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An Interview With Angelique Higgins, VP, Irish Dreamtime 
(Pierce Brosnan's Production Company)

(NOTE: The American Accolades prides itself on providing honest feedback, helpful resources, and access to mainstream Hollywood. The below interview is the opinion of one Hollywood executive. Much of it may be discouraging to new writers. The good news: we are here to help!). 

BIOGRAPHY:  

Angelique has been in the film business for over ten years.  She started as an assistant at Creative Artists Agency, and worked as a staff reader and story editor for CAA before moving on to a studio job at Universal Pictures.   She spent three years as a Director of Development for Universal, where she worked on movies running the gamut from the little-seen HALF-BAKED to the critically lauded OUT OF SIGHT.  Currently, Angelique serves as VP, Development for Irish Dreamtime Productions, the production company founded by actor Pierce Brosnan and his producing partner Beau St. Clair.

Q:  HOW IS WORKING FOR A TALENT-DRIVEN PRODUCTION COMPANY DIFFERENT FROM WORKING AT A STUDIO? 

Completely different, and for me a much better way of life.

The studios are corporations now, and for them development is a volume business.  When I was at Universal, I was assigned to close to 200 active development projects.  We'd get two to three new project drafts every week, each draft would need story notes or writer or director lists, or production meetings, or all of the above.  This doesn't even include dealing with specs, pitches and potential new material, or going to dailies of movies in production.  I'd usually read 15-20 scripts on weekends, and two or three every night after work.  We had staff meetings every day, which, as anyone who's been at a corporation knows, is where a couple dozen people get together to make nothing happen.  I just don't think it's possible to really be thoughtful or passionate about movies when one is on that kind of treadmill.  I had maybe ten projects that I really cared about, but it's hard to push those labors of love into production when there's so much day-to-day grunt work that has to be done on other projects.  It was a great training ground, and I learned a lot about production and politics, and I learned different ways to think about material, but at the end of the day I just wasn't interested enough in the perks of the job to give my life over to it.   A studio job is 90% political and managerial, and maybe 10% creative.

Working at a smaller producer company -- especially one as laid back and under the radar as this one -- is a much better fit for me.  We have 20 or so projects, we have the time to nurture them all, and we intend to get them all made.  It isn't just a vanity deal, as some people assume actor companies to be.  Irish Dreamtime produced two movies (THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and THE NEPHEW) and executive produced a third one (THE MATCH) before I got to the company, and we have two slated for this year with Pierce and several indie films that we're trying to get financed.  Not all of our projects are for Pierce to star in -- probably about 2/3 are -- but we do have a mandate to find projects that would be right for him, whether they are big tentpole movies or meatier acting parts in smaller films.  It's nice because that mandate gives us a focus, but we're free to go outside of it as well.  The best part is, I'm learning a lot more about physical production and financing, and I have the luxury of working on movies I care about while still having time for a life.  I feel really lucky.

Q:   HOW WOULD YOU ADVISE A WRITER WITHOUT CONNECTIONS TO TRY TO BREAK INTO THE BUSINESS?

Get connections.  And write.

There's a reason they call it "breaking in" to the business.  If the door isn't open, and in most cases it isn't, then you have to pick the lock.

A writer I know spent five years in the accounting department at a small agency here in L.A.  Every night, he'd go home to his ratty apartment and write.  Several scripts later, he got an agent (from a different agency, through connections he made at his company and socially), made a sale, and for the last year he's been working back-to-back jobs for major producers.

Another writer I met with had a completely different story.  He was a playwright from the pacific northwest who happened to read that a writer/director in Hollywood was interested in Alexander the Great.  The playwright had been working on a screenplay on the same subject, and took it upon himself to track down the writer/director.  This is now a project at Warner Bros.  This is what's known as kismet.  It is rare.  Don't count on it.  But do take the lesson that this playwright was enough of a student of the business to know of the writer/director's interest, and that his contact was very specifically targeted.  He did not send a thousand query letters out, or even a hundred, or even ten.  Just the one.  And he was resourceful enough to get it directly to the writer/director.  And he already had professionally produced stage credits on his resume.

I wish I could say that writing the best darned script ever would do it, but the odds of that happening are mucho slim.  You can try screenplay competitions, and you might get some action if you are a winner or a finalist, but generally only if the people running/judging the competition have Hollywood connections or the script competition is well known in the industry.  You can try teaming up with an aspiring director in your area to scrape together financing and make the movie independently, then enter it into festivals or try to sell it at a film market.  Produced credits are always good.  But as you can imagine, the odds of those things happening are not great either.  Having an agent who is from anywhere other than New York or L.A. is probably not going to get you very far.  Having your Uncle Ted who's an attorney send your stuff out won't really be helpful either. Generally, sending query letters is a waste of time.  Hardly anyone I know ever accepts anything this way.  There are net-based companies that will critique your scripts for a fee and sometimes forward the good ones to agents or managers, so you should investigate those types of deals but consider carefully the background and experience of the people involved.

