Podcast

I'm late to Creative Screenwriting podcasts, but just listening to one right now about the writer of "Cloverfield" got his first job in Hollywood. He makes some good points, but one practical piece about being an assistant or PA or whatever grunt level job you start with in Hollywood that sticks -

He says - there is absolutely no correlation between someone who gets coffee well and who is a good writer. However, if you can't do the grunt work - getting coffee, scheduling, rolling calls, etc, people will perceive you as incompetent and won't believe you can be a good writer - even if they intellectually know it to be false. But more than that - if you help them - by doing a good job, etc - they in turn will want to help you. On the vice versa, if you do a bad job at the grunt level work, they won't want to help you and to be frank, you need allies to get work in this town.

Interesting piece of advice.