One spring day during the late 1980s, a group of UCLA students commandeered a set of a Western town and waged a paintball fight in the back lot of a Warner Brothers’ compound.
The battle was both celebration and research for UCLA screenwriting graduates and former roommates Mike Petzold, Richard Green and Gregory Widen. They had just sold Widen’s script about a time-traveling paintball team to Warner Brothers for a hefty sum. Their new agent Rima Greer ““ who helped arrange both the sale and the paintball fight ““ watched happily from the sidelines.
“We were just running around with these pistols and goggles … for about four or five hours,” said Randall Jahnson, a 1982 UCLA motion picture and television graduate and another of Widen’s former roommates. “The set was pretty much painted red when the thing was over with.”
Though one would think talent agents, notorious for cramming productivity into every nook and cranny of the day, would be horrified at such an expenditure of their time, Greer understood the recent graduates’ need to celebrate.
“This script was one of my first feature sells,” she said.
Greer, who keeps a picture of a paint-drenched Jahnson collapsed on the ground in defeat to this day, is known for being a down-to-earth agent.
“Rima’s more of a real person. She’s not part of a big corporate structure. … She does things for more personal reasons,” said Chris Matheson, a 1982 UCLA screenwriting graduate who worked on “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and the soon-to-be-released “NowhereLand” and is also a client of Greer’s. “I just like dealing with a human being.”
Greer’s representation has appealed to many UCLA-educated screenwriters who tire of the increasingly business-driven industry. Over the years, Greer has helped UCLA graduates find writing gigs in “Jumanji,” “NowhereLand” and “The Mask of Zorro.”
Greer draws on such experiences in her new book “The Real, Low Down, Dirty Truth about Hollywood Agenting” to frankly describe the human practices of an often dehumanizing profession. Greer will be signing copies of the book at 6 p.m. today at Dutton’s Brentwood Books.
“Over the years, we’ve always kept in touch. … She’s a decent and really honest agent, which makes her highly unique,” said Jahnson, who cowrote “The Mask of Zorro.”
In an increasingly impersonal business, Greer’s personal touch seems to be the exception to the rule, according to her clientele. Her Above the Line Agency represents mainly screenwriters, who as a group have fallen victim to the bottom line because of the Writers Guild strike.
“It’s not a nice town, it’s not a cruel town, it’s just business. Everyone’s just trying to make money in the gigantic corporations that drive Hollywood,” said Matheson.
Many of Greer’s clients experimented with representation by large agencies that boasted big-name clients, and eventually found themselves lost in the shuffle.
“I’ve met some extraordinary gifted people … who I’d work with at a moment’s notice, and there are others who are just absolutely despicable, and I would not work with them no matter what the price,” said Jahnson, who has worked as a screenwriter for over 12 years. “Hollywood just does very weird things to people, especially when they’re desperate to make things happen.”
Greer’s book tells the often overlooked story of those desperate people. She paints a picture of Hollywood that starkly contrasts with the glamorous world of cutthroat Hollywood executives perpetuated by television ““ a Hollywood that helps rather than hustles.
“I try really hard not to be an asshole. Most of the time, I don’t have to be one,” Greer writes in her book.
Greer contests the image of agents as amoral showmen that alternately lampoon and betray clients, coworkers and innocent bystanders, as depicted by television shows such as “Entourage.”
“Everyone thinks we’re these nasty, scheming, conniving guys in suits, but that’s not true. We love our clients and if we didn’t we’d be in deep (trouble),” said Greer.
Greer seeks to help aspiring directors, producers, screenwriters and actors to avoid professional disaster and find success in Hollywood.
The book addresses such topics as how to get a movie made and why agents lie in a candid, accessible manner. In the back are a glossary of lesser-known show business terms and a list of recommended readings. In the last chapter, Greer even offers to personally send readers a PDF of her analysis of some of the recommended readings, if they contact her at the book’s Web site.
Greer’s book could prove valuable to many students looking to break into the industry said assistant professor Jim Strain, a cowriter of “Jumanji” and another of Greer’s clients.
“I wish I had a book like this when I was starting out in the business, because I think it answers a lot of questions that most people tend to have about the way things are,” said Strain, who recommended the book to his advanced screenwriting class.
Though it may seem counterproductive for her to give up the secrets with which she makes a living while asking only $14.95 in return, Greer shrugs off the dog-eat-dog mentality that is often associated with her industry.
“Nobody in Hollywood ever gets anywhere without help. People helped me, and now it’s my turn,” Greer said.