Jason Heimberg, Jeff Sank & Justin Heimberg

Jason Heimberg graduated from James Madison U. with a degree in Marketing. He decided not to do anything related to marketing and go to George Washington law school. The misery of law school provided enough motivation for him to drop everything and follow his dream of being a comedy writer. He moved to LA three years ago with his brother Justin and Jeff Sank. He plans on moving to northern Minnesota, becoming a recluse, making a fortune in the stock market, while training for the next Iditarod.

Jeff Sank was raised in Rockville, Maryland where he worked as a stage actor (L’il Abner) throughout his youth. While attending The George Washington University his focus turned to writing and documentary filmmaking (Lum the Town Cook). Three years ago he moved to Koreatown in downtown LA and began writing screenplays full time.

In addition to his work as a screenwriter, Justin Heimberg is the author of four published books, including the popular “Would You Rather…?” series. A graduate of Duke University, Justin also serves as the Associate Director of DreamYard/L.A., a non-profit arts education organization working with incarcerated youth.

Where’d you guys grow up and when did the interest in film start?

Jason: Rockville, Maryland, outside of Washington, DC. I always had an interest in film, and writing, and goofing off. And doing little skits. We did a lot of little video filming in high school and some writing stuff, with Justin and Jeff. Then I wanted to parlay goofing off and writing silly stuff into a career.

Justin: School projects were sort of the launching ground for our writing and directing because you’d have to do a report on Lord Byron so you’d sort of say what is you’d have to say meanwhile we had insane things going on in the background. We’ve been writing together since little kids, and fighting. We continue our fighting and writing to this day.

And you’ve (Justin) written some books?

Justin: I was under the illusion that you could make money-writing books. Even successful books make less money than a script that never gets made and is buried immediately, and is divided between three people. You do have freedom of creativity in books. The main purpose of the books is to get a lot of inside jokes published. (Laughs) Ultimately that’s our ambition with movies.

Jeff, you’re up.

Jeff: My parents got a video camera when my half brother was born. We were already about thirteen so that became our first tool for moving on to beyond torturing teachers and classmates to actually putting into short movies – recruiting some other friends.

We went to college pretty locally, at different colleges, afterwards we all came back to DC and we wrote our first script in DC together, and sent it out here (Los Angeles) ahead of us then followed it right out.

You went to school at?

Jeff: George Washington.

Jason: James Madison

Justin: Duke.

Jason: I feel it’s very important to mention I am a law school graduate. (Laughter)

So you ended back up in the Washington area. How did you guys suddenly decide to write a script together?

Jason: I was in law school and I hated it. It was a disaster but I decided to finish it. And I was just miserable. I didn’t want to practice law and I didn’t know what I was going to do — the beginning of my dark years. (Laughs)

I was in the middle of studying for the bar exam and I was just like “f*** this.” I don’t want to do this. Let’s write. I left the middle of the class and wrote an email to both of them and said, “Let’s write a script and go to LA.”

Jeff: It was still kind of an idea at that point. One of the big things I remember, we were talking about ideas and Jason had an idea about two losers who decide to start up their own religion. We just thought that was a great idea and that got the ball rolling. Right there in Virginia we started writing.

No formal training? You just started out writing?

Jason: We always watched “Saturday Night Live” and movies and thought this sucks we should go write something ourselves. But then, of course, you never follow through on that. Then real impetus was that I was so miserable I had no other choice.

Did you ever read anything?

Justin: We read “Story” and one of Syd Field’s books.

Jason: We read a couple of books and we had a couple of screenplays. I think that was it for me.

How did the first script go?

Jason: That was “Enlightenism.” Two loveable losers start their own religion in an effort avoid getting real jobs and make a lot of money. We were emailing ideas like Jeff said. This one I came up with… two guys start a religion. Blah, blah, blah. It was a good solid idea and sounded interesting about religion so there was satire – satirical elements we could work with.

Justin: It’s our favorite script — the only one that hasn’t sold yet. It’s about religion so people are a little wary of it. At least they were when it came out. It’s still our favorite I think.

