As part of our ongoing commitment to interviewing currently working managers, we reached out to AE Jones, a television literary manager at Stagecoach Entertainment. Their experience spans representation, production, and business and creative development with companies like Paradigm, NBCUniversal, Red Bull Media House, and Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips, LLC. Jones is also volunteer mentor for #StartWith8Hollywood and Boston University’s Career Advisory Network.

Their interview was so comprehensive, we had to break it down into two parts.

What is Stagecoach Entertainment and what is their specialization in terms of content they produce and writers they represent?

Stagecoach Entertainment is a management company that represents talent, writers, directors, and digital influencers. What I love about our team is not that we specialize in any one area of type, but each person on the team has a unique view and vision for the content we produce and people we represent; that diversity of thought and perspective makes us a stronger team for a greater variety of clients. That’s incredibly exciting to me.

As for writers, you’ll tend to find our clients in the one-hour genre space and animation. I personally love writers who can do delicious ensemble soapy dramas with high stakes, à la The Great, Cruel Summer, or For All Mankind. People who can write universal themes into speculative and/or absurd scenarios usually grab my attention (see Midnight Gospel, Black Mirror).

Increasingly, I’m finding myself drawn to people who can take an older broadcast structure, like a medical or investigative, but with a newer twist or established IP. I’d love to find my Pushing Daisies or Murder, She Wrote. 

Describe your professional background in terms of traditional and non-traditional media companies and what were the standout lessons of each.

My career has crossed over a lot of areas aside from representation, which I’m so grateful for. In terms of traditional media, I’ve worked in writers’ rooms for broadcast TV, on-set production, commercial post-production, and digital film restoration.

A.E. Jones

Non-traditional media has included an extended contract with a digital/streaming-first media company, business writing and market analysis for unscripted buyers at international networks and start-up operations for production companies. Rep wise, I’ve run the assistant-trainee-coordinator route twice, ten years apart, due to an interruption in my career. The three standout lessons in this chaos of experience are:

• Accurate and timely information is the ultimate currency;
• Having a meticulously organized system is the key to using that information to your advantage; and,
• Timing is everything. Be prepared.

How would you define the temperature of the current film and TV landscape in terms of the type of material sought?

Staffing wise, having an original sample is still necessary. While no-one really asks for spec scripts anymore except for TV programs, I still encourage all newer writers to write a few specs of shows you love just to get the feel and rhythm of script writing before diving into their original script.

In terms of development and stories bought in television, the general headline is that IP is still the hottest market by volume. Based on how I’ve followed the reboot market for the past few years, I actually think we’re about to enter a cooling off period; there seems to be diminishing returns setting in for audiences, if not outright fatigue.

Conversely, considering how hot the IP market is, I think you’ll increasingly see networks, streamers, and studios turning inward to develop and producer what they already own in archives and libraries, as appetite for risk right now seems lower than ever. 

Is there a minimum level of experience or material a writer should have before you might consider them for representation?

One of my favorite quotes ever comes from the inventor Dean Kamen, who once said about a new product of his, “In less than fifteen years, I’ll have an overnight success.”

To me, that is a very elegant way of saying, you’re probably not going to hit it out of the park right away. However, to me, there is significant courage and maturity to any writer who shows me that they have knuckled down to do the hard work of sucking at first, admitting it, and then finding the path through to growth. And that process does not happen overnight. 

I am at a point in my career where I’m looking mostly at newer voices, so in terms of experience minima, I’m looking for at least one industry recognized professional credit – writer’s assistant in a room, a short film with festival placements, participation in a studio or network development program, and/or finalist placement in a very (very) short list of contests are a few examples. 

What separates the aspiring writers from the working ones apart from the quality of writing?

The biggest difference is a sense of balanced objectivity between one’s self, one’s creative work, and the day-to-day grind of writing professionally in the industry. This is a business where the personal and professional line can sometimes feel incredibly blurry, so having emotional intelligence and creative flexibility, to me, is necessary in being able to navigate the industry as it is today, and as it is changing for the future. The writers who are aware and openly curious about what’s going on around them aside from the writing of a script tend to work more. 

Also, and maybe this is just me, but my favorite working writers are the ones who can still crack jokes after hour thirteen in a room and their seventh rejected pitch, because some days, you just need to get through Tuesday. Knowing how, and when to move on is, then, perhaps the most valuable skill to learn that sets working writers apart from aspiring ones. 

Where do you think the most opportunities lie for writers in the current business climate?

I think we’re still in a period where the most jobs by volume are in episodic content, whether that be for streaming, linear broadcast or cable, or (increasingly) international acquisitions that may be produced in their entirety before finding distributors in various markets. This can be further subdivided into more slots generally being available in larger, one-hour rooms, rather than ½-hour rooms that often rely on very closed circles of friends and performers. 

However, I should be clear that I differentiate between jobs and opportunity – what opportunity looks like to you, the writer, could encompass any number of factors depending on what your specific goal is. That specificity is your secret weapon. Knowing what you’re working towards next means that you can look at anything from a general meeting to an actual job offer in terms of how this opportunity can move you closer to your ultimate goals. Opportunities turn up everywhere once you start looking out for them – figuring out how to use those opportunities to lead to a concrete goal is the bigger strategy question to consider.