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Screenwriters Network Podcast, Ep 1: Mark Mazur Interview, Transcript

The original post for this episode can be found here.

Smish: Hey guys, thanks for tuning into the first episode of the Screenwriters Network Podcast. The Screenwriters Network is the largest Discord server of screenwriters in the world. On this show, we interview members of our community. I’m your host Smish and today we are talking to the Emmy nominated writer and director, Mark Mazur, also known as nqm in the server. Welcome to the show Mark. Thanks for being here.

Mark:Thank you so much for having me. I actually did win an Emmy. I won. [laughs]

Smish: Oh, I apologize – Emmy award winning writer and director!

Mark: But I feel like a jerk correcting that!

Smish: You’re such an ass [laughs]. No, I wrote that down wrong and I apologize. We’ll get to the Emmy thing in a minute. I wanted to interview you because you have written and directed two horror short films, which are currently available on Alter. If people don’t know, that’s a YouTube channel that posts a lot of exclusively horror short films. It’s a cool thing to get on there. Your short films are called Latency and Two Devices Connected. As you know, we’re hosting a contest for horror short screenplays called The Killer Shorts Horror Screenplay Competition, so it seems like a really good time to interview you. Thank you again for being on here. And we’ll include links to your shorts when we post this. But I wanted to ask you, what inspired you to write Latency and Two Devices Connected?

Mark: Latency was the first of the two that I made. I had done a few short films, as a trilogy, called June, July and August. Those are more lifestyle-like, kind of happy, emotional, nostalgic films. But I really wanted to do more of a narrative piece. I think Latency was generated from a conversation we were having with my two business partners at the time. We were talking about the PSVR that was coming out. We started talking about how that type of device is just weird for people that are […], because you have no idea what’s going on around you. There was a moment in our office: the PSVR had just come out, and we were playing it. The UPS guy walked in the office to drop off a package. Either Jim or Trent was playing, and he walked around them. If you’re playing with PSVR, you have no idea when somebody’s there. That idea just stuck with me: living in a world with continued distraction, and what that opportunity provides to people. The narrative of the thief breaking into a house, discovering someone playing a PSVR system is built around that idea.

Smish: I love it. That is so cool and freaky. What about Two Devices Connected? I love that title by the way. Oh my God, what would I do if I saw that another device was connected to me? What inspired that?

Mark: Two Devices Connected was inspired by a little Bluetooth speaker that I had in my old Malibu. It was one that was an aftermarket which just sat on the visor. I was driving back from work one day. When I sit down [in my car], I turn the device on and it says “Phone connected,” in that tech kind of voice. I was driving down to the city, I was listening to a podcast on that speaker, and it went, “Boop boop. Two devices connected.” I had never heard that before. This was while I was driving. It’s really bizarre – what else [is] connected? I looked over and saw that I was passing my girlfriend who was biking home from work. Her phone connected to the device. That bizarre thing [that happened] just stuck with me and that line [“Two devices connected”] hung with me for a few weeks afterwards. I was trying to see what to do with it. We were watching “Stranger Things” one night. I got up to go to the bathroom and it kind of hit me – 

Smish: On the toilet, of course.

Mark: [Laughs] Well, yes.

Smish: That’s where I get most of my great ideas.

Mark: The best ideas come from the toilet [laughs].

Smish: A quiet time when you’re not distracted, right?

Mark: And, the imagery just hit me. I don’t want to spoil the movie for anybody, but the ending of it just came right there. From there, it was just a matter of building the narrative and the logic behind it.

Smish: That’s really cool. So that leads me to my next question. What’s you process when you’re writing a short screenplay, as opposed to a feature? Do you outline? Do you do a beat sheet? Or just try to write ten pages at once?

Mark: I tend to write more, particularly if it’s a short piece like that. I try to build my shorts on one idea. I think having a focused and concise idea that you can build your story around is what makes a good short film. I tend to have one idea. For Two Devices, [the idea was that] this woman is in this parking garage, and two devices are connected to her speaker. She doesn’t know why. I just thought about that idea for a few weeks. Once I realized what I wanted to do with it, I sat down and just wrote out the whole script in probably one sitting, because it’s only a few pages. From there, I continued to revise, revise, revise. I find that when I write, I do my best to outline and plot and plan ahead of time. But eventually, I get to this point where I just feel so compelled and can’t help myself to sit down and write. So I might not have the whole script figured out, but I can’t stop myself from sitting down and just start working on it. Oftentimes it causes problems for me, when I’m in the middle of the second act, or at the beginning the third act, if I haven’t set things up properly. But I very much am a writer that just likes to iterate and get through the vastness of it as quickly as possible. I think that once you have clay on the table, it’s easier to mold than just trying to imagine, or sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper. 

