Ever wondered what it takes to break into Hollywood as a writer? In today’s episode, NOT REAL ART host Scott “Sourdough” Power sits down with Paul Miloknay, a former attorney turned author, to chat about his new book, Welcome to Hollywood: A Survival Guide for Aspiring Writers.

In their discussion, Paul shares his journey from the courtroom to crafting a comprehensive guide specifically designed for novice writers. He emphasizes the challenges that come with trying to make it in Hollywood and highlights the critical importance of understanding the legal aspects of creative work. Among the key topics discussed are the value of building trustworthy relationships, the need to protect your intellectual property, and why every collaboration should involve clear written agreements.

The conversation also digs into the current landscape of the entertainment industry, especially how recent economic shifts and labor strikes have reshaped opportunities for writers. Paul not only shares insights but also offers practical strategies for navigating these complexities. He reiterates that while talent is important, success in Hollywood often hinges on informed planning and relentless perseverance. Listeners gain actionable tips and a clearer understanding of what it really takes to thrive in the competitive world of writing. Whether you're a budding writer or just curious about the industry, this episode is packed with valuable advice and real-world examples to help you on your journey.

Links mentioned in today’s episode:

Arterial

ArtsvilleUSA

First Friday Exhibitions

Katie Love: Two Tickets to Paradise

NOT REAL ART

NOT REAL ART Podcast

Paul Miloknay on Facebook

Paul Miloknay on Instagram

Paul Miloknay on LinkedIn

Paul Miloknay: Welcome to Hollywood

Remote Video Series

Scott “Sourdough” Power

For more information, please visit https://notrealart.com/paul-miloknay

The Not Real Art podcast is intended for creative audiences only. The Not Real Art podcast celebrates creativity and creative culture worldwide.

It contains material that is fresh, fun and inspiring and is not suitable for boring old art snobs. Now let's get started and enjoy the show.

Greetings and salutations, my creative brothers and sisters. Welcome to Not Real Art, the podcast where we talk to the world's most creative people. I am your host.

Faithful, trusty, loyal, tireless, relentless host. Sourdough coming at you from Crew West Studio in Los Angeles. Man, do we have an incredible show for you today.

We have the one and only Paul McLachnay, lawyer turned author who just dropped.

His book, welcome to Hollywood, a survival.

Guide for aspiring writers. And if you aspire to write that movie script or TV show and sell it here in Hollywood, you've got to read this book.

And so today Paul's come on to talk to me about it. But before we get into this, I want to thank you for tuning in. I want to of course say how much we appreciate your loyalty because if.

It wasn't for you, well, then I'd.

Just be talking into a microphone and.

That would be sad.

So thank you for showing up and of course I want to thank our sponsor, Arturial. Arturial is a 501c3 arts organization who sponsors this show and which allows you to make tax deductible donation to support this programming.

You can choose to support us by going to notrealart.com making a donation there or go to Arturial's website arterial.org and make a donation there. $1 $100. A million dollars. Please consider it all. Every little bit helps. Thank you so much.

Also of course, as always want to encourage you to go to our website not realart.com and check out all the good healthy stuff we got for you there. It's nutritious, it's free range, it's organic, it's gluten free. It's amazing stories and material dedicated to the arts.

You're going to discover incredible artists, incredible artworks. You're going to check out the online gallery exhibition that we do every month called First Fridays. Incredible artists and artwork there.

By all means check out Remote, the exclusive series with the one and only Badir McCleary and much, much more. So please go to notrelart.com and check it out. Okay? Man, I am so grateful Paul's on the show today. Busy guy and. But he dropped this book.

Managed to find time to write a book by the way. And I'm so impressed with the book. Can't wait to get into this. You're going to love this conversation.

Paul McLocny is an attorney specializing in entertainment law with a background in commercial litigation. He completed his underground studies in English and film at Yale before attending UCLA law school.

After briefly working as a commercial litigator and trial lawyer, he shifted his focus to entertainment law, a field where he has excelled. For over 20 years.

Paul has successfully represented a diverse range of clients including prominent writers, directors, actors and influencers, as well as many emerging talents.

He is a well respected voice in.

The entertainment industry for his insightful legal guidance and dedication to his client's success. I happen to be a client. We happen to be a client of Paul.

As you know, my company, we're in.

The media entertainment game with the dedication of the arts.

And so we've had several kind of projects over the years, TV and movie related projects that Paul's helped us get our contracts and agreements together. So Paul's just one of the good guys and I'm just so grateful to not just call him my attorney, but my friend.

And I'm just so grateful he's on the show today. This new book that he's dropped, welcome to Hollywood is fantastic. Welcome to Hollywood is a survival guide for aspiring writers.

It is the essential handbook for writers beginning their journey in the entertainment industry without representation.

His book, this comprehensive guide dives into the pitfalls that many new writers face, such as underestimating the competition, failing to secure written agreements, and partnering with the wrong collaborators. It then shifts to best practices that protect your work and foster valuable industry relationships.

I tell you what, this book's great. You got to get it.

Go to Amazon.com to get your copy today. And so, without further ado, let's get into this great conversation I had today with the one and only Paul Molochne.

