… in which, Ira Glass, who created his own kind of story telling for a medium that hadn’t seen anything like it in fifty years, and one of my heroes of how to be yourself against the odds of the medium, explains what to do when your vision and your work don’t jive. In fact, when the work sucks, he answers the question, what do you do?
…for me. Today, I accepted a job offer. A great job with a great “company.” That is, one of the outstanding universities in the country. No, not that one.
I could tell you about all the time I spent searching for a position like this one, the seven interviews with various stakeholders, the generous way my contact let me do follow-up interviews elsewhere, the convenience of the office location, the benefits, and the great people I’ll be working with. There’s a lot of good to report. But there were few cliffhangers and no sudden swooning. Great interviewing, but not much of a story.
I could also tell you that it has nothing to do with screenwriting, but you’d think I was complaining. In fact, the craft is hard and overnight successes are the work of at least ten years. I’ll be working where I’ll be appreciated, where the work is challenging without being absolutely consuming. I’ll be home before dark. And writing by dinnertime.
Now that I’ll be able to write about work on my learning and organizational development site, rather than using it to promote myself, I won’t bend your RSS reader about work here. And I won’t feel guilty about scratching my head over a movie for an hour, because I won’t be wondering whether I’ve done enough to find a job today. I’ll worry about falling short, but over something else.
I hope to bring you story reviews more regularly here at Darkness once I get my feet on the ground over there.
Later this week, I’ll write a transition note for bigIdea. I’ll get deep and philosophical about later-life transitions, learning from experience, recession strategies, professional development and how important it is not to fall into familiar situations. It’s gonna be great.
I have a job offer.
On Tuesday, I was on the phone with one of my longtime colleagues and references. She was warming my ego by telling me what she’d been asked by the hiring manager at The University and the generous way she’d described my skills and experience. I was feeling like I might land it. Soon after, a certain Retail Company called me to ask me to return for a second round of interviews. “Delighted. Let’s compare calendars.”
And then The University called and offered me a very good job. As soon as I opened my mouth, I realized how much I’d already hoped for this, projecting myself into their world by dint of imagination. “I have a question about benefits…”
Only those of you who have been working independently for as long as me will understand why that question came out first. Just having a competitive plan at a reasonable cost is like stepping into Willie Wonka’s factory. Ooh, ooh, where do I begin?
I spent ten minutes talking out of both sides of my mouth. “I love the people and the context at The University.” “I don’t have enough information to reject out of hand the invitation to those second interviews.” “That company will have to go a long way to beat The University offer.” Meanwhile, the Rube Goldberg decision-making machine spins in my head: What about the 401-K, commuting time and trouble, gas prices, colleagues brains and souls, salary trade offs, quality of work, career direction, chance of success, opportunity to grow, 50 hours or 70 hours a week? Finally, I said that I remain very interested in the offer and unless it will bring my candidacy to an end, I’d schedule the interviews, keep them informed about the schedule, and come to a conclusion as soon as possible.
Those interviews take place on Tuesday.
The first thing that became clear is that if I’m succeeding in interviews, someone’s going to be disappointed. I felt responsible to the people I’d interviewed with at The University - there were seven all tolled - because I’d successfully convinced them not only that I could do the work, but that I should do the work. You hear the internalizing of an introvert. Thinking makes it real, so the project had already begun in my mind. It felt like a breach of that relationship and throwing on the brakes to say “no.” But in fact, folks have been very understanding. This very common development is only unfamiliar to me.
As I sorted options, I realized that I need to accept the offer, or reject it as soon as I have enough information about the other role. That means, like Tarzan, letting go of one vine before I’ve grabbed the next one. I mean that it’s improbable that the Retail Company will make me an offer on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. I don’t have any influence over their process, nor do I have a clear picture of their needs. So if I really want to work for them, I have to put my money on red, roll the dice, and reject The University offer. I could crap out. I don’t exactly think it’s high stakes, but it is an uncertain choice.
As the rat wheel slows down, organizational culture, values, and new opportunity rise to the top of my list of priorities.
More next week after interviews.
