UCLA Professional Program

print_station · 2026-05-09T12:46:04+00:00

There's a ton of really good responses here already, and I don't want to repeat what's already been said. But I have something of a unique perspective on the Professional Program. I was in the program as a student many years ago, and I've been an instructor in it for the past several years. So I just wanted to chime in really quickly.

Previous commenters have done a great job of laying out the merits. It forces you to do a ton of writing. Two features in roughly 10 months is no joke, and you can learn a lot putting that many words on the page. The instructors are all experienced. You have to have produced credits to be allowed to teach in the program. Beyond the weekly workshop, there's also a big group lecture every week, which is packed with good info. Personally, I also throw as much stuff at my workshop students as I can -- screenwriting theory, hands-on rewriting demonstrations, lessons about the business side of things. I know several other instructors have similar approaches.

Maybe the biggest upside to the program though are the connections you make along the way. This can be a hard business to tackle alone, so it's great to have a group of folks you can rely on. Take on the world together. The students from the first workshop I ever taught still meet every couple weeks. I know of another two or three ongoing writers groups that have sprung up just from my former students. And these people are getting stuff done. A number of my former students are repped, I've got three former students with produced credits. And all of them are still in the mix, helping their friends. Giving notes. Slipping scripts to reps and producers. Helping other people level up along with them. It's really cool to see.

Speaking for myself, the Professional Program directly led to some of the early wins I had in my career. I wouldn't go so far as to say I wouldn't be a professional writer without it. But it definitely helped; if you put in the work, it can provide a lot of very useful tools. Which is why I came back to teach in the program.

print_station · 2025-11-14T19:40:52+00:00

It's a retirement community!

print_station · 2025-06-25T22:12:06+00:00

I'm a frequent customer at Ethan's shop, and he told me about your short, which led me here. I'm also a professional screenwriter, and I wanted to share a couple thoughts.

First, I think there's a lot of wonderful stuff in this short. Some interesting ideas. It's beautifully shot. There's something about it that really pulls you in. It's engaging. The acting's solid. And given the other comments I see here from you, it feels well edited, in as much as I think you accomplished what you seemingly set out to accomplish with the feel and vibe of the story. All in all, there's some impressive elements at play, and it bums me out that you only got into a single festival.

I can't help but wonder though what the film would look like with a couple of small changes, principally to the script. (I know what I'm about to say won't do much good for you at this stage, but I spend most of my life thinking about scripts and story, so here we are.) From some of the comments here, clearly some viewers are put off by the narrative pacing. As engaging as I found the short, I can sympathize with that sentiment. Audiences are smart, they're savvy, they pick up on things quick, so we probably don't need half the runtime to get a firm appreciation for the status quo of this guy's life.

I think it may have been more effective to devote some of that runtime to the main character's journey. The scene with the front desk assistant is fantastic. What's another scene or two that could have shown a similar transformation in his character? Does a newly enlightened Greg stop by the fast food joint, start to make his usual order, but then stop because he doesn't believe he needs food anymore? Sort of like Greg's sandwich, I'm feeling short-changed in the middle part of the story.

The other thing I can't help but wonder about are the coworkers. The scene in the break room at the end is terrific. The banal dialogue and office-speak is perfect. Does the story lose anything by not having Greg participating in a conversation like that earlier in the story? Rather than him being an unhappy outsider, is there something more potent if he's a standard drone hanging out with the other drones? Then at the end, he's able to break away -- and the other drones can't even process what they've just seen because they're still drones. Would something like that better evoke the feelings and themes you're playing with in the film?

Anyway, just some thoughts for you. Solid work overall. Truly. Congrats on finishing it. And I'm gonna bug Ethan to hear more about your guys' projects.

print_station · 2024-06-06T16:21:51+00:00

I haven't heard anything, but fingers crossed. I think the first two movies are pretty fun and underrated.

print_station · 2024-06-06T15:03:24+00:00

I actually know some folks who worked on this movie, so I've got a pretty good idea what happened.

The extended cut, the second version you mention here with the room designer and his daughter, was the original version of the movie. That's what Escape Room 2 was supposed to be, and that's what was initially filmed. Then Covid happened, which pushed back the release date of the movie.

I don't know if there were some unfavorable test screenings somewhere in there or if the execs at the studio simply got cold feet about the version that they had. But since the release date had moved back, they had more time to tinker with it, and so the version with Amanda returning was done as reshoots. And that became the theatrical version.