Paul Molocna, welcome to Not Real Art.

Good to be here.

Scott, man, I am so grateful that you took time out of your busy schedule to come on. I mean, you know, you're, you're an entertainment attorney in Hollywood. You have so many busy clients, many projects, and yet here you are with us.

I'm very grateful.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

So we're here today to celebrate not just and learn about you and your work and your career, but the new book that you've come out with. Welcome to Hollywood A survival guide for aspiring writers. What a gift this is to young aspiring emerging writers.

Uh, it's sort of all in here, cover to cover. It feels like you have pulled the veil back and. And sort of revealed the unvarnished truth.

Well, yeah, I was, you know, it. The idea originated because I work with a lot of younger writers who, you know, they're at the very outset of their careers.

And what I found is almost all of them came to me with problems. Problems that could have been avoided if they, well, had read my book or consulted with an entertainment attorney.

Yeah, you know, they just mistakes like, you know, partnering up with the wrong people, you know, not getting things in writing. You know, not protecting your work. You know, getting bamboozled into, like, giving your work away for free. You know, things like that. And the.

The one I see the most often is where a writer's written something and either they had a writing partner who's now estranged, or they gave shopping rights to a producer who won't go away and could prevent you from ever selling your project. So I saw so much of that that I thought, okay, I'm going to write this thing.

And, you know, hopefully some people will avoid the heartache that goes along with having your project killed.

Yeah, well, you know, one of the things that I loved about the book is that it's so easy to read. I mean, you know, you would.

I can imagine that, you know, a lot of people might think, oh, boy, here's a book written by an entertainment attorney in Hollywood. It's probably going to be heady and technical and maybe hard to comprehend, but in fact, you use dialogue and easy.

It's almost like you're writing a story in many ways.

You're using dialogue and using, you know, sort of, you know, characters and, you know, using sort of these situational premises to, you know, bring these kind of problems and solutions to life. And I just found the book a really enjoyable, easy to read, yet hugely informative book. I mean, kudos.

Well, thank you. Yeah. And I, you know, I really set out to do something pithy and fun, and, you know, I think I succeeded. I don't think there's a lot of filler there.

I just sort of lay out, you know, this is what you can expect at this point in your career. And so thank you that I appreciate you recognizing that. Cause that was something I was really going for.

When did you start the book?

You know, it's funny, I started it probably a couple years before COVID I measure everything by Covid now. But I wrote maybe half of it and put it down. I can't even remember why.

But then during COVID sort of towards the end, I picked it up again and was like, gee, I should probably finish this. So actual writing time. And I would work on it every day. I would say six months to a year with, mind you, with a huge gap in the middle.

And yeah, so yeah, I followed some of my own advice about consistent work. I think probably the most important takeaway from the book is that you have to every day, you know, consistently just move your career forward.

Whether it's by writing pages or networking or, you know, combination of the above. But yeah, every day.

Every day. And you know, writing is rewriting. How many, I mean, to what extent did you have to, you know, edit and rewrite?

Did you have an editor that you worked with? I mean, how, what was that process like for you?

Let's see, I went through a bunch of drafts myself and then showed it to some friends and got their feedback and, and then when I thought it was like as ready as I was going to get it, I gave it to a book editor and they went through it and they were able to spot areas where I was either repetitive or unclear or things like that, you know, and suggestions for structure. And so that process took, I don't know, about a month.

Yeah, I sort of, you know, in terms of publishing a book, I sort of learned as I went, but it's actually as much work as writing the book I found.

Well, yeah, I mean, one of the things that I love about your book and the project and, and as you approached it is that you really leaned into our modern age of, of sort of, you know, digital tools and innovation in the publishing space. Because as I understand it, right, you, you, you, yes, you wrote the book, but you also published it independently. Yes. So yes.

Yeah, so talk about that process because I know that, I mean that is a very new, I mean, you know, self published books isn't new, but the cost has gone down hugely. So I think the trend of independent self publishing has gone way up because the barriers to entry have gone down.

Right.

And like, here's the thing, you know, a book like mine is, is pretty niche and you know, I don't expect it to have, you know, I'm not going to sell a million copies of it. The big publishers are really good for bestselling authors. You know, they put a lot of promotion behind, behind their books and, and so forth.

For a book like mine, they don't really do that. So you know, you have to market self.

So working off of that premise, I was like, well, I might as well self publish because first of all I keep more of the money and, and you know, there's so many resources online now to teach you how to publish a book to, you know, I mean my book editor I found on Upwork, you know, and same with my book designer and cover designer. But there's, you know, all kinds of websites explaining the process.

And so once the book was ready for publication, you know, and actually the longest of the whole process was getting the COVID right.

Sure. And you got it right. I love the COVID It is just iconic and classic and really celebrates, you know, dare I say old Hollywood.

So the glamorous aspects of Hollywood. It's fantastic.

Thank you. Yeah, it was sort of inspired by those vintage postcards, you know, like, you know, greetings from California or.

Right.

You know, things like that. So. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad you like it. Yeah, people seem to like it anyway.

