Did you ever have a dream like this?
You get a call from your favourite TV show.
You’re surprised to hear from them – you only sent your script in that morning.
What’s more, it’s fantastic news – they like what you’ve written!
No, it’s better than that. In fact they love what you’ve written!!
In fact they love it so much that within hours they’ve:
- Flown you out to Hollywood.
- Put you up in a luxury hotel.
- Hired you to start work on the show.
And soon they end up loving what you do so much you end up writing on two series, hanging out on set all the time, learning from David Milch on a daily basis (yes, THE David Milch, of NYPD Blue fame) – and suddenly people who matter – people who have real industry clout – are queuing up to read your movie script.
The writer this happened to was Bryan McDonald, who became part of the core writing team on one of the best US TV shows of recent years called Deadwood. That ‘dream’ was his reality. And at the bottom of this page you can hear an epic, totally exclusive interview with him in which he describes the way that happened to him – including what he did to bring it about – AND hear the inside story on how a show like that gets written AND get some real nitty gritty on how David Milch creates characters.
This interview is one of three coming your way.
As part of building the new Screenwriting Goldmine site I wanted to bring you some new top quality content, from other people in the know.
I contacted a top UK television journalist called Sally Brockway, and I asked her to interview a mass of different people who make their entire living either from screenwriting, or from working with screenwriters.
If their job is to write scripts Sally asked them how they got into that position, and to offer up some real details of how they actually write.
If their job is to hire writers Sally asked them what they look for in a writer.
Pretty soon a theme started to emerge. A really clear theme about how writers get work. And I’m going to be writing more about that theme in the next blog post, along with the second interview.
Just click on the play button below to hear the first interview. The second will be along in a few days. And don’t forget to leave a comment after you have heard it. I’d love to know what you think.
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How To Write A Screenplay
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Super post. Thanks for this.
Joel
Phil – thanks for this… it is inspiring to hear from “the horses mouth” how things work in Hollywood! When will the new site be up?
Thanks for the GREAT interview – it was really inspiring and VERY informative!! Keep ‘em coming!! Thanks!
Wow – really interesting – and what a lucky break. So making contacts seems to be a key part of writing. Who’s your next interview with?
That interview was very insightful and surprisingly fun. Thank you so much!
Glad it’s been useful – and interesting – and fun!
Next interview – a real inspiring story of how you just put your head down and push on through…
Re. The all new site – next week is looking more and more like the time to keep your diaries free…
inspiring, entertaining, infornmative… a wonderful interview. Sally’s questions were top notch too. A great dialogue tip at the end about letting your characters just talk amongst themselves for a week
Yeh, u know, thing about this stuff is, how often d’u get to hear the people who are really doing it say what they really do… like, never… that stuff about Milchy making them all type crap for hours – the writers I mean – where else would u hear that? Any dude tried that?
Blown away by this Phil!! Just getting this kind of access to the front line of the whole thing is so cool. It’s an amazing story in its own right, but then hearing so much about what David Milch does is just gravy. Can you find out about NYPD Blue writers next time? That was my favorite show as a kid. (Yes I was a very strange little girl!) But definitely some ideas there I’m going to try on my own writing. Only hope I get the same results lol!!! (and if you ever need any more interviewers I’m the one lol!)
Hey Phil,
I listened to this meaty interview twice. This is exactly what I crave, because as I’ve shared with you, I never hear this staff in the classroom. There’s a massive gap between our assignments – the feedback we get on them from our tutors and classmates and the 100m high wall we have to scale to get professional appointments in the industry. I want you to know that this kind of commentary is essential to my knowledge as the budding screenwriter.
May I ask you a question please? “When Bryan was sharing his experience, he said that he was frustrated with the many incredible scripts that got sent in when working on Deadwood, and none of them read because it has something to do with being sued. Why? How does it work that a writer can be sued for reading a script by another writer, I don’t get it. And were all of these writers unknown? Why would they send the stuff in if they knew that they couldn’t get read?”
PETRICE
PHIL’S ANSWER: As far as the suing goes – it’s because they are terrified that if they read a script, then two years later they write a script that has a similar idea in it, they will get sued for plagiarism by the writer. It’s far far simpler to be able to say, “hand on heart, I can’t have copied your script because I never even read it.” Interestingly it doesn’t work like that in the UK, yet anyway. I don’t know of any prodco that would send your stuff back unread for that reason.
Phil
Yeah, works for me too. Amazing. And Bryan seems such a nice guy.
So are we going to be seeing a lot more of this sort of stuff from the ‘Mine? I already spend too much of my time on here, but if this new site is going to be full of this sort of thing then that’s the end of my social life and this becomes a mission critical site!
Just one question to ask Bryan if I may – why did Deadwood got cancelled? Was it ratings? Or was it politics? Or was it some idea of public morality – it was pretty foulmouthed after all (and I say that with great approval!)
This is Dyno!
What a surprise.
Entertaining and educational.
Is Phil embarking on a journey to turn the world of screenwriting upside down and give us a good shake…
I say YES!
Regards,
Benjamin Ray
brscreenwriter@gmail.com
http://www.hollywoodtoronto.com
I’m not sure if ive missed a trick but i can only hear the first 40 seconds or so of the interview – given all the great comments is there a way of hearing the full thing?
Cheers
Ben – simply, yes…
Chelewriter – sorry about that – not sure what the problem is there. Do you get an error message, or does the thing just stall? Have you tried it in a different browser?
And does anyone else get problems with the download?
Oh, and Atomized – there is a whole story there for sure, but I’m going to have to go back to Bryan to see what, if anything, I can clear for release on the blog. At the moment let’s just say it wasn’t very much to do with the swearing.
And re the looming death of your social life – just you wait till you see the new site…. you must forgive me for what I am about to do to you…