Day One
Walking into Regent's College the air was humming with anticipation. Lots of eager faces, some nervous ones - what to expect, what to say, how to behave, where to go, who to catch. But within the first few hours of the festival the whole gang practically became family. Easy connections were formed left and right, networking galore! I was reminded of the first time I had walked into the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, my NYC acting school. The moment I had entered that old building, I had utterly and completely felt at home.
Day Two
The second day gave me the chance to mingle and just enjoy the show. I loved Phil Parker's talk on "Writing for the digital world". I've run into Phil a few times over the years and he's always a very interesting guy to talk to. Hearing about making 200'000 pound a year with a 90 second clip on YouTube certainly caught my attention during the digital world talk. Heck, if Aardman needs ideas for the next Angry Kid YouTube sensation - call me! My afternoon highlight was the panel on "Writing for young audiences" with Gail Renard, Danny Stack, Chris Hill and one of my best buddies, Andy Briggs (when I grow up I want to be just like him).
Day Three
The final festival day gave me an easy morning and a packed panel afternoon. I had a blast being on the "Writing for the USA and European markets" with the writers Barbara Jago and Andy Briggs as well as agents Steffen Weihe and Conrad Williams. Conrad had great fun moderating and I think we were able to show the audience that there are possibilities outside the UK. Especially as English language writers - the options are plentiful. Never easy - but the chances of kicking open doors are no harder in the US and Europe than they are in the UK. Between Andy and I we actually thought we might do a session on "working the room" next year. What do you do when you're in a room with a producer? What to watch out for? What to do and what to avoid at all costs? Being in that room goes far beyond pitching a particular idea. Andy's the natural - most writers could tremendously benefit from his knowledge.
My other session was possibly my personal highlight (although it did contain a bit of impromptu on-stage dancing on my part) - the session was "Crime writing" and was chaired by the brilliant Barbara Machin, the brain behind "Waking The Dead". Also on the panel were Andrew Taft of "The Bill" fame and Rick Drew, a Canadian screenwriter who's created TV shows and he's been in the film business since working as a PA on the original Superman! We each talked about one particular crime series and why we think it's become an iconic, long-lasting show. I'll no doubt write more about this in some later blog. Now about that dancing bit. When we talked about the invidiual shows, we all brought a clip to give a bit more texture. In my case, I brought the legendary and terribly dated opening sequence of Germany's "Tatort", a hugely successful show since it started in 1970 (!) - it because is Germany's Holy Grail of crime shows. You must realize - these shows are part of German culture, history, part of every household! Every kid grew up with this... so when the stage went dark in Tuke Hall, when the sequence started playing and the opening music bounced off the walls - how could I NOT get up and dance along!?
Well I know one thing - this LSF wasn't my last LSF!
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