The oracle that is David Mamet

Being a keynote speaker in Chicago at the ‘Black Romance Film Festival’ means I will inevitably be asked, ‘what was it like to work with David Mamet?’

How to answer that question?  The mind swirls.  It is akin to asking, ‘what was it like to take golf lessons from Tiger Woods?’ Or, ‘what was it like to shoot jump shots with Michael Jordon?’ Or, ‘what was it like to take batting lessons from Ernie Banks?’

Of course you can never assume any of the greats could teach anyone to do what they do or did.  Magic Johnson wasn’t the best coach.  Can Jack Nicholas teach a golf swing?  Maybe or maybe not. Like I mentioned, not all greats can teach.

Working with David Mamet as an aspiring writer did offer some unique challenges.  For example, when he spoke to me, it was nearly impossible to scream ‘Captain my Captain.’  Or when he paid me a compliment, I had to resist jumping into the air and clicking my heels or breaking into a ‘River Dance.’ When he was disappointed, I wanted to excuse myself, go for a long walk and resist hurling myself in front of a car.

Yes, a most difficult answer to the question, ‘what was it like to work with a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, I mean David Mamet?’ Lets see, where to begin?

He was tough, sometimes unyielding.  I recall him telling me to go rewrite my episode within three hours or I was fired.

He was funny.  Mamet is probably one of the best joke tellers in history.  Once in a while he’d let fly some of his life experiences working with some of the great directors, producers and actors.  We’d all be on the floor, howling.

He was generous.  One time he stopped me in the hallway and asked me if I had a quarter.  I resisted screaming in his ear, ‘yes, Captain my Captain, I do indeed have a quarter in my pocket.’  I scratched my head, reached into my pocket, and brandished a quarter.  Mamet took it and placed a beautiful knife in my hand.

Another time, he stopped my girlfriend and me at our staff Christmas party.  He told her that I had come a long way and my last episode was one of the best of the season.  Man, did I get some loving that night.

He was gracious.  Mamet would be the first to stand and offer his help to the Fed Ex delivery person.  He opened doors for assistants.  He was polite to unknown actors who came in for an audition, some of whom were so nervous they hardly got their lines together.  I heard countless stories about Mamet politely asking them to relax and try again.

He was religious.  He went to temple almost daily.

He was disciplined.  He studied martial arts, practiced all the time.  He wrote every day.  His episodes came in twice as fast as anyone’s on our staff.  Often, he’d turn in his episode and finish a play on the same weekend.  I know, cause he told us.

He was aloof and often cut straight to the chase.  I once asked him how to write a play?  He gave me a gentle smile and said, ‘ just go write.’  Man that was a long ass, humbling, turn and walk away.  It felt like ten years to move two feet.

He was a leader.  Sometimes he rallied the cry, ‘writers in the writing room, right now.’  One day he closed the door and said, ‘today I’m going to teach you all how to write.’  This didn’t go over well with the Emmy nominated, award winning senior  writers on the staff.  I quietly got out my pen and started taking notes.  Screw it, I wasn’t gonna miss getting that speech into my journal.  As a matter of fact, I still have it and look at it almost daily.

What was it like working with David Mamet?  It was probably the most inspiring and rewarding experience in my life. I had a modicum of success as a writer before I met Mamet.  I had written for noted actors and actresses such as Sidney Poitier, Mary Louise Parker, Lynn Whitfield and Diane Wiest. It wasn’t until I met David Mamet that I learned how to write.  Yes, he sometimes shouted, sometimes threatened to fire me, but the pearls of wisdom that flowed from the man’s mouth were mind boggling and came in bundles.  Imagine a trunk load of gold coins falling from the sky, crashing in front of you had but a few moments to gather them up.  That’s what it was like being a writer in the writers’ room with Mamet.

He talked about scene structure, dialogue, plot, and what makes drama.  I listened, and  I took copious notes at the expense of other writers thinking I was a kiss ass.  I was.  Mamet was teaching and I soaked up as much as I possibly could.  I learned and I learned big.  The best news is no one will ever be able to take it away from me.

