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How
to Get a Writing Job Without an Agent By Michael Allen Starting off as a wanna-be TV writer in Hollywood is the classic Catch-22; you’re told that no producer will read your scripts unless they come through an agent. And agents will not read your scripts unless you have been produced. It seems like an impossible situation, much like my dating life. When I first got to Hollywood, agents would not read my scripts. Or worse, they would promise to read my scripts, get my hopes up, but never read them. So I decided I was not going to hold back. I was going to do anything it took to write on a show, including some crazy schemes that sound like episodes of “I Love Lucy.” One of those schemes was sneaking on to studio lots and trying to get a job. On one covert journey to the CBS/MTM studio, I was lucky enough to see Roseanne on the lot. At the time, she had the number one program in America, and so I approached the domestic goddess about writing on the show. “My husband does all the hiring,” she snorted with that nasal tone of hers. Minutes later, I saw her then-hubby, Tom Arnold, driving a studio cart in a wild manner. He was “pretending” to run over people on the lot. But people were really scared and jumping out of the way. He almost hit me as well. As I look back, I wish I had let him. Maybe I could have sued my way into a staff writing job. As much as I liked “Roseanne,” my favorite show was “The Simpsons.” In fact, my best spec script was for “The Simpsons.” So you can imagine how excited I was when I read that Nancy Cartwright, who does the voice of Bart, was going to speak on voiceovers! She spoke at the Church of Scientology in East Hollywood, and afterwards I approached her. I introduced myself, told her how I came out to L.A. to be a TV writer and would love to write for “The Simpsons.” She looked at me very seriously and said, “You don’t need a writing job, you need Scientology.” And then she went on to tell me about this religion, but all I remember thinking was: “Bart Simpson is trying to convert me!” My next scheme to get on “The Simpsons” was to take an improv class taught at UCLA Extension by Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer) and his wife Deb Lacosta. I’m not an actor, but I have done stand up comedy. So how hard could this class be? All I had to do, I thought, was impress Dan, and maybe he would help me get on “The Simpsons.” I didn’t know it, but both Dan and Deb studied for years at Second City in Chicago. And besides being very nice people, they were incredible at improvisation. I was clearly in over my head; it was much harder than stand up (where you get to rehearse). But I was able to make Dan laugh at least once every class. I decided to wait until the very last class and ask him if he might be able to help me onto the show. But unfortunately he didn’t teach the last class; on that particular night he had to record voiceovers for the show. I was foiled again! By this time, I had taken lots of classes and snuck onto every major studio lot in Hollywood, but I was back at square one. I was very depressed, and one night while cooking some macaroni, I heard weird laughter coming from the TV in the other room. I walked in and “Beavis and Butthead” was on MTV. I literally thought, “I went to school with guys like that. I know I can write that show!” I mailed my spec for “The Simpsons” to the story editor of “Beavis and Butthead” in New York City. In my cover letter, I said I would “stick my head in the oven and turn on the gas” if they did not hire me. Of course I was kidding… sort of. I fully expected MTV to send my script back with the classic “we only accept scripts through agents” rejection letter. But to my great surprise, the story editor called and asked me to pitch some ideas. They passed on my first set of pitches, but in my second set, they found one to produce: Beavis gets his arm caught in a mechanical blood pressure machine, which actually happened to me at a pharmacy. Amazingly, I made my first Hollywood sale in New York City; everything was done by phones and faxes and Fed Ex. I wrote the script and made a paltry $600 off that sale, but suddenly, agents would take my calls and read my scripts. It was like I actually existed and I quickly got signed by an agency. When my episode aired, I watched it on the very same TV that I had heard the weird laughter from months ago. It was surreal, as if I had gone full circle. The phone rang off the hook that night. My friends were excited. Everyone was thrilled, except my mother. She stopped going to church for six months in fear that a fellow churchgoer “might” have watched the show and “might” have seen my name on the credits at the end of the show. For me it was one of the biggest moments of my life. I recalled all the adults who scolded me as a kid for watching too much TV. Well, my show was on TV, where were they? Pushing up daises at the local cemetery back in Orlando, FL. Oh, the taste of sweet revenge! Muhahahahahaha! I later learned that many of the writers on “Beavis and Butthead” got their first break on that show, and many did not have agents at the time. Two of them went on to be show runners on “Fraser,” another co-wrote one of the “Scary Movie” sequels, and another writes for the “The Simpsons.” This was all came from one cable show. So my advice is, if you cannot get an agent, try shows on cable channels instead of network programs. Cable is a larger market and the competition is not as intense. Also, here’s a little known secret. Call up the production offices of a TV show (listed in weekly issues of The Hollywood Reporter and Variety) and ask whoever answers the phone if they will send you a release form. Just tell them: “I’m in between agents now. Can you send me a release form?” With the release form, you can send in your script. Ironically, after my episode was produced and I finally got an agent, not a whole lot changed. Amazingly, most of the jobs I got were through personal networking. Having an agent doesn’t mean you can just sit back and wait for the cell phone to ring. You still have to be proactive in your career; which leads us to: Next Month: Interviewing for Writing Jobs - Michael Allen has written for several TV shows and pilots on MTV, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, and Fox. He can be reached at MichaelPAllen2004@Yahoo.com. Please click here for more columns by Michael Allen
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