Yeah. So finding those resources via websites like upwork, graphic designers, you know, maybe layout designing, layout folks, whatever, that's one thing.

But then, you know, and a lot of people would think that writing the book is the heaviest lift.

And it is, of course, but you being a subject matter expert, you know, clearly, you know, certainly that lift wasn't maybe as heavy as somebody that is just, you know, sort of researching a topic brand new and you know, obviously you hired out to other subject matter experts to design the COVID and lay the book out, that kind of thing. But then you had to bring it into and I think you self published via Amazon and their services. If I, if I remember right actually.

What was that experience like? Talk a little bit about once the book is done, how did you get it into the marketplace?

Okay, well, there are businesses out there called aggregators and they're kind of the equivalent of a publisher for self published books. And so I work with one called IngramSpark and basically it's very easy.

You upload your manuscript and your cover and you know, there are very specific specifications as to, you know, size and dimensions and things like that.

But you send those to you and they send those and then they get the book in Amazon, in Barnes and Noble, in book Soup, in schools, in libraries and you know, things like that. So it's sort of one stop shopping for getting it out there. Doing it on Amazon yourself is pretty easy.

You know, it's, it's actually even easier than signing up with IngramSpark.

I've never, so I've, it's interesting, the book aggregators I've heard of baby is one Ingram and then Amazon. Did you look at other book aggregators? Why did you end up going with Ingram vs. Bookbaby or any of the.

Other aggregators, it seemed to have the best reputation for quality. And of all the ones I looked at, it seemed to have the farthest reach, extensive kind of outlets. You know, they also do it internationally.

So they, I mean, they've been around forever, right? I mean, in terms of like traditional publishing. And so they have that kind of credibility and that legacy.

And that certainly probably was a net positive right to be able to work with them in many ways. So. But of course, you know, there's many upsides to self publishing and you know, but of course there's downsides and costs.

Perhaps one of the downsides and costs is that now being an independent self publisher, it's sort of up to you then to market and promote your book. Which is, you know, what brings you here today? You know, we're here to celebrate and promote your book. How are you approaching your.

Obviously podcast is one way, but how, how's your marketing and promotion? What's your strategy around getting the book out there?

There's a few things I'm doing. It's a great question.

And the thing about sort of going back to what I was saying about traditional publishers is they don't put any marketing into a book like mine. So you having to do it yourself, you know, as I was saying, you know, you might as well if you're going to have to market it anyway.

But my approach, you know, the first thing obviously was social media and I hired someone to, you know, create and do all my social media posts and she's been doing a pretty good job. I get a lot of compliments about, about the material she puts up there.

And sort of in that connection, just last weekend I shot 13 like 30 second spots to, you know, post on Instagram and, and also LinkedIn. Been having a lot of success through LinkedIn, which kind of surprised me. But my social media person said, oh yeah, that's a good place.

And so that worked out well. I'm not on TikTok, which I need to talk to my person about, because it seems like I should be.

And I think with the videos I'll start posting them on YouTube as well. So that's sort of the social media aspects of it. And then I'm also doing podcasts like this one and sort of getting out there to a broader audience.

And then I go and speak, you know, film school classes and things like that. And book signings. I did one at Book Soup a few weeks ago and planning on doing one at Barnes and Noble this Month or so.

Yeah. Great. Well, you obviously have the credibility of writing this book because you've been in the game for, you know, many years. You've done.

You've done many, you've done. I'll leave it to you to say how many years? I'll go with at least 10.

That's kind.

Maybe 15. But you've been in the game.

I just turned 35.

Yeah, right, right, exactly. Exactly. Well, I think the cool kids these days say a minute. You've been in the game for at least a minute.

And, and so lots of experience, lots of, you know, real world examples that you could bring to the book. And of course, in all candor and transparency to our audience. You and I have worked together.

You are, in fact, my attorney when it comes to entertainment projects that we might be developing and producing ourselves here at Crew West Studio. And so we met through mutual friends. And you've been an incredible resource to me and just so helpful.

Not just a great attorney and thought partner, but you've become a great friend. And so I'm just so thrilled, you know, that you've got this book.

And I thought it would just be fun to talk a little bit about what's in the book vis a vis some of the experiences that you and I have had together. Right. So over the years, you know, I call you up and I say, paul got this great idea for a project. You know, I've got these good. These great artists.

They've developed this comic book series. And, you know, I want to option and I want to.

I want to try to sell it into Hollywood because I think it'd make a great animation and Cartoon Network would just love it, you know, and I want to do a deal with these guys. What do you think? And I'm thinking of one particular time you suggested that we come up with a collaboration agreement.

You said, scott, we need to put a collaboration agreement in place. And you explain to me why a collaboration agreement made sense at that time. And this is all in the book, of course.

Maybe not my particular story, but you talk about collaboration agreements. So just putting you on the spot for a second right now.

Talk a little bit about what a collaboration agreement is and when it's appropriate and why a person should put a collaboration agreement in place.

Well, collaboration agreement is, you know, as the name suggests, you know, two or more people come together to usually, you know, develop and shop a project and try and sell it into the market. In that sense, it's pretty straightforward. The threshold question.

