Showing posts with label Hello He Lied. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hello He Lied. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 July 2017

The Three Stages of Pitch

One of the toughest things for many screenwriters to come to grips with is the Pitch Meeting. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were so bad at meetings that Steven Spielberg told them, "It's a good thing you guys write better than you pitch."

Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001), The Invention of Lying (2009), had the same problem when she started in Hollywood.

In her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches, Lynda says that when she first came to town, she wrote notes for herself, as she came to grips with this unusual social event.



Pitch is transactional theater. The quality of its performance is an important factor in its outcome. Regardless of the nature of the story we pitch—historical drama, cartoon adventure, police procedural, inspirational coming of age, brainless comedy, classic remake—there is a customary structure to both its content and its performance. Each pitch has three stages.

1. The Prep

Before the segue into the pitch, the producer has to prep the room. We do this by talking about the spouse, the boy/girlfriend or lack thereof, Gymboree, yoga, diets, the playoffs (if it's the right season; any playoff will do), or whether some mogul is going to buy Sony or MCA or Disney or anywhere at all. Gossip is currency in prepping the room. Charm rules.

2. The Windup

The job of the windup is to warm up the room. No self-respecting producer should ever rely on the writer for personality and ease. (Notable exceptions are some comedy writers, who are like standup comedians. This brings to mind the perennial question: If the pitch is funny will the script necessarily be funny? Hard-learned answer: No.)

First of all, the writer is likely to be only person in the room more nervous than the producer. Second, his talent is often in inverse proportion to his ability to pitch—read: schmooze. Consider the almost axiomatic observation: Good writers pitch badly and bad writers pitch well. The exceptions—the good writers who pitch well—are a function of gifted personality. They're charming. They are often the most highly paid, more often future directors.

A tip: Writers for whom solutions come too quickly are suspect. The writer should know that the solution to a story point is supposed to be harder than that.

3. The Concept

Then the wired producer must meet his optimal challenge, the mark of a truly gifted pitcher: He must present the concept whole—the miniaturization of the idea. It must be succinct. This is the famous high concept. Its seminal influence is the TV Guide log line.  The most common (and banal) form of the high concept idea is the hybrid: as in "Pretty Woman meets Friday the Thirteenth" (a great-looking whore is dismembered by a horrific, hockey-mask wearing creep). It requires virtually no imagination. By combining the names of past hits, one forms genetically engineered new movie ideas—sort of.

The appeal of these ideas is that they appear to reduce the risk level for the buyer. And they don't take deep concentration to grasp. No limb jumping here. Just by referencing these past hits, we share their patina of success.

Before the meeting the producer should have prepared the writer to be able to tell the story without going into excruciating detail.
Members of the pitching party should have resolved among themselves any major plot disputes. This sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many pitch meetings I've seen go awry through internal debate. Like an escalating marital rift, these meetings dangle perilously on the precipice of collapse unless grand synthesis is quickly found. This is your job (producer). Subtle theoretical issues can remain tactically open as these minor snags often invite debate from the buyer, intriguing and involving him.



First posted: 31 August 2013

Monday, 10 July 2017

'Never go to a meeting without a strategy'

It's a cliche that Hollywood is a place of endless meetings. Woody Allen satirised the practice in Annie Hall (1977).

          A Hollywood Christmas party is in session, complete with
      music, milling people, circulating waiters holding out
      trays of drinks.  It's all very casual.  French doors run
      the entire width of one wall; they are opened to the back
      lawn, guests move from the room to outside and back in.
      It is crowded; bits of conversation and clinking glasses
      can be heard.  Two men, California-tanned, stand by the
      French doors talking.

                      1ST MAN
          Well, you take a meeting with him,
          I'll take a meeting with you if
          you'll take a meeting with Freddy.

                      2ND MAN
          I took a meeting with Freddy. Freddy
          took a meeting with Charlie. You
          take a meeting with him.

                      1ST MAN
          All the good meetings are taken.

 
"All the good meetings are taken."





Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001) and The Invention of Lyingh(2009), had a problem with meetings when she started work in Hollywood.

