showrunner

WGN America is launching groundbreaking original scripted dramas as we continue our transition from a cable super-station to a top tiered cable network for original programming. And we are looking for the talent to make these new series break through the clutter. If your cutting rivals theatrical and your creative can’t be ignored then we want you! 

Responsibilities: Responsibilities include writing, editing, and producing on-air launch promos, generics, episodics, branding campaigns, shoot spots, trailers, and sales videos. You will be responsible to take your project from concept to completion. 

Qualifications: Applicant must have 8+ years experience in the field. Theatrical, broadcast, or cable background preferred. Must be an Avid guru with exceptional creative and finishing chops. Strong writing skills are also a plus. Must be able to work on your own or as part of a team – whatever the project calls for – leave your egos at the door as you will get notes. Must possess a high level of strategic and conceptual thinking and the ability to multi task and juggle more than one project a time, sometimes with tight deadlines. 

If this is you – and you’re ready to create the next big thing - then apply today. Send your work and resume. 

Pan Handler!

It is a beggar's pride that he is not a thief," says an old Japanese proverb. A panhandler is a person who relies on the financial graces of strangers without providing goods or services in return, though it's just as much work as a wage job. Whether you're experiencing a short-term lack of cash and need a few quick bucks or you're in long-term financial trouble, learning a few simple techniques to safely approach people and ask for money may make a huge difference in their response.

CASH $ 4 MERCHANTZ

http://hownowcashcow.blogspot.com/2016/02/need-cash-or-capital-for-your-business.html


http://hownowcashcow.blogspot.com/2016/02/need-cash-or-capital-for-your-business.html

Is the Owner available

May I speak to the Owner, please
I have a note here to call them regarding funding, if they are still looking for cash or capital....

Sitting next to Frank Zappa's drummer

saturn from chile

Job Shark 2.O

Job Shark 2.0

Quick Start Guide For the Unemployed

By Nora E Boyle

Perish Publishing

Still looking for your dream job?  
Got a  burn notice from your career as spy?

Did you enjoy the Great Recession that began in 2008 and is referred to as a "jobless recovery?"

Well,  don't despair!  Many college educated people are out of work,  and the US Gov reports there are more PhD's on food stamps than ever before.

Whatyagonna do? Who u gonna call?
Job Shark!!!

And you won't even have to take a survey.

or pretend you are gonna make money from blogging....
but here's a few tips,
as in FIRST THINGS FIRST:

Benefits
File for Unemployment
If you were laid off, ‘let go,’ fired, or ‘canned’ then you can file for unemployment
insurance provided you file taxes, worked on a W2 and paid into the Fund.
The Fund is the payroll tax.

A W-2 is the federal tax form you fill out at the start of your job which states how much you as the employee were paid during that year.

We might as well get the boring stuff out of the way.

US Citizen
If you are a foreign national with an H1 visa, green card, etc., you may qualify, but call your local employment compensation bureau to find out what you have to do. Undocumented workers will need to get documented if they want to collect.

Where to Go
For filing an unemployment claim, there is either a website or a 1-800 number.
Unemployment is a state-run agency and is called “UI” or unemployment insurance, but names of the state agencies range from “Employment Development Department,”  Department of Labor and Workforce Development,” Unemployment Insurance Agency,or Texas Workforce. When you are let go from your job, they are obligated to furnish you with this information.

Unemployment Insurance or UI
UI provides weekly insurance payments for workers who lose their job through no fault of their own. Well, it’s important to take responsibility for everything that happens to you, so cool off before you talk to the UI people about what an asshole your boss is. This insurance is funded by employers who pay taxes on wages paid to employees. The agency determines your weekly ‘wage’ through a benefits calculator and benefits are awarded for 26 weeks or about five months. They do not pay you immediately, referring to this as the ‘waiting week,’ and during the recent recession, there was an additional 73 weeks of benefits provided under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation program or EUC. but , those days are over...The federal government stepped in to provide additional funding to the state-run agencies as unemployment rose to an average of ten percent nationwide. This additional compensation is called Federal Extensions, and there was even an additional $25 included in the check. Extended Benefits or EB is part of the EUC but has different requirements for the ‘claimant,’ depending on how much you earned and when you earned it. Generally, the people down at Unemployment look at your last 18 months of employment.

