(upbeat music)
- So you finally got the agent.
Congratulations.
Here is the other part that nobody will tell you.
Sometimes that first agent is just okay.
You might not find the love of your life as the first agent
and that's all right.
It's like the first boyfriend,
how many people marry their first boyfriend?
Some people do, works out.
Listen, my first agent is my manager now.
It worked out well for me.
That doesn't have to happen for everybody.
The agent works for you
and that's a really difficult concept
for a lot of writers to understand
because you're seeking them out
and you're so desperate to find them
because you need them for the work, but you are partners.
You're partners in this process.
So if they hate your material but you love your material,
you gotta sit with them and be like,
"All right, should you be representing me?
"'Cause I think you hate my material."
That's a hard conversation to have
because you don't want to be without an agent, I get it.
So listen to your gut in these situations.
A lot of times, an agent is better than no agent.
So before you get crazy and yell at your agent,
I mean, don't yell at anybody.
Actually, can we do a whole thing on kindness?
I'm gonna do a timeout and say please be kind along the way.
There's no reason for you to yell and scream
and be an asshole.
Let's all be nice to each other.
We're just trying to tell stories
and act and write and stuff
and make the world a little bit kinder and better.
Let's all be nice, okay?
Generally speaking, let's be nice.
When you get that first agent, I think it's really important
to try to get on the same page.
They need to know that you really are in control
of your business.
Even though you're just starting out,
you know things about yourself that they don't know.
You are the expert on you.
So explain to your agent at this point,
they might be like, "Are you a story person
"or are you a joke person?"
Maybe you don't know.
You're like, "I don't know, I think I'm both right now."
But you haven't been in a situation
where you really have been able to exercise those things
to know which one you do better.
So at the beginning you're kind of like,
"I'm a writer and I'm gonna see
"once I get in a room where I excel.
"What I think I do really well is this, and this, and this.
"Where I feel I really am valuable are this,
"and this, and this."
Again, you might get into a room and that might change
and grow and shift.
But at the beginning,
try to be clear about who you are as a voice.
Try to let that agent have tools about who you are
so that they can help sell you.
I think it's vital to say, like me, Gloria,
for a long time, the beginning of my career,
I really felt like what I did well was raunchy with heart.
I could tell some sort of raunchy joke
but then I could undercut it with a really sweet moment.
I thought I did that kind of better than anyone I knew
in that moment.
So I could do a rom-com and have a girl say something
maybe a little bit off-color,
but then immediately she could be likable again
because she's gonna say something that reminds you
that she's just a fun-loving gal.
So that's what I would talk about.
I would say like this is who I am as a 27-year-old woman.
This is the stuff I care about,
these are the types of stories I want to tell,
this is the stuff I think I do really, really well.
I think that women were being very underserved,
I certainly thought women of color
were being very underserved and one-sided.
And that was the voice I want to speak to
and that was what I had to say.
So it gave my agent, agency, see what I did there?
To go out and tell other people that, to say,
here's this piece of material we think is really good
and this is who this writer is.
Do you want to meet with her?
Do you respond to the material?
So the more you can be a partner to your agent, the better.
What that also means is you have to give your agent
stuff to sell.
A lot of times writers don't give their agents
enough material.
I would write and write and write
and write and write and write.
If I was on staff, I would still write.
I would write new plays, I would write monologues,
I would send them to my agent.
And a lot of times during staffing season,
I would find that, yeah, I had my spec-scripts,
but the things that got in the door for that meeting
was a monologue I wrote or a short play I wrote.
And I think that's twofold.
I think the reason being is because I was able
in a very short span of time,
write in one page a monologue,
or in 10 pages a short play,
that showed that I understood the concept
of characters, story, joke.
So if a showrunner has this many scripts
and there's a writer here that has something
that's one page.
Well, shit.
I'll read the one page and see if they're crappy or not.
Oh, I liked that one page.
What's this thing?
Oh, it's only 10 pages?
And they would read that and they'd go, "Great.
"I'm not even gonna bother with this thing
"'cause I like this person
"and I think they have some interesting things to say."
I'd get the meeting and I'd get the job.
Now that didn't always happen,
but a lot of times my excess material,
the extra stuff that I wrote,
ended up being the thing that got me the meeting.
So I think it's a really great thing
for you to be considering and doing.
