It’s that time of year again, Summer hands over the rain-soaked baton of boredom to Autumn; Autumn gears itself up for some actual sunshine (just so it can listen to everyone banging on about how weird it is that September is hotter than August, despite the weather being exactly the same as it was last year and the twenty fucking five years before that); I fight my way past the Christmas cards and the odd hopelessly early Easter egg to stare longingly at the new jackets appearing in the shops … and young scriptwriters fancies turn to thoughts of the London Scriptwriters’ Festival.
If you’re an unproduced or fledgling writer, then this is the networking and training event of the year. If you’re a produced or grizzled, battle-scarred writer then it’s an excuse to mock your industry mates for having their flies open during their seminar and grumble about how the industry’s changed around you whilst getting pissed afterwards.
Basically: people talk at you, you go and get drunk, you talk at them. For three days.
Check out the website for all the gory details including who’s speaking and when and what sort of networking hijinks you can get up to.I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about money.
Basically, anyone flogging tickets as an affiliate (which I am) can offer you a £30 discount off the £300 ticket price. You get £30 off, we also get paid £30 and everyone’s a winner.
Except, I don’t think it’s right. Personally, I think it’s immoral for me to make money off fellow writers since we’re all pretty much in the same boat and money is tight in these trying times. I don’t want to make money off you, so I won’t … I’ll give you my £30 commission.
By the way, just because I think it’s immoral for me to make money off you, doesn’t mean I think it’s immoral for other bloggers to keep the cash. Some bloggers provide an invaluable, free service for years and years on end – tirelessly feeding you information, hints, tips and competition dates. If, once a year, they want to make a little extra cash; then that’s up to them and who am I to call them names?
We all have a different concept of right and wrong. Personally, I find alcohol and casual sex immoral*; but counterfeit, forgery and stealing from large corporations† to be merely naughty. We all have a naughty line and we draw it where we damn well please.
But the fact remains – I want to give you £30 off your ticket and a further £30 after the festival when I get my commission. In effect, you’ll be getting your ticket for £240 … I think. 300 – 30 – 30 = … yeah, that’s right, isn’t it?
£240 for a ticket – that’s a good deal, right?
A word of warning: five people took me up on the deal last time and it took ages to get the money back. The festival was at the beginning of April – I didn’t get paid my commission until the 1st of July. The cheques were sent out three days later. Those five (who may or may not choose to identify themselves) did get their money; but three months later than expected.
Having said that, there’s been a sea change at the festival and they assure me all monies will be paid out within 30 days of receiving an invoice.
So it’s up to you. If you want to go to the festival (and you should) and you haven’t yet bought a ticket and you want to pay £60 less than the asking price of £300, then here’s what you do:
Buy your ticket from this link. Use discount code JOBBINGSCRIPTWRITER and pay your £270.
Send me an email (phill@phillipbarron.co.uk) telling me you’ve done it and include your home address.
Attend the festival, laugh, learn from and mingle with your writing heroes.
After the festival, I get sent a list of who bought a ticket using my code and £30 per person. Upon receipt, I immediately send you a cheque for £30.
Cash the cheque.
Blow the cash on fags ‘n’ booze.
And that’s pretty much it.
Like I say, they are other people offering tickets at a discount price and if you like their blog then you should support them. If, however, you’d rather save yourself an extra £30, then I’m your boy.
Hopefully, I’ll see you all there.
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* I don’t, not really. Not immoral. Boring, maybe? But not really immoral. I think I had a moral once; but I may have lost it. Possibly down the back of the sofa.
Martin Kemp’s Directorial Debut to Screen at Grimm Up North with Exclusive Q+A
Stalker stars Billy Murray, Jane March and Linda Hayden
On Friday October 7th, the festival will host a very special premiere screening of Stalker– the directorial feature debut of TV and music icon Martin Kemp – ahead of its national theatrical release. In addition, the former Eastenders star and Spandau Ballet bass hero will be joined by members of the film’s cast and crew, including producer Jonathan Sothcott (Devil’s Playground, Dead Cert) and actress Jane March (The Lover, Clash of the Titans) to take part in an exclusive Q&A session after the movie.
Sure to be a controversial festival talking point, Stalker is based on the infamous 1976 sex-and-slash shocker – and previously banned ‘video nasty’ – The House on Straw Hill(aka Expose). For 2011, Kemp has reworked this cult gem into a tense, psychological thriller focusing on memory, identity and the creative imagination. Fans of the original might also be interested to hear the movie features Linda Hayden, cult horror actress and star of the seventies chiller, in a supporting role.