I get into this in my book Numerous times, I think, is to make sure that you're partnering with someone reliable that you trust, that you can get along with, that shares your vision and things like that, you know, because collaborating with the wrong partner, usually it'll just cause your project to stall or die on the vine. And so, you know, key thing is picking a good collaborator.

And then once you agree on that, decide to work together, there's a few things, you know, the agreement has to have. Obviously you need to identify the parties and the project.

And then the next thing is you have to really delineate who's doing what, how the mechanics of how the collaboration works. You know, sometimes, you know, it could be two writers writing a script together. Together.

In that case, the division of labor probably should be pretty much equal. It could be two producers working together.

And you know, in that case, each of them might have different relationships or experiences to bring to the party. And then you sort of have to decide, you know, again, who's doing what.

You know, the next thing is if you set the project up together, then, you know, the next step is to make a deal with the buyer, the studio, whoever it happens to be. So again, usually it's a 50, 50 propos.

Sometimes if the two parties have, you know, maybe vastly different skill sets, you might each negotiate your own deal.

You know, and sometimes like the more established player might want to do that because they've got, you know, quotes that support a higher fee than if they went in as a team.

So, you know, all of that needs to get figured out, whether you're going to leave it to negotiation, whether you're going to agree to what the split is.

Now, my advice is always to agree on these things as early as possible because once there's like money on the table or an opportunity, everyone starts to get forgetful and greedy and imagine that. And then it's nearly impossible to work something out at that point.

Right, right. You know, it's interesting, you talk about getting in business with the wrong partner.

A project you and I worked worked on a while back, which, you know, I will not mention the name of it and it didn't end up going anywhere. As you will remember, it was a music documentary project, goes back many. It ended up not going anywhere.

Not because the people involved weren't well meaning and weren't good people. We actually, I felt like, had too many cooks in the kitchen. We ended up having too many people involved, too many producers.

And it felt like, you know, it bogged down because, you know, we just simply had too many people and so it's interesting because yeah, you could have the wrong partner, but you could also have too many partners. And it feels like you just end up getting. Going nowhere.

And then when in that instance, you need to figure out and that actually this goes for even the two person collaboration agreement. But if it's like five people, you have to figure out a mechanism for decision making. You know, who gets consulted with.

You know, is it a, if it's five people, is it a majority vote? Does one ha person have final say? You know, it depends on the relative experience and positions of the parties.

But, you know, it could be any of those things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, one of the things that I hear a lot about, and I know you do certainly because I work with artists all the time, you know, primarily visual artists. You work with artists or writers and actors and producers and things.

But you know, I feel like I hear time and time again, it's like, well, you know, I have this idea, but I don't want to tell you about it because you might steal it. You know, I don't want to tell anybody about it because they might steal it. You know, and by the way, that happens.

Happens all the time.

It happens all the time. It's happened to me. What can someone do in Hollywood when they have a great idea for a TV show or a movie?

What can they do to protect their work so that they can feel safe about people stealing it or not stealing it?

Well, first of all, ideas are not protectable. You can't get a copyright or a trademark on an idea.

Yes.

So the first thing you need to do is put it in writing. You know, write out your idea in as much detail as possible.

And then if you want to meet with someone, there's two things you can do and maybe you should do both. One would be to get them to sign a non disclosure agreement NDA. In my experience, almost nobody will agree to sign one of those.

That's my experience too.

You know, if you can get one, great, but usually they're offended. So the other approach is if you, if you share your idea with them, follow up by sending that idea in an email to the person you just spoke with.

And now you've got a written record of what your idea is and when you submitted it.

So that's sort of easy to do. Anybody can do that. What about registering a project with the Writers Guild or copywriting with the copyright office?

You know what, talk about those avenues and the relative pros and cons.

Okay. Well, most people only register Their scripts with the WGA, it's very inexpensive. I think it's 20 or $25, and very easy.

You just basically fill out a form and upload your script, and it's done. The only thing that a WGA registration does is establish a date of authorship.

So if someone comes along, copies your idea, you can prove you came up with it first. Beyond that, you know, that's basically it. I mean, that's not.

Which, by the way, to your point about the email, the email would do that if you had sent the email to somebody. Right. That effectively and practically does the same thing.

Yeah.

And you save 30 bucks or whatever it is.

Right. So anyway. Yeah. So by and large, most people only register with the wga, which is fine.

But if you register with the US Copyright Office, not only does it establish a date of authorship, but it entitles you to. If you.

If you have to sue someone for infringement, it entitles you to attorney's fees and statutory damages, which if you don't have any actual damages, which is very possible for an unsold script, you know, you could still collect damages from the infringer. So that's the. The. You know, I think it costs about 70, $75 to do a copyright registration. It's a little more complicated than a WGA registration.

But you could do it yourself. It's not. It's not brain surgery.

Right. And you could do it online and all of that.

Right.

But talk about, you know. Cause I. I've heard a lot of people over the years, and you even mentioned in the book, you know, this.