She talks about the lessons she learned in her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches.
I got it. If I didn't know what we wanted to accomplish, we couldn't accomplish anything. If we weren't there to score, we couldn't win. I never forgot this lesson. It goes like this: You are a salesman, so bring your sample case. A meeting is either won or lost, so you need a strategy. A strategy implements a plan or an agenda.
     Strategies are devised by intersecting your agenda with that of the other person at the meeting (i.e., "Let's talk about you. When can you help me with my agenda?"). If you have no strategy and just attend a meeting blindly, you lose your edge because you can count on the fact that your lunch date has a strategy.
     Every chance encounter is a meeting, and each meeting is part of a larger series of actions that, when taken together, accumulate into an overall agenda. Agendas can shift, change or adapt, particularly with a new job. But one must always have one. Each move either furthers or obstructs an agenda. Think of it as a board game.
     Sometimes meetings, because they are held in such delightful places, can be mistaken for high teas at which people forget what they're doing and start thinking they're merely having drinks with a couple of well-dressed people with great haircuts. But the truth is that each these well-manicured charmers is, in fact, ruthlessly pursuing his or her agenda. If he is a studio executive, he wants big summer pictures. A producer wants his scripts to be that summer hit. The most wide-ranging fishing expedition of a meeting has its agenda, even if it's only information gathering, friendship building, or propagandizing.
     At lunch with an agent, a producer's strategy would be to win her over and make her aware of his projects. Or simply to go fishing for new hot properties. This is called "tracking," and people are paid to do it. When he has her rapt attention, it's critical that he doesn't bore her to death.



The following is a sample lunch conversation between a producer and a reluctant literary agent.

Producer: So how was your New Year's? ... Aspen?
  (It's never boring if he talks about her.)
Agent: Hawaii. I was sick the whole time.
  (Shut down—or an opening?)
Producer: How hideous! Did you get a lot of reading done?
  (Lead the dance.)
Agent: Had to. When I finally felt better, it was pouring.
Producer: What you need is a great big auction over your new favorite script.
Agent: I did read a really terrific new writer over vacation.
  (BINGO!)
Producer: You know how I love to work with new writers! Why don't you slip it to me early...

  (A descendant of "sock it to me," slipping a spec is giving a time advantage to
   one buyer with plausible denial to the rest of the buyers. As in, "I have no idea
   how she got it!" A gift.)

... and I'll make your first bid.
  (He can't really guarantee this but why should he? He hasn't read it!)
Agent: Great idea!


The producer wins. If the script is any good.



Now let's look at a sample conversation between a producer and a preening studio exec over Chinese chicken salad.

Producer: Congratulations on this weekend! Twelve million! You guys creamed 'em.
  (Locker room talk.)
Exec: It was my picture, you know.
  (This is true whether it is or not.)
Producer: Of course. Everyone knows.
  (Flattery will get her everywhere.)
... Your stock must be pretty high this morning.
  (Hoist them on their own petards.)
Exec: I guess so.
  (Fake humility. A new standard.)
... I'd sure love to bring in a big spec this week.
Producer: You could sell anything this week!
Exec: You think so?
  (This is her setup. She goes in for the kill. Now.)
Producer: I'm getting a terrific script slipped that no one has seen. Spielberg is tracking it, but I think I have it exclusively.
  (Spielberg tracks everything, so this lie is borderline safe.)
Exec: I heard about it! I definitely want it.
  (He's salivating now, despite the chicken salad.)
... When can I get my hands on it?
Producer: Friday. It's yours.
  (After she gets her hands on it.)
... In fact, Darren...
  (his chief competitor)
... has been asking around about it, but I'd rather give it to you. You're my main man.
  (Bonding, flirting, joking—depending on gender relations.)
Exec: And you're mine. Even though you're a chick!

The producer wins again. If the script is any good.


And the moral of the story? Writer, you never go to a meeting without a strategy.


First posted: 24 August 2013

Friday, 7 July 2017

Book review: "Hello, He Lied"

Lynda Obst is a former editor of The New York Times Magazine. She moved to Hollywood in 1979, where she became a producer, author, and commentator on the film industry. She was involved in the development of Flashdance (1983), and produced The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001), The Invention of Lying (2009), and a stack of other movies and TV shows.

