This week’s rebroadcast looks at questions about if someone is ghosting you instead of reading your script, and how to leave representation that’s stopped representing you well.
A two parter: First, I’ve finally finished a script I think is good. I have a friend who is an established movie writer, and he has a manager at an established company.
Friend gave Manager the Script. After two months, Manager read the Script and called me up and said he really liked it a lot. But Script is an unusual sci-fi comedy and perhaps a tough sell (a director and or star would need to be attached) and so I need to wait for others at the company to read it and “find consensus.”
Second, meanwhile:
I have another friend whose very good buddy is a partner (in TV) at a large Agency. (Script is a feature.) Solely as a favor to Friend 2, Agent agrees to read script. I drop off Script in the Agency’s mail room.
Nine weeks later, Friend 2 asks Agent about the Script. Agent’s assistant tells Friend 2 to tell me to resend the latest version of Script to Assistant, because Agent is going to take it home over the weekend. Done.
Two weeks later, Friend 2 and Agent have lunch. Agent says, “Sorry, I haven’t read Script yet. I or one of my associates will read it.”
Am I fucked?
— bagadonuts
Your story is my story is almost every story of an aspiring screenwriter in Hollywood. In my case, the agency was CAA, the friend was an instructor at USC, and the waiting game went on for about two months before we finally got a pass. But during those two months, I came home from work every day staring at the answering machine (it was still the answering machine era), hoping for word about the script.
Bagadonuts, you are not fucked. You are just stuck in the waiting cycle which hits everyone. And so you know, the waiting doesn’t magically go away as you progress further into your career. Just the people change. Instead of waiting to hear what an agent or manager thought of your script, you’re waiting to hear back about what the studio chief is thinking. But they’re busy dealing with a crisis on This Other Movie. So they’ll get to it when he can.
Best advice: Always have multiple things out there. Follow up on a reasonable schedule, but never speculate that silence means doom.
How long is too long to read a draft?
What’s a reasonable amount of time to give your manager to read a draft of your script? It sometimes takes mine up to a month.
It seems long to me and I have been losing faith in his desire to get me work or sell my scripts. I’ve been with him for two years now and got a lot of meetings with the first script we went out with, but in the last year and a half nothing. At first he was very hands on and now it seems he has pushed me to the very bottom of his to do list.
I’ve stayed in touch with some of the producers I’ve taken meeting with and was wondering if it’s crossing a line to ask them to help me get a new manager or an agent?
— Mike
If you hand your manager a script on a Monday or Tuesday, you should expect to hear back by Friday — or get a call/email saying that he’ll read it over the weekend. A script delivered on Wednesday or later will probably be weekend reading as well.
He should get back to you by the Monday afternoon with word that he’s read it, or an explanation if he hasn’t. If you haven’t heard back, take the initiative and call/email.
In this case, don’t worry about firing your manager. He’s already fired you, but doesn’t have the guts to tell you.
If you’ve kept up relationships with those producers you’ve met, it’s absolutely fair to ask their input on a new manager and/or agent. But it’s going to be really awkward if your only contact was the meet-and-greet months ago. They need to be colleagues, not contacts.
I wouldn’t bother firing your manager until you have something new and shiny with which to attract attention.
How do you leave an agent/manager?
I currently have a lit agent and a manager, both from boutique companies. I’ve been with them both for about three years. I like them a lot personally, but as I look back over the years, they have not produced a lot of results.
I have a feature script that won two writing competitions (one major), a drama serial pilot and a drama procedural pilot and am currently working on a thriller. The feature was optioned for a year, but nothing came of it. It’s about to be optioned again, both are for very little money from very small companies.
But they never seem to send my stuff out. I’ve only had one meeting of significance in the past three years that my agent got for me. Not one from my manager.
If I decide to move on from one or both, what is the protocol?
I’d rather not drop one of them before I have new representation. But it feels like bad form to give my material to people on the sly without them knowing, to see if there’s interest. But if I drop them before I know there’s interest, and I have trouble…I would have been better off keeping them and trying to work on it.
I feel like I’m stuck. Any advice?
— Raymond
At this stage in your fledgling career, the job of both your agent and your manager is to put your work in the hands of people who might like it, then get you into rooms to meet with them. They can’t get you a job, or guarantee a sale. All they can do is help you make connections.
And they’re not doing it. So it’s time to change.
For readers new to this, a boutique agency is one with a relatively small group of agents and clients. Boutiques can be great, especially for writers and filmmakers with a very distinct sensibility that requires more careful positioning.1 Because of the small size, you’re not going to be competing with your own agency’s clients for jobs. The downside is that a boutique agency isn’t going to have all the resources and information that a major agency would have.
My first agent was at a boutique; his name was on the door. He sent me out on dozens of meetings with the right level of junior executives — including Dan Jinks, who would ultimately produce Big Fish and The Nines. Everyone I met with loved my agent. My first two writing assignments were landed through my own contacts, but he made the deals and stood up for me. He was a good agent.
Unfortunately, our tastes didn’t really jibe. I wanted to write big Hollywood movies, while most of his clients worked on the (admittedly fascinating) periphery. Reading an early draft of Go, he didn’t see it as a movie. And I knew it was time to go.
It’s time to see other people
Leaving an agent is breaking up. You’re telling someone who has been a friend and colleague that you believe someone else could do the job better. It’s going to hurt. Rip the Band-Aid off and deal with the sting.
Since you have both an agent and a manager, pick the one you think is the better fit and talk to him about your frustrations. If he has a list of ideas, consider them. If he tells you to keep things how they are, well, you need to leave him, too. It’s not working. Sticking around isn’t going to improve it.
Now is also the time to talk with trusted friends and colleagues about where you should go. The producers who just optioned your script may have opinions and recommendations. They might make some phone calls on your behalf.
Write something new and great
You’ll be in a better position to sign a new agent or manager if you have something new to put in their hands. They’ll want to send out material no one has seen, so the thriller might be the thing. It needs to be great, better than the script that won you the awards.
Agents want clients who work. That’s why the biggest change shouldn’t be who is representing you, but how you’re representing yourself. As you take meetings, make them understand that you will work your ass off to land assignments, then work five times harder to deliver. Say it and mean it.
Novelists can be hermetic artistes. Screenwriters have to be hunters, hucksters and hostage negotiators.
You don’t necessarily need to be at a bigger agency, though they’re often better equipped to handle both the TV and feature sides of your career. You’re wise to pursue both at full speed, by the way. Many writers ping-pong back and forth between the mediums.
Your question illustrates why most aspiring writers’ perception of the industry — if I could only get an agent, then… — is so naïve. Even with an agent, a manager and some acclaim, you’ve had a tough time moving from a spark of potential to an actual career.
Switching to new representation will only be an incremental improvement. The hard work will be capitalizing on their enthusiasm to make connections, set up projects, and write movies that get made.
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In trying to think of examples of quirky filmmakers, I looked up Harmony Korine and Todd Solondz. It turns out they’re both at a giant agency, WME. But I stand by my general case.