Real, Low Down, Dirty Truth about Hollywood Agenting , livre ebook

Linden Publishing - Rima Greer

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122 pages

English

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In this book you'll find everything you always wanted to know about the real, honest-to-not-so-goodness, day-to-day inner workings of Hollywood. Not the glamorous Oscar-winning-Spielberg-red-carpet Hollywood, but the real-life daily grind of working Hollywood. For the very first time, a Hollywood film agent has opened up her phone sheet and crackberry to show us how agents, writers, and directors function in a world of producers, development executives, and studio executives. This isn't another book dishing the dirt about the rich and famous; it's a fresh, tell-all translation from Hollywood-speak to plain English, a peek behind the wizard's curtain into a culture that's rarely captured without cliche and hyperbole. You'll learn how to get an agent, how to keep one, what they do, and what they don't do. You'll learn how agents navigate through the murky, film-world politics and even why agents are such infamous liars.

Informations

Publié par	Linden Publishing
Date de parution	01 octobre 2007
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781610351140
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0020€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Praise for The Real, Low Down, Dirty Truth About Hollywood Agenting
"Rima Greer is the real deal. She knows how scripts sell, why they sell…and she’s not afraid to tell. A great agent who is now an invaluable informant!"
Julie Lynn, producer of Nine Lives and The Jane Austen Book Club
"At last, a book about agenting from a smart, savvy pro who has seen it all and done it all."
Lawrence Turman, So You Want to Be a Producer; Director of the Peter Stark Program, USC

