"You fail upward here," an agent said.
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Some of you are familiar with the work I do with indie filmmakers, both would-be and working. In line with that work every once in a while I'm going to post tasty treats straight from the mouths of the oligarchs down to the outsiders.
I figure if you're famliar with my work then it'll (hopefully) make sense, and if not then at least it'll be amusing.
So without further ado, here's someone that's only id'd as "young agent," replete with my comments in [brackets] and "updated" to fit:
The time to hit this town is before your first picture comes out. You get the word of mouth going. [ie: circulate the bullshit hype that's borne strictly from one's own economic imperative] Nobody's seen the picture. [smoke and mirrors] It can be a piece of shit, but who knows? [DUH] You get the word-of-mouth going, you can start making deals all over town. We handle X who just finished a picture over at Paramount. Nobody's seen it, but you spread the word that Tarantino loved it and pretty soon you're not in if you haven't seen it and said it was sensational. Uma Thurman, Johnnie Depp, they all loved it. Who cares if they've seen it? It's the names that count. [Unlike yours, agents being as interchangeable as, say, socks. Or critics. Or Asian American websites.] Once the word-of-mouth momentum gets going, you move in. X is now locked in for six pictures all over town. If the picture's good, fine, but if it stinks, he's still set up for a ton." [And so's yer lil' leechy rat bastard ass for it's agency %] You fail upward here. A guy makes a multi-million dollar bomb, the big thing is not that he's made a bomb, but that he put together a multi-million dollar picture. It's crazy, but that's how it works. [Someone throw him a hot towel] The worst that can happen to you is to have a small success. You make a picture for a few mil, it's a nice picture it makes a little money, but you're dead. They aren't interested in pictures that make a little money. Everybody's looking for the killing. So you bomb out at multi-millions. Well, you put together a big one, and the next time out, you might hit with one.
I'm a man without a corporation. ~Paddy Chayefsky
