Interview With
Daniel Knauf
Interviewed by Jenna Glatzer
Daniel is the screenwriter of BLIND JUSTICE, produced by HBO. He has
sold and optioned scripts to the likes of 20th Century Fox, and maintains a
website devoted to unproduced movies (see link below).
When did you figure out you were a writer?
When I was 18, I took my first creative writing class. Though I was a Fine Arts Major, I liked it. Being a natural-born bullshitter, fiction came easily to me. Plus the teacher was impressed with my work. Plus the girls in the program were cuter, smarter and less flaky than those in my art classes.
Soon, I was taking more creative writing, less art. By the time I was 20 or so, I changed my major to English (though this is a bit of an oversimplification, since I attended no less than 4 different colleges during that two-and-a-half year period).
Although I figured I was a writer at 20 or so, I never called myself a writer until I was 37, when my income from the writing exceeded that of my "day job." Until then, I considered myself an amateur.
Tell us about the experience of getting BLIND JUSTICE (formerly CANAAN'S WAY) produced.
At the time, I was writing screenplays at night, attending seminars, workshops and classes while I ran an employee benefits consulting firm during the day. I didn't know a soul in the industry, though I had the advantage of being located in Los Angeles. My brother, Paul, who was a regional manager for an insurance company, called me one afternoon with a business referral.
"I've got a prospect for you," he said. "He needs a quote for health insurance."
"How many employees?" I asked.
"Just him."
"Jeez, Paul. You know I only do groups. I don't have time to talk to individuals."
"He's a producer."
It turned out the prospect was Neal Moritz. At the time, he'd produced FRAMED, an HBO movie with Jeff Goldblum, and JUICE, a feature directed by Ernest Dickerson, Spike Lee's former DP. I met with him at Bob's Big Boy in Toluca Lake. After taking his application, I "mentioned" that I wrote screenplays in my free time (yes, I was wincing inside). Considering Neal probably got pitched by valets, masseuses, dentists and now insurance brokers, he was extremely polite. "What're you working on?" he asked.
"Oh, this thing. A western about a blind gunfighter."
In retrospect, I realize that it was probably one of the best pitches I've ever made. But at the time, I thought it sounded kind of lame. So I was astonished when he responded positively. I was even more surprised when he began calling me and actually bugging me to finish it so I could send it to him.
"What page are you on?" he'd ask.
"Oh, it's coming along," I'd say.
The truth was I'd set it aside to work on another spec project. After a couple months, he laid it on the line. "I want to see it. I don't care if it's done. How many pages have you got?"
I tried to remember. "Oh, forty-seven, I think."
"Send it to me on Monday."
It was a Friday. I got home, pulled it up on the computer and found that my estimate had been slightly, well . . . padded. I had twenty-three pages.
So I humped it over the whole weekend and by Monday morning I had forty-some-odd pages for Neal. He and his partner looked at it. He called me within an hour of receiving them. "This is great," he said. "When'll it be done?"
By then I'd hit my stride on the script and I was on fire. I completed the balance by the following Friday. Neal and David Heyman shopped it. One week later, I was interviewing agents. Two weeks later, HBO bought it for $125,000. Five months later, we were in Arizona shooting it.
Lots of writers think having an agent means the end to all of their troubles. Is this the case?
No. An agent is very helpful, but it's up to you to keep your career moving forward. I used to labor under the assumption that, once I got an agent, he or she would get me meetings, work, etc. That's not really the case.
A good analogy is the relationship between a manufacturer (the writer) and a retailer (the agent).
Let's say you manufacture whoopee cushions. CAA Novelty Outlet decides to sell your cushions. Great. But they also sell joy-buzzers, fake dog-poop and exploding cigars. Plus they sell several other brands of whoopee cushions manufactured by your competitors.
Let's say your whoopee cushions fart louder, longer, in perfect pitch and are easier to conceal than those of your competitors-all in all, a better product. Although this is a factor in CAA's decision to give you shelf space in their stores, quality is not terribly important once your product's in stock.
What is important is that people want to buy it.
Soon, you find your beautiful whoopee cushions are gathering dust while the Tarantino-Beanos are just flying off the shelves. Why? Because the Tarantino trademark is associated with quality. About three years ago, they blew everybody away with RESERVOIR DOG DOO, a fake dog-poop that was so good it actually attracted flies.
Since then, Tarantino Jokes & Novelties, Inc. has leveraged that one success into an entire product line. Of course, none of them are as good as the RESERVOIR DOG DOO, but that doesn't really matter. People recognize the Tarantino trademark. More importantly, they associate it with quality.
Not only that, other established manufactures like Travolta Joy Buzzers, Inc. and the Willis Pepper Gum Company have recognized the heat generated by Tarantino's line and are lining up to include free samples and coupons for their products with the sale of every Beano Bag. Hell, when you buy one of Tarantino's whoopee cushions, you get a whole package of products.
