Film Courage: Niceole, why did you decide to apply for TV writing programs?
Niceole R. Levy, Screenwriter/Author: I had been trying on my own for
many, many years to break into the business and I had been lucky enough to have
some writers who were already in the field read me and encourage me but nobody was really able
to help me get representation or do any of that stuff you have to do to finally break through.
The writing programs were sort of the best option for somebody trying to get their foot in the door
and I applied to all of them. I had varying success at all of them. I had
no luck at warner brothers I have never been able to move the needle in the warner brothers
writing program I made the finals at disney twice but then didn't make the last cut uh and I had
applied to all of them multiple times and when I finally applied to the cbs writers program
and got in it was really a case of I i was beating my head against the wall right and
I was just like how much more of this can I do and I had a backup plan in progress I had started
a cookie business and I was like taking orders online and I was baking in a kitchen that used
to be in pasadena but sadly is no longer there where you could rent a commercial kitchen space
by the hour so like I was getting up and running and doing all this stuff with that
and I had a conversation with myself where I was like well you're gonna always write it's
not like you're gonna quit writing but I was just like I can't keep doing this I can't keep
applying to these fellowships and all those sorts of things and what happened basically
was I went to my day job and my boss yelled at me for caring too much about how I did my job
and it was just so antithetical to how I had been brought up by my very like military catholic black
parents to like do your best at everything and always over perform and do all those things and
I couldn't make sense of it and I came home and I had cried myself to sleep basically because I
was just like well I don't want to do this either like this is terrible and I woke up in the morning
and I thought try one more time like is there anything you can still apply to just try
and for the first time in the history of the cbs writers program except for when the pandemic
happened they had delayed the application period by one month and I had two days to get a script
in and because my mentors were always making me write I had a script ready to go and I put it in
the mail and I got it postmarked and next thing I knew I was in the program wow so many questions
with that first off just curious what was that script it was a spec episode of the closer which
was one of my favorite shows and it was funny because a lot of people had said to me like I
don't know if you should expect that because nobody in the business reads the watches this
show and I was like i'm gonna write a show that I know I can write just balls out like with all the
passion all the joy I can put into it and I love this show and so that's the script i'm gonna write
and I had multiple people tell me once it got into the the writing program circuit and people were
reading it that they don't watch the show but they loved the story and they had to see how it ended
and so that's always my advice to young writers now it's like write the spec that you of a show
you love whether you think people watch it or not because good writing leaps off the page
and I do think young writers should still be writing specs it is my advice to them one just
have one for a show you love because there are show runners who will not staff staff writers
unless they see a spec it's not common anymore but there there's a growing movement among showrunners
to get back to that because writing a specs group of television is literally the job you're trying
to get you have to write someone else's show in their voice in the exact format that they like
and you have to get as close to it as you can so that's the job so why not practice it before you
get the job were they telling you to write other things that were quote unquote popular at the time
there were definitely other shows that were more popular I think a lot of people were writing the
walking dead there were there were lots of shows and I typically as a tv fan will love
one or two of the really popular things but I tend to love more bread and butter shows like
I was a huge castle fan I was a huge fan of person of interest in elementary and like those
were the shows that I wanted to spend my time on and less so the walking dead or mad men and
because they just were not my they were not the kind of shows I get joy from and so people were
like well you have to write you have to write a more serious drama and I was like do I though
like I feel like I don't and so i'm really glad I stuck to my guns because it worked out
what most people tell young writers now is to be writing pilots and they should be absolutely be
writing their own original stories but a a really great pilot isn't proof to me that you can write
my tv show so that's why I always tell people they should still have a spec around for a current show
that's airing just in case someone asks for it and a show that they really care about because that's
going to show yes I think especially because right when what was happening when I broke in was
everyone was expecting the same shows so if you could stand out somehow by having a show
that they were not used to reading right away you were like oh well this is a different show
this isn't the 17th madman spec i'm getting this what is this close respect and so it is another
way to stand out if you're not doing these the shows that everybody else is doing were you able
to go back to that job and give your two weeks so interestingly what happened with that job I
