How I Sold My First Script

Steps one, two and three

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The Formula

Back in film school, I think a lot of us imagined that selling a script would be a lot like winning the lottery. I know I did. It seemed like it had about the same odds and the same promise of riches. Heck, even people not in film school often see it that way. The old adage of, “Scripts are like assholes, everyone has one” exists for a reason. To some, it’s the fantasy of breaking into a business they’ve dreamt about their whole lives, for others, it’s the lure of getting a big chunk of cash for what they think will be minimal work.

However just like most fantasies, when you bring them into the light, when you conjure them into reality, they often are very different than the story you had created in your mind. I’ll get into that in another essay, what it’s like after you finally get what you’ve been grasping for, but this essay’s focus is on the first part.

The part where you did all of the magic things that made the dream come true in the first place.

That’s what people really want to know, anyway. How to do it, right? So, I reflected back on what worked for me, distilled it into actionable steps, and created a formula I’ll share with you now.

Ready? Here it is:

Step one: try for 10 years.

Step two: change your approach.

Step three: sell your script!

Hahahahaha I’m such a dick. Sorry.

I mean, these really are the steps I took, but I know that there isn’t much to go on there. How about I walk you through it? I swear, there really are a lot of lessons to be learned from my experience as well as concrete advice I can offer. It’s just that they’ll have a greater impact if I offer them in context.

Today I’ll explain Step One. Next week I’ll dive into Step Two, and wrap up with Step Three the week after that.

Step One: Try For 10 Years aka What I Did Wrong

I thought I was doing all the right things. I went to film school at UCLA as an undergrad. I earned some awards. I worked on the sets of independent films as a PA, as a Set Dresser, as an Electrician. Long hours, little to no money. I got a job working as an assistant for an about-to-be Oscar nominated director. I left to go to graduate film school at USC. I got some more awards. I made a thesis film. It played at festivals and got me a few meetings.

And then…

I had run out of steps. I was about four years into this journey and it seemed like the path just disappeared in front of me. Unlike other industries/careers that have a clear and established ladder to get where you’d like to go, film is a murky blob of ‘networking’ and ‘getting discovered.’

I had done all the things I could think of to do, and I had done them well, and it had left me… lost. With a lot of student loan debt. I was officially stalled out on step one.

I got a job in reality TV to pay the bills and kept writing whenever I could in my off time. But, what to write?

Horror was doing well. It was a genre that welcomed new talent and low budgets. I had been really into it as a kid, although I had since moved on. But, it seemed like a safe bet. And, initially, the bet seemed to pay off. The first script I wrote I sent to someone I knew from school who was ‘connected’. There was some excitement, some talk of optioning, production companies, attaching directors, it felt like I had really found step two… until it all went absolutely nowhere.

Back to the drawing board. I continued working in reality TV, becoming an editor, and kept writing scripts. Editing was my ‘day job’ and I spent every moment that I wasn’t doing it working on my non-existent film career.

Here’s basically how the next few years went: Work a reality job. Take a few months off to write a script. Send it to my friends. Get another reality job. Repeat.

I was stuck. At the time, what I thought was the real sticking point was that I didn’t have anyone to send my scripts TO. I sent everything to that one person from school that I had some success with before, but it went nowhere and that was it. My list was a list of one. My friends, who were all in the same boat as me, were the only other people to read these scripts. They would give me notes, I would do rewrites, and then… it would go into the proverbial drawer (for me, a folder on my computer called, ‘OLD SCRIPTS.’)

That folder grew over the years. I edited more reality TV over the years. I was miserable. And stuck. Stuck in step one. I had the education, I had gotten set experience, I had worked for top professionals, and I had become… a reality TV editor. That’s what I was. And there’s nothing at all wrong with that, it is an exceptionally difficult job, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.

Have you ever gotten stuck? It’s such an awful feeling. There’s all this pent up energy, this desire to do something, and you’re just sort of running in place, hitting your head against a brick wall.

Here’s the thing I look back and can see now: I did know what to do, I just didn’t know how to do it in a way that worked for me. There are basic things that people had suggested at the time, and still suggest, but seemed impossible. I couldn’t see how I could do those things, they seemed for other people. I felt that for me to make it, I would have to find another way.

But… I mean, breaking through is tough enough. To think that somehow you’re going to invent a whole new way to do it… that’s hubris.

What were these things that I was so scared of, so confused by, that seemed so unachievable?

a. Networking. UGHHHHHH I swear if anybody said this word to me back then I would want to stab them in the eyes. I mean, I still do, the term is annoying and almost intentionally opaque. What the fuck does ‘network’ mean??? No one ever had an answer for that. They would say how important it was but never tell you how to do it. And for someone like me, who has massive social anxiety, it seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. A mountain I couldn’t climb. I thought I’d just find the long way around. But that long way… I don’t know if it ever comes back to the path. The trick was to figure out what the hell ‘networking’ meant and how someone like me could do it.

