Roger Should Have Said Yes!
After the Roger debacle, I realized that the writing industry in Hollywood was rife with successful kooks. This meant that the word “yes” had to be approached from a totally different angle. I quickly found myself on the lookout for anyone who had a track record of saying “yes”. I soon realized that the majority of Hollywood “yes” people comprised the lower echelon in the business. The well-heeled dealt in “no” and were Rogers through and through. Struggling agents, actors, producers, writers and directors were all “yes” people.
Many big-time agents were as bad as Roger. Their specialty was saying “no”. They like so many people in the industry wanted only to deal with “slot machines” that paid off—the name game. At their level, dealing with talent and creativity meant never taking a chance.
Thankfully I managed to find an agent who didn’t belong to the school of “no”. He was not a top agent but he was an agent. His interest was in getting the best of the leftovers the other agents turned down. For me and my newly minted rhinoceros skin, I now became possessed with anyone who had yes in their lexicon. This “yes” agent of mine secured me work as a script doctor with some of the other “yes” people in town. This is how I spent my Hollywood years up to my retirement—working on other people’s projects. I did well in that area but my screenplays withered on the vine, so to speak.
I recently decided to take them out of obscurity, publish them and let you the reader decide if Roger Should Have Said Yes.
At the end of each screenplay, you will find an industry regulation form for readers to provide coverage of the scripts assigned to them. You can fill out this document and give Roger some competition. It could be a lot of fun as a book club activity, a project for you and your reading buddies and for all of you who are budding screenplay writers. You can now become an insider thanks to Roger Should Have Said Yes.
Screenplays included in this anthology that are up for your review include:
Piece of Cake—Young Oklahoma prostitute operating on South Beach in Miami has in one day all the bad luck possible to befall her. She vows to begin life all over and this time around make it more endurable.
Bad Trip—Small-town, religious couple from Oklahoma honeymoon in Hollywood, California, where everything that is supposed to be wonderful turns into a rotten reality show for them.
Pasadena—Dirt-poor, large Illinois family immigrates to wealthy Pasadena during the early 1900s in an attempt to secure a new life. The background is during the beginning of the Rose Parade and Tournament.
Cleo de Janeiro—A young man and his band of musicians end up in a situation where they employ a 95-year-old hotie as their lead singer A surreal version of Romeo and Juliet.
In the next blog, we will examine some overall information you need to know if you plan on trying to break into the writing game in Hollywood.
(If you’re reading this from Facebook then you should know I have a new website where you can read more about Roger. Click here to see the new website.)
