“There’s always the Chinese prostitute role in some movie, and I refuse to play it,” said Riverton. “There are already so many stereotypes of women out there that I don’t need to add to them…You want to uphold certain principles, and you have to decide your boundaries. But it’s hard also when you think, when’s my next job coming?”
Becoming the Next Big Thing
The party line we heard in L.A. was otherwise unerringly capitalistic. At the end of the day, as both creative and business minds repeatedly emphasized, companies are interested in making money. Agents and execs move assets, and those assets happen to be people. They’re packaging products and the product is an image. Anti-trust laws in Hollywood are now dead. Large companies are swallowing up independent studios and with them the autonomy of creative voice.
But then, we attended a TV panel from writers of The Simpsons, Chicago Hope and The Young and the Restless. As Harvard alumni, they offered us advice on how to find opportunity in a seemingly endless deluge of scripts and pitches.
“Sure, everyone has two or three screenplays in their trunk,” West Wing writer Mark Goffman said at a different venue, “but they might as well be toilet paper.” Point being that most people don’t aggressively pursue selling a script or seeking representation.
Disney Creative Development member Josh Simon ’00 echoed Goffman’s sentiments, saying, “I read about two or three screenplays a night, including weekends. But about 80% is just not good.” Bad scripts, he added, are often either too unrealistic to shoot (endless different locations) or too generic.
So I banished the image of myself sliding scripts under bathroom stalls and began thinking maybe there was a legitimate chance of survival. Even the talent agencies showed an amount of openness as well, emphasizing that talent and perseverance are key components of success.
“I’m interested in career-building,” ICM TV talent agent Tom Burke said. “If you have talent and stick with it, I’m going to want to keep you; even if one project isn’t right for you, there’s a director and producer out there that you will fit with, and we want to stick with you.”
The trip was exhausting, but helped make up for Harvard’s notorious neglect of career preparation. For those who wanted to write, illustrate, direct, produce, compose, sing, and act, Harvardwood provided the ultimate crash course in intimidation and invincibility. Robert Kraft, president of Fox Music, summed up the paradox well.
Perched atop the conductor’s chair in one of the film scoring rooms of Century City, he said, “Let me tell you a secret. It’s hard to take your work to people who are—quite frankly, not as smart as you—and have them tell you your work is bad, that they can’t understand it, that it’s not marketable. But let me tell you another secret that execs like me will never confess. Just as hard as you’re looking to get to us, we’re trying to find you; we’re always looking for the next big thing.”