Smish: Absolutely. As our member Chris would say, you can’t polish a turd until you shit it out.

Mark: [Laughs] I never heard that one, but that is a great quote. I like that.

Smish: That’s a quote from WriteChrisWrite, but it’s very true. How many pages is each script? Because they are pretty short films. 

Mark: I think three to four pages each. There’s not a lot of dialogue in them. So they might be a little shorter, not long at all. I was funding these out of my own pocket, we put money away to create our own shorts. I knew I had one or two nights to shoot. Latency was two nights, Two Devices was one night. With limited cast and limited dialogue, because Minneapolis doesn’t have the deepest acting pool. There are a few good actors, but there’s not a lot. Trying to use what you have and work with the most means helps you create shorts that are obtainable. 

Smish: It’s hard not to sit down and just write anything that you want, but if you sit and think “Well, I have access to this location, and I know that I can use this,” that helps. But in these cases you had the idea first, right?

Mark: Yes.

Smish: How did you decide that these ideas were worth making into film? I’m a director myself and I know how much work goes into creating a film. It can be a really long process from development to promoting it when it’s done etc. It never really ends. How did you decide that these were the ones you wanted to take the time and the money to make? 

Mark: When I sit down afterwards, or I give the script to my business partners, it just clicks. You can see the movie. It has a fun twist in it. Passing it to friends, getting feedback, when everybody tells you they really like the idea … then you start to piece together how it could be pulled off. That’s when it shifts into a movie. Sending it out and getting the feedback has been the best assurance that this is right. 

Smish: You said that you funded this yourself. Did you do any crowdfunding to supplement that? Or was this all self-funded with you and your friends?

Mark: Self-funded. I haven’t tapped into crowdfunding yet. It’s something that I’m keeping in my pocket until I need to do it, because I feel like you get one good shot at that. Definitely got more in kind favors than money that we spent on the script.

Smish: Nice. Just to backtrack a little bit. Before you made the films, did you bother to submit the screenplays to any contests?

Mark: No. The short scripts were something that either I was going to make them or they were not going to have a life anywhere. I wrote them knowing we could shoot them. 

Smish: What about the films? Once you completed the films, did you submit to any film festivals?

Mark: I might have submitted Latency to a couple. Then Two Devices we sent out to ten. We didn’t get into any of them

Smish: That sucks. It’s a good film, I’m surprised.

Mark: It’s hard to always say what resonates with people and what doesn’t. We had a lot of hit and miss successes with film festivals before. In college, we had success with one of my films, Surface.  We ended up being invited to Michael Moore’s festival in Traverse City, which was a really cool experience. We submitted that one to fifty festivals, we got into a handful of them. 

Smish: I think that’s what you have to do with films. I submitted my most successful films over a hundred film festivals. I got into a bunch, but I didn’t get into just as many. If you only submit to ten, maybe they were just unfortunately not the right fit, and it just wasn’t wild enough of a net.

Mark: I think so many young filmmakers don’t understand the business side of film festivals. More often than not, it does not have to do with the quality of your movie. It’s just what the film festival can program. So part of the idea with Two Devices and Latency was trying to create really short films that are easy to slip into programming slots. And even though we didn’t get into them, I still think we probably got more views online because they were shorter. IfII would have made a twenty minute horror film, it would be really difficult to program at festivals. And then you throw it up on Youtube, and somebody sits on down and they are in for twenty minutes. You’d probably get less clicks.

Smish: Absolutely. Now that’s a really good tip. I think shorter is better. So speaking of Youtube, these shorts ended up on Alter, which I only came to understand what it was when I started to do research for the Killer Shorts contest. I was trying to find examples of award winning horror short films, or just really popular ones, and they were all on this channel called Alter. What is Alter and what was the process of getting your shorts on there?

