You Know Whom? That’s the Real Ticket

On April 15, as thousands of local residents found themselves grappling with dark mysteries of the Internal Revenue Service code, a few hundred others gathered at Paramount Studios hoping to decipher an equally confounding enigma--namely, how to establish a career writing for television.

Those who solve this riddle file very long tax returns in the highest possible bracket. The also-rans, meanwhile, get to ponder each year whether they can rightfully list “writer” as their occupation.

So what advice did these aspiring screenwriters receive from their fully employed brethren at the event, put together by the Scriptwriters Network and Women in Film?

Three points came through, which bear repeating as attention in TV circles turns to which programs get ordered for the coming season: a) No one can teach you how to write, so keep working at it; b) There’s a huge hunger for talent; and c) It’s not so much what you know as who you know.

Although “c” would seem, in some ways, to contradict “a” and “b,” participants stressed again and again that mere writing ability or a sparkling “spec” (that is, a sample script, usually based on some existing series) are swell but no substitute for the kind of connections that open the right doors.

Most of those with their noses pressed up against the glass, the untold legions walking around with a screenplay regularly affixed to one armpit, understand this. Indeed, they understand so well that organizers had to remind attendees not to rush the stage and ask those addressing them to read their scripts. (I have some first-hand knowledge that such pleas are not always heeded, having nearly been trampled into paste at a Writers Guild of America seminar by a crowd rushing forward to chat up the participants.)

With skills such as writing and acting, a very few people possess a glowing gift that shines blindingly through, sort of like those aliens in “Cocoon.” Far more flat-out stink. Others find themselves caught in the middle, with enough going for them to make them think, given an appropriate break, that they can succeed.

While this view is frequently misguided, people are to be forgiven for overestimating their chances. After all, precious little of what’s on TV or in theaters is so fabulous as to discourage them from thinking they can play the game--which might be true if they started from the same point as some of the lesser lights who are currently working.

Which, clearly, they don’t.

“A lot of this business is relationships. It’s about liking somebody,” Rose Catherine Pinkney, an energetic vice president of comedy development at Paramount Network Television, told the crowd of about 230 writing wannabes.

“Unofficial referrals can come from anywhere,” she noted later, citing “the guy who cuts my hair” among those who have steered writers in her direction.

“It is who you know,” said Donovan Lee, a talent manager with Intrigue Entertainment.

It is also completely subjective, one reason hope springs eternal in the face of countless rejections. Everyone has heard a story about the script passed on by this studio or that, only to become the next movie blockbuster or network smash.

“There is a core of uncertainty to how the business works,” conceded Carleton Eastlake, currently executive producer of the syndicated sci-fi show “Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict,” delivering the conference’s keynote address.

“If this were a dependable science or art,” he pointed out, “we’d be taping ‘Snoops’ tonight”--a reference to the since-departed ABC series from producer David E. Kelley, which no doubt seemed like a good idea initially given that Kelley’s two previous shows were “The Practice” and “Ally McBeal.”

The message emanating from the stage thus focused less on scribbling than marketing--forging a connection, any connection, with someone capable of passing your script along with a recommendation to separate it from the piles covering desks all over the 310, 323 and, yes, even 818 area codes.

Of course, no one wants to be hit up for work in line at the supermarket or over Thanksgiving dinner, so writers require a little ingenuity to sell themselves without being obnoxious about it.

“I guess our message is ‘Be our friend,’ in a context where we don’t really know what you want out of us,” quipped Al Jean, an executive producer on “The Simpsons.”

All this leads back to the theme that merit only goes so far. The best writer in the world, lacking a conduit into the system, will struggle to break through, especially if they aren’t adept at selling themselves by giving “good meeting,” as one panelist put it.

In similar fashion, though programmers love to talk about how the best idea wins, everyone knows that’s not the case. Innumerable factors influence which shows see the light of day, everything from nepotism toward an in-house studio to payments due certain writers if series aren’t ordered to complex relationships--there’s that word again--involving writers, studio executives and network brass.

Former NBC President Don Ohlmeyer--fond of saying the network would “take a hit show from Attila the Hun”--was half right: Attila would get his chance, but only after NBC had exhausted its options among writers the network liked, or if Attila’s show was produced in conjunction with NBC Productions.

Such facts are seldom discussed at seminars, where aspirants are told about the value of perseverance without the reminder the deck is often stacked, the vast majority of them will never sell anything and the few who do will thereafter be unemployed most of the time.

Producer Winnie Holzman, whose credits include “My So-Called Life” and “Once and Again,” came close to addressing this grim reality, saying in regard to landing an agent, “It’s not the Holy Grail. It’s just another step in what seems like an endless series of disappointments.”

Eastlake also accurately characterized the odds facing anyone who chooses to enter this particular field, applicable whether the ultimate goal is acting, writing or directing.

“If you sell something, if you have a career, you have won the Olympics,” he said.

What’s equally true--and about as fair as injecting steroids--is that the rules governing these games keep changing, and competitors start closer to the finish line if they are fortunate enough to know someone who just happens to cut the right head of hair.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Tuesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.