She recently published a book which is getting a lot of attention—Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business. I haven't read it yet, but during my week by the seaside I caught up on an earlier work, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches.

It's an excellent title for a book, but not original to Lynda Obst.

People seemed to lie to each other as a matter of course. No big thing. "Hello, he lied" was a joke I heard about someone I knew during my first month at work.
But, as a great producer would, she recognized the potential of the phrase and put it to work.

In the book, Lynda shares what she learned during twenty years in the business, all that stuff we know producers do but don't know how they do it, such as how to pitch an idea, impress a suit, win a bidding war over a hot script, massage an ego, and how to dress on location, what to say to skittish directors, where to eat lunch, and how to produce a successful movie.

Although the book is written from a producer's POV, it contains some excellent material for writers. I will be talking about some of that in more detail in the near future. In the meantime, it's an excellent read for anyone who has ever wondered what is really going on in the movie business.

As usual, here are some quotes to give you a feel for the book.




  • This is the flip side of ambition: debilitating exhaustion and the constant threat of defeat. Therefore every crisis can't be taken too seriously or you won't survive.
  • It is just as important to move on in the wake of stunning success as in the wake of disaster.
  • A writer should bring a producer to a pitch meeting for social savvy, political leverage, and simultaneous translation for the artistically challenged.
  • Being quick on your feet isn't the same as being good on the page.
  • Good writers pitch badly and bad writers pitch well.
  • To me The Fisher King was a masterpiece about the healing power of grace. To Peter Guber (then chairman of Columbia TriStar) it was a summer buddy comedy. Fine. We were both right.
  • Bulletin to all Cinderellas, female and male: There are no rescues here. No fairy godmothers. No princes. No white horses. You have to do it yourself.
  • The corollary of never going to a meeting without a strategy is never getting off a jet without a strategy, never going to a screening without a strategy, never going to dinner without a strategy, never going to a breakfast without a strategy.
  • Flashdance, like its progenitor, Rocky, is a paradigm bull's-eye movie in that any movie where the hero reaches for and achieves his or her dream, particularly one with dance numbers, is bound to connect with, at the very least, the American public.
  • Never ask permission. It will not be granted.
  • Getting what you want is dependent on knowing how things work.
  • Learn to ride the horse in the direction it is going.
  • You must never look threatened as the big players come on. The march of the big players is the drumroll that announces the movie will in fact be made.
  • When a producer has information, he must never share it, except tactically. Ipso facto, gossips know nothing because they are not trading information for anything useful, unless they are gossip columnists.
  • Power is a place as well as a verb; it is inside the information tent.
  • If there are so many powerful people in Hollywood, why are there so many nervous people at Hollywood parties? Because they're all standing on shaky ground, and the calm ones stay home.
  • If you are in a war where the damage is beginning to exceed any possible gains, surrender, Dorothy. You will be astonished to learn how little you have lost, because no one will even remember what the spoils of the original war were supposed to be.
  • Beware of all people campaigning for your friendship. Especially if you're hot that week. Too much obvious effort is suspicious.
  • Beware of obsequious human beings. Everyone here has a strong, healthy ego. The most dangerous wolves are in sheep's clothing.
  • Beware of inappropriate personal revelations—these are often part of a campaign.
  • The fact that I know little or less about the man's point of view in Hollywood doesn't stop me from theorizing about it endlessly with my girlfriends.
  • The fuzzy model is always acceptable, of course, in writers. This is true also for men. Being kind of distracted, artistic, vague, sensitive—these are all excellent traits for writers. They bring out the maternal in the woman executive, the paternal in the male executive, and this is how talent gets embraced by its protectors: the agents who have to mediate between it and the exploitative buyers.
  • Style for women is a vital component of success. If you can afford it, Armani is the rule for crisp girls on the move.

These are just a few of the gems. There are wonderful sections dealing with handling pitches, meetings, script auctions, how to dress, how to keep stars happy, and ten commandments for women working in film. This book is highly recommended.





First posted: 17 August 2013

Saturday, 31 August 2013

The Three Stages of Pitch

One of the toughest things for many screenwriters to come to grips with is the Pitch Meeting. Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio were so bad at meetings that Steven Spielberg told them, "It's a good thing you guys write better than you pitch."

Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001), The Invention of Lying (2009), had the same problem when she started in Hollywood.

In her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches, Lynda says that when she first came to town, she wrote notes for herself, as she came to grips with this unusual social event.
___________________________________________________

Pitch is transactional theater. The quality of its performance is an important factor in its outcome. Regardless of the nature of the story we pitch—historical drama, cartoon adventure, police procedural, inspirational coming of age, brainless comedy, classic remake—there is a customary structure to both its content and its performance. Each pitch has three stages.

1. The Prep

Before the segue into the pitch, the producer has to prep the room. We do this by talking about the spouse, the boy/girlfriend or lack thereof, Gymboree, yoga, diets, the playoffs (if it's the right season; any playoff will do), or whether some mogul is going to buy Sony or MCA or Disney or anywhere at all. Gossip is currency in prepping the room. Charm rules.

2. The Windup

The job of the windup is to warm up the room. No self-respecting producer should ever rely on the writer for personality and ease. (Notable exceptions are some comedy writers, who are like standup comedians. This brings to mind the perennial question: If the pitch is funny will the script necessarily be funny? Hard-learned answer: No.)

First of all, the writer is likely to be only person in the room more nervous than the producer. Second, his talent is often in inverse proportion to his ability to pitch—read: schmooze. Consider the almost axiomatic observation: Good writers pitch badly and bad writers pitch well. The exceptions—the good writers who pitch well—are a function of gifted personality. They're charming. They are often the most highly paid, more often future directors.

A tip: Writers for whom solutions come too quickly are suspect. The writer should know that the solution to a story point is supposed to be harder than that.

3. The Concept

Then the wired producer must meet his optimal challenge, the mark of a truly gifted pitcher: He must present the concept whole—the miniaturization of the idea. It must be succinct. This is the famous high concept. Its seminal influence is the TV Guide log line.  The most common (and banal) form of the high concept idea is the hybrid: as in "Pretty Woman meets Friday the Thirteenth" (a great-looking whore is dismembered by a horrific, hockey-mask wearing creep). It requires virtually no imagination. By combining the names of past hits, one forms genetically engineered new movie ideas—sort of.

The appeal of these ideas is that they appear to reduce the risk level for the buyer. And they don't take deep concentration to grasp. No limb jumping here. Just by referencing these past hits, we share their patina of success.

Before the meeting the producer should have prepared the writer to be able to tell the story without going into excruciating detail.
Members of the pitching party should have resolved among themselves any major plot disputes. This sounds obvious, but I can't tell you how many pitch meetings I've seen go awry through internal debate. Like an escalating marital rift, these meetings dangle perilously on the precipice of collapse unless grand synthesis is quickly found. This is your job (producer). Subtle theoretical issues can remain tactically open as these minor snags often invite debate from the buyer, intriguing and involving him.

_______________________________________________________________________

Saturday, 24 August 2013

'Never go to a meeting without a strategy'

It's a cliche that Hollywood is a place of endless meetings. Woody Allen satirised the practice in Annie Hall (1977).

          A Hollywood Christmas party is in session, complete with
      music, milling people, circulating waiters holding out
      trays of drinks.  It's all very casual.  French doors run
      the entire width of one wall; they are opened to the back
      lawn, guests move from the room to outside and back in.
      It is crowded; bits of conversation and clinking glasses
      can be heard.  Two men, California-tanned, stand by the
      French doors talking.

                      1ST MAN
          Well, you take a meeting with him,
          I'll take a meeting with you if
          you'll take a meeting with Freddy.

                      2ND MAN
          I took a meeting with Freddy. Freddy
          took a meeting with Charlie. You
          take a meeting with him.

                      1ST MAN
          All the good meetings are taken.

 
"All the good meetings are taken."

______________________________________________________________________

Lynda Obst, who produced films such as The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001) and The Invention of Lying (2009), had a problem with meetings when she started work in Hollywood.

