Friday, January 19, 2018

So I had an agent -- sort of.


Okay, so now I got the agent but he's not very good. Which means bottom. Which means I gotta find some one new. A friend suggested a small agency that was okay. I met the guys, one had a huge stuffed boa constrictor on his wall. But the other guy was great. In a sort of way.

He dreamt he was the biggest agent in town. Well, another guy. But he did get meetings for me, tons of them and I stayed with him for about 4 years. But he too had a big of ego. And I got meets but no jobs. But he did get me known, even though nobody wanted my script. 

The script was one everyone liked, but nobody wanted to make it. It was called Emperor of Mars and you can see the book version on Amazon. It has now been about 11 people who optioned my script, once almost it was made with me director.




Just then, his new kid appeared and he was a nice guy and honest. So he left and so did I. Needless to say, my agent was not happy. Actually he has never spoken to me this day. After 20 yrs.

Is it nice? Was I bad? 

Would he dump me if he decided to?

Of course the new kid stayed with me for over 10 years, and with a good agency, Paradigm.



Which is actually a good agency, 160 agents! And this went great for a long time. I had a good run as they say. I got jobs from 1988 to 2010, then it slowed down. Probably age but I'm still writing.

What happened was this; The Death of the TV Movie.

This was when Survivor appeared. The show where they took ordinary people to survive for a month or something. Forgot it.

But the networks found a cheap way to make TV. And they did.

We WGA writers held a party at the Roosevelt Hotel across the the famous Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. It was over for those who did TV movies and although I did a few features, it still spelled death.

Which left a whole lot of us not working. And my agent quit Paradigm to do a below-the-line agency which looks for jobs for cameramen, editors, AD's, all those who aren't in the big payment window. Producers, writers,directors and of course, actors.

Which leads to today. And back to agents and us.

Naturally he didn't need me. 

A lot changed with the loss of tv movies but scripts kept coming to those who knew somebody, anybody. But then another change came. It was something different and maybe another chance for us writers. 

For one thing, netflix started to make movies and then others and others. So all of a sudden scripts were in demand with streaming companies like Amazon and others. But it has it's own rules. And lots of books and booklets as these.




Monday:

 

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