Interview With Mark
Sevi
Interview by Jenna Glatzer
Mark Sevi is a professional screenwriter of fourteen produced films, including the soon-to-be-released
ARACHNID. Past credits include an array of sequels, among them GHOULIES 4,
RELENTLESS II, and SCANNERS: THE SHOWDOWN. He lives and writes in Southern
California and is represented by David Saunders at Agency for the Performing Arts
(APA).
How did you get your first industry meeting?
My first meeting was a result of a lot of networking although I didn’t realize I was doing that at the time.
Follow this twisted path at your own risk: I was finishing a script in a community college writing
class. At a writer’s party, my teacher, Raymond Obstfeld, introduced me to an independent producer, Matt
Peppler, who expressed interest in reading my work. Independent producer sounds like a real and important
job, right? Wrong. It’s just a guy who wants to find a script he can sell and make money for really doing
nothing (sorry, Matt, but you know that’s the truth). I sent Matt two scripts that he hated but he said to
keep sending him my work. The next one I finished, “Nemesis”, I dutifully sent to him expecting nothing.
This was a first draft with a page or two missing because my printer forgot it was supposed to be
professional. Matt loved it and immediately sent it out to industry people at production companies who didn’t
seem to notice that pages were missing and that half the script was in one font and the second half was
in another font. So much for making everything perfect, right? Then Matt sent a letter based on the feedback
we were getting to CAA (Creative Artists Agency). Since Hollywood runs on the fear factor, and
no ones knows anything, they assigned a newbie agent to me on the chance that I’d hit the bigs. I still wasn’t actually
doing any real meetings yet.
My first real professional, industry meeting was with Riley Ellis who discovered, among others, Shane Black,
the man who wrote the Lethal Weapon series. Riley was at a company called IndieProd at the time.
She told me I was a great writer but I didn’t really have a concept that she could get behind. So much for that. It
was over in about five minutes; shorter than my first sexual experience and not nearly as much
fun. I am still working with Matt. In fact he and I conceived a few scripts that have done fairly well.
How did you land your first screenwriting assignment?
“Nemesis,” the script mentioned above, got a lot of good response. It really should have sold because
literally a dozen people loved it who could have made that dream a reality. Unfortunately, it did not
happen. If your agent is doing his job properly, a script should make the rounds at the highest level of which your agent
is capable, i.e., the “big” production companies that deal with the studios. Once the top
boys reject it, it begins a downward spiral into the lesser companies. Cinetel was/is one of those companies. After
“Nemesis” went to a lot of the larger companies, it landed at Cinetel with their creative director,
Catalaine Knell. Cinetel at the time didn’t do scifi but Cat liked the writing enough to want to meet me. We did. It went
okay. Months later, I got a call from them asking if I’d come in and pitch a story idea for
a sequel they wanted to do for “Relentless,” a modestly successful film starring Judd Nelson and written, under a pseudonym
by “Field of Dreams” writer/director Phil Alden Robinson. I pitched my sequel idea, they
wanted to hear more. I wrote a synopsis, they bought it. See how damned easy it is?
Was the experience all you hoped it would be?
They paid me – that’s all I was hoping for.
Need more detail, huh?
It was frightening. You don’t realize how many people are involved in a film until you actually do one. Plus,
there’s this little matter of millions of dollars riding on your script. I analogize it to rolling a
huge rock down a hill. Once a movie is set into motion, you can’t stop it without breaking something. I was terrified that my
script wouldn’t be up to par and in fact, it wasn’t. If it wasn’t for other veteran
film people like Cat Knell and the director, Michael Schroeder, “Relentless II” would
have been terrible. Even Ray Sharkey, one of the lead actors, helped to mold the script into a better story
although his scream-until-he-gets-his-way approach left much to be desired. The man
never met a writer he liked, apparently (and who can blame him). He ranted, I wrote. He’s dead. I’m still writing. A lesson here?
Possibly. Rant at your own risk.
Once the script was finished and approved it was an exhilarating experience. Like any newbie, I spent as
much time on the set as I could taking pictures and acting as cool as I could manage with video and
still cameras slung around my neck and my geek friends trailing behind me like some out of control tour guide.
They shot for twenty-nine days; I was on the set twenty of those days. I actually did rewrites all
through the filming depending on what they needed to resolve. Sometimes a scene won’t work for various location or
budget reasons and the action has to be reset or completely rewritten. Michael, the director, was
very patient and he never asked me to stop bringing tourists to his set when they were trying to get some work done.
All in all, making a film is the best thing you can with your clothes on (no truth to that rumor that I, at any
time, removed mine).
Did you mean to become the "King of Roman Numerals?" How did it
happen?