Now, despite it's clear superiority in workmanship and a vastly reduced retail price, do you really think the sales staff is going to push your whoopee cushions over Tarantino's?
I don't think so.
So what do you do? You get out from behind your damn desk and go out in the field. Take every opportunity that comes your way to sell your product. After all, nobody's more passionate about it than you are, nobody knows it better and nobody has more to gain if it takes off. In other words, you keep hustling. You go to trade shows and corner folks in your target market. Give them free samples. Try to get testimonials.
Every move you make should be infused with the goal of making a sale. If an opportunity comes your way, seize it with extreme prejudice-no matter how far-fetched or silly it is (for instance I actually pitched a TV show idea to a Fox exec who was a guest on local talk-radio).
Pretty soon, the CAA Novelty stores begin getting calls from people inquiring whether they have your whoopee cushions in stock. Sales become brisk. The next thing you know, their sales staff is getting behind you, talking up your product, even putting up a special display in the window featuring your whoopee cushions.
Is getting an agent an important milestone?
Yes. It proves that the quality of your material is such that someone (besides yourself) feels it's saleable.
Is getting an agent a license to sit back and let your scripts sell themselves?
Absolutely not.
If anything, upon obtaining representation, you must hustle harder than ever. Because it's not enough to give an agent something to sell.
You've got to show him how to sell it.
You also sold a script to 20th Century Fox. If it's not too painful (Jenna points to tissue box in corner) tell us what happened to it.
All I can do is refer you to my own essay, which covers the whole sordid story, by
clicking here.
On that note, what advice can you give to writers who have never attended a development meeting?
Dress comfortably. When you meet the executive, establish steady but friendly eye contact when you shake his or her hand. Make a point of remembering all the parties' first names (and using them). Listen closely to everything that's said. Pay attention to the buyer's body language and facial expressions.
As you speak, make eye contact with everyone on the buyer's side. If asked a question, answer it as clearly and concisely as possible. Try not to do all the talking (if you're talking, you're not listening). If there's a pause in the conversation, ignore the urge to fill it with chatter. Remain silent (with a faint smile on your face, if possible).
Most importantly, relax.
How about pitch sessions?
My wife gave me the best advice I ever received on pitching.
It was the night before my first pitch meetings. I was sitting out on out front porch, smoking like a fiend. She asked me what was wrong.
"What's wrong? I'm going to Paramount tomorrow to pitch a idea I'm not sure I even like to a development executive and I'm scared shitless."
"So?" she asked, "What's the big deal? You've done this a million times."
"What're you, nuts?! I've never pitched a story before in my life!"
She took my hand. "Honey," she said, "it's just a sales presentation."
And she was right. Like many professions, the film industry has its own sassy-slick jargon for things that, in any other business, would be utterly mundane. A pitch meeting is nothing more or less than a sales presentation. Period. So if you have a background in sales (as I did), you've got nothing to worry about.
And if you don't, no big deal.
Because everyone has been a salesman at some point in their lives.
Most people operate under the misconception that selling is confined to retail stores, showrooms and used-car lots. They feel that "sales" involves goods in exchange for money.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
What most people think of as "sales" only represents an infinitesimally tiny percentage of the actual sales made every day among the primates known as Homo Sapiens.
Consider this: Anytime you've gotten someone to do something they wouldn't have done otherwise-even if it's as banal as talking a coworker into having lunch at a restaurant you prefer-you've made a sale. When you talk your friend into going out for drinks, when you get your spouse to stop complaining and visit a doctor, when you needled your parents into buying that coveted toy, you were making sales.
Everyone has talked someone into doing something at some point in his or her life.
So when you go to your first pitch meeting, keep that in mind. The buyer is your best friend. Assume the role of a counselor. You're not there to solve your problem (i.e. rampant obscurity and poverty); you're there to help them. They want to produce good movies that draw audiences and make money, and your project can facilitate those goals.
If you can get yourself into that mindset, you're more than halfway there.
"Nobody wants to read a movie about a movie by somebody who's only seen movies." What are you suggesting... we need LIVES, too?!
No. I'm not suggesting you need a life.
I'm stating it. Quite definitively. Sure, you can make it as a screenwriter with a film-school diploma and no practical life experience whatsoever. Plenty of people have.
But will you ever write something original and true? Doubtful.
You must step outside yourself and observe the way people behave and speak under a number of various circumstances. You must experience emotions to articulate them convincingly.
I'm not saying you have to go out and wrestle alligators or become a cross-country trucker or an Olympic athlete. I've never done any of these things, yet I'm fully confident I could write convincingly about them. I've faced demons that make alligators look like kittens. All I have to do is let my own memory of terror and desperation inform the scene. I've worked jobs that were thankless and boring and poorly compensated. I can transfer that frustration into a truck cab. I've struggled long and hard in what may be called a frivolous pursuit. I can inject that experience into a long-distance runner.
