[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Framing the Question
Film Courage: Is it a myth that most screenwriters or TV writers don’t make money?
Corey Mandell, Screenwriter and Screenwriting Instructor: No, I don’t think so. It depends how you define it.
Defining the Population
So, if you define screenwriters and TV writers as people who say, I want to write movies, I want to write TV shows.
They’ve read books, maybe they’ve taken some classes, and they’ve written some scripts and they’ve gotten feedback and rewritten those scripts.
Do most of those writers not end up making money? Yes.
Corey’s Personal Story — The Rude Awakening
But the reason is, and I think I talked about this once, in a earlier Film Courage video, so I’ll keep it fairly short, but I was a writer and I read the books, took all the…I was in film school and wrote the script and I finally got the script that everyone in my writer’s group thought was like amazing.
My teachers said it was amazing.
Everyone’s like, “This is going to sell.”
Then I had this producer read it and like this isn’t even close.
And I was like “There was a person in my writing group who’s a professional writer and she said this and this!”
And he’s like No, I get it.
Story Questions book — Now on Payhip here!
A Producer’s Explanation — The Bar is Higher Than You Think
He goes:
It doesn’t surprise me that people in your writing group and your friends and your UCLA professors think this is great and that it’s where it needs to be.
But they’re not in the business of breaking writers into the business. And that is much higher…unless you’re in the business of breaking writers into the business, you don’t quite realize how high the bar is.
The Feedback Loop Trap
So there are a lot of writers who maybe hire people for script notes, which I don’t think is usually a good idea.
They get feedback from their writing group and maybe even from other professional writers and they’re told that they’re writing where they need to be and they’re close but they’re not there.
How Writers Rationalize Failure
They will keep doing this for a long time and maybe never get there and then they start creating stories of well it’s all luck or it’s all who you know or it’s your age or all of this.
A Turning Point — The Producer’s Honest Feedback
I probably would have been one of those writers if I wasn’t fortunate enough to have a producer say:
It’s not strong enough.
And he said something else and it’s advice that I always give people, which is…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Corey Mandell is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who has written projects for Ridley Scott, Wolfgang Petersen, Harrison Ford, John Travolta, Warner Brothers, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Family, Working Title, Paramount, Live Planet, Beacon Films, Touchstone, Trilogy, Radiant and Walt Disney Pictures.
Corey teaches screenwriting via private online classes using video conferencing to allow participants to see and hear each other in real time. His highly popular classes draw students from across the US, Europe and Australia.
His students have gone on to sell or option scripts to Warner Brothers, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Disney, Fox, Fox 2000, MGM, Universal, USA Network and Lifetime. Others have gained admission to the USC Graduate Screenwriting Program, the AFI Conservatory Screenwriting Program and Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab.
STUDY WITH COREY MANDELL
Coreymandell.net/professional-screenwriting-and-television-writing
CONNECT WITH COREY MANDELL
Coreymandell.net
Twitter
MORE VIDEOS WITH COREY MANDELL
https://bit.ly/2v8SPgy
Advertisement – contains affiliate links
(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases)
New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