I don't think you refer to it this way in the book, but I've heard it referred to as the poor man's copyright. There's this idea that, oh, if I put this in an envelope and I mail it to myself, and I don't. And I don't open the envelope, that.

That's somehow admissible in court as legitimate proof that I own this idea, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Settle this myth once and for all. True or false.

Okay. People have done it. It's called poor man's copyright, and I do not recommend it ever.

Got it. You heard it here, people.

I mean, it's evidence of the, you know, date of authorship, but it's very impeachable.

Like, what if someone just steamed the envelope open and then slapped the script in and, you know, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to corrupt that approach. So. Yeah. Never, ever.

Right. Well. And that. I think that approach even predates email Right, like that. That goes back decades.

So let's just say that forever. Yeah, it's a real thing.

But, you know, people do steal ideas. It happens all the time, you know, and people should protect.

You know, I tell artists all the time, you know, on the visual arts side, that, you know, you shouldn't ever really consider the artwork done and completed and finished until you have copywritten it or protected it. Make that part of your practice.

Yeah, it should be the first thing you do when you complete a work. Very first thing.

Right, right. Yeah. No, that's great.

So, building on this idea of like real world examples as we chat about it, I have a new project that I'm going to tell you about now. And as my lawyer, we can talk about it again off later in a. In a more, you know, less public way on.

On the clock. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. When you can build billable hours. And so.

So let's talk a little bit about this because this is an interesting case study, maybe for our listeners. Right.

So, as you very well know, my company, Crewest Studio, that produces this podcast, Not Real Art, we exist to help artists tell their stories and promote their work, and which is why you're here. As far as I'm concerned, you're an artist and we're promoting your work here today.

And we help artists tell their stories and promote their work in any number of ways. Obviously, through podcasting, we develop TV shows and documentaries and movies, we do events, we do books and blogs and.

But everything, the through line through it all is really this idea that it helps artists tell their stories and promote their work. So a couple years ago, we published our first book. It was actually a memoir of a LA comic, a woman called Katie Love. And I read here her memoir.

And it was so gripping and compelling and so moving that I wanted. And I felt it was an important story to get out into the world. And so we should publish it because it really aligned with our mission. And we did.

We published it. And it's out in the world and people can buy it on Amazon.com and please do two tickets to paradise by Katie Love.

And the reason I wanted to publish the book, ultimately, there was really two couple reasons. One reason, number one, was that I thought it was an important story that needed to be out in the world, and that was number one.

Number two, I felt like there was a movie in it and, you know, I did not. My desire in publishing, it wasn't even monetary really, because I, you know, making money, real money in books is difficult at best.

Especially today. You know, I don't have to tell.

You, not going to retire yet.

Yeah, right. Thank goodness. We love what we do. Right. There's compensation in that. Right.

And, but, but again, when I published it and it came out two years ago, I thought, ok, okay, we're going to publish it and then I'm going to go out into the world. And so. So that was the initial thought.

Long story short, not the least of which, you know, so much has changed in the business over the last several years. You know, it's always been difficult at best to sell a project, even in the best of times.

And you know, some would argue that Hollywood is reeling in many ways right now and it is a difficult time to get anything made, let alone find money for a project. Good luck getting that option. Right. So.

So recently, and this is news to you as my attorney, I have decided that Crew West Studio would actually develop the script in aim to produce the movie independently. Right. So we've published this book. Right. We have the right to option the book, but now we're going to option it to ourselves, I guess.

Now we're going to develop it into a script and we're going to finance the development of the script. And so here we are. I need to put an agreement in place with our author, Katie Love.

I need to find a writer and do a deal with a writer to take the book and adapt the book into a screenplay. Right.

You should prepare a deck.

Prepare.

Okay. As a selling tool.

Great, great. So take me through, you know, as my, as an expert, as the author of this book.

Welcome to Hollywood imagining I'm a, a new guy on the scene here, obviously, as my attorney, as the author of this book, tell me what I need to be doing and what I need to think of vis a vis the author, Katie Love, vis a vis this writer that I haven't found yet, et cetera.

Well, first question, who owns the copyright to the book? Usually the author retains the copyright, but.

Yes, yes, Katie Love has the copyright. Yes.

Okay, so then the first thing you need to do is get control of the book rights. And you can do that either with an option agreement.

Agreement where you would pay some money up front for, you know, the right to develop and shop the project for, you know, a fixed period of time. Or you can enter into, you know, what's called a shopping or attachment agreement, which gives you the.

It's kind of like an option except no money changes hands. It gives you the ability on an exclusive basis to, you know, shop the project and try to Sell it.

And, you know, and, and if you set it up, you know, you and the author would both negotiate your deal with the buyer, whether it's a studio or a network or, you know, distributor, you know, so that's how a shopping agreement works.

Usually they're shorter in duration, but, you know, you can make them as long as you want, as long as they'll agree to, you know, the option agreement differs in the sense that, like I said, there's an upfront option. Payment could be as little as a dollar, could be ten thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars. I've seen on, like, bestsellers.

And all the other terms are worked out in advance. So the purchase price for the book, share of profits, possible bonuses, credit, and, you know, various other terms. So those are your two options.

