Breakfast with Sharks: A Screenwriter's Guide to Getting the Meeting, Nailing the Pitch, Signing the Deal, and Navigating the Murky Waters of Hollywood 
asked by porsche on November 13, 2006 12:57 PM
What They Didn’t Teach You in Your Screenwriting Course
Screenwriters, listen up! Breakfast with Sharks is not a book about the craft of screenwriting. This is a book about the business of managing your screenwriting career, from advice on choosing an agent to tips on juggling three deal-making breakfasts a day. Prescriptive and useful, Breakfast with Sharks is a real guide to navigating the murky waters of the Hollywood system.
Unlike most of the screenwriting books available, here’s one that tells you what to do after you’ve finished your surefire-hit screenplay. Written from the perspective of Michael Lent, an in-the-trenches working screenwriter in Hollywood, this is a real-world look into the script-to-screen business as it is practiced today.
Breakfast with Sharks is filled with useful advice on everything from the ins and outs of moving to Los Angeles to understanding terms like “spec,” “option,” and “assignment.” Here you’ll learn what to expect from agents and managers and who does what in the studio hierarchy. And most important, Breakfast with Sharks will help you nail your pitch so the studio exec can’t say no.
Rounded out with a Q&A section and resource lists of script competitions, film festivals, trade associations, industry publications, and more, Breakfast with Sharks is chock-full of “take this and use it right now” information for screenwriters at any stage of their careers.
Screenwriters, listen up! Breakfast with Sharks is not a book about the craft of screenwriting. This is a book about the business of managing your screenwriting career, from advice on choosing an agent to tips on juggling three deal-making breakfasts a day. Prescriptive and useful, Breakfast with Sharks is a real guide to navigating the murky waters of the Hollywood system.
Unlike most of the screenwriting books available, here’s one that tells you what to do after you’ve finished your surefire-hit screenplay. Written from the perspective of Michael Lent, an in-the-trenches working screenwriter in Hollywood, this is a real-world look into the script-to-screen business as it is practiced today.
Breakfast with Sharks is filled with useful advice on everything from the ins and outs of moving to Los Angeles to understanding terms like “spec,” “option,” and “assignment.” Here you’ll learn what to expect from agents and managers and who does what in the studio hierarchy. And most important, Breakfast with Sharks will help you nail your pitch so the studio exec can’t say no.
Rounded out with a Q&A section and resource lists of script competitions, film festivals, trade associations, industry publications, and more, Breakfast with Sharks is chock-full of “take this and use it right now” information for screenwriters at any stage of their careers.
Reviews
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Wow! Full of sound advice from experience. Michael Lent is clearly someone who pays attention to the whole process. The best part is he shares it with the rest of us! This book is fun to read from start to finish. Lent constantly encourages the reader (screenwriter) to adopt an attitude of, what I would call, "strategic humility" in their business dealings. How rare!!! This stuff helps in life too! I've never written a feature length screenplay, but I still found this book efficacious in learning the ins and outs of this goofy industry. And I know goofy - www.chrismundell.com
reviewed by papi on November 17, 2006 9:38 PM
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I'm on my third reading of Michael Lent's "Breakfast with Sharks" (2-7-05), and I highly this book to any screenwriter making serious go of trying to sell his/her work.
Micheal Lent doesn't make things up. His book is filled with real life "lived" experiences.
This book is a godsend if you've a written a screenplay and have started your foray into the next scary step-selling!! "Breakfast with Sharks" will help you disciminate information and buzzwords used at screenwrinting seminars and help decode the Hollywood Creative Directory.
My favorite section in the entire book is "Studio Notes: What They Are and How to Handle Them".
Overall a great book, insprationaly it ranks right up there with Karl Iglesias' "The 101 Habits of Hightly Successful Screenwriters".
- Review given by Eric C.Henrikson Febuary 7, 2005
Micheal Lent doesn't make things up. His book is filled with real life "lived" experiences.
