(Governor Tom’s Note: From October 24-28, 2007, the monthly magazine Creative Screenwriting put on a gargantuan annual event called the Screenwriting Expo, which took place at the Marriott and Renaissance hotels near LAX. Aspirants in the fields of movie, TV, and even comic book and video game writing flocked to this sucker from literally across the country as well as the globe. Some, like myself, braved this thing solo; others came with a relative or a friend or writing partner(s). All of us spent the five days nurturing our dreams, developing our skills, promoting our scripts, and getting to know each other.
That last reason, I believe, may be the most important one. In the entertainment business, as in just about every other business, the people you know can make a huge difference. Some dude once said that the three keys to succeeding at anything are (in no particular order): networking, networking, and networking. Of course, some talent and a wee nip of Lady Luck don’t hurt either.
I have to admit I was dreading this event. Why? I’m not sure, really. As a writer, I’m just naturally introverted, so attending an event where I’d constantly be surrounded by and interacting with trillions of other people is just intimidating. Plus, I knew that for the duration of this event, my whole life would be on hold. With seminars and pitch sessions during the day and networking parties at night, I knew that things like downtime and sleep wouldn’t factor much into the Expo’s equation.
Nonetheless, I did it. I coughed up the $300 for the gold pass, plus another $200 for the privilege of pitching my screenplays to literary agencies, production companies, and movie studios. I went to every seminar I could, and almost every networking party. I took advantage of everything the Expo had to offer. In the lexicon of an introvert, I dove head-first into the jaws of the beast. And sure enough, the beast disappeared. I’m thrilled that I went through with it. Was it worth all the money? Only time will tell. All I have to do is option one script to make this thing much more than worth it. Even so, I’m already inclined to say it was. I met some terrific people with whom I’ve maintained contact since the event ended. At any rate, I have absolutely no room to bitch about the moolah. Like I said, you had people here who flew from far and wide. So not only did they have to reckon with airfare (particularly stiff these days because of high oil prices), but also with several nights’ accommodation.
The experience was fascinating enough that I thought it a nice idea to share my experiences here. Let’s start at 8 p.m. on the night of Wednesday, October 24, with the pre-Expo kick-off party at the Marriott pool…)
October 24 – My Vitamin B12
Actually, let’s back up about a half-hour. I made it a point to get to the Marriott Wednesday night around 7:30ish so I could pick up all the stuff I’d bought online, namely my gold pass and the 10 pitch tickets. On the Creative Screenwriting site, they said Will Call would be open Wednesday evening until 8 p.m. on the Marriott’s lower level, where all the seminars would eventually be held, for online registrants like me to pick up all our stuff as well as for procrastinators to register in person. When I got there, though, the lower level was all but vacant. There was one guy down there, in his fifties, spiky gray hair, who was both an Expo volunteer as well as an attendee and aspiring writer, who said the computers had malfunctioned or something and so they’d closed up shop early. A few other attendees as well as myself just sort of stood around nonplussed while this guy downplayed it and said the pre-Expo network party had already kicked off by the pool. That’s where he was heading, he said. The man wore a laminated badge around his neck on a lanyard and was carrying a red tote bag with the Screenwriting Expo logo on it. Very soon I was to discover those were the two things that would let me know just who in this hotel was a fellow Expo-er.
I, however, needed to establish a good buzz before braving throngs of strangers. So I headed back upstairs to a restaurant and bar right off the lobby called Latitude 33. I saddled up to the bar where mostly middle-aged guys in business suits were watching game one of the World Series between Boston and Colorado. With Boston already up something like 13 to zip in the fifth inning, the game was all but over. Tending bar by himself was this barely five-foot tall baby-faced bespectacled Asian guy who not only had to wait on us anti-social dudes, but had to fetch drink orders for the staff waiting on the dinner patrons. Several times, while buzzing around like the Tasmanian devil, the barkeep wondered where the other barkeep was, some chap called Jose, and said that when Jose came back, he would probably go home. One of the waiters asked him twice in a row if he’d really go home, and the barkeep said he might, but he wasn’t sure. He really wanted to, though, regardless.
I nursed a bottle of Newcastle while pretending to be interested in the game (I generally can’t get into a ball game unless I’m there in person) and checking my watch every six or seven seconds. When it hit eight o’clock, I was like, “Nah. Let’s give that pool party a few extra minutes to get into full swing. You never wanna be on time for a party. That would be too normal, and normal just wasn’t how you do things in this neck o’ the country.”
