Tag: podcast

Transcript:

Host: I guess I’ll ask, why why did you also want to teach?

Rosanne: I actually — my first job was as a high school teacher because I come from Ohio — a college in Ohio and there was no way you were going to convince your parents or anybody that like it was legitimate to think you’d get a job in television. So I had to get a real like get a degree in something real. So it was in high school and I taught literature and things like that for a couple years until I could make the move to California and I could make it because you could teach in Ohio. You could teach here. So I could get a long-distance job as a teacher which gave me a financial way to make a move like that. So I actually liked it. I missed it in a weird way. I mean certainly doesn’t pay as much as TV but there’s a lot of things you do as a teacher — there are skills you have and a lot of that translates into writing in that and pitching because pitching is like I’m giving a lecture and explaining an idea to you to make you love it so much you’ll pay me to do it. So that’s a skill. That little performance thing comes from a teaching background and I also think that television particularly because it’s — well was free and even if your parents are paying for it essentially is free — as opposed to movies you have to fork over 20 bucks to go see them. So television is like this giant podium that a teacher would stand at and lecture and a TV show and a movie — any piece of writing that’s good that sticks to you — has a message — is there with a theme about how you want other people to live their lives. A lesson that you wish other people would learn. So really writing is like being a teacher on steroids.

Transcript:

I have another friend who teaches a thing called “speed drafting” So then you figure out what’s your best way to work and his idea is that you should set a little timer — an hour and a half, two hours, whatever you think — and just keep going and if you have a problem — I need to research something– you just slug in a little thing — figure this out later — that sort of thing keep moving, keep moving and the next day you don’t go back and look at what you did the day before. You just take it from where you stopped and go. So you have a whole first draft as fast as possible and then you take the time to pick your way through and do the rewriting and fill in the stuff that you didn’t know along the way. That works for him. That gives him two hours a day of writing and that’s all he needs to get to a — and then it’s two hours of rewriting when he gets to that stage. So you find a process that works for you and then you make sure your lifestyle allows for that process.

Transcript:

Rosanne: …which is also what I say to students both in internships and within classes. You’re not going to call Steven Spielberg and become his best friend to get a job but somewhere in your group of friends that you’re all connecting with right now one of you is going to go become Steven Spielberg and that you’re all then going to stay connected to each other and help each other move up.

Host: That’s yeah as far as networking goes, I think that’s probably one of the best pieces of advice you can give to someone. It’s like understand that everything — it’s you know, it’s the right thing to be nice to people and cultivate relationships but also it’s almost like you’re moving up with your generation. Like everyone rises up together…

Rosanne:… exactly and you will immediately kick off your you know the end of your boot anybody who you don’t want to be around.

Host: That’s also true.

Rosanne: Yeah because they’ll just get in your way and they’re not going to help you. As long as you’re the kind of person who wants to help other people and with their ideas with you know doing writer’s groups together, reading each other’s scripts out loud, going to Q and A’s in town and then you know talking about the thing you saw afterwards. Running into other people at those events and you know hey let’s all get together and have a meet up two weeks from now at such and such a pizza place or a coffee house or a bar whatever it is. Building those relationships because that’s you know you’re the next generation of assistants who are the next generation of writers or executives or whatever people choose to be.

Transcript:

Rosanne: …which is also what I say to students both in internships and within classes. You’re not going to call Steven Spielberg and become his best friend to get a job but somewhere in your group of friends that you’re all connecting with right now one of you is going to go become Steven Spielberg and that you’re all then going to stay connected to each other and help each other move up.

Host: That’s yeah as far as networking goes, I think that’s probably one of the best pieces of advice you can give to someone. It’s like understand that everything — it’s you know, it’s the right thing to be nice to people and cultivate relationships but also it’s almost like you’re moving up with your generation. Like everyone rises up together…

Rosanne:… exactly and you will immediately kick off your you know the end of your boot anybody who you don’t want to be around.

Host: That’s also true.

Rosanne: Yeah because they’ll just get in your way and they’re not going to help you. As long as you’re the kind of person who wants to help other people and with their ideas with you know doing writer’s groups together, reading each other’s scripts out loud, going to Q and A’s in town and then you know talking about the thing you saw afterwards. Running into other people at those events and you know hey let’s all get together and have a meet up two weeks from now at such and such a pizza place or a coffee house or a bar whatever it is. Building those relationships because that’s you know you’re the next generation of assistants who are the next generation of writers or executives or whatever people choose to be.

