Manipulation
By Jonathan Alpers

Once, I wrote a script called 18. It’s a movie about Hanger 18. It connects life on other planets to life after death. It’s a heist film where a guy gets out of prison and says to his gang, “I’ve got one more great crime but I can’t tell you what we are stealing.” And it turns out they are stealing proof. (and freeing the life trapped in that proof, and shepherding their friend towards death).
I gave it to my producer friend who at the time was in development for a HUGE director known for doing big sc-fi of films. My friend loved the script. I said “great! Walk into the next room and give it to the boss.” He said he couldn’t do that. He had to send it to CAA first. I asked why? He said that the boss doesn’t read anything that doesn’t have that red CAA cover on it. He said his boss ALSO doesn’t read anything that DOES have that red CAA cover on it.
I said “uhhhh…”.
I said, “I’m not seeing much wiggle room here.”

My friend listed off every great movie ever that the director/boss passed on just to go with some half-baked idea he dreamt up the night before (that no one really liked all that much, but because the director made a TON of money for people he was given a lot of rope).
I asked my producer friend what he thought CAA would think about my script. He said he thought they would love it.
For two weeks I debated if I thought it was wise to give the scrip to CAA at that early stage in the process. I’d been burned before, and a agent can actually TANK your project if it gets on a tracking board and passed on with a red mark against it. If the script is in the early stages of development and maybe needs more time on the vine, you won’t get much of a chance to re-submit later. Hollywood types will just look it up on the computer, see the notes, and maybe pass again. If, if, if a major player comes onboard and finds out the script that he/she wants to sign onto is damaged goods the player could walk away. It’s too hard to get a movie made. A script with too many red marks against it could find itself passed on by everyone in town. There are too many obstacles inherent in the process to take on a project that everyone has passed on. People, generally don’t read or understand scripts in the same way that they don’t understand wine. Someone tells them “this is the greatest wine in the world. It got 100% in Wine Spectator, Jesus drank this wine, it cost $9000. Try it”. (They will love it even if the wine is actually Two Buck Chuck). A script is no different. Scripts rarely sell based on what’s actually in the bottle. They sell based on prestige. No one — ever — likes a wine after being told that it is considered to be the worst wine in history. No one.

After two weeks I agreed to give CAA the script. They hated it. (I’m exaggerating here. They loved it until they hated it) The producers gave me the notes from the reader, which some would find to be out of bounds. The notes from the reader were right. The script needed some work and the reader showed me exactly what the problem was. The script was part Close Encounters, part Oceans Eleven or a Tarintino movie and because this blend of things wasn’t “standard” I may of missed my mark. It’s hard to tell if you missed your mark when you aren’t copying the structure of another movie (which is what most scripts do). If you venture out on your own and try and do something “different” you may end up with something amazing or totally unpalatable. My script wasn’t unpalatable but it did have a funny aftertaste. Back to the drawling board. Not uncommon with you are attempting to develop a new blend.
I told my producer friend that the reader was actually RIGHT. I asked if he could thank her. He said he couldn’t. I asked if I could.
I said, “Here’s the thing? She’s right. And I’m gonna take a month and put her notes into place. After that I was thinking maybe we could go BACK to CAA. Tell CAA that she was amazing and we loved her notes. I suggested that we could ask them to have HER read the script again, and because we did in fact make the changes as she suggested, and because ideas are like dick-pics, everyone thinks theirs is super appealing and everyone elses is GROSS, she would maybe give us the thumbs up on our second try.
My producer friend said he’d never thought of doing that. He said it was brilliant. He said it couldn’t come from him but that I could thank her. He gave me her name. I thanked her. She was blown away. She said no one had ever thanked her before. She said she hoped that she would be so open to notes when she writes “her movie”. This is important to remember. The reader is really only telling you what they would do with a script. They are almost always writers themselves. You have to take everything they say with a grain of salt and these days with books like Save The Cat, writers are trained that their is “a way” to write a movie when in fact there really isn’t.
The reader and I chatted back and forth for a little and I went off and re-wrote my movie for number of weeks.
CAA found out we spoke to their reader. They were PISSED. They said they were never going to read another script from this director. This director, who’s films have grossed billions of dollars. Billions.
I was terrified. I just pissed off the monster. I caused major drama for my producer friend. I was convinced for about 15 minutes that I would be blacklisted. I sent my producer friend 5 pints of ice cream from my local ice cream shop Jeni’s. (I brought Jeni’s almost every time I saw that producer from that point on.)
I told my producer friend I was terrified. He said “Listen, this is a dirty business and what you just did is LITERALLY nothing. You thanked someone. When you bring them something that will make them money nothing else will matter.” And that’s 100% true. They don’t care.
The truth is, I was being manipulative. I was trying to con the system. Because in Hollywood everything is a “no”. One project may get a “no” 20 times from the same people only to get a “yes” years later after everyone who said “no”was fired or when a new element comes onboard…or just because. But…I was, in fact, being a dick pretending to be nice. I was being manipulative. Nicely.
That’s how movies are made. Someone pushes a rock up a hill for many years. That’s about it. Sometimes the Gods notice. Sometimes the gods just get tired of watching you push the rock and write you a check. Manipulate. Nicely.