Commenting on the film, Producer Jonathan Sothcott said: “Stalker is the slickest, best-directed film we’ve made to date and a genuinely well-made, creepy horror film in its own right. We feel it is strong enough to stand a theatrical release in selected UK cinemas and we’re looking forward to unleashing it on the world.”
The Grimm Up North team are delighted to be able to unveil Stalker as the first entry in its official 2011 programme and look forward to welcoming Director Martin Kemp to the City of Manchester in October. Tickets for this event plus the entire programme will go on sale soon so keep your eyes peeled Grimmlins.
The tickets cost £149 if bought direct from the festival.
If, on the other hand, you buy them from anyone of the numerous and worthy bloggers who are flogging them then you can get £25 off.
Buy them from me, on the third hand, and you’ll not only get £25 off the price; but I’ll also give you another £25 cash back after the festival – making the tickets a rather juicy £99.
Why am I doing this?
Oh, I can’t be bothered to explain again. The details are here.
Suffice it to say, you can get this deal by going here and using discount code ‘JobbingScriptwriter’
Send me an email (phill@phillipbarron.co.uk) to tell me you’ve done it, include your address and I’ll post you a cheque as soon as I get the funds from the festival.
The London Comedy Writers’ Festival is thrilled to announce an exclusive, one night only, in depth Q&A with Barnaby Thompson, Head of Ealing Studios, the home of British Film Comedy and the oldest continuously working film studio in the world.
Barnaby is the Head of Ealing Studios and co-founder of Fragile Films. He is the co-producer / co-director of the fourth highest grossing British Film of all time – ‘St. Trinian’s’ (with Oliver Parker) and has also produced 5 of the top 20 British independent movies of all time.
From ‘Wayne’s World’ to ‘Spiceworld’, everything that Barnaby Thompson touches turns to (Fritton’s) gold! So join them for this exclusive session with one of the UK’s most prolific and successful producers and ask the man directly how to get your script to the top of his pile.
Tickets: £10 (buy here) or free to Comedy Writers Festival Delegates (buy festival pass here) Date: March 30th Time: 7.00 – 9.30pm Venue: Ealing Studios, Ealing Green, London W5 5EP
Remember, you can get £25 off festival tickets using code JobbingScriptwriter … plus, I’ll send you a cheque for a further £25 after the festival. Details here
Tomorrow night is the second in the series of Tuesday Night sessions leading up to the Comedy Writers Festival: a full three hour masterclass with Red Dwarf writer Rob Grant.
Kick off is at 7.00pm at Ealing Studios. Best of all, these sessions are FREE to Comedy Writers Festival Delegates.
Apparently Rob’s masterclasses normally cost in the region of £500, so free is a bit of a discount. I think. Never was too good at maths.
Okay, so it’s not ‘free, free’ because you have to buy a Festival ticket; but since you also get to go to the festival as well then it’s as close to free as … no. It is free, isn’t it?
Last year I went to the Screenwriters’ Festival in Cheltenham and I had a enjoyable few days of chit-chat with other writers. One day, en route to the venue, I bumped into a guy who’s got a reasonably high profile on one of the filmmaking websites I lurk on and we had a brief chat.
Months later (probably earlier this year, I forget) I was approached by a director to write a feature film, based purely on a recommendation from another director I’ve worked with.
Hooray!
Except, no, I haven’t got the time.
I hate saying no to people, I especially hate saying no without providing alternatives … and that’s when I remembered my SWF chat. That writer lives in the same town as this director, I like the way he presents himself online and (most importantly) he seems like a nice guy – so, based mostly on a few well written posts, I suggested him for the job.
To me, this is an extremely risky move – recommending someone when you haven’t read any of their scripts and have only briefly met them could backfire. If they turn out to be a talentless twat, it reflects badly on me. I try not to do it, since it can just lead to two contacts falling out with each other and neither of them talking to me again. Writer to director isn’t too bad, but director to producer can be a fucking nightmare – one I’m in no hurry to repeat.
Happily, in this case, the writer seems to have delivered and in fact the resulting script has just started shooting. It’s his first produced feature and he seems quite excited. This sort of thing makes me very, very happy. I like knowing I’ve helped in some small way. Obviously, the writer in question got the job solely on his own merits – if he couldn’t write, he wouldn’t have been hired; but I get a nice warm gooey feeling to think I nudged things in the right direction.