If you really want to work in Hollywood, and you don't have a film school degree (which would at least get you some alumni connections if you went to one of the bigger ones) then pack up and move here and get a job that gives you access and education.  You need to learn about the business you want to be a part of, and the only real way to do it is by being here, or maybe New York although the film community there is smaller and the weather isn't as good.  You can read all the "How to Make It in Hollywood" type books to educate yourself, and I encourage you to do so, but your contacts and support group will increase exponentially if you put yourself in a place where everyone else is trying to do what you want to do.  If you are already here, then your goal should be winning friends and influencing people.  Try to get in with a reputable, A-list company.  Join networking organizations.

This is going to be a lot easier for younger writers -- people just out of college -- than for older people or people with families or other obligations.  It may not be practical for them to move, or financially feasible.  Plus, most entry-level jobs will go to younger people. It's a young person's business  -- it's uncommon for entry-level assistant/writer assistant/runner/mailroom/PA positions to go to anyone over age 25 or 30.  (Sadly, this is somewhat true for writers as a group, and there is a class action lawsuit pending to address the issue of age discrimination toward writers in Hollywood.  I don't mean to burst the bubble of any older aspiring writers out there, but it is a reality that there are award-winning older writers out here who are out of work, and age is an added obstacle in an industry that always craves what's hip, fresh and new.)  These jobs are not glamorous.  The pay is low, the hours long, the dignity often non-existent.  But you will learn, and you will be in the trenches with other people who are aspiring.  Some of them are aspiring directors, some are aspiring agents.   You will meet fellow writers and you can help fix each others' scripts, or maybe team up to write together.  As you all move up, you will be able to help each other.

If you are unable or unwilling to come to Hollywood, that is an additional obstacle that you will have to work to overcome.  If you want to pump gas in Dubuque, or teach third grade in Tuscaloosa, or live with mom and dad until you get your big break and sell your screenplay for a million dollars, go ahead.  You should still be educating yourself about the business.  Get a subscription to the trades.  Read produced screenplays. Get connected with your state's film commission.  Take a class.  Whatever. But know that people in Hollywood will take your commitment less seriously if you don't live here.  Once you have an established career, then you can go live someplace normal again.

So, basically, this is a long-winded way of saying that to break into the business you have to write and keep writing and keep writing.  But don't give up your day job.  And if possible, see to it that your day job, or your living situation, or your social circle, is getting you better connected.  Become a student of the business.  Even when you get an agent, there's no guarantee they'll work as hard on your behalf as you will.  So the better connected you can get and the more people you know the better off you will be.

Q:   HOW DOES YOUR COMPANY GENERATE PROJECTS? 

A mix.  We generate ideas internally.  One nice thing about being at a talent-centric company is that projects sometimes come to us.  We often get other producers offering to let us team up with them on projects because they want Pierce to star in the movie, and sometimes we do depending on the project and the people involved.  These are projects that are already set up at studios.  We do consider whether there are any cool remake ideas available.  We get scripts from agents and managers, but generally we don't chase every new spec script.  We're much more about digging out those old unproduced scripts, the "what ever happened to the one about..." gems. We've all been around long enough that we each have a backlog of favorite old unproduced projects.  In fact, we just set one up that Beau's had on her shelf for like four years.  We take general meetings with writers whose samples we liked, and try to generate ideas that we all like.  We keep tabs on books and articles.  But really, we want to keep our slate small and make everything we develop, so we aren't ravenous for more more more all the time the way some companies are.  Our goal is to have a great development to production ratio and to actually make movies rather than just development deals.

Q:  HAVE YOU EVER ACCEPTED AN UNSOLICITED SUBMISSION FROM SOMEONE OTHER THAN A LAWYER, MANAGER, ENTERTAINMENT EXECUTIVE, OR AGENT?  IF YES, DESCRIBE THE CIRCUMSTANCE(S) THAT LEAD YOU TO THAT DECISION AND THE PERCENTAGE OF THE TIME YOU MIGHT SAY "YES" TO AN UNSOLICITED SUBMISSION QUERY.