Mark: Alter is a Youtube platform and brand that is all about horror films. They find and curate the best horror films out there on the internet right now. They upload them on their channel where they are building an audience. They are part of a company called Gunpowder & Sky, which owns Alter, and Dust as well. Dust is the sci-fI equivalent to Alter’s horror side. I had heard about Dust and I had submitted some of my films there before, but I hadn’t heard anything back from them. It clearly wasn’t the right fit. About a year after Latency and Two Devices have been released, I got an email from a person at Gunpowder & Sky. They were creating a new platform called Alter that was specifically focused on horror films. She had come across Two Devices at some point, and really liked it, and wanted it to be  one of the launch films for Alter. Which is really cool.

Smish: It’s gotta make you feel special.

Mark: It does. I emailed back and I was like, “Hey, I have another one!” I sent over Latency and they liked that one too. They ended up using both films during the launch. I think Two Devices is the first movie that was uploaded to Alter. So we were number one on there. Which is pretty cool.

Smish: That is really cool. So how has having your shorts on Alter affected you? Has it benefited you in any way?

Mark: It’s hard to say if people have reached out directly. I had at least one manager reach out because he saw the stuff on Alter. I also had another Youtube channel reach out that might want to do some original stuff with me, I think because of Alter. It’s hard to say if that’s how they found me. But also it’s fun to have people watch your stuff. And Alter has such a large community that if you get a film on there, you get tens of thousands of views on it. It’s hard to organically find that anywhere else. Especially if you’re launching on your own channel or on your own Vimeo page.t There just isn’t that community to propel it.

Smish: So you had uploaded it to Youtube before it was on Alter and that’s how they found you?

Mark: Both films are on Vimeo, curated under the narrative channel. We had gotten somewhere between ten and twenty thousand views. I imagine that Gunpowder & Sky was searching through Vimeo narrative horror for stuff, and that’s how they came across it.

Smish: And those views you had already accumulated – was that because you had a following from other things you’ve made before? Or this is people just randomly finding it on Vimeo?

Mark: I had three vimeo staff picks prior to  Latency and Two Devices.

Smish: Congratulations, that’s awesome.

Mark: Thank you. It was very exciting to have happened. That was the June, July, August series. Over the course of three months, we got a staff pick for each month. Which is really cool. I had some of the curators follow me on Vimeo. When I released those films, they were curated into the narrative channel. They didn’t get a staff pick because there are a lot of people on those channels watching stuff. That’s where the majority of views come from. Also, a big cinematography blog wrote an article about it. We got a lot of views from that and compliments to the films, which was really cool. 

Smish: What advice do you have for someone who’s trying to write a horror short screenplay?

Mark: The best horror shorts are focused on a single idea. They don’t try to do too much. They are kind of built upon one big scare. You are teasing out these horror moments throughout the beginning of the movie and building towards that big jump scare and the big twist at the end. I think that if you do too much, if you try to make it into a bigger piece, anything that’s over 12 minutes, is probably too long. You’re doing your audience a disservice. So keep it short, keep it focused, keep it concise. And one of the most important things is tone. Understanding the tone of your movie and maintaining that throughout the movie is vital to controlling the atmosphere and making sure that your audience is on edge. David Sandberg – the guy is just brilliant. When I was doing Latency and Two Devices, I was watching his shorts and trying to recreate that magic with my own twist, with my own flavor. His shorts are focused on a single moment, a single scene, a single idea. He just does a great job of controlling the tone and slowly building up towards that big jump scare at the end.

Smish: He nailed that. And I love how it’s his wife that acts in almost all of those shorts. She’s great, and he’s a great filmmaker, with the horror short films and everything he’s doing. He’s very inspiring.

Mark: Those shorts launched his feature career. That’s a great example of someone that took these short horror ideas, executed them well, did them very cheap, and they were able to launch a career out of it.

Smish: Getting away from the shorts for a second, you had success with features as well. You wrote a feature script called Retrograde. Tell me how that has done: 

