I’m going to cover a few that I have seen, (or even experienced myself).

A Creative Career Is (Not) A Job

A creative career is like a job. You have got to go to work. You have to earn money. You will have to please the person who is willing to pay you that money.

A creative career is often also unlike any ‘normal’ job. In many cases you work from home. It seems you don’t have to go to work. This brings challenges to people who struggle with discipline and face procrastination at home.

Once you accept that this new creative career is in many ways very much like an ordinary job, it is time to understand exactly what type of business we are talking.

A Creative Career Is Not An NFP Business

Not everyone considers it normal that you get paid when you have fun doing what you do.

The reason? Before you choose to make your hobby your job, you have a not-for-profit relationship with it. You are absolutely fine with the fact that you don’t get paid. It may actually cost you money.

In order to be successful, this relationship must change, and this is easier said than done.

In fact, acquiring the right mindset may well be the hardest objective to achieve in your quest to establish a career that is both creatively and financially rewarding.

People who succeed, don’t see a problem in sending an invoice for their services. They also don’t see a problem with paying for services in the creative sector. Every successful writer I know, has at some stage paid for writing-related services. This can be writing classes, software packages, editing services etc.

You Have Been Misinformed

The stories you hear about the creative career you want, are filtered.

In the real world of ‘normal jobs’, you get accurate information. In our precious entertainment industry, you rarely do.

So many people aspire to become a pro screenwriter after hearing stories about 7-figure deals. What they don’t realise is that for each deal of this kind, there are a thousand that bring in peanuts – or that simply don’t happen at all.

When a screenwriter sells a script, you hear about it. When a pool company wins a new client, no-one cares (even though the pool money may be a lot more). This sort of misinformation leads to the expectation that you will start earning a lot more quickly than is realistic. This, in turn, will lead to frustration and the belief that you are failing.

You are not failing at all. You were just not realistic in your expectations.

You Focus Too Much On The Outcome

Many self-improvement programs teach you goal-setting. They encourage you to have clear goals with milestones. And work towards those, relentlessly. This is certainly a valid approach and many have made it work for themselves.

I have not.

In my own experience, this can cause more frustration than anything else.

Why?

Because in the context of our creative career, often we set the wrong goals. We aim to finish a script by Christmas. To win a contest and sell a script next year. We’ll be financially independent in two years’ time.

Out of those four goals, only one is realistic. Do you know which one?

It’s the one about finishing a script. Do you know why? Because the others are out of your hands.

No easier way to frustration than to set goals you need others to achieve them.

Instead, set your goal to write X number of pages per day. To email Y number of producers/agents every week. Now, you are accountable. And you can be proud to achieve those goals.

Once those achievable goals are set, do the work, and don’t fret about the results. In fact, I believe the more you focus on the outcome, the smaller the chance you will achieve it.

You need to focus on doing the work, on a daily basis. Continue with it.

End don’t beat yourself up over the lack of results.

They will come.

You Doubt Your Creative Talent

We are all born with a thousand times more creativity than we realise. Sadly, our modern upbringing efficiently erases this. We are told that we don’t need it. In our everyday life, all we need is a rational mind, right? (Wrong.)

As a result, most people simply forget about their immense power of creation and imagination.

So we need to reconnect with this. Without it, the only outcome can be derivative drab.

Get in touch with your creativity and imagination. Meanwhile, keep confident.

Above all: keep working.

(There are heaps of techniques to unlock your hidden creativity. I boost my energy, ideas and creativity by practising Vipassana Meditation.)

You’re In It Because You Love (Watching) Movies

We can all wax lyrical about our favourite movies, and how they inspired us to pursue a creative career.

Make no mistake; watching movies is not a job. Unless you want to be a movie critic. And they don’t get paid any longer, because just too many are willing to do this for free.

The more people aspire to a particular job, the harder it will get to make a living in it, and the lower the entry level payment. Just look at the exploitation of musicians these days.

In order to build a successful creative career, you need to shift your passion from the finished movies to the making of them.

Can you be just as passionate about writing, planning, producing, problem solving, people management, and all other aspects of a creative career in the movies?

You Don’t Get What The Job Is About

Writers rarely write what they want, once they get paid.

