Film Courage: Is it possible for writers starting out today to have the same type of TV writing
career that you had?
Marc Scott Zicree, Screenwriter/Author: In terms of writers nowadays having the same
kind of career I had? No, they can't really because television has changed so much. When
I started out I started writing in the late 70s and still going strong today. I’ve been
very lucky. Back then most shows had freelance slots so in other words for instance when
I was a producer on Sliders we had a 22 episode order for that season and 11 of those would
be freelance slots. So every day we were taking pitches from writers and we knew we'd have
to buy 11 scripts. Now we might rewrite those extensively because we knew the show day in
and day out in a way that the freelancers wouldn't necessarily but that might be that
first that person's first sale it might get them into the industry it gave so many people
chances to get their foot in the door get a start and and I actually ended up writing
for so many different shows because sometimes i'd be on staff but other times i'd just be
a freelancer coming in and pitching and so it allowed me also to write for a number of
different shows much more so than if I was on staff because you know usually you're exclusive
to that show or you might be able to write a feature when you're on hiatus but but on
any given year any given day I would be multitasking I got very very good at multitasking so I
might be well like for instance when I was a producer on sliders I was writing my own
scripts helping with every phase of the writing on everyone else's scripts and but I was also
I sold to deep space nine that year and far beyond the stars I had sold a trilogy to harper
collins so I was starting to write the first novel with Barbara Hamblin outlining the second
one with Maya Bonhoeff and i'd also been hired to write all the outlines for Anamorphs and
lay out that show and write several scripts for that show so friends so I would get into
my office at universal at six in the morning write an entire outline for Animorphs and
then by 10 i'd be done with that i'd have faxed it to New York and then the sliders
guys would come in and i'd do my sliders job all day and then on the weekend I might be
working on on the novel so we're on the outline for the deep space nine episodes so it was
it was a great way to work because you know how to to to go from one thing to another
to another without losing quality that's that's the hugely important thing you don't you don't
ever want to be just providing fodder you don't you don't want to just be writing my
friend Frank Spotnets who create a man in the high castle and ran the x-files he says
good enough is never good enough and I agree with that 100 percent he also says you should
every time you should aim for the bleachers because you might at least get a single you
know and it's and and I share that view which is give it your best I mean you should just
everything you've got should go into everything you do and and if it's not good enough work
work harder you know but and sometimes you're not going to write the great American novel
or the great American screenplay you know one of my friends who's in Ohio and calls
me quite often and he said well you know that episode of whatever show it was forever night
or whatever the that show that was on last week wasn't up to your normal standard why
was that and I said well you know you know how like when you're in school and sometimes
you really try your best but you get a b on a test or a c-plus or whatever it's sort of
like that you know you just you know it just didn't come together and but that but it wasn't
for lack of trying you know and so but that's part of it and and all but but again but in
terms of possibilities for the writers now they're much greater for instance when I started
there were three networks and pbs and so they had and they were 24 7 stations they weren't
you couldn't watch a show when you wanted to there was no home video and so there were
only a certain number of shows they could make just because of the hours and a day so
it limited how many writers could get work and it limited the what kind of work you could
get because if the show wasn't approved by the network you couldn't there's nothing you
could do and if you wanted to write something and shoot it on your own it would cost millions
of dollars minimally and and that was very very difficult to raise that money now there's
over 500 scripted comedy and drama series on the air on all the networks and VOD platforms
and and so there's an enormous amount more slots for writers additionally even though
there isn't freelance per se there still is freelance in animation but not in live action
by and large but also people can make their own web series they can make their own podcasts
there's so many ways to get a following to get an audience and and and I say everyone
I wouldn't go back to any other period in my life I'm i'm happiest of all now because
I have such I have such great autonomy my audience has given me over two and a half
million dollars to open my own studio and make space command and and now I'm raising
even more money it turned out I had a knack and so I don't have to ask permission from
anyone I just come up with an idea I write it I cast it I shoot it I put it out to my
my audience around the world and that doesn't mean that the studios and networks and vod
platforms can't be my partners they can but they aren't the deciding factor of what I
do in terms of what I make I'm in terms of creatively and and that's a pure joy so going
back to the 70s and then being a freelancer yeah completely different as to the the tone
of your day what you're working on well it wasn't so much different that's what I'm working
on because I was always working on shows that I had a passion for so whether it was sliders
or even Friday The 13th the series which is story edited I would always find the core
of it the emotional core that would resonate with me it always had to be something that
I could queue into otherwise I wouldn't write it but and I always worked with people who
I liked and who liked me and I was very lucky in that when this and the studio executives
and network executives we dealt with fortunately very supportive and very smart and so I didn't
find them intrusive there are the other kind of executives and and you want to try and
avoid those in in green lighting yourself I have a section on working with stupid people
and my first piece of advice is if you can avoid it avoid it but if you have to work
with someone who's in the food chain they might be above you in the food chain here's
how you can do it and not have the work be ruined and not have and not be fired and so
I go into some experiences from my career where I'm able to walk people through that
and but again it's it wasn't so much content that was different it was simply it's almost
like there's a difference between performing a play if you're an actor to an audience versus
auditioning because auditioning you need someone to approve you in order to do your work creatively
whereas when you're in a play performing for the audience that's the direct relationship
so the more that I can be in the direct relationship creatively between the conversations between
me and the world me and my audience the better and and really what started me on this journey
of opening my own studio and doing crowdfunding and selling investment shares in space command
and so forth was simply that so many of my friends who were the greatest writers in television
had written projects that were great and should have become hit series and the network or
the studio cut them off at script or cut them off at pilot the audience never saw those