She talks about the lessons she learned in her book, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches.
I got it. If I didn't know what we wanted to accomplish, we couldn't accomplish anything. If we weren't there to score, we couldn't win. I never forgot this lesson. It goes like this: You are a salesman, so bring your sample case. A meeting is either won or lost, so you need a strategy. A strategy implements a plan or an agenda.
     Strategies are devised by intersecting your agenda with that of the other person at the meeting (i.e., "Let's talk about you. When can you help me with my agenda?"). If you have no strategy and just attend a meeting blindly, you lose your edge because you can count on the fact that your lunch date has a strategy.
     Every chance encounter is a meeting, and each meeting is part of a larger series of actions that, when taken together, accumulate into an overall agenda. Agendas can shift, change or adapt, particularly with a new job. But one must always have one. Each move either furthers or obstructs an agenda. Think of it as a board game.
     Sometimes meetings, because they are held in such delightful places, can be mistaken for high teas at which people forget what they're doing and start thinking they're merely having drinks with a couple of well-dressed people with great haircuts. But the truth is that each these well-manicured charmers is, in fact, ruthlessly pursuing his or her agenda. If he is a studio executive, he wants big summer pictures. A producer wants his scripts to be that summer hit. The most wide-ranging fishing expedition of a meeting has its agenda, even if it's only information gathering, friendship building, or propagandizing.
     At lunch with an agent, a producer's strategy would be to win her over and make her aware of his projects. Or simply to go fishing for new hot properties. This is called "tracking," and people are paid to do it. When he has her rapt attention, it's critical that he doesn't bore her to death.
______________________________________________________________

The following is a sample lunch conversation between a producer and a reluctant literary agent.

Producer: So how was your New Year's? ... Aspen?
  (It's never boring if he talks about her.)
Agent: Hawaii. I was sick the whole time.
  (Shut down—or an opening?)
Producer: How hideous! Did you get a lot of reading done?
  (Lead the dance.)
Agent: Had to. When I finally felt better, it was pouring.
Producer: What you need is a great big auction over your new favorite script.
Agent: I did read a really terrific new writer over vacation.
  (BINGO!)
Producer: You know how I love to work with new writers! Why don't you slip it to me early...

  (A descendant of "sock it to me," slipping a spec is giving a time advantage to
   one buyer with plausible denial to the rest of the buyers. As in, "I have no idea
   how she got it!" A gift.)

... and I'll make your first bid.
  (He can't really guarantee this but why should he? He hasn't read it!)
Agent: Great idea!


The producer wins. If the script is any good. ______________________________________________________________

Now let's look at a sample conversation between a producer and a preening studio exec over Chinese chicken salad.

Producer: Congratulations on this weekend! Twelve million! You guys creamed 'em.
  (Locker room talk.)
Exec: It was my picture, you know.
  (This is true whether it is or not.)
Producer: Of course. Everyone knows.
  (Flattery will get her everywhere.)
... Your stock must be pretty high this morning.
  (Hoist them on their own petards.)
Exec: I guess so.
  (Fake humility. A new standard.)
... I'd sure love to bring in a big spec this week.
Producer: You could sell anything this week!
Exec: You think so?
  (This is her setup. She goes in for the kill. Now.)
Producer: I'm getting a terrific script slipped that no one has seen. Spielberg is tracking it, but I think I have it exclusively.
  (Spielberg tracks everything, so this lie is borderline safe.)
Exec: I heard about it! I definitely want it.
  (He's salivating now, despite the chicken salad.)
... When can I get my hands on it?
Producer: Friday. It's yours.
  (After she gets her hands on it.)
... In fact, Darren...
  (his chief competitor)
... has been asking around about it, but I'd rather give it to you. You're my main man.
  (Bonding, flirting, joking—depending on gender relations.)
Exec: And you're mine. Even though you're a chick!

The producer wins again. If the script is any good.
______________________________________________________________________

And the moral of the story? Writer, you never go to a meeting without a strategy.


Saturday, 17 August 2013

Book review: "Hello, He Lied"

Lynda Obst is a former editor of The New York Times Magazine. She moved to Hollywood in 1979, where she became a producer, author, and commentator on the film industry. She was involved in the development of Flashdance (1983), and produced The Fisher King (1991), Sleepless in Seattle (1994), Someone Like You (2001), The Invention of Lying (2009), and a stack of other movies and TV shows.

