This Is What Many Artists Don't Realize Until They Are Older - Marc Scott Zicree

Marc Scott Zicree, screenwriter/author: As you get

older

, if you have a little wisdom, you stop competing with other people and

realize

that you are here to find the truest expression of your heart that you can share with the world. Film Courage: You say the fans give them

what

they

want at the heart of the story, but then

they

open up the world more widely. Is it something like the saying: I know you better than yourself? Marc: Not exactly because, as I said before, I'm just like my audience. If I'm excited about

what

I'm working on, if I find a story that interests me, I'll be able to tell a story that I think my audience will like.

First of all, I never worry. I never talk down to them. I never worry about what they will like. I just try to tell a story that I think is meaningful from a character's point of view, for example, and I always write about things that I love, that frustrate me, or that I want. comment but it's always through the characters if the characters don't work nothing works and I'll give you an example. I came up with

this

idea called show runners network where I'm creating six science fiction, horror and fantasy series. with six major show runners, so it's Rocknell Bannon who created Farscape and Defiance and Seaquest and Alien Nation and Cult.

He now he is involved in evil. Another partnership I have on another of the shows with Mark Ferguson Hawk Ostby, who created and we are showrunners. the expanse and I also did iron man and sons of men and then one of them is a sterling rod project too and when I started

this

project I sat down and wrote 200 ideas for TV shows and so on every day. I came up with 10 ideas and I just wrote them down without any censorship and then rock rock no bannon and I went through that list and we saw what turned us both on and something that is now something that bothers me.

There are certain types of black stereotypes that you can't have on TV or Latino stereotypes or misogynistic things, but

older

actors are playing getting cancer or getting dementia or funny grandpa or funny grandma and the older people I know in my life. and the older people, which I am now one of, are vitally involved and committed people, they are not those stereotypes and that frustrated me a lot, so I came up with an idea for a show called Sweet Haven and, ironically, I got out of it before the pandemic, and the basic notion is that a bioengineered disease gets out of control and kills everyone under 60 in the world.

So people 60 and older have to figure out how to keep humanity going when they can't reproduce, so it's a really fun idea, so Rock and I came up with the plot and Elaine and I wrote the script. pilot from the outline that Rock and I had put together and then we cast it and it has Robert Picardo from Star Trek Voyager and it has Barbara Bain from Space 1999 and it has Gates Mcfadden from Star Trek the Next Generation and Mike Harney from Orange is the new black and on and on this amazing Veronica Cartwright from Alien and the Birds, amazing, amazing cast, and they play these very interesting, active characters.

James Hong from Blade Runners ended up in big trouble in China, but they're not going to play into stereotypes, they're going to play whole people in that world, so we did two table reads via Zoom and we're going to film in a near future, so again, I was excited about that idea and the wonderful thing about when you can raise money is that you don't have to worry about, is this something that networks would buy? Frankly, I don't care. I mean, if they buy it great, it makes my life easier, it gives me more money to play with, but I don't do that at this stage of my life.

I don't need approval. I need to be effective, so it's a very different energy. The wonderful thing is that if you have succeeded as you get older, if you have a little wisdom, you stop competing with other people and

realize

that you are here to find the truest expression of your heart that you can share with the world. and if people are moved by what you create, if they are improved in some way, even entertainment is not something to be discarded, it is something important, you have been successful. I mean, every day I just try to be the best version of I love collaborating, actors are my collaborators, designers are my collaborators of everyone and even today when Elaine and I direct with Elaine because Elaine is a better director than me and she is a director of actors, she was trained, she was a Broadway actress and director and I am a good director, I am good visually, but when Elaine and I direct together it is better, it is better, the work is better, what comes out It's better and what?

That allows me to do, for example, today we were looking at sets and getting ready to film some scenes that we're going to film in a few weeks and Elaine had a different vision than me in terms of how

many

people we have in this scene. or how

many

extras or and she wanted it few or less tighter in the focus of the scene and then I had to move away from what was attached to my way of doing it my design in my head I see the shots in my head and say well, let's see what has to say, let's see where this goes, let's see if it works and that's a good healthy creative instinct because it lets in the possibility of something better and and because I don't feel threatened at all.

