Social Media Ideas for Breaking Into Hollywood

Everyone in Hollywood Claims to Have a Gun, but Very Few Brought Enough Bullets

Last night, I was sitting across from a kid at a coffee shop in Los Angeles who asked me how to break into Hollywood. I told him what I'd tell anyone trying to break in anywhere:Yo...

Screenwriter Tom Vaughn Drops 10 Truths About Sustaining a Long Career in Hollywood

I think one of the major misconceptions among people outside of Hollywood is that the battle is breaking into this place. The truth is that breaking into Hollywood is hard. But sta...

The Truth About Querying Hollywood Agencies and Managers

The only way to have a real career in Hollywood is to have someone representing your interests who can help you procure work or put you up for jobs at the studio level. The problem...

Big Hollywood Studios Are Reportedly Fighting to Sign BACKROOMS Director Kane Parsons After His Massive Breakout Hit

Will Packer’s Advice to Aspiring Filmmakers: Don’t Wait for Hollywood

*Will Packer has built a Hollywood résumé filled with box-office hits, major television projects, and billion-dollar success. But his advice for breaking into the industry starts o...

The Real Skill Behind Getting a Movie Made

Making a movie is brutal. It's hard. We know.But the lead-up to the green light might even be worse. Before you get to hire actors or buy props, you often have to sit across from s...

The Producer of 'Hustlers' Wants to Teach You How to Pitch Hollywood

You can write the best script in a group of your writing buddies… and still watch it die when you get in the room. Knowing how to pitch is a skill in its own right, separate from w...

Hollywood Is Squeezing Producers to Death (and Killing the Industry in the Process)

I got up yesterday morning and did something I hate. I drove to one of my favorite coffee shops in Los Angeles and had a goodbye coffee and bagel with a producer I've known for 15...

How To Combat Bitterness About Your Career in Hollywood

You've been there. I've been there. That project we chased, the one we did on spec, our passion assignment, falls apart. Or the pitch we prepared for goes south. The agent who wrot...

The Film-Buying Market Has Changed... But Make Your Movie Anyway

If you're into movie-making (which we guess you are, because you're here right now), you know that the way independent films get financed has shifted hard in the last few years. So...

How Do You Make California and Los Angeles as Film-Friendly as Possible?

Production isn't leaving Hollywood because permit fees are too high or because you can't drive trucks on the beach, but easing those pain points can go a long way toward tipping th...

IFH 870: He Waited 11 YEARS to Make His Movie—Then Jimmy Kimmel Changed Everything with Don Barris

Hollywood has always sold aspiring filmmakers and performers the fantasy of being discovered. You write the perfect screenplay, perform at the right club, meet the right producer,...

Bring Back the Hollywood Asshole!

After decades of pitching Hollywood executives, a veteran director delivers his verdict on the industry in his debut column for THR: The quarter-zips have taken over, the suits hav...

I’m a Screenwriter. Hollywood Is in Trouble.

A scriptwriter’s lament about Hollywood’s decline

The Heist Movie Ingredients Every Screenwriter Should Know

You probably know that there are hidden formulas in most genre works. A Hallmark holiday movie has beats that it hits like clockwork. Marvel comic book films are reliable stories f...

Lucky Does Hollywood...And Goes Legit?

This is the third puzzle in The Capers of Lucky the Lockpick. The previous one is here. (I have tried to keep this not-too-long. For those who don't like reading in a puzzle--this...

Hollywood is Learning the Wrong Lessons From Backrooms’ Success, And I Can Prove It

Image Courtesy of A24 Backrooms was a massive success when it was released earlier this year, and it ended up doing better than anyone could have expected. The movie is based on t...

How I Stole From My Own Life to Make My First Feature in 18 Days

I came to filmmaking through acting. After years of auditions and waiting for someone else to give me the part I wanted to play, I started writing one for myself.Then I made a shor...

Indie Film’s Next Money Doesn’t Want Your Passion Project

Hollywood studios might be scouring for the next "Obsession," but there's a growing class of investors looking for projects that match their values.

Tweetstorm: Alexi Hawley on surviving as a screenwriter in Hollywood

“This. Is. Not. Easy.”Continue reading on Go Into The Story »

The Business of Screenwriting: Celebrate your victories

Based on my experiences as a screenwriter in Hollywood, there are many things I can advise you to do that are not particularly enjoyable…Continue reading on Go Into The Story »

Hollywood has a creativity problem, and cheaper filmmaking tools could finally fix it

Why new apps like Spark Story could lead to more films like Obsession and Backrooms.

Hollywood’s newest boom is being built for your phone one two-minute episode at a time

Microdramas may be the sole expanding segment in Hollywood

How to Write and Sell a Script to the Hallmark Channel

Aimeé Teegarden and Chris McNally star in “Love Finds You.” Yes, we’ve heard the jokes. “What has 27 actors, three settings, two writers, and one plot?” “671 Hallmark movies.” So w...