Screenwriters' Festival 2009
Piers Beckley reports from the Screenwriters' Festival, 26th-29th October
Day One
The screenwriters' festival is being held in a new venue this year, but despite that the red-shirted runners were able to direct people around the place without one single monster-related incident. Which is rare, as connoisseurs will know. In a way the word "festival" is a bit of a misnomer, suggesting screenings and awards - or, if you prefer, drugs and lasers - but what it really is, is a four-day screenwriting conference. Which is actually a lot more useful to a writer.
This year there are more than a hundred speakers over the four days. There are panels, lectures, launches (such as the Guild's own good practice guide for screenwriters - more of which anon) and networking both formal and informal.
There are two main reasons for coming to any conference, whether it's for science, art, literature, barbering (according to our taxi driver last night, Cheltenham recently hosted a barbers' conference), or screenwriting. One is to find out best practice and news - that's mostly covered by the lectures. The second is networking. And contrary to what many people believe, networking isn't trying to find someone with money and pushing your masterpiece into their hands - it's learning craft from those further along than you, and talking about it with other people at the same level you are, whether that's someone with a dozen credits or someone who's only just set pen to paper.
That's what really happens at a conference of any sort, whether it's for science, art, literature, barbering, or screenwriting.
Talking with people you know and don't know in the gaps between lectures, and in the pub after the day is over, about your work, and theirs, and what's going on in the world in which you all work. And it's those conversations that make an event like this worth coming to.
Day Two
Yesterday I looked mostly at the craft and networking aspects of a festival. But for screenwriters there's another part to this equation that novelists and poets, for the most part, don't have to worry so much about: getting hold of the money required to put your film into production.
Fortunately here at Cheltenham there's also a business track. So today I've mostly been going to seminars and talks about the business end of screenwriting from producers (who'll make your film) and sales agents (who go out and sell it to different countries across the world) to find out what the current state of the market is.
The current recession means that things are particularly difficult for straight dramas. For a drama to sell right now you're going to need A-list stars, a great director, and a great writer. Preferably award-winning. And even those are difficult to sell at the moment. Passion projects are being deferred right now until the market improves. What is selling are genre pieces. Comedies, Thrillers, Horror, Romcom, Action-Adventure. Something that it's easy to find on the DVD shelves or in a category at the online retailers.
The cycle will turn, of course, and it'll be easier to make the odd pieces, and the downbeat pieces, and the straight dramas. But right now the advice for a piece of writing you're trying to sell is: know what your film is about, and what genre it's in. And make sure it's a bulletproof piece of writing for that genre.
Day Three
A very BBC-centric day today, with Ben Stephenson, Christine Langan and Kate Harwood all dropping in to give talks and Q&As.
Ben answered one particular question from the floor to which I've never had a satisfactory explanation - until now. That's: Why don't we have longer runs of UK drama series? As usual, it comes down to money. A 13- or 22-part US series is deficit-financed.
What that means is that for the (say) 4 million dollars that it costs to make an episode of a US drama, half is paid for by the channel, and half is paid for by the studio making the drama. So the studio loses money on every single episode that they make, and the only way this loss can be recovered is if the series runs for a hundred episodes - at which point it can be sold into syndication.
It says a lot about the cash available from syndication that they'll more than make their money back if this happens. But the broadcasters here can't fully-finance such long runs, and no studio here has pockets deep enough to deficit finance. So it looks as if six and eight episode series will be the standard in the UK for some time to come.
The most popular past-time among the writers here at the moment is speed-dating. Not each other (amusing though that would be) but producers and agents. Most everyone who asked to be on the speed-dating has been assigned three people who will hopefully be able to move their projects along. Just as in the ordinary-dating equivalent they have to sit at a table, try to impress the person on the other side in less than five minutes, and then move swiftly on to their next person when their time is up.
Everyone I've spoken to so far has said that despite their initial nervousness they've managed to make at least one good connection with their dates, and several have been asked to pass on their scripts. And like any dating, we'll see over the next weeks or years how many of these relationships last.
Day Four
And to finish with, some thoughts on the fourth day of this year's screenwriters festival. (Or conference, if you prefer.) While there are always going to be talks which aren't aimed at your skill level - there's no real point in someone with a few pieces of work behind them going to the sessions aimed at first-time writers - there are four concurrent streams throughout the day, so there should always be something interesting going on for you to check out.
It can be a little intimidating for first-timers, especially if you don't know anyone else here. But the writers are a friendly bunch, and it's easy to get chatting to someone in the tea queue. After all, you already know that you have a lot in common. Over lunch, many of the guests volunteer to sit in the canteen for something called a scriptbites session, where anyone can gather round the table with them for an open and informal Q&A - no stuffy lecture halls, no waiting-for-the-mike-to-get-to-you, just honest answers to questions about the business.
Over the last few days I've listened to Ben Stephenson, Phil Collinson, Bob Baker, and others give their time and advice generously to help new and emerging screenwriters during these sessions - and there were many more people who I would have liked to listen to that I just didn't have time to see.
The Screenwriters' Festival plays a vital role in finding out what's going on in the UK writing community - and in helping you to reconnect with friends and colleagues both old and new. See you here next year.
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