Typed by hand and revised by Biagio. It may differ slightly from the recording.
Announcer: Welcome to Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
Angry Man: Is this some kind of joke?
Confused Woman: Biagio-WHO???
Announcer: This episode…
Biagio: It’s episode 12. This week, three tips to break in to Hollywood and stay there. What beer and cookies has to do with it and what you could do that will make me wish you just got hit by a car.
Announcer: Music courtesy of Dave Pelman Music, davepelman.com
Biagio: Hey everybody! She’s Joke.
Joke: He’s Biagio.
Biagio: We’re married; we make unscripted film and television and we want to help you do the same, hopefully, by teaming up with us.
Well, welcome to episode 12. That’s right; as we record this to you we are just three days away from being done with our super long super-secret shoot that we still can’t tell you about, right Joke?
Joke: Correct!
Biagio: That’s right. We’re still a little slap happy, but we’re excited to be bringing you episode twelve. So Joke, why don’t you talk a little bit about what the subject of this week’s episode is because this one is near and dear to your heart.
Joke: Well, it’s near and dear to both of our hearts.
Biagio: Well, that’s true.
Joke: This week, we’re focusing on three things to do that get your foot into the Hollywood door and…you get to stay there.
Biagio: Well said, Joke! Well said! Because let’s face it, a lot of people are trying to break in to Hollywood. They’re kind of obnoxious.
Joke: Okay, let’s start with point number one because here’s the thing, anyone could barge in to Hollywood but they’re usually not very welcomed or don’t get to stay long, they usually get evicted. Sometimes when you’re from the outside looking in it’s like, how do you get in? And you see people getting a little special drive-on pass to the lot, or they know someone who knows someone and you’re stuck on the outside.
So here are three things you should do to not only get into Hollywood but to be allowed to stay there.
Biagio: That’s right. What’s number one?
Joke: Number one is a polite but persistent knock at the door.
Biagio: Polite persistence.
Joke: Yes, it’s very important that you come a’ knocking and you go knocking on many a’ doors. If Hollywood is a gated community there is more than one entrance, so you should go knocking on the different doors. And when I say politely persistent it means we’re not banging down the door, you’re not blowing out firecrackers. I probably wouldn’t be standing outside with a boom box over your head.
Just be professional, but stay persistent because a lot of us get really busy and sometimes it’s about being at the right time at the right place so that’s where the persistence comes in. And if you’re polite, people will never get mad at you for being persistent—as long as you’re polite.
Biagio: Listen, this really goes for reaching out to people whether via phone call, via fax, via e-mail, I’m just going to say I got a tweet a couple of weeks ago, and I’m just going to be honest it just pissed me off. Someone was like, “I’m super upset with you because I e-mailed you and I never heard back from you.” Now we’re really honest that sometimes it’s going to take us a few weeks or even a month to reply to e-mails because we do make television full-time for a living. We want to do this because we want to give back, we want to help, and we want to find potential partners but you know, sometimes it takes a minute or two. That is not polite persistence that’s just being obnoxious and annoying.
Polite persistence would have been a tweet along the lines of, “Hey, I know you guys are really busy, sent you an e-mail hope to hear from you soon, just following up,” to which we would be like, “Oh good! That person is being politely persistent.” And that is perfectly acceptable. Tweeting me out that you’re pissed at me is not going to make me want to work with you, it’s just going to make me think that you’re obnoxious, annoying and have no common sense.
Joke: Did Biagio mention that he’s a little slap happy?
Biagio: I am a little, I got no filter today people. I got no filter. I just came off of a very long day at set and it’s late. So there we have it.
Joke: Okay, number two!
Biagio: Number two.
Joke: Be nice to the gate keepers.
Biagio: Yes! Be nice to the gate keepers. And who are the gate keepers, Joke?
Joke: They could be anyone from the assistants answering the phones, the receptionists at the front desk, or the security guards at the entrance to the lot. I’m telling you these people get, pardon my French, pooped on every day, and if someone nice comes along, it goes a long way. When we started out in this business, we no-joke would come in with cookies and beer and hand them to the receptionist, to the assistants. Sometimes I think we actually gave some beer to the people we were actually meeting with. But really we were bribing assistants and receptionists because the truth of the matter is the assistants of today are the bosses of tomorrow.
Biagio: And the assistants of today decide who gets to meet with their bosses today. Who do you think they’re going to put in there to sit down with their boss when you’re trying to make an appointment? Are you going to put in the person who is a total jerk to them or the person who brought them beer and cookies?