Have you ever had Newcastle? It’s a dark brown brew that goes down nice and smooth and, if your tummy’s empty enough, as mine was on this night, it’ll boost your self-esteem in nanoseconds flat. If you’ve had it even once, you know where I’m coming from. And you’d also know how sorely tempted I was to order another. But I suppose more out of pity for that poor barkeep than anything else, I opted out of it. It was time to hit the pool.
No sooner did I step outside into the pool complex than I saw two things at once. First, of course, was the mob of people chatting and socializing and having a swell time, about thirty or so yards away from me toward the center of the pool grounds, the very site of them stirring the Newcastle in my gut. And I also saw, about thirty inches from me, sitting on a bench to my right, a young gal just sort of watching everyone. Can you guess what she was wearing and carrying that allowed me to peg her in a heartbeat? A laminated badge on a lanyard and a red tote bag. She looked at me and flashed a sheepish grin as I walked past her toward the crowd.
First thing’s first. I had to head for the bar. The outdoor bar was situated right in the middle of the mob. No sooner did I get in line than the petite middle-aged gal in front of me (with the badge and the tote), turned to me. “This is a networking party, right?” she said. “We may as well get to know each other.”
She was a counselor named Margie and, as her badge would have told me if she hadn’t, she was from Minneapolis. Margie had already met a couple of other women at this function and was holding their place in line. She reiterated that she was not interested in getting alcohol, she was just holding this place in line for her new buddies. Soon enough they showed up, got their drinks, and took off with Margie. I decided to kick off the proceedings with a Sam Adams.
Really, you should’ve seen me. I just sort of wound my way through all these people. Everyone seemed so engaged in conversations with other people I can only assume they hadn’t known for an hour yet. Eventually I made my way to the periphery of the crowd and just sort of made a circuit or two of the pool grounds. The Marriott pool is located in a square courtyard with rooms several stories up on all sides. A few families were standing out on their balconies here and there, watching all of us weird writers filling the air with our dreams.
When I finally decided to park myself on the little pedestrian bridge between the pool itself and the rest of the courtyard, I ran into Margie again. Her two pals had decided to pack it in early. This being a writers convention and all, Margie soon started talking to me about the screenplay she was working on. It was a docudrama that took place in a hospital where the three main characters, all adolescents, were going through some heavy shit. One of them had been a suicide attempt, I believe. Margie’s work back in the Twin Cities involved not just counseling young people but also doing public television. She ran her own production company whereby she produced public TV shows about the various cases she encountered as a counselor. The subject matter of her script was accordingly quite heavy, but she wasn’t sure which of the three patients should be her story’s main character: the woman or one of the two guys. I advised her to pick the woman. Quite frankly, there just aren’t enough female-driven films nowadays, so there’s that. And two, hearing her tell me this story, it was just very clearly the woman’s journey, and her relationship with those two other guys changes her.
Just then another middle-aged woman named Kelly found her way to the bridge, nursing a vodka tonic and already a bit tipsy. Ol’ Kel was a bit of an Expo veteran. This was her third or fourth one, she was too drunk to be sure which. Either way that says a lot, this being only the sixth Expo ever. Kelly probably needed the extra drink, the poor kid. She explained that she worked for the San Diego City Attorney’s Office and just that morning had been toiling in the trenches of Qualcomm Stadium to assist those affected by the fires which at that time were swallowing up not just the city of San Diego but the whole frickin’ county. I’m really glad I met her before the Expo actually began, as she provided the best perspective on the whole thing. “The Expo is not going to make you, it’s not going to break you. Just look at it as your vitamin B12.” I love that, vitamin B12. At the time I didn’t quite get it, but now I do. Oh by the way, Kelly’s script was sci-fi.
