Film Courage: How do executives decide which screenwriters are going to come into pitch?
Writer/Instructor and Script Consultant Shannan E. Johnson (The Professional Pen): This is where
the who part kind of comes in. Going back to executives having to have a mental Rolodex, so
their relationships with those agents or managers are how people are allowed to come into pitch or
how a screenplay will end up on your desk. If I'm a screenwriter at home who has an idea,
nine times out of ten because there's always that one but nine times out of ten you're going to need
some kind of representation to get you through that door and most of that is because you don't
want just anybody able to send something out somewhere because then legally it becomes an
issue. Executives are not allowed to read things unless they requested them. Sometimes it may be
that that network or studio already has an idea, they already own the IP and they just
need a writer to come and write it so they may put their feelers out to their agents and manage your
friends and say we need this kind of writer who writes this kind of thing and we want them to come
in and pitch us their take on this idea. That happens sometimes if it's their original idea,
the screenwriter's original idea then it comes it comes from the other way they go to the agent or
manager and they say hey I have this idea that I think will be really good for this studio or this
prediction production company or this network and then now that agent or manager is going to
contact the executive and say hey this is what we have over here is this something you guys are
looking for interested in listening to etc, etc and then if the executive is like yeah come on in
and they'll set up the meeting so a screenwriter should never try to just blindly send their
work not just because it's a bad idea where they could get their work stolen but also it violates
protocol yes yes yes exactly so most networks and studios don't have a submission process
the only way that you can get it in there is if that executive like that's your uncle's cousin
or whoever and they say to you yeah yeah send it over to me or because your agent or manager
sent it for you and that just helps with all of the legalities if a studio or network decides to
read something nine times out of ten they're going to send you some paperwork to sign off first that
says we're not going to steal your idea don't try to say we stole it a lot of writers don't
feel comfortable signing that and so then if they don't feel comfortable signing it then the network
or the studio is not going to read it and the reason that they have that and I'm not going to
get into the the vocabulary and the jargon of the of the the legalese but it basically is saying to
them we read a million zillion screenplays a day we guarantee you we've read your idea before so
if you see it show up on the screen it does not mean we stole your idea we could have already been
working on an idea very similar and so I was in a situation like that before where I even
believed that they were going to take us to court for copyright infringement because we were asking
people to come in to pitch we had the idea and we wanted them to come in different people with
different ideas to come and Pitch their take on it and so we didn't choose whoever's take but we
did choose someone else's now we have the idea so that means it was easy for plenty of people
to have similar takes well one particular group thought this is way too close to our take so from
their point of view we had stolen their idea now I don't know how far it went because I don't have
anything to do with the litigation but that kind of thing happens and I think especially lay people
which is why you need that agent or manager or lawyer or someone to play your go-between as lay
people you are thinking I have the most unique idea in the world and no one has ever thought
about this before and I think I've given this example here before where I was in three different
states talking to three different people and two of them weren't screenwriters and they all pitched
the same idea to me all in the same like couple of weeks what I mean so it's really hard to come with
a with an extremely unique idea and so because of that you don't want to send your your work out to
anybody willy-nilly what I mean because you just don't want to put yourself in that position but
it's also seen as unprofessional optional when you do it to these major these major Studios and
networks Etc because you're showing that you don't know what the process is so you need to be able to
have someone as your go-between to be able to get you into the door going back to when you started
your job and you were sitting at this desk and you were waiting for people to sort of bring stuff to
you how did you eventually learn what the duties of the job were and that oh okay now I have to be
self-generating right so how Issa Rae always says network across instead of networking up and what
that means is the people at the top don't have time for you but the people who are in your same
position do so there was another woman at the time her name was Corrine Huggins and she was in the
same position as me but for a different department but our desks were next to each other and she is
the one who said this is probably where you should start someone who was in the program with me in my
cohort with me and who understood what position I was in and with the kindness of her heart she
was like hey this is probably what you should be doing and anytime she got some information she
gave me that information and so I was able to kind of start building from there also I was given a
few things to do in the office that is usually for the coordinator to do which is the highest ranked
assistant in the in the office who usually you can go from coordinator to executive if that's what
you want to do and if there is a position open for you to do so and I appreciated those because even
though it was work for a coordinator I had never been a coordinator before so that means I got to
learn a lot so I did a whole lot of reporting so I was the person who knew every single thing
that was in development at my network because I was the person who did the reports I knew what
the updates were for every single project I knew where they were in whatever phase of the process
they were I knew what executive was working on working on each project also I worked with
each of the other senior more senior anyway executives than I on at least one or two of
their projects so I was able to and I was giving notes on everything so even though I wasn't the
person who was going in to physically be on the phone to give the notes I was also giving notes
on all of the projects that were coming through so I got to kind of be in every room all the time
we had one executive come in who came from being a producer and being a producer and kind of being