And it also lets your agent know
that you are constantly thinking,
and you're constantly writing,
and you're constantly giving them new material.
And that reminds them that you exist.
It reminds them that you're prolific,
it reminds that you care and that you're active,
and that you're not gonna write one piece of material
and expect them to do all of this work
of setting up meetings for you
without doing any excess work.
I always did extra credit, I was that kid.
I'm encouraging you to also be that kid.
Do the extra credit.
The conversation once your material is all set.
So now your agent's like, "Oh my god,
"I love your material, I love your packet,
"I love all of these things that you have.
"We have a really strong package with you."
They also tend to put together a bio.
I would ask for any of these materials
and I would encourage you to read them
and participate in how you're being marketed.
If there's any information in there,
any awards that you've won,
there's something interesting about your background.
Like, I'm a Portland Cuban, that's weird.
So people liked hearing that I came from Portland, Oregon,
which is whitey-white-white,
and there was a thriving Cuban community there
that nobody really knew existed until I told them about it
in Hollywood when I moved here.
So that became interesting, that was a point of interest
and then some people would talk to me about Portland.
You want in's so that there's something
that somebody can connect with in your bio
that they might want to hear more from.
Some people are born abroad and then come here,
some people are immigrants and just became citizens.
Whatever your story is, that's a really important thing
for you to touch upon with your agent.
The other thing is, talk to your agents about
where you should be going and what you should be doing
while you're waiting for the next meeting.
They might just encourage you to,
"Hey, while you're waiting,
"why don't you write another spec for a show?
"Or why don't you try to come up
"with another original piece of material
"that is a little bit different.
"This is a family one, maybe you write something
"that's more of a romantic comedy
"or more of a relationship piece."
These are also conversations
that you can have with you agents.
Then I would also say that you should talk to your agent
about places you think you should meet.
I think it's perfectly appropriate
to have those conversations.
And this, again, requires you to be proactive
and do research.
If you love everything that Ryan Murphy does and makes,
you should read about Ryan Murphy,
you should read about the people that run his company.
And you better know the producers
that Ryan Murphy works with.
You better know the writers on that staff.
You better try to see if there's a way
that you can get ahold of anybody
that works on one of his productions
so that you can let them know that you exist.
Now, you're probably not going to be able
to get a meeting with Ryan Murphy,
but maybe you can get a meeting
with the staff writer on that staff,
who's also represented by your agent,
or a friend of your agent.
Maybe you want to meet with a writer's assistant
on that staff, on one of the Ryan Murphy shows,
to find out what it's like to be,
I'm gonna buy you coffee, assistant,
and I'm gonna find out from you what it's like
to be in one of those rooms.
Be proactive in doing that
because you might not be able to get this person,
but maybe you can get on of the people down here.
And then you befriend them and then they find out,
oh, there's a P.A. position available
and all of the sudden your name is in the ring.
So this is stuff that I also want you to think about.
You love Shonda's shows?
You Kenya Barris's shows?
You love Jill Soloway's shows?
You Jenji Kohan's shows?
This is something that you can be proactive in doing.
Now, you might get all those people to say no,
but then somebody might say yes.
So this is a constant hustle.
There's also something about being delicate in your hustle.
Be delicate in your hustle.
Nobody owes you anything.
It's a really hard thing to understand.
I think that people come here,
they've done the work, they've sacrificed,
they've saved the money, they've taken the classes,
they finally have the agent, and they feel like,
"I get a show now, right?"
You don't, for maybe a long time, and that's okay.
But nobody owes you anything,
so you have to put in the time and the work.
If some person off the street comes up to me and says like,
"Hey, I'd love to be a P.A. for you, here's my resume."
I'll say, "Oh, thank you very much."
But I have people that I've been working with for years
who have been stage P.A.'s
that are dying to be writer's P.A.'s,
there on the list before you.
Because I don't know you,
and maybe you're a lovely person,
but they've been putting the time and the effort in
and I like to reward that.
Somebody, again, might say yes.
But a lot of times I feel like,
people have to put in the time.
They have to put in the time in order to ask for the favor.
It's a little bit of a quid pro quo there.
If you've killed for me,
if you've gotten me cold diet Cokes,
if you've made sure I'm fed every single day,
and I'm a producer on a show
and you ask me to read your sample, I probably read it.