Joke: Exactly! These gate keepers, especially the assistants, control the schedule. These are the people who not only pick-up the laundry of their bosses, set the TIVOs of their bosses, but also decide who’s going on the call sheet, who’s coming off the call sheet, who their booking lunch with, who gets five minutes for a meeting and who gets an hour. These people control the schedules of the people you want to meet with. So be nice to them, ask them how they’re doing, where they’re from, connect with them, get to know them and they will in return put you in and get you to some of the meetings, and maybe give you some advice, and maybe their boss isn’t the one that can help you but they know the assistant of the other person that could potentially use you. It’s all about getem to get in the door. You got to get past the gate keepers so instead of being mad about it, embrace them and make them your friends.
Biagio: Nothing makes me angrier than when I see someone being snarky or jerky or impatient with our assistant or any production assistant or anybody that works for us.
If I see you being a jerk to somebody just because you think they’re not important not only do I not want to work with you, I generally hope you get hit by a car. Okay, again caveat. I’m a little slap happy. I don’t really want you to get hit by a car but I wish that you could get a little sense slapped back into you! Don’t treat people rude just because you think they can’t do anything for you. That’s not the kind of people we want to work with.
Joke: That’s right! And this brings us to point number three because if you have been politely persistent and the door has been opened, and you’ve been nice to the gate keepers and now, you’re finally into the meeting you’ve been waiting for - this comes out to point number three—which is what this entire podcast has been telling you all about—which is now make yourself valuable.
Come in with the goods, people! Don’t come and sit there and not have done your homework, and not have done your research. Be smart, be on point, know what’s going on, get to the point. What do you want from me, my time is valuable so if you’re sitting in front of me, let’s not chitchat about your great grand cousin for three hours. It’s not going to happen.
Come in, show that you’re a professional, show that you know what you’re doing, show that you know what you want, how you know that I could potentially help you because you’ve done your research either by knowing who I’ve worked with, or by knowing who my contacts are, by knowing which networks I’m in business with. That’s how you make an impression, that’s how I want to keep working with you and why I think you might be valuable to me and therefore you get to stick around!
Biagio: Yes! So many people will fight and fight and fight to get a meeting or to get through the door and when they do, they have absolutely nothing worthwhile to talk about. Please don’t be those people, please.
I’ll tell you something else—when you do get the meeting, you want to be passionate about you’re idea. I want to know what you’re passionate about; I want to know what you care about. That’s very different from walking in and saying, “I got three ideas that are going to knock your socks off!” Or my personal favorite, “I have a ‘can’t miss’ idea!” Do you know how many times I hear “I have a ‘can’t miss’ idea”? And they’re almost always misses. There’s no such thing as “can’t miss” idea. Mark Burnett goes out and pitches shows that miss. If Mark Burnett can miss, any of us can miss, including you. Okay, side track I think that point was important.
Joke: If you come in and say, “I have a ‘can’t miss’ idea”, you have just raised the bar so high on yourself that you have no way to succeed and only fail. You would really need to hit it out of the park to deliver after that statement.
I’m not saying lower our expectations, usually they’re pretty low already, but if you start raising them at the beginning of the meeting, you have no way to go but down.
Biagio: Again, that’s not to say you can’t be passionate. I want to know you’re excited about the idea you’ve finally made it through the door to pitch us, let me know this is something you care deeply about and that you are excited about. But don’t be so foolish as to assume that the rest of the world will be excited about it because you are. I want to hear that you’re excited about an idea that isn’t “can’t miss”.
Joke: To wrap it all up, “How to Break in to Hollywood and Then Stay There”, is one; be polite and persistent when you’re knocking at the door, no barging in.
Be very, very nice to the gate keepers who not only control your access but the timing and the amount of access you’re going to be getting.
And three, when you actually get that first meeting, make yourself super valuable.
One last example when we finally got that meeting after I knocked politely and persistently through fax machines, this was before e-mails, and phone calls with the receptionist—and then we went in for a meeting and got the receptionist some cookies and got ourselves in front of our first big Hollywood producer meeting—we not only pitched him some ideas but showed him that we could be valuable to him in terms of what our skills were and what our access was and our turn around and everything that we could bring to him. And while he didn’t choose to do any of our projects at that point, he did hire us on the spot to help him on some of his.
So that’s what I mean, you have to come in and make yourself valuable. Do not waste that opportunity; you get one shot at a first impression. Again, how loudly you knock comes into play, how nice you are to the people at the front door come into play, and then if in that meeting you don’t deliver the goods, it’s all been wasted.
Biagio: So there you have it! We’re going to go away for two weeks and then the next time you hear from us we will actually be well rested because we are wrapping up our top secret shoot. In the meantime remember you can always find us pretty much any place.
If you just look up Joke and Biagio on Google, we’re everywhere; twitter/jokeandbiagio, facebook/jokeandbiagio, youtube/jokeandbiagio, our website jokeandbiagio.com, and of course the home of this podcast, producingunscripted.com
Until next time, thanks for tuning in, hope to work with you soon and that’s it, have a great night!
Joke: Come a’ knocking! Talk to you soon!
Announcer: Producing Unscripted with Joke and Biagio.