After getting my second Sam Adams, I encountered a thirtysomething Japanese gal sort of standing at a distance from the throng. I introduced myself. Her name was Namiko and, bless the child, she’d flown in earlier that day all the way from frickin’ Tokyo. But it gets even better. When we asked each other the inevitable “So what’s your day job?”, Namiko told me she worked at Sega as a game designer and story developer. “Dude, you don’t understand. I was a huh-YUGE Sega fan as a youngster. Sonic the Hedgehog, John Madden football, you name it. I was obsessed!” Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly how I said it, but I still left our Namiko with no doubt at all about my adolescent Sega fandom. And there I stood at the Marriott LAX having a beer with someone who worked at Sega’s main fortress in Japan. “I can’t believe you work for frickin’ Sega!” I practically said to Namiko, oh, I don't know how many times. That brave traveling soul gave me a demure smile and tactfully tolerated my gushing.
Just then a thirtysomething Argentinian blonde named Florencia approached us and asked where the bar went. It was now somewhere between nine-thirty and ten. Even though the party didn't officially end until ten, the outdoor bar had already closed up shop. Florencia hadn’t come straight here from her native land. Over the summer she’d relocated to Orange County after having lived in Mexico for five years. She had three scripts, all written in Spanish and which she was in the midst of translating into English. No two were the same genre, which is something I admire since I’m sort of the same way with my writing. She’d worked late down in the OC and had only just checked into her room and gotten to the party.
Namiko, Florencia, and I went back into the hotel to get some drinks. Florencia wasn’t ready to pack it in yet, Namiko was jetlagged to the bejesus and couldn’t imagine going to sleep either, and my adrenaline was too jacked up to let me feel how tired I really was. And why not have one more brewsky? We grabbed a table at Champions, the sports bar at the opposite side of the Marriott lobby from Latitude 33. Namiko and Florencia hadn't had dinner yet. They each ordered a massive burger with a basket of fries. I ordered, you guessed it, a Sam Adams, which they had on tap. I thought the thing would just come in a pint glass, but this particular glass was somewhere in that no man’s land between pint and pitcher. No joke, this glass was huge. At the time I thought nothing of it, but the following morning that tall glass would morph into a tall regret.
We were chatting there for about an hour, talking about our lives, our background, our writing, our favorite movies. Namiko’s big thing was actually not to break into Hollywood but to stay in Japan and make films there which would then get remade into American versions here. Her English was indeed limited, so trying to write an English script for an American film audience just wasn't realistic. I’ve no doubt, though, that her English will get better. She gushed more than once that her favorite TV show, hands down, is ER. She’s also a fan of House. Each episode of American shows are shown twice a week in Japan, the first time dubbed in Japanese, the second time in English with subtitles.
That last reason, I believe, may be the most important one. In the entertainment business, as in just about every other business, the people you know can make a huge difference. Some dude once said that the three keys to succeeding at anything are (in no particular order): networking, networking, and networking. Of course, some talent and a wee nip of Lady Luck don’t hurt either.
I have to admit I was dreading this event. Why? I’m not sure, really. As a writer, I’m just naturally introverted, so attending an event where I’d constantly be surrounded by and interacting with trillions of other people is just intimidating. Plus, I knew that for the duration of this event, my whole life would be on hold. With seminars and pitch sessions during the day and networking parties at night, I knew that things like downtime and sleep wouldn’t factor much into the Expo’s equation.
Nonetheless, I did it. I coughed up the $300 for the gold pass, plus another $200 for the privilege of pitching my screenplays to literary agencies, production companies, and movie studios. I went to every seminar I could, and almost every networking party. I took advantage of everything the Expo had to offer. In the lexicon of an introvert, I dove head-first into the jaws of the beast. And sure enough, the beast disappeared. I’m thrilled that I went through with it. Was it worth all the money? Only time will tell. All I have to do is option one script to make this thing much more than worth it. Even so, I’m already inclined to say it was. I met some terrific people with whom I’ve maintained contact since the event ended. At any rate, I have absolutely no room to bitch about the moolah. Like I said, you had people here who flew from far and wide. So not only did they have to reckon with airfare (particularly stiff these days because of high oil prices), but also with several nights’ accommodation.