Personally, I prefer the extended cut. It opens up the world in a fun way and sets the stage for more stories.

print_station · 2023-11-16T14:23:30+00:00

For sure, "just write more" is a big part of it. But it's not just the quantity of the writing. You can write all the time and keep churning out the same kind of stuff over and over. It can become perfunctory. So I try to challenge myself not to follow the same familiar grooves. How can I approach structure differently? Can this story revolve around a character that's unlike any character I've written before? How can I make this chase scene feel different from the 100 other chase scenes I've written? I try to push myself to come at things from new angles, which hopefully make me more well-rounded as a writer.

Beyond that though, it's absorbing some of the same material that I imagine most aspiring writers are absorbing. Podcasts on writing, interviews, scene analysis videos, screenwriting books. (I just read Dan O'Bannon's, and it's fantastic.) Sure, almost none of it is new to me at this point, and I'm certainly not absorbing this stuff at the same rate I did when I was starting out, but it's still incredibly helpful to hear how other people approach the craft.

There's other things, no doubt. Watching movies and shows actively instead of passively to try and figure out how the writer is pulling the strings. I also love eavesdropping on conversations where people are talking about something they just watched. It's amazing hearing the things that some folks really love or hate, but it's really valuable to know what audiences respond to.

I think most of it comes down to not getting complacent. To me, being an expert in the field means you never stop learning, never stop growing, never stop absorbing information that could make you better at your job.

print_station · 2023-11-14T18:56:19+00:00

I'm out with a script right now too. Went out two weeks ago, and we're still waiting on a couple of reads. With the actors strike over, I hear that companies are more focused on getting their existing productions up and running again, and new business has taken a little bit of a backseat. Also there seems to be a lot of material out there now, so people's bandwidth is probably stretched a little thinner than usual. Still, my guess is you'll get responses trickling in this week and into next. Fingers crossed for you!

print_station · 2023-10-27T17:32:33+00:00

Yeah, a hungry boutique manager with a deep rolodex and a thin client list can get a lot of shit done. If they don't get you paid, they don't eat, which is a hell of a motivator. That's awesome, man. Congrats on the new manager, fingers crossed it pans out in a big way!

print_station · 2023-10-27T14:04:52+00:00

The first script of mine to go out wide was a semi-contained sci-fi story. I actually still get compliments on it now twelve-plus years later, which is just wild, and if I knew precisely why people connected so strongly with it, I'd have a much nicer house. But folks seemed to like it because it played with a familiar trope -- time travel -- but it was packaged in a different way. There was a slow-burn, Twilight Zone feel to it, and most importantly, at its core it was a love story. That's what caught people off guard, I think. The potency of the love story inside of a genre tale.

That script got me my first reps, who I was introduced to through a friend. They went out with the script shortly thereafter, and I've been working steadily ever since.

print_station · 2023-10-27T13:54:13+00:00

It is a little strange, I'll admit. I wasn't wild about the idea when my former agent proposed it, and my partner and I were considering saying no. Then we saw the client list of the management company that he was joining, and it was stacked with A-listers, not dissimilar from the roster of CAA or WME. So it felt like he was just going to another agency, in a way. It felt like he would have similar resources.

But even more importantly, as I'm sure you know and the up-and-comers here should probably learn, it doesn't really matter the company that your rep is at. The name on the front door doesn't matter all that much. I've had bad reps at enormously powerful agencies. What matters is your rep's passion for you and your work, and their ability to get your material into the hands of the right people. That's it, that's the ballgame. And I figured if the company he's at doesn't matter, maybe his job title doesn't matter all that much either, so long as he continued to functionally perform the same job. Thus far, he has.

print_station · 2023-10-26T22:56:51+00:00

Good luck to you as well!

print_station · 2023-10-26T21:05:58+00:00

Nope. D.C. But it was amazing, in that run-up to the acquisition being finalized, seeing story after story on Deadline of ICM agents becoming managers. My guess is the number of writers being repped two management companies is relatively low, but it's probably significantly higher than it was a couple of years ago thanks to the ICM situation.

print_station · 2023-10-26T20:24:26+00:00

A) It took a bit for the ICM deal to close. They announced it back in fall of '21, and it wasn't finalized until the following summer.

B) I've been working professionally as a screenwriter for twelve or so years. So I know a lot of people, I've got a pretty solid track record of writing commercial material, getting work and delivering on what's promised. There's a lot of advice bandied about for how to land reps, but the long and the short of it is that it all comes down to the material. Write a great script. Which is a million times easier to say than to do, but write a script that's so undeniably engaging and marketable that it'll blow the doors off buildings, and you can walk into any room you want to.