How Much?
$500 a week or less, probably less
Employers are required to submit annual federal unemployment tax under FUTA, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. The tax rate is 6.2 percent but if paid on time, can receive a credit of 5.4 percent. The net FUTA tax is then reduced to 0.8 percent. These FUTA taxes fund the unemployment benefits in each state for both military and civilians.The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labor force out of work, and is measured by leading economic indicators. It is calculated by the number in the total labor force divided into the number of unemployed.

Good Times, Bad Times.
Recession, depression, recovery and prosperity are the business cycles in an ‘economy,’and a little economics lesson never hurt anyone. We all know economics is the study of the production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services, and shows us the law of supply and demand. The law of supply states the number of products increases as prices increase and decreases as prices decrease.

Demand is when people will buy more of a product at a lower price than
at a higher price. So, if there are more houses than there are buyers, the price will fall,  and if there are more buyers than there are houses, the price will rise. The buyers are the demand side and the houses are the supply side.

Business Cycles
The cycles of the economy reflect the law of supply and demand and affect the value of real estate, jobs, manufacturing, the stock market, and interest rates which affect credit  cards and loans. Key factors in economic downturns are interest rates, housing  construction, layoffs, deficit spending, and mounting national debt.

The four stages of increasing and decreasing economic demand are these business cycles:

Recovery, prosperity, recession, and depression.

RECOVERY
This is when consumers begin purchasing goods and services after a slowdown. Prices fall and as demand exceeds supply, production increases. Employment rises, and more money becomes available. Consumers spend more money. Commercial and industrialreal estate reduce their vacancy rate and the economy is headed for an upturn once again.

PROSPERITY
There is low unemployment, higher consumer income, more buying power, higher demand for goods and services, followed by price increases. Inflation may increase,decreasing the purchasing power of the dollar. Credit is available to expand the production of goods to meet the increasing demand.

RECESSION
There is increased production to catch up with increasing demand to surpass it. Supply exceeds demand and industry must cut back on production. As supply increases, there is an excess of goods. Layoffs occur and unemployment rises. Consumer confidence in the economy decreases, and there is less money to spend. Prices may fall as business tries to attract customers, and credit is more difficult to obtain. Production activity slows, and only necessities are purchased. The recession bottoms out when a surplus supply of goods are exhausted and buyers come back to the marketplace.

The National Bureau of Economic Research defines a recession as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail

DEPRESSION
There is high unemployment, less confidence in the economy, and limited ability to purchase. It would follow a recession as a matter of degree if consumers had absolutely no way to re-enter the marketplace and purchase the goods and services they needed. In a downturn, the general business economy, fewer people can afford to buy real estate, demand decreases, and prices decline.

Since the Great Depression from 1929 to 1934, safeguards to prevent large-scale fallout  like the 1929 stock market crash brought about establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which insures depositors in banks and savings and loan  associations against loss up to $100,000. This is as of 2010 and may have increased to $250k, but you, know, the fact checking dept. was laid off.

Most people are now aware that many banks failed in the crash of 2008-2009.
Unemployment hit a record 20 percent where one in five people were out of work. Many still are unemployed as their jobs ‘went away’ and are not coming back.

The Job Market
No use crying over spilled milk – just retrain, and reboot and get back in the job saddle. It is easy to see what’s in demand. Computer skills are always in demand as the economy becomes increasingly digital. Healthcare will always require doctors, nurses, lab technicians, medical technologists, and pharmacists. And, then there are government jobs.

Anyway, now that you have an MBA from Hell, you are ready to become a Job Shark...its a book I'm writing, and will excerpt here since, well, I am unemployed.
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but recently someone told me that if you get hired for a job and you are transgender, they CANNOT FIRE you....but that is hearsay, they can ALWAYS find a way to fire you. Insubordination or you messed up on one thing, or your boss does not like you, so she will figure out something, just give her a minute. 


Next: Workplace Bullys.
###

My Screenwriting Career? YOU Talking to ME?

