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Category: screenwriting

#SXSW Report: Days 2 and 3

I’ve been going pretty well nonstop so this is the first opportunity I’ve had to sit down and write my summary of the past 2 days of interactivity at SXSW 2012. Hashtags for panel twitter discussions I participated in are in parentheses.

I began Saturday with a panel about copyrights (#sxcopytrolls) which was grossly underattended and somewhat informative about obtaining and protecting copyrights, which was something I knew next to nothing about so I’m glad I went. After that, I was able to pull up a spot on the floor in the hallway for the simulcast of a conversation with Joss Whedon (#sxjosswhedon) since the room was full. Naturally, I was all too happy to pick up on some insights from the master storyteller of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and I could go on and on but I won’t. Plus he’s a very funny ginger, which I respect as a semi-funny ginger. Just a note, he wrote the screenplay for his new film Cabin InThe Woods in 3 days. That’s a hardcore writer for ya.

After that, I headed to The Rise of Analytics: Impacting the Editorial Process (#sxeditdata) which wasn’t as much about the impact of the need for data, keywords, links, etc. on the editorial process as much as I would’ve liked, but more about the data. Then it was off to the Hyatt for some 15-minute talks about books and content, including Books Win the Attention Economy (#sxbooks_win) and Delivering Content Experiences Across Platforms (#sxplatforms) which closed out Saturday for me.

Sunday was a good morning of panels, starting with Publishing Models Transforming the Book (#sxpubmodels), where panelists from the new publishing industries spoke about their models and the panelists from the traditional publishing industry defended theirs. Up to and including this panel, I have to admit that everything that I heard in most of these sessions was all stuff I have heard before, some even at previous Souths By. Luckily for me, I stumbled into a panel that proved to be worth the price of admission: Discoverability and the New World of Book PR, where I got some amazing ideas for how to keep getting The Redheaded Stepchild noticed and how I can start building a campaign for Portrait of Woman in Ink: A Tattoo Storybook. I furiously took about 3 pages’ worth of notes – the advice was just that good. I wish I had time to test out some of the stuff I heard about today, but I have more sessions, beer, and parties to head off to. And I might actually watch a film today since many of the bookish panels are more of the same stuff I have heard before over and over again.

Oh, and last night I got a photo with Steven Moffat – writer for Dr. Who, Sherlock, and Jekyll (again, I could go on, but I won’t). Worth the wait in line for sure. I also watched Rainn Wilson give a talk about his project Soul Pancake. It’s pretty rad. Go check it out.

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Another day at SXSW

Well, today started out kind of rough with the advent of Daylight Savings Time, which I had completely forgotten about, and mistakenly thought my BlackBerry had as well. So I thought I was late, but I wasn’t late after all. Either way, I missed the 9:30 session.

I later saw a session about writing (and adapting) a successful screenplay. Granted, I have not tried my hand at screenwriting, but I figured it would plenty applicable. It did not disappoint. The panel featured screenwriting professors, as well as the writers of Watchmen and A History of Violence. They talked about writing adaptations of novels and classics, in which you have to really be objective about the spirit of the material. They also mentioned that young adult novels make great screen adaptations.

But what really was impressed upon me was when one of the panelists, Alex Tse, said that the most important thing to do is to write what you are passionate about, even if it never sells, because your passion or your subject will always come through in an organic way and stand out from something written to make money. They also stressed the importance of not writing something with the intent of selling it, and to stop trying to chase the market. If you’re a good writer and you get your foot in the door, the market will chase you. The good writers keep their day jobs until they don’t have to, and stick it out no matter how discouraging it is. Quality and awareness of the market are not mututally exclusive.

Okay, maybe there was one more thing that stayed with me more than that. The writer of A History of Violence said he doesn’t get upset when he sees a horribly written movie succeed; instead, he uses it as personal encouragement that he knows he can do better than that. I know I struggle with that as a writer. I know I’m nothing uber-spectacular, but I think I’m good and I have a unique voice with something to say. So when I pick up a book off the shelves and read it and hear a mediocre voice with nothing new or interesting to say, I sometimes find myself thinking “Wtf? How did this piece of elephant dung get the green light from a major publishing house, meanwhile I’m still stuffing envelopes?” I like his idea better, but I also like Ze Frank’s idea of making angrigami out of my rejection letters.

I hit up a session right after that, which turned out to be nothing at all what I expected. The title of the session was Editing Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Everything in Between. Sounds pretty exact in its description, don’t you think? Wrong. It was not at all about editing fiction, or works of non-fiction. It was about post-production video editing. I guess I should have read the fine print about the session.

I bailed pretty soon with the intention of sneaking in late to the writing web content session, but a hot pretzel and nonexistent line for Camp Victory piqued my interest more. It was a really great film, and I’m not really a movie person. After being turned away for three different film events here at SXSW because of long lines and overhype, this was a breath of fresh air.

I did my duty and shmoozed with the people I needed to schmooz with, including an independent web magazine that will be getting my submissions (hooray for online) very soon and one of the panelists from the New Publishing session I attended yesterday. Other than that, I saw a not-so-great film laden with opposing subtitle fonts and inconsistent quote use after getting turned away for a more popular film, after rushing 2 miles on foot to get there.

And now, I’m exhausted. Stay tuned; tomorrow’s another full day!

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