An Interview with Sheryl J. Anderson: Writer / Producer
article by E.R. Womelsduff
1.
Be
willing to learn.
2.
Be
active, not passive, about your work and your rights.
3.
Know
what you believe in and what you will and won't stand for.
4.
Defend
yourself, but not defensively.
5.
Be
smart and constructive, but most of all, be right.
6.
Pay
attention to what people in equivalent jobs are being asked to do, then compare
it to what you’re being asked to do.
7.
Define
your boundaries.
8.
Don't
cry “fire” if there isn’t
one.
9.
Don't
complain. Instead, suggest a clear, helpful solution.
10.
Remember,
this is a step in the journey, not the end of it.
Before
I can even fully stand, Anderson stoops to give me a hug. We are meeting at a
French cafe on a typical, perfect day in Santa Monica. She immediately begins
asking me questions,
catching up on my life since the last time we spoke in-depth, nearly two years
before, when, from the goodness of her heart, she helped me (an anonymous film
student she'd never met before) find an internship because she is a longtime
friend of one of my professors.
Anderson
has been working professionally as a writer and novelist for over twenty years.
She wrote for a number of television series, including Charmed, and has a successful book series. Her
father was a Captain in the US Navy and her mother stayed at home until she and
her brother were in high school. Growing up on the East Coast, no one in the
family had ever worked in the film business before. Despite this, she
says that “Other than brief periods of wanting to be a spy or a teacher, I
always wanted to be a writer,” and her family was and still is supportive of
her decision to go to Hollywood.
After she came to Hollywood, she
initially worked temp jobs. One led
to a job in investment banking, where her bosses worked 24/7, and expected her
to do the same. When the company suggested that she get her MBA, it was the
wake up call she needed to go out and do what she came to Hollywood to do:
write.
The opportunity to take a step in
that direction came with a job as an assistant at GTG Entertainment, a
television production company. After she’d been working for him for a
while, Robert Kaplan, then VP of Development, gave her a script and asked
her to give coverage. After receiving her notes, he sat her down and
said, “This is exactly what the network told us.” It was in that moment
that she realized she was on the right track.
Success is often tempered with failures,
however. While still working at GTG, she’d been hired as a freelance
writer to pen her first ever television episode. Days before it was
scheduled to start shooting, they called her and said, “The show's been
cancelled and we’re not going to do your episode.” Anderson was
devastated, but Kaplan told her, “This stinks. But it’s the first of many
episodes you’ll write and you’ve got to keep going.”
Looking back, Anderson considers
her time at GTG to be her “graduate school,” not only because she learned “more
from the two years I worked for them than anybody else I worked for in my
entire career,” but because of the mentor relationship she had with both Robert
Kaplan and the legendary Grant Tinker. She describes them as “brilliant,
wonderful men” and smiles when she talks about them. She is quick to add
that she does not want to diminish what she learned from other people and jobs
in her life, but that the “wealth of experience and generosity of spirit from
those men” astounded her.
By the time GTG closed, she was
the Development Associate. Grant Tinker told her, “If you want to
continue in development, I’ll help you, but that’s not what you should be
doing. You should be writing.”
At this point, Anderson realizes
I don’t recognize Tinker’s name and tries to offer an equivalent. She looks at
me over our plates of food and my awkwardly large laptop. “What’s your
favorite television show?” she asks. Trying to choose quickly from a long
list, I blurt out, “Sons of Anarchy.” She
nods. “It’s the equivalent of Kurt Sutter sitting you down and telling
you, ‘Keep writing. Don’t give up hope.’”
But
she hasn’t always been given such good advice. When talking of her worst
professional mistakes, she describes trusting the wrong people against her
better judgment and listening to people tell her what to write or where to work
next. In short, “Trusting other people instead of myself. I made
that mistake more than once.”
But how do you trust yourself
when you’re just starting out? And more importantly, how do you stick up
for yourself? Industry newbies can either come across as arrogant and
entitled or pathetic and easily manipulated. Where is the middle ground?
In
terms of the non-production work environment, Anderson suggests asking very
clearly, “What are my daily and/or weekly hours?” She says to commit to
the hours that are reasonable for the job, and the hours that your boss expects
you to work (which should coincide). Develop a sense of when work is
over, and when people are just hanging out because they don’t have anywhere
else to go or anything else to do. Her father used to tell her, “Never
work for a man who doesn’t want to go home at night.”