independent is a little bit different from being a suit at the on the executive level
and the executives are the closest thing that Hollywood's going to get to a suit outside of
like your agents and managers and lawyers who are always going to be pretty pulled up but
executives are like the next wrong of that and so it's very corporate because a lot of these studios
and networks are owned by larger corporations so it can get very corporate which is different for
a producer and so this particular producer gave me a lot of his responsibilities because he was like
this is just not how I do think so here you do it which is the best learning curve for me just give
it to me just let me do it and I'm gonna figure it out so once he gave it to me and allowed me to
just get in there and get my feet wet it was fine because I was able to learn as I was going but as
far as like me understanding where to start in the first place I didn't know I just did not know how
fearful were people networking across of losing their jobs or feeling like maybe you might get the
upper hand so they didn't give you information yeah I actually only had that in maybe two
two situations for the most part people were open I also don't think if any of them decide to watch
this video they're probably going to be surprised that I didn't know what I was doing what I mean
because the couple of things that I was told to do I also was the person who was in charge of all of
the diversity reports for all of cable television so I was doing a lot I just wasn't doing executive
work because I needed to be assigned to that and once I was assigned to it then I had something
to do but as far as not knowing that I should be out here having lunches with people and getting
to know people like that's the part I didn't know once people started giving giving me assignments
I started saying hey here's the script read it I got that I know how to do that here here are
the dailies give us notes cool I can do that but as far as like day one hey here's your
desk just go didn't know it all so I'd say for the most part there was no competition that way
especially like for example with with Corrine we were in the same position and she was in
a different department so there was no way that I was going to come one up and take her job she
rose to the top of the ranks that she should but there were a couple of other people who
felt like I might be competition and I think that's just from a for whatever reason women
are taught that I don't know why we get into a space and we feel like only one of us can be
here I have no idea for me I was so busy trying to learn and trying to figure out what was going
on that I wasn't thinking about anyone's job I wasn't even thinking about being promoted in
in Hollywood people can get promoted very easily they can spend six months in a job title and move
to the next one and for me it was have you even done that one long enough to really know what goes
on in the next one just because I just didn't really understand how the business worked that
way so for me I was more afraid that someone was going to try to promote me before I was prepared
to be promoted I wasn't thinking about anyone else's job but for other people it was I don't
know I won't say anyone kept any information for me I don't have evidence of that but I do believe
that there were some people who felt threatened but that's because they felt threatened period
maybe it was me being me but I think no matter who would have been in my position what I mean no
matter who that person was they may have thought this is a person who can come and take my job and
for me that was the last thing on my mind I was trying to figure out how to do my own job
and just quickly is there any advice for new people who are coming from another
state and they are taking on a similar position or something within the industry
any just little common sense things even just maybe just observe and and don't speak too
much I don't know yeah it's weird it's really just depends on the environment of that office
one of the things that happened to me was on my first day I was told be seen not heard
that crushed me because I'm the kind of person who has to learn by doing what I mean so if I can't
ask questions or at least that's what I heard them say if I can't ask questions if I can't use
my voice I might as well not be here so that made me sink into myself which was another reason why
it took me so long to figure out what's my place here because I didn't feel like I had anyone I
could ask whereas some of the other people who were in my cohort were in places where they had
people who were open to be able to say yeah if you have questions come on and ask or if we're in a
meeting and you want to add something you can add it meanwhile I don't know if everyone knew that I
was told to be seen and not heard but that put me in a place of well I'm not going to say like it's
not I'm not supposed to say anything should I be saying something and you never want anyone who
works with you for you under You by on the side of you to feel like their voice doesn't matter and
that's how I felt so not only am I dealing with the fact that I'm new to this and I came into
this program expecting to learn to be taught and realizing that well actually it's not a program
it's a job so you're just supposed to hit the ground running so that was already a punch in the
face here I am in a brick wall but I was also told we've seen not heard well if I don't know what
I'm doing and I can't ask any questions what am I supposed to do and so it took me a little while to
get over that maybe if I what this is all also a thing about possibly being a woman possibly being
young I was 26 or something like that I didn't know if this was a go to HR kind of thing what
I mean I didn't know if I was supposed to tattle on people what I'm saying I didn't know if I was
supposed to be saying something to somebody so that I could be getting more so that's why I was
so thankful that Corrine was there to be able to say hey do this try this why don't you try this
out and so I think you just have to you have to figure out your environment you have to figure out
if there are people who are open because there were other people who were open who I could go
to and ask questions to but I need to figure out what questions to ask this was also during a time
where YouTube was decently new what I mean so it's not like there were executives on YouTube talking
about what it was to be an executive like I said I didn't even know what development was and if I
typed in development everything but screenwriting came up everything but Hollywood came up so as far
as figuring out where my other resources were I felt like I was at a standstill maybe there was a
place that I could have gone and I just didn't know it existed but nowadays there's way too
much information out there for you like there are places where you can find information about what
your job title is or your job role is or what you should be doing or where you should be starting