The experience was fascinating enough that I thought it a nice idea to share my experiences here. Let’s start at 8 p.m. on the night of Wednesday, October 24, with the pre-Expo kick-off party at the Marriott pool…)
October 24 – My Vitamin B12
Actually, let’s back up about a half-hour. I made it a point to get to the Marriott Wednesday night around 7:30ish so I could pick up all the stuff I’d bought online, namely my gold pass and the 10 pitch tickets. On the Creative Screenwriting site, they said Will Call would be open Wednesday evening until 8 p.m. on the Marriott’s lower level, where all the seminars would eventually be held, for online registrants like me to pick up all our stuff as well as for procrastinators to register in person. When I got there, though, the lower level was all but vacant. There was one guy down there, in his fifties, spiky gray hair, who was both an Expo volunteer as well as an attendee and aspiring writer, who said the computers had malfunctioned or something and so they’d closed up shop early. A few other attendees as well as myself just sort of stood around nonplussed while this guy downplayed it and said the pre-Expo network party had already kicked off by the pool. That’s where he was heading, he said. The man wore a laminated badge around his neck on a lanyard and was carrying a red tote bag with the Screenwriting Expo logo on it. Very soon I was to discover those were the two things that would let me know just who in this hotel was a fellow Expo-er.
I, however, needed to establish a good buzz before braving throngs of strangers. So I headed back upstairs to a restaurant and bar right off the lobby called Latitude 33. I saddled up to the bar where mostly middle-aged guys in business suits were watching game one of the World Series between Boston and Colorado. With Boston already up something like 13 to zip in the fifth inning, the game was all but over. Tending bar by himself was this barely five-foot tall baby-faced bespectacled Asian guy who not only had to wait on us anti-social dudes, but had to fetch drink orders for the staff waiting on the dinner patrons. Several times, while buzzing around like the Tasmanian devil, the barkeep wondered where the other barkeep was, some chap called Jose, and said that when Jose came back, he would probably go home. One of the waiters asked him twice in a row if he’d really go home, and the barkeep said he might, but he wasn’t sure. He really wanted to, though, regardless.
I nursed a bottle of Newcastle while pretending to be interested in the game (I generally can’t get into a ball game unless I’m there in person) and checking my watch every six or seven seconds. When it hit eight o’clock, I was like, “Nah. Let’s give that pool party a few extra minutes to get into full swing. You never wanna be on time for a party. That would be too normal, and normal just wasn’t how you do things in this neck o’ the country.”
Have you ever had Newcastle? It’s a dark brown brew that goes down nice and smooth and, if your tummy’s empty enough, as mine was on this night, it’ll boost your self-esteem in nanoseconds flat. If you’ve had it even once, you know where I’m coming from. And you’d also know how sorely tempted I was to order another. But I suppose more out of pity for that poor barkeep than anything else, I opted out of it. It was time to hit the pool.
No sooner did I step outside into the pool complex than I saw two things at once. First, of course, was the mob of people chatting and socializing and having a swell time, about thirty or so yards away from me toward the center of the pool grounds, the very site of them stirring the Newcastle in my gut. And I also saw, about thirty inches from me, sitting on a bench to my right, a young gal just sort of watching everyone. Can you guess what she was wearing and carrying that allowed me to peg her in a heartbeat? A laminated badge on a lanyard and a red tote bag. She looked at me and flashed a sheepish grin as I walked past her toward the crowd.
First thing’s first. I had to head for the bar. The outdoor bar was situated right in the middle of the mob. No sooner did I get in line than the petite middle-aged gal in front of me (with the badge and the tote), turned to me. “This is a networking party, right?” she said. “We may as well get to know each other.”
She was a counselor named Margie and, as her badge would have told me if she hadn’t, she was from Minneapolis. Margie had already met a couple of other women at this function and was holding their place in line. She reiterated that she was not interested in getting alcohol, she was just holding this place in line for her new buddies. Soon enough they showed up, got their drinks, and took off with Margie. I decided to kick off the proceedings with a Sam Adams.
Really, you should’ve seen me. I just sort of wound my way through all these people. Everyone seemed so engaged in conversations with other people I can only assume they hadn’t known for an hour yet. Eventually I made my way to the periphery of the crowd and just sort of made a circuit or two of the pool grounds. The Marriott pool is located in a square courtyard with rooms several stories up on all sides. A few families were standing out on their balconies here and there, watching all of us weird writers filling the air with our dreams.