Every day Mamet stood up and asked for the writers to come into the writer’s room, I’d smile, look up and say, ‘I’m getting paid for this, unfriggin’ believable.’

Yes, I was paid to work with the best writing teacher on the planet.  It didn’t cost me twenty thousand dollars a semester, like at some of the most celebrated colleges in the country.  All I had to do was show up and listen.  Take that Harvard, or Stanford.  I got to go to the school of Mamet.  And I got paid for it.  How do you like them apples?  It is true that not all the greats can teach.  Mamet could teach my dogs to write.  All they’d have to do was listen, maybe take a note or two.

How do you get your script read.

HOW TO GET YOUR SCRIPT READ

The old days when someone could pick up the phone and say:

‘Hi, Sid.  This is Nancy.  You’re an agent, right?’

(Pause)

‘Yeah, Nancy.  I’m an agent.  I’ve got million dollar clients and lots of toys.  What can I do for you?’

‘Actually, Sid – my cousin’s son is a screenwriter.  I heard he was good.’

‘No worries, fly him out, send him in, I’ll take care of him.  He’ll have a three pilot deal by the end of the week.’

‘Thanks, Sid.  You’re the best.’

‘No worries, Nancy.  Call any time.’

These days are so long gone.  It’s all linked under the same category now; prehistoric.  When I first started writing screenplays, all you had to do was write well.  Tell someone you know you wrote a script and then the universe shifted enough for you script to fall into the hands of someone who cared and could do something about it.

This is exactly how it went for me:

(The telephone rings)

‘Hello?’

‘Sterling.’

‘Yeah, Micah.’

‘I heard you wrote another script.’

‘You heard right.’

‘Dude, you’ve got balls.  Matt said your first script was a stinker.’

‘It was.’

‘So, when can I read the new one?’

‘Try never.’

‘Dude, come on.  I’m one of your best friends.’

‘Micah, you are one of my best friends.  Honestly, you’re a Minch.  But a secret keeper, you are not.’

‘Sterling, come on, dude.  Let me read it.’

‘Okay, Micah.  But I swear.  If you let one single person read one single syllable, I will hunt you down and strangle you with my bare hands.’

‘Sterling, dude, you’re being a little dramatic.’

‘You’re right.  I’m sorry.  You’d probably be harder than hell to strangle.  I’ll stab you in your sleep.’

‘Geez, dude.  Just let me read the damn script.  I’ll tell you if it’s a stinker.’

‘Okay, but for your eyes only, right?’

‘Sterling, you worry way too much.’

(Pause)

‘So, are we going drinking tonight?’

‘Micah, how come whenever we go drinking, you always end up kicking some guys ass, and I have to take on the beat down guy’s whole crew?’

‘I’m a little hot tempered.’

‘You are.’

‘So, I’ll pick you up at eight?’

‘Okay.’

(TWO DAYS LATER THE TELEPHONE RINGS)

‘Hello, is this Sterling Anderson?.’

(Pause – big worry, panic, and then)

‘Yes, this is Sterling.’

‘Can you hold for Michael Besman?’

(Clueless)

‘Okay.’

(Pause)

‘Hello, Sterling?’

‘Yes.’

‘This is Michael Besman, senior vice president of TRI-STAR PICTURES.’

(Holy shit)

‘Yes.’

‘When can you come in and talk about the script Micah gave me?’

Okay, people.  This is no lie.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  How could I forget my first meeting with a big studio executive?  That was how easy it was back during the days the dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Today, getting your script read is harder than ever.  The portal closes more and more each day.  One day soon, there will be an atom named, ‘chances of getting your script read.’

K – so I work in the business of screenwriting.  People ask me all the time, ‘how do I get my script read, by someone at least remotely connected to the industry?’

Here’s how you do it.

First, right a great script.  Not a good script or decent script.  Write a great script.  Somehow, what shows up on the page eventually cannot be denied.