Mark: I wrote a handful of features before Retrograde. I never made a feature, so i’ve yet to go down that hole. But I’ve written quite a few. Retrograde was one of those ideas that I knew was going to be too great for me to make as my first feature. So I kept putting it off and off, saying I should really be putting my energy into something smaller that I could try to make myself. But it just kept getting me at the back of my head. Eventually, I realized I needed to write this damn thing so it would leave me alone. By 2014 I sat down and started writing it. Retrograde is basically set on a space station in the near future, and World War Three breaks out on Earth between a few different countries. And those countries tell their astronauts to take the station from each other. So it’s just a micro-cosmic war set in space. That was the premise that I had since the very beginning. “What would happen on the space station if a war broke out on Earth?” It has such a good hook that as long as I didn’t mess it up, it would get read and people would like it. If I wrote this thing I could probably get some sort of attention. I don’t know if it would get made, but it would open the door to some conversations. That’s what I wrote the script for, to get me a foot in the door, and once that door is open I’ll have more stuff to show, and stuff that we could actually make. So I worked on Retrograde for about two years before submitting to Nicholl. I had never submitted to Nicholl before. I had a friend who had been submitting for the last twenty years, so she was very seasoned. This script season is from about March to November, when Austin, Nicholl, Page all happen during that time frame. So I just decided that this Nicholl award season I was going to submit my first script to it and go through all the notifications and the ups and the downs with her. I submitted Retrograde in March or April. I distinctly remember the night that the deadline was on, sitting in the kitchen and my girlfriend, now wife, making dinner, as I was rapidly typing, making tweaks and shifts. She was like, “You had months to do this and now you’re twerking on the night of the deadline?” and I was like, “It will be worth it! Promise it will be worth it!” I just kept working and annoying her, making her read stuff and find spelling errors and all that. We submitted and then you just wait. I remember walking home in June from a coffee shop when I got the notification that I was a quarter finalist in Page. I think my friend Winona texted me and she also made a quarter finalist on Page, so we celebrated together. It was really cool that it happened with Page, but I really wanted to be a quarter finalist at Nicholl. That would mean that we would go out to managers and representatives and production companies and that I could get that logline in front of people. I would get read requests. So I was thinking this is good, but that Nicholl quarterfinalist would be huge. I think that a couple weeks later the Nicholl quarterfinalist email came. I blasted the song on my headphones and just danced on the street for a while [laughs].

Smish: That’s awesome.

Mark: And Winona advanced as well. So we checked that box. Once the competition wraps up, they send that out, and I can get some read requests and get a lot going with it. Then I learned that I was eliminated from Page, I didn’t make semI semi-finals in Page. But after that we made semI final at Nicholl. Top 151 out of seven thousand scripts. Very surreal. Winona was thinking, “This kid … I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and he gets to be a semI finalist on his first submission.” Then I continued to push the script even higher on people’s radars. I did not make the final. Which is fine. Winona ended up winning and became a fellow that year. 

Smish: Congratulations.

Mark: That was great to have her go through that with, it was really special. I am really stoked for her. As I predicted, the logline went out and I got a dozen or so requests from production companies and from managers. I ended up resonating with a couple of them. Ultimately I connected with one manager who saw a lot of potential in the script. We ended up going back and forth. This was about November. He said, “Ok, let’s start working on the script together.” We went back and forth on the script for a couple of months, and come January, he said, “I think the script is in a good spot, I’d like to take it out and represent you.” I ended up signing with him. We made a couple more tweaks. My fiance and I decided that we were going to move to LA in the spring. So by late February, two weeks before I moved here, the script started going out. As I landed here, we started getting leads. I started taking general meetings. A few weeks after that, we had two companies interested in the script and we ended up optioning it to one of those companies.

Smish: That’s awesome.

Mark: A year after submitting to Nicholl, we optioned the screenplay. Which is way more than I ever anticipated happening with it. It’s been very surreal. Nobody who lands in LA gets meetings with companies that I had meetings with.

Smish: You timed that perfectly. And you got a manager out of it.

Mark: I got a manager. I got lawyers. 

Smish: Multiple lawyers.

Mark: I don’t exactly know how it works.

Smish: It’s kind of intimidating. I feel like I need to be careful how I approach you now [laughs].

Mark: [laughs] I don’t think they can sue you. They just do the contract stuff. It would be my other law team that would sue you [laughs].

Smish: [laughs] So when was this option – this year?

Mark: It was this year. 

Smish: So it’s still in option. Are they trying to get it made right now? Is there any news on that?

Mark: They are talking out two directors right now. The contracts took a while. That’s what you learn very quickly in this town, things take really slow. While we closed the deal in the spring, I did not sign the contract until after my honeymoon in September. It’s nice to come back from the honeymoon and have the contract sitting in my inbox, so that I can just sign it, and then execute it. 

Smish: Your life is just perfect. Does anything ever go wrong for you?

