Tyler Gibb – Writer, Director, Editor, Filmmaker

Well, he’s a real estate agent but still… The elation of having someone else to speak for me is not only a load off my mind but also probably best for everyone involved.

I’ve made the case for agents in the past with regard to actors, but I never really thought about how such a representative would benefit me. After all, I’m quite self motivated, one might say entrepreneurial, I’ve gotten by alright on my own; but lately I’ve been able to glean a little bit of a different way of life. A life of comfortable – and lets face it, necessary – absenteeism.

I use to work at a video store. A what? (Sorry, video stores were these shops that existed at the turn of the century where you could rent movies – before everything was free to own on the internet.) Anyway, one of my favourite things about working at this store (other than that my abbreviated title was “Ass. Man.” for “Assistant Manager” – English language puns go relatively unnoticed here in predominantly French Canada) was the irate customer. The irate customer was like a bomb being tossed into my lap and my job was to diffuse it. The tools at my disposal were simple; free stuff. Free movie, free popcorn, free anything to shut this nut up and send them on their way. After all, these irate customers weren’t angry at me, they were angry at the store. I was merely an agent of said store. After I was done smoothing things over, the no-longer irate customer was able to continue their relationship with the store for years to come.

That’s a beautiful thing.

That’s why agents exist. Because in all things transactional there’s an inherent ugliness that can sometimes boil over into the irate. And in the entertainment business I think most people are already half way there to begin with. Keeping those fragile parties separated during such tender moments makes working together later bearable.

Of course if we could all just grow up and act like rational adults who can be held to account for our own actions then there might be less need for agents at all. But where’s the satisfying feeling of self-importance in that?

I’ve heard it said a few times. Filmmakers of all stripes from writers to actors, when asked in interviews what they would advise a young person interested in pursuing their vocation:

Don’t do it.

Find something else, they’ll caution. The industry is so tough, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.

I’d hear this and I’d think to myself, what a terrible thing to say to someone just starting out. I mean… It’s completely true, but still, so cruel.

And yet we try. Whether young and doomed or not so young and meandering around hoping to get asked to dance, we try. We stick it out. Not in spite of the cautionary words from those that much farther along, but because we know no other way. See, we’ve heard the advice. We’ve always heard it. We’ve taken it to heart. But we’ve also considered the alternative. The something else. The anything else. And those that are able, they do follow another path. If not, they at least rack their brains trying to figure out: If not this, what?

But for some of us there is nothing else. And so we work. Whether it all amounts to something in the end or not, we work. Because what all those cautionary advisers should really be saying is, if you can do something else then do but if you can’t then get ready to work your ass off.

I sent an email to a friend of mine. A woman who’s been in the business more years of her life now than she hasn’t. She was soon expecting a baby but showed no signs of slowing down her hectic schedule. Her reply to my email came back within minutes. “I’m at the hospital, my water broke early.” She then went on to outline, in the next ten lines, her work schedule for the rest of the week.

You have to work your ass off. Because if you’re not, someone else is.

I often solicit feedback from anyone who’ll read, look at, listen to or watch my work. Over many years I’ve learned a fair bit about receiving this criticism. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned – and this can be applied to opinions in general – is to consider the source.

What someone says about your work really does say more about them than it does about the work. Does that mean I should just toss out any opinion I don’t like? Not at all! It just means I have to consider the source, and in addition to that, ask the right questions.

General feedback is where you’re going to get most of the critic’s own personal tastes weighing into the mix. So asking specific questions is a good way to get at the information you need. Again, considering the source, I may ask someone if they understood a storyline; if it wasn’t too confusing; if a certain character came off as shady or down right evil; whether or not an ending was both satisfying and a surprise or not. By getting specific about the points in the work that I may be concerned with, I can skip notes like “I didn’t think it was that funny,” or “it was too gory”. Points like that may still be relevant but only when considering the source of the comments; humour is very subjective and “too gory” for a fan of romantic comedies is a little different than for a fan of horror films.

It can be very difficult to get close to anything resembling objective feedback, especially when dealing with acquaintances. And if all you’re looking for is a thumbs up or down on whether it’s “good” or not, then forget about honesty. The biggest struggle is often extracting that initial objective opinion from one’s self. Once we can do that then we can acknowledge and assess the weaknesses in our work and seek out the feedback that’s going to help remedy it.

And remember, if you’re soliciting feedback you’re asking for it. So suck it up and respect the person taking their time to contemplate what you’re giving them to contemplate. Negative feedback is still much more gratifying than no feedback at all.