Like most of what I do in life, becoming the “King of Roman Numerals” was unplanned. As it turns out, I’m
a fast writer with interesting ideas who can deliver a decent script that fits a specific budget. At
the time, Cinetel, the company that did “Relentless II," and I were a match made in Hollywood. After RII I did some
rewrite work for them and actor Rutger Hauer. Then a few more script-doctoring assignments (for
far less money than you can imagine). About a year after “Relentless II” was released, Cinetel purchased several
‘titles’ from Vestron Video, a company that used to rule the video market and then went bankrupt.
The plan was to make sequels to these modestly successful films since Cinetel now owned the ancillary rights. They
called me in to pitch sequel ideas. Since we had a good working relationship (I wrote my ass
off, they paid me shit), they hired me to do the sequel to “Class of 1999,"
which was the sequel to “Class of 1984." So I was writing “Class of 1999, part II” which was really “Class
of 1984, part III” or “Class of 1984, 15 years later, Part II.” Don’t laugh, I’m thrilled to be in
such a confusing sub-category of screenwriters.
After that, it seemed that I was handed one after the other of the sequel titles that Cinetel had purchased
from Vestron. I am actually very proud of this work. A company like Cinetel can’t afford many
financial failures. If they are giving you this kind of work, basically trusting you to deliver something on time and
to budget, they must be very confident of your abilities. Now I can hear the cynical of you
saying, “or it’s just that you worked so cheap, no one else would do it.” Shame on you for being that cynical. Well, okay...that’s
probably as true as anything.
Were you still working on your own spec scripts all that time?
Yes, yes, yes. This business is like politics; you’re only as good as your last election (sorry, Al. I voted for
you). If you’re not in the film industry’s consciousness, you’re basically dead. What, after all,
is a writer who doesn’t write? (Provide your own punchline here.) Eventually, whatever wave of success you’re surfing
flattens out. If you don’t have back up, you can’t mount that great comeback. I never
stop writing. Like some Great White shark, I never stop swimming in those creative waters. I’m not saying that I’m successful all
the time, but I am trying all the time. Even when I was working on two or three
films simultaneously, I was looking ahead to what I would be writing, spec, when I was finished with my assignments.
You say that you questioned yourself as a writer because the end
products of your scripts always wound up being disappointing. Do you think writers ever come
to a point in which they can rest in the knowledge that their work is good?
Not if you’re doing it right. Geez, I sound so pretentious but it’s true. As you grow, you should be
always getting better. If you look back on your work from two years ago and say “I was a better writer
then,” something is seriously wrong. Good is so totally subjective anyway. I mean I used to love “The Brady
Bunch.” Now I’m much more of a “Moesha” fan. See? Growth. What I once thought was good I now know
was juvenile.
Were you always able to support yourself through your writing?
Fortunately, yes. But still, for the first six years I was writing professionally, I was working at a health food
store part time (and it wasn’t because I wanted to meet athletic girls). I always had this fear
that the work would dry up (and it did and still does). I didn’t really need the
money I was making at the health food store but I stayed there because I wasn’t sure of this business of
writing. Unless you get some obscene amount for your scripts, you’re always looking for that next
assignment. It’s a little scary between assignments because money goes out and doesn’t come in like when you have a real
job. In this insane career path that I’ve chosen, I can do everything right and still fail
financially. That’s the unfortunate reality of writing for a living.
Your accounts of Hollywood are hilarious, and seem to come back to
the same point over and over: producers ask for ridiculous, pointless, and bizarre things. Do you
ever fight to retain your vision for a script, or do you generally have to accept whatever notes a producer
gives?
Pretty much until I get my all money, I just smile and bend over.
Of course I fight. I have been in screaming matches with directors and producers, nose to nose, nearly
spitting in each others’ faces – moments away from ramming my rolled up script up their asses (but of
course, they like that kind of abuse, so I don’t). The first thing you learn is
it’s a collaborative business; you give and you take. Unlike novel writing, a script is really
just a blueprint, a general direction. If you don’t understand this, you fail. Ultimately, you have no
control anyway because a director is god. He or she can change just about anything they want. Exec
producers can insert scenes and dialogue based on their sexual encounters with farm animals if they wish.
Ridiculous, Pointless and Bizarre is the motto of the film industry. Damned proud
of it they are, too.
I just noticed there are a lot of sexual references in that last paragraph. I don’t think it really means anything, do
you? What the hell do you know anyway?
