Screenwriting : Biggest 2025 Resolution is Networking! by Jordan A Oliver

Welcome back, Jordan A Oliver. Congratulations on graduating and all the success!

"Though I am friendly and personable, I hate starting conversations that feel like I am only talking to someone to further my career." The thing to networking is to start conversations just to build relationships/get to know people/make friends. There will be opportunities to talk about your projects and jobs later. And sometimes you don't even have to bring up your projects or ask for jobs. The other person will ask you about your projects or offer you jobs because you built a relationship first.

Here are some blogs about networking that could help you out: https://www.stage32.com/blog/tags/networking-41

Stage 32 has in-person Meetups (www.stage32.com/meetups). They're great for networking. You can even start your own Meetup if you like.

And you could check the Job Board for jobs (www.stage32.com/find-jobs). The Job Board is updated regularly.

Jordan A Oliver I feel like you still have a leg up being in LA. Screenwriting "networking" in DC is like "Yah, I posted on Stage 32 from DC today"!

Thanks for the advice, Maurice, and I feel you Mike though LA is on fire right now so being in DC isn't the worst at the moment.

You're welcome, Jordan A Oliver.

Jordan A Oliver Terrible. Most of my immediate family, and many extended members, reside in LA County, but have been fortunate enough to escape any evacuations thus far. Stay safe!

Sadly, bugging/harassing people does work. This is an inherently kind business, full of people who struggle to say no. I know of well established people who pester all the time. There was an actor on the set of my last movie who kept trying to get the director to read his scripts.

On the flip side, being modest and wanting genuine connections pays off in the long run. There's very few genuine people in this world, and even fewer of those are driven by art, collaboration, and teamwork. When people realise you're one of the good ones, they'll stick to you like glue.

I guess I'll find that happy medium between genuine connections and pestering, and yes, these fires are awful. Lots of friends are evacuated. Everyone knows someone that has lost their home. I'm happy I moved back to Ventura County, but even here we were evacuated a few months ago from fires. Scary stuff.

CJ Walley That's an interesting bit about the actor's attempt to hawk his wares on-set... I would presume that if someone actually sells a spec the producer/s might want to see what else the writer has in the vault, but if you say, land a writing assignment/staff writer job are people more prone to look at your spec stuff, e.g. feature scripts?

Unfortunately, this decade is bad for college grads with BA, MFA film degrees or trades like dp, grips, casting. I saw a post from head union for prod/costume designing they dont recommend ppl to pursue this trade.

Covid, labor strike and now the LA fires wiped out any hope for 2025 rebounding.

I think you need a job that brings in steady income. But we dont know your financial situation. My film school class generation, only 1 person is still in show business. Everyone else was either fired, quit, raised families, moved.

Indie is the easiest route by far!

Dan MaxXx always the ray of sunshine lol

Dan MaxXx I feel you man, but I am an optimistic nihilist. Also your profile picture is great for the response you left. A professor I had who had a handful of produced scripts told me some positive words that I shall paraphrase: " There is no reason that any of you can't make it as a writer in this industry. It might take you months. It might take you years. Just don't stop writing, and don't give up. I had so many friends and classmates who were way more talented than me that never made it because they quit." There was more to it, but that's what stuck with me on our last day of class. Now this guy was a handsome guy with charm and a silver tongue, so take his words with a grain of salt.

"Though I am friendly and personable, I hate starting conversations that feel like I am only talking to someone to further my career."

Focussing on the social part of your story:

Ok, see it like this, how harsh it may sound; people in principle only talk to you if THEY WANT SOMETHING FROM YOU. If everybody does it, how can that still be called "anti-social?!" No, your not Jesus, but who is? How can it not be called a GENUINE, and HONEST, connection?"

Hey, and we all still have those precious genuine moments, hanging on the couch with our best friend, doing nothing, expecting nothing, just watching a tv show; but we still asume that our friend, who's house we're hanging out, will get the beverages, do we?

Don't feel uncomfortable taking controle, trying to accomplish something. The other side wouldn't say "yes" if they weren't thinking to get something out of it too. Call it "life." Don't make a big deal out of it. If we wouldn't have, let's call it, HUSTLED, as a people, we would still lives in cages. To say it in a genuinely appreciate way, I guess we writers have to develop more of a marketing mind.

Mike Childress, honestly, you'd be surprised. I've worked with hundreds of people now and very few (like less than five) have shown any interest in reading my specs. Screenwriting is mainly assignment based, so your value tends to be in how you take someone else's idea/draft and improve it dramatically. If you're being recommended, they don't need to read your specs to know you're any good. It might be very different if you get a spec sale, but I imagine it would have to be pretty high profile to generate buzz.

Shane Black is probably one of the most famous names in screenwriting. Reportedly, when he came back onto the scene with his Kiss Kiss Bang Bang spec, nobody would answer his calls. He had to go back to his old agent to regain any traction. It's an incredibly blinkered and faddish world.

While what Dan MaxXx writes is tough to read, it is realistic. I know a career director who opens his guest lectures by telling the students most of them aren't going to make it and they need to secure regular jobs that will keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. A few filmschools have banned him for saying this.

Being union is not the norm. And being union with regular work is even rarer. Everything outside of that is a wild west.

CJ Walley Shane Black is my man! I long to be allowed to write like he does, asides and whatnot. That's crazy that no one wants to read other scripts of a writer they hired/worked with. I started writing Shorts because my big-box feature stories would likely be too much money to produce as a massive gamble on a rookie screenwriter.

on the networking piece, the best advice i can give you is to not seek relationships based on what others can do for you. useful relationships will come naturally if you work on simply becoming friends with others. get to know people first and let people get to know you, too. networking is a social endeavor first, then a business one. if people like YOU, they will want to work with you / might do you a favor, so focus on just connecting with others. talk about shared interests (movies is an obvious one) or enjoyable things to talk about like a niche experience you enjoyed, an interesting piece of art you recently saw, or just yourself. everyone loves talking about themselves too! so ask questions about the people you meet. where are you from? where'd you go to school? what do you do? and roll from there, it's easy! but it's also not a one off. try to find a consistent monthly event/meetup and go show face every month. try to meet new people every time and say hello to the ones you met previously every week. as you meet people, you parse through who you connect with and don't. if you like them, keep connecting. if you don't, politely move on. it's not an exact science, but over time, you will make real connections. it's inevitable. a filmmaking career is a campaign and has to be bred out of pure interest/passion. there is no magic bullet, except continuing to be around, becoming known, and always growing/evolving as an artist. that includes socially

Mike Childress, I'm on an advisory board with Shane. One of my all time greatest moments was being on a Zoom call with him. You can absolutely write like him, and if it inspires you, you should.

CJ Walley I know someone who was successful(he's a friend now) then because of a family thing happening, he had to step away for quite a while. Then it took him grinding to get back in. Which he did. He wrote a movie called "Aftermath" that's on Prime Video. His name is Nathan Davis

I just looked up Aftermath on Prime Video, CJ Walley. It sounds exciting! I added it to my watch list. Looking forward to checking it out!

Really good feedback here. I'm learning a lot. I too struggle with networking and this is invaluable info! Thank you all for the wisdom!

Christopher J. Bounds Grind to get in...grind to get back in!

Patrick "PK" Koepke Interacting with The Spec Script Ronin-Jedi on here is a good first step.