“The name is Bond… Basildon Bond”…
Said the UK comic actor Russ Abbot back in the 90s referring to a highly reputable stationary brand, and his character, the said comedic TV secret agent.
With double ohhh Daniel saving the post covid box office with no time to die, conversely there’s never been a better time for Irish Writers to grab some real agents to figure out what to try.
Writers tell stories, especially from our own experience, it’s who we are and what we do.
Creative artists and narcissists are also top of our talking self / tellin’ ya tree while queued along branches we can find actors, musicians, producers, directors, screenwriters, playwrights, with the would be barefaced poets hanging onto the very bottom leaves.
Although as Friel so expertly observed there is usually a private and public personae involved with writing, waiting, and wanting. Show the one you need to show.
Yes we all agree that this is completely appropriate behavior for those working their way upwards within a hits based industry that is known itself as “Show” business.
Our show business has a long established Venn diagram intersection with our tech biz or technology industry, an intersection growing larger each year. Thus along with ‘traditional’ show business professionals listed above, excellent contemporary VFX supervisors, sound designers, game developers, narrative designers, coders, digital producers, VR, XR, platform executives and digital rights holders are among those offering their show n tell, interviews, or those of us partaking in ubiquitous zoom seminars or group meetings.
While compelled by life to multitask I virtually attended the aforementioned online event this morning, organized by The Writers Guild of Ireland and the BAI, in the sound company of that most rarely spotted species: Professional Working Agents.
The key takeaway from listening to all three professional agents, and it is the core of any success in any industry really, is that relationship building is paramount.
Among many years ago I supervised an MBA thesis on remote teamwork and newly developed tools being used to facilitate it. Anyone like me who has worked in theatre or computer games development, let alone TV development or education, understands the true value of cohesive and coherent teams and the truism that relationships are at the core of all truly successful collaborations. Having key relationships are…… key, yes that’s true.
Thus as espoused today, for many writers their first key relationship is with their agent.
Kelly, Giles, and Peter, offered clear insights into the agent – writer relationship today, and attendance was certainly worthwhile for their good humored and professional candor, their sharing of proven experience and opinion. I underlined and offered that hypertext link in my text above to contemporary VFX supervisors, as it offers a link to an excellent article on the real life experiences of Chris MacLean & Mike Enriquez both VFX supervisors, while making their amazeballs AppleTV series ‘Foundation’.
The main overlap in both these professional success narratives is the importance of genuine professional connection.
What we’ve already known in Ireland for years: it is whom you know not what you know (i.e. once you have also attained the requisite levels of professionalism and skills) that gets you in the room. You almost must have already earned (or paid for) the right to be there, to be there. (Is there an echo – have you left your speakers on while you’re trying to use your mic ?)
Writers must also have earned the trust of those who guided you to, or allowed/invited you into, that room, that is if you are to have an actual career in writing or show business. The best way to earn trust is not only be that good person, a hardworking nice person, but the one that delivers. Being able to type and use a computer may also help too.
Thus obviously it can be very risky using a term like ‘digital writer or artist’ to introduce yourself.
Part of some modern difficulties in early dealings with certain contemporary producers (apart from their refusal to show me their bank balances) is most know sort of what they don’t want, although every single one does want the next big thing. That dilemma for the writer can be solved with the spec script, for all the reasons insiders already know. Although among my highly classified experimental WIP at present is a very traditional screen adaptation of a biography, could just be easier to mash together a whole new format of screenplay and label it novelty, who apart from those french loopo writers seriously considers restraints are really creatives releases ?
In terms of any such writers’ novelty, the new, or innovation, a slack novel is no longer a surprise, I’ve historically created various stories in Basic, Excel, Tiddlywiki, Twine, Flash, C, Javascript, Bulletin Boards, various social media platforms, tools, watched the 1 million penguins from the inside out while doing a formal MA in Creative Writing & New Media, prior to earning my PhD in Creative Writing & Digital Literature, creating highly innovative pathfinding works that no one ever sees anymore unless there’s some far off obscure exhibition. New technology won’t pay a writer’s bills unless you are being paid to teach those experimental aspects of our ever evolving craft, a craft seemingly broadening and deepening into the future as more and more people convince themselves they can be brilliant writers just by doing a six week course ?
Alvin Toffler wouldn’t make a good agent, as most new technological writing formats or literary forms are to the current mainstream publishing industry as haute couture is to high street (second hand) mass market clothes shops. While there may always be some academic venues and literary aficionados supporting a small amount of cutting or bleeding edge work, few can make a living from creating it. The book industry is an international industry like the meat industry.
That second mouse’s cheese is not all the sweeter were a writer to assume they could learn from the technological mistakes of others, but erm nope, simply not true, but you’ll have to buy my next book to find out exactly why and what this sentence really means. Now.. enough with the humor already, seriously….
The core of any work is the work itself, and the work itself must always be it’s own reward.
If people ask you to do work ,and you trust them, enough to build a relationship, then there is potentially some kind of more there beyond the work, but it begins and ends with the work in the first and every instance.
For serious fully committed writers, before agents, producers, publishers, deals, or any kind of show or business the work comes first. For this writer the first key relationship is with the work. All other relationships are business and thus are negotiable.
The modern WGI, which was once upon a time ‘The Irish Screenwriters and Playwrights Guild’ when I first joined many many years ago, will be making today’s meeting available to members in due course, I hope you all find the time to have a look and listen to the three agents from the UK.