A friend of mine called me up the other day seeking advice. She was on her way to sign her first apartment lease and wanted to know if I had any tips on negotiating the rent.

I guess when you subside by doing your own thing with no perceptible means of gainful employment for years on end people just assume you have some deeper knowledge of wheeling and dealing. Negotiation, however, isn’t exactly something that comes naturally to me. In fact, I usually defer situations involving this skill to my beloved Vidya who could probably bargain her way out of quicksand.

None the less I will impart my advice on this subject which I’m sure I have gathered over the years in no small part thanks to Vidya.

Tip 1 – Is this a negotiable situation? (Vid would probably say yes, anything situation is, but I’m a little more of a prude) So I recommend you do your homework. Figure out what precedents have been set. In the case of housing, is it a buyers market or a sellers market? What’s the other guy’s interest in negotiating?

Tip 2 – Choose your battlefield. Heading to your lease-signing with bargaining for a lower rent in mind is not exactly the right venue. Do that and you’ll have one pissed off landlord. Negotiate early when both parties are prepared to engage in that process. Same applies to the creative field. Someone wants to buy your script? Awesome. Just don’t wait til you’re at the contract signing to start negotiating residuals. (Hahaha, residuals for novice a writer… I kill me.)

Tip 3 – Be patient and say as little as possible. This is all about gathering information and is true of any similar situation. Interviewers pulls this routine all the time. The more quiet you are the more the person on the other side of the table is likely to want to fill that void with chit chat and the more they talk, the more you’ll find out about their motivations maybe even their emotions (emotions are negotiation death).

Tip 4, and probably the most important tip – Be able to walk away.

When my friend asked about negotiation tips the first thing I asked her was: How badly do want this apartment? She wanted it bad. In fact, she needed it. Need is Want’s ugly brother. In other words she didn’t have a leg to stand on where negotiation was concerned. Sure, you wouldn’t be haggling over something unless you wanted it but you have to know – from the outset – what your ceiling is and be able to walk away if the other guy won’t meet it.

In the creative field this might seem like the hardest tip to meet. After all, if you’re just some schmuck trying to make a name for himself and someone wants to buy your script then being able to walk away isn’t exactly something you’re going to want to do. But have a look back at the other tips and see if this is a situation you even want to be in. Do your research. Find out if the other guy is even willing to give you a fair price for your work. Find out out if they’re likely to do your work justice. And figure out what the project’s worth to you.

My friend decided to forgo negotiating for a lower rent. She may have gotten the decrease if she’d done her bargaining up front or had other housing options but unfortunately she’d missed that opportunity. Still, she got the apartment which is what she wanted and that’s the important thing.

Basically, I think a successful negotiation is when everybody walks away feeling like they got what they wanted. A very successful negotiation is when the other guy walks away feeling like he got what he wanted when you know he could have gotten a lot more.

A picture is worth a thousand words but make sure you don’t put any in your script.

The industry standard for screenplays is rigid. Margins, font, spacing; all done the same way to preserve a format by which everything from a story’s pacing to the film’s budget is regulated. Very good reasons there’s no room for illustration. I would even hesitate to change up the font on my cover pages for fear of upsetting a stickler.

White paper, black ink; nothing more, nothing less.

No wonder it’s so hard to get someone, anyone, to read one of these things.

I have a friend who’s been trying to sell a script. A wad of those white pages marked with black ink. It’s no easy feat. However, what my friend did to get producers interested in their wad of paper was something I’d only ever heard mixed reviews about. Something to supplement the wad and essentially absolve the target “reader” of having to actually read anything right off the bat. The tactic was a visual presentation. A boardroom style visual summary of the proposed project.

Now I’ve heard that this can fall right in with the whole don’t illustrate your script law but every once in a while one of these anecdotal stories will appear and chip away at the rule. I heard that Michael Davis, writer/director of 2007’s Shoot’em up won execs over with what basically amounted to flip book animations of the action scenes to his movie. Whether or not the script got him in the door to start with, I don’t know, but as the story goes it’s the visual presentation that did the convincing.

More and more I’ve been pondering the power of the average film executive’s laziness– I mean the power of a visual presentation to sell your idea rather than a script. I think there might be something to it. Eventually your script will have to stand for itself but it’s that tingle of interest, that whetting of the appetite that goes a long way…

My buddy with the wad of paper? Word is that script is now being passed around Hollywood like gravy on Thanksgiving.