This is what networking should be about, helping your peers to advance. It’s not just about what you get out of it (gooey-ness aside) it’s about what you can do for the people around you.
It also, I think, nicely demonstrates why it’s worth not being a shitcock to people online and why it can be worth going to networking events such as the upcoming LSWF.
Make your own luck: be nice to everyone, be visible digitally and in person and (above all) have a decent pile of specs ready when opportunity knocks.
Aw, he spelt my name right. I love it when people do that.
I hope you’re well.
I am!
I thought readers of your blog might be interested in hearing about a free feature screenplay competition at Circalit (www.circalit.com) in partnership with the London Screenwriters’ Festival where the winner gets a £100 cash prize, a meeting with a top literary agent, and free tickets to the festival.
I think his thought is probably right, that sounds like a cool prize.
I hope you will help us spread the word about this fantastic opportunity by posting about it on your blog.
I will! In fact, I’m doing it now right now!
I’ve included a press release about the competition and the London Screenwriters’ Festival itself (see below) in case you are interested in writing about it.
He has, it’s there!
Kind regards,
Not just regards, but kind ones. That’s a much better way of finishing an email than my usual ‘fuck you, I hate you’
Richard
Get an Agent with Circalit and the London Screenwriters’ Festival!
The London Screenwriters’ Festival have teamed up with Circalit to offer screenwriters a chance to get representation. Screenwriters are encouraged to enter the free competition at www.circalit.com. The winning writer will meet with a top London agent, get £100 and free tickets to the London Screenwriters’ Festival! The competition will be judged by the executive team at the London Screenwriters’ Festival and is free to enter. The deadline for submissions is October 15th.
Creative director of the festival and Oscar shortlisted film director Chris Jones commented, “We’re very excited about this competition with Circalit. Circalit’s unique style of competitions don’t just give writers the chance to win prizes, but also to share their work, gain valuable feedback and make industry connections. Circalit are doing the screenwriting community a great service with their free online social network and we’re very pleased to be able to do a competition with them.”
For more information or to enter your script please visit www.circalit.com
So here we are at the end of the year, hell at the end of the decade and …
Actually, when does the decade end? Is 2010 the end of this decade or the beginning of the next one? Tricky number, zero. Still, fuck it. If the Romans couldn’t get to grips with it then why the fuck should I? I mean, they built roads and shit while all I’ve ever done is push buttons on a keyboard … and even that I do pretty badly.
Mind you, have you seen the roads in Rome? Shockingly bad. Fuck knows how those people supplied an empire.
But I digress.
Did you have a good Christmas? Did Santa bring you everything you wanted? I asked for World Domination and some French Fancies but the fat git failed on both counts. How was 2009 in general? Mine went almost exactly like this:
I realised we were living in the 21st Century … nine years after the fact.
Discovered Oli stops reading when he reaches his own name and then talked briefly about magic puppies with Lego faces.
Tries to get someone to hold my hand.
Learnt, once again, communicating by email results in appalling scripts and that the more notes someone has for you, the better the script is.
Revealed I had a BIG IDEA … with no time to write it.
Had a pile of work, so massive and so daunting … I decided to fuck everyone off and go to Disney Land instead.
Didn’t go to Disney Land, just knuckled down and attacked the pile of work.
Talked about a Writer’s Vision – basically how to lie in order to get money.
Revealed to the world that Satan talks to me through the TV and told me I have to leave Pipex and sign up to Sky Broadband or he’s going to make me rape, kill and eat next door’s babies.
Fielded an email from an American Production company looking for something almost exactly like the BIG IDEA. It’s right easy this marketing lark – you just sit there and wait for them to call you.
And then saw Seven Pounds and got depressed because I can’t write like that.
Failed to blog about THE A TEAM V DAD’S ARMY and DAISY DOGNUTS. No, I have no idea what that means either.
Talked about the technical difficulties involved in writing a script … although for the life of me I can’t remember which fucking script I was talking about. I may have been making shit up to make myself seem cool.
Shit a solid gold brick.
Explained why this:
Made me into a writer.
Discovered a clone of me from the future used to stalk me in the past.
Got attacked by a T-Rex and rescued by Spiderman.
Got nominated for a Rose d’Or. Sort of.
Met up with Lara Greenway and Terry Wogan in Madam Tussauds.