I'm just grateful to be able to do that, so when you stop trying to be there, you're not in a race, you're not trying to beat anyone, you're just telling a story, you're just sharing something you love with others. Yesterday two people and I were thinking about an interesting analogy where I heard someone talk about quilting, they made a quilt for the survivors of people who died on 9/11 in the family and I thought that's funny, no one ever talk about launching a quilt that doesn't Don't go meet with a bunch of executives and say, "Hey, I have an idea for a quilt," and spend years telling them about the idea you have for a quilt and never actually make a quilt that people would think.

You were crazy at the time, the whole point of quilting is to make quilts and share them with others, but TV and film writers think it's an appropriate way to spend their lives and be pitching endlessly and well, I pitched this and I don't know. it sold, I pitched that and it didn't sell, it's like why don't you do it, make the thing come together, do the work, then you're making the quilt you're quilting? not to mention a quilt that one day you might make and it's so much more rewarding and it's just that I have my feet planted on the ground and my head in the clouds it's like elaine keeps my feet on the ground, but there's such a lovely feeling of achievement when you do something and it turns out the way you want and it goes out into the world and people love it, I mean even on mr scifi we posted the first hour of space command it's been watched by millions of people it's gotten 97 approval well that's cool , it's great to have, it means people really liked it and that helps me look forward to the next day and looking forward to the next script.

You were always like that, you just wanted to do something that meant something to you, that excited you and kept you in your own metaphorical lane, no, no, I was at the beginning of my career, I was very, there was no certainty that I would make it and there was always This, I mean, I was very lucky because I started working writing my first book at the age of 21, I sold my first story at the age of 19 and I was already applying for television when I was 22 or 23 years old. and for the next 20 years, the longest period in those full 20 years that I was out of work was three months, so I made millions of dollars.

I worked for major studios and networks, but I always felt like it could stop abruptly. And in fact it was at one point and I had to find a way to reinvent myself and a way to make things work again and fortunately I was open to new ways of doing things. I was very open to that and that allowed me to be where I am now, but I wasn't sure in any way. I was guided by a creative vision and loved writing other characters. I loved writing, whether it was Spock Kirk McCoy or the characters from the Friday the 13th series or even the Smurfs, who were so fun to write through those characters, well, write what you wanted to say through those those characters, you have to be If I can hear a character's voice, I can write it, I have to be able to hear the voice. but I was never so sure, I was never so sure that everything was going to move forward, so I never felt like I could take my hands off the wheel and go back, which I probably would have done some things differently, my priority was I always felt that my obligation and my creative obligation was to my audience, but I often didn't take care of my bosses as well as I should have.

He wasn't, he wasn't a worker among workers the way he should be. I have been and fortunately I was still able to create a body of work, but if I could go back and change one thing, I would care for people a lot more that way and I have never been a political animal. I don't care about that stuff and I've worked with people who were and I've also lost jobs to people who said a friend of mine was recommending me to be a producer on this show that he was creating and the producer was directing. the show didn't hire me and he finally found out that what he was doing was he was only hiring people who were his troops so eventually he might fire my friend because he was a political animal and at that moment I thought, oh, I kind of said something was wrong in the interview no, there was no way I was going to get that job, but my friend ended up on his ass and that's when we realized what it was, but I think he could have taken better care of people. and I have no regrets in terms of work.

I don't regret any of the work I've done, but that's a lesson it would have been nice to have learned sooner, yeah, some people aren't good at playing politics, no. and I don't like kissing the butts of people who are mediocre. I mean, I just really was very open to people's humanity, but I could never stand anyone who was just like, "Well, it doesn't have to be cool, it doesn't." It's got to be good, it's like we're just here to make sausages that I could, I could never, never, ever stand, which is like, well, you may be, but I'm not, I'm here to make something wonderful that will last the test of once you stand the test of time.

I remember one time on sliders someone pitched a clone story and I told my boss that the story had been done on every other show, every other sci-fi show and I was like I shouldn't buy it and he said well, no, but it hasn't been done on our show and I said yes, but the audience isn't just watching our show and the irony was that they bought that script and I had to rewrite it. I rewrote it and did it the best I could, but the thing is, if I had been choosing what we bought or what we didn't buy, I wouldn't have bought it because it was already a cliché, then it was a cliché and I had to fight against that cliché when I rewrote it to find some meaning in it, but it was a radically different philosophy of how to make television because I know from my own experience that a single hour of television can change someone's life for the better forever.

It is a great responsibility and I never avoid it, I am very aware of it. What did you like about this video?