Planting the Seeds for Success – Laverne McKinnon

Raised in the American Midwest, Laverne McKinnon grew up with a farmer’s mentality of planting seeds for future growth.
That philosophy of planting seeds and reaping the rewards has been vital in helping McKinnon rise up the ranks of the Hollywood entertainment industry. Raised in the American Midwest, Laverne McKinnon grew up with a farmer’s mentality of planting seeds for future growth.

In this interview, McKinnon spoke about her career in entertainment, her work with CAPE and what it takes to break into the business of Hollywood.

ASIANCE: What ethnic background are you?

Laverne: My mother was half-Japanese and half-Korean. My father was what I like to call an “American Mutt.” We know that he was Scottish and Irish and I think he may have got a few other things thrown in.

ASIANCE: Where did you grow up? How did that affect you?

Laverne: I grew up in a little suburb outside of Chicago. I come from a very blue collar background. My father was a construction worker and my mother was an administrative clerk. I feel like I have very strong Midwestern values in the sense of a hard work ethic and always looking for opportunities to contribute above and beyond. I like to get in early and stay late. I think it’s all very much the farmer mentality.

ASIANCE: Did being part Asian affect your outlook on life, society?

Laverne: My mother was incredibly influential – “ the cultural perspective and also what she encountered as a child. She grew up in Japan and had a very hard life during WWII. And when she came to America after marrying my father during the Korean war – “ he was stationed in Osaka and that’s where they met and fell in love – she experienced a tremendous amount of racism. People were not always kind to her because she was Asian, and then later she spoke with an accent and didn’t always understand and observe American customs. Although I didn’t directly encounter racism, I was always sensitive to the hardships that my mother had to overcome and I think that created a great deal of empathy in me towards other people’s situations and circumstances. I really aspire to be a kind and thoughtful person both in my personal life and professional life. I was one of only two Asian families in our neighborhood. So, I definitely stood out. Everyone always wanted me to play with the other Asian little girls because we were both of the same background. And while I certainly can’t characterize it as racism, I certainly was affected early on by being pigeon-holed because of the way I looked. I experienced the way that people can be easily characterized by their physical appearance without necessarily digging a little deeper at who is this person at their core. So that’s affected me today in terms of always wanting to dig a little deeper, not just always judging a book by its cover.

ASIANCE: What led you to a career in entertainment?

Laverne: I have a sister who’s five-years-older than I am — and I always idolized her. She taught me to read at a very young age so I grew up loving books and loving stories and characters. I’m not exactly certain how to pinpoint my love for the entertainment industry but probably from watching a lot of television because there certainly wasn’t anyone in my family who carved that path. But I think it was really my early reading that enamored me with stories and I really always wanted to be a part of it. I discovered early on that I’m not a writer, but I loved being surrounded by artists and by the creative process. It seemed that the logical place to move to was Los Angeles so I could be as close to story-telling and the industry as possible.

ASIANCE: At what point were you inspired to pursue your career in entertainment?

Laverne: It was really in high school. I was involved in theatre during high school and was very, very fortunate to spend some time studying at Goodman theater. At that point I thought I might want to be an actor and was very inspired by the exposure to artists and actors as well as incredible teachers and mentors. But once I got to college, I really shifted focus and my major was in radio, television and film. I discovered that my affinity for organization and strategy and more of the business end was really my path as opposed to being in front of the camera or being on the stage.

ASIANCE: What was your first job in production?

Laverne: My first paying gig, I was just out of college. I worked for a man named Gerry Rogers and he was a producer of educational films. I wrote and produced educational films for about four years in Chicago and was very successful at it and won a number of awards. Gerry was a fantastic mentor. He gave me so many opportunities to write and produce and to edit. I really learned the production process inside out on a much smaller scale than what I’m doing now, but the same core principles applied.

ASIANCE: What were those core principles?

Laverne: Two primary things: one is that preproduction is absolutely critical. You can save so much money if you do the legwork ahead of time as opposed to trying to fix a problem when you’re actually in production. It’s always anticipating the problems and solving them beforehand. That anticipation is really, really key. And the second is to be fiscally responsible. The idea of creating a budget is to actually bring your project in at that budget, not over budget not under budget. If you go under as well as over, you’re being fiscally irresponsible – “ you want to spend the money allotted to best support the creative vision for the project. You have to be really thoughtful and careful and anticipate and budget accurately. Gerry really taught me that and I learned that in spades — and the hard way.

ASIANCE: What do you look for in a good script?

Laverne: I’m going to sound a little bit cliché. But I think it’s what a lot of people have said prior to me, which is that the writer has a very clear sense of their vision for their piece. Whether it’s original or a spec television show, the writer knows the characters and they know the story that they want to tell and that they’re able to… a director once said to me and it obviously has stayed with me… “it’s like writing a love letter to your reader” and you want to touch their minds as well as their hearts.” Of course I also look at, inherently, does the writer have talent. But I also look to see if they know their craft? Is their story structurally sound ? Is their plotting sound? Do their act breaks make sense? Those type of very fundamental craft issues, as well.

ASIANCE: What do you look for at 50 Cannon?

