Wednesday, April 08, 2009

[Canada] As Denis reminds, the WGC Awards are Monday, the 20th. You can buy tickets at the new WGC site.

The WGC Awards is the best schmooze in town. Imagine hundreds of drunken wallflowers. People fly in from Vancouver for it. Network execs will come, along with some of the cooler producers, and Telefilm people, but mostly it's every single Canadian screenwriter who can make it.

And the awards themselves are mercifully brief.

Tickets, if you're a non-member, are $75, which isn't cheap, but you get some awesome catering for that, plus an open bar, and it's a schmoozefest. (And schmoozing is your job.)

I'll be there. You should too.

Labels: Canada, WGC

11:41 AM

4 Comments:

For a aspiring writer who isn't yet a WGC member, how valuable is attending the awards?

PS- I'm a broke student, and I've only written one spec, and have nobody to go with. :)

By  theextramedium, at 9:24 PM  

It's probably more useful if you know some people. Just on your own, maybe not so much. Unless you're good at introducing yourself to people at random and chatting them up.

By  Alex Epstein, at 10:29 PM  

going to the awards, if you're doing this for a living, is OK and maybe there are people kinder than me out there but getting into a conversation with someone who is trying to break into the industry in the middle of an awards show is kind of painful.

first, I'm usually drunk, second I might be trying to pimp myself already and third there is little i can do to help you in the moment and I will, by the end of the night, probably not remember who you are other than that fucking guy who tried to yack to me about a script while I was trying to get a beer.

i'd recommend going to gollick's screening or mcgrath's friday night gatherings instead if one wishes to network -- you can probably talk to someone one on one there -- as oppossed to walking in on conversations between old friends reconnecting

By  Frank "Dolly" Dillon, at 9:23 AM  

Frank is right. I'll probably be drunk too.

There's a middle way. When you're just starting out, you should do what the politicians call "a listening tour"

Go there not to sell yourself. Do not ask anyone to read your script. Go there and be fun. Introduce yourself to people. Go with a buddy. If you find someone friendly, cop to the fact that you're new, you don't know anybody and ask them if they can point out anybody to you. Not because you want to bug them but because you want to start to know who these people are.

Don't hover over people who are trying to catch up and have private conversations. Keep moving.

Hang out with the smokers. They're friendlier.

No, I'm not kidding.

I was a TV producer in information and didn't really know many people who were writers before I moved into writing. But I went to the Awards for three years before I joined and went pro. I had conversations that were fun and I met a couple people. It was very useful.

Up to you.

By  DMc, at 7:44 PM  

Post a Comment

Back to Complications Ensue main blog page.