Sort of.  I answered a completely random query letter from a writer and had him send a script through his attorney, who I'd never heard of.  To be honest, it was because I had just come back from a vacation and wished I could go back to the country I'd just visited, and the story happened to be set in that country and seemed like it was a cute enough idea, and the idea of getting PAID to go to that country and make a movie seemed really enticing.  Well, it turns out that the story was based on a real person, but had been fictionalized in a pretty unflattering way.  And the writer didn't have the life rights to the person in question, who was the main character in the story, who was now deceased but from a wealthy family with heirs.  It was a legal morass, and as soon as I realized it I cut it loose. We had a similar rights problem on another project, so I knew that despite the writer's claim that there was "no problem," there was definitely a problem.  Basically, this is one of the reasons why we only accept things from agents and managers we know.  It's to weed out the amateurs and save ourselves a lot of grief.  I guarantee you that if this guy gets his movie made there will be a lawsuit.  So I'd say that I USED to accept .0001% of random query letters, and now I accept 0%.  I get between five to fifteen query letters a week, depending on if the moon is full.  I tell them all that as a policy we don't accept any unsolicited submissions.  I think the general perception is that writers who send query letters really don't have a clue how things work, or are desperate, or are hopeless optimists living in a dream world.  Maybe you know someone who's sold or optioned a script this way.  But I don't.  I guess it must have happened at least once, otherwise why would so many people be doing it?

Another true story:  A couple of months after everyone returned to L.A. from shooting THE NEPHEW in Ireland, a random unsolicited script submission came in.  It was returned, unread.  Apparently the story was similar to THE NEPHEW, so the writers tried to sue the company for "stealing" their idea, even though it was never read and even though it was submitted after our movie was already shot and in the can.  They lost, of course.  But this is another good reason not to accept any unsolicited submissions.  It isn't just a big conspiracy to keep the new guys out of the business.

Another true story:  When I was working at the agency, one of the assistants got a query letter (for her boss, a big agent) and liked the way the letter was written so she sent the writer release forms.  (She was new and not jaded yet.)  She read the script and liked it, and had it covered, and it got good coverage, and the agency took on this writer as a "hip pocket" client, meaning there are no official papers signed but the agents will send the script out and see what happens.  This writer, who chose not to move to L.A., wrote three scripts that the agency sent out, none of which sold.  Eventually, they stopped “representing" him.  He has still not sold a script.  I'm not even sure how many meetings he got.  So query letters might get you some play, and an agent can represent you, but that doesn't mean you can stop networking and assume your career will take care of itself.

Q:  HAVING WORKED AT AN AGENCY, A STUDIO, AND A PRODUCTION COMPANY, WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR EMERGING WRITERS WHO DO NOT HAVE REPRESENTATION?

Not to be flip, but if you don't have representation you probably aren't emerging yet to anyone except you, your parents and your pet goldfish. Don't waste time sending out query letters to anyone except agents and managers.  Find out through WGA website or other sources what L.A. agents/agencies/managers take on new unproduced clients. (There are loads of sources for this information -- you may just have to dig.)  Look in the trades to see who just got their agent stripes, or target assistants who are trainees on the desk of a bigger lit agent.  See who is selling specs by first-time writers.  Find out who specializes in your field of interest (TV, cable, features, etc.)  Make friends with everyone.  Ask other writer friends who do have representation to see if their agent will read your script.  Get a job in the business that will allow you to learn who's who so you can avoid sleazy poseurs (they exist) and target hard workers with legitimate client lists and contacts.  (This day job should also gain you some connections -- it's all a six degrees of separation kind of world out here).  Concentrate on small or mid-size but reputable agencies unless you have connections at a bigger agency.  If you get rejected by an agent or manager, don't take it personally, but do try to learn from it.  Once you get agents or managers to read your material, find out WHY they don't want to take you on as a client.  Is your writing not good enough yet?  Is your subject matter not commercial enough, or too similar to an existing project?  Is it the fact that you only have this one script to show, and they want more depth of product?  Is your behavior too aggressive, or indicative of possibly being a high-maintenance client?  They may not always be forthcoming, but if you approach this in a non-threatening and non-irritating way, as in "please help educate me, is there one piece of advice you might have for me", then you might get some insight that will help you the next time around.  One tip:  DO NOT have cast lists of your dream cast, story boards, fancy cover pages, or anything fussy on/with your script.  Do not make a tape of the "soundtrack" for the person to listen to while they read the script.  Just the script.  Only the script.  In proper format.  Like the pros.

People are reluctant to burst someone's bubble with cold truth.  If you're getting a lot of "it just isn't for me" yada yada, it may mean that your writing just isn't up to snuff yet.  To find out, you may want to think about getting some coverage/notes done on your script by one of those services that will give you non-biased feedback.  It might be hard to take, but criticism is part of the business that you'll have to get used to.  A writer friend of mine has a three comment rule.  He gives his draft to a bunch of writer or development friends and asks for feedback.  If he hears the same note three times, he changes it.  Otherwise, he defends his position or chalks it up to personal taste.  You may want to develop a similar system among your support group.  If you tell someone you want their real opinion, be prepared to hear it constructively.  As H.G. Wells said, "There is no passion in the world equal to the passion to alter someone else's draft."