Wednesday, December 12, 2007

I don't live in the same town as all the networks. In Canada that's possible because the Canadian government supports the arts regionally -- there's some money to develop in Ontario, some to develop in Saskatchewan, some for Québec, etc. Likewise, production support.

But you can't count on it to come to you. You have to make a pilgrimage to the money. I try to go whenever there's something fun happening. I'm heading up to Toronto tomorrow for a CFC party and a WGC party and another private party. Good way to catch up with everybody, see my friends, and remind people I exist. Then on Friday, a producer and director are organizing a reading of a script I wrote for them, so I'll get to hear what works and what doesn't. That's always exciting.

Quite a bit of show business is over the phone and Internet. I know an agent who spent an entire month in Aspen during an LA heat wave, pretending he was suffering too. He just had his phones forwarded. No one knew.

But you have to physically be there every now and then, or you fall off the radar. My friend J had already had lunch with everybody he was talking to on the phone.

It's harder to live outside the epicenter when you're in the American side of the biz, and it's harder in either industry when you're unknown. In either case you really don't want to miss an opportunity to meet people and make friends. You need to absorb the feeling of the biz -- the sensibility that enables you to match up a story against what you know people are looking for and go, "Naaaaah, that's just not going to happen."

Success in show business is maybe 30% talent and 30% craft ... the rest is actually getting out there. You have talent, and you can learn craft ... but getting out there is your job too.

Labels: Alex, this little piggy went to market

1:41 PM

2 Comments:

Which script is being read?

By  Webs, at 10:48 PM  

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

By  Graham Bedwell, at 8:24 AM  

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