Andrew Warren, Author: I’m not super happy where I am right now I need to start working
on some changes and I one of the things I could do is I could write a book you
know it's something I've always wanted to do like why don't why can't I just do it?
Film Courage: When did you move to Los Angeles?
Andrew: I moved to Los Angeles in 1996 and why I had shot a low-budget independent film with
some friends of mine in New Jersey they they actually already lived in Los Angeles they
were people I'd gone to school with film school with so they one of them came back to New Jersey
we shot the movie and then we came to Los Angeles to edit it because another friend of mine was
working in a post house and he could get us on the Avids like you know after hours at night
and it was only supposed to be for six months was you know was the plan so I came here with
like maybe three grand you know and like you know and I crashed on sofas and it ended up taking of
course years you know so I got had to get a job and you know the years went by and by the time we
finished the movie I you know had a whole life out here at that point so I said well I guess I live
in Los Angeles now so that was how I ended up here what was your reality like after a couple of years
that's a tough one I would say it was probably pretty normal pretty average I mean I
got a job at a small production company and I started out as a talent manager's assistant
and from that position I sort of you know worked my way through that company I don't know if I
worked I don't know if I'd say I worked my way up but I worked my way to other positions you know
in that company and I eventually wound up being in charge of all the camera equipment production
equipment on a tv show that they launched called a blind date which was very successful for
them and went on for many years and I worked with them for I'd say like five or six years
on that show and that kind of led to other you know other jobs and other career opportunities
and things but mostly on the behind the scenes side versus the creative side so you know
while that was always going on I was always in the background you know writing or
trying to come up with ideas and stuff like that but most of my work was more technical and so
did you see how if you got like a regular job on you know reality tv or whatever you could make a
very good living but maybe some of the creativity wouldn't be absolutely in fact I would say
I could have I think a big part of it is like believing yourself and like you know putting
yourself out there because looking back I'm sure I could have had more creative opportunities if
I'd reached for them but I think I wasn't I don't think my confidence was super high at that time
I do know guys that started off as you know pas and went on to become segment producers
or story producers so I think absolutely if someone wants to get into the business
like just you know you have to get your foot in the door somehow so
take you know find a pa job find an assistant job just get started you know you never know
who you're going to meet or where it's going to lead you and I couldn't have predicted
even the path that I took would not have seemed obvious to me at the beginning you
know so but then I think you had a I don't know if you if you get busy living or get busy dying
yeah that came that actually came much later you know I mean I was out here
for many years before that and I think that's kind of what I mean when I say
I don't think I think I think everything that I ended up achieving I probably could have achieved
about 10 years earlier than I did if I had been more confident and if I'd you know trusted myself
and most importantly not allowed myself to get discouraged and I think you know you hear this
a lot that it's obviously it's a tough business and there's going to always be more no's than
yeses but I think it's you just have to really understand that prepare for it and just keep you
know keep plugging away keep trying keep working on your own things and not don't be shy about
putting yourself out there because I think that moment you're talking about came many
years later but it could have come sooner you know in my opinion when I look back on my life
do you think it was confidence or playing it safe probably both you know a little both I
mean what happened with me was I think I allowed myself to get discouraged early on because I had
like I said we had made this independent film we moved out here we finished it and the film
turned out you know for what it was it turned out okay we did sell it actually which is rare
but we certainly didn't make a lot of money off of it I'm not you know we weren't we couldn't
stop working you know it was a very small deal but the next thing I worked on was a screenplay for a
a horror movie that you know in my dream at the time which I to me seemed like a very modest dream
I'm sure it isn't but you know I really wanted to work with Roger Corman he was a hero of mine
and I always loved b movies and monster movies and horror movies those kinds of things and so
I had written this script it was a kind of a retro 50s giant bug movie kind of thing
and it was optioned by producers working with Roger Corman and I was you know on top of the
world I mean I was like this is it like this is the way it's meant to be you know like
it's happening and of course it you know it ended up just not working out I mean I don't
who knows I think I think roger at that time had some deal with some german financing that fell
through and you know I never actually met him in person or anything like that it was just through
these producers working with him and that project just you know went away like most projects do
and I think because I had it because it seemed so perfect and so exactly what I wanted when it
didn't happen I think that just took took the wind out of my sails for a while and it was a
long time before I really started putting myself out there creatively after that and that was a
mistake you know I should have just kept at it I was reading actually read a a Japanese proverb
last night that stood out to me if you if you get knocked down eight times pick yourself up nine
and I think that is the way this business works for sure do you know how to say it in Japanese no
Japanese but not very much okay what kind of job were you working when you started writing Tokyo
Black and can you tell us about your get busy living or get busy dying sure I mean first of
all to be clear it wasn't the the type of job that was so bad it just wasn't you know where
I was wasn't a good fit for me I was doing post-production sales which I had done before
at other places and I I enjoy post-production work like I mentioned I still do some post-supervising
freelance but just this particular place and the particular you know mix of people and and
clients and everything it just wasn't a good fit for me where I was and I wasn't very happy there
I had also gone through a divorce fairly recently at that point and I had always wanted to write
a book and I'd tried too many times you know I probably had four or five like unfinished novels
laying around and I just decided I don't know what it was but one night I was like well you know
I'm not super happy where I am right now I need to start working on some changes
and I one of the things I could do is I could write a book you know it's something i've
