Talking and Not Talking

I’M ON THE TRAIN! I feel I should start with that as everyone else around me has made a point about it to anyone they call. I have also been invited to a BBC workshop next month in honour of getting a sketch (my longest ever) on NewsJack.

I haven’t heard from the BBC about whether my one-liners will be on Laura Solon’s Talking Not Talking show which starts tonight. The last I heard was in July when they say I had some stuff recorded for it.

So the BBC are Talking and Not Talking to me!

Is Cheltenham SWF Worth A Return?

Chris Regan asked a very interesting question about whether I would try and go to Cheltenham SWF 2010 having been this year. I thought the answer was worth a post as its a good question and I have nothing interesting to say about anything else (and this might not be that interesting anyway, I’m working out my answer as I type this post. I am a rebel.)

The SWF is definitely something you should be going to with the intention of getting something out of it writing-wise. The socialising with other writers is great fun, but don’t get sucked in to going there for a jolly – unless you have money to burn, which not a lot of writers do.

The ticket cost me approx £300 as I managed to get in a ‘group of ten’ to make it cheaper. Then you need a hotel (£19 per night @ Travelodge as I got a special deal), food and drink money and you need to get to Cheltenham and back.

One of my aims was to meet other screenwriters and I certainly did that, but that alone wouldn’t justify the trip and certainly wouldn’t be the sole aim of returning next year. The seminars were a mixed bag. Some good ones clashed with each other or the speed dating, some contradicted others, some were just Q&A’s about certain films, but some gave interesting insights or at worst reiterated important messages that some of us writers ignore (know the industry better, write a script that will sell, don’t tell Armando Iannucci that he’s beginning to look like Alexis Sayle).

Was this worth the fee? Well, if you were being really picky you could argue that you could get most of this information by knowing the industry better (podcasts, trades, internet). There were some screenwriting masterclasses, I guess for the really new people, but I wouldn’t recommend going to the SWF as a writer if you haven’t got the theory. There simply isn’t enough time to go over it in the one hour seminars anyway.

Then there is the speed-dating. I can tell you right now that the thirty minutes (5 mins per date) were probably the most valuable part of the festival for me. The reasons being that I had projects near completion that I wanted to pitch and that I hadn’t pitched to anyone ‘in the industry’ before. At worst it was a great validation that the ideas were good enough to look into and I now have the contacts of people/companies that will do that. People that can make these projects happen.

So really I have to ask myself, ‘How could I get what I did if I didn’t go to the SWF?’ Networking – probably could go to a few writing groups, but wouldn’t meet as many. Seminars – possibly get similar info from the internet and reading the trades in a crowded WH Smith. Producers/Agents – well I certainly wouldn’t have got to speak to the ones I did as they don’t listen to unsolicited calls.

So I am certainly glad I went this year as overall it was worth it. But what about next year? Again, it depends what I need in a year’s time. If I have loads of writing work on then I probably wouldn’t go, the same if I had no new project ideas and no work on. If I had some new ideas/projects that I felt I didn’t have the right contacts for then I probably would go. It depends on the need to speak to Producers/Agents I guess. Also, if I have the money to spend on the whole thing.

It was noticeable that so many people were there for the first time, which suggests that not many people return and so that might mean that those people have adopted the same attitude as I have. In a way I hope I don’t HAVE to go back, but I would certainly like to if I can justify it.

Cheltenham SWF

So I spent most of last week in a Ladies College – Awuga! However, it was for the rather more serious reason of attending the Cheltenham Screenwriters’ Festival – No-woo-girl!

I had no idea what to expect but dragged myself away at the end of it absolutely exhausted but quite pleased with a number of situations. First of all, one of the main aims of the event was to network and boy did I do that! Actually, everyone was pretty shameless in this field and there were so many business cards frantically exchanging hands that I’m surprised that no fires broke out. So I now know A LOT of screenwriters. Which is lovely. It was like being at Uni for days 3 and 4 as you could go off in most directions and bump into someone you ‘knew’ (by that I mean exchanged paper with).

The seminars were more of a mixed bag. I went to a few screenwriting ones to make sure I wasn’t missing any theories from my armory, and I was satisfied that I wasn’t. The problem lies when you go to two different seminars on the same subject and they completely contradict each other. Also, I went to one that had  ‘porn’ in the title and they didn’t show any clips.

The weirdest bit was the number of people that thought I was a ‘proper’ writer. I explained I had a few  radio sketch credits and felt like a newbie but they weren’t having it. Brilliant.

But probably the best thing about the festival was the meeting the agents and producers or as they labelled it ‘Speed Dating’, which is great when you are talking about in a pub full of locals. I was fortunate enough to have ‘dates’ with both agents and producers and, although I didn’t get to first base with any of them, they all liked my ideas and five out of seven of them requested me to send them scripts directly. I must point out (brag) that the producer that didn’t ask me to send him stuff was from Screen Wales and I’m not Welsh so that was always going to be a tricky relationship, and the agent that didn’t ask for stuff did say I should definitely get an agent whilst just staring at me. Weird.

So overall, good. If I didn’t meet those agents/producers it might have been a bit of a waste of money, especially as there weren’t many of them visible throughout the four days. I also got to meet some other bloggers too which was good. My new goals are to finish my comedy pilots and a synopsis for a comedy feature which all have proper interest from actual people.

For that, I thank Cheltenham SWF.