From Indie Film to Television in 10,000 Hours
by Gary Lennon on February 14, 2012 in Production
Some of the best writing and directing is on cable TV right now and it doesn’t surprise me that some of the people who are responsible for that work are artists who started out as independent filmmakers, like yourselves.
My favorites are Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, The Killing, Boardwalk Empire and Homeland. The fact is a bunch of fantastic independent filmmakers with singular/distinctive visions have transitioned nicely into television. Patty Jenkins, (writer/director of, Monster) directed the pilot for AMC’S, The Killing, Tom McCarthy (writer/director of The Station Agent) directed the pilot for HBO’S Game of Thrones, and Michael Cuesta, (writer/director of L.I.E.) directed the pilot of Showtime’s Homeland and Dexter.
That is just to name a few and to me it is clear that those filmmakers had a vision for those pilots. These directors brought themselves to the material and they shined. Think about it. Who would have thought that the director of The Station Agent and The Visitor would direct something like Game of Thrones. HBO wanted someone with a singular, uncompromising vision and with McCarthy they knew they were in the capable hands of an amazing independent film maker.
You may ask yourself, how do I break into TV from my mother’s basement in Queens or from the set of my first independent film? Good question. My answer to that question is HARD WORK. Create something original like the writer/directors above did. You don’t need an agent to sit down and write a script. You don’t need a manager to shoot a short, but what you do need is passion and a relentless desire to be seen and heard.
That is what I believe to be the motivation for all creative pursuit – the desire to be seen and to be heard; to be understood by another individual; to communicate and connect with others and find your tribe. This is a very primal and human desire and I’m here to tell you that it is achievable. I too started out and as indie filmmaker in New York City. Now I work in the television world and I love it. I’d like to share my story with you and hope that it will inspire you to go after what you want.
I often hear young writer/directors say something like, yeah, they got in the business because they had connections. They knew somebody. They slept with somebody. They went to school with somebody. I can tell you, that may be true for some, but not for all. I for one did not have one single connection to the entertainment business, but I did have a burning desire to be seen and to be heard; a yearning to find my tribe.
My journey to becoming a writer/director/producer was not a linear one. I lost my parents at a very early age, here in New York City. I dropped out of high school and I bummed around New York with a soft spot for vodka and the nightlife until I couldn’t take not doing what I wanted anymore. And what I wanted, was to be a writer.
I would actually go to sleep at night, when I was in my twenties and I would pray. I would ask God to please lift the desire from me to be a writer if it in fact was not what he wanted me to do. I would pray that if I was shown God’s will, I would gladly give up this dream; this ambition that was bringing me no joy…and I would wake up and the desire was still there, I still wanted to be a writer, and I would sit my ass down and write something new.
- Margo Martindale in “Justified”
I was trying to figure out my way into the business when actually, I became a member of the IFP. I was a young fledgling playwright and it was at one of IFP’s panels that I introduced myself to one of the creative execs that was on the panel. Her name was Elizabeth Carroll. She worked for Vanguard films at the time. Elizabeth was being swamped by hungry people like myself, looking for a break and I took her card and when I got home I sent Elizabeth not one but two of my scripts. I know, I know. I was pushy/ballsy. Remember – I grew up on 10th avenue in Manhattan and I had a drinking problem. I was parentless and I was very blurry with boundaries.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Elizabeth read my scripts, luckily thought they were great, and called me in for a meeting. We got along well and at the end of the meeting, Elizabeth gave me a book to read and asked me how I would adapt it. I went home and worked on it, then came in and pitched the director Harold Becker (who directed City Hall among other wonderful films) and I got the job.
I want to stress how important it was that when I met Elizabeth Carrroll that I had a body of work to read. It really was the definition of luck, which they say is opportunity and preparation meeting at a single moment in time. I was just like you, an independent writer/director and a member of the IFP, looking for a break.
I got my break in TV by being a prolific writer; by practicing my craft. Writers write. They don’t wait for a job to be offered to them. It’s been said that it takes ten thousand hours of practice to get good at something. Malcolm Gladwell says in his book The Outliers, “Along with passion and persistence the key to expertise and success is ten thousand hours of practice.” I agree one hundred percent with that sentiment.
Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours per day, or twenty hours per week, of practice over ten years. Trust me, by the age of 29, I had put in my hours of practice and I had waited on so many tables that I felt like I had served America dinner. I was prepared for my close up with success. My opportunity in Television came through writing and directing an independent film. I had written a play called .45 that was never produced, but I had blind faith in the material, so I adapted it on spec and set it up as a film.
No one paid me for this. I wrote it, because I had to.
- FX’s “The Shield”
I wrote and directed .45 that stars Milla Jovovich and it was that film that gave me an entry into the television world where I have been happily working as a writer/producer/creator for some years now. My big break came when a DVD of my independent film was shown to Shawn Ryan, creator of The Shield. My agent at the time gave it to him. Shawn liked what he saw and then he read a few pilots that I wrote. I went in for a meeting with him, the meeting went well, and I was fortunate enough to land the job.
Those pilots that I wrote never sold but they were great writing samples, and they helped me land my job on The Shield. This is why I believe that nothing that you write goes to waste, and why I believe you have to write what you want to write and not ask your agent, your manager or your friends what is selling. Don’t ask, “What is hot?” “What’s the next trend?” “Should I write a spec for CSI MIAMI?
