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Occasionally, a friend will ask me if I can talk to a friend of theirs who wants to become a ?Hollywood? screenwriter. I?m not sure why people bother asking me to dispense advice to anyone because, frankly, I don?t have anything helpful to say about the biz unless you want to know how to hit on Rachel McAdams on three separate occasions and be rejected on three separate occasions or the best way to sneak onto a movie studio lot if you?re Asian (drive up to the gate with a bag of Chinese take-out on your passenger seat and tell the guard you have a lunch delivery for ?Mr. Goldbaum? or just say: ?Hi, I?m Justin Lin and I?m here for a meeting about [insert name of any movie in development at that studio since Justin will most likely be attached to it already]?).

Still, they insist and when I talk to the aforementioned aspiring Hollywood screenwriters, the discussions range from questions like ?how do I write a script that will sell for $1 million?? (this usually comes from the Korean or Chinese aspiring Hollywood screenwriters) to them telling me how they know someone who knows someone who is ?tight? with ?big-time? director Justin Lin and how they?ll be happy to pass on any of my scripts to him too (Them to me: ?So my cousin knows a producer who knows Justin Lin.? Me to them: ?Oh, didn?t he direct Step Up 3D??).

But the one thing that almost always comes up is how the aspiring screenwriter has no plans to move to L.A., but will still become a successful Hollywood screenwriter while continuing to reside in Gainsville or Des Moines or Hong Kong or wherever they are currently residing.

And this is when I?m able to give them the only really helpful and practical advice I know: if you want to pursue a career writing screenplays in Hollywood (a.k.a. studio films), you should move to L.A.

But why, they ask. I?m a writer, I can write anywhere.

That?s true, but pursuing a career as a screenwriter is about more than just sitting in front of your laptop writing. I try to explain all this, but it?s hard to get around the idea that many people already have that all they need to do is write a script, email it to the William Morris Agency (hell, if you don?t know they?re now called WME, you?re already out of it) and Spielberg will buy it and turn it into a box office hit.

But luckily, there is Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon to do the explaining for me. Who are Garant and Lennon, you ask? Why only two of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters around and the authors of the new book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!

And what are some of the films they?ve written? Well, uh?Taxi (a.k.a. the movie that killed Jimmy Fallon?s film career) and Herbie Fully Loaded (a.k.a. the movie that almost killed Lindsay Lohan ?cause, you know, she was partying hard and crashing into cars both on and off the set during that time).

Now, before you pooh-pooh any screenwriting advice from these two because they wrote two of the worst films ever made, a.k.a. Taxi and Herbie Fully Loaded, take my word that these are two of the funniest guys in the biz and their book is probably the best (a.k.a. most practical) work about Hollywood screenwriting out there because they?re speaking from experience unlike most of the other screenwriting books written by ?gurus? who?ve never even sold a script. In fact, their chapter on why Herbie Fully Loaded turned out to ?suck donkey balls? (Garant and Lennon?s words not mine) is probably the best written account of how the studio development system fucks up a script, thus, resulting in a bad movie (yes, I?m recommending the book?it?s really funny too and full of interesting industry tidbits like Billy Crystal is a dick).

And as it turns out, in the very first chapter of their book, Garant and Lennon write about why you need to be in L.A. if you want to be a Hollywood screenwriter (unless you are already a super-successful Hollywood screenwriter, in which case you can live wherever you want). Here?s that whole passage, word for word, for those of you too cheap to buy the book:

YES?you need to be in Hollywood, California, if you?re going to make even TINY piles of money writing movies. Once you?re rich and established, THEN, and only then?can you move into a fabulous brownstone next to Ethan Hawke in New York?s independent-movie-loving West Village. But until you?re a huge success, you need to be in Los Angeles. Period. Exclamation point.

?Why?? you ask. ?I?m a writer, I can write anywhere.? Well, guess what:

THAT?S BuL7$*!t

If you?re serious about screenwriting, you must be in Los Angeles, California. It is the world headquarters of the movie industry. (Outside of India, which is the REAL world headquarters of the movie industry. They make so many movies it?s ridiculous.)

You need to have access to the studios all the time, and they need to have access to you. You have to live in L.A. so that you can go to the studios and meet face-to-face. At any time. Movies take YEARS to get made?it could take eight to ten YEARS to get a movie going. Stars will get attached, fall out?your star will pick up a ?tranny? on Santa Monica Boulevard, go to rehab, punch a cop, impregnate a nanny?or the worst fate imaginable: their level of fame will cool off the tiniest bit.

You NEED TO BE AROUND the people making the decisions.
You need to be on their radar.
You need to be in L.A.

You need to be there, doing punch-ups and round tables and sometimes REWRITING ALL OF ACTS I AND III after a horrible table read. (This happens more often than you might imagine.) There?s also almost always a writer or team of writers on call for movies that are in production. You need to prove to the studios that you can be a hero to them by: Coming up with new scenes, dialogue, gags, structure. Being available. And figuring out a way to make their ideas work.

There is, quite simply, ONE THING every studio executive wants.

?TO MAKE SUCCESSFUL FILMS?? you ask.

No. TO NOT GET FIRED, dummy. Successful films are a bonus, but the turnover for executives at the studios is fast, and ?not getting fired? is the immediate goal around town. Many executives won?t last the length of a whole movie?s production at a studio. THEY WANT TO STAY AT THEIR JOBS, and you need to help them.

BE THE PERSON WHO HELPS THEM NOT GET FIRED.

That means you need to be around.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, which means there are screenwriters who do live outside of L.A. and manage to work. One of them is my fellow Offender Alfredo who describes himself as a ?modestly successful? screenwriter, but the truth is?he?s done better than most of us plugging away here in L.A. He?ll be blogging about his own experience as a screenwriter living outside of L.A. (in his case, in the Bay Area) tomorrow so check that out for his take on this topic.

Source: http://youoffendmeyouoffendmyfamily.com/to-live-and-screenwrite-in-l-a/

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