Seriously, to answer the question – which I guess is the point of this whole Q&A thing, isn’t it? – I do fight for
my vision. I present my case and a lot of times I’m upheld. A lot of times, though, it goes the
other way. What would I rather have? A totally bizarre idea that I can at least try to make work or a totally bizarre idea
that someone else is going to mutilate when they stick it in. Pick your fights is what you
learn. If it’s important, fight for it. If it’s your ego driving the argument, be honest about it and let it go.
Do big producers/executives ever get condescending with you because
you've written so many B-movie sequels?
Would I care, is the salient question. Condescend all you want. Just hire and pay me to write something is
what I focus on. Actually, I’m sure that does go on but I’m not that aware of it. The saying that you
should be nice to people on the way up because you might meet them on the way down is never more true in
Hollywood. Everyone knows that they are just a poor box office away from producing and/or directing bar
mitzvahs. In point of fact, this industry is filled with a lot of gracious people. Stupid, self-destructive,
ego-poisoned, arbitrary and insane as some might be – they are a well-mannered lot to your face.
One of the most elegant and mannered men I met was Richard Donner. At his level, I’m sure condescending is
just a waste of energy. I did a terrible job pitching a concept to him that I had worked very hard on.
He smiled and nodded, even making me feel like I’d done a good pitch which was not true in even the most
generous sense. I would also hope that anyone who meets me respects the fact that I’ve done a lot of film
so I must be doing something right (occasionally at least). If they don’t respect me, they wouldn’t say it to
my face anyway. In this business, if they don’t like you, they just don’t call you. That’s as
simple as it gets. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s apathy.
So many writers believe that having an agent will solve
all of their woes and propel them into Hollywood's elite. Please use this space to show them the error of their ways.
An agent is a first step, albeit a big one. You still have to prove yourself every day.
Here’s an old joke. An actor comes home to a burned down house. His sobbing and slightly-singed wife is
standing outside. “What happened, honey?” the man asks.
“Oh, John, it was terrible,” she weeps. “I was cooking, the phone rang. It was your agent. Because I was on
the phone, I didn’t notice the stove was on fire. It went up in second. Everything is gone. I
nearly didn’t make it out of the house. Poor Fluffy is –”
“Wait, wait. Back up a minute,” The man says. “My agent called?”
Imagine an agent is like a virus. When it’s through sucking out all off your vital juices, it moves on
searching for a new, stronger host. As long as you can provide the virus with sustenance, it bonds with you on
a cellular level; closer than your own mother. Once that agent-virus can’t get any more from you, it’s gone out
of your life faster than a cheap hooker on a busy Saturday night (not that I’d know, you
understand).
An agent is a facilitator, a pimp daddy (not that I’d know about that either). He or she can put your script
in the right hands but if your work doesn’t stand up, nothing that agent can do will make you a success
or keep you successful.
What's one thing you wish you learned earlier about screenwriting?
I wish I’d learned not to do it. That I had listened to my father and worked harder in college so I could have
become a plastic surgeon.
I really think that everything comes to you at the point at which you’re prepared to hear it. Sort of like that old
“when the student is ready, the master will appear.” I can’t honestly think of anything that I wish
I had learned earlier. I did all I could to be prepared and when the opportunity came, I jumped at it. But everyone’s
experience is going to be different. I would say to anyone reading this, eat, sleep and drink
movies. Read all you can about the industry. Take any opportunity that presents itself even if you get screwed doing it.
What is your "big goal," and has it changed since you began
writing?
Nothing has changed in some senses. I still am hungry for a studio picture but I know that won’t solve any
specific problems because studio films fail every day. Even with mega-budgets and mega-stars (think
“Battlefield Earth”), nothing is guaranteed. In a sense, I’ve accomplished more than any one thousand
screenwriters in this business. It is no longer my goal to just get a picture done since I’ve had
fourteen produced. But I still want to do this for a living for the rest of my life and be able to bring intelligent
sci-fi to the big screen.
Can a writer break in while living outside of LA?
Sure. Writing contests are everywhere. You can enter dozens a year if you want. Someone will see your work
sometime because a lot of industry people judge these things. Plus, making phone calls or writing letters
to agents who take unsolicited material is still an option. In addition, the Internet is a vast treasure trove of websites
that now cater to writers living in such remote places as Montana where screenwriting is possibly defined as
something that you can do with a window. I actually live fifty miles from Los Angeles and drive to meetings when
necessary. Most of my contact is phone and email based. It’s a lot easier these days to
tele-commute. Even the most dense film executives understand AOL (or they can hire someone to click the little icons for
them).
Anything further you'd like to add for pre-pro screenwriters?
Stay out of the business. It sucks, it’s frustrating and I don’t need the competition.
Click
here to read Mark's latest article in Salon: King of Roman Numerals.
Trust me... you'll love it.
