The Third Draft

Relationships are crucial in this business, and I've been good at making friends and contacts from far away.  It was high time I met  them face-to-face, so here I am in Los Angeles for a two-week immersion in the biz. Tomorrow begins a 4-day Sherwood Oaks event with Gary Shusett and fellow screenwriters from Hal Croasmun's Pro Series. On the 27th, I'll be attending  the IFTA Production Conference. The rest of the time, I'll be networking, networking, networking. Stay tuned for updates!

I was offered the opportunity to pitch my script in front of a live audience, and silly me--I took it. There's a long-running play-reading series here in Paris called Moving Parts, and I was allotted 10 minutes before one of the plays. So up I got in front of about 30 people, most of them writers or actors, and pitched.

Well. The good news is I did it.

The bad news is nobody liked the story.

I see this as a three-part problem.

First, I was pitching a genre piece to Parisian expats, who tend to be literary in their tastes.  Already the genre was a bad fit, and my pitch emphasized the dark and creepy setting. Lesson learned: Do my homework before pitching a producer. If they're not looking for what I have, I might as well spare us all the agony.

Secondly, I wanted to be respectful of the time limit (this was, after all, the playwright's evening), so I left out the anecdote about how I came to write the story. Unfortunately, that was my chance to explain the more unusual elements in the script and involve the audience more. Lesson learned: never skip the set up.

Third, although I thought I had trimmed to the bare bones, the pitch was still too detailed. Too heavy on plot line, too light on emotional moments. Big mistake. Huge. Lesson learned: A pitch is about selling the story--not  telling the story. And selling is all about emotions.

 (It could also be that the story sucks. Always a possibility. I'm looking at a rewrite.)

So there you have it.  I'm more nervous  than ever, despite having been told by a former Hollywood studio executive that I was in control and professional. (Huzzah! I cling to that as my one small consolation.)  But while it wasn't fun, it was  useful, and I  know my next pitch will benefit from having bombed in front of a live audience. A big thank you to Stephanie Campion of Moving Parts for creating such a safe space to fail and grow!

I'm back from a wonderful week at DreamAgo's annual Plume & Pellicule international screenwriting workshop  (Sierre, Switzerland). Plume & Pellicule literally means "Quill & Film" but stands for "From Script to Screen." Designed as the first step in a process of taking a script into production, this year's Plume & Pellicule brought together 10 writers, 4 screenwriting consultants, and 2 directors for a series of intensive workshops.

Both writers and consultants hailed from around the globe.  The countries represented amongst the writers were: France, Martinique, Chile, Cuba, the USA, Tunisia, Cameroon, and Portugal. The coaches were John Herman Shaner (USA); Maggie Soboil (South Africa); Hasan Legzouli (Morocco); Arturo Arango (Cuba); Randa Haines (USA) and Yves Lavandier (France).

I went along as part of the organizing team. My duties included scheduling and translations (DreamAgo's working languages are English, French, and Spanish), and I had a chance to sit in on several consultations. DreamAgo's inexhaustibe founder Pascale Rey set out with a very specific goal: to foster global storytelling and to help scripts that touch on our common human experience get off the ground. Her vision is beginning to manifest. I was astounded by the quality of the scripts and the intensity and insightfulness of the coaching. The work was rigorous, the comments pertinent, and in every case the writer walked away with a new perspective on his or her story. For seven days we functioned at a very high level in three languages--sometimes speaking all of them at once. 

Days began at 8:30 with breakfast, followed by the first consultation.  Then lunch, then another consultation. Promptly thereafter, we all walked down the hill to Sierre's movie theater for the screening. Dinner was at 10 PM. We rarely got to bed before 1 AM. In addition to consultations, the writers also had sessions on scene work with Randa Haines and pitching with Yves Lavandier, and the opportunity to spend some time with special guests from the screenings, such as John Jeffcoat (director, Outsourced) and Belén Rueda (actress, Mar Adentro).

Although we worked hard, we  played hard, too. Comfortably ensconsed in the Chateau Mercier, nestled in a valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains, and spoiled by a marvellous chef and generously flowing wine, it would have been impossible  to do otherwise .  Conversation topics ranged from the state of Tunisia today, the differences between male-female relationship dynamics in the US vs. France, to sexuality in Cuba,  the US independent film distribution system, the Spanish-language telenovela market, what it's like working with Jack Nicholson, and cross-cultural lessons in flirting.  I was blown away by the diversity and the wealth of experiences each person brought to the  table (One young man claimed to be able to kiss in Spanish!).  By the end of the week, we had forged strong bonds with one another and became friends and colleagues in the truest sense of the words.

For more information on DreamAgo, go to: www.dreamago.com.

To see the YouTube videos of this year's Plume & Pellicule, go to: http://fr.youtube.com/user/dreamagoers. Make sure you check out Day 8! We took a special excursion into the Alps. You can see us ziplining through the canyons!

Also, keep your eye out for Tengri, a beautiful film by Marie-Jaoul de Poncheville, a 2005 Plume & Pellicule participant! Although it hasn't officially opened yet, DreamAgo premiered it at this year's screenings.

I haven't been marketing my script lately. Between the web series I'm working on (and the learning curve on new media and social networking that comes with it), looking for a partner on the project I'm considering optioning (I think I found one), two script translations  (one for a well-respected producer here in France),  preparations for DreamAgo's writer's workshop in May (I'm on the organizing team),  an online class I'm taking with Philippa Burgess, my own scripts that need re-writing, my teaching, a novel edit I started working on when things were slow (ah, those were the days!), and a non-profit I help run, I've been swamped!

HOW did this happen? What's the point of living in Paris if I can't while my hours away in a café? This feels like…like…New York!

I'm not complaining, really I'm not. I love everything that I do, and I seriously don't mind that I do it round the clock, seven days a week. It's a challenge and a learning process. Even though I'm not marketing my script right now, I am networking and building my career in ways I never would have thought of if I hadn't just jumped in and taken on some projects.

I love crazy challenges, things that are at the outer edge of what I know I can do. Like when I was asked to write a book of screenwriting tips in 6 weeks. My automatic response was, "Ha, ha, that's crazy. Sure, count me in!" I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew I was going to try.

I've had two such challenges appear on my plate within the last few months. One is a partnership with an international producer to create a series either for web or for TV. Another materialized just this week, and as a result I'm negotiating to option the rights to a true story. Luckily, I have a fabulous mentor who is also an entertainment lawyer. She's been egging me on to become a writer/producer for about a year now. I didn't know what that meant at first, but I'm beginning to learn. My view of the business is rapidly expanding, and with it my view of myself.

As a result, I've started thinking about marketing my script as less of a slog and more as a challenge. What's crazier than selling a spec to Hollywood? Suddenly, marketing fits.

Six queries went out this week. I've had 3 rejections so far. Six isn't a lot, but I've also learned that I have an easier time marketing when I do a little each day. Otherwise I get cross-eyed and find myself unable to make intelligent decisions.