 

At the typical pitching event, you only pitch 10 to 15 companies and that's just not enough. We're focused on getting your scripts sold, so we’re changing the writer / company ratio so you pitch an average of 40 companies in a single day and for about the same price.

InkTip guarantees a 100% refund* if you're not completely satisfied with the experience.

This will sell out, so I wanted to make sure had a chance to attend. You can go here to register: http://www.inktippitchsummit.com/?page_id=5

Some of the 500+ companies who are Summit clients:

• Dream Factory Entertainment | deal with Paramount
• Little Engine Productions | deal with ABC & Fox 
• Trancas Int. LP Films | deal with Dimension Films
• After Dark Films | deal with Lionsgate
• Bogner Entertainment | deal with Fremantle Media North America

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Jerrol LeBaron
CEO, InkTip
jerrol@inktippitchsummit.com

*requests for refunds must be made within 7 days after the Summit.

 

Your Screenwriting Career
Part I
Being your own chief strategist

by
Gato Scatena
InkTip, vice president
Scatena & Rosner Films, executive

Statistics and strategy are incredibly important to the success of every business, and screenwriting is, make no mistake, a business.

Strategy Exists Regardless of Your Participation
Personally, I like logic.  So, let’s start with Basic Logical Truth #1 off which we can later expand.

Basic Logical Truth #1:
Achieving a successful career requires strategy.

Sure, there are arguments to every rule.  One rebuttal to this logical truth, specifically in regards to the entertainment industry, could sound something like “but Troy Duffy was just a lowly bartender who gave his screenplay, The Boondock Saints, to the one industry assistant connection he had, and the rest was history.”
These instant success stories do happen, but they are in fact not a rebuttal to the rule, and lead us to…

Basic Logical Truth #2:
Strategy is the mitigation of failure.

In other words, strategy is simply a method employed to increase the chances of success, but does not necessarily guarantee success! 

For argument’s sake, let’s first assume Troy Duffy’s “strategy” was to give his screenplay to the single industry connection he possessed.  I would never recommend this “all your eggs in one basket” strategy, but occasionally it works.  For Troy, this would be a 100% success rate (the number of scripts sold / the number of individuals given a screenplay), however if he expected this success rate to hold true in the future, he would likely be disappointed, because his initial sample group (the number of people he gave his script to) was far too small to get an accurate statistic (sta-tis-tic. Noun. - A fact or piece of data from a study of a large quantity of numerical data.)

A different scenario: now let’s consider that Troy Duffy, being the social bartender he was, actually had dozens of industry connections.  Instead of giving his screenplay to just one connection, he gave it twenty-four!  In this scenario, Troy understands the “raffle ticket” logic: that by giving his screenplay to more people, he thereby increases his chances that the screenplay gets sold.  If he sells his script to one of the twenty-four, this success rate would be about 4.1%.

Since the latter scenario has a larger sample group, it’s safe to say that the 4.1% success rate is much more accurate than the former 100% success rate.  Based on this 4.1% figure, would it then be prudent for Troy to give his next screenplay to only one person?  Or would it be better to give his script to one hundred industry people—increasing his chances 4-fold from his last success?  Obviously, the more the better, based on these statistics. 

So, both of the aforementioned scenarios technically had strategy, but it was the second scenario’s strategy that was more likely to succeed. 

Basic Logical Truth #3:
Strategy exists regardless of your participation, so being a participant is advised.

The bottom line is that anyone can increase their chances of success as long as they do two things:

1. Know the statistics that affect their career.
2. Act on those statistics (AKA employ strategy).

Supply & Demand Strategy
Selling ice to Eskimos is not a recommended business model.  Why is this?  Eskimos have access to such a large supply of ice that the demand for ice is non-existent.

As much as I appreciate all of the artists reading this article, and the potentially genius screenplays you have written, if the demand for such a screenplay is low, then the chances of it getting produced are exponentially lower.  So, if your goal is to get your screenplays produced, it would be advisable to write screenplays that are in demand.  And with that, let me shed some light.

