Taking Meetings

Let’s say you’ve written a script and through some weird set of circumstances, it’s gotten to someone who wants to talk to you. In person.

Gulp.

What does that mean? Does that mean they’re going to buy your script? Hire you to write another script? Become your mentor in the business and make your career? What if they don’t like you? What if they ask you questions you can’t answer?

Wait, is this a good idea? Why do you have to actually talk to these people???

See how you did that? Took a perfectly wonderful thing—being invited into a room to talk about your work—and instead turned it into a cataclysmic event.

Stop it.

There’s no way you can predict what’s going to happen at this meeting. So take a shower, comb your hair and go. They would NEVER be asking to meet you if they didn’t think they could get something out of it. Will they buy your script? Probably not. But they liked it enough to want to meet you so that if there comes a day when they, say, buy a book they want a screenwriter to adapt, they might think you’re right for it. Or if you write a script in the future, they want to make sure you show it to them because perhaps that’s one they could get made. However you look at this, it’s a win-win.

Unless, of course, they hate you.

Hey! I said stop that!!

You’d have to be really obnoxious for them to write you off. However quirky or shy or whatever you think you are, believe me, they’ve seen it all before. So go and listen to them tell you how much they enjoyed your work and bask in it. Smile and thank them and tell them it means a lot to you.

Then ask them about what they’re working on. What projects do they have in development? If they’ve made films you’ve liked—tell them that. Just have a normal conversation about the business. Be prepared to talk about movies you love and most of all be prepared to pitch a new idea or two that you’re working on. Show them you’re not a one-hit wonder, that the script they read and liked wasn’t the only great idea you have. Make them salivate to read your next script.

And if you don’t have an agent or manager yet, ask their advice. Producers and studio executives deal with agents and managers all the time and they may have a friend who they could recommend you to, who knows? It never hurts to ask. If you don’t ask in this business, believe me, you probably won’t get.

Enjoy this experience. It’s OK to be nervous about it—who wouldn’t be? But try and remember it… your first meeting is a big deal, one you’ll always remember. Mine was with a minor executive at a production company who is now head of a studio. To him I was just another meeting, but I’ll always remember him!

A bonus: if the meeting’s on a studio lot, take some time after to stroll around the lot. No one cares. And if someone stops you hey, you’ve got your pass that let you on the lot, and you’re just taking the long way back to your car. Stop in the commissary if it’s open and chat with people who work there. Maybe you’ll make a friend. Or a contact. Or both.

First meeting—enjoy.

Copyright © Diane Lake

19Mar17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com