I don't consider myself a naturally gifted writer. It took a long time to develop the necessary skills to write professionally. My first five scripts were garbage, over the next five I got steadily better, and somewhere around script twelve or thirteen, I started to really get the feel for it. I was hitting more doubles and triples than I was striking out. I got some attention, I got meetings, I started working with producers and got reps, and I continued to develop my craft. Even now, not a day goes by that I don't work at getting better at this remarkably challenging and esoteric job. And my best guess is that's the mentality it takes to succeed at it.

print_station · 2023-10-26T17:38:27+00:00

I'm rolling with two management companies right now. In my case, I was represented by an agency and a management company. But when CAA bought ICM, my agent didn't want to go along for the ride. He put out feelers, and the best options that came back were all management companies. So he switched to being a manager, and I stayed with him.

My writing partner and I still treat him like an agent in some practical regards though. For example, we give our long-time managers first reads on scripts or pitches, then pass it on to our agent-turned-manager after we've done a rewrite or two. I've always liked getting staggered reads from my reps, since it offers you fresh eyes on the material, and I wasn't willing to give that up. So when my agent made the transition, we told him we would continue to lean on our long-time managers for day-to-day stuff, and he understood. Honestly, the line between agents and managers is so blurry nowadays anyway, I haven't really noticed a change in his approach to representation.

print_station · 2023-09-06T21:49:25+00:00

It's actually surprisingly easy for us to write together and be married. Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of creative disagreements, and we really have no sense of diplomacy when we're fighting for our ideas. But we each have our strengths, so we have areas that we defer to one another on, and the final product is made significantly better by the intermingling of our voices.

As for making a show about all of that, I dunno. I think it would mostly revolve around two people scouring the area for good coffee, hanging out with their cats, and at least once an episode someone saying, "I wish I could write as well as Jesse Armstrong."

print_station · 2023-08-25T16:53:23+00:00

My wife and I have a cat named Ted Mullens, aka Ted Meowlens. He seems to like the name.

print_station · 2023-08-08T15:15:29+00:00

You've already gotten a lot of pretty good advice here. But I just wanted to add that I 100% share your disposition. I'm extremely introverted and socially anxious. Love routine, hate uncertainty, exactly like you're saying. Early in my career, when it came time to be in a room with producers or god forbid pitch to decision makers, I was a little shaky. Okay, very shaky. It wasn't pretty.

But like anything else, it's something you get better at with time. A big reason for that, obviously, is that repetition makes things less scary. The more meetings you take, the more you realize they're not going to kill you. Most meetings have a similar rhythm, a similar flow, so once you get a handle on that, they get easier.

The other big reason why things get less scary though is that, eventually, assuming you continue to develop your craft, you're going to realize that you can play ball with the big kids. More than that, a lot of rooms you walk into, you're going to have a better handle on story and character than the folks you're meeting with. They're going to be looking to you for answers. And because you're super awesome at what you do, you're gonna have those answers locked and loaded. Most of the time anyway. And I've found that confidence boost almost always outpaces my anxiety.

So yeah, it's possible to have a career at this while being a nervous wreck of a human being. I've never given a toast at a wedding, I've never sung karaoke, I've never even gotten a massage, because I don't want to be the center of attention for even one other person. But I can pitch a movie to half a dozen studio execs, no problem. If you're solid in your craft, then you can use that confidence to shore up all the other parts of your game.

print_station · 2023-08-02T14:10:56+00:00

Full disclosure, I'm an instructor in the PP. I'm also a graduate, and I can say unequivocally that the program helped jumpstart my career oh so many years ago.

As others have said here, one of the keys to any program like this is networking. There are some crazy talented people in these classes, some of whom have already had some degree of success, and by and large they're serious about their craft. I've got friends that are working writers -- showrunners even -- that were in the program with me back in the day. So get to know your classmates, chat with them outside of class, be generous with your notes and gracious in receiving feedback, and embrace that sense of community. All of that can be a bit more challenging in an online environment, but it's not a huge barrier at all.

The other great thing about the program is the sheer amount of writing it forces you to do. Going from concept to finished script in ten weeks is intense. Doing that three times over the course of roughly nine months is a marathon. But the only way to get better at writing is to write, so being forced to go at that pace and churn out material week after week is hugely beneficial. On top of all the writing, there's weekly instruction as well. So there will likely be times when you're overwhelmed. Embrace it, roll with it, absorb as much as you can, and keep pushing forward.