What was the process like for three people working together?

Jason: What we did was start outlining it with a very skeletal outline. Beats. We had it broken up into five acts then got it down to three. We outlined with plot points.

Justin: I just remember the original had a lot more to do with a shark farm.

Jeff: As we start outlining ideas start coming up. Some of them don’t always make them into the final (script). But loosely it’s: come up with an idea, make an outline, fill in the details of the outline, and then start writing the scenes. That structure helps with the story and characters but jokes come during every step.

Jason: Before we write any dialogue or start writing the scenes, we try to do as much as possible because that makes it infinitely easier to start writing dialogue and scenes when you have all the plot points lined up, what happens in each scene, some jokes that go in each scene…

Jeff: I fought that for so long because it sounded so uninspired but then I gave in, even with comedies because 80% of the work comes before writing the dialogue.

I imagine that you spend a lot of time with your characters thinking them through?

Jeff: Yeah, we do. That’s a huge thing with studios too. You write a script that’s hysterical and you are completely happy with it then a studio producer gets it and they really won’t go forward unless the arcs are completely fleshed out. Immediately they are going to look for: Why does the character go through changes? Why are they the way they are at the beginning of the movie? Who is this character? Etc.

Jason: I think one interesting dynamic that we have is that we are a three person writing team. We’ll email stuff. Talk on the phone. And then the individuals will think of stuff on their own. Then we’ll come together and meet. At the meetings we try to have out the plot points.

Jeff: By hash out he means fight and argue. Make that very clear. (Laughter)

Jason: Convince the other people that your way is right.

Justin: Create the story. Fight. Outline. Fight. Break up scenes. Come together. Fight.

Jason: Once we are at the point where we have what we call whole outline, which is basically every scene, a paragraph of what happens, several jokes, then we divide the scenes up individually. Each person gets three to five scenes in order. Everyone writes on their own. Then we come back in a couple of days, read over everybody’s, make notes. Depending on how well they were done, minor changes or we say it has to be completely redone.

You build the script then by saying “You have these three scenes, then you the next three…” and so on?

Jeff: Yes, but before we even start writing the scenes, we go over it and brainstorm for jokes. And that’s another huge part of the process. That’s an ongoing process. We try to keep a running list of jokes for different scenarios. So we’ll do that together before the scene breakdowns.

Justin: We’ve learned it’s best to get on the same page as much as possible before you break up scenes.

So how did the first script go?

Jason: Justin got us an agent at Gersh through his humor books. We were still in DC.

We sent it and drove across country. So we checked in from every state for what the status was. She got it and sent it out to the studios and producers as a spec.

She read it and liked it a lot?

Jason: We kept checking in. We’d hear the phone ring in Kansas, thinking it’s her saying the script sold for a million dollars… and it’s my mom asking if we got our oil changed. Disappointing.

Justin: I imagined every possible way we’d hear that the first script sold and what a great moment it would be. We were literally out on these rolling plains wandering around with buffalo. Every time the cell phone rang it was my mom.

It didn’t sell but it created a lot of buzz. We came out here and we had 20 meetings as follow up and we were trying to buy a car and do everything. It was a rough time for about a year.

Did you really want to be out here no matter what?

Jeff: We were hoping that it would sell and had a good feeling it would, but we knew there was a realistic chance that it might not and if it didn’t we were still ready to come here.

Jason: A lot of people liked it and got us meetings. It got us in the door. That got us in with producers and studio people.

How did those meetings go?

Jeff: That went really well. The people we meet in those first rounds of meetings we still work with a lot of them. I remember reading on your site, one of the interviews there, someone said “getting an agent is very important, but if you can really good producer” is huge. We met a lot of good people and we really hooked on with a couple of producers. You can tell a big difference in those first round of meetings, who was meeting with us to meet with us and who legitimately saw talent, was interested in working with us and was going to commit some time and energy to what our next project was going to be and really working with us.

People like Matt Berenson at Paul Schiff Productions who was a big help; we later sold a script with him, “Leisure World.” So right there that was an immediate path. Also, Russell Hollander at Mike Karz Productions at Disney who was just a huge help. We’ve never actually sold a script to him but he’s read over our scripts, he gives us notes, etc.

