COREY

Corey Miller has been interested in the entertainment business since he was a child, much to his mother’s (and often his own) chagrin. After holding an ungodly number of Production Assistant, Production Coordinator and then Writer’s Assistant positions, he got hired as the Assistant to the Show Runner on the television show “CSI.” After impressing his boss (i.e., bugging her until she relented), he got the chance to write a freelance episode. Later hired as a Staff Writer on “CSI: Miami,” he eventually rose the ranks to Supervising Producer. His other writing credits include the indie film “Border To Border” and episodes of the series “The Forgotten” and “NCIS: Los Angeles,” and recently sold a spec pilot to The Peter Chernin Company and Fox. He is currently a Writer and Co-Executive Producer on the upcoming ABC series “Body Of Proof.” Corey is not ashamed to admit that he is an L.A. native. He is one of the jurors for YOMYOMF’s INTERPRETATIONS Film Initiative.

As of this writing, I have almost been working towards or working in the entertainment business for half of my life. As scary as that is for me to think about, it does make me realize that I actually do know a lot about the strange machinations of the industry that has caused me to prematurely age, want to bite people, and frequently curse the fact that I am incapable of doing anything else.

So it continues to confound both myself and the usually fresh-faced writer/director/producer/actor/fill-in-the-blank industry neophyte when I am asked how to break into that same business and I answer with a very simple statement : “I don’t know.”

I’m not being facetious or sarcastic when I say that. I just can’t give a simple, pat answer, because there are a million ways to even get that first job, let alone actually succeed. If there were some magic formula and I knew what it was, it certainly wouldn’t have taken me so many years to get my first legit writing gig.

And hindsight in this case isn’t 20/20. It still needs corrective lenses. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I may have made some different choices. But that doesn’t necessarily mean I would have gotten to the quasi-comfortable position where I am now any faster, or slower.

After I graduated from college, I would have been happy to take any job in the business that I could get my hands on, short of snuff porn. I was headed that route when I got a job as a Production Assistant on the television series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” I worked in the production office. It was a great job, and lots of fun. I put in twelve to fifteen hours a day or more for $275 a week after taxes, and couldn’t have been happier.

I started during the first season, and by season three I had become determined to be a writer. I stalked John McNamara, one of the show’s writer/producers, until he would read a spec sample I had co-written. Long story short, he indulged me, and let me and my writing partner at the time (a.k.a. Offender Philip—read his account of this story here) pitch stories to him. One of which he bought. Suddenly I was twenty-four years old, and got my first story credit on a TV show.

Having no knowledge of the business, I figured I was on the fast track to fame and fortune. My episode was produced. It aired to an audience of millions. I anxiously awaited the inevitable barrage of phone calls from agents and producers who were no doubt salivating at the very thought of working with me.

I didn’t get one call, and went back to work the next day making photocopies, answering phones, and filing paperwork.

My next job was working for Christopher McQuarrie, still fresh off his Oscar win for writing “The Usual Suspects.” He had a deal at Warner Brothers Television to write a pilot called “The Underworld.” It was a great script, the cast was excellent, and Chris told me that when it got picked up, he wanted me to write for the show.

It didn’t get picked up.

I did everything I could to get my writing into the hands of anyone who could read it. I wrote spec features, spec sitcoms and dramas, my own pilot. Yet I found that no one will read you without your work being submitted by an agent, and an agent won’t look at you unless you’ve already been produced. Ah, the perfect conundrum.

I even rewrote an independent feature that some friends of mine were producing, called “Border to Border.” We finished it on little more than two hundred thousand dollars, had screenings on the Warner Brothers lot, won some awards at a couple of film festivals, and got some great press from Entertainment Tonight, the E! Network, and Variety magazine.

It never got bought, and is still sitting in a vault somewhere gathering dust.

I know, the world’s smallest violin is playing just for me. But that’s not how I look at it. I learned something from every project I have been involved with. And from each script I have written. And I’ve met so many wonderful and talented people throughout the years, and get happy every time I am able to get them hired on one of the shows I’ve worked on.

Even if I got an agent and a writing job after the “Lois & Clark” episode, I could have toiled on one quickly-cancelled show after another, and quickly burned out and faded away. Same with the alleged job on “The Underworld.” Or, the opposite could have come true, and I could have become wildly successful and retired long ago. There’s no sense in projecting either way, because life is life, and you can’t control the fate of the projects you are working on.

The only thing I could control was this: I searched and searched for that elusive first gig, and when I got it, I worked myself to the bone, met as many people as I could, and kept my goal in the forefront of my mind. I continue to thank my parents for instilling a strong work ethic in me, because I apply it to all areas in my life, and without it, I would have certainly given up. And my wife, for putting up with me through a lot of low-income years, for keeping my spirits up, and reminding me that I can actually get arrested for biting people.

So many times, I felt like my goal was always at the horizon, and no matter how fast I rushed towards it, it stayed the same distance away. And was I discouraged? Sure. But that didn’t stop me from taking other assistant jobs that I was overqualified for to pay the bills, or continue to write even if no one would ever see what I had written. I just had faith that good luck and timing would eventually strike simultaneously.

And one day, it did. In August of 2000 I received a call from my friend Ben Kunde telling me that he heard of an open Writer’s Assistant position on some new television show called “Crime Scene Investigation.” The offices were a good forty-five minutes from my home, but I wasn’t one to turn down an opportunity until the facts were in.

I met with Carol Mendelsohn, and as it turned out, the open position was for an Executive Producer’s Assistant. Not only that, but she was the Show Runner. We hit it off immediately, and she offered me the job. I read Anthony Zuiker’s script of the Pilot episode, thought it was really cool, and accepted. Judging from my past experiences, it was no wonder I told my wife, “At least I’ll get a few months of work before it gets cancelled.”

Good luck and timing were on my side. But I also worked as hard to be the best assistant I could be, regardless if I had been there/done that. And I had the benefit of working for a boss that was generous enough to give me the chance to write. Without that, all the rest is just good intentions. Every one of those elements had to come together for me to be able to get my writing career jump-started. That first script led to another. Then another. Then to a permanent staff gig on “CSI: Miami,” where I worked for six seasons. It was there that I wrote or co-wrote twenty-two episodes, and rose to the level of Supervising Producer. The job made my life, and got me jump-started in a big way.

So even though I still don’t know how to succeed in the entertainment business, I do know that Southern California is filled with people who came to “Hollywood” to stake a claim, met with some opposition, and bowed out. It is certainly not for everyone. But I still hold it to be true that if you believe in yourself, relish every opportunity and take full advantage of each one, all those pistons will eventually fire simultaneously. Good luck.=