always wanted to do like why don't why can't I just do it and I had taken a trip to Japan
not super it was probably made like five years or so before that point but I really enjoyed it
and I really wanted to go back but it just for timing and money and work and everything I just
couldn't do it and I thought well I could write a book set in Japan and that would sort of be a
mental vacation you know I could kind of go there mentally and so I was like well what kind of book
would I could I write there and spy thrower just seemed to kind of go with that location
really well you know like Tokyo and you know think neon lights and secret agents and spy stuff and so
I just sat up this one night and honestly almost everything from that book came from this one night
of brainstorming where I just it was like a flash of inspiration I mean even even the title you know
I mean it all I was just like okay it'll be about this guy what's his name Thomas Caine
and you know what's it called Tokyo Black what is Tokyo Black and so all that brainstorming
really almost all of it made it into the book in the end and that was where that started
however I didn't finish it around that time I'd say I got about halfway
and kind of lost steam you know it was I'd never finished a novel and I it's you know it's a tough
undertaking until you've done it a few times but a few years later I was working at a place that I
really enjoyed working at things were great and I had a a new girlfriend and she was over at my
apartment and I don't remember if she wanted to read something I wrote or if it was just sitting
around but somehow she started reading the first half of this manuscript that was like on my desk
and she got really into it and you know of course she's not an unbiased opinion so at
first I didn't take it too seriously but she would keep asking me questions about it like well
you know what's going to happen to this character or like is is this guy really the bad guy and like
she seemed really invested in it and that sort of got me to see it you know in a new light because
I think when you're writing I mean when you're writing anything but especially a novel which is
the sprawling thing that's going to take a long time to finish it's really hard to assess your
work you know like is it good is it bad and just even more so in a rough draft you know so I had
really didn't know in my head like what this was or what it could be you know but seeing someone
else read it and get invested in it kind of lit the fire again and so that job was a freelance
job I knew it was coming to an end and I also knew I had another job with those same people in
about two or three months you know like they were booked back to back so I knew I had this gap and I
said well you know I know I have this two or three month gap and I know where my money is coming from
you know for the rest of the year so why don't I see if I can finish this book and I'd say that was
the point where I really got serious about writing where I like made it a scheduled thing and I would
sit down at 9 00 a.m and work until lunch and you know I would keep a word count and I didn't finish
it but I came pretty I say I knocked off another quarter and that experience of working in that way
was very transformative for me I was like oh I can do this you know I can actually
fit I can figure out how to fit this in and even if I have a job if I set aside this time here I
can write this many words and so when that second job finished I went back to the writing I finished
up the book and yeah that was the start of it all how many pages had you written when you kind of
shelved it for a little while it was about half the manuscript so I would say
you know in in novels versus screenplays you really think more on word count than in pages
because the page is totally dependent on you know formatting and font size and all that so I must
have been the book was about 85,000 words so I must have been around the 30 to 40,000
you know word mark at that point so it was enough that you could kind of start to get a sense of the
story you know and and kind of get the flow of it and where it was going because that you know
that's what led her to I think start asking all those questions you know an unfinished story is
I think if you're on the right track anyway it's like you know it's like it's like a itch you know
you just have to know like well where's this going or what's going to happen to this person you know
and when you sat down that one night where you kind of had this dark night of the soul that i've
got to do something and port it out was this just an outline on your computer or like a it
wasn't even an outline yet I would say it was just notes you know just random notes you know I knew I
wanted it to be set in Japan and I wanted to be a spy thriller I you know there's in the spy throw
a lot of spy thrower authors in that community are ex-military or ex you know spies and I know
I didn't have that background so I said okay well I’ll make him a guy who was betrayed and he's on
the outside and then I don't need to know as much about the inner workings you know these agencies
little things like that you know and I knew I knew some of the locations and some of the characters
but I wouldn't call it an outline it was more like about a couple pages of just random notes and then
I started making an outline you know from that point on so you wanted to make him sort of this
fringe outcast character I did for for multiple reasons a for the reason I said because I thought
I thought I could do a better job with that and also I'm just always drawn to sort of outsider
characters you know I mean in star wars my favorite character is Han Solo not Luke
Skywalker you know but also I think I you know I did put a lot of thought into it I'm a big
James Bond fan and when I don't just mean the movies I mean the original books by Ian Fleming
i've read them all many times and so I tried to think sort of of what Fleming did you know
because those books were written after world war ii when Britain's influence was kind of fading
I don't know this may be really boring but but you know I think he created a hero that
fit what England wanted at the time you know they wanted to feel important in the grand scheme of
things even though their kind of old world was gone at that point you know and their influence
was diminishing so he created this epitome of an English hero British hero you know he's sort
of middle class he has money but he's not a snob you know he's right in that spot you know
he's very patriotic to queen and country but he's also very well traveled at a time when
many people weren't well traveled you know most people did not get to leave the country back then
so so I kind of looked at what he did and I thought to myself well what
what does that look like for America now you know in this time period and to me I think
Americans are you know we're marked by rebelliousness and we are more outsiders and our
patriot at least my patriotism is more sort of you know a little bit cynical we've gone
through some things you know that that makes it hard to just sort of take all that stuff on
face value so I just tried to go through that same process of what would not just taking like
that kind of character and making him American but going through that thought process of what
would an American hero and that mold be you know that was how I came up with a lot of it.
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