And I think ideally you want to option it rather than do a shopping agreement because it gives you actual control over the material and it puts you in a better position with buyers. So. But sometimes, you know, if you can't get.

If you don't have the resources, you don't have the money, you know, then a shopping agreement's a good alternative.

So, okay, so if I'm essentially, you know, if I'm. If again, I'm a neophyte here, obviously. I'm just trying to make sure that I'm tracking.

So if my company, Cruise Studio, published the book, essentially, I'm maybe I'm optioning it to my own company. Is that. So I'm optioning it to myself. Or do we already have the option as publisher?

Again, I would have to look at the agreement between you and the author. But as I was saying before, usually the author owns the whole copyright and the publishing agreement is basically a license to publish.

That's right. She does own the copyright. So. Okay, so she would then option it to us, I guess, right?

Yeah. You're not optioning it to yourself.

Right. She's optioning it to us. Got it. Okay. Okay, so then. Okay, so. So she's. So we've worked out a deal.

Let's imagine, people, let's imagine that we've done this deal, that Katie Love has optioned the book to us, her publisher, and now we're going to develop the script, adapt the book, find a writer to adapt the book into a screenplay. So my company, crew, West Studio is now gonn go out and try to find a writer. And let's imagine that next week we find the most amazing writer.

You know, we love them. They love the book. And now, Paul, I'm calling you to say Paul, we found this writer.

We've got to work out a deal with this writer to adapt this book into a screenplay.

What does an agreement like that look like between a company like Minecruest Studio and this, you know, so called freelance writer that is probably part of the writers community?

Well, that's, it's good you brought that up, you know, because that's sort of a threshold question. Is the writer a member of the WGA or not? If it's, if they're not, it's easy. Just make whatever deal you want to make.

Or you can get everyone to agree on if they're wga, then WGA member writers can only work for WGA signatory companies. And so you would have to either become a WGA signatory or create a new entity, which is what most companies do. That's the regime signatory company.

And once you've sort of gotten past that issue, then it's, it's pretty straightforward. Not as complicated as an option agreement.

Basically you're going to outline what services the writer's performing, you know, like first draft, rewrite, revision, polish, whatever it happens to be, and then how much they get paid for each of those steps. Usually in a deal like that, they'll get a share of the profits. They may get bonuses. There's many different flavors of bonuses.

There's box office bonuses based on the actual performance performance of the movie in theaters. There's award bonuses, there are credit bonuses, production bonuses, last writer bonuses, green light bonuses.

There are all kinds of additional monies you can ask for in a deal like that. And then the rest, you know, is sort of follows the same credits. The right to write sequels and remakes and television spinoffs and things like that.

Those are the main terms, you know, that'll come up in a deal like that. That.

So it really sounds like to make my life as easy as possible, I need to go with a non union writer.

You can't.

I mean, I have the pros and cons of that. I mean, what are the pros and cons of working with a non union writer?

The only con is that they may not be very experienced, but if they're good, then, you know, there's no downside. It's all upside. It's. You'll save a ton of money.

You have a lot of flexibility on credits and you know, so yeah, as a producer, if you can go non guild, you know, that's the way to go. And there are plenty of extremely talented non guild writers out there.

Right, Right, right. Well, certainly you Know, and how does, how does, just for our listeners sake, I mean, how does a writer become a union?

How does an independent non union writer become a member of the guild? I mean what, what credits do they need to become a member of the union?

Well, the WGA has a point system and I believe you need to accrue. I think it's 24 points to become a member. And they have a schedule of how many points are allocated. Like, you know, a Full screenplay is 24 points.

A rewrite is. I can't remember, I'm making this up, but excuse me, 12 points. Yeah, you know, and so on, so forth. The television pilot is I think 12 points.

And so you need to sell a couple of things, generally speaking to become a member.

Got it.

So be out there, you know, working, getting, getting lucky, getting hired, selling some things, accruing points and you know, maybe in a few years you have what it takes to become a union writer. But, but to your point, so many, so much great talent out there, that is not union. And you know, we're, we're an independent shop.

We, we want an independent movie and we're happy to work with, with independent writers, you know, as long as they've, you know, believe in the project and have the chops to, to write a fantastic script.

Yeah, I think a good place to look would be management companies that have a reputation for breaking new talent because a lot of them have really good eye and generally those people early in their careers are not guild members. And so that I think that'd be some fertile ground.

Yeah, well, part of, part of the reason, you know, I decided to do this is of course the state of the industry right now. I mean, it, it. And you're in it deep.

I mean, I'm sort of, you know, affiliated and associated and have some awareness, but I ultimately, I'm an independent outsider looking in and, and yet it just seems like on so many levels, you know, there's just so much, just so much disruption right now and consolidation and risk aversion and, and you know, all kinds of things that, you know, the industry is reeling and contracting in many ways. And you know, we've just decided, well, you know what, like let's take matters into our own hands.

You know, the Oscar best picture this year was an independent film. You know, it feels like many, well, many movies were recognized, independent projects were recognized this year.

