Friday, April 21, 2006

On Sunday I'm hopping a fast train to Toronto. (Doesn't have the ring of the last train to Clarkesville, but there's no one to meet me at the station.) If the gods are kind to me, I might pick up a screenwriting award. But more crucially to continuing to have a roof over my head, I now have four network meetings lined up, and a bunch of producer meetings too. And a cocktail party. And a poker game. And a lunch with one of the best writers around.

Should be an exciting few days.

I like to think of Toronto as LA without the nice weather. It's sort of spread out, and people ask you what you "do," so they can figure out, "How can I use you?" While Montreal is sort of New York on a budget: people ask "What do you do?" so they can ask you interesting questions about your work.

I've got four new series ideas I'm pitching -- about six to eight pages on each -- but in each of these meetings I'm going in with a producer I've already got a series with, and we're pitching that. We sent the material to the networks in advance (in one case, months ago), but it sometimes takes a meeting to make it real and get the material read. I could have gone in to the networks on my own, but it's very hard for a network exec to get excited about even the most interesting material if there isn't a producer attached. The most they can do is suggest a producer to attach. It's just a lot to expect them to read something they can't really say yes to. Hence going in with the production companies.

9:07 AM

1 Comments:

I'd wish you the best of luck but I don't believe in luck. I'd wish you the best of skill but clearly you already have that. So -- have a good time.

By  MaryAn Batchellor, at 5:28 PM  

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