Jason: So we got out here, it didn’t sell, we met with the people and we immediately had a falling out within two weeks with our agent, because we were trying to move and settle in – it was stressful. She thought we should be coming in and meeting with her every day going over pitches, and she thought we weren’t having good meetings.

Jeff: The other good thing about hooking up with a producer is they know agents and managers. All producers we knew at the time we’re like “We know an agent.” They are dieing to hook you up.

Jason: We had “creative differences” with that agent. One of the producers tried to hook us up with a manager.

The point is don’t get stuck on your agent or manager, be vary wary that a lot of these people are pricks. You gotta be skeptical.

Justin: You gotta find someone you can get a long with. If you don’t have to sign, don’t sign. Because if you are four months down the road you don’t want to find out it’s not working.

We’re on our third representation and we’re very happy on a personal and professional level.

Jason: We’re with Metropolitan Talent Agency.

Jeff: It’s like night and day. Once you find the one you like, at least for us, there’s no question. Once we got in there it was obvious that they are a great fit.

So you finished a script, got the manager, etc.?

Jason: “Leisure World.” My grandma lives in Leisure World in Olney, Maryland. It’s basically a luxury retirement community for old people. It’s got golf, a clubhouse, and restaurants. It’s great. Every time we go there we like “Can we move in?”

So we thought it’d be funny if a young guy, 28 year old, had just had it with the rat race and moved into Leisure World.

Justin: We went out with it as a pitch. We actually were lukewarm on it. We didn’t know if the story was quite there. After a few incarnations, we did come up with a story. Originally we pitched it with Matt Berenson and Paul Schiff. It had a decent response but it didn’t sell as pitch. We were encouraged by them and our manager to write it. I guess it was ultimately worth doing.

Jeff: That thing’s been through a lot.

Justin: Another thing about the early stages was we got suckered into a lot of free work. Lots of producers say, “I have an idea about a baseball catcher. I’m not a writer.” You’re like “Oh.” They’re like “Can you come up with a story?” In the beginning you’re thinking this must be a done deal, all we have to do is come up with a really detailed story about a baseball catcher. And then (you find out) it’s not a done deal at all and you just spin your wheels, and the studio is not interested.

Jeff: You gotta find a balance. With “Leisure World” it was a really a rough process and almost destroyed all three of us. But again, it did sell. In a way you want to say it’s worth it. You have to feel it out when you are just starting as we were.

Have you found a way to handle all those “work on it for free” requests?

Jason: We didn’t have an agent at that point so we didn’t know. You hate to rely on them but let them be the bad guy. Let them be the one to say my clients aren’t going to do this for nothing.

Early on though you have to do this to build up the relationships, get the meetings, and hopefully get something going.

Justin: Personally, I feel, if you are going to do someone else’s idea then they better be established. If you don’t sell it, you don’t have anything you can sell later because it’s not your idea. It’s not your idea and you’ve wasted a lot work, so personally I think it’s better just to come up with your own ideas.

Were these gentlemen’s agreements or did you sign any contracts?

Jeff: This was pretty much charity. Almost half the producers we met with had some pet project they were working on that they’d throw at us. It’s sort of your option whether you want to work on it or not but when you are new there’s that compulsion to start throwing a ton of work into every idea that someone who’s already established cares about. It’s tough.

But for agents that’s a huge part of their job – to figure out how legitimate it is and figure out how steps it will be before it gets bought.

Jason: Early in the career and even now, the pitching the movie and writing spec you gotta keep doing that.

After we sold “Leisure World,” it was a very small deal, it wasn’t high priority, we had another idea we wanted to do, “T&A” – Truth and Art. It’s based on a true story in Florida, in which the county legislator passed an ordinance banning nudity in performances so basically banning strip bars. But there was a loop pole for artistic merit performances so the strippers started doing Shakespeare in the nude.

