Film Courage: Going back to before you applied to film school and what you thought was your
vision of this is where I am going to be the next Cassavetes or whatever?
And then time moves on and was it in line with that?
Because people think it’s going to be this and I’m going to be driving in a BMW down
the 101.
Mark Sanderson, author/screenwriter: No, it never is.
The romanticized image, no.
It’s more of a craftsperson job.
It’s a career but I look at it as a job and I’m blessed to have the job.
It is my job and I’m blessed to have the job and I’m blessed to be working.
I really like to work and I take as much work as I can and turn down things that I don’t
like or can’t do but it’s nice to be in a place where a producer calls you and says
“Are you available?”
I’ve also been in a place where you turn in a thing and you say “Am I good enough?”
And you wait 6 months later and they say “I didn’t read it yet.”
Which is the norm.
So whatever level of the business you are working at to have any type of success (I’ve
realized is an amazing thing).
And many people can look down at (unless you’re the highest echelon at the A-list) and say
well if you’re not that, I’m not impress by what you do.
And so I say “Okay, I get it.
You’ve never really struggled to get one thing made so you wouldn’t say that to someone
who has been slogging away, the 10-year-overnight-success.”
Like I said it was 6 years out of film school (6 years) before I had my first professional
job that I was later fired from quickly.
And then 7 years for my spec to go through all the wrong people and the spec almost won
the Nichol Fellowship and all these adventures with that one spec.
I wrote other ones already for me to finally end up with me sitting on the set during the
filming going “Wow!
This has been 7 years?”
And every script and project has it’s own journey but sure out of film school I thought
they were going to hand us our diploma and our three-picture deal (which is the joke)
which is like “Of course I’ll be working.”
Maybe as a PA which I never did.
I knew how to make films I didn’t want to spend 18 hours a day not writing.
So I worked in restaurants as a waiter because I could always write, you know that’s me
going through college.
But then you settle into a place where you are finally at whatever at level you are and
have the players that you hire and the people that you know.
But do I still want to get to higher levels, absolutely.
But no one can take away my ability to write and create projects.
So that’s thing so that’s the next step would be for me to move into the producing
aspect and create projects.
So that’s the thing.
So the next step would be for me moving into a more producing aspect.
Directing I’ve enjoyed but I probably would have pursued it out of film school.
I really like the fact that as a writer you can go anyone.
Like I mentioned I was in Italy last year for 6 weeks and I was writing a screenplay.
So if you have a laptop and Internet connection you can write anywhere but a director needs
a film crew.
I have friends who can work two years on a movie directing it from beginning to end (it’s
a big endeavor).
I like the fact of being able to be mobile and work and maybe do more.
This last year I had 6 movies written.
So I don’t think I could direct 6 movies a year.
Film Courage: Yeah, it’s just so expensive.
That’s great thing about the writing, even though sometimes they [the writer] is unappreciated,
it’s the heartbeat of the movie and you can be on vacation while you are doing something
else like writing.
But in terms of you grew up in Southern California, so I wonder does that taint people and not
in a bad way but in terms of the way the vision of the way a career looks like?
Versus someone that is in another state?
Mark: Yeah, it’s weird because it never seemed weird when my friend and I were making
movies as a kid it never seemed like such a weird thing because we were filmmakers because
they were filming movies on our block outside.
The biggest TV shows were right up the block, you know?
Santa Monica used to film everything there.
So we were like “Oh?”
Now if we were living in a small city some where it might be so impressive or “I could
never make a film because it’s such a big enormous dream.”
But it was right outside our door so we were like “Huh?”
In a good way or bad because you don’t know if you’re ever going to be able to do it
and achieve and sustain that.
So I think the wide-eyed dreamer is still inside and I need that as a kid but then you
grow up and you realize the realities of the business.
Who wants to spend millions of dollars and lose their money on their idea.
You know it’s a business unfortunately but if you can work in it as artists.
And some are blessed to be an “artiste,” an “auteur.”
And others are people who get to work.
And if I’m working in the film business I’m a happy person.
Film Courage: Do you think you realize the amount of time spent alone at a computer or
at a desk?
I mean I realize you can be in a cafe writing and for a lot of people that does work.
But do you think a lot of people realize being bound by this calendar?
The calendar that says “Okay, I need this done by this date and I can’t deviate from
that.
Mark: Well in school or college you have a report or whatever do.
There are do dates for everything but that made it seem more like a job.
Which in the past it seemed more romanticized like “I’ll sell my specs, I sell it and
there will be some weird thing that happens where you won’t have to work so hard because
you did the work, right?
You sold spec with all the rewrites and the possibilities that can happen.
Then when you start working in the business you start realizing all the possibilities
that do happen and you’re like “Oh wow?”
And it sort of knocks down the shimmer of this romanticized driving with the top down…I
had a convertible one time…
Film Courage: [Laughs] I don’t know why that came into my head?
Mark: No, it was a 1965 Buick which was beautiful and I would drive up the coast.
And you know driving on the lot and all this stuff you dream of but then you still have
to do the work and like I said I worked with a lot of “Actors” back in the restaurant
days who didn’t want to do the work.
They loved you know [takes an imaginary drag off of a cigarette and exhales] “I’m an
actor.”
Brooding and this.
“Are you taking classes?”
“Well no?
I went on this audition because I have a good look.”
And I’m like “Oh, so you just don’t want to do the work?
Or you think it’s just that easy?”
So yeah, it’s changed, the perception I think off once you work at something where
you have this outside perception that many people might have of “How amazing it is
to be a writer!”
Yeah, it is but as a writer take the Hollywood element out, it’s a grind.
You’ve got to write.
You’ve got to come up with stuff.
35 scripts, I’m like “How did I channel that many stories through this body into these
things?”
And then I go “There won’t be any others in the well, how could there be?”
Well that’s your job as a writer, right?
To come up with another story, to come up with another, right?
I mean that’s the beautiful part of it to come back to the well and have it be full
of stuff and that’s where your living comes into play, your experiences and living an
authentic life where you are always observing and doing things because it’s your homework
as a screenwriter to do that.
Because you don’t want to go back to your well and have it be empty.
That’s when your passion dries up and you’re like “I’ve got nothing to say.
What am I doing?”
And you shrink and you just disappear.
And I think while you’re trying to pursue your career you have to live an interesting
life and meet interesting people and have it all relate back to your screenwriting because
it does.
It’s your job to live an interesting, authentic life and I think that helps your work.
Question For The Viewers: Is your Hollywood career unfolding the way you imagined it would?