Got emails from actors asking if they could be in a film I didn’t write. Only to find out I may have written bits of it, sort of.
Realised I could carry all my scripts around on my phone, all the time.
Got annoyed about mugs and companies who sell themselves as cool without actually telling you what their products do. Like Apple.
Got nominated for a BAFTA. Actually, this has nothing to do with me.
Dropped an imaginary phone into an imaginary vat of home brew at Dan Turner’s imaginary house.
Wrote a script to an extremely complicated and prescriptive set of rules. Rules which the producer who set them immediately complained about.
Karma Magnet came out as a DVD extra.
Pimped some stuff for someone else.
Got fucking angry about the media’s ‘information’ about Swine Flu and declared it was all fucking bullshit and no one was going to die from it. Bird Flu, anyone?
Warned people their ideas would make a 90 page script into a 180 page script. They didn’t listen, I wrote the script, they got upset.
And filming started on a sitcom pilot … so I hid in Crouch End.
Got annoyed about story drops – the point in a film/TV thing where you could stop watching and not feel like you’d missed the next hour.
Got really unreasonably upset about MOMENTS LATER. That must have been a particularly bad day.
Just for the Record began filming. I went to hide in the Caribbean and got sucked off by an air steward in First Class. There was a video of that and everything … but I seem to have lost it.
Got a phone call from the Mail on Sunday who wanted to talk to me about not being in Cannes.
Took a meeting in a room chock full of little rubber pigs – every single one of which bore a sticker proudly proclaiming: THIS IS NOT A TOY
Went to Nuneaton. Never again.
Apparently I went on holiday somewhere, but for the life of me I can’t remember where.
Got hassled by an all female Squad of pissed up Motown fans. One of whom insisted she was a natural blonde with the landing strip to prove it who went on to kick me in the chest with a spiked heel. I quite enjoyed that day.
Got angry about morons giving James Moran a hard time for writing good telly.
Did this:
For these people:
Deleted more than I wrote.
Ran out of ways to procrastinate and very nearly had to do some work.
And saw the trailer for the sitcom pilot I co-wrote:
Signed contracts and received feedback for the BIG IDEA. Wait, did I mention I sold the BIG IDEA without trying? No, not to the American Production company, but to a different American Production company. Actually, my friend sold it for me without my permission or knowledge. Suits me, as long as I don’t have to do any work.
Made some cats out of blue icing.
Talked about two adaptations and how they’d missed the fucking point. Since I’m now working on two adaptations I look forward to people throwing that blog back in my face.
The Dutch gave me some money, via the BBC.
So did Sweden, Denmark, Italy, America and Russia.
And, for reasons which escape me, babbled about furniture for far too long.
Is that it? Is that all I did in September? Was it a short month this year?
Went to the Screenwriters’ Festival – fannyed around, didn’t really make the most of it and met a lot of nice people. Like Hayley McKenzie – she’s lovely. Oh, and I compared cock size with Simon Beaufoy. I’m not telling you who won.
Masturbating monkeys … I still don’t really want to talk about that.
Tried to sell my car via my blog. Bizarrely, I actually sold it in absolute darkness, during a storm and a power cut to two Eastern Europeans who paid cash and didn’t want to test drive or even inspect it.
Got all mellow and wibbly over stuff like this:
Wrote an open letter to directors.
Wrote an open letter to writers.
Wrote an open letter to producers.
Hmm … looks like I did more in November than October but still, come on! Have I really been too busy to blog?
Moaned a lot about writing constantly without actually writing any scripts.
Pointed out the target audience for a script is the producer and the director, not the people who pay to go and see a film. That’s the target audience for a film.
Spoke to a wall.
And that was it. That’s the entire fucking year.
I can’t help noticing the beginning of the year involved a lot more blogging than the end of the year. I’m sorry about that (unless you hate my blog, then I’m happy for you) but I have been exceedingly busy. I’m currently working on four feature scripts as well as keeping all the other plates spinning and blogging has become an expensive luxury.
January and February 2010 promise to be absolutely fucking mental and possibly completely impossible – but hopefully once this lot is out of the way, normal blogging service will be resumed.
And by normal service I mean me talking shit in extremely long-winded, ill-thought out and ill-advised posts.
Happy New Year to you all, see you in the next decade!
Or maybe the last year of this decade … depending on how you count it.
So I’m back from my first time at the Screenwriters’ Festival in Cheltenham and … yeah, I enjoyed it.
