About Hollyweird
Hi there, I’m Colby Day. I’m a writer, director, and occasional producer for film, television, and theater. But the thing I’m probably best known for is “My Year as a Working Screenwriter” series, which I’ve been writing since 2021.
That piece (and 2022, and 2023) along with my simple article on “How Did You Get a Manager and How Can I Do That?” have continued to draw in new readers year after year, which made me think that it might be useful to try to create a publication to demystify the professional screenwriting process one week at a time. This isn’t going to be a class or a lecture, it’s just going to be a peek behind the curtain of my personal artistic (and professional) process. How do you write a pitch for something? How do you outline a movie? How do you convey a TV series you want to sell? How do you try to “package” a project? These are all things that when I first moved to LA I didn’t understand at all, and really had nobody to ask for help. So I thought it would be nice to keep track of my own experience with those things, as a way to hopefully share some insights on how the heck things work in this crazy mixed up town.
How does Hollyweird work?
Well… nobody knows how Hollywood works, and that’s kind of the point of the endeavor. Hollyweird will be a weekly blow-by-blow of the writing life. I’ll break down what it is that I’m doing as a writer, why I’m doing what I’m doing, and whether any of it works at all. For the remainder of 2024, you can anticipate that these posts will include information on: packaging a feature as a first time director, trying to package and sell a TV series based on IP, trying to land Open Writing Assignments, writing for television, and developing original material.
These (free!) posts will hit your inbox once a week (Friday!).
I‘m just hoping to create a place where we can be candid about the realities of the business and provide tools and insight into what you as a writer need to know to make it in Hollyweird. Which, isn’t that much, because, as famous screenwriter William Goldman once wrote (over and over and over)…
“Nobody knows anything.”
How much is this going to cost me?
Nothing!
Wait a minute, but who the heck are you?
I wrote the Netflix film Spaceman, starring Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, and Paul Dano (premiered Berlinale 2024). I also wrote the film In the Blink of an Eye, which is set to be released by Searchlight Pictures and was directed by Andrew Stanton. That screenplay was featured on The Black List 2016, and got me a bunch of jobs, some of which I can talk about, some of which I can’t. I’ve written for film and television, I’ve directed and produced short films, and I’m currently putting together what will hopefully be my directorial debut. Despite being named one of MovieMaker Magazine’s 25 Screenwriters to Watch, I am actually quite shy.