We wrote that spec and in the summer of 1999 we went out with it in October, Russell Holland, a producer friend, helped us by giving us notes and sending it out to a bunch of agents.

Our attorney at the time, Rick Genow sent a copy to Dino Carlaftes at Metropolitan and he liked it. They went out with it to the producers and studios.

Jeff: This was right after “Leisure World” which from the first mention of the idea to selling it was a year and half of working on it in some form or another with a lot of outside involvement. After that we were just like we have this idea so let’s just write it on our own. We got help after we had the first draft done.

Justin: The lesson learned from the original “Leisure World” compared to the one we ended up doing, you can’t write something if you don’t really like it. It becomes painful. It doesn’t turn out to be any good. You’ve heard it a million times – it’s a cliché. For the most part it’s true. If you can’t get excited about what you are pitching or writing it almost always doesn’t sell and it hurts you.

How do you handle pitches with three people?

Justin: Jason is the prop master. He brought a singing bass to one of our pitches, which ended up selling.

Jason: The last was called “Open Season.” Justin took the front on pitching that one and every once in a while I pushed the button on the singing bass. I also had a “Field & Stream” issue on antlers, because it (the pitch) was about reindeer.

Jeff: Research helps so much — even just a little research. We read a few articles on hunting and you pick up a lot a little things.

Jason: They were impressed that we did research about hunting and reindeer.

Usually once of us takes the lead and we all work on jokes and ideas and getting down in outline form. This is a process that we’ve gotten a lot better at.

One of us does the main thing and the others chime in with jokes. Kinda organic.

Jeff: Something else we’ve learned is that fifteen or twenty minutes is kinda pushing it — the shorter the better in a lot of ways. You don’t want it to be a minute pitch but you want it to be very tight. Don’t get into speaking dialogue of a whole scene – particularly with a comedy. You want to go joke to joke to joke. Give the broad strokes of the plot. Incorporating helps a lot too.

Jason: Genuinely laughing and making each other laugh gets the room going – again this is for comedy stuff.

And how ultimately do you handle working with the three of you — three different opinions?

Jeff: In certain ways, three works better sometimes in that you usually don’t have a one on one argument. Usually there are two people who agree. Collaborating is tough. It’s not easy at all and you have to be dedicated to working together. You have to have a little bit of faith in the other people’s skills.

Justin: Sometimes you can vote. Doesn’t always work but it can.

Jeff: The other thing that helps is to have individual projects too.

Justin: Also a job just to work part time and have something else.

Jason: It’s good to have other things in your life. This shouldn’t be the basis of your success and failure.

How is having three of you good and bad?

Jason: It’s fun. We have a lot of fun. Two, it provides different perspectives. And the tough part is you have to fight and can’t always get everything your way.

Justin: But you catch things that don’t make sense. You come up with more jokes, definitely. Also, it is difficult to have the same grasp on what a character should be.

Jeff: When you get into the character stuff it does get harder, but we grew up together, we have very similar sensibilities and we try to have fun. Being friends makes the collaboration very rewarding. As for a disadvantage you have to go in knowing that people aren’t always going to agree and when the inevitable disagreements arise, not take them too personal.

Justin: And as with any collaboration, everybody feels like they are doing more work than they are being recognized for doing.

Jeff: You have to really be committed to the team.

How do you guys deal with and handle notes?

Jeff: In terms of getting notes from producers, Justin is probably the best with this. After sitting in a meeting for several hours, sometimes you just want to leave. You just don’t want to be there any more, but it’s really good to settle things in the meetings. Sometimes a producer will say, “This character isn’t fleshed out enough.” You’re like “All right.” Then you turn in a revision and you find out that what you think is fleshed out and what they think is fleshed out, are two different things. As much as you can, it’s best to sit there and get a really detailed feel for what they want you to do. If you disagree, usually they are open, and you can sit there and discuss why you disagree. It can get long, boring and tedious but it pays off in the end.

Jason: From the notes you get back from producers, I’d divide them into five categories. One, good notes which you incorporate and make the script better. Two, notes that could go either way or it’s about something that’s not really that important. Or three, things you just disagree with. Four, things you disagree with but you do because they are very important to them. (Laughter) And last, things you don’t agree with and you don’t do.

