My First Trip to L.A.!

So at the end of March, I took my first trip to L.A. It was a combination ScreenwritingU event, plus meetings of my own that I had set up. One of my key goals is to become a better networker, and these past two months have actually been jam-packed with great meetings - and the development of a new approach to such meetings.

But first, L.A.

I was a bit shell-shocked. I’d never been there before, and it was very different from NYC - and the industry people I met were a lot less schmoozy, which I would have expected to be the other way around. 

(Random note - for some reason, L.A. hardcore reminded me of an upscale India? I think it had to do with the open-air markets, the temperature at that time of year, the colors, and, sometimes, the dust.)

I think I was more unsettled about the trip than I let on, even to myself. On one hand, I was going to learn, to make connections... but on the other, there was that nagging inner voice insisting that I sell a screenplay ASAP.

It was an incredibly worthwhile trip, all in all... I have one producer who wants to see a treatment for an idea I have when it’s ready, and I connected with several others, a few of which have now even become Facebook friends. I had a fantastic lunch with the screenwriter of the last Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, the wonderful Andy Knauer (a former student of my dad's!), and got a great inside look at what his life’s been like since going through the process of making The Last Stand.

But still, the trip left me with this nagging, unsettled feeling.

I came back a little disheartened. (Of course, this was heightened because it was promptly followed by some hard times. Not to digress too much, but my husband and I had been trying to buy a place which fell through last-minute, and we lost our old apartment in the process... Don't worry, we found a new home! But that was a terrible week - even though the producers I met never would have known it by the bubbly messages I was sending them after our meetings!) 

Anyway, back to L.A... not one person I met there (and all in all, I met about 20) wanted to do an action film, which is what I was peddling. (Despite the fact that action right now is the genre in which the most scripts are being sold.) 

I learned an important thing: the success of your story is very much dependent on who you’re talking to and what they need at that moment. If they've done a particular genre in the past, it doesn't mean they'll want to do it again. While I’d mostly arranged meetings with ScreenwritingU folks and also with producers that I’d previously heard speak or had some other connection with, I hadn’t specifically sought out the right people for the project I’d just completed. It was no wonder I left feeling unsatisfied.

If you get in a room with a person looking for your type of project, you’re set - they’ll want to read it. (Then hopefully the writing's good enough that they'll want to see it made.) I saw this happening with friends of mine that week in L.A., who had quirky, very niche-audience indie scripts - and happened to meet with people specializing in just that.

The other important thing I learned is that, no matter if you meet someone who isn’t interested in a particular project at that time - they might be interested in something of yours later, or in developing a new idea with you (as is the case with me right now). So just make an amazing contact, be laid back, and be realistic. Look to the future.

To wrap this up before it gets too long, my new approach is all about #1. Assuming that you will be rejected most of the time, expect it, and then just keep moving forward (and always having new things to suggest) - and #2. Approach each and every meeting like you’re meeting with friends. It’s a very social business. People want to work with someone they can see as a friend - even to the point of creating something to work on with that person.

I read a fantastic article on Stage 32 recently (if you’re not on that yet, get on, it’s excellent) that said just those two things: embrace the rejection part. Put yourself out there 1,000 times without any expectations and approach all these meetings like you’re meeting friends.

This is what I’ve been doing now back in New York, and I’ve had one of my best months ever in terms of making connections with people and developing new working friendships. I don’t know when my next trip to L.A. will happen. It might be as soon as this fall, or it might be way in the future. But next time I go, it’s going to be an entirely different approach. :)