When you’ve written a great script, try to find a way to make that same great script a pilot sample.  

Feature scripts are read at least ninety-five percent less often than pilots.

IF YOU WANT TO BE A SCREENWRITER – WRITE FOR TELEVISION.

I’ve told my students this over and over again.  Television is the screenwriter’s medium.  Feature film is the DIRECTOR’S medium.  Most of my students manage to ignore this simple, undeniable fact, until they get really desperate to be employed as a screenwriter.

There are over 160 pilots sold ever year.  Very few of them make it to the air, but you only need to sell one to get into the game.  And if you don’t sell your great pilot, you have a good chance of getting an agent, manager, or a job, if it is truly good.

Features don’t work that way.  If you write the perfect feature script, you will not see a dime until it has been through the malaise of gauntlets all perch to shred any hopes of it getting to a big name producer, director, or actor.

If your feature gets that far, then it will be successful only when all the biggest players are attached and signed and the money is in place.  The odds of all these elements falling into place are the same standing on your lawn, flapping your arms and flying to the moon.  Anything is possible, yes, I’m a true believer in miracles.

Write the perfect feature film, then start flapping your arms.  See which happens first, a sale or landing on the moon.  I bet you it will at least be close.

So, now you’ve written a great screenplay and you have turned it into a great pilot.  Here is what you do.  

The best option takes a lot of eating of humble pie.

Find a working screenwriter with an agent.  Tell him or her you wrote the best screenplay in the world and you want to piggyback off them to get it read.

What does this mean?

It means, you are willing to include the working writers name on the title page.  Either by giving them co-written by credit, or at the very least, you are willing to give them story by credit.

If your great script is that great, very few working writers will turn you down.  And very few working writer’s agent will turn you down.

This is only under the assumption that your script is great.

I have personally piggybacked at least three young writers into stardom.  This is why.  A great script never makes anyone look bad. Yes, all writers want the world of screenwriting to be about them and only them.  But a great script only makes everyone look good.

Yes, it might annoy the hell out of your agent or manager.  They all get very queasy when your name turns up on a script you actually didn’t write.  But if it is truly a great script, they (agents and managers) see dollar signs.

All right, so you don’t know one single working writer and you wrote a great script.  Go find an assistant on a television show or a development person and beg them to read your script.

Most all assistants on television shows are the next working writer on that show.  They have nothing to lose or gain by reading your script.  Unless it’s a really bad script.  They will hunt you down because they will never get that valuable time back.

Assistants have power.  The reason they got the job as an assistant is because they are related to someone powerful, which makes them powerful.  The other reason they have power is that someone powerful was sweet on them enough to hire them.  Now they run that powerful person’s life.  If they tell their powerful boss that they read a great script, before the end of the week, that that powerful boss will read script.

All right, so you don’t know an assistant.

Find a development person at the producer, studio, or network level.  Their sole mission in life is to find a great script for as cheap as possible and get it to their boss.  Yes, that is a development person’s mission statement.

Find the head of development or assistant head of development of any film or television company, send them lots of cookies, candies, and the beverage of their choice.  Sweet talk them until they conceade into reading your great script.

Note: No one reads more than 5 to 10 pages of any script unless it grabs them.  All great scripts grab the reader within 3 to 5 pages.

All right, so you don’t know any working writers.  You don’t know any assistants or development people.  You are on your last leg.  Here’s what you do:

Go do some intensive private investigating and find an upstart literary manager.  Please, note – not an established literary manager, but one on the verge of breaking out.

The reason they are not established and only on the verge is that they are looking for the next great script.  How do you find them?  Only by doing massive amounts of investigating and inquiry.

Young managers are hungry and they are the few creatures who need a great screenplay in order for the other elements and dreams of their lives to fall into place, including big money, a big house, a big office, and marriage to the big supermodel.

If you exhaust the above scenarios there are no guarantees, but it will at least increase the chances of your script making it from Idaho to Hollywood.