by Sheila Seclearr
I survived my week in Hollywood so well that I almost want to stay forever. I’ll give a glimpse for now, but after I’ve gone over my notes, I’ll attempt a more detailed summary. Before going into three days of producer meetings set up by Gary Shusett of Sherwood Oaks Experimental College and Hal Croasmun of ScreenwritingU, I had a few private meetings that I arranged for myself. I’ll keep those private for now, but the results were like setting an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I mean that in a good way. Both served me well throughout the rest of the meetings. Lesson learned: when going into the intense unknown, it’s good to consider the best case and the worst case scenarios and be prepared for anything.
Gary Shusett (middle) seems to know everyone in Hollywood, but didn't introduce me to either James Cameron (left) or Quintin Tarantino (right).
Even so well prepared, I really couldn’t have imagined such tremendous support and encouragement in this economy or in this town. On the other hand, there were plenty of voices saying it’s impossible right now to produce anything without jumping through the proverbial rings of fire, wearing a magic shroud while swooping at money with a butterfly net and screaming at the top of your lungs.
I was with a group of twenty writers, all of us seasoned enough to meet with top producers and show up as professionals. We impressed the producers with our international mix. Though most of us were from the continental U.S., there were a handful of Canadian writers, one from the U.K., one from France and one from Australia. Some had representation, some had major contest wins and some like me were already getting assignments from industry pros.
We only pitched to a handful of producers on the last day but nearly all of the others received a one-sheet about everyone’s current script or project. I’m working on a baseball biopic and the little devil on my shoulder reminded me that it’s tough to name many successful sports pics in the last decade. But the little angel provided a midweek Variety headline that Legendary Pictures will begin the long-awaited biopic on Jackie Robinson this year.
Hollywood can easily entertain a group of writers for a week. The bonus was a day of meetings in Venice and afterward, a few of us took a walk at Venice Beach that could inspire and amuse a curmudgeon on crack. Not that any of those were around… ahem.
I head back to Taos with a few script requests so let me work for awhile, okay? More to come…