Mark: [laughs] Yes, definitely!

Smish: We don’t need to go into that. You said the script is out to directors. A lot of people who are listening have never made it to this point yet. Does that mean that there is money to make the film and they are picking the director? Or you have to go and find a director first to start finding financing?

Mark: The second. The strategy with the movie is to try to get a big name director, somebody that has some clout, and perhaps an actor, and get those packaged together. Then they can approach a studio and say, “Look, A-list director is on board to do this, A-list actor is ready to go, give us the money to make this thing happen.” They try to make it as easy as possible for a studio to say yes before they approach them. That’s kind of the phrase we’re in right now, sending the script out, seeing who is interested. I imagine once it happens they might want me to rewrite it based on this director’s notes, their style etc., and then, from there, hopefully approach a studio and get some lead for it.

Smish: That’s really exciting Mark. I’m very happy for you. I’m very honored that you are a member of the server and that you are willing to share your experience and knowledge with people that are on the same journey as you, but just a few steps behind. Thank you for that. 

Mark: I feel like it’s always such a mystery how these things happen. There’s so much of the business side that is complicated or just confusing or shrouded in fog. I want to share my experience and say there’s a thousand different ways to break into this industry. People will tell you not to submit to competitions because it doesn’t work. Well, it can. There’s a lot of different ways to make it happen. But there are so many users that feel like it will never happen for them, or it’s just too complicated, or that they don’t have the way forward. I just try to be open and honest as much as I can be about sharing my own journey, just be there as a sounding board. “I got an email from a manager, I don’t know what it means. Has anybody had before?” I can share my experience and say “This is what the notes I’ve gotten have looked like, and this is my experience in these meetings with these creatine executives when they wanted to treat the script, and what they are looking for.” So anything I can do to help, I try.

Smish: What are you working on now? What’s next for you?

Mark: Right now we are in the process of taking a script out, a much smaller feature, that I want to direct myself. That one is a contained thriller set in a call center in rural Michigan. Retrograde was the film that was going to open the door for me and I didn’t expect anything else. But when that door opened I was going to have another one ready to go. This was that movie. Right after my manager finished working Retrograde and even before that he was like, “Well, what else do you have?” I think that is one of the most important answers to a question you need to have. When representation approaches a new writer, they are going to ask you what else you have. You have to have something. Because they aren’t looking for one hit wonders. They are looking for writers that are sustainable, that they can have a career, that they can make money off of. Or with, I should say. 

Smish: Does it have to be in the same genre?

Mark: I don’t know. That’s a hard question. I heard a lot of people say that once you get in, you’re going to be pigeonholed as the thriller guy, or the comedy guy, or the drama guy. But I think that you just need to write what you want to write and if that means writing a rom-com after your horror slasher, write what resonates with you. I think if you’re authentic to yourself, you have a better shot of finding an audience for it.

Smish: Wise words.

Mark: The script that’s ready to go is a much smaller movie. We’re in the process of taking it out right now and hopefully finding a partner and making it with.

Smish: Best of luck with that. I’m sure it’s going to go great because you never fail, so … [laughs]

Mark: [laughs] You’re going to jinx me. 

Smish: I know. This ticker has never missed. They get it a hundred percent all the time. Whenever a commentator says that, that’s when they miss the case.

Mark: Exactly.

Smish: You have been a member of the Screenwriter’s Network discord server for about five months now. How has the server helped you as a writer? 

Mark: I was actually a member before that. But I’m pretty sure you flanked me out at some point.

Smish: [gasps] That sounds so wrong. Ok, so when did you start being a member?

Mark: Actually maybe we shouldn’t use that phrase, maybe we should back up.

Smish: No it’s OK. We used to kick people out for inactivity quite often.

Mark: I think I joined a couple of years ago, particularly because of the script tub. I was not active, so I was removed at some point. And then I rejoined and made a more concerted effort to be part of the community. I actually learned how to use discord. That was something we talked about, the intimidation factor of opening this thing for the first time and going “What are all these little hashtags and how does all this stuff work?” I made a focused effort to be a member of the community. For me personally, I really enjoyed the conversions. I just love talking about movies and there seems to be always somebody around to talk about movies. Or share their opinions or talk about how to format something in a script etc. One thing we talked about yesterday with Hickey was the sound of a toaster – what it sounds like.

Smish: Was it cc-chung?