It was nice meeting people and putting names to faces, it was slightly scary being told “I love your blog” on an almost hourly basis (if you caught me near the end of the day I may have reacted strangely – sorry) and it was god damn bone-achingly wearing being nice to people for five days in a row. I’m just not used to it.
All in all – I met a lot of people, I chatted, I ate a lot of Italian food.
What else?
I’ve now got a near-permanent numb bum from sitting in various lectures/seminars/speeches/panels – not sure what to call them really.
Events, maybe?
I chatted to some agents at the speed dating thing, mainly trying to find out if they thought I needed them. Not surprisingly, they all agreed I do, but let’s face it, they were unlikely to say:
“No, don’t bother; we’re a complete waste of space. I haven’t achieved a single thing for any of my clients in seventeen years. I would be ashamed, if I wasn’t creaming off so much money.”
Mind you, if an agent did say that I would try to sign with them instantly – just for comedy value.
Michelle, Piers and I drove to Cheltenham together and getting there was largely uneventful despite my phone having a nasty habit of shutting down whenever I’m using the sat-nav and am nearing my destination. It never shuts down on the motorways – you know, the straight lines where you know where you’re going. Oh no, it always, always shuts down and resets as soon as you enter a town – you know, the bit where you actually need it.
I suspect the random shut downs have something to do with child saliva and percussive play – but that’s only a suspicion. Maybe I should stop Alice licking my phone and throwing it at the cat? Still, it is quite funny.
There was some comedy value to be had on the first night when Michelle, Jason and I – with three sat-nav enabled phones between us – couldn’t find the Queen’s Hotel for the first night drinks. According to our technologically dependent navigation the Queen’s Hotel was somewhere inside a men’s clothing shop and it took a long time before we finally admitted we were lost. Happily a passing stranger remedied that situation for us.
Not the first passing stranger mind; he confidently pointed us in the wrong direction and ran off cackling to himself. Luckily the second passing stranger was so drunk she had no option but to tell us the truth.
As an aside – are there any adults in Cheltenham? Apart from at the festival they all seem to be fancy-dress clad teenagers on the rampage. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it is rather odd.
The festival itself … well, I’m not sure I’d go again without a very specific goal in mind. I turned up with no agenda and I can safely say I achieved everything on my list. And I drank a lot of tea whilst doing it.
The festival seems to be geared towards people just starting out as a writer (anyone with any experience being squirreled away in a separate green room) and since I’m in this odd in-between stage of not really being a beginner but not really being any bloody good at it – I felt a bit lost at times. I chose events mostly based on what might be interesting rather than what might be useful since I don’t really have any projects to sell and don’t really want to meet anybody in particular.
And that, like Cannes, is the key – if you’ve got a specific goal in mind Festivals are useful places to visit. If you haven’t, they’re just an expensive jolly. I met a few people at the Screenwriters’ Festival who could really help further my career – if my career interests were in any way similar to theirs.
Which they aren’t.
As a result I just had a nice chat with them and a cup of tea.
I don’t really have a lot more to say about it other than that. I am a bit annoyed with myself for spending a nice half-hour or so chatting to Bob Baker and then failing to attend his thing about K9 and Friends. I did want to go – I’m not really sure why I didn’t, especially since he seems like such a nice bloke and it feels like an enormous waste of money to go all the way to Cheltenham just to not listen to Bob Baker.
Which I think will be my overiding memory of the Festival - an expensive way to chat to people over a cup of tea.
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I'm a UK scriptwriter who's had nine feature films produced (including the forthcoming Strippers vs. Werewolves). I've also had some bits and bobs on TV and am currently the Lead Writer for PERSONA.
Now in its sixth year, this blog is mostly a chronicle of my career; but it's also an insight into the grubby bits of writing frequently missing from 'How To ...' books.
Reality here has been stretched, altered, bent and completely ignored to make my life funnier, more interesting or just different for the sake of it.
It’s that time of year again, Summer hands over the rain-soaked baton of boredom to Autumn; Autumn gears itself up for some actual sunshine (just so it can listen to everyone banging on about how weird it is that September is hotter than August, despite the weather being exactly the same as it was last year and the twenty fucking five years before that); I fight my way past the Christmas cards and the odd hopelessly early Easter egg to stare longingly at the new jackets appearing in the shops … and young scriptwriters fancies turn to thoughts of the London Scriptwriters’ Festival.
ures Linda Hayden, cult horror actress and star of the seventies chiller, in a supporting role.