You are free to write and be creative on your own terms – as long as you’re doing it for free. The moment someone starts handing over money, you will write what THEY want, using the style THEY want to read.

This is the paradox of the Writer’s Dream: the moment you have achieved what you think you want, the dream is really over.

Not only will you have to write to a brief; you will also have to deliver to a deadline.

The stress you experienced while fretting over the state of your bank account, now suddenly doubles.

Perhaps there are other aspects of this creative career you’re chasing that you don’t know about.

You know what? It’s never too late to learn.

You Don’t Spend The Time To Learn

So many want to become directors, producers and screenwriters. But they don’t want to go through the long learning process it takes to achieve excellence. They find it tedious.

Or they tell themselves that it cannot be learned. “Either you have it, or you don’t”. Now there’s a really easy way to fail even before you have started.

Learning is critical, in whatever you do. Rest assured that while you’re reinventing the wheel, thousands are getting ahead of you by learning the essential skills.

Successful, happy writers find it exhilarating to explore how movies work, how stories are built.

If you don’t, perhaps this is not for you.

It’s never too late to quit.

Or …

You Quit Too Early

I once heard that it takes seven years to make any business profitable. You are a business, too.

When things are not as much fun as expected, people get out. The fighters sit it out.

A creative business is not necessarily more fun than any other, as you may find out…

If you are in it mainly for the results (a movie in the theaters, a house in the hills), it’s going to be a very long wait for your kinda fun.

So this is where we can tell apart the quitters and the fighters.

Read Seth Godin’s book ‘The Dip‘.

Ask yourself, are you a quitter … or a fighter?

-Karel Segers

P.S.: Failing is cool.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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By Pauline Findlay

You try your luck at Sundance, they only received 7,000 submissions this year! You send off anyway telling yourself your genius will be seen amongst 7,000 cream floats.

Then a few months later you get the email; “We appreciate your genius but can’t programme your film this year.” They mustn’t have seen it!

Well I met the Sundance programmer and she assured us they watch every submission – even the one shot on a cat purring! You return to your festival spreadsheet. Where next?

Palm Springs should be at the top of your festival strategy.

Why you ask? It will teach you more in a week than film school does in years about the business. The industry panels alone are worth the entry and the expensive flight.

It will teach you more in a week than
film school does in years about the business.

Palm Springs ShortFest is a weeklong festival of short films. Yes shorts! I know, no feature films, movies stars or hot directors to dim your light. Just a bunch of emerging filmmakers, wanting to network their little hearts out and melt in 43C heat. Over 320 films were programmed this year. This makes your odds pretty good and let’s face it you need the odds in your favour. It is also incredibly well respected in the USA.

Industry people take it seriously and see it as a place to find new talent, (you!). This is hard to believe since Screen Australia recently took it off the list of credible festivals that are worthy of travel funding. I know they can’t cover every festival but Palm Springs also has a Film Market attached and this should be enough reason to have it on the list.

Industry people take it seriously and
see it as a place to find new talent, (you!).

Distribution for short films is becoming more viable with our insatiable appetite for all things short to view on our mobile devices. So getting some cash for your short allows you to make your next short film and not need to ask them for funding. Leaving space for the next up and coming short filmmakers.

Palm Springs is hands down the best experience of my film career to date. The festival is buzzing with filmmakers from all over the world dying to see their peers’ work. I’m quite sure if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were making short films today Palm Springs would be where they would meet.

Palm Springs is hands down the best experience of my film career to date.

Oh, and if you think your film is a ‘thinking person’s’ film then you have the community of Palm Springs that are very well educated in all things film. Most are retired industry types from LA so you just might find a backer for your first feature. Throughout the Q&A’s (yes they want to know about your short) they ask questions you might expect from your filmmaking buddies, not the local punter.

Kathleen McInnis is the Queen Bee of the festival and she loves filmmakers, especially new filmmakers. Your genius has been discovered. Kathleen is a publicist for feature directors most of the year and knows how to program a diverse festival.

Most are retired industry types from LA so
you just might find a backer for your first feature.

Oh and she has friends in high places – the roll call looked something like this on the panels: journalists from Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LATimes, NYTimes; festival programmers from Sundance, Tribeca, Cleveland and Seattle. If I still haven’t convinced you that Palm Springs is where you should be then let me tell you what the Australian Consul-General in LA do for you. They throw a party and invite industry people, well-established directors and studio types to talk and mingle with you; you get the ins and outs of working in Australia and LA.

