By far, the most common debate amongst would-be screenwriters is whether or not they need to be living in LA to find success.  While I have strong opinions on the subject, I've never really felt like I had anything substantial to add to the debate.  Today, reading the comments on screenwriter John August's blog (www.johnaugust.com) got me all fired up.  Suddenly, I found myself illuminating a side of the argument that may have been overlooked by writers altogether. 

I'm reposting it here for your reading pleasure...

In the end, film is a collaborative art form. When dealing with collaborative art, one winds up with a career by figuring out how they interact with their creative community, with their collaborators, and with their audience.

For some reason, they don’t teach this in film school. In theater, it’s gospel. Nevertheless, every successful filmmaker has a place in their community.

Maybe your place is Poughkeepsie, New York. If so, I’ll be damned if I meet you for coffee! How are you going to find your place in this community, and more importantly, how are you going to maintain it? How are you going to be inspired by other artists? How will they play off of you? How will you find that one guy after a cheesy stage production of Neil Simon with whom you finally decide to get off your ass and produce something?

You think this business is about writing a great screenplay, getting an agent, and finding your stride? Brothers and sisters, this business is about making movies! If you’re not here to make them, what the hell are you doing? More importantly, why should anybody else care?

Because this is collaborative art, it’s pretty important that other people care about your work, how you work, and most of all, (lest we forget that this is all about people,) it’s important that your creative community cares about YOU.

To those people in Poughkeepsie, I have no idea who you guys are. We’re not going to come across one another. For that reason, there is zero chance that I will become passionate about working with you. Zero chance.

As long as you stay there, that’s true for everyone else in Los Angeles too.

This is not a business for lone wolves - even when it comes to writers. Ever wonder why film people get so snippy and crazy and weird about one another, and then rally around the craziest, silly stuff?

It’s because we’re a family. That’s how families are.

Buddy, where were you last Thanksgiving? I was actually with some of the actors I write with, and for. This year, one of them is producing one of my scripts, and I’m producing and directing another with the guy who cooked the turkey. From the top on down, that’s how these things happen. Some call it nepotism, but it’s just love - the kind of love that can only exist in collaborative art. All the best movies thrive on this love, from Bergman to Nolan.

If you can watch Charlie’s Angels, and not see that love - if you don’t see how stupidly, retardedly, embarrassingly in love those people are with one another - when why the hell do you want to make movies in the first place?

Because it’s cool?

Buddy, it’s not actually cool… we just make it look that way.

Somehow, we fooled the agents. They fall over themselves trying to get into our little family. Sometimes they actually do it. Always, they work overtime to seem like we can’t do without them - like that kid in high school who steals beer and smokes for the theater kids. But to succeed at actually making movies, you have to see through the ruse.

Above all, the film industry is a community. We are a clique of sappy, emotional, pie-eyed, easily distracted, excitable, talent-crushing dorks, and we love one another. It’s the only way we can do what we do.

If you want to hang with the theater kids, guess where you gotta be?