She
goes on to offer a rule of thumb:
When you’re starting out, pay attention to
what people in equivalent jobs are being asked to do, then compare it to what
you’re being asked to do. Don’t compare the hours of a studio job to an
agency job, or either to a production job: The hours are going to be different
because the demands are different. As in any relationship, you have to define
your boundaries. You don’t want to tell a boss, 'Well, I can only work
from x to x' but you also don’t want to create the impression that you only
live to work for them.
Anderson remembers one of her
first jobs (not in the industry). Her boss told her, “You exist to make
my life easier.” She left shortly thereafter.
But
life in production is different. “For shows,” she says, “you have to be
there to make the deadline. Some nights you’re going to be there ‘til 2
am, sometimes you can go home at 6. In production, the monster must be
fed.” She remembers when she was on a difficult show, she would tell her
friends, “I’ll see you during hiatus.”
In the course of your career, you
may have a wide range of bosses, from the impossible to the fantastic. But when
confronted by a difficult situation, Anderson says that you have to be smart,
you have to be constructive, and most of all, you have to be right. Take a stand, but make sure you’ve done your
homework first. She warns that if you feel like you’re being taken
advantage of,
A) you probably
are;
B) look around
and compare your situation to make sure you are; and,
C) find a
constructive and helpful way to suggest a solution.
She points out ways in which you
can take advantage of opportunities: say you’re an assistant.
Your boss doesn’t want to hear, “I don’t want to stay tonight.”
They want to hear, “Would it be all right if I took this on as my
project?” or “Would you mind if I worked on this in the morning while you’re in
meetings?” Or say you’re doing
coverage on a script. Saying “I don’t like the script” isn’t helpful.
Saying “I can’t invest in the script because of A, B, or C” is helpful.
She smiles as she takes a sip of
tea. “It all comes back to the saying: ‘You catch more
flies with honey.”’
When asked what makes the long
hours worth it, she doesn’t reply at first. I can see her processing the
question, thinking back through twenty years of a career. Finally, she
replies, “You get paid a ridiculous amount of money to produce a premium
product and that’s worth some late nights.” But even more than that, she
believes the gift she has to tell stories is a blessing. The fact that
she is able to use her God-given talent to entertain people and make a living
at it "is about the coolest thing ever." She quotes William
Faulkner: “It is a writer’s privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.”
Knowing she must leave soon for
another meeting, she wraps it up:
“I can sit and moan with the best
of them about times I’ve been shafted and opportunities missed and mistakes
made, but at the end of the day I’ve seen people laugh and cry because of words
I put on the screen and it still gives me chills.” Anderson says she
can’t think of a job she’d rather have. “I’d love to cure cancer, but I
faint at the sight of blood.”
At this point, our interview
had to end. Anderson was gracious enough to answer the following
questions via e-mail.
What is one piece of advice
you received when you started out that ended up being totally wrong?
Only
the work matters.
What is one piece of advice you received that ended
up being really helpful?
Write every day.
What are some of the stereotypes about Hollywood
that ended up being true?
Hollywood is filled with broken people.
The weather is ridiculous.
Television is high school with money.
What are some that were total lies?
...ummm...You'd think there'd be some, right?...
What upsets / angers/ depresses you about life in
Hollywood?
It's hard to make plans. Good people get hurt and bad
behavior is rewarded. (On the other hand, that's life...)
What makes you hopeful about living in LA?
Some of the best people I know live here.
Can you tell me about some of your recent projects?
I"ve sold a pilot, details forthcoming. And I'm
out pitching others.
Where do you see the industry in 10 years, either in
general or as it specifically pertains to your job?
Given how quickly things have changed in the past 10
years, I can't imagine where we'll be in another 10 -- writing for
platforms that haven't been invented yet, I suppose.
What advice would you give to aspiring television
writers?
Don't think it's going to be simple. Understand that
you will have to pay your dues. Be patient and keep writing, making sure that
every script is better than the one before it.
Sheryl J. Anderson's novels can be purchased at Amazon.com or through her website: http://www.sheryljanderson.com
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