Mark: I don’t know what we ended upon. I threw out the terrible idea of just recording it on your phone and uploading it to Dropbox and hyperlinking it to the script. 

Smish: That’s an awful idea.

Mark: You should not do that. But it’s the little things like that that I really enjoy. I don’t think many people realize how many professionals are there and these professionals are full of sage advice on ways of navigating this industry. Like, chatting with people that write for the Hallmark Channel and hearing what that experience is like, a world that I never even read about at all. It’s just fascinating. I genuinely think that the majority of the community wants success for others and want to help each other get there. When somebody shares on social media or on #screenwriring that they got an email from a manager or so and so is reading their script, there’s genuine happiness. You have your close friends that are cheering for you, but it’s rare to have such a large group of your peers that are just excited when you share some news. I haven’t done a lot of table reads yet. I want to contribute more to those and get more notes. But I also selflessly like to read other people’s stuff. I think that personally I gain a lot more from other people’s scripts when I can find ways to help them out. I think you become a better writer when you critique other writers. So taking the time to read other people’s scripts and give thoughtful feedback is just going to make you a stronger writer.

Smish: For those of you who don’t know, Script Hub is a resource we have just for members of our discord server. It’s basically a Google drive of over fifteen thousand screenplays for produced films, TV shows, and unreleased films as well. It’s probably the biggest resource in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. It’s a hundred percent free for our members. But you do have to stay an active member and you have to have been a member for at least thirty days before you get to it. But that is a big draw. I think the majority of our members joined because of that. So shout out to our Script Hub people who keep that maintained.

Mark: I was actually trying to look it up the other day how many scripts there are in the WGA library. And I couldn’t find a number, but you probably have more scripts in the Script Hub. 

Smish: We might. That would be insane. We don’t have a physical place that you can go to. I really like the WGA library actually. I went there one time and I went there to write and it was pretty cool to see all the screenplays in there, leather bound folders and all of that.

Mark: I heard it’s very cool there. I haven’t gone there yet . It’s on the list.

Smish: It’s something you should do at least once I think. And they also have a lot of books on screenwriting that you can just pull down and read, like in a regular library. You mentioned talking to people about movies and screenwriting. Have you ever met someone from the server, in real life?

Mark: i’ve actually met with two of our members in the past couple of weeks.

Smish: That’s great because I really want to foster and facilitate networking. I think that’s a really important part of being a screenwriter and something I suck at. If the server can help people meet  each other, as long as you stay safe, it’s great. Do you feel comfortable telling me about who you met?

Mark: I’m going to butcher his name. But is it Parhelion?

Smish: It’s Chris, right?

Mark: Yes. I met with Chris and he’s from the Bay Area. So he came down to take some meetings and I got together with him. We had drinks, it was a great conversation. I haven’t met up with a lot of people from the internet. But it’s an interesting thing because you have this rapport with somebody, even though you’ve never seen them face to face. We sat down and started chatting. It was a very casual and fun conversation. We started shooting the shit about the industry and about the movies that we like and what we want to do. Immediately we started figuring out how we could help each other out. That was really cool.

Smish: Who else did you meet?

Mark: I met Core, and he’s the guy who’s always at #Crafty.

Smish: He’s the one that writes the Hallmark movies, right?

Mark: He and his wife write for Hallmark and Lifetime. Their experiences are just fascinating and hearing about the similar but also completely different hurdles that they have to jump through to try to get inside the walled gardens of these daytime movies. 

Smish: I feel like it’s a genre of its own, Hallmark movies and Lifetime movies.

Mark: They are completely different entities in the way that they operate. Navigating both and trying to break into one and meet new people in one, while managing and writing within a completely different style for the other one … how they write about the act breaks, and how they plan for the commercials, how they are navigation talking about things happening in the real world while still keeping the stakes fairly light within the movie. That was a really great conversation as well. They are both very sweet people and I generally think that I have friends on the server now I’ll get together with whenever they are in Los Angeles. There are a few people in LA and we were trying to organise something to get together at some point. I think  that kind of building, this community, helping each other out is a lot of fun. It’s rewarding and it’s cool to see people doing cool stuff.

Smish: The guy who’s always at #Crafty, I believe he came down from Vancouver, which is where I’m from. I moved here two and a half years ago from Vancouver and every Hallmark movie is filmed in Vancouver. So that’s a fun fact for anyone who watches Hallmark movies. What would you say to someone who’s really shy and scared to go out and network in real life. Do you have any advice for them?

