Part 1 - His stats and process
Part 2 - "How do you get an agent?"
Part 3 - The Working Writer.
And now we come to the conclusion of my interview with F. Scott Frazier.
As I've said before, I'm a big fan of Inside the Actor's Studio. It's my goal with these interviews to hopefully explore the craft of writing as well as James Lipton probes his subjects on the craft of acting. To that end, I plan on concluding each interview with "The Bitter Questions," a series of serious and silly questions that will hopefully allow the writers to reveal something unexpected about themselves.
If you're interested in seeing how Liz Tigelaar handled the same questions, you can find that segment here.
And that's a wrap on F. Scott Frazier! Thanks again to Scott for stopping by to chat. Keep sending in follow-up questions today and I'll pass them on to Scott.
Bitter, you forgot to ask the most pressing question to F. Scott Frazier, "When you're out kickin' it, what's your beer of choise?"
ReplyDeleteLots of love for F. Scott Frazier, what a stud for taking time to get interviewed by a puppet. Honestly, puppet, you have the coolest friends.
Good questions as usual, Bitter. And thanks to Scott for participating. You're a talented, humble guy who deserves all the success coming your way.
ReplyDeleteGreat interviews. I hope you continue doing doing them with more writers. Personally, I'd love to see one with John Swetnam. I've heard him and F. Scott Frazier have a friendly competitive spirit between them and how many specs they can sell.
ReplyDeleteA couple questions for Frazier: How many scripts did you write before you found your agent / manager? How many scripts have you completed up until now?
Swetnam would be cool. I follow him on Twitter and he seems like a good interview. Might have to reach out to him after EVIDENCE comes out.
DeleteLove the interviews. What I would like to see is an interview with someone who was a 9-5 milkman or 4am-2pm postman. Scott worked in the creative biz as a producer and Liz worked in the biz as a PA and had a buddy whose mom was a high powered exec. There must be a shlub out there who worked 9 hour days and came home to a family and still made it big. If you've already done an interview like that I'd love the link. Someone who had NO connections and had to pay the bills.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's unlikely you'll find someone break through who has zero connections at all and was a complete outsider, just by virtue of the fact that anyone who's developed their craft enough to be any good is also going to be good at reaching out and meeting people who work in the business.
DeleteIf you want to find the mythical writer who's lived his entire life in Idaho, has been writing on the side, learned the craft all on his own and got repped off of a blind query he sent to an agent, I don't think that guy exists.
People who are driven to succeed in this business make it their mission to get in however possible. For many, that means moving to Los Angeles and pursing any job, any social activities, and any leads that could get them that access.
Anybody who's been in LA for any reasonable length of time is going to make friends with someone who has some entry into the business. And I'm not saying everyone who's ever made it has gotten in because of nepotism, because that's patently untrue. There are way more people with contacts in the business than people who have gotten jobs.
Basically the equation is: People who are really serious about this come to LA >> In LA, it's inevitable you will know people with contacts >> the good ones persuade their contacts to support their work >> the best writers win.
There are a few cases like MCCARTHY's Justin Kremer, who didn't live in LA and didn't get repped off of his contacts,, though. (And anyone who holds his Black List internship up as evidence of cronyism really, really doesn't know what they're talking about.) But they are by far the exception, the needle in the haystack.
But good point to raise. I might do a video blog about this sometime next year.
Paul--
ReplyDeleteWhat you are talking about is a Hollywood myth.
It doesn't exist.
:)