The answer to that question, in my opinion, is NO. I think that way of thinking is a waste of time. Most showrunners want to read original material so that they can get a peek into who you are. Who you are as a person is everything in this world. I once told one of my agents (who I am no longer represented by) that I wanted to write a script about an old Italian woman who was a bookie and booked numbers with her grandson. Now, I know that doesn’t sound commercial, hot, or sexy like “Training Day in Space”, but it was what was calling me at that time.
The agent told me flat out that I was crazy, that what I had was a terrible idea, and that I should try and shake it off like a bad cold. Basically he was saying that I shouldn’t waste my time. He went on to ask me who was making movies about old women. I told him that I didn’t know. I went ahead and wrote the script on spec, again, because I had to. It made the rounds and didn’t sell, but it gathered fans.
After a few years of it sitting on my desk, I received a phone call from writer/producer/showrunner Greg Berlanti (Everwood, Brothers and Sisters), who asked me if I still owned the rights to my script, which was called Conchette. I told him that I did still own the rights, and he told me that he had read it when he was an assistant and that he wanted to buy it from me. I sold that script five years after I had written it without changing one word. That is one of the reasons I believe that you have to write what you want and that no piece of good writing goes to waste. We learn something from every script we write and with every script we write, hopefully, we get better. Remember the ten thousand hour rule.
I suggest to people to write what they want. I believe that if you feel passionately about your subject matter, that will show on the page or on the screen, and that will eventually land you a job. It will separate you from the pack. It will help you land on your feet in the world of television. My advice to anyone looking for a way into the television world is, be yourself. Embrace yourself. YOU are what they want. In television, I believe people hire you because of you, not only for your writing. At some point in your career, you land at a place where you are confident in putting together a cohesive sentence or two, but then what? What do YOU have to say? That is what interests them. That is what interests me. You. I believe what separates you as a writer is your point of view of the world. Your DNA. Your life experience. That is what makes you distinctive. That is what makes you original. That is what makes you a creator.
So don’t ever follow the pack. Lead, and others will step in line. When I first came out to Hollywood to make a go of it in the TV world, I was sort of embarrassed about my own impoverished past; my lack of traditional education. One day when I was sitting around a table and people were asked where they went to school, I was intimidated to hear people respond, “Harvard,” “Yale,” “Columbia.” I grew up in Hell’s Kitchen with a bathtub in my kitchen. Most of my family had been to prison and none of them made it passed high school. When the same question was asked of me – “Where did you go to school?” I responded, “McCann’s Bar and Grill during the week, Studio 54 on the weekends.” I got a laugh but more importantly, I was myself.
I can not stress how important that is – to be yourself. Share your shame, your insecurities, your secrets, your hopes and your dreams with the material you’re working on. That will make your work authentic and whole. That was a light bulb moment for me, because it allowed me to embrace myself, my past, my troubled youth and realize that people were NOT going to NOT hire me because of my past but BECAUSE of it. My life experience was what I had to offer to the writer’s room – to the world – as a writer. I immediately stopped trying to fit in and write like others and wrote like myself. What a relief. Try it and you will see, doors will open. I promise you. Be patient Put in your hours. Practice. Write scripts. Make movies. The opportunities will find you.
I think a lot of writers try to figure out what the marketplace wants and then sit down and try to bang out a version of whatever they think is popular. I think that is the wrong way to go. You will never be ahead of the curve, you will never please anybody, including yourself. I believe that the quickest way to breaking into the TV business is sitting down and writing something that only you can write. Expose yourself on the page. Write the thing that separates you from the pack. I believe that it is much more satisfying to create work than to ask someone for a job.
If you are the type of person who is sitting there waiting for someone to hire you, you are taking a passive role in your career. If you write something new and get it in to the right person’s hands, you are not only employing yourself but creating jobs for others. What a gift. How rewarding is that? There is no quicker way to break into the TV business than putting your ass into your script Don’t think about what you think someone wants. Think about what makes you tick. What gets you going and put it on the page or on the screen. Mix things up. Find your voice. Write about your obsessions. All of them.
One of the things I was told as a young writer was that I confused people because I wrote dark and edgy stuff and then I would write a broad comedy. I am proud to say that I wrote for The Shield and I sold a road comedy called Soul Sisters to Oprah Winfrey at Disney. Those are two very different tones. The reason I confused people was because I was following my interests. I wrote about what I felt strongly about. And while that may have made my own personal journey as a writer a little bumpy, I wouldn’t change a thing. I am so deeply grateful that I have written projects that I am passionate about, even if they have not made it to the screen… yet. I have a lot more in me and I am still collecting my tribe.
- Michael C. Hall on Dexter
I think we are experiencing such a burst of creativity on TV right now and I am so pleased that I have been a small part of it. To me, the series that are on cable TV are just as good as many of the films of the 70’s. If you think of the best characters created in the last ten years in any medium, you would have to include Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan, Vic Mackey (The Shield) and Walter White from Breaking Bad. They’d be there right alongside Hannibal Lecter, Gordon Gecco, Daniel Plainview, and Queen Elizabeth.
I hope that there’s a reader there who is sitting down at his or her computer right now, in the middle of the night, banging out a great character/story to add to that illustrious list. If you want to make the transition into writing for TV from the indie film world, you can do it. I am living proof. WRITE. NOW. Put in your ten thousand hours and soon you will be hiring your own staff.
Good Luck!