Can you talk a little bit about options and how they go?

Jeff: Sometimes you get that feeling that no one in Hollywood has ever sold a script before. You ask, “What’s an option?” and no one knows. (Laughter) “When do we get into the WGA?” No one knows. “Do we call them or do they call us?” No one knows. “When do we get paid?” No one knows.

Now that we’re with MTA things have improved but still, you end up having to figure out a lot yourself. You really need to have a pretty good understanding on your own and you have to try to stay on top of things.

Jason: An option is the studio or the producer pays you not a very big amount to purchase the script in the next twelve to eighteen months. Basically, if they like it but they don’t want to pay you that much then they’ll give you an option and a rewrite fee. Then you rewrite it and if they like it they’ll buy it.

With “Leisure World” we had an option with one guaranteed rewrite and an optional rewrite on the studio’s part. But they didn’t buy it and thus Fox is done with it. Now it’s in turnaround, another confusing thing that no one had an answer for. It means that basically that the agent and producer who are attached still like the script and want to go out with it go to new studios with it. If the new studio likes it then they have to pay Fox every fee they’ve paid including the producers deal.

Justin: We just sort of nudged our way in. “Leisure World” was so small it was below Guild minimum — ridiculously cheap.

Jason: Our contract took eight months to do.

Justin: Over the course of those eight months we also optioned “T&A.” Then we also got this rewrite deal at Universal. We signed all three contracts on the same day. One took about a month, one took about four months, and one took about eight months.

And how did all of this lead to and affect your getting into the WGA?

Justin: You get credit points. You need to get 24 points to get into the WGA. If you sell a script it’s 24. If you option a script it’s 12. In the case of our Fox deal, it was below the minimum and it wasn’t WGA signatory.

Again, this is the kinda stuff no one knows. You get 8 points (or 6 points) for a guaranteed polish.

Jason: Rewrites, polishes, options, and sales all have different point values and if you amass 24 then you are in the WGA.

Justin: Then you pay $2,500 for a light buffet one night and health insurance.

$2,500 per person?

Justin: Yes. And I think 1% of your income a year. And to get/keep insurance you have to make $18,000 a year.

Justin: Again it was like the first time anyone had ever done it again. We weren’t getting stuff in the mail. We weren’t sure if we were getting insurance.

Jason: Yeah.

Jeff: With every step of the process, you can’t say, “Oh, the WGA is taking care of this.” It never happens.

Jason: You have to stay on top of this.

Justin: But I should say that our agents were knowledgeable and took care of this.

Do you guys make a lot of notes of ideas and jokes?

Justin: I created a joke and idea database. We all have a version of it. I haven’t been good about it lately of writing stuff down, but it’s all classified by theme and keywords. So, if someone says I need you to write something about the 50 most annoying things in the world, I’d type in the word “annoying” and ten jokes will come up.

I don’t do it enough, but it helps. It’s a basic program. I have a field for the joke or idea. I have a field for keywords like “pathetic” or “slob” or whatever it could be used for. I also use it for dialogue. It has about 800 entries.

What’s going on for you guys now? What have you set up recently? How did these deals come about?

Jeff: Your site actually led to our last sale. We saw that some producers (Charles Segars and Jeff Phillips) had sold an idea to Disney about a family trapped in a museum and the exhibits come to life. We saw that no writer was attached. We thought our last script was similar so we asked our agent to send over a sample to the producers. They liked the sample. They liked our take on their idea, we pitched to Disney and we got the gig. So your site is entirely responsible for our sale. It also shows how you can be proactive and seek out work yourself. I don’t know of any other site where a writer can check for open assignments.

Jason: We are also working on an action/buddy/comedy project for Alphaville Productions and Paramount. It’s for The Rock (the wrestler). Our agent sent one of our specs over to Jen Moyer at Alphaville and we had a general meeting with her. She said they were looking for a comedy idea for the Rock. We pitched an idea, they liked it, and bada-bing, another deal.