Laverne: What we’re really keying off is Mike Newell’s body of feature work. The films that he’s directed in the sense that they’re very eclectic. There’s an emotional relate-ability and a reality to the experiences of the characters. And once you have that emotional reality and relate-ability you can go on any journey in any world. So you can go fantasy ala Harry Potter, you can do suspense ala Donnie Brasco, you can do humor and comedy ala Four Weddings and a Funeral. But all of those characters at the core are incredibly relateable. The other element that we definitely look for are characters — good people in bad situations, bad people in extreme situations. We aren’t looking for any particular genre. We’re really wide open to working with great writers who have a story to tell.

ASIANCE: What has been your most satisfying moment as an entertainment executive?

Laverne: That’s a tough one. I’m very very proud to be part of the development team at CBS that championed the idea of not throwing out the baby with the bath water. Numb3rs is a series I worked on that’s in its fourth season. When we first shot that pilot, it didn’t come together. And that happens. You just make some choices and the magic isn’t there. However, I really believed in the writers and was part of the team that championed, “let’s redo the pilot, let’s do it again.” At that time no network was doing that. Once you shot a pilot and it didn’t move forward to series, it was dead. But it felt like we had invested so much time, energy and money that it actually felt irresponsible to throw something away that still had tremendous value. So we re-shot the pilot and it has become a really solid success for CBS. So that’s something I’m incredibly proud of. Again falling under that never give up, never surrender category.

ASIANCE: What kind of stories do you see from Asian American writers? Or what kind of stories do you want to see more of from Asian American writers?

Laverne: I think that’s a tough question to answer because from my perspective it’s not about an ethnicity, but rather the ability to communicate, “I have a unique point of view.” You just never really know what the marketplace is ultimately going to be looking for. So while you need to be savvy in terms of your craft and the packaging of how you present your idea, at the core of it of the idea, it has to be unique — and that can only come from deep inside a writer’s mind and heart.

ASIANCE: Tell us about your involvement with CAPE (Coalition for Asian Pacifics in Entertainment).

Laverne: I’m incredibly proud to be a part of this organization. It’s been in existence for 17 years, and my involvement is going on three years. Right now, I serve as head of the educational workshops and panels committee. And I just derive tremendous satisfaction and a great deal of fun out of it, in terms of organizing and planning our panels to really meet the CAPE members needs. For example, there’s been tremendous interest in doing more feature panels. We’re planning two for early next year – “ one on selling to the majors and another on financing independent films. While I was at CBS and a member of CAPE, I designed a TV 101 pitch workshop that they continue to do on an annual basis at CBS. It’s a real nuts and bolts workshop, in which writer’s have an opportunity to pitch an idea and receive feedback from established producers and executives of just the craft of how they’re communicating their idea and what they need to do to be a more effective salesman.

So I’m really proud of that workshop as well. And CAPE is a phenomenal organization. It provides networking opportunities. It provides opportunities for one to advance their own professional careers in terms of meeting other people, but also honing their craft through workshops and there are lots of screenings that happen several times a month. It’s a really dynamic organization.

ASIANCE: Why do you feel it’s important for Asians or Asian Americans to create a community to network like CAPE?

Laverne: I’m a big, big believer in creating support systems. So I’m a member of CAPE. I’m also very active in my college alumni organization. I also have a group of women that I get together with every other month who are in the entertainment industry and we talk about other philanthropic opportunities. I think its essential to create a support system and specifically to Asian Americans, I think that in the entertainment industry the road is so challenging and so difficult and filled with potholes that if we have an opportunity to support and share our experience and knowledge with each other it only makes the industry stronger and better. And also, what we do in entertainment is based on collaboration. To belong to an organization like CAPE and to find other Asian Americans to collaborate with gives us an opportunity to make our projects stronger and better — and to help us realize our vision because we can’t do it alone, we don’t live in a vacuum.

ASIANCE: What kind of advice do you have for Asian Americans pursuing an entertainment career?

Laverne: To be honest, it wouldn’t be any different than for any other ethnic group. Find your support system like CAPE and other organizations so that you create networking opportunities because so much of the industry is based on relationships — and again finding opportunities to work with people to help you realize your dreams and your hopes and visions for the projects. The other key I think is perseverance.

Unfortunately, this is an industry based on constant rejection and so you have to persevere. I actually carry a quote around with me by Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” And I really believe that. I believe the philosophy of never give up, never surrender. You got to be in it for the long hall.

ASIANCE: Where do you suggest a beginning writer start?

Laverne: A beginning writer actually needs to put together their portfolio and by that I mean they need to have several writing samples that are polished and have been vetted by their own friends and colleagues… There should be original samples and… if the writer wants to pursue television then he/she will need to have spec material as well. But you need to prove that you have the goods, so you need three, four, five, six scripts in your portfolio to be prepared to show because agents or producers may say, “Oh, well I love this material, but let me see something else.” And you need to be able to say, “here it is,” instead of, “Oh, well, let me get back to you in six months.” You also want to be able to take advantage of what might be happening in a particular marketplace where someone might be needing a rewrite for a particular genre and you have to prove that you can write that genre.

ASIANCE: Any last thoughts, you’d like to share?

Laverne: I’m a tremendous believer in the yin and yang of life in that there is lightness and darkness and that is what makes us whole. So while there may be tremendous disappointment along the way, it will only make us stronger and better and allow for us to learn something new about ourselves. Perseverance is the key, let it all happen and keep moving forward because there is lightness, happiness and joy as well.