Do You Still Need to Move to LA as a Screenwriter?

When any person says their dream is to become a screenwriter, a comment you’ll often hear is “you should move to LA first”.

Getting advice about how to start as a screenwriter from a professional in the industry?…“you should move to LA”. Telling a random stranger on the street that you want to be a screenwriter?…“you should move to LA”. Want to be a screenwriter with zero experience?…“you should move to LA first”. 

This isn’t particularly useful advice for screenwriters outside of Los Angeles or the US. Or to those that can’t just uproot their lives at the drop of a hat. But the good news is that the fact that you have to move to LA to become a screenwriter may not be as true as it used to be.

So what to make of this famous piece of screenwriting advice? Should you move to LA? What are the benefits? And how might you achieve such benefits without packing your bags and uprooting your life? We take a look…

Networking in LA

One of the most important skills for screenwriters to have is networking. It can sometimes be a hard truth to learn, but good writing is often only half the battle. Film networking is where you make your work mean something. It’s where your screenplay becomes something tangible that people can collaborate on, talk about and eventually, produce.

And let’s be honest, the best place for a screenwriter to network is in Los Angeles, the home of all things movies and TV. Whilst movie and TV production is branching out all over the world, Los Angeles is still the film and TV capital (for English speaking work at least).

The chances of you running into someone involved in a TV or movie production in LA is more likely than anywhere else. This, in turn, makes your chances of your work getting discovered that much more likely as well.

Even if you were to pitch your work many times in LA, the chances of someone turning that pitch into a production is much higher too. Just the fact that you have many options of where to pitch your ideas is a big reason why screenwriters move to LA to pursue their careers.

So this is the headline reason for moving to LA as a screenwriter. It’s where the biggest and most important film network in the world is. And just by being there and trying to make connections you inevitably increase your chances of becoming part of this network. This is something that, as a result, increases your chance of success.

However, in the modern age (especially post COVID-19), physical location is becoming less important to working life. That all-important network might not necessarily be as tied to location as much as it once was…