"It's a weird time right now"

“It’s a weird time right now”

That’s a thing you’ll hear people say one-hundred percent of the time.

I’ve been pitching these shows. I’m midway through. The development is unpaid – I’m working with two great companies, developing two very different comedy series. I’ve put my heart and soul and thousands of hours into working on both of these projects. I love them both. I’ve worked too hard on both of them to not love them both.

I hate that I care so much. You start out with a prompt or vague concept and the more you work on a project, the more all these aspects of yourself and your experiences and what interests you seep into the dynamics and character developments and arcs.

It’s one reason that I always tell students that you don’t need to write what you know. So many people start out with the premise of, “It’s about me, a narcissist, walking around, doing whatever.” And then that’s framed as personal, when it’s just a lack of curiosity. But the truth is, whatever weird-ass premise you start with, you always find yourself. We could all be given the same prompt and everyone would come back with a different story. Someone would be drawn to a parent-child relationship, someone would lean into a romance, whatever. Whatever you shape, it does reflect something about you, how you hear or see the world.

Pitching is draining. The core of this process is that you’re crafting the pitches for executives who (in some cases) are not really listening, to hopefully make a show where streamers (in some cases) assure the creators that the audience is not really listening. So, the creative has to be tweaked further to even more fit the people who aren’t listening. At a certain point, it’s like, what the literal fuck are we doing? We’re aiming for global reach, but it’s a globe of people distracted, with their AirPods in.

…

“I can’t really see it…”

That’s something else you’ll often hear. They can’t really envision it.

I’ve been fortunate to sell shows in the past. I sold an animated pilot to FOX that did not go to series. I was able to sell that after I had a friend make a one-minute animated sample as proof-of-concept. He really crushed it.

Next, I sold a show that became Flatbush Misdemeanors, adapted from a zero-budget three-episode web series I had made. I’d written the pilot before making it a web series. Some people read it. They didn’t get it. “I can’t really see it.” Once it was a short-form series, though, they could start to see it. It was right there, able to be looked at with their eyes and seen.

Without these proof-of-concepts, nothing would have gotten made. There are creatives who are able to charm others into handing them wads of cash with nothing but a smile and a promise that their work will hit vague, abstract themes. I have great respect and envy for those people and I have none of that ability. I wish I did. I’d get more sleep.

I hold myself to a very high standard work-wise. I remember with Flatbush, we had a two-script-to-series deal. So, I’d write the second episode and then Showtime would decide if they’d order a full season. I remember thinking, This needs to be the best script I’ve ever written and even then, it’s a maybe. I was really fortunate to have had that work out, to have gotten that experience.

I still feel that need for it to be the best version it can possibly be, just for a maybe. With the state of the industry, it’s maybe less-than-a-maybe. It feels like I’m training as hard as I can and I’m close. It feels like I’m at the one-yard line, but it also feels like I’m 99 yards away at the same time. It’s tough.

Part of the reason that I’m hoping to sell these projects is because I want so badly to see them made – TBD on that – but also because I just want the resources to keep creating. I’ve been filming more independently, in pockets, when resources permit. In part, it’s just this drive and desire to control something and have something made while you’re waiting for these bigger projects and these external decision makers who may or may not listen or understand.

After my FOX pilot did not go to series years back, it was a frustrating feeling because you work so hard on these projects and then when they don’t move forward, no one gets to see it. It doesn’t exist. That’s what I’m currently feeling with these two projects, so it feels like I’m staring down the barrel of a gun a little bit, not in control of the trigger.

I’m trying to write and film independently in these tougher moments, because those are the times I’ve looked back at with the most fondness. I was tutoring this middle-school kid who said something offhand that sparked the idea for Cramming. I was asked to impersonate Bublé and that became Being Bublé. I’m continuing to film and work with wherever I am, in hopes that I can just keep gathering these puzzle pieces, even though I don’t know what it’s assembling towards.

There’s this line in American Movie, a documentary about a man desperate to make an independent film. His elderly uncle doesn’t share his drive, but the uncle finances his nephew’s fleeting pursuits. The uncle has money to not live in a trailer, but still lives in a trailer. His nephew asks him: “What are you gonna do, sit around, outside of a trailer? We’ll film you sitting outside a trailer, man. We ain’t gonna just live sitting outside a trailer.”

It’s a funny idea on the surface – either way, you’re still sitting and living outside of a trailer. Filming it doesn’t change your reality. But I also really do get that sentiment; there’s something kind of beautiful about the notion that filming the reality can change it. Like, when you’re just living, you’re passive. You’re subject to whatever happens, wherever the wind blows, but when you’re filming it or creating in whatever form, you’re shaping something and actively trying to sail somewhere in the storm.

People frame comedy and creativity and art as a “distraction” from the world – “Ah, people need to escape right now” – but also, creativity is one of the ways that we shape our reality. I guess that’s what I’d hope these independent projects can do for me and whoever else. Like, how can we make something that is funny and fun and present with the people in front of us? Where even for a moment we have some sense of agency or control or little corner or small sandcastle we’ve built for ourselves.

I would have said all this in a pitch, but I’m not sure it would have been heard. It’s a weird time right now.

Follow Dan on Substack and Instagram.