Copyright © 2008 by Rima Greer
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by
Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press, Inc.,
1254 Commerce Ave, Sanger, CA 93657
559-876-2170 / 800-497-4909
QuillDriverBooks.com
Word Dancer Press books may be purchased for educational, fund-raising, business or promotional use. Please contact Special Markets, Quill Driver Books/ Word Dancer Press, Inc. at the above address or phone numbers.
Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press Project Cadre: Linda Kay Hardie, David Marion, Stephen Blake Mettee, Carlos Olivas, Cassandra Williams
First Printing
ISBN 1-884956-69-6 • 978-1884956-69-0
To order a copy of this book, please call
1-800-497-4909.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greer, Rima.
The real, low down, dirty truth about Hollywood agenting / by Rima Greer.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-884956-69-0 (trade pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-884956-69-6 (trade pbk.)
1. Motion pictures Vocational guidance. 2. Theatrical agents Vocational guidance. I. Title
PN1995.9.P75G69 2007
791.43 dc22
2007036762
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part One How Hollywood Works (The Short Version)
Chapter 1: Who Are All These People? (and What Do They Do Anyway?)
Chapter 2: How Scripts Get Sold
Chapter 3: Development Hell
Chapter 4: How Movies Get Made
Part Two The Business of Agenting
Chapter 5: Agents Defined
Chapter 6: What Agents Do
Chapter 7: About Agencies
Chapter 8: A Day in the Life of an Agent
Chapter 9: Getting an Agent
Chapter 10: Keeping Your Agent
Chapter 11: The Art of the Sale
Chapter 12: The Art of the Deal
Chapter 13: Why Agents Lie
Chapter 14: The (Alleged) Mind of an Agent
Chapter 15: Why Being an Agent is the Best/Worst Job in the World
Part Three Stuff About Hollywood You Should Know
Chapter 16: 25 Truths Nobody Will Tell You
Chapter 17: Unspoken Rules
Resources
Must-See Movies
Must-Read Books
Hollywood Terms and Their True Meanings
About the Author
Acknowledgments
As much as you think of Hollywood as a place of backstabbing and revenge (and heaven knows I can think of a couple of people who deserve it), it is actually mostly a place of people helping each other. There are a bunch of people I want to say thank you to.
Naomi Gurian and Barri Evans who gave me my first break at the WGA.
Debra Greenfield, who treated me like a human at William Morris. Debra taught me what good agenting is. Thanks. I wouldn’t be here without you.
Barbara Roman, Joe Rosenberg and Joan Scott. You guys made my career happen. I will always be grateful, forever and ever.
Alan, Peter, David, Richard, Larry, Julie, Raffaella you know who you are. It would be a sad day in Hollywood without you.
My friend Barbara Ratner, who read this whole thing with a fine tooth comb and kept me from shooting myself in the foot.
Bruce Bartlett, for being my partner through good times and tough times. Dude, you’re a rock.
My agent, Andree Abecasis, who took a flyer on this book, and is a delight to work with.
The Secret Agents my fellow agent monthly lunch pals. May we lunch together forever and ever.
My parents, especially my mom, who always made sure I knew I could do anything I put my mind to.
My hubby, Scott, who gave me the courage to go out on my own. I love you, sweetie.
My clients. I’d be nothing without you guys. I swear, I’d lie down in front of a speeding train for you.
Introduction
Q: How can you tell if your agent is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
This is probably the first picture people get in their minds of a Hollywood film agent. A slick Sammy Glick suit who’s willing to lie, cheat, steal, sell his soul, and screw everybody including their mother to make a deal or even just for the fun of it. Movies and television are filled with images of these slimy guys who can magically open the door to stardom if only they’d make that one phone call to the studio head, which, of course, they never do out of sheer petty, withholding spite.
Sure, those guys exist. Hell, I could name names. But they are few and far between. There is another breed of agent living, working, and making good money in the biz in their own, quiet, and (mostly) truthful, honest, and sincere way. Yeah, it’s actually possible to be an agent, tell the truth, and get a movie made all at the same time.
So, who died and made me an expert? I guess, I did. I’ve been an agent for over twenty years now. Twenty years. I can’t possibly be that old. But still, I’m not famous.
The truth is, I’m probably not an expert. I don’t have $20 million in the bank, I don’t have an Oscar in my office, and I don’t even triple-book my lunches like some folks do.
I’m just an agent who’s had a good solid career representing good, solid writers and directors. There are a zillion of me. Well, okay, not a zillion. One thing that makes me different from the hoards of young folks in suits doing lunch is that, a little over 10 years ago, I quit my job and started my own company. Oh, and I have made several seven-figure deals. Most literary agents don’t get to do that. Really. A $1 million script sale is not as common as we all wish.
So, am I the most powerful agent in Hollywood? Are you kidding? Not even. But most folks will take my phone call, and I can get a movie made. And that’s what really counts.
I suppose you might want to know where I came from. You can skip this part. Really. I just put it here because I think I’m supposed to, and I don’t want you thinking that agents are all the nephews of the studio head. We’re not. Well, not all of us.
I was born (I’m told) in Cincinnati, Ohio. My parents are both rocket scientists literally. My dad designed the power systems that still run most of the satellites up there bringing you your DirecTV, and my mom was a Westinghouse Science Talent Search winner when she was only 15. Naturally, they realized that aerospace was in the West, so they packed me and my older sister, Cyndee, in the car, and drove to California.
Dad and Mom went on to work at TRW and Douglas Aircraft, respectively, which meant that my summer nepotism jobs were always at the technical library, or labeling computer chips in a grubby cubicle.
But hey, back then, I had no movie ambitions. At first, I was going to be a composer. I’ve been reading music and playing various instruments since I was four. I’m still obsessed with it, currently taking two violin lessons a week. I’ve written hundreds of compositions, and even have my ASCAP card. But I just don’t have what it takes.
So, I moved right along to another brilliant dead end. I had started ballet class when I was 3 and, by the time I was 16, I was dancing five hours a day, six days a week in a third-rate company as the last swan on the left in the back line. Not a life.
At 21, I graduated from a small California State University campus (Dominguez Hills), with a degree in French, which qualified me to do exactly nothing. I knew, deep in my heart, that I was never going to make a real living dancing or as a musician, so I faced the facts, and started looking for a "real" job.
Now I had had an inkling about real jobs in college. I had started with a business minor, but hated it, and changed over to a communications minor. Hey, I’m a people person. Surely, if dancing failed me, there might be room in film or TV or something for someone like me?
Who was I kidding? I had no relatives or friends in the biz. I was on my own, with a resumé of summer jobs at Douglas Aircraft, and a summa cum laude from a school that’s not Harvard or Yale. So, I applied for every entry-level position I could find. A new agency just starting out, called CAA, did not hire me to be their receptionist. Disney did not hire me to be a secretary because I didn’t type fast enough. The list is endless.
Finally, the Writers Guild of America offered me a job as a clerk in the membership department. (Should I mention that they had forgotten to give me a typing test?) It was the best possible education I could get. In three months I moved up to be assistant to the assistant executive director, where my duties included taking notes at all committee meetings everything from the Committee on Aging to the Negotiating Committee before a possible strike. My boss was so good to me. She included me in everything, and really gave me a feel for how things worked. I will always be grateful.
When I had been there a year, I came to the conclusion that I had to be an agent. I don’t know why. I think I had the illusion that agents were in charge of something. Little did I know….
My WGA boss very kindly recommended me to a friend of hers at William Morris. I was over the moon. A year earlier, WMA had not even bothered to respond to my request for an application. This time I g