So as a lawyer, as an entertainment lawyer in the business who of course feels these contractions, these ebbs and flows, you know, in a real way, what is Your assessment of the state of the industry right now?

Well, you're right.

There's been, you know, since the starting with COVID and definitely since the actors and writers strikes, there's been a massive contraction of the business. I think during the strike, all the studios took a step back and took a look at their business models and made some radical changes.

The television business right now is in a terrible state. After the strikes, there were talking to agents.

There were anywhere from 40 to 60% fewer jobs for writers in both television and features, which is obviously an obscene amount of jobs.

Part of the problem was one of the things that the writers won during the strike was that there would be a minimum, minimum writer's room size on shows. You know, historically, like a sitcom used to have, could have like 15 or 20 writers on it, but the, the minimum they agreed on is three writers.

And very quickly the, the floor became the ceiling. And so you have a bunch of shows with only three writers on them, and everyone else has been excluded.

So that kind of backfired on the guild, in my opinion.

But, you know, the feature business, you know, the studios are making less movies, and they're only making movies based on big IP comic books, superheroes, bestselling novels, remakes, sequels, adaptations of TV shows, you know, things like that. Very specific, specific product, and everything else is getting made independently for the most part.

But this year, you know, it seemed like everyone hit the ground running and it's been very busy on the feature side.

Well, in a textbook kind of way. How do you define an independent movie versus, shall I say, corporate movie?

Really the main difference is in how they get financed. You know, the studios are basically acting as banks and, you know, so they fully finance their projects.

Independent, you know, you have to go around and beat the bushes for money, you know, and it could be, it could be another entertainment company that has a fund or, you know, has financial backing. It could be, you know, you know, wealthy individuals, family offices, things like that.

You know, it's big function of independent producer is digging up money, you know, and sometimes, you know, that's usually hard to do just on an idea.

Usually you're going to need a script and probably, you know, attachments, like a director, lead actor, things like that, that make the project sellable.

Well, speaking of sellable projects, what projects, to the extent that you can share, what projects are you affiliated with? Right now that you're excited about.

Oh, that's a good question. I'm working on.

Besides your book, that is.

I'm working on a couple things as a producer that I'm excited about. One is a biopic about the Delta blues musician Robert Johnson.

Nice. And I heard he did a deal with the devil.

That's. That's part of the legend.

Yes.

He had this dream of becoming the greatest bluesman ever. And when he started out, he sucked. Couldn't sing, couldn't play the other blues. Men were like, man, you gotta stop that. You're making people mad.

People are mad at you. You're so.

And while this is all happening, you know, his first wife dies in childbirth and he loses his child as well. And so his life is sort of peppered with tragedy like that. But sort of in his despair, he goes to the crossroads of Highway 66 and.

Wasn't at Highway 666.

There is a Highway 666. But anyway, that's. He goes to the crossroads.

Yeah, yeah.

Which there have been several songs written about. And he makes a deal with the devil. And after that, he's a virtuoso player and singer. Develops a huge following.

The ladies love him, you know, like, the men are all jealous, you know, but he gets them all, like, riled up. And, you know, in church they're talking about what a scandal it is. So he becomes very popular. He meets another woman who also dies in childbirth.

He loses the child, and he goes back to the devil. And he's like, you know, what is this? You know, he's like, that's what you wish for. You know, like, you got what you asked for. So.

And long story short, he's kind of a philanderer. And he. He's murdered by the husband of one of his flings.

Yeah.

Only recorded one album.

Let's see, was that deal with the devil worth it?

No, people are still talking about him. I mean, he influenced so many music, you know, Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix. Trying to think who I like. Just, you know, every.

I mean, everyone. Every virtuoso, buddy guy. I mean. Yeah, well, so. Well, that sounds like a very cool project. That's awesome that you. That you're.

That you've taken it on. You're involved in this as a producer. I. You know, as an. As an industry veteran. Seasoned interest in industry veteran.

Does that make producing a project like this easier or harder?

Well, I guess I have to say easier because, you know, I. I've. I've seen so much and where things can go wrong and other people's mistakes.

And so, yeah, I think coming in, you know, I mean, there's something to be said for coming in completely ignorant and, you know, just having some bravado. A lot of producers have started their careers that way. Just a little persistent and, you know. And I take it till you make it. Yeah, so.

Yeah, so. So that's. That's one project. Is there another project that you're excited about, that you're involved in, that you can try?

About 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I was at a mixer, like a law thing, you know, and it wasn't really, for me, it wasn't an entertainment thing. It was. I think it was bankruptcy lawyers or something, so Real estate state, something like that.

That sounds like a hoot.

And so, yeah, I'm asking myself, what am I doing here, right? Who am I going to meet? And just as I'm thinking that, this guy comes up to me and goes, hi, I'm Michael. We shake hands. We start, just small talk.

And then I'm finally. I'm like, so, Michael, what do you do? He goes, well, I lecture at San Francisco State University.

And then he goes, but until three months ago, I was serving 26 years in federal prison. And I'm like, excuse me. I look at this guy, and he's clean cut, he's in a suit. He, you know, he looks professional. You know, no tattoos or anything.

