Think Like a Studio
When I was first starting out in Hollywood, a screenwriter friend gave me some advice that has served me well in all subsequent incarnations.
Our competition
“Steve, you and I, whether we realize it or not, are competing against Warners Bros. We’re competing against Twentieth-Century Fox and SONY and Paramount—and we have to think like they do. We have to be as professional as they are, and we have to think of ourselves in the same terms that they do.”
My friend showed me his “to do” list. It wasn’t a smudged-up scrap of cocktail napkin like mine; it was a full-on pro printout like something from NASA.
Studios have their production slates, right? I’ve got mine too. Here’s my development slate. I’m working on Script #1 now, but I’ve got #2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 lined up and in various stages of development. If I get a few days, I’ll go to work on them.
My friend showed me the books he was reading, seeking out new ideas and fresh material, and the foreign flicks and exploitation movies and oldies but goodies, films noir and so forth that he had at his bedside and beside his TV. “Fox and Warners have producers on the lot who are always trolling for new material. I do the same. I’ll find it in Mongolia or Zamboanga if I have to.”
When I first got out here to L.A., I’d go into meetings at the studios and as we were wrapping up, one of the execs would say to me, “What else have you got, Jack?” And I’d stare at him and go blank.
You can’t do that. We’re going up against A-listers. When a guy in an office asks you what else you’re working on, you’ve gotta be ready with it right then, ready to pitch it, and ready with Idea #3 and Concept #4 after that.
It’s not that you’re being mercenary or greedy. It’s just being a pro. Buyers wanna know you’re in business. They wanna know you’ve got ideas, that you never stop thinking. You’re a resource to them. Their jobs depend on you and people like you. You gotta be a pro.
One time this same friend and I were sitting in a deli called Brent’s in the Valley when a certain very successful screenwriter came in, accompanied by three gorgeous young women. We both knew the guy. He was a good writer (he had had two hits in a row and had another in the pipeline, so we had heard) who had been a lawyer in a previous professional incarnation.
“Three months ago,” my friend said, “I was pitching a project to MGM at the same time this guy was. He came in with these same three long-stemmed Stanford-educated blondes. His ‘researchers.’ Apparently he doesn’t leave the house without ’em. But I gotta give him credit. He’s a business. He’s larger than life. He’s got more stuff in the works on his own than half the studios in town, and they know it.”
It was this friend who talked me into incorporating myself. (There’s a chapter about this in The War of Art.) There were tax advantages and liability protections, he said. But the primary plus was that the act of becoming your own one-man corporation made you think differently about yourself as a writer.
It made you think more professionally.
I’m still incorporated. When I sign a contract, I don’t do it as myself but as my corporation f/s/o (“for services of”) myself as a writer. I like it. I like seeing that ‘inc.” after my name, just like Random House and Amazon.
You may read this and think, “Boy, is that crass and mercenary!” And it is, in its way. But my own feeling is that the far greater danger (and the more insidious temptation) is allowing ourselves to think like “artistes,” to imagine that there’s something special or unique about our gifts or our talents—that we don’t need to master our crafts or learn how to play street ball or get out there on the bricks and mix it up.
When you and I write a book or a screenplay, we’re creating our own smartphone. We’re going up against Samsung. We’re teeing it up against Steve Jobs. Do we imagine that competitors like these are dabbling or mailing it in or blowing their beta tests?
Writing in the old days may have been a gentleman’s profession (though I doubt it), but it certainly is not any more. You and I may do our work alone in a room, but when we bring it to market we have to line up against Apple and General Motors and Twentieth-Century Fox. We have to think like a business.
We have to think like a studio.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
This is as Pro as it gets. Turning Pro is one thing, but Incorporating yourself is a whole different level of ballgame.
For artists it even serves as a shield: You, the artist, do the work that is true to your heart, but once the artist hands in the work to the “contracting corporation” aka your incorporated self, now strategic changes need to be made to make it digestible by the outside world. Thinking in split personalities helps protect an artist’s fragile sense of integrity when it comes to his art.
The advice about having a pipeline is right on. Thanks.
Me, Inc? Not crass or mercenary, just great advice. As always, thanks!
It’s all about being a professional and doing the work. The problem is that many folks don’t know what professional looks like.
I remember a scene in a movie I watched a while back. I’m embarrassed to say what it was. This guy wanted to get a loan to buy a hot dog cart. He asked somebody for advice and was told to be sure to put a good suit on and act professional because he was asking the loan officer to fund a business. He had to look like he meant business. The morning of the bank interview came and the poor guy turned up in a powder blue tux with a ruffled shirt. Something he probably wore to his High School Prom. He didn’t get the loan and looked a little ridiculous.
We need to study what professional looks like. Find a roll model and study them. Make sure you look and act like a pro.
Thanks! As is so often the case, very bracing as well as insightful.
Again, another great post. Being an Inc does add a layer of professionalism not to mention some great tax benefits.
I’m getting inc’d, and I don’t mean a tattoo.
Great article Steve yet again! Just awaiting the copy of Authentic Swing!
Dear Mr Pressfield,
You’re either an Orwellian doublethinker, or a postdeluvian prophet.
You preach, “don’t show nobody nothin'”, then lecture the necessity of team and mentor. I don’t know whether to collaborate, or hibernate.
I think I’ll channel Helen Gurley Brown and have it all.
I sure appreciate you! ~Shalom
Another excellent piece, Steve. I’m waiting for my copy of Authentic Swing to arrive.
We have a lot of fun with the different internet games that are available to us. Run 3 is a really intriguing and engaging endless runner game, and I typically play it after every hour that I spend workin