Transcript:

Yeah. It doesn’t even — they don’t have to like your story. If they like you they can bring you and you know that’s the other thing that happens — if they like you but they don’t buy your story, your pitch, whether, it’s a tv show or a movie whatever it is but they have a book that they have bought their rights to and they want someone to come in with what is your idea and how this book will work. That’s when they’ll go oh I really like working with you. I really feel a connection to you. Go home and think about this and come back in a couple weeks and tell me how you would attack this and maybe you’ll get that gig. So that’s what you’re trying in a meeting if nothing else happens or you know I ended up doing that Picket Fences episode because I had temped on a show that Jeff Melvoin was an executive — that time he’s a supervising producer — and so we met for like two weeks and he read something of mine and he was impressed and we stayed in touch. It was four years before he got the job where he could hire me. One, two-week job gave me a story — a script — four years later. You gotta always think about the future of the relationships that you’re making.

Transcript:

…and then finally there was a movie that had come out — it’s a while ago now — this is an old meeting — called Indecent Proposal and it was Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore, and Robert Redford. The idea was that Robert Redford was a rich man who gave offered Woody Harrelson and his wife a million dollars for his wife to sleep with him for one night. So the couple would get a million dollars and she’d have sex with the guy one night and that was the question of the movie and my joke when that movie came out had always been well there’s no question. It’s a win-win. I get a million dollars and I have sex with Robert Redford. Where’s the loss in this right? The movie made no sense to me. She brought it up and she wasn’t stupid — she brought it up — I said what I always said about the movie which was that I said it needs to be like a million dollars and Danny Devito and now I have a question right? Even though I love Danny DeVito right? I don’t mean to be insulting to him. She then was happy to let me know she had been an associate producer on that movie. Her name doesn’t appear on the poster. It doesn’t there was no, yeah I could not have known that except my agent should have set me up by giving me some of her background and he didn’t. So that was like three strikes you’re out. Buh-bye like we’re not ever going to be friends. We’re not ever going to go have coffee later and you’re not going to buy anything from me. So I’ll leave, right? At least I should have known her movie background. Maybe an agent wasn’t going to be able to tell me where she grew up but yeah three strikes you’re out. That was not a good meeting. So you need to know you need to know you’re not going to sell that woman Thank You For Not Smoking right? That’s not a piece you’re going to bring into her office. So it is very important who you’re talking to.

Transcript:

Host: You have if you have a show and you’re going on you’re going to pitch it, do you have that in mind always like okay I’m going to pitch to HBO. These are the people I’m pitching to. How do they react?

Rosanne: Yeah. What do I think they want. What part of this is going to be most interesting to them? Their own personal backgrounds. I mean you need to know as much of that as possible. Also so you don’t step into any landmines, right? I mean you know everyone has a joke about the worst pitch they ever did and the worst pitch I ever did was for a movie idea and I went in to meet with someone and…

Host: What — can you share what the movie idea was by chance?

Rosanne: Yu know what? I honestly can’t even remember anymore. You do so much for this. It’s really — I don’t — I don’t remember. I just remember I had this meeting and first you do a little chit-chatting right — a little chit-chat general stuff. Who are you? To see if you even like each other and maybe if this doesn’t sell they’ll want you to do something else with them. So you’re hoping to make a connection and in the middle of the chit-chatting, I don’t know why but the concept of cheerleading came up and I said something derogatory about cheerleaders because I certainly wasn’t one in high school and you know they’re easy to pick on except the woman I was meeting with had been a cheerleader.

Host: Yes.

Rosanne: So right away, you’re like oh I just insulted her. Okay, fine keep talking — keep — let’s find a thing we have in common right? At some point later, it came up — smoking came up — and it’s generally pretty good to say smoking is stupid. It kills people. Who the hell would waste their money on a pack of cigarettes. She grew up on a tobacco farm in Kentucky.

Host: Oh my god. No. No.

Rosanne: I didn’t know that. I didn’t have the ability to get that kind of information back in the day right? I was like, oh my god, what am I going to say now?