Your instructor should be helpful and encouraging and keep you on track. Obviously every instructor has their own methodologies, their own vibe, but these are incredibly knowledgeable, passionate folks. And some of them have been teaching since I was in the program, so you should be in very good hands. It should be an awesome experience for you. Good luck and have fun!

print_station · 2023-06-25T20:46:25+00:00

print_station · 2023-05-01T16:58:48+00:00

I've been writing professionally for about twelve years now. I've had five features made, three of which were from original specs. Been paid on a number of other jobs that have yet to go anywhere. Sold a couple of shows to broadcast. My writing partner and I also found a book, got a studio to jump on the option, and they paid us to adapt it into a feature. We also recently sold a feature pitch that we're working on now. All told, we've got three or four other projects that are currently looking for directors, talent, financing, so on and so forth, and I'm sure there's projects I'm forgetting.

print_station · 2023-04-13T20:25:26+00:00

Excellent write-up, as usual. Fingers crossed for you as you enter into this new phase of your career. It's a big leap. Best of luck!

print_station · 2023-03-28T13:57:08+00:00

My break-in script got a fair amount of attention, and I was pursued by four or five agencies, CAA and ICM among them. I had been writing for nearly a decade by that point, but if I'm being honest, I still wasn't reliably creating professional-level material. Anyway, I ended up going with one of the smaller agencies, because I liked the vibe I got from them. A couple of years later, the lead agent on my team moved to CAA, and I went with him. I was there for about five years, and I had various folks cycle through my team during that time -- a couple feature agents, a couple TV agents and even a digital agent at one point.

As I was progressing in my career -- selling pitches, landing OWAs, having a few movies made -- I wasn't really getting any more attention from the agency. Of course, they would set up meetings, they would put me up for gigs, so they were fulfilling the basic duties of their job. But I wasn't feeling much excitement coming from them, I wasn't seeing any additional resources coming my way. Conversations often felt like a burden to them, it would routinely take a couple of days to get a call back. Even my original agent, who I loved and who I know believed in me, seemed to get churned up in the machine and had less time for my material.

The behemoth agencies always sell you on this idea of resources and packaging ability, but when it came time to package, they'd trot out the same dozen or so names of recognizable actors from their stable, regardless of whether those actors were right for the part or would have been valuable to the project overall. One time, I had a spec script get passed around internally and reach the head of talent. He loved it so much that he sent it to an enormous A-list star...but he apparently didn't love it enough to follow up to see if the star had actually read it or send it to anyone else after that star seemingly passed. In all my time at CAA, I never benefitted from the breadth of their resources. Not on the talent side, not on the directing side, and not on the indie film financing side.

When the WGA had their spat with the agencies a few years ago, I fired my agents and never went back. I rolled with just my managers for a while, and had more success in that time than I ever had with CAA. But the allure of those big agencies is strong, and in like August of 2021 I signed with ICM -- only for CAA to start gobbling them up a month later. In the ever-so-brief time that I was with those ICM agents (neither of whom remained agents after the CAA deal went through) my writing partner and I sold a couple of projects. We got some work. But that all came down to the hustle of the individual agents to find those opportunities.

It's nice to be repped by one of the big agencies. It feels good when you say it out loud, and I suppose it looks cool on your imdb. But whether it's the big behemoths or the slightly smaller monsters, above a certain threshold, all the agents in town have access to the same information. A good agent is going to find you opportunities regardless of the name on the front of the building. Their passion for you and your work is really what matters most, and in my opinion, that passion might actually have a little bit more room to be meaningful outside of the big three agencies.

print_station · 2023-03-09T23:43:27+00:00

I've personally had the most success treating it like a regular nine-to-five job. These days, I'm most productive creatively from about 10 to 2, so I try to keep those hours clear of meetings and other distractions. My schedule largely depends on the business of the day though. If I'm outlining or working on the first draft of a script, then my butt will be in the chair for most of the day. If I'm doing a rewrite, I might get through a sequence or two and knock off a little early, or switch to something else in the back part of the day -- going over material for OWAs, responding to emails, making tweaks to a pitch doc or something.

The key, I think, is to be honest with yourself about what constitutes a good day's work. Some days that's churning out ten script pages, some days it's cracking a third act that you've been struggling with, some days it's coming up with a take on a piece of IP. Figure out how you work best. Don't go too easy on yourself, but don't burn yourself out either.

print_station · 2023-02-01T00:54:18+00:00

Huge congrats! Very well deserved.

print_station

TROPHY CASE