Journalists from Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LATimes, NYTimes; festival programmers from Sundance, Tribeca, Cleveland and Seattle.

It gets better: they create a DVD complication of all the Australian films. Why do they do with this I hear you ask? Well they only give a copy to the invited press and anyone they have connections with in the LA studios! We were the envy of every filmmaker at the festival.

So is Palm Springs now at the top of your list?

by Pauline Findlay

Pauline Findlay has written, directed and produced short films, documentaries, theatre plays and online web series. Trained as an actor in London, Pauline’s debut play Girls Talk played at the Soho Theatre in Covent Garden. In 2007 Pauline directed the first online documentary for the ‘Tropfest Super Short Series’. Pauline is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Screenwriting and Producing and was nominated for a Monte Miller award by the Australian Writers Guild (AWG) for her short film ‘Liv’ in 2011 and for her feature script ‘Lola’ in 2012 Pauline. Pauline also tweets and blogs.

Zen may be the key to your well-being; it is the enemy of cinema.

Get your audience into the ‘now’ and your movie is dead. Storytelling for the screen is not about what is NOW but about what comes NEXT.

It is mind-boggling how many people still don’t get this. A couple of weeks ago I overheard a conversation between a major decision maker on government film financing and an eager filmmaker.

She was explaining to him what a wonderful movie she had seen. She also explained how the movie had bombed at the box office.

Wonderful style, fabulous photography. But she maintained that it was a “really good movie”.

It was “such a shame the stupid audience didn’t get it”. She didn’t literally say the last thing, but it was in the subtext.

Many writer/directors – and people outside the commercial reality of the film business – struggle with this essential aspect of storytelling for the screen. They want the audience to admire what is on the screen NOW rather than worry about what is coming NEXT.

This is exactly what sets film apart from other media. And this is exactly where disasters happen when visual art lovers meddle with movies.

Screen emotions are about ANTICIPATION.

Antipation means: hope for a good/better outcome, fear over what might happen to the hero, curiosity over how things will turn out. Nothing of this has to do with the NOW.

Once an audience starts enjoying the beautiful picture, the great music, even an amazing performance (“the actor was really in the moment”), your audience has stopped worrying about what is happening next – and you’ve lost them.

Zen is about being happy and content with what you have, NOW.

Screen story is not.

It’s rather about being UNhappy. About wanting to know, see, experience what will come next. If your audience is content about what’s on the screen NOW, there is no reason to continue watching. On the contrary, they will happily leave the theater and go home.

Once you’re finished with THE POWER OF NOW, check out THE TOOLS OF SCREENWRITING and Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach
to save your screenwriting life.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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I have just returned from SPAAmart, Australia’s film financing market, where Wojciech and I pitched THE MORTAL COIL to twenty-four industry executives from Australia and overseas. It was only the second time ever I applied for this competitive market. One hundred percent hit rate. Luck? Possibly. But my recent string of successes cannot be ignored as an unusually high hit rate. An AFC project manager with impressive film credits recently told an audience how his applications used to be rejected at a rate of 8/1. No future for me as an AFC project manager, I guess…

If luck is one factor, what other factors are there? The talent of the writer, first and foremost. I have the honour and the pleasure of working with brilliant people. Without an interesting concept you can edit until the cows come home. THE MORTAL COIL has the support of Richard Taylor at the famous Weta Workshop in Wellington. Given the amazing track record of that effects house, their attachment is a major bonus and it helps convincing decision makers that this project will fly.

STORY VS. SCRIPT EDITING

There is no doubt in my mind that the story development approach is another crucial factor in those recent funding successes. I used to get sucked into reading, analysing and assessing screenplays. Most scripts have enough weaknesses on the scene level for a script editor to provide his money’s worth in surface level feedback. The writer takes on board all the comments and does a – often completely useless – rewrite. My rejection rate used to be higher than average until I changed my development strategy. By focusing on the story, the writer doesn’t touch the screenwriting software until the structure works. This sounds like a longer process, but the reality is just the opposite.

