Screenwriting for Profit

Chapter 5Building a Career—Everyone Starts Somewhere

I was an actor for many years before I changed careers and segued into being a writer, producer, director, and foreign sales and production company executive. During my acting years, I wrote many underlying stories for prospective films, as well as a couple of feature film scripts, which, despite my efforts, I was never able to get made. I never wanted to be just an actor and was always looking for ways to expand beyond being on camera, and that began with writing.

Study the Market and Ask Questions

Finally, in the late 1980s, in an effort to figure out how other people were doing it and I wasn’t, I started studying the international marketplace. I went to the Cannes Film Market, which coincides ...