continued doing it while I was doing the cvs program
because it's not a paid program and then so I had to keep paying my bills and I also continued to
do it during writers on the verge which I did after the cbs program and that was about the
time that I was like what even if I have to take a job cleaning houses or doing whatever I can do
hard work I can work as hard as other people who are paying their bills I can't do this job anymore
and I put my notice in and two weeks later I got my first staff writing job
so I always tell people I feel like the universe was like well she means it this time
so we better help her out wow what a great story and the cookie business the cookie
business went away because I was too busy uh writing however the baking did not go away so
my writers rooms are always very happy they get lots of cookies everyone in my life likes to get
baked goods for christmas so it's it the baking part still happens just not the business part
how many tv writing programs can you name there is the abc disney fellowship and some of them
have tweaked their names slightly before I say them all so trust me when you look them up it
might be worded a little bit different but abc disney's fellowship nbc's uh I
i can't remember what they're calling it now but they they did reenact their
writing program so just look for nbc tv writing program and you'll find it
uh the now viacom writers mentoring program which is the cbs program now there is um
oh goodness the warner brothers program is still there there have been fellowships and i'm not as
wired into these but I know for a while um uh sundance was doing one I believe that was a
like tv incubator for new writers um there have been other like uh
oh i'm going to forget the name of the production company ron howard's company imagine has done
their own writing program where they've encouraged writers to submit and have done some stuff
so it's really if you if you go look up writing programs there are a lot of opportunities now
that didn't exist i'm currently a mentor in a newer one it's called mentorship matters
we just finished our application period on the 26th and we got 800 applications so we'll
our readers are going through that process now of reading everything and sort of narrowing the field
um but that one started uh some wonderful people um real tucker gianna sobel and carol kirschner
all got together during the pandemic sort of post george floyd's murder and decided like what what
can we do like we're full of anger and the world is crazy what can we do and they came up with the
idea for this program where we give people who haven't been assistants haven't had a chance
to access hollywood yet the opportunity to be read and be mentored and see if they can break through
how many writers get into these programs a year not just the ones that you put in for
but like all of them in general it'd be hard to say I mean they all the numbers vary like
the cbs program usually takes anywhere from five to eight people I believe um I think we had eight
people in my nbc class I think disney usually takes ten so it's sort of I mean mentorship
matters we had more than that because as many mentors as we had because each mentor got one
writer so we had I want to say 35-ish mentors so we all had a mentee so it really sort of
depends on what the program can accommodate and so for mentorship matters you said 800
just for the the phrase it the first year that it's we finished the first year so this
is going to be for year number two starting in the fall wow 800 and this is um globally
it's yeah I think it was if I remember correctly anyone could apply but you had to be able to be
in the u.s to do the program because they there are like panels that have to occur and there's
staffing opportunities part of what we do in that program is use our network to help our mentees
so introducing them to reps to show runners to other writers that they can connect with and
you kind of need to be in the vicinity to do that even though we have zoom now it's easier I think
so I do think there's a us requirement but I can't remember entirely do you have to pay to be in the
program or do they pay you most of the programs don't pay but you do not have to pay to be in them
they are investment programs that the networks have in the studios have come up with to try to
to grow homegrown talent with an angle on diversity and inclusion so the abc disney program
has historically been the only one that pays its writers and they pay like I believe it's like 50
000 a year while you're in it but it does mean and you have a greater chance of staffing because they
can put you out to the entire abc disney family right for staffing opportunities but it does mean
you get paid that salary you're not getting paid a staff writer salary most of the other programs
what they do is the studio has money set aside so if for instance when I got my job on ironside
the studio supplemented my salary so it didn't come out of the show budget and that's how they
try to encourage people to give writers like me an opportunity and then if you prove yourself you get
to stay on regardless and they'll you have to make the showrunner be willing to pay for you
I do think there's a movement now to start adjusting that a little bit
because what we've been finding is that showrunners will use the freewriter
not all some let me make sure that's clear some showrunners will use the freewriter for as long
as the studio will pay for them and then not bring them back and so the studios are now looking at
how can they make it um an encouraging factor to keep the writers going forward so they're
looking at how they can change that payment system a little bit to to encourage retention.