A question from PatC:

Hi Scott, any advice for all those aspiring screenwriters who live outside the States? What do you think is the best way to try and sell our scripts? Contests? Production companies? Inktip?

Let’s say a script garners interest and Hollywood people want to option/buy it, or an agent wants to shop it around. What happens then? Do I have to take meetings? Could me living far from Los Angeles pose any serious problems with regards to the script getting sold?

Two questions here: (A) How to gain access to Hollywood when a writer doesn’t live there? (B) Is it possible to be a working screenwriter and live elsewhere?

Per the first question, I’ve discussed one approach previously:

Now that I’ve written it, how do I go about selling it?

I’ve also discussed screenplay competitions as well:

What do you think of screenplay competitions?

Re the second question: It is possible to be a screenwriter and live outside of Hollywood. In fact, there are working screenwriters who live all around the U.S., even overseas including
novelist and screenwriter Michael Chabon who lives in Berkeley, California, and screenwriter and director Tim McCanlies, who lives on a ranch outside Austin, Texas. Perhaps the most famous member of the non-L.A.-based screenwriting club was John Hughes, who lived in Chicago during most of his career. Tom Stoppard has done pretty well for himself as a screenwriter and script doctor, and he lives primarily in the U.K., I believe.

However there is clearly an advantage to living in L.A.. First, it’s much easier to schedule and take meetings. Second, if you’re a working screenwriter, you’ll get invited to social events where you can network. Third, if you’re the type of personality that enjoys hanging around with other writers, L.A. is a great place to do that, although with screenwriters, those can easily turn into kvetch sessions which can get awfully tiresome.

For people living outside the U.S., it’s probably even more important to at least spend some time in Los Angeles, even if for only a few months, to get some sense of the place, the business, and so forth.

There is a downside to living in L.A., too — and I’m not talking about the traffic, the overcrowding, and all that. You must be able to live with the overbearing presence of the entertainment industry. Whether it’s production crews showing up on your street to shoot something, traffic shut down due to a movie premiere, or walking into a Starbucks to find the place packed with customers, each tapping away on their laptops opened to Final Draft, you simply can’t escape it. When you’re working and making money, it’s a lot of fun. But inevitably as a free-lancer, you will have times where you are not gainfully employed in a writing gig. And the longer those dry periods stretch out, the more oppressive the presence of the entertainment business becomes.

Also let’s assume you have a unique creative voice, perhaps one grounded in a place where you grew up, like Boone, North Carolina or Mumbai, India. While L.A. is a huge sprawling metropolis, the Hollywood community is actually rather small. I’ve heard it described as “living in a bubble.” You wonder why some movies or TV shows get produced that seem to miss the audience in middle America? In large part, that’s due to the fact that the decision-makers in Hwood live in that bubble. So what can happen is that by living in that self-reflective bubble, over time you may lose your voice.

On the whole, even though you can be a screenwriter who lives elsewhere, I would recommend living and working in L.A., especially if you’re just starting out. There’s no better way to facilitate your career and learn about The Biz than living there.

UPDATE: As usual, the GITS community provides some great wisdom.

nyc/caribbean ragazza said…

To Mahmoud and The Hakk, do well in your home country and Hollywood will come calling.

Look at Italian director Gabriel Muccino and all the directors who have directed films nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscars, have won awards at major international festivals or have had great commercial success in their home countries. Almost all of them have top tier agencies like CAA, WME, UTA etc. repping them in the States.

Lazzard said…

The question sort of implies that the only place to make films is Hollywood. Believe it or not there is a worldwide film industry! True there’s not as much money out there but that’s more than made up for by integrity. Try to make films where you are before upping sticks and moving to LA.

Creating a name for yourself in your home country is definitely one way to Hollywood. Besides there are so many subcultures worldwide, stories in which Hollywood might not be interested, yet deserved to be told.