Through InkTip.com, producers and executives produce approximately 28 feature films per year, in addition to hundreds more options, purchases and hires.  The following figures are just a broad snapshot of the producer demand over the past few years:

1. Thrillers – 42.6%
2. Comedy – 30.5%
3. Drama – 27.6%
4. Horror – 23.5%
5. Action/Adventure – 17.7%
6. Crime – 12.1%
7. Family – 7%

Of the movies in production or already produced through InkTip in 2013:

1. Thriller - 38.9%
2. Drama - 33.3%
3. Horror - 16.7%
4. Action - 11.1%
5. Romance - 11.1%
6. Crime - 5.6%
7. Sci-Fi - 5.6%
8. Comedy - 5.6%
9. Western - 5.6%
10. Family - 5.6%

Hollywood trends move in cycles, so even though comedy is a very popular genre statistically, it has not been in as much demand so far this year vis-à-vis last year at 26.1%.  Producers are very familiar with these trends, and as such, shifts in the marketplace can occur any given week based on distributor demand.

Do not necessarily read the aforementioned statistics as a reason to not focus on your comedies however.  These statistics should be read much like the stock market.  Do you sell your stock out of fear when they’re low, or do you wait for them to rise again?  Professional traders say “wait,” and when you have a long-term statistic like we do above, then you know comedy is literally bound to bounce back up.

In other words, comedy is likely to end up with a 20-30% market demand by the end of the year, and thus far, it’s only at 5.6%.  This would suggest that in the next 6 months, interest in comedies is likely to rise.
I’m not here to dwell on the ebb and flow of comedies; rather I wish to illustrate the importance of both historical statistics, contemporary statistics, and how to read the relationship between the two.

To keep these statistics for yourself, I encourage everyone to read InkTip’s weekly newsletters to see what’s getting optioned and sold, keep stats on the current box office, read The Hollywood Reporter to see what’s selling.  With these information sources, figure out what the statistics mean for your current screenplays versus what you should be focusing on for the future.

Choosing Your Marketplace(s)
More produced and agency-represented writers use InkTip.com and the Pitch & Networking Summit than any other similar companies or marketplaces.  This is for one simple fact: InkTip actually gets movies produced.  Obviously I’m a bit partial to InkTip, but not because I’m its vice president, rather because I know the numbers.  Both in my work at InkTip, and my work as a producer and film finance strategist, I use statistics to inform my strategy and investor recommendations.  So far, none of my company’s investors have lost money on film investments, and InkTip has gone from 12 films per year to 28 since my tenure began.  I certainly cannot come close to taking all the credit for either, but I can guarantee that the numbers influenced every individual who played a part in these successful records.

It’s no wonder that career writers and their representatives use and recommend InkTip; they know the numbers.

That said, don’t blindly take my word or anyone else’s word as fact.  Do your research.  Fortunately, you’re in an industry that thrives on credit.  Everyone involved in every production wants credit for their efforts.  When a pitching event, marketplace website, or screenwriting service makes claims that they have gotten movies produced, look them up on the International Movie Database (IMDb.com)!  Google them!  Confirm or debunk claims before making a decision as to where to put your efforts, time, and money.  (InkTip’s IMDb profile: http://www.imdb.com/company/co0251773/)

This is just like any other statistic in your career; you need to know what works.

Your Career Moving Forward
Every aspect to your screenwriting career, beside the creative spark, can and should be managed like a company. I know it can be difficult to turn off your creative switch, and press the CEO button, but just getting familiar with these concepts will beneficially change the way you work. So, in conclusion, to all of you, find your stats, find your strategy, and keep writing.


About The Author
Gato Scatena is vice president at InkTip.com, and has been producing films through Scatena & Rosner Films since 2010.  Most recently he was a financial consultant for “Filth” (starring James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, produced by Celine Rattray), and produced “Imaginary Friend” for Lifetime (starring Lacey Chabert, Ethan Embry, directed by Richard Gabai, found through InkTip).  He and his company are now in post-production on the feature comedy “Mantervention” (starring Mario Van Peebles, Nick Roux, Travis Van Winkle).
Questions can be Tweeted to Mr. Scatena at @GatoScatena