Mark: I would classify myself as an introvert by nature. I have taught myself to turn it off when I need to because I ran a business for seven years. This industry is so much about relationships. But I also like curling up and playing video games by myself. I read something a while ago: the best thing you can do when you go meet somebody is just to tell yourself that everything is going to be ok. Even if you mess up this meeting, you say all the wrong things, you are going to be fine. I think going in with that idea that whatever happens I’m going to be OK, that this is not going to be the end of the world, lifts the pressure off. So you won’t crush this precious meeting with your anxiety about messing it up.  It’s like this open secret that everybody in Hollywood is always trying to figure out how they can help somebody else or how they can help you. What people are searching for is a genuine relationship. Build a rapport on the other parts of life. I’m a die hard Packers fan. I can talk to anybody about football. So often I will end up spending half a conversation talking about football. I had a conversation with one of the creative executives that I had a meeting with about churning bank accounts. Do you know what that is?

Smish: I don’t even know what that means. I know churning butter.

Mark: Churning bank accounts is basically opening bank accounts, either credit cards or bank accounts, and then hitting the minimum requirements to get their bonuses. Strategies to optimize those reward systems. So with this creative executive who’s making a lot of cool movies, I spent an hour talking about the best bank account for him and the best credit cards he should go after for his lifestyle. Completely off the wall, but we built a connection over that and joked about that and even didn’t talk about business that much. But building genuine connections with people is going to be so much more worthwhile down the road then having a one off conversation and trying to figure out what one person could do for you.

Smish: Last but not least, you won an Emmy award. What was that like and has it gone to your head?

Mark: No. I will clarify. I won an Upper Midwest Regional Emmy. Not the national Emmy, I was not on the big TV … I sound like a grandfather [laughs]. So it was not that. The way the Emmys work is that there are the national Emmys that everybody watches, but they also have regional Emmys, like Midwest, East, South etc. Those are mostly for local news stations. They are considered Emmy winners to the same level as a national Emmy, it’s just that you’re at your TV spot and you don’t air nationally so you don’t qualify for national awards. You are still an Emmy winner but the trophy is a little shorter. [laughs] We did a series of PSAs for a non-profit and we ended up winning Emmys off of that. I have the trophy, it says “Upper Midwest Regional Emmy” on it. It’s still very awesome, but in my mind it’s not the same level as a national Emmy. 

Smish: That’s incredibly cool. Congratulations. Does it say Wisconsion on it?

Mark: Upper Midwest Regional. I think it’s Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, and maybe Montana.

Smish: Where do you keep it?

Mark: Actually it’s in my closet. I don’t have room for it.

Smish: You have to bring it out.

Mark: Actually I have two of them, because I ended up with the one we have one for the company, and then the three of us each got an individual one. Which we had to buy. So I have that and I have a Telly award in the closet right now too.

Smish: I think you should at least consider putting those out where people can see them.

Mark: Nobody comes to our apartment anyways.

Smish: You can see it.

Mark: I don’t want to look at it all the time, you know?

Smish: Why not?

Mark: Because it’s staring at me. I’m trying to write good stuff, it’s just that little winged angel is staring at me.

Smish: That’s too much pressure. I hear you. Thank you so much for being here and being my first official guest on the Screenwriter’s Network Podcast. To my listeners, if you’re thinking of writing a horror short, you should definitely submit it to the Killer Shorts Horror Shorts Screenplay Competition. There’s some amazing prizes including guaranteed industry reads for the winners. If you are VIP silver or higher you can enter for free. Or you can redeem twenty tokens. Or you can just pay the $25 on Filmfreeway, Coverfly or ISA. But you must enter by December 15th. Mark, if you don’t mind sticking around, I have a few more fun questions I’d love to ask you, which will be available to our VIP members only as bonus content, because they are supporting us on Patreon. But for now, tell everyone where they can learn more about you. Do you have a website or twitter?

Mark: MarkMazur.com for the website. It’s mostly commercial work. But i’m also @markmazur on Twitter and Instagram and that’s how you can reach out. Or hit me up on the discord. 

Smish: He’s nqm, he’s a deputy mod, and he’s here to help. 

Thanks for reading.

Links:

Email us at screenwritersdiscord@gmail.com 

You can download the episode here.

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