but if you can't find that in external resources then find someone who is there who has done that
job before who who can be your Mentor that you can have someone who you can ask questions of
because how are you going to learn if you can't ask and I love what you said earlier you said
each office is different and so sometimes it's just knowing what these unspoken rules are yeah
that takes time yeah it takes a lot of time to learn and and in Hollywood because there's so much
ego because there's so much money and there's so much hierarchy etc it's really something you gotta
figure out is this a place where I can walk in man or woman young or old is this a place I can walk
in and just start talking what I mean or is this a place where I need to just kind of sit back figure
out what my my place is here and and then execute after that but figuring out if a room is going to
be welcoming or not it's the same thing if you get on a writing staff if you are an art of writing
staff and you are the staff writer there are a lot of rooms that don't expect you to say anything
they expect you to just be there what I mean then you get in a different room and that show
runner is welcoming and they want to hear your perspective and they want to know what you have to
say so you have to figure out who are the people who are your managers and what kind of environment
are they setting for you and figure out how to play in that and then if that's not something
that you want to play in then start figuring out your exit strategy so you can go play somewhere
else and there's a there's a gracefulness to certain exits as well you talked about HR and
I know it seems like things have changed people go to HR now over something and there can be
ramifications for being that person as well yeah so it's like a really fine line do you want to say
something exactly do you not want to but there can be ways to exit situations gracefully and
I haven't always been the best at that and and I know I'm sure other people haven't either and
and it can really follow you and it's one of the reasons that I I left the business it's one of
the reasons so I've told this story before but I left the business so that I could go do musical
theater and dance companies which was always a dream of mine but at this age I'm thinking
I'm in my career that dream is gone so that dream kind of came back around at a moment of transition
for me anyway I felt like I had learned everything that I needed to learn from this particular place
and I wanted to then take those skills somewhere else because I didn't feel
comfortable at this place and even though I was 26 and had been told to be seen and not heard
I didn't feel like I needed to go in and make declarations about what I was feeling I was
born in the 80s your feelings stay at home what I mean you don't come into your job talking about
how people are making you feel who cares get the job done if you don't want to be here go
somewhere else so I was in a place of deciding to go somewhere else and then then this whole
opportunity to do something different came up and I did it but when I came back I also came back at
36 or seven so it's a whole decade later I'm a totally different woman I'm far more confident
than I was and that's one of the reasons when I came back I knew that I wanted to be at a place
that needed me a place that was going to hear my voice a place that was going to respect what I had
to give I did not want to be receiving a paycheck to just be a number in the room what I mean like I
have things to offer so if you're going to hire me then you're going to get those things and now I'm
not walking into a room looking for permission to speak I'm here because you should want to hear my
voice if not why are you paying me why am I here but that's different because I have these decades
of experience now so I walk into a room totally differently but at 26 I would I don't even know
if I thought about going to HR I don't even know if I considered it now I can look back and go well
if I had I might have started a problem because I know about the history and how it was 20 years ago
but at this age I would probably talk to HR because I believe in protocol so I believe
that you have to inform people of something so that they can have an opportunity to try to fix
it because if you don't inform them of it you just keep it inside then you're going to come to work
frustrated every day and no one else is going to know why you're frustrated because they don't know
you have a problem so either you speak to your supervisor about your problem if you can't speak
to them you go to the person above them if you can't speak to them you talk to HR whoever it is
that you're supposed to talk to to try to solve the problem first if this is a place where you
actually want to be and want to thrive and if you then can't figure it out or if it does backfire on
you because it because it can get very political then you start to figure out what your exit is
but again like you said that exit can be graceful it doesn't have to be well I'm leaving because
of this and you did that and blah blah blah if you get an exit interview and they ask you why
you're leaving give them the facts on why you're leaving and then leave but it doesn't have to be
doesn't have to be a moment where you're giving it to the man what I mean on your way out so when
I did do my exit interview I did inform HR at that time what my whole experience was and even
she said to me oh my gosh why didn't you come to us sooner what I mean but for me it was it just
hadn't crossed my mind I hadn't even thought about it but I did want to give the feedback
on the way out because I didn't want someone else to have my experience I wanted to make
sure that even in their marketing and this is where maybe I was stepping over line but
like even in their marketing stop calling it a program it's not a program it's a job
you need people who are ready to do the job and if they're not ready to do the job then you need
a program that teaches them that guides them that gives them a mentor that tells them some
of the stuff that they need to do because again I came in thinking I'm just going to be writing
some great coverage and possibly get to work with the writing staffs and blah blah blah I
had no idea all of the rest of it even existed and how could I being on the outside even coming
from film school and so I needed them to have that feedback so from what I know there was
only one more one more cohort after me and then the program stopped it had nothing to do with
me and what what happened but I think a lot of programs like that no longer exist now and they
kind of ended over the last decade and even some of the fellowships that we know really well have
been talking about ending because money is being moved around etc etc but I do think that it was
it was necessary because it's very hard to go from assistant to executive.