“I’d rather look at what I can achieve now, with the resources I’ve got to hand, than expend more time and energy on playing the creative industry lottery. ”
Had this conversation about shrinking budgets yesterday during a meeting with a production company: my question was what can writers be doing to help themselves get work i.e. if you’ve written a 200 million dollar epic, perhaps writing “smaller”… my question was slightly misconstrued as a “should we chase the zeitgeist” question, but surely budgets must be a consideration for writers? Not that it’s our “job” to worry about it, more something of a reality to be aware of when writing?
This is such a brilliant, helpful article - really appreciate it. I’m a journalist by trade (15 years on the nationals) and I got there by traditional routes of work experience and then a graduate training scheme (both were hard fought for though!) but these days, with journalism in the state it is - it’s hard to know what the route in is for people. Anyway, I digress. I’m now completing a creative writing MA and getting great feedback on my screenwriting- but I’m 42! Like you say, becoming a runner and working my way up is not an option. Reading this is a good reminder that I’ll need to think outside the box, remember there’s no ‘one size’ route and I’ll need to tap into that cheeky tenacity I had when starting out in journalism, and hope someone, somewhere has a read of my stuff.
“I’d rather look at what I can achieve now, with the resources I’ve got to hand, than expend more time and energy on playing the creative industry lottery. ”
Thanks for posting!
Had this conversation about shrinking budgets yesterday during a meeting with a production company: my question was what can writers be doing to help themselves get work i.e. if you’ve written a 200 million dollar epic, perhaps writing “smaller”… my question was slightly misconstrued as a “should we chase the zeitgeist” question, but surely budgets must be a consideration for writers? Not that it’s our “job” to worry about it, more something of a reality to be aware of when writing?
I’ll be posting more about this tomorrow!
This is such a brilliant, helpful article - really appreciate it. I’m a journalist by trade (15 years on the nationals) and I got there by traditional routes of work experience and then a graduate training scheme (both were hard fought for though!) but these days, with journalism in the state it is - it’s hard to know what the route in is for people. Anyway, I digress. I’m now completing a creative writing MA and getting great feedback on my screenwriting- but I’m 42! Like you say, becoming a runner and working my way up is not an option. Reading this is a good reminder that I’ll need to think outside the box, remember there’s no ‘one size’ route and I’ll need to tap into that cheeky tenacity I had when starting out in journalism, and hope someone, somewhere has a read of my stuff.
Thanks for such a great post.