Tweetstorm: Craig Mazin on the Working Relationship between Studio Execs and Writers
If you are an aspiring screenwriter, Twitter is an amazing resource. In October 2014, Rachael Prior posted a series of tweets about life as a feature development executive, which I posted here. Inspired by that thread, Craig Mazin followed up with his own tweetstorm. Reprinted in its entirety here by permission.
First, make sure you are primarily motivated by fear. This will be easy, as it’s that thing you’re soaking in at work.
You’ll likely be working at a studio or production company in which everyone is frightened to death. And of what?
They’re frightened of everything. There is no formula for success. Movies succeed because they magically connect with millions of people.
Sometimes they do not magically connect with millions of people. The “magic” part isn’t actually magic. It’s substance, but here’s the catch.
It’s not substance that you, the development exec, provides. It’s substance the writer provides, at least initially. So you have a choice.
Believe in their ability, and guide and help them to do the best they can, or attempt to mitigate your fear through CONTROL.
It’s likely the people you work for are big believers in the CONTROL method. Because this is what the fear tells you:
1. Writers don’t have the answer. The only answer is to repeat a past success, because that’s controllable.
2. Writing isn’t a proper job like “put in x hours to assemble y widgets of measurable in z units of quality.” So writers are suspect.
3. The harder you beat a writer, the more work you get out of them, and quantity is quantifiable, ergo CONTROLLABLE.
4. Your job and your livelihood are unfairly tied to the output of this self-important non-real-job artiste, so you must CONTROL them, or…
5. …the will control YOU. Then you will be seen as weak by your coworkers and bosses. You will be the wounded gazelle.
It also requires you to downgrade the importance of the quality of the script. A script is just a script anyway. Who knows?
By the time the movie comes out and flops, you’ll be developing THE NEXT BIG THING and you won’t be fire-able.
Remember, the CONTROL method is about making your emotional state Job #1. Risk is for idiots. It rarely pays off. In fact, you’ve noticed — -
— almost NOTHING pays off in development. Go ahead. Try and be good. Congrats. Your movie didn’t get greenlit. Or did and flopped.
Meanwhile, the sociopath in the office next door just got promoted, and their output is no different than yours. So why bother?
You were told that there was the promise of great power in development. You could be the Big Shot with the Green Button.
And THEN… on THAT day… you could finally do some good and make some terrific movies. At last! Ah, but even now, you know that’s a lie.
You’ve been trained by those people, and you can see there’s only fear and desperation for control in their hearts. That’s all there is.
And the higher you climb the ladder, the worse it gets. You’re not just afraid for your job. Now you’re afraid for EVERYONE’S job.
There are some development executives who seem to have succeeded by caring for writers and putting the movie above all other concerns.
But they’re the rare ones. Keep telling yourself that. There’s far more people doing your job worrying about what you’re told to worry about
So keep worrying. Hold on tightly. Show no faith. Control. Compromise to mitigate risk. Chase past success. Aim for quick, easy approval.
If you can do all that, there’s a .001% chance you’ll run a studio one day. But there’s a 99% chance you keep your job today.
There’s also a 99% chance you’ll burn out and move on in ten years, because one morning, you wake up and think “Wait. What am I doing?”
“What’s the point?”
Maybe then you will remember why you cared in the first place. Maybe then you will understand the true nature of risk and reward.
It’s easy to be the wrong kind of development executive. It’s hard to be the right kind. But there is no reward for being the wrong kind.
If you want to make money, you’re in the wrong business. Go work in finance. If you want power, you’re in the wrong business. Go to D.C.
You do not make movies. You love and support and guide and challenge the people who do. That’s the heart of it. And I promise you this:
If you can truly love us, we will love you back in a way you can’t even imagine. Because we are desperate for people like you.
End.
Addendum: WHO is as important to me as WHAT. I love the people I’m working with these days. I won’t work for anyone I don’t.
Final addendum: when dev execs truly put the writer first and control of the writer second, they invariably get more control of the writer.
There you have it, straight from the front lines from a writer who knows both the craft and the business. Insight into what it’s like to work on both sides of the desk and a plea to aim for our higher angels when it comes to actual act of developing and making movies.
Thanks, Craig!
Follow him on Twitter: @clmazin.
You may read all of the Screenwriting Tweetstorms here.