This book is a godsend if you've a written a screenplay and have started your foray into the next scary step-selling!! "Breakfast with Sharks" will help you disciminate information and buzzwords used at screenwrinting seminars and help decode the Hollywood Creative Directory.
My favorite section in the entire book is "Studio Notes: What They Are and How to Handle Them".
Overall a great book, insprationaly it ranks right up there with Karl Iglesias' "The 101 Habits of Hightly Successful Screenwriters".
- Review given by Eric C.Henrikson Febuary 7, 2005
reviewed by bulldogs on November 25, 2006 7:50 AM
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As a beginning screenwriter I know the competition is fierce especially for those like me without film school, living outside of Hollywood. That's why I bought Breakfast with Sharks. There isn't a screenwriting resource out there like it. Sure, I've bought a few screenwriting books but most of them say the same things, how to write a screenplay and a query letter. This book delves into the business of screenwriting, if you don't have a father in the business you will need to learn the business and Breakfast with Sharks is a way to do it. I found the book also enjoyable to read with personal stories of Hollywood misfortune and finally success. Breakfast with Sharks rises above the competition with a unique purpose and helps you to write above the competition with what many others forget to bring to Hollywood, a plan and a unique voice.
reviewed by astrofizzy on November 26, 2006 5:53 PM
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As a writer on the edge - no, not that edge, but the edge of selling his first spec script I have to say this is far and away the BEST book on working Hollywood that I have ever read! It is excellent in its execution. Michael Lent covers issues that most authors at best touch on. He tells you the WHY of things. He covers issues such as agents and managers that aren't working for you - why it's likely happening and what you can do about it.
In my mind this is really the first and last book you'll need to read. Of course there will be other books and articles that can give you other tidbits of information but this is really a FOUNDATIONAL book. From Lent's book you can go forward with your career and not NEED to read anything further in the realm of HOW TO.
My hat is off to Lent and the great service he has done for all of us trying to storm the gates of Hollywood!
In my mind this is really the first and last book you'll need to read. Of course there will be other books and articles that can give you other tidbits of information but this is really a FOUNDATIONAL book. From Lent's book you can go forward with your career and not NEED to read anything further in the realm of HOW TO.
My hat is off to Lent and the great service he has done for all of us trying to storm the gates of Hollywood!
reviewed by csean85 on November 28, 2006 7:22 PM
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Lent's book divulges the nuts and bolts of the screenwriting profession, delineating the norms of the business and where writers are commonly led astray.
He covers everything from the types of deals and agreements are offered to screenwriters, the very VERY important pitch (which is horribly covered by other books) to the players and their functions (thankfully not a regurgitation of common stereotypes of producers and development execs... but something that a writer can use in developing a working relationship). He covers new territory by adding a guide to the often over looked supporters of the writer (wives, husbands, etc.) and how they should deal with the work and lifestyle.
I've read too many books on the business of screenwriting to count. They're either too thin on topics that matter, too heavy on stuff that is ultimately only a piece of the larger puzzle, or they simply put a new glossy cover on the same old crap. This is the only book I've read that covers, from stem to stern, a concerted overview of professional screenwriting and it's facets.
He covers everything from the types of deals and agreements are offered to screenwriters, the very VERY important pitch (which is horribly covered by other books) to the players and their functions (thankfully not a regurgitation of common stereotypes of producers and development execs... but something that a writer can use in developing a working relationship). He covers new territory by adding a guide to the often over looked supporters of the writer (wives, husbands, etc.) and how they should deal with the work and lifestyle.
I've read too many books on the business of screenwriting to count. They're either too thin on topics that matter, too heavy on stuff that is ultimately only a piece of the larger puzzle, or they simply put a new glossy cover on the same old crap. This is the only book I've read that covers, from stem to stern, a concerted overview of professional screenwriting and it's facets.
reviewed by jan1975 on November 29, 2006 10:10 AM