When I finally decided to park myself on the little pedestrian bridge between the pool itself and the rest of the courtyard, I ran into Margie again. Her two pals had decided to pack it in early. This being a writers convention and all, Margie soon started talking to me about the screenplay she was working on. It was a docudrama that took place in a hospital where the three main characters, all adolescents, were going through some heavy shit. One of them had been a suicide attempt, I believe. Margie’s work back in the Twin Cities involved not just counseling young people but also doing public television. She ran her own production company whereby she produced public TV shows about the various cases she encountered as a counselor. The subject matter of her script was accordingly quite heavy, but she wasn’t sure which of the three patients should be her story’s main character: the woman or one of the two guys. I advised her to pick the woman. Quite frankly, there just aren’t enough female-driven films nowadays, so there’s that. And two, hearing her tell me this story, it was just very clearly the woman’s journey, and her relationship with those two other guys changes her.
Just then another middle-aged woman named Kelly found her way to the bridge, nursing a vodka tonic and already a bit tipsy. Ol’ Kel was a bit of an Expo veteran. This was her third or fourth one, she was too drunk to be sure which. Either way that says a lot, this being only the sixth Expo ever. Kelly probably needed the extra drink, the poor kid. She explained that she worked for the San Diego City Attorney’s Office and just that morning had been toiling in the trenches of Qualcomm Stadium to assist those affected by the fires which at that time were swallowing up not just the city of San Diego but the whole frickin’ county. I’m really glad I met her before the Expo actually began, as she provided the best perspective on the whole thing. “The Expo is not going to make you, it’s not going to break you. Just look at it as your vitamin B12.” I love that, vitamin B12. At the time I didn’t quite get it, but now I do. Oh by the way, Kelly’s script was sci-fi.
After getting my second Sam Adams, I encountered a thirtysomething Japanese gal sort of standing at a distance from the throng. I introduced myself. Her name was Namiko and, bless the child, she’d flown in earlier that day all the way from frickin’ Tokyo. But it gets even better. When we asked each other the inevitable “So what’s your day job?”, Namiko told me she worked at Sega as a game designer and story developer. “Dude, you don’t understand. I was a huh-YUGE Sega fan as a youngster. Sonic the Hedgehog, John Madden football, you name it. I was obsessed!” Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly how I said it, but I still left our Namiko with no doubt at all about my adolescent Sega fandom. And there I stood at the Marriott LAX having a beer with someone who worked at Sega’s main fortress in Japan. “I can’t believe you work for frickin’ Sega!” I practically said to Namiko, oh, I don't know how many times. That brave traveling soul gave me a demure smile and tactfully tolerated my gushing.
Just then a thirtysomething Argentinian blonde named Florencia approached us and asked where the bar went. It was now somewhere between nine-thirty and ten. Even though the party didn't officially end until ten, the outdoor bar had already closed up shop. Florencia hadn’t come straight here from her native land. Over the summer she’d relocated to Orange County after having lived in Mexico for five years. She had three scripts, all written in Spanish and which she was in the midst of translating into English. No two were the same genre, which is something I admire since I’m sort of the same way with my writing. She’d worked late down in the OC and had only just checked into her room and gotten to the party.
Namiko, Florencia, and I went back into the hotel to get some drinks. Florencia wasn’t ready to pack it in yet, Namiko was jetlagged to the bejesus and couldn’t imagine going to sleep either, and my adrenaline was too jacked up to let me feel how tired I really was. And why not have one more brewsky? We grabbed a table at Champions, the sports bar at the opposite side of the Marriott lobby from Latitude 33. Namiko and Florencia hadn't had dinner yet. They each ordered a massive burger with a basket of fries. I ordered, you guessed it, a Sam Adams, which they had on tap. I thought the thing would just come in a pint glass, but this particular glass was somewhere in that no man’s land between pint and pitcher. No joke, this glass was huge. At the time I thought nothing of it, but the following morning that tall glass would morph into a tall regret.
We were chatting there for about an hour, talking about our lives, our background, our writing, our favorite movies. Namiko’s big thing was actually not to break into Hollywood but to stay in Japan and make films there which would then get remade into American versions here. Her English was indeed limited, so trying to write an English script for an American film audience just wasn't realistic. I’ve no doubt, though, that her English will get better. She gushed more than once that her favorite TV show, hands down, is ER. She’s also a fan of House. Each episode of American shows are shown twice a week in Japan, the first time dubbed in Japanese, the second time in English with subtitles.
At any rate, as eleven on the p.m. dial rolled around, I gave them my card. No, not a Yahoo! business card. I don’t even have one of those, but instead a personal card which I’d ordered from Staples.com not two weeks earlier. The logo is a beat-to-shit typewriter.