She recently published a book which is getting a lot of attention—Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business. I haven't read it yet, but during my week by the seaside I caught up on an earlier work, Hello, He Lied, and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches.

It's an excellent title for a book, but not original to Lynda Obst.

People seemed to lie to each other as a matter of course. No big thing. "Hello, he lied" was a joke I heard about someone I knew during my first month at work.
But, as a great producer would, she recognized the potential of the phrase and put it to work.

In the book, Lynda shares what she learned during twenty years in the business, all that stuff we know producers do but don't know how they do it, such as how to pitch an idea, impress a suit, win a bidding war over a hot script, massage an ego, and how to dress on location, what to say to skittish directors, where to eat lunch, and how to produce a successful movie.

Although the book is written from a producer's POV, it contains some excellent material for writers. I will be talking about some of that in more detail in the near future. In the meantime, it's an excellent read for anyone who has ever wondered what is really going on in the movie business.

As usual, here are some quotes to give you a feel for the book. _______________________________________________________________________

  • This is the flip side of ambition: debilitating exhaustion and the constant threat of defeat. Therefore every crisis can't be taken too seriously or you won't survive.
  • It is just as important to move on in the wake of stunning success as in the wake of disaster.
  • A writer should bring a producer to a pitch meeting for social savvy, political leverage, and simultaneous translation for the artistically challenged.
  • Being quick on your feet isn't the same as being good on the page.
  • Good writers pitch badly and bad writers pitch well.
  • To me The Fisher King was a masterpiece about the healing power of grace. To Peter Guber (then chairman of Columbia TriStar) it was a summer buddy comedy. Fine. We were both right.
  • Bulletin to all Cinderellas, female and male: There are no rescues here. No fairy godmothers. No princes. No white horses. You have to do it yourself.
  • The corollary of never going to a meeting without a strategy is never getting off a jet without a strategy, never going to a screening without a strategy, never going to dinner without a strategy, never going to a breakfast without a strategy.
  • Flashdance, like its progenitor, Rocky, is a paradigm bull's-eye movie in that any movie where the hero reaches for and achieves his or her dream, particularly one with dance numbers, is bound to connect with, at the very least, the American public.
  • Never ask permission. It will not be granted.
  • Getting what you want is dependent on knowing how things work.
  • Learn to ride the horse in the direction it is going.
  • You must never look threatened as the big players come on. The march of the big players is the drumroll that announces the movie will in fact be made.
  • When a producer has information, he must never share it, except tactically. Ipso facto, gossips know nothing because they are not trading information for anything useful, unless they are gossip columnists.
  • Power is a place as well as a verb; it is inside the information tent.
  • If there are so many powerful people in Hollywood, why are there so many nervous people at Hollywood parties? Because they're all standing on shaky ground, and the calm ones stay home.
  • If you are in a war where the damage is beginning to exceed any possible gains, surrender, Dorothy. You will be astonished to learn how little you have lost, because no one will even remember what the spoils of the original war were supposed to be.
  • Beware of all people campaigning for your friendship. Especially if you're hot that week. Too much obvious effort is suspicious.
  • Beware of obsequious human beings. Everyone here has a strong, healthy ego. The most dangerous wolves are in sheep's clothing.
  • Beware of inappropriate personal revelations—these are often part of a campaign.
  • The fact that I know little or less about the man's point of view in Hollywood doesn't stop me from theorizing about it endlessly with my girlfriends.
  • The fuzzy model is always acceptable, of course, in writers. This is true also for men. Being kind of distracted, artistic, vague, sensitive—these are all excellent traits for writers. They bring out the maternal in the woman executive, the paternal in the male executive, and this is how talent gets embraced by its protectors: the agents who have to mediate between it and the exploitative buyers.
  • Style for women is a vital component of success. If you can afford it, Armani is the rule for crisp girls on the move.

These are just a few of the gems. There are wonderful sections dealing with handling pitches, meetings, script auctions, how to dress, how to keep stars happy, and ten commandments for women working in film. This book is highly recommended.

_______________________________________________________________________