Katzenberg and Crew

I have a friend in town for the Oscars who is staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel.  I went there last night to say hello before he had to run to a bunch of pre-game parties.  When I arrived the place was an absolute zoo.  There was so much security there I thought Obama might have been in town.  

Turns out Katzenberg was hosting his Night Before Oscar Party somewhere in the hotel.  So there I was; an aspiring screenwriter looking for some kind of big break in my professional life, front and center in a hailstorm of Hollywood power. 

My first indication that this was no ordinary party was when I was waiting for my friend in the lobby and "ran into" Arianna Huffington.  I was like, is that...  Turns out the list of attendees at the party was pretty much bananas, it might be easier to identify which famous celebrities and power producers didn't go.  While I stood there at the front desk watching the limos arrive and the fame pour through the door,  I paid my $12 valet bill and hoped my last remaining credit card with any life on it wouldn't get declined. Then the Desk Clerk told me that a ticket to the party cost $15,000. 

It was one of these moments where as a hungry screenwriter I thought, man, if you had any balls at all you would pull Steven Spielberg aside and charm his Star Wars boxer briefs off.  It's one of those things.  I don't think it's ever hard to get in front of guys like that, but it is hard to do something pro-career that won't get you banned for life.  

Living in LA I frequently find myself in front of people who could change my writing life in a single phone call, and in almost every case I do nothing to help them help me.  I even rationalize the whole thing by saying that I'm still working on my craft and that I don't really have that one script that I know will totally blow people away.  Just this week I learned a new trick that will forever influence my writing, and I have convinced myself that without that trick my work will never sell.  

The thing is, I don't think I'm wrong about that - the I'm not ready thing.  At least in respect to approaching someone like a Spielberg on a cold LA Saturday at a $15,000 a plate benefit party.  I think at one point in my career I worried about getting in front of people. But like I said, that's never been the hard part for me.  

The hard part for me is having the confidence in my craft to step up and say, hey, I have what you need.  Because if there's one truth of Hollywood, it's that everyone is hungry for a great script.  It's the beginning of a lot of dreams.