LSWF 2016 PART 4

SUNDAY 4TH

The morning after the night before. I don't recall what time I went to bed... it was late and I had pickled myself in networking juice. Still, I was up at the crack of dawn and raring to go after a large, strong coffee and something to eat.

Sunday was all about making the most of any potential networking and going to that session I'm not allowed to talk about.

Script Editors

First up - A Day In The Life Of A script Editor. Great session. I really enjoyed listening to each of the speakers and how they dealt with notes and giving them to writers. Always good to get opinions from other points of view. I've had plenty of notes in my time. Some good, some bad, some utterly bonkers, but I've always sat down with the producers/directors/script editors, worked through the notes, come up with alternative suggestions where I can, agreed on changes everyone is happy with and then implemented them in an orderly and stress free manner... which was basically what the above session was about. Remember kiddies, a good script editor is for life, not just for (insert seasonal holiday here).

Second - Subtext; Writing For Depth and Impact. I'm hoping the video for this session is up on LSWF Connect soon, as I'm embarrassed to say the weekend's overload of information took its toll five minutes into this session and I fell asleep. Oops... sorry, Mr Pope, hope I didn't snore too loudly. However, I'm reliably informed it was an excellent session.

My Heroes

FIGHT CLUB!

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! I want to watch the  film again! I'm planning on doing so with my dear lady wife ASAP. Jim Uhls' commentary was a lot different to Peter Iliff's Point Break approach. Jim kept the majority of his comments focused on the screenplay, the difficulty of adapting a novel (honestly never knew it was an adaptation... I know... book on order), the changes he made and the reasons behind them. Obviously, I can't go into more detail about these, as I'm not allowed to talk about it... shhhhhhhh!

Peter Iliff having a quiet pint or two.

The rest of the day was spent in a blur of networking, swapping cards, promising to email out more screenplays and trying not to drink the right amount of beer to make me an incoherent mess. I can't stress the importance of networking at LSWF enough. It's vital if you want to find work as a writer. Yes, I skipped a few session that day, but you can't beat quality networking.

And so ended this year's festival. I vaguely remember an overly excited guy shouting at me from a stage, telling me I was fucking awesome and to go out into the world and make it a better place... or something. I also vaguely remember standing outside The Globe on Baker Street, drinking beer, promising more people to send them my screenplays and marvelling at the fact Peter Iliff was getting pissed with us. Everything else is a little blurry. Maybe all that lovely information over the weekend was way too much for my grey matter and a bit of it dribbled out of my ears when I wasn't looking?

Happy writing.