I'm like, this guy hasn't spent a day in jail in his life. But I asked him, all right, I'll bite. You know, what would you do? Because, well, I sold cocaine in the 80s during the Reagan administration.

And, like, I mean, selling cocaine is an understatement. He was with his high school buddies running a Miami to Seattle trafficking operation. And.

And then one of his buddies got caught up in Seattle and turned in the whole gang. Michael got prosecuted as the ringleader. They threw the book at him, sentenced him to 45 years. He was able to get out in 26 with good behavior.

But the real story is what he did in prison. He was a high school graduate, you know, after sort of going through all the stages of grief and, you know, contemplating suicide.

He was inspired by two books, the Bible and the life of Socrates. Socrates, in the story goes, he was convicted of teaching commoners, and the penalty was death. He had to drink poison.

And some of, you know, Socrates had a lot of fans in Greece, and some of them approached him and said, we can get you out of here. You know, spare your life if you go into exile. Socrates Was like, no. He's like, I know what I did. I knew the consequences. It was my choice.

I'm going to own what I did, basically. And this really inspired Michael to do the same. And he decided he was going to come out of prison a better man than he went in.

And so he used his time to. Well, he got in phenomenal shape.

First of all, he got his, his bachelor's degree, master's degree, and was studying for a PhD when the prison of the board of the prison he was in basically incited a riot as a pretext for taking away everyone's privileges. And so that sort of ended his formal education.

But he published four books, a couple of which are still like university curriculum on the penal system. There's a great part of it. He's like, the whole time he's trying to prepare for life on the outside, he's like, I'm going to get out.

I know it's 26 years from now, but, you know, I'm going to be ready. And so at one point, you know, and as you go, as you get closer to your release date, they move you into lower security prisons.

So at some point, he's now rubbing elbows with white collar criminals and, you know, stuff like that. And he meets a Russian oligarch who's in doing like two years for fraud or something.

And the oligarch convinces him to review his case because his lawyers want him to pay $100,000 to file a motion. And so Michael takes a look, he pays him $2,000.

Michael takes a look at the file, tells him his lawyers are ripping him off, and like, the motion won't even get heard until he's already out of prison. So he's like, just do your time. I'll do it with you. You know, and so they learn.

He learns to play chess and, you know, and one day he mentions that to the Russian that he turned the $2,000 into $9,000 in the matter of like a couple of months. And he explained, like, he, he sent the money to his sister, told her to open a margin account and buy Yahoo on margin.

Right.

And so the Russians, like, I've been every kind of business, but I've never understood the stock market. It's like, I'll tell you what, I'll give you $100,000 to play with, you know, and Whatever you make will split 50.

50.

Right. And I only ask that you tell me what you're doing and why, so I could learn.

And so he reluctantly takes the deal, and in like nine months, he turns the hundred thousand into a million six. And then the crash came. And so it pulled back a bit, but they still came away with, you know, a decent amount of money.

And so he used that to, you know, well, ended up using it to support his wife. With 11 years left on his sentence, he got married in the prison cafeteria and they're still together. Together.

Amazing.

And yeah, it's a really incredible story and what an inspiring story.

Yeah, yeah, most people would have. Most people would have gone, you know, gotten convicted, gone to prison and just, you know, been lost or worse maybe. Boy, what a.

What a.

What a inspiring character to dig deep and raise himself up.

Well, the whole system is. Is rigged for failure. You know, you've got the. No one in the prison system is trying to rehabilitate you or educate you or anything.

Those resources are there, but, like, it's not encouraged.

Yeah.

And on top of that, you've got the prison population really pressuring you to just sort of fall into prison life, you know, gang life, you know, and so there's, you know, sort of peer pressure, as it were.

Well, it's sort of like it's a for profit industry in this country. Right. So they don't make any money if, if people get out. Right. They want to keep you in, so they keep making money.

So anyway, on that, we're looking for a director and, you know, reaching out to some people and sort of take it from there.

Exciting stuff. Paul Malachna, I am so grateful for you, brother. I'm.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day with all these projects, all this stuff going on to come and talk with us about your book and all the exciting things going on. Where can folks buy your book? I'm guessing a little store called Amazon.com.

Yeah, I mean, Amazon's the easiest. It's also available on Barnes and Noble. You can. And then, you know, for example, I did a reading at Book Soup a few weeks ago.

They have copies and, um. Yeah, but those are the easiest ways to get it. A digital ver version or a print version.

Cool. Yeah. Ebook. Right, right, right. Okay. Groovy, groovy. Can they download it on their Kindles? Is it. Is that via. Is it available on Kindle as well?

Yes, exactly. It's for Kipo.

Okay, good. Well, you heard it here. People go. Go out there. And download the ebook or buy it on Amazon or Book Soup or any Barnes and Noble. Welcome to Hollywood.

A survival guide for aspiring writers. There you go. Amazing cover by the one and only Paul Malachna. Paul, my friend, thank you.

This has been a pleasure.

Pleasure is all ours my friend. Talk to you soon. Cheers. For now, thanks for listening to the Not Real Art podcast.

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