Film Courage: Let's suppose you do get your script some kind of traction, where
someone answers an email how much not trouble but effort is it to actually
get a meeting and then once you get a meeting what happens? Markus Redmond, Actor/Writer/Director/Producer: No it's
not trouble but it requires effort especially if you're playing in the
network studio game because like everything is an upheaval right now
that's why I'm always saying like you have to pay attention to the business
and what's happening and what people are doing and what's going on you can be
dealing with a company and you could be dealing with an executive in that
company for instance this is something that we we dealt with had a piece of
material had an executive that was interested want to set up a meeting and
then you know meetings don't happen right away cuz there's so many meetings
there's so many people usually takes you know a week or two or three set the
meeting out so we set the meeting up within that three week timeframe that
executive no longer worked at the company they work somewhere else now so
that meeting that meetings in fantasy has nothing to do with anything like oh
well you know I don't like you anymore did people are getting switched up dude
like you know the the networks and studios are consolidating you know
Disney bought Fox there because they want Disney Plus
and everybody's doing a lot of stuff right there's all kinds of shifting
around right now and we did a pitch went great and then the executive branch like
the people running the studio that owned the network switched
hired a brand new CEO hired all these new people those people are now running
everything those people have a mandate that mandate now has to come down the
pike our show which these executives Doug did not fit the new mandate so
we're done again doesn't mean they didn't like it but it's a business like
people are doing things very specifically for their brand for their
companies I mean that's that's how it is now so you know again like a broken
record it's like a record Oh what record is that I don't know just a record cool
but like broke a record have more stuff have more than one piece have more
content because things shift up like crazy all the time and especially if
they like your writing and the script that you wrote doesn't fit the mandate
that the company has executive can still say listen if you've got anything else
that fits our bill please let us know we'd love to hear it
so it behooves you to have plenty of material let's say your meeting is us on
the 25th the 24th comes they're still employed there you're still good to go
what are you doing the night before the meeting and what are you doing while
you're in the wait and in the waiting room how early are you getting there
what's your strategy I you know I think it's just you just prepare you know I
think I think if you've got a pitch you know the folks that I'm working with
great amazing company been doing it for a really long time know the ins and outs
we just would go over the pitch yeah okay the meeting is three weeks out
so let's meet up every week and do the pitch so we would sit down we do the
pitch yeah what if you did this what if we tweak that move this round move that
around all right cool come back next week we'll do it again we
did it again you know what probably need to say that let's do this just keep
tweaking and tweaking getting super familiar with the material you know and
then go in yeah you know we just chill they gave us tea and soda and we just
hung out and then they took us up to the this huge executive boardroom because we
have a we had a visual presentation that went along with the pitch we chilled out
there and they brought us more tea and soda and executives came in we had this
killer pitch they were great it was fun the pitch was fun to do like it's fun
like you should be fun you created this thing you love this
thing that should come across like don't let the you know anxiety of uh wanna
sell this thing you know this would be so great like yeah of course you want to
sell it of course it would be so great but like don't let that overwhelm the
joy of this thing that use your baby you like created this thing that you totally
love and then like this person dug it and then they took it to this person and
that person took it so there's like this whole like but by the time you pitch
something a lot of people like what you've done so you're not nuts anymore
you know what I mean like you write the thing and it's like well I like it and I
might be nuts and then like more people like it and now they want to get on
board and they want to help out and they want to represent or whatever it is so
by the time you're sitting in front of an executive there's a lot of people
that dig it including the executive to a certain extent because the executive has
already heard the soft pitch of what the thing is that you created and that was
enough to make them say come in here so it's a big deal yes but it's a big deal
because you created something people dig so be happy about it
we're thrilled that was fun he's like yeah we're working on this thing for a
year let me tell you this part let me tell you that part it was fun it should
be fun I know that sounds you know too simple but it's you're getting the
opportunity to share this really cool thing but you created with people who
could potentially put it out to the world and the stuff you say are the
stuff they're going to say that their bosses because they dig what you do they
take what you say they're gonna go with their bosses and say same stuff you said
they got them excited which will get their boss is excited and then the next
thing you know the things on there and now they're getting millions of people
excited saying the same stuff you said to them in the room the first time so
you know just be excited about it it's cool even if it doesn't pan out it's
cool you know you have a good pitch people dig you they'll let you pitch
again that's a win come again in a room is a win it's big win oh so then always
leave kind of your foot in the door in a graceful way so you can come back I
think yeah I think you do that by just being cool I think if you write
something good that's the whole point of the pitches is to get them to read the
thing right cuz nobody wants to read anything right I'm gonna read I want to
do that so you pitch them the thing to get them excited about the thing so they
go alright alright let me read the thing this is cool that's funny that's weird
alright whatever so you get them excited about reading the thing they like the
way you handle yourself and I like how you write it presents itself the open
door presents itself like the pitches that we've done where I've done with the
company we've just gone in with the attitude of like let's just have a great
time you know what we want we know the show you know what we came here to do
let's just go in there and have fun if we have fun they'll have fun
and so far we've been welcomed back when you're practicing and you're in front of
someone else would they what are the how does this practice session go it's
coming for me it's like it's very challenging for me because the easiest
part of the process for me is writing the script that's the easiest part like
everybody like agonizes over that I'm just like when can I just sit down right
like I want to talk about all the other stuff and everything is so much more
challenging for me to sell a project than it is to just write the script okay
what's it about here's 42 pages I'll tell you everything
you need to know it's all in there I wrote all of it easy but that's not how
it works so you got to get in there and you got to dissect it and you got to
like analyze it and you got to figure out what it means to the world and how
it's timely right now and what are the themes and what are you trying to say
about the world that we live in so we basically wrote a script about
that so it's like a script about the screen let's script and I say this part
you say that part I say this part you say that part I say this part you say
that part well you know what this is the actual plot of the pilot so since you
wrote it you should say that part well this part is about the female character
that is kind of controversial your female you should say that part instead
of me so you toy around with it and then you
present it and then you memorize it like you do look a performance that's we did
anyway other people might do different stuff but that's that's how he did it
but yeah I'd rather just write the script itself
you