Friday, April 27, 2007

Today I've been walking all around lower Manhattan having meetings with New York production companies. I have a few scripts that really need to be done in the States, either because the budget is beyond Canadian means, or because the material is really about the US and not about Canada. (The one I'm meeting on is a story about military families, and how you can be wounded by a war your father went to. Canada mostly tries to stay out of wars.)

These meetings are frustrating because they're meet'n'greets. They've read my script, unless they haven't. They don't want to buy it, but they like the writing, so they want to meet me. They're smart people whose company I enjoy. But there's a vagueness to many of these meetings that suggests the relationship may not go much further. I feel semi-obliged to meet because you never know. One of the meetings was actually semi-promising, in a long term kinda way.

But they're so different from the meetings I've just been having in Toronto, where I've have to think hard about which projects I want to do and when I have time to do them. It's the difference between "nice script, we'd love to read your next thing" and "nice script, how busy is your summer?" (A: Busy.)

Has anyone cracked the meet'n'greet? Any idea how you turn one into a job? Has anyone ever got a job off a meet'n'greet? 'Cause I sure haven't.

I'll be happy to get back home. I know a week of traveling isn't actually all that much. But I'm tuckered out, and I've got a big nasty blister on my foot, and I want to sleep in my own bed.

Labels: this little piggy went to market

11:43 PM

4 Comments:

How forward are you at these meetings? Do you ask about their projects and show an active interest or do you primarily talk about your work?

I'm guessing these are the kinds of people who like to have their egos stroked so lots of praise and interest in their work might be the trigger for a job offer.

At the least, networking for its own sake has some value. You never know what may come of it.

By  DougJ, at 11:52 AM  

I dislike 'meet and greets' - they are evil...a necessary evil, mind you, but still evil.

By  wcdixon, at 2:24 PM  

"Do you ask about their projects and show an active interest" -- possibly not enough. But by the time they're moving forward on a project, it already has a writer. So not sure what to say about their go projects, other than "I'd love to see that when it's done."

Have you had a successful meet'n'greet then? Or are you just speculating?

By  Alex Epstein, at 4:25 PM  

I was just talking out my a...speculating.

I don't have experience with 'meet and greets' but was basing my reply on general business experience with interpersonal networking.

By  DougJ, at 4:55 PM  

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