London Screenwriters' Festival 2010 - Day One

The London Screenwriters Festival 2010.

Wow, just simply WOW!

I had great expectations for this year's festival and what I experienced went way beyond even that. Six months of planning and what we all experienced was nothing short of perfection. I had the time of my life.

For the first session I went to see In Conversation With The Commissioners, then came Becoming A Great Pitcher. Both sessions were full of superb insight and I came away with several pages of notes. I also had my pitching session with producers and directors, three in total, late morning. God was I nervous, but the experience was a learning one especially as I pitched before I went to the Great Pitcher session later in the day. I don't think I did a bad job, after all I came away with two producers and a director asking me to send them my script, but I learnt that this is something I'm going to have to work on, and I will. You need to be able to successfully and confidently sell yourself face to face. I know I need more practice.

What I did for most of the day was to put myself out there and I networked my arse off. To my delight all the networking paid off and I came away with an offer of paid worked. That goes to prove what I said before the festival, networking is the life blood of writers, those who don't, die.

One thing that did get me was the fact that a lot of people didn't do their research. When in the Great Pitcher session we were asked to put our hands up if we had researched the speakers and the delegates before we came. Only five people out of forty put their hand up and I was one of them. I couldn't believe that so many people had come unprepared. But then, as I surmised later, that was their problem and not mine. All the more people for me to network with.

All in all the first day was just awesome and so it was I trundled back to where I was staying, more exhausted than I have been for a long time, but with a huge fat smile on my face.

How was the first day for you?

Day Two to come soon.