great shows and I thought you know in in books once a novelist is relatively successful then
he can create a body of work like Stephen King for instance or name any writer that
you love and and so they have an authorial voice and a shape to their career that follows
their enthusiasms and what they want to talk about at any given time but that's not true
with television writers with television writers for the most part they're constantly stymied
from doing they're the projects they're most enthusiastic about or the projects that might
even be their best work because the studio and the networks have different objectives
which are primarily financial objectives and I'm and again they have a right to do that
if they're writing the checks but now that we can go directly to our audience and raise
money that way the fact that we can now shoot for so much less because digital is so much
less expensive we can we can change the rules to into our favor and you know it used to
be when when young people would like young directors or writers would say well I'm they're
not letting me get have my dream and I would say well who's not letting you have your dream
they say well the networks are the studios or whatever and back when it cost millions
of dollars to make a movie you'd say okay well then that makes sense they are being
stymied but now since you know they have a camera in their pocket I don't I don't accept
that excuse anymore someone says they're not letting me have my dream i'll say you are
you're using an excuse to avoid doing the work because the work is get a camera get
some people together get the best best actors you can find make it happen one way or another
make it happen and a great minute is better than a mediocre two hours of material but
if people love it you'll start to build your audience that starts to build a career how
did fear of success almost ruin your screenwriting career and when you hear that from these these
other writers yes do you hear fear of success in their voice or it's it's asking for permission
I think there's always a counterweight between fear of success and fear of failure in everyone's
heart in one way or another in different measures one is always afraid of exposure one is always
afraid of screwing it up you know and and ultimately you have to be willing to face
that and get past it and get over it and get around it you your job is to get your work
done your creative work and with all of my mentors whether it's rod sterling or Ray Bradbury
or Guillermo Del Toro with whom I wrote a book not long ago I seek out mentors who are
brilliant at what they do and then one of my key questions always is when you encounter
failure or when you encounter rejection what do you do and because what I'm looking for
are strategies that I can apply to my own life in my own career that keep me moving
forward and and it's been incredibly invaluable because you you find that the higher up someone
goes as a writer or a director or whatever or an actor their fear is still there but
they have coping mechanisms where the period that they're in breakdown is shorter and shorter
and shorter so in other words for instance when Guillermo Del Toro was preparing to film
his dream project the mountains of madness based on an hp Lovecraft novel they pulled
the plug on it universal did because they thought it would be too expensive and r-rated
and so forth and and Guillermo had other other irons in the fire and immediately jumped over
to pacific rim and he was off and running so that didn't mean he didn't feel terrible
and maybe had a weekend of feeling very sorry for himself but he got into motion and he
was already preparing for that eventuality eventuality in advance so that he wouldn't
be stopped and it's very important you know I think don't be afraid of success because
success is very nice you know when you write a book or that's successful or a tv show that
people talk about for decades or you get a big payday those things are fine they're fine
I think people are often afraid of scrutiny they're often afraid of well I'm a fraud and
I won't be able to handle success but success is an extremely amorphous thing you first
of all you can define what success means to you for instance at this point in my life
I don't need to have the million dollar payday you know I need to keep working creatively
and getting my work out to an audience but money is not at all what rules me I've made
choices we still live in an apartment we own our two cars outright you know it's I've made
choices that allow my life to be very free in that way but but for me success is very
very clear and I'm glad that I've been successful you know in I mean I you know I can look at
my career and say well clearly I've succeeded because I've created work that people are
still talking about you know 40 years after I did it and also I've earned significant
money writing for the studios and the networks until space command i'd only written for the
studios and the networks and the major publishers i'd never done any independent film projects
and then you know because of this roundtable I mentor I started hearing about crowdfunding
and I thought well let's see if I can raise money and turned out I could so even though
rod sterling was considered a dashingly handsome confident man angry at times maybe do you
think he had a touch of fear of success did he mask it with or sort of the the this pretty
boy you know I don't think he was afraid of success he was extremely charismatic extremely
confident without being arrogant but he felt that he had failed in his career which is
terribly sad the last interview he gave before he died at age 50 in in 1975 the interviewer
said do you think you've been successful you do think you've you've written work that will
stand the test of time and he said the good writing like fine wine has to age well with
time he said I think my work has been momentarily adequate which is astonishing and so sad that
he didn't live until now because he would have seen that he had created one of the greatest
masterpieces of television and he had inspired an entire generation of showrunners I mean
every major showrunner in drama rod is their hero he's the idol he's the guy who sort of
led the way as and it's really really sad that he didn't get to to know that you know
I'm sure he would have been amazed and extremely gratified sure many other Philip K Dick same
thing fell okay dick was a different case because he was at least he got to see fellow
Dick at least got to see the footage from blade runner he knew that somebody was getting
getting what he was doing and so he and he my god he created a huge amount of work I
mean he wrote I think about 12 novels in a year plus short stories I mean it's like let's
hear from amphetamines you know so yes that I think that did help fuel him but also he
had his own what did he call the hovel which was his sort of grungy little yeah he was
he was a talented man he was very funny he was a troubled man and there was all this
whole thing of how drugs drove him crazy and at the end he was raving and and insane and
all that stuff and and I had dinner not long ago with Greg Benford who's a fairly conservative
professor and also a science fiction writer and I taught we've got on the subject Philip
K. Dick and he said oh no no Phil wasn't like that at all he was very sweet very funny his
mind was perfectly together and he knew him you know throughout the latter years of his
life and so I was very glad to hear that because I think sometimes the media can get an impression
of someone which isn't accurate and Philip K Dick was an amazing writer and I'm glad
that that he had friends who really saw who he was and valued that.
Question For The Viewers:
When you encounter failure or rejection what do you do?