Wisdom, insight, empathy and pragmatism are all functions of living and struggling.
If you hole up in a room and feed yourself movies, your characters will be copies of copies. You will fail to inspire, inform or involve an audience. You might distract them. You might even amuse them. But on a deep level, they'll know they're being conned.
Have you ever turned down an assignment?
Only if it's clear I'm being taken advantage of.
For example, I once had a meeting at Starbucks with the actress daughter of a big star (as in, International Big Box-Office Gorilla Star). She wanted me to screenwrite a project she had in development. When I quoted my fee, she behaved as if I was trying to screw her (literally and figuratively). In her defense, she's a trust-fund baby with a famous last name, and there's probably dozens of people who are trying to screw her at any hour of any given day. I, however, was not one of them. I was simply quoting my fee for services rendered.
"Are you nuts?" she asked (a rhetorical question if I've ever heard one), "I could get someone to write the script for free!"
To which I replied, "No shit, Allison. Throw a rock and you'll hit one right here on the patio."
"So why should I pay you?"
"Let me put it this way," I said, "If you want your kitchen painted, you'll get quotes for anywhere from two-hundred to two-thousand bucks, depending on who the painter is. Now, you can hire the two-hundred dollar guy, who has no idea what he's doing. But chances are, you'll probably have to bring in the two-thousand dollar guy to fix all the mistakes the first guy made. I cost more, but I'm a professional and I'll deliver a good first draft in eight weeks, and I'm capable of taking and executing your notes. That costs money."
My argument fell on deaf ears. She subsequently "hired" one of the guys who was willing to do it for free, another child of a movie-star who, after a year of writing, delivered a 900-plus page first draft (no, I'm not exaggerating) and refused to change or cut a word.
As they say, birds of a feather . . .
Lots of people tell you they can help further your career on the teeny-tiny condition that you work for free. Sometimes they can. The trick is to take a hard look at who they are and, more importantly, what they've done. As in "credits."
The tough part of this very practical advise is to resist the temptation to transfer your hopes onto the other party by allowing yourself to become unduly impressed by their track-record. I've seen otherwise smart writers inflate the importance of their "producer.".
"Yeah," they say, "he's the guy who brought LETHAL WEAPON to Dick Donner."
(Keep in mind, the number of guys in Hollywood who take credit for "putting together" any given hit project is only surpassed by the thousands of people invited to Polanski's house the night the Manson Family crashed the party.)
Though silly and self-defeating, pumping up a marginal-at-best producer is tempting to aspiring writers because a.) It inflates their sense of self-importance; and b.) It helps mitigate their fears that they are foolishly wasting their time writing for little or no money.
So beware.
If they're solid players, let your conscious be your guide.
If not, fuck em.
What do you think about free options and back-end deals?
See above.
Describe how it felt to see your movie... first on-set, then on television.
On set, it was very strange. Here I was, standing in the middle of this entire town that, up to that moment, had been a figment of my imagination. I suppose it's analogous to being a paranoid schizophrenic, and finding out that there really are government agents following you.
The first time I saw it on TV, I was underwhelmed. Everybody else liked it, but I was the only person really knew how good it could've been. It was a very snappy script, and everything fun and unique about it had been leached out by a director who a.) didn't understand the genre; and b.) petulantly washed his hands of the material when the studio disallowed him from extensively rewriting me, subsequently seeking and executing his revenge by doing a mediocre job.
Very frustrating.
You say "talent cannot be learned." Okay, but how do I know if I'm talented?
If writing is not something you simply "want" to do, but something you must do, that it's as important a function to you as, say, breathing, chances are you're talented.
How does your family feel about your writing?
Which family?
As far as my Mom and Dad go, it depends. When I'm successful, they "always knew I could do it." When things are rocky, they helpfully point out what a flaky business it is and maybe I should quit and get a real job. As strange and conflicting as those two poles may seem, I have no doubt they are sincere in both cases.
They love me. They just have no clue how crippling it is to suggest quitting. And they never will. But that's okay. I've just learned not to pay much attention to Mom and Dad over the years.
My wife is similarly divided in her feelings. In her case, however, it's warranted. Her father was a writer who, despite his formidable talent, was never quite successful. She watched the endeavor break him and, naturally, dreads seeing the same thing happen to her husband. But she does her best and (heroically, given the circumstances) stands behind me 95% of the time.
When it comes to my kids, they're my own personal fan club.
What's one thing about the film business you wish you'd learned earlier?
The value of self-promotion. In any other business, it would be considered insufferably vain and obnoxious. In the movie business, it is absolutely essential.
Visit Daniel's website at www.unmovies.com.
