Thursday, May 04, 2006

I finally managed to get registered for the Banff Worldwide Television Festival, and I'm glad I did. Now I'm trying to set up meetings with the slew of attendees who might potentially help work come my way.

The upside of a festival is that people are there in order to meet you, if you can give them a good reason why. In town, they have a stack of work on their desk. They leave those scripts and papers at home. They are there to drink and schmooze. They are there, incidentally, without their receptionists and/or assistants, which means that even if they do not want to set up an appointment, if you know what they look like, you can just walk up to them and introduce yourself.

Festivals are best when you have a story to tell and something to sell. If you know people, good; if people have heard your name, even better.

I went to the 1994 Sundance Film Festival only to realize that, of the 600 or so people I'd talked to on the phone over the previous year, I had met only about 50 in person. And of those fifty, I could recognize exactly none of them, because they were all wearing parkas. It was surprising to see how much my brain needed those slick Armani suits to recognize agents, and the white sneakers and fresh blue jeans to recognize writers.

But more importantly, I didn't have a story to tell. I didn't have a place in the festival or the market. So I had no excuse to start conversations. Oh, I snuck into a few cocktail parties. but it was pretty much a bust.

At Banff this year, I'm a finalist in the pitch fest, and I've got a computer full of 8 page pitches. And most of the people I talk to these days have heard of Naked Josh and/or Bon Cop Bad Cop.

So I'm chewing through this vast delegate list, trying to prioritize who I hope to meet... back to it.

Labels: this little piggy went to market

1:28 PM

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