Is it who you know that is the key to getting your work produced? Jenny Lumet is the daughter of noted director Sidney Lumet, and the author of the screenplay, "Rachel Getting Married." Here's what she told The Washington Post about how her father got the script to Jonathan Demme, who eventually directed the film:
"I essentially extorted my dad. I was like: You will
never see your grandson again unless you get this script to Jonathan Demme. And
eventually it paid off. I live on [West] 95th Street. And there are probably 15
screenwriters on my block who are freaking geniuses, right? And they can't get
the right person to read their screenplay because it's so freaking hard. So I'm
not dumb. You have to have a connection and you have to use it."
You know what? She's right. I teach at various screenwriting conferences and sometimes when other teachers are asked about this they say "good work always rises to the top. If you have written a great screenplay (or novel) it will be found!" It's wonderful to see the hope that lights up the audience's eyes when they hear this.
What I tell them is less inspirational, less popular--but more honest.
You absolutely need connections, but you can make them yourself. It will just take longer. And it's impossible to predict exactly how long.
When I first went to Hollywood, I had one connection, to film producer William Castle. He read my spec script and liked it a lot and offered to help me. The next week he died. (I don't think there was any causal connection). That was it for contacts.
It took me another three years of pretty much full-time effort to get anybody to read my work and to get an agent. Along the way I met plenty of con artists and people with a shaky relationship to reality who promised to help my career along (including a very entertaining pathological liar who ended up being wanted for fraud). They didn't help, but eventually I made some genuine connections, first with an agent, then with producers.
I started writing for TV and eventually had a film made, 13 years after I wrote it. Which, coincidentally, is also how long Jenny Lumet was writing before hers got made--even with her connections.
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