It Took Me 6 Years After Film School To Land My First Professional Job By Mark Sanderson

Watch the full lecture here on Youtube

In this special Film Courage video lecture, Author/Screenwriter Mark Sanderson presents Staying In The Game: Surviving As A Working Screenwriter in Hollywood for a live audience (with Q&A) – recorded in North Hollywood, CA September 25th, 2018.

I’m going to break the night down into five categories and just talk about the life of a working screenwriter because I think a lot of people think it’s glamorous (which it’s not). It’s a hell of a lot of work just to get anything made on any size screen on television or features.

And the key (which is why I called this Staying In The Game) is everybody has this concept of making and I did too when I went to UCLA Film School and I always thought making it was we graduate and someone would hand us a three-picture deal out of college, which obviously was not the case.

It took me 6 years after film school to land my first professional job of which I was fired 6 weeks later. And it was around Christmas time, so you can’t write a worse scenario than that. I had waited tables for 10 years and done various odd jobs just to get through college.

And I only said that I was going to quit that job (the waiting tables) if...(Watch the video class on Youtube here).

PLEASE JOIN US FOR NEXT FILM COURAGE CLASS – LA Writers and Creatives! Join Film Courage and Pamela Jaye Smith for a 1-Night Only Class – MYTHIC CHALLENGES: Create Stories that Change the World on Tuesday October 23rd at 7pm in North Hollywood.

PLEASE JOIN US FOR NEXT FILM COURAGE EVENT – LA Filmmakers, Writers, Actors and Creatives! Join Film Courage and filmmakers Christopher Ray, Andrew P. Jones, Royce Gorsuch, Orson Oblowitz, Brian Avenet-Bradley for FILMMAKER LIFE IN 2018 – Filmmaking Panel on Tuesday October 16th at 7pm in North Hollywood.

Check Mark’s book out here on Amazon

About Mark Sanderson:

Mark Sanderson (aka @scriptcat) is a Los Angeles based screenwriter, author, script consultant and sometimes actor blessed to be living his childhood dream of making movies with thirty-six screenplays written in genres ranging from comedy to drama. His work ranges from his sketch comedy writing and performing as a founding member with The Amazing Onionheads, writing for MTV, to his spec sale, and twenty screenplay assignments with television premieres and worldwide distribution of his fourteen emotionally compelling films— the WWII indie feature “I’ll Remember April,” Lifetime Network’s “An Accidental Christmas” and “Deck the Halls,” the stylish indie noir feature “Stingers,” action-packed thrillers “USS Poseidon: Phantom Below” (aka HereTV’s “Tides of War”) and SyFy Network’s “Sea Snakes” (aka Fox’s “Silent Venom”), Lifetime Network’s highly rated thrillers “Mommy’s Little Girl,” and “A Night to Regret,” and the LMN Network premieres “Mother of All Lies,” “A Wedding to Die For,” “One Small Indiscretion,”“Hunted by My Ex,” “Family Vanished,” and the upcoming thriller “My Daughter Vanished.”

Mark’s films have premiered on Lifetime Network, LMN, SyFy, Fox, HereTV, HBO Canada, Christmas 24, NBC/Universal, The Movie Network, and have been distributed globally. His films have been recognized at festivals including a premiere and opening the Palm Springs Int. Film Festival, premieres at the Hawaii Int. Film Festival, St. Louis Int. Film Festival, The Rainbow Festival in Hawaii, Newport Beach Int. Film Festival, Fort Lauderdale Int. Festival, and nominated for the Starboy award at the Oulu Int. Children’s Film Festival in Finland.

Mark’s long association with award winning Hollywood filmmakers dates back to his first produced screenplay and has since worked with Academy Award® winning producers, veteran directors, and has written films starring Academy Award®, Golden Globe®, and Emmy® acting nominees and winners. Mark is also a screenplay consultant and his new book, “A Screenwriter’s Journey to Success” is now available on Amazon…(Read more here).

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