And I probably gave you notes on it
because you've been really cool to me
and so I want to be really cool to you
in gratitude of the work that you've been doing on the show.
It's so much easier with lower-level writers
or producer levels.
The more it gets to the top,
the more those people are not only working on shows.
Co-EP's, those people are working on my show
and they're writing their own show.
It's a busy, crazy time 'cause we all hustlin', baby.
We are all hustlin'.
The hustle is never over.
As I sit here talking to you right now,
I don't have a show.
I'm not a showrunner, I don't have a job,
I'm unemployed as I sit talking to you right now.
Hopefully by the time you watch this,
I will have something else.
But if not, guess what?
I'm not worried.
I got a bunch of stuff in development.
I have prepared for this moment.
So while it breaks my heart because my heart and soul
and blood and guts and tears live in "One Day at a Time",
I have not put all my eggs in that basket.
Because we can't.
We can't do that.
If this is what we want,
if this is the life that we want,
we got to know that somebody is in charge
of saying if we can tell that story or not.
So until we can be the ones that are the studio heads,
we got to keep on hustlin'.
And that's how this story goes.
Okay, another thing about agents.
You have the material, you have the packet,
you're waiting for these meetings,
what are these meetings and what should they be?
I think it's really, really great
if agents can starting getting you in
to meet junior executives.
If they can't get you in to meet junior executives,
have them ask if you can meet with the assistants
of the executives.
I met with a lot of junior executives
and a lot of assistants at the beginning.
Anybody at ABC, anybody at NBC, anybody at CBS,
anybody at the major studios where you want to be working.
Studios and networks.
A lot of people don't know the difference
so I'm gonna tell you the difference
between studio and network.
The studio actually makes the show,
the network licenses the show from the studio.
When I was on "How I Met Your Mother",
20th Century Fox paid for "How I Met Your Mother" to be made
and then CBS licensed it, rented it,
for let's say, if it costs $2.00,
they paid 50 cents to put it on CBS.
So it doesn't cover the entire fee,
it covers part of it so that it can live on this space
and then where the money is really made,
or at least where the money used to be made,
is after a hundred episodes,
they can sell it in syndication to TBS,
and recover all over their loses.
Because the studio is at a loss,
they're at a loss $1.50 every episode
because CBS is only paying them 50 cents
and they've been paying $2.00.
So that's roughly how the system used to work.
It's changing now.
It's changing with places like Netflix
and streaming services.
But as far as it used to go, that's how it worked.
So you have a place that makes the content
and then you have the place that distributes the content.
Sometimes it's linear.
NBC has Universal underneath it,
so NBC, Universal often can go right to NBC
and Paramount is CBS, and Disney is ABC.
Now they're all kind of working with each other
and it's all like the family's working together.
But that's not to say that 20th can't sell to ABC, they can.
20th's "Modern Family" is made at 20th and it's on ABC.
Those integrations do happen,
but it becomes kind of confusing.
What that also means is there's lots of places
for you as a writer to meet.
There's a lot of places that you can meet.
And your agent should be considering,
if you're doing multi-camera comedy,
or you're doing comedy, and you're a young comedy writer,
then they should be introducing you to people
that are doing comedy.
You should be meeting with the comedy departments
at NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, at FX, at TBS, at TVLand,
at all the places that are making content.
There's so many places now.
You should be meeting with those people.
They should get to know you.
Now, they might not have time to get to know you.
They might to get to know people twice a year,
but your agent should be facilitating those introductions.
That's one of their jobs is to make sure
people know you're a person out here making content
and you're new, and you're a new client,
and they want to get you in so that,
"I want to introduce you to my client.
"They're amazing.
"They just won this award at this film festival,
"and they have a really funny pilot spec,
"and a really funny original pilot.
"And they're young and new
"and they got a lot of really cool things to say,
"and here's their bio
"with a lot of interesting information about them.
"Would you read the material and if you like it,
"sit down and talk to them,
"just get to know them a little bit."
They should be doing that.
That's part of the job.
I feel like I started really making traction in Hollywood
after a year of doing that.
I went and met with people at CBS and ABC.
And here's the thing that's great too,
people also switch jobs.
Somebody might work at CBS for a few years
then go over and run ABC.
These things are interchanging.
We're kind of in a high school system
where everyone knows each other and it's a small town.
That's when people talk about when it's a small town,
it's cause people start moving.
