Perhaps it’s another “nobody knows anything” sign about the unpredictability of Hollywood.  Perhaps not.  Either way, many of the writers, directors, and producers attending the Banff World Television Festival shared stories about breaking into the business that emphasized that while they might have gotten into the business a certain way, their way is "not the way to get a job.”

Hart Hanson - Bones

That’s a quote from Bones creator Hart Hanson, who was studying creative writing at the University of British Columbia when he and his girlfriend – now wife – discovered they were expecting a baby. He’d meant to become a novelist after his rock god aspirations didn’t pay off (“I'm a really crappy guitar player”), but had been forced to pick two other fields of study. One happened to be screenwriting.

Suddenly desperate to support a family and aware that writing the Great Canadian Novel wasn’t the quick road to riches (but screenwriting is?), he started faxing pitches to the long-running Vancouver-based The Beachcombers. After the 15th fax, the executive producer relented, inviting him for a meeting.

He doesn’t recommend that approach to aspiring writers, and not just because of the near-obsolescence of fax machines. However, it led to work on that half hour dramedy as well as a wide range of popular Canadian series, including family drama Road to Avonlea and Traders, the series he helped create with fellow Canuck-gone-Hollywood David Shore about the "scintillating and exciting" world of investment banking. “Researching it, I thought I’d developed narcolepsy,” he quipped.

Hollywood beckoned based on his Ally McBeal spec script, since “none of my Canadian scripts mattered a bit.” Hanson found himself on Cupid and forever pigeonholed in the U.S. as a light dramedy writer ("because I didn't write a Homicide spec").

Alan Poul – Swingtown and Six Feet Under

Swingtown and Six Feet Under executive producer and director Alan Poul graduated with a degree in Japanese literature thinking he'd end up writing musical theatre, while earning some money on the side as an expert on Japanese cinema. Then Paul Schrader approached him for help on the movie Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters because of his knowledge of the Japanese language and culture, promising to make Poul an associate producer on the film, "which I thought meant something. I learned differently later." 

Poul was seduced by the idea of earning a living wage, plus as soon as he set foot on a soundstage in Tokyo, he realized he wanted to be a producer. He found himself known as "the Japan guy," finding work on movies like Black Rain until he aligned himself with Propaganda Films, which had a reputation for cultivating directorial talent.