Steve Thomas sent me a question that I could probably answer in one sentence but you know me. I'm going to tell a long story…
Were you ever invited to write for the Oscars? If so, what was it like; if not, have you ever been interested?
Sort of but not really. When I was writing a lot of variety shows, I got two or three invites not to write for the Academy Awards show but to go in and talk to whoever was going to hire the writing staff — to interview for the job, basically. And I never went in. The invites always coincided with when I was not available because of something else I was writing. After a while, I stopped getting those invites.
There are some writers I know — no names — who in this situation would say, "Yeah, they kept coming after me to write the Oscars but I kept turning them down," implying they turned down actual, firm offers. I think it's important to be extremely honest about this kind of thing, not just because it's bad to mislead others but because it's dangerous to mislead yourself.
Now, at some point my agent retired from the business and I haven't really had an agent since. When I get the kind of job that involves negotiations and complex contracts, my lawyer handles that for me. Once in a while since then, I've talked with agents about representation but I've never met one I really "clicked" with.
One day, I got a call asking me to come in and meet with a rather important producer who was about to undertake what would be his first animated movie. Someone had recommended he talk to me and so with no advance knowledge of what the movie was, I went to his office in a big motion picture studio office building. We made the usual small talk and we got along well…and then he told me what the project is. They wanted to do an animated feature about Barbie. The doll.
I thought about it for two seconds and then I set some sort of world's record for talking yourself out of a job. I said, "Really? Don't you want to have it written by some lady who played with Barbie dolls when she was younger and loved them?"
And this producer thought for two seconds and said, "Hmm…maybe I do."
So suddenly there was no job there for Mark. I gave him the names of a couple of very good writers I knew who fit what I'd described and as far as I know, he never called any of them. Nor did he ever make an animated Barbie anything. Deals fall through all the time in this business and I guess that happened here. Not the least bit unusual.
But getting back to that meeting: He now had forty minutes or so until his next meeting and I think he felt bad about ending ours so abruptly after I'd schlepped all the way in. So we sat and talked, mostly about movies he'd produced which I'd liked. There were several posters on his office wall plus one for the most recent Academy Awards ceremony for which he'd also been a producer. I thought it was one of the better ones in recent memory and I told him so.
We talked for a while about what I'd liked about it and what I hadn't liked about it and he told me some things he hadn't liked about it. We must have discussed past Oscar telecasts for fifteen minutes when he said, "They've asked me to produce the one for next year and I'm thinking about it. Depending on how some of my other projects shake down in the next few weeks, I may or may not do it. If I do, could I hire you as one of the writers?" I told him he could and we left it at that.
A week or three later, he called me to say he was turning down the Oscars but that he'd given my name to…someone…with the recommendation that I have my agent give them a call. That was very nice of him. The trouble was I didn't have an agent. I also didn't know who "them" was to have somebody call. My lawyer said he'd make the call if I could figure out to whom it should be placed.
I called the Motion Picture Academy and…well, that's now a real smart, efficient organization but at the time, if you'd called up and asked them for their address, I'm not sure anyone there would have been able to tell you. I couldn't find anyone to tell me who was in charge of the upcoming Academy Awards telecast. It had not yet been announced.
I went back to my lawyer and he said, "You really do need an agent not just for this but for everything. I know a number of them. I'm going to set up some appointments for you to meet some of the best ones" and fortunately, I had one of those rare attorneys who always does what he says he's going to do. Within a few days, I had three appointments with three (apparently) very good agents.
It had been a few years since I'd talked to any agents about representation and I guess the ground rules had shifted a bit. They were all enthused about representing not only me but comic book properties I'd worked on like Groo, The DNAgents, Space Circus and Crossfire. Each of those agents told me how we'd sell some network on a package: me and him as Executive Producers, me as showrunner, his agency representing the whole thing…
"And taking a packaging fee on the whole project?" I asked.
To which each agent answered with some version of "Well, of course. That's how it's done these days,"
I asked each agent, "Are you interested in representing me as a writer?" I told them about the Academy Awards thing and asked, "Would you track down the right person to submit me to and make that call?"
One of them said, "Why would I do that?" The other two said, "Mark, this agency doesn't do those kinds of deals."
And that's pretty much the end of this story. No one ever called to try and get me a job on the Academy Awards and I only talked with one other agent since about representation. He wanted me but the folks above him wouldn't take me in because one of their *star* clients wanted the movie rights to one of the properties mentioned above and I wouldn't/couldn't let him have them. I seem to get along fine these days without an agent. And without working on the Academy Awards…which I no longer would be willing to watch, let alone work on.