(see how I finally figured out how to do this when I write about step 2 in the next post).

b. Making things. Writing scripts is good and important to do, but it’s not enough. Even if you don’t want to direct or produce, you need to put that hat on anyway and make something. The thing is, I did want to direct, but I didn’t know how I could pull it off. I was broke. I financed my thesis film with loans and credit cards. How could I make something new? For the record, I did try to do this after about 3 years into editing reality tv and financed a short. I can go into why this failed/wasn’t enough, another time.

(see how I finally figured out how to do this when I write about step 2 in the next post).

c. Getting my mind right. I was depressed, I was anxious, and I was avoiding it. And the more I wasn’t doing what I wanted, the more I worked in a field I didn’t like, the more I felt like my dreams were slipping away, the more depressed and the more anxious I got. A myth we are often told is that creativity comes from suffering. Well, I was suffering, so why wasn’t I creative? I couldn’t understand it. The thing is, creativity comes from feeling, and one of the ways you cope with pain is to STOP feeling. Go numb. Let me tell you, the scripts I wrote from this era… they make me sad. They are empty. They go through the motions. They are desperate.

(see how I finally figured out how to do this when I write about step 2 in the next post).

It turned out that the advice people gave: network, make things, get mentally healthy, that advice was solid. I just didn’t know how to take it. Then, ten years after I had started this quest, my whole life got turned upside down and I found myself finally crossing the threshold into Step Two.

Step Two: Changing My Approach aka Looking Up From Rock Bottom

So, there I was, 10 years into my quest to break into the film industry as a writer/director and I realized that somehow I had climbed the wrong ladder. I still had gotten nowhere in scripted film/TV, but my IMDB profile was overflowing with all the reality TV shows I had edited.

I felt stuck with no way forward.

At the same time, there was plenty of advice that was out there that I wasn’t listening to because I had written it off as being for ‘other people’. It was for extroverts, for trust fund kids, for people who didn’t struggle with their mental health.

That advice was:

a. Networking - I have social anxiety, so this was out

b. Making things - I was broke, so this was out

c. Getting my mind right - I was sinking in depression and low self-esteem, so this was out

So, there seemed to be nothing I could do.

Maybe this career just couldn’t happen for people like me.

But then, all of a sudden, there was new development, which sometimes happens when you’re stuck: something broke.

It’s hard to explain, but I imagine it a little like when you’re trying to force something open, not realizing there’s a little button you need to depress, so instead you just push the stuck thing so hard that it… breaks.

That something was me.

It all kind of came to a head. I was so unhappy and so lost and wanting things to be different so badly and not knowing how to do it and I just… fell apart.

This ended up being a huge turning point in my life, although at the time it just felt like I had swallowed a grenade that exploded seconds after it hit my digestive tract.

There was a period of chaos. Emotions spurted out of me like a Diet Coke can that had been dropped on the floor. I started tearing everything down, making some horrible decisions along the way, until it felt like I was back at the beginning.

And that’s when I started over.

I started with advice b. making things. I had even less money than I had before, but somehow that didn’t matter to me anymore. I would make something anyway. I had to. I felt like I had no other choice. I wrote about what I did next here and here.

That Time I Was Going To Jail - Part 1

That Time I Was Going To Jail - Part 2

But if you don’t feel like reading those posts, bottom line is I made a feature film by myself with like 500 bucks and a Canon 60D camera.

I just… DID IT.

There’s something about the beginning. There’s something about when you feel like you have nothing left to lose. You just… finally… move. You try the things you thought you couldn’t do.

So, it turns out that advice about making things? I guess it wasn’t just for trust fund kids. It was for everybody. I just had to figure out how it applied to someone like me.

If you have read those posts about me shooting and selling my micro-micro-budget feature, you would know that my mental health was spiraling at that time. My depression and anxiety felt totally out of control.

Again, at my lowest point, becoming consumed by paranoia that I knew didn’t make sense, I went and saw a psychiatrist. He recommended medication and even then I hesitated. When I finally decided to try… it changed my life. Combined with therapy, I found a new internal peace. Something I’m not sure I had ever experienced before.

Did I just do c. get your mind right? I sure did! I thought I was just… built that way. I thought there was no point in trying to do anything because feeling horrible was just ‘who I was.’ However, a valuable lesson I learned over and over around that time:

It’s always worth trying. Even if you think it’s pointless, can’t help, or is impossible.

I was feeling better. I was making things. But, network? That would never happen. I could not go up to a fancy producer at a cocktail party and tell them my movie idea.

Oh, what? That’s a very narrow definition of networking, you say? Really?

I had no idea.

Turns out, networking is just about forming relationships with people and then maintaining those relationships. I had actually already been doing this for years as a reality TV editor. Since TV is a gig economy, you had no choice but to network, it was the only way to get your next job. I just didn’t know that that what I was doing was networking. What was I doing? Making friends at work. Keeping in touch. That’s it. Turns out, I didn’t have to be the crazy person introducing themselves to strangers (thank God), I could just be… me.

The more I made stuff and the more I floated out of my depression, the more I talked to the people I knew about my dreams. They would occasionally recommend me to others, introduce me to someone who might be helpful, invite me to a gathering where other people like me would be. My ‘network’ grew.