The Trouble with TV AudiencesIf you’re thinking strategy for your supercool, breaking-in TV project, be sure to read this view of the shifting programming, cable expectations, and seasons. Because like a second dates, audiences will do some things, but they won’t, you know, do that other thing. So plan ahead. (Bill Carter explains it all much better, but if you’re not a New York Times reader, allow me.)
History of past programming habits still determines audience behavior. New shows and programming change-ups will not rewire our brain circuitry quickly. Summer has been dumping ground for no-confidence-vote network shows and reruns. So it’s hard to get viewers to pay attention to new shows. Swingtown is the example from CBS, which gets six million viewers (read “huge on cable, weak on network”). Viewers don’t commit because shows like this, whether good or not, have been shot in the back of the neck before the Labor Day barbeque. (Having seen it, some fine actors are doing great work, and while the story swings for the Mad Men and Soprano’s home run fence, but it’s pulling short into left field.)
However, reality programming successfully proliferates on networks in part because it is low-attention and low-commitment, which is what we’re accustomed to in Summer. When it comes to expectations, shows often light countdown fuse: at the end of eight weeks, we will have a new interior design show star. Add to the low-expectations inertia that, to viewers, network efforts to vary programming raises the question, are you really serious this time or just yanking our chains?
Given the long odds, I say, aim at cable with a drama pilot. And don’t forget the example the fitful success of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the cable comedy from FX. But remember, viewers will follow a drama and increasingly they’ll follow the people who make them. That’s you.
In a speech at the Los Angeles Film Festival, longtime indie producer Mark Gill (The Film Department) gave a speech that seems to have given voice to the suspicions and private opinions of a lot of movie people: “Most of the [5,000 Sundance Film Festival entries, up by a factor of 10 from 15 years earlier] films are flat out awful.” David Carr sympathetically reports the thrust of Gill’s argument:
“The overproduction is a breach of faith with the audience and they have become skeptical.” I’m borrowing Carr’s quote from Mark Harris. Breach of faith? The idea is droll. I think he’s got it backward: “We think there are too many films that are neither satisfying nor stimulating.” Carr names Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead as one of the movies that didn’t find it’s audience. Having recently seen that spare, strange, brutal movie, I agree with Harris that if there were fewer movies, this one might have stood out as good enough. But compared with movies that share some of it’s tragic relentlessness - No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood (also thematically vague and emotionally inconclusive) - it’s a chamber piece for actors. But I’m picking on products, when I really love movies. I’ll never forget the stricken looks on Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s face. I should be attacking the dumb money.
That is, the Monte Carlo method. I listened to a bank investment officer explain to a Hollywood Reporter staffer not that long ago that given a portfolio of film projects at different investment levels, the risk drops significantly because the probability of overall portfolio profitability depends on some projects becoming disproportionate producers. This Monte Carlo model of risk management is how they sold film investment funds to non-movie makers. And the inevitable has come to pass: to produce a movie that people see - the profitable ones - you must also produce a slate of projects that you expect to underperform - the ones people don’t see. In another market, say, toothpaste, one disappointing tube doesn’t deter you from brushing your teeth. But after enduring enough disappointing movies, viewers rightly wonder if it’s worth the trouble.
To call overproduction a breach of faith implies a contract, an understanding between movie makers and audiences. I’d like to think so, but…. In fact, it’s more investment bubble thinking at work, in which financial opportunity is exploited without respect to the implications and underlying principles. Movies projects are not mutual funds, real estate, dot com sites, or tulips. It turns out that a lot of money trying to find short-term gain in the obvious market dynamics can also eviscerates those markets. Maybe I’m feeling my age, or maybe you’ve got to get in and stay in if you’re going to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.
And then there’s the view from inside, which is not about investment groups and portfolio analysis, but about making movies, from John August.
From Joe Morgenstern on KCRW and in the Wall Street Journal. Hear it here.
He says, “Compared to The Love Guru, Get Smart is Citizen Kane.” I have paraphrased only slightly to compress the comment to a simple sentence.
Mike Myers never felt the knife until his comic life was ebbing away.