Failing Better
William M Akers, writer of Your Screenplay Sucks!
Anyhoo, turns out he’s doing a workshop at the Met Film School on the evening of Thursday 2nd July at 6:30pm. Looks like it might be interesting.
Fifteen quid cash on the door to get in, and you need to book a ticket beforehand. Details are here.
He also has a blog.
Trailer for Just For The Record, the new film from our very own Phill Barron.
Looks like fun.
It has been pointed out to me recently that a Writers’ Social has not been organised for a long while.
So the delightful Sara Baroni and I have organised one.
It’s in the Knights Templar pub in London on Thursday 16th July from 7pm till closing. In this pub at this time we will be drinking beer, and talking about the UK screenwriting industry.
Why not come along and do the same? All welcome.
Hope to see you there.
So I was at the launch do for the Screenwriters’ Festival last night. This was actually the second launch. We reckon they can probably fit one more in before the festival itself, which is October 26th to 29th.
In addition to a glass of free wine (which always cheers me up) and some starspotting in the BAFTA bar, we got to see a few people talk including a couple of agents, two writers who are at the end of the beginning of their careers (or possibly the beginning of the middle), and Christopher Hampton.
The common theme running through all of these presentations was this though: it takes hard work to be successful. A lot of it.
Christopher Hampton hasn’t done too badly for himself. And he’s got a pretty good hit-rate for features – fully one in three of the films he’s written has actually been made.
Both of the new writers are several features plus change (sitcoms, dramas, etc.) written before starting to get any traction at all. And even now they’re only just starting to emerge from the fray.
So: Work hard. Repeat until successful.
The helpful advice is all really in aid of promoting the festival, though. I mean, that’s what a launch is for. And what you really want to know is: is it worth the cash?
In my opinion, yes. I’ve been for the last few years, and I’d say there’s two main reasons to go.
Firstly, there’s getting to hear from writers who make a living at this. A lot of them, in the same place at the same time. Learning what they did right and wrong helps you to avoid the mistakes they made and make brand new ones of your own.
Secondly you get to hang around with other writers at the same stage as you are. It’s as much of a social event as it is a learning one. And to be honest, that’s the most useful thing of all.
Other bloggers were at the event too, and I’m sure they’ll chuck in their two’pennorth over the next few days. As of right now, the only post available is at Phill’s place. It has the advantage over this one in that it also contains a diagram of sperm.
If you’re thinking of going, don’t forget that you can get funding from your local screen agency.
Hope to see you there.
Creator/Showrunner/Sometime Blogger Josh Friedman of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has posted about what it’s like being on the bubble.
Sadly, the show didn’t get renewed.
“Everyone says having your show cancelled is like a death but I’ve been dead before and at least when you’re dead you don’t get thrown off the Warner Bros. lot for haunting your old parking space. They probably mean it’s like the death of a friend or a family member but that shit only hurts when it’s YOUR friend or family member and even then it’s mitigated by age, lifestyle and whether that person was a Hollywood friend or a real one and whether that family member left you money.
“Losing your show is more like a surprise divorce where you get served papers in the morning and your (ex)wife is fucking Human Target by three in the afternoon using the same time slot your child was conceived in and also where she did that one thing that one time on your birthday.”
More at Josh’s blog.