted in entertainment.  He didn’t listen to all of his critics that tried to talk him out of doing things he wanted to do because he knew what would interest the public.  And that was proved true throughout his career.

He was always trying new things… things that other companies and individuals were afraid to do.  He was always willing to put up his money to do things that other people didn’t want to do.

Of course, most people were afraid that these things wouldn’t be successful.  He wasn’t afraid they weren’t going to be successful.  He knew they were going to be successful.  Now if only we all had that ability… but I think that was indeed where he was a genius and I think that was his most important quality.”

Some key points stuck out at me from what Dave said.

• Walt didn’t listen to the naysayers in his life
• Walt tried new things – always
• Walt was a risk-taker
• Walt believed completely in his projects

I’d like to share one more quote by Walt Disney himself which backs up what Dave Smith observed.

“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making his dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C’s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of these is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way.”

I believe that you and I can be just as big an impact on our world as Walt Disney.  I’m prepared to try.  Are you?

Josh and I periodically like to host a movie night at one of our apartments and invite other educated film people.  Afterwards, we’ll discuss the film.  It makes for an enjoyable night, plus it’s a great way to further increase our film knowledge and refine our craft.

Sometimes we’ll watch a new release and other times we will watch older films.  I feel it is imortant to get a fresh take on a film that you might have seen many times.  Everyone has a slightly different viewpoint and hearing them can cause you to discover new insights.  I want to be able to suck every last drop of juice out of rich films such as Jaws, Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, etc… and sometimes the only way to do that is to get someone else’s take.

And don’t forget about the other end of the spectrum.  It is important to watch BAD films as well – though I would do this less frequently.  Josh and I like to watch at least one crappy film a month.  One can learn what NOT to do.  But, just like the FBI studies REAL money in order to spot counterfeit money, I find it more important to study great films more than bad films.

Have you considered hosting a movie night?  It’s much more fun and much less effort than a book club, in my humble opinion.  What movies would you screen?