You want these people to get to know you
so that when they move,
or when they start going up the ladder themselves,
they're like, "Oh yeah, you were cool.
"I thought you were cool, you did a great job."
So that when it's pilot season and you're like,
"Oh my god, I have to work on that new show by Marc Cherry.
"I want to work on that show so bad.
"I met with CBS people,
"I bet they can get my material to Marc."
You don't call CBS, you call your agent
and you tell your agent that information.
"Hey, remember when I met with that person?
"They're at CBS now."
This requires you to understand that it's a lot of meetings,
it's a lot of networking, you're need to keep track
of who these people are, who's moving around.
This is why reading the trades everyday is really important
because the trades will tell you,
oh, that assistant just got promoted to head of development
or that head of development is now over here
running comedy for this place.
And you go, "Oh my god, I know that person."
That's another person who can put in a good word for you
with that showrunner and possibly get your read.
Because there's hundreds of writers in town.
Hundreds, thousands.
When comedy staffing season comes up,
they get scripts, scripts, scripts, scripts.
Often times they cannot read all those scripts.
I did not read all those scripts.
I would, truthfully, I would have my assistant,
who knows what I like, go through the first batch
and I'd get the second batch.
I'd get the batch that she would say,
"This is a good batch, you should read this batch."
And sometimes, if a friend of mine called and said,
"Hey, you got sent this stuff, what did you think?"
and she didn't respond to it, I'll take a look at it,
but most of the time she was right.
She was right.
She has good taste.
But that takes time, for me to develop, as a showrunner.
Because you can't possibly read hundreds of scripts
'cause you're developing shows, and writing shows,
and casting the show, and approving costume,
and approving sets,
and making sure all the props are correct.
It's a lot.
So you gotta make their job as easy as possible.
If five people are calling about a writer
and saying they're amazing and I should check them out,
I'm probably gonna read that writer.
You gotta get those five people
who are gonna make those phone calls for you.
And you can't just call them up and say,
"Hey, I'm a really good person,
"I'm a good writer, please call."
You gotta do your years of work.
You gotta put in the time.
You gotta get those awards.
You gotta get into those programs.
You've gotta PA and do that grunt work.
And with time, and with energy, you'll get those calls.
The writing, and the writing, and the writing,
and the hustle, and the hustle, and the hustle,
is really what I'm trying to drill into you.
And I'm trying to keep you excited about it
so that you don't want to just hide under covers.
But listen, some days you're gonna wanna hide under covers
and just hide under covers those days.
It's okay, it's okay.
You're gonna be okay.
But then tomorrow, you better get out,
you better start writing some more,
and you better go out and do some meetings.
And you better pick up the phone and call your agent,
or email your agent, and say, "Look, I did some research.
"I found out that Shonda works with these people
"and these are the junior executives
"and these are the people I want to meet with,
"is there a way that you can facilitate a coffee
"between me and them?"
Be proactive.
Drive your agent a little bit crazy
until they tell you stop.
But let them know that you care
and that you're passionate.
Read the room, take the temperature,
make sure that you're not,
they're your partner so you don't want them to feel
like you're doubting what they do.
Run everything by them because they do have expertise
and they might be like, "Dude, chill out.
"Calm down, I got this."
But let them say that.
Just have an open conversation with them, don't be afraid.
I just know too many young writers
that are so afraid of their agents
and I think nobody is winning in that scenario.
I think you need to see them as partners
and you need to say,
"What can I do to make your job easier
"so that you can help me get a job and you can make money?"
I mean, that's really the end of it, right?
I always think of it in terms of like urinal talk.
That if the agent is at the urinal,
and his boss is at the next urinal,
and he's like, "Hey, Bob, what's goin' on
"with that one young client you have?"
And they're like, "Oh, well, hey, Phil.
"They just won this diversity showcase
"and they wrote a new spec that's really cool."
Awesome, what do you have so that Bob and Phil
can have a really good conversation about you
at that urinal?
This is the kind of crazy stuff I want you to think about.
Thank you so much for watching.
It's not over here you guys,
you can still tweet me @everythinggloria.
I'm on Instagram, I'm on Twitter.
I'm still available to you
so keep asking those questions, keep doing the work.
Make sure to watch all over the other Hollywood 101 videos
on Pero Like's YouTube channel.
This is Gloria Calderon Kellett, good luck.