The other thing I realized at this time was that networking isn’t just about meeting producers and agents. It’s about meeting other filmmakers, other crew members, other writers, other film students… it’s about creating a community for yourself. A genuine one. Not one based on wanting things from people, but one based on affinity and support and a shared interest in making movies.

Without even realizing it, I had managed to do a. network.

Step Three: Selling My Script aka Jumping Off The Cliff

So, I had inadvertently started to employ the advice whose worth had eluded me for years.

a. Networking

b. Making things

c. Getting my mind right

When I look back, I can see that starting with b. Making Things was the best way for me to get unstuck. Networking terrified me and seemed truly impossible, and getting my mind right was confusing and I didn’t even know where to begin. But if you’re a creative person, you have something in you that pushes you to make things already. I had been hung up on the cost of it all, but once it finally occurred to me to put that aside, I was off to the races.

The big thing that had been holding me back - and something I still struggle with and will do a post on later - is feeling like everything I made had to be “GREAT”. If everything had to be “GREAT” then to make a film I would need millions of dollars. However, if your goal is to just “MAKE IT EXIST”, then you only need your ideas, and you figure out the rest.

The fear is, I can only make one thing, so it has to be “GREAT” otherwise everyone will think I’m not any good.

The reality is, if I make lots of things, then I don’t need to worry about having my entire reputation hanging on one thing. Also, I get better every time, I meet people every time, I learn more every time.

So, I make my little micro feature and sold it, that was the beginning of me getting on a better path. I’d love to say that the next year I sold my first script. But no, it would still take another SEVEN YEARS.

I know some people come straight out of film school and get an awesome agent and book gigs and sell scripts. I wasn’t one of those people. Honestly, I think it’s a misleading myth that gets spread around that somehow that’s how it’s all supposed to work. I know very very few people that get started that way. Most people are like me, stumbling along, finding their way in the dark. For some it takes a few years, for others, like me, it can take a decade or so.

That digression aside, the next seven years were a necessary part of my journey. I had finally started employing the advice to network, make things, and get my mind right, but that’s all I had done, started. I had a lot of lost time to make up for.

Over the next 7 years, I made more stuff. I hunted down bands and directed music videos for them. I kept writing scripts. I started meeting more people who made things too. I was still editing and directing in the documentary world to pay the bills, but my focus had finally shifted to what I wanted.

Through all of this, I met a producer who I stayed in touch with and who approached me to write and eventually direct a micro horror feature. I was in. A year later, I was directing my second feature off of a script that I had written. That film eventually became Shook.

It was acquired by the streamer Shudder and I got my first reviews in the New York Times (not so good) and the Wall Street Journal (very good!).

Is the movie a masterpiece? No. Is the movie a piece of my heart and soul? No. Was it fun to make and a huge learning experience and led to important relationships? Yes.

It was a challenge. It was a tiny tiny budget. We had only 12 days of principal photography. 12! I could have turned this opportunity down out of fear that it wouldn’t turn out and then reflect poorly on me. But instead, I did it.

I made stuff. And it turned out! It’s a fun movie and that trailer has 2.1 million views!

This whole time, I was still writing scripts, still trying to get other things made. I wrote scripts that I thought could be made on a tiny budget so that I could direct them. I sent them to the people I met along this new path of my journey, and expanded my circle.

My mental health was improving incrementally as I continued with therapy and medication. I was seeing something that I hadn’t seen in a long long long time: myself.

I was given an incredible opportunity in my day job world to direct, and then eventually co-executive produce a high end doc-series for Apple’s at the time new streaming service. I took it of course. It was prestigious. Major celebrities were involved. I got to interview Gloria Steinem! I met Oprah!

And I was miserable. This was a dream job. For someone else. It took over my life for a year. If I had wanted to work in documentary, if this had been my life’s goal, it would have been an amazing year. Instead, I wanted to pull my hair out. I was working so hard I had no time for anything else. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t shoot anything.

When the job ended, I had been pushed so far past my limit, I was so fantastically unhappy, I finally reached a precipice. I stood at the edge of a cliff.

On the cliff, where I stood, was financial security. And jobs I didn’t want.

Somewhere off into the mist ahead, was the promise of something else. The thing I had been chasing for my whole adult life. Telling stories.

I jumped.

I decided if I had to live in my car to do what I wanted to do, I would do it. I was ready to go all in.

If I ever wanted to be happy, I would have to make myself uncomfortable.

I wrote a new script. This one wasn’t small. It wasn’t something I could make for a micro budget. It was big. It was in a genre I had never written in before (although one I loved, I’ll write more on this choice later).

And, the month my savings was running out, the month before Covid hit, my managers sent it out on a Monday and had multiple interested parties by Friday. Before the weekend hit, I had sold my script to a studio with one of my favorite directors attached.

In the end, I had taken all the advice I had been given, network, make things, and get my mind right, and it had brought me right to the edge.

If I had my own advice to add to those three things, I would add this:

When you finally get to that cliff, don’t be afraid to jump. Don’t be afraid to fail.

Realize that you would RATHER FAIL then not jump.

That was the thing I had to realize. NOT JUMPING WAS WORSE.

So, that’s how I sold my first script.