Lee Jessup: And so she told she taught my client to do the same thing. Fast forward
20 years, my client is a comedy writer. What does that tell you? Film Courage:
I think this is another blog post of your’s and I want to expand on it. Lee Jessup:
Sure. Film Courage: So writers are great at explaining someone else's story, but what
about their own? Especially when it comes to presenting themselves in the world, to
the studio system. What is the refining of their own story? What is too much [information]?
How truthful should they be? Lee Jessup: You want a writer to be truthful when they
talk about themselves but you have to also remember that a writer’s first story is
their own. So if they don't know how to tell their story it's going to be tough to
trust them with other stories. So you really have to figure out where is the ‘juice’
in your story. It's never in chronology or very rarely in chronology (sure if you
travel to space, sure chronologies just fine). But it is about finding a way to connect your
human experience (for lack of better words) to the person you're sitting across from you.
To become interesting, to become unique, to tell them a story they haven't heard that
is truthful and your’s. And it can be completely anecdotal. You know I’ve certainly
talk to people who start out saying “I have never done anything interesting in my life.”
Well then, what’s your point of view on the things that you've done? What have you
made of your experiences to find those stories that really speak to who you are as a person
and as a writer. To tell something interesting and unique so that a month later, a month
after a general, be it with an executive in a production company or studio, that executive
looks at a piece of work and says “Hey what happened to the writer who…the writer who
had that experience so I can bring it into this one?” So it is about sharing those
experiences, those points of view and finding a way to tell that personal story that is
meaningful and that is connective and that isn't tied up in a bow and doesn't have to
be pretty. It has to be memorable and eloquent. You have to be comfortable talking about it.
So it can’t turn into a therapy session. But it has to be that story that nobody else
has to tell. So for a while everybody was talking about writers who would go into networks
and talk about how television was their only friend. We've heard a lot of those stories.
So those stories are no longer unique. Every writer, every person has an experience and
has a point of view is uniquely theirs. You don't have to take half an hour to tell it.
In fact we want it told in two minutes, three minutes most. But relate to us something
that we can remember that speaks to who you are because that's who we want to work with.
I have a writer who is a super talented, lovely, lovely woman [who is] very, very shy who came
to me and said “I don't know what my personal story is and I can't really talk about it.”
And so I had to bring in a lot of anecdotes. There are a lot of different stories and they
all came out kind of sad. The problem was that she's a comedy writer. Until one day
she brought me a story about her mother. She's Korean and she grew up (naturally) with
a Korean mother who was obsessed with not wrinkling her face so she taught herself how
to laugh without moving any of the muscles on her face so that she would never age. And
so she told she taught my client to do the same thing. Fast forward 20 years, my client
is a comedy writer? What does that tell you?
Of course she told it with a little bit more flair and detail but those are the kind of
stories that stick, that are unique, that are memorable, that nobody else has. those
are the stories that you want to share with the industry because they'll remember you
that way. Film Courage: Okay, so if someone is envisioning their story and how they may
explain it, first off how will they or in what arena will they be telling the story.
When would it ever come up to say “Hey you know what, Lee? Tell me about yourself.
I've seen what you've written but I want to know your deal.” Lee Jessup: In every
general meeting an executive will sit you down and literally say “So tell me about
yourself!” Just like that. We talked earlier that I was doing a lot of interviews for this
book that I just written and in that environment I'd gone into me with agents, managers, executives
that I've never met with before. I can't tell you how many times folks that I was interviewing
would sit down with me and say “So Lee, tell me about yourself.” Those are the moments
that are asked in every general. It’s in every opportunity: Who are you? Is there
anything for us to connect on? Is it the story that you tell? Is it the way that you
tell that story? Is it the sensibility with which you see the world? So it's in every
general meeting. Every last general meeting “Tell me about yourself.” Other than “What
else do you have?” it’s perhaps the most popular question in this industry. Film
Courage: Lee where would someone actually be telling their story and how deep do they
go? How light do they keep it? Can I envision the scenario as to how someone's going to
be asking about me? Lee Jessup: Sure. Oftentimes it's going to happen at a general
meeting it's niceties, over a bottle of water “Tell me about yourself.” “Can I get
you something to drink? Tell me about yourself.” It's very blunt and upfront and “do your
show.” You know I have writers who have different versions of their stories. So I
have one writer who suffered a traumatic event in her childhood and if she is meeting with
somebody that she feels an instant bond and trust with then she will go deeper, she will
go darker. With others she will leave the nitty-gritty out. So you tailor your story
a little bit to see what and how dark you want to go. But the rule is never make it
a therapy session. Never bring in a story that you're not ready to talk about openly
without breaking down without having a moment of tears. All of that is unnecessary because
a lot of (specifically in TV) TV really looks at what do you bring into the [writer’s]
room, right? It's not just what you’re writing is but what personal experience, what themes
speak to you? What do you bring with you into the writer’s room so they want to know that
you are capable of talking about whatever it is you're bringing comfortably. That it's
not going to be a therapy session. That there's not going to be suddenly an elephant in the
room that makes everybody uncomfortable. So you want to have those layers to the story.
Comedy writers tend to really look for the lighter, fluffier, happier stuff or the really
dark stuff told in a very funny way, you know. Tragedy via comedy. The drama writers tend
to have those more layered stories that they choose how deeply to go into. So if it's
being abandoned by your father and the life of petty crime you're forced into at 12 and
how cute you were getting away with it? Or was it the nights that you spent alone and
when you didn't have money to pay for electricity and what that felt like when social services
showed up and tried to uproot you from your home. Those are different ways to tell the
same story. So writers really do pick and choose and it's important that you assess
your environment to really determine which version of which story you're telling. Ultimately
it's always going to be the same story because you're going to get known for that story in
them they'll be other anecdotes that will come along with it but it really is about
finding that core story and taking it out there and getting the industry to know you
through it. Film Courage: Okay so different versions. Lee Jessup: Yeah. Film Courage:
Maybe have an a, b and c version. Lee Jessup: Yeah you have a kind of deep version where
you really kind of drill into the story and then you have your (more for lack of better
words) shallow version of it that is less confrontational, less demanding of the listener,
less uncomfortable potentially. It really is how you look at it. Some writers prefer
to not expose any sort of wound when they talk about a personal story. They're perfectly
happy to stay surfacing and just allude to it. But it really is about planning and rehearsing
it and exploring it so that when you go into a room that's not when you're excavating your
own story and figuring out what's what works.