$21.95
Greenlighting Yourself is chock-full of practical advice about choosing, preparing for, getting your foot in the door of, and succeeding at writing, producing, acting, and directing for film and television.
Throughout the book, the author’s advice is illustrated with anecdotes about many of his notable friends, such as Ray Bradbury and Guillermo del Toro. The myriad topics it covers include committing yourself to a career, developing sound work habits, being creative, interesting others in your work, finding work, finding an agent, coping with rejection, dealing with the various personalities one inevitably encounters in Hollywood, and giving your career longevity.
Marc Scott Zicree has written and produced hundreds of hours of TV for most of the major studios and networks, including Paramount, Universal, Disney, Sony/Columbia Tri-Star, MGM, New Line, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, WB, UPN, Showtime, PBS, Turner, USA Network, Syfy, Discovery, Nickelodeon, the BBC, Marvel, and NPR. Credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Babylon 5, Sliders, Friday the 13th: The Series, He-Man, The Real Ghostbusters, The Smurfs, and many others, as well as numerous network pilots.
Regarded as one of the country’s top media experts, Zicree has been interviewed by hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and TV and radio shows, including The Today Show, American Masters, All Things Considered, Entertainment Tonight, E! True Hollywood Story, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Variety, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. Beyond his three-year stint as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition, he is a regular guest on Coast to Coast, one of the country’s top-rated nighttime radio shows. He has lectured at many colleges, professional conferences, and museums in America, Europe, and Asia, including USC, UCLA, Stanford, and Ithaca College, where he was a keynote speaker.
Zicree’s landmark book, The Twilight Zone Companion, has been credited with creating the modern genre of books on TV series and inspiring a generation of series creators and filmmakers, including J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. The Companion was an instant best-seller (over a half million copies sold to date) and was named in 2006 one of The New York Times’ ten “Science Fiction Books for the Ages”—the only nonfiction book on the list. In addition, Zicree is a lauded novelist with the best-selling Magic Time trilogy, published by HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio. His most recent book, co-written with director Guillermo del Toro, is Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities for HarperCollins.
Beyond this, Zicree is the founder and for the last twenty-two years has run The Table, which has provided a supportive community to thousands of entertainment industry professionals in Hollywood, at no charge. (The 2011 documentary about this support group, The Table, won a Best Documentary Award at the SoCal Film Festival and has been screening on Hulu and Netflix and via iTunes.)
Nominated for the American Book Award, the Humanitas Prize, and Diane Thomas Screenwriting Award, Zicree has won the Hamptons Prize and the Rondo and Saturn awards, and was named by the Writers Guild a 2014 WGA Diversity Honoree. One of his recent credits is the Star Trek: New Voyages episode “World Enough and Time,” starring George Takei, which Zicree executive-produced and directed. He co-wrote its script with Emmy winner Michael Reaves, and it won a TV Guide Award and was nominated for science fiction’s top two prizes, the Hugo and Nebula awards. He also produced and provided fifty episode commentaries for the Twilight Zone Blu-ray release.
Along with his wife, Elaine, Marc is currently writing, directing, and producing Space Command, an epic science-fiction series starring Doug Jones, Mira Furlan, Bill Mumy, Robert Picardo, Faran Tahir, James Hong, and Mike Harney.
You can learn more about Marc at www.marczicree.com, www.spacecommandmovie.com, on his Facebook page or on his Mr. Sci-Fi YouTube channel. He lives in West Hollywood with his marvelous wife and little dog.
“Anything Marc’s pursued, he’s achieved it—screenwriter, novelist, director, producer—and for years he’s been generously teaching others his success techniques. How exciting to see he’s now captured all his secrets in this new book!”—Rockne O’Bannon, Writer-Producer, Evil, Farscape, Defiance, Cult
“Marc Zicree is passionate and resourceful. His insights into creating stories for the screen—and making a career of it—will be invaluable to any self-starter.”—J.J. Abrams, Writer-Producer-Director, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
“Marc Zicree’s Twilight Zone Companion inspired me to greenlight my own writing career. This is what Marc does—empowers people to build a ladder when they encounter a wall!”—Mark Fergus, Co-Creator-Showrunner, The Expanse; Co-Writer, Iron Man, Children of Men “Marc Zicree keeps the indie sci-fi beacon shining—a true believer in self-reliance and ingenuity above budget.”—Guillermo del Toro, Writer-Producer-Director, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Nightmare Alley
“Marc is not only a master storyteller, but a genius in translating the steps to becoming one yourself. Whether that’s in writing, editing, directing, or producing, he’ll help you build the confidence and skill you need to get your projects where they need to go!”—Christina Moses, Actor, A Million Little Things, The Originals, Condor “Marc Zicree has greenlit himself many times with his own writing and directing projects. So if I had my own project to make, I would hear him out on how he did it!”—Doug Jones, Actor, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth, Star Trek: Discovery
“I consider Marc a genuine writing talent. Not to mention, he is an absolute pleasure as a human being, which is no small thing in a writer’s room.”—Damon Lindelof, Co-Creator-Showrunner, Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen
