Film School, What Now?

Graduate medical school, you're a doctor, but finish film school – you're just a dweeb. You're not qualified to do much more than brew coffee or maybe make movies, and it's not like Hollywood studio execs are biting at the chomp to hire a batch of green and eager new film geeks to write, direct, or produce their scheduled slate of upcoming projects.

So what do you do? How do you break down the doors of Hollywood?

Here's the bad news. If you're a director, it's almost impossible. And just because you shot a great student short film doesn't mean much. Nobody gets to direct a feature film based on student work unless that work is A+ amazing in every way.

The good news. If you're a writer, just write. But don't waste your time with blind submissions. When a company receives a blind submission or query letter, it protects itself from possible legal headaches by actively trying NOT to read your script.

So how is that good? The entire Hollywood system is designed for writers to get read, but just in a different way – through friends of friends of friends. If your script is good and you know somebody – a key grip, a craft service guy, a set dresser, anybody in the industry – your screenplay will find it's way to the next person. Sure luck and timing are part of the equation, but a talented screenwriter doesn't have to wait to be handed a discarded bone. He just writes and lets the script speak for itself.

Friends: the secret to breaking into Hollywood. You don't grab a sledgehammer to knock down the doors alone. You align yourself with other people and simply turn the key.