…continued from Day Six.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest was a watershed event for me.
My successes from that event are much more intangible and meaningful than just making a script sale or breaking into the business.
Here’s what I mean: (more…)
…continued from Day Five.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
And when I woke up the next day, the day of my flight out, I got it:
The Swine Flu!
Yeah, I knew that check was in the mail. But I was very happy that my immune system kept me healthy enough to get through the PitchFest. So when it was time for a system crash, it was at the appropriate time.
Wow! What timing. (more…)
…continued from Day Four.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
On the ride up, I was still tweaking Opportunity Knockout in my head based on everything that I had learned all the previous day.
I was so embroiled in working out the story and perfecting the pitch at the last goddamn minute that I had missed one of my turns! I quickly turned around and got back on the right road.
I finally made it to the Marriot Burbank Hotel. I parked my beater-box, went in and got some coffee. Then I went over to the convention hall where everyone was waiting outside in the warm morning air. They weren’t letting the attendees in just yet. (more…)
…continued from Day Three.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
The next day, I got up early (can’t believe I was energized despite the previous night’s activities), and headed back up to Burbank.
Now here’s where I was really getting nervous. The issue with my registration was still unresolved and I had a 9AM private consultation with Heather Hale. (more…)
…continued from Day Two.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
So, here’s where I tell you that had no idea what the hell I was thinking when I agreed to drive a standard shitbox car (hence the $6.99 rental that ended up costing me $20 a day, still a good price). Don’t get me wrong, I love driving standards but I hadn’t in a couple of years, and furthermore I hadn’t driven around in LA in a couple of years so I was really in for it.
Or so I thought.
I had to drive around the block a few times to get the hang of the standard again but once I did I was off to Burbank. (more…)
…continued from Day One.
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
The next day was a work day for me (as well as my buddies). I went out on to Sunset Boulevard to find a breakfast nook. I ended up at a place called the Aroma Bakery & Café.
One feature about a restaurant that really thrills me is when they have al fresco dining. I’ve been a big fan of this for years. When my wife and I went to Italy back in 2005 I insisted on eating outside for all our meals at every trattoria, ristorante, and café we could find.
This place was no different. I sat out on the patio, had a great omlette and some Peet’s Coffee, and was ready for the day. And as a sign of things to come, the people sitting behind me turned out to be a producer and a writer. The writer was pitching a new show to the producer who was receiving it quite warmly. That got me even more psyched up for my chance to do the same. (more…)
The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
Recently I posted an excerpt from my upcoming book Cut The Crap and FOLLOW YOUR PASSION! about my amazing experience at The 2009 6th Annual Great American PitchFest. Well, looking back on how great that experience really was, I’ve decided to delve even deeper into the entire experience so that fellow screenwriters can follow my footsteps into this vast and wondrous adventure.
The events leading up to the PitchFest are well chronicled in my previous post so I’m going to jump in and begin this seven part series from the moment I got on the plane to LAX on June 10th, 2009 until the time I got off the return flight back to Boston on June 15th, 2009, and the aftermath. (more…)
The following is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Cut The Crap and FOLLOW YOUR PASSION! to be released in January 2011.
The 6th Annual Great American PitchFest 2009. Source: http://www.pitchfest.com
I was laid off from a long-standing corporate job in August of 2008—one year and seven months, an entire era in 21st century America. That job in and of itself was a part of my quest to follow my passion in an indirect way. I made a good deal of money from it (money does help as I said before), and I took extra-long lunch breaks to steal off and write my screenplays (three during that time).
So when the axe fell I had the dough to keep on going for years. Certainly there were reasons for being worried. Rather than use that situation to panic and not write, something amazing happed.
I started writing like never before! (more…)
Hey Friends!
Cut The Crap and WRITE THAT DAMN SCREENPLAY! is finally published. It’s been a long road to this moment. It is a culmination of nearly two years of work and an intense last six months to make the final push to see this become a reality.
What an amazing journey it has been. From the screenplays that I wrote which kicked off the whole endeavor, to the Great American PitchFest of ’09, to my From Page To Screen Writers Group, and the Rhode Island Film Collaborative‘s writers group, to my screenwriting blog and workshop (of which a some of the book’s content originally came from), to all of the research I have done and the books on screenwriting that I have read, to finally sitting down and hard-core writing this book!
And then that’s when the fun really began: revisions, copyediting, more revisions, formatting, glossary building and indexing, and preflight processing of the book’s files. And then of course the cover design. That involved taking pictures of me and my friends, Krystle, Peter, and Joe all looking stunned as I come up to them like a crazy person and yell, “Cut the crap and write that damn screenplay!” Also, there were many hours of creating the actual Photoshop file that would have all the design elements in there and then printing it out to see if they looked good. And there were many revisions to the book cover. And finally uploading it all to Lulu.com to make it all happen.
Oh, and I totally forgot to mention the battle between me and Microsoft Word. Every step of the way Word would make me crazier than crazy with its glitches and aberrant behaviors, never doing what I asked it to do. But that’s just the “book gods” making sure I suffered enough before they’d give their approval to let me publish this book.
We’ve all gotta pay our dues.
But now it is here. And you can find it on Lulu.com, or click the preview below:
And stay tuned because this is only the beginning!
Next up:
It’s gonna be a great year. Just you wait and see!!!
Hey everyone. I know that you’re patiently waiting with bated breath for the release of “Cut The Crap and WRITE THAT DAMN SCREENPLAY!”
However, there are a few more logistical things that I have to do in order to release it to the world:
All of which I’ll keep everyone posted.
This is the biggest personal creative undertaking of my life and it’s been quite an amazing experience!
Cheers,
Nick