Success Story: Maria Jacquemetton
CONGRATULATIONS! MAD MEN WINS THE GOLDEN GLOBE FOR BEST TV DRAMA!Current wisdom suggests writers "brand" themselves, focusing on a single area of expertise. While this may often hold true for the average Joe, Maria Jaquemetton is far from ordinary. She's found success with a writing career that crisscrosses over genres, media, fields and even countries.
Right now, Maria and her husband/writing partner, André Jacquemetton, shuttle between Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada. They're Producers on AMC's period drama series, MAD MEN. Created by Sopranos Executive Producer Matthew Wiener, this hit show explores the advertising world of the early sixties.
If that weren't enough, Maria also teaches writing for TV and film at Vancouver Film School, where she serves as Head of the Writing for Film, Television & Interactive Media Department. And this multi-tasking ability is nothing new.
After earning an M.S. in Film Production from Boston University College of Communication, Maria worked in both broadcast television and documentary filmmaking in the Boston market before pursuing a screenwriting career in Los Angeles. When she got here, Maria sharpened her writing skills while working as an assistant on sitcoms.
But, Maria credits winning The Scriptwriters Network's Door Opener Derby (a precursor to the Carl Sautter Memorial Scriptwriting Competition) with jump-starting her writing career. She said, "Winning the award enabled me to get interest from an agent. He sent my script out and garnered me a small flurry of meetings.
More importantly, a pair of producers, Kim Adelman and Kimberly Preston, read my script because it had won the contest, and they hired me to develop an original screenplay for them. They eventually optioned that script to Prelude Pictures.
So, you could say that my very first "paid" writing gig was a direct result of having been associated with the The Scriptwriters Network."
That same year, Maria won a coveted spot in the ABC/Walt Disney Company Writing Fellowship Program. Maria's first produced credit and the first Disney Fellowship project ever produced was BILLBOARD DAD, a family-comedy feature. Shortly after that, Maria teamed up with her writing partner, Andre Jacquemetton.
They then turned their focus to television and broadened their scope beyond comedy to drama, fantasy, action, adventure and science fiction. Their credits include: STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, BAYWATCH, RELIC HUNTER and HIGHLANDER among others. Additionally, alone or as part of this writing team, Maria has worked at major Hollywood studios including Paramount, Universal and Sony as well as in the independent film community.
She's also written on-staff, freelance and developed original television pilots. While Maria notes that such switch-hitting writing is the exception to the rule, she says that all writing is about exploring human relationships and the human condition, whether it's writing about advertising guys in 1960 or space travelers in the distant future.
She also mentions that not everyone is looking for writers with turnkey experience in a particular genre. For example, in the case of their stint at STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, the show's producers were looking beyond seasoned Sci-Fi writers for fresh voices.
A fantasy script, which showcased their fantasy-writing abilities, cinched the deal for the Jacquemettons. What's more, Maria observes that there's a lot more crossover now than earlier. But, her advice to her students and to emerging writers isn't about generalizing or specializing.
She says simply, "Writers have to write." Even when they're exhausted by day jobs, writers must continue to hone their craft. And she says there's something to the cliché about persistence paying off, "Writers must keep with it write script after script and never give up."