If there is an easier way, why do we keep getting caught in this trap? Why do we all give feedback based on the script? I believe that we are scared to tell you – the writer – to fundamentally review the story. What if you walked away to find yourself another editor? It would mean the potential loss of some hard-earned business. Will those essential story changes guarantee a movie that works? Of course not. The most quoted line in the movie industry is William Goldman’s “Nobody knows anything.” But a well-structured story will increase the chances that better people read your script and give you better feedback so you get a step closer to funding.

Once you have successfully applied the principles of story structure and you’ve made it past the Ordeal of story and script development, remember Vogler and don’t confuse the Sword with the Elixir. I, too, am fully aware that the Final Confrontation is yet to come.

SHORT FILMS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF STORY STRUCTURE

The Australian Film Commission is paying $60,000 towards the production of ACID SUN, the first project I took on as a producer after becoming a father late 2004. Parental responsibility had brought with it a greater focus and a more radical selection of projects and short films just didn’t seem to cut it any longer. “Short films no longer work as a calling card.”

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Rather than opening a dialogue about why THE INSIDER works for some people and not for others, Linda treated it as an example of a failed script. To her defense: it was only part of that night’s workshop and time constraints didn’t allow her to divert.

THE INSIDER not only put Russell Crowe on the celebrity map with a Best Actor Nomination, the movie was also nominated for another six awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. That’s a pretty good result for a ‘failed script’. As a matter of fact, it smells a bit like my not so smart move to call WOLF CREEK a ‘missed opportunity’ in terms of screenwriting at the offices of Australia’s Film Financing Corporation.

Linda Aronson’s workshops got me thinking and inspired me to the idea of an online forum about issues like this and about story structure in general. Australia doesn’t have a screenwriting culture which recognises the importance of story development as opposed to script development.

We have an abundance of script assessment services happily charging writers hundreds of dollars for a full screenplay assessment without assessing the story’s overall dramatic structure first. Does any established producer / government funding body / Hollywood Studio read a full-length spec script without judging the story outline first? Right.

But enough of this sub plot for now. Back to the main story.

THE INSIDER – SCHINDLER’S LIST

I don’t recall Linda’s argument about THE INSIDER in detail as I have the arrogant habit to shut down when I am not allowed to argue my point. In essence, I believe the bottom line was: the casting of Al Pacino shows that the filmmakers considered his character the protagonist (Russell Crowe was pretty much a nobody on the international scene until that movie) but Pacino’s character is too weak and underdeveloped to carry the movie for its runtime of over two and a half hours.

A lot of movie buffs (including members of the Academy) will agree that THE INSIDER worked, despite its slightly unconventional structure. Linda is right: the script does not follow a straightforward three act plot.

Instead I believe here are two main stories with three acts each, hooked into each other very much like SCHINDLER’S LIST in which we first follow Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) who’s objective it is to get as many Jews into the factory as possible. Once we are well into his journey’s second act and over an hour into the film, Schindler (Liam Neeson) witnesses the clearing of the Krakow ghetto which demarcates his first act’s turning point. Now his objective is to get the workers out of the factory and into safety. Think about it: the Schindler character doesn’t really have a strong enough dramatic objective to get the story to that point. But Stern does.

Similarly, in THE INSIDER it is Wigand’s (Russell Crowe) Second Act objective to get his inside information safely to Bergman (Al Pacino), at which point we’re already into Bergman’s Second Act, which is all about getting the information to the public through his television show. Obviously we are now only talking about what Vogler would call the Hero’s Outer Journey, i.e. the ‘visible desire’. But I believe the Inner Journeys of these characters very much follow the same structure.

I would love to hear your view on these (admittedly rudimentary) story analyses. To me these two movies illustrate that:

– it is a myth that a movie should have three acts.
– it is a must that major characters have three acts.

However…

SYRIANA recently scratched a thin layer off my confidence in the traditional three act story structure. For a short while at least. To say that writer/director Stephen Gaghan is not really a slavish follower of the Syd Fields and Robert McKee’s of this world, is a bit of an understatement. Instead he learned from reading Tolstoy’s diaries in which the novelist explains his four main driving principles, the first of which is NOT “story”. Instead, in order of priority Tolstoy lists: Transition, Context, Story and Character.

McKEE vs. TOLSTOY

Clearly, this approach to screenwriting works for Gaghan who won earlier accolades with his script for Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC. Showing structural similarities with the latter film, SYRIANA paints a multi-textured, multi-protagonist tapestry giving us a hint of an insight in the complex issues that govern the world of the oil trade and middle-eastern politics. If you dig it, it’s riveting cinema and you’ll want to watch it again. If you don’t, you certainly have a valid reason for that.

SYRIANA is a brilliant piece of screenwriting but it appeals to the mind rather than the heart. Because of that, I don’t believe this type of political manifesto will mobilise the masses any time soon. Audiences today firstly want to be emotionally moved rather than intellectually engaged.

The above consideration is only an introduction to what I find one of the most entertaining discourses on screenwriting I have recently heard. In a podcast of nearly 90mins, Gaghan talks to CREATIVE SCREENWRITING MAGAZINE about his journey to screenwriting stardom, about his writing process and of course: SYRIANA.

Go to CREATIVE SCREENWRITING to find out how to download this podcast as well as other Q&A’s with the writers of CAPOTE, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE etc. If you can’t find it, send me an email and I might point you to it.

DVD COMMENTARIES

Not a lot of DVD’s come with a commentary that is useful from a story or screenwriting perspective. Hence the excitement when we do find one that sheds a good light on the movie from the writer’s pov.

Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST comes with a commentary track by Hollywood legend Ernest Lehman. And although he doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the actual writing process, he reveals a goldmine of facts and anecdotes about his working relationship with Hitch. Ironically, it’s another movie that wasn’t written following the screenwriting text books.

Speaking of which: a great analysis of NORTH BY NORTHWEST can be found in a work that I have been recommending a lot lately: Paul Gulino’s SCREENWRITING – THE SEQUENCE APPROACH. This book offers only about twenty pages of theory, followed by a thorough dramatic analysis of such great and diverse works as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DINER, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST and TOY STORY. The basis is the Aristotelian Three Act model, the principles of drama and anticipation as taught by the late Frank Daniel.

LOOSE ENDS (potential spoilers warning)

THE WORLD’S FASTEST INDIAN: Wonderfully crafted feel-gooder. The only problem with this movie is its title. A more appealing label would have drawn even more people to the Box Office and made word of mouth easier. Hopkins is sensational and most side characters go beautifully against cliche. Somebody on IMDb calls it “A Chick Flick for Guys”. So true.

V FOR VENDETTA: When your name is Wachowsky, you don’t have to worry about story structure or character development. As long as you have a strong concept, the fans will queue. I applaude the subversive concept of portraying Guy Fawks as a hero but I wish I could have loved this movie more. The story would have been helped with a more rigorous development of the V / Evey relationship. Also, the Wachowsky’s have the bad habit of leaving their heroes for too long, one of the problems I seem to remember sunk Matrix III.

THE PROPOSITION (DVD): Have a look at it from a story structure point of view. I sincerely enjoyed it until the scene when Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) throws the keys to the jail in the sand. To me this marks the end of the second act, which comes way too early in the movie. It also takes the wind out of the sails of the Stanley / Martha subplot which up until that point had been really nicely developed.

KING KONG (DVD): If you don’t like the 1933 original, you probably won’t like this one either. After all you’re expected to empathise with an ape and his consenting playmate. Despite the groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals in Jackson’s KONG, the real action after The Longest First Act in Human History (that is not counting SCHINDLER’S LIST) starts with a dino stampede which just briefly looks downright clumsy. But I didn’t mind it and the FX only get better towards the movie’s phenomenal finale on top of the Empire State.

In terms of Jackson’s (or rather: Fran Walsh’s) structure and drama skills, I’d like to refer again to a great article in Paul Gulino’s SCREENWRITING – THE SEQUENCE APPROACH in which the author makes a razorsharp analysis of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. It shows weaknesses that have been largely ironed out in the later installments of the trilogy and now also his version of KING KONG.

But I think I love this movie for a different reason. Peter Jackson is one of the very few living directors who can handle a colossal production like this and still retain a fresh, innocent and boyish feel. You forget the years of preparation and the sheer unmanageable machinery involved in getting this on the screen. It’s the type of magic which George Lucas has long lost.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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