Let me explain.
I am a friendly person, generally well liked by friends, family and complete strangers. I am humble most of the time, helpful and courteous. I try to be a good person and welcome people openly. I make more friends than enemies. Even when I am competing against someone, I try to wish them the best of luck.
Then you read about something like this.
Ultra ‘Hollywood’ Lawsuit – Screenwriter Justin Samuels Sues CAA, WME for $8M
Nothing out of the ordinary right?
That is until you start reading deeper into it. I don't know exactly what it was about it, but it enraged me.
My initial response to the whole thing was...
"What a load of BS. Race isn't the issue here. I'm black and agencies didn't accept my work either, but it wasn't because of my race."
After a while and through several post I wrote this little nugget of wisdom.
"I feel as a screenwriter I have a valuable contribution, but I know there is a system in place. Amazon Studios is a cog in that system, and I am a smaller gear in that set. Suing because he feels slighted isn't going to endear him (Mr. Samuels) to any reputable agency. Race may be a case in some things, but not in every thing. There is this great tool called social networking that can be used to anyone's advantage, but you have to use it. When I first wrote Eiko, I didn't get mad at the agencies who looked for references only. I sought out the agencies that were accepting query letters. There are a bunch of them. You have to create opportunities not wait for them to be handed to you on a silver platter. There are thousands of non-black screenwriters who face the same issues of rejection, but they can't sit around and cry about it. What about the actors and actresses who work small jobs waiting for their one shot? Are they denied because of their race? Of course some of them are, but that's what you expect. Everyone can't cry racial foul. If Mr. Samuels took the time to realize, he would know that being a successful screenwriter is hard no matter what race you are. He assumes that he would succeed if racism wasn't a factor. I disagree. What makes his work any better or worse than anyone elses. From what I read in the case filing, he has a very slanted view of the world and feels he is entitled to more than what he deserves. Success is a by product of hard work and writing screenplays by itself doesn't entitle you to anything unless you put in the work to get them out there. He's proclaimed that small companies aren't really worth his time because they can't produce a lot of films. What I feel that he is saying is that they aren't worth his time because they cannot pay him a million for his work. Ben Ramsey (Blood and Bone, Dragon Ball Evolution) and a member of Amazon Studios was only paid 500k for his screenplay for DBE. He is an established screenwriter and even he doesn't get a million. Why should Mr. Samuels?"
This would be the first of many post in regards to Mr. Samuels, whom for some reason refused to acknowledge me. Apparently he felt I wasn't on his level, because I didn't produce a significant body of work or something along that regards. There is lot of lost material of comments traded back and forth. Anyway in the process Justin became my rival, even if he didn't know it. There was just something about the way that he seemed not to have a clue about how the real world worked that just pissed me off. Here I am working my ass off, and he felt that he could just sue his way in.
So I decided to be fair, and give his work a once over. Maybe he was right, and truly did deserve 8 million dollars (1M per screenplay written) so I read his "Orishas of Oyos."
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..
...
I think my next response towards the end of that was.
"I...can't...make it...another page."
That summed it up nicely. Even still Mr. Samuels just wouldn't get it and it is hard watching someone make simple mistakes that can be avoided, all because they think they know better than you. It's a well known fact that you can discover the much about life from both a rich man and a poor man. Apparently Mr. Samuels feels that you can only learn about life from the rich, because a poor man obviously has nothing to tell him.
"Ah, some people are just haters......:) To the one who says what my script is or isn't worth, how would you know? Are you a studio exec or a big producer?:)"
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| How Mr. Samuels sees me. |
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| Or perhaps like this. A faceless nobody. |
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| How everyone else sees me. |
Then again no matter what he is told, he never listens. He firmly believes in his own work and in his own ego. Don't believe me? Read this, or this, or this one.
This post is long enough, so I will continue it in Pt. 2
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