Over the next 5 days, I am going to post the highlights of this year’s
AFF screenwriters conference.  Well, my highlights, that is.

To continue our journey, here are #s 5 & 6.

Enjoy!

– – – – –

5. Analyzed movies with Robbye – I think this was the highest highlight of the entire trip.  We were driving home, and it was kinda quiet.  Robbye was napping.  I decided to use the time to try to work out beats in this new spec script I’m writing, based on a short script I’d written a few years back called MANIACAL ENGINEERING.

After miles of silence, this from the backseat: “Can I read your ‘Cat’ book?”

“Huh?”

“Your ‘Cat’ book.  The writing one.”

“You mean ‘Save the Cat’?”

“Yeah.  That one.  You keep talking about it, and that Blake Snyder guy was nice.”  (she’d met him at the Great American Pitchfest…like she met Syd Field, and I didn’t.  Go figure)

She climbed into the front passenger seat.

“I think I’m learning something about the screenwriting thing.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  “You’ve picked up quite a bit.  But that doesn’t surprise me.  You’re pretty sharp.”

She went on to explain that she’d been listening to me as I judged the pitch competition and in conversations, and she noticed I was using categorical phrases like “fish out of water” and “man in a box” to describe the types of stories that people were talking about.  And she remembered me talking about INCARNATION as a “quest” story.

“I’ve been thinking about that movie, BLINDNESS, that we saw.  That was a ‘man in a box’ story, wasn’t it?”

“Yep.”

“But something like CHILDREN OF MEN—even though people are comparing the two—isn’t the same kind of movie.  Because that’s a ‘quest’ plot.”

“You’re right.”

Next thing, she gets out her bumblebee notebook and a pen.  She’s poised.

“What other types of stories are there?”

I rattle them off, and she jots then down.

For the next couple of hours, we found ourselves dissecting dozens of movies—what their A plots were, what their B plots were.  What kinds of story structure they employed and how that structure was evident as the plot unfolded.

Every time she got a little stuck, I’d say, “Look at the inciting incident.  The best clue to the type of story it is right there.”

To this, she said something that was cute as hell.  “That inciting incident.  It plagues me.”

I thought I was gonna drive off the road, I was laughing so hard.

We live busy, full lives.  We find ourselves on the run most days, my beloved and me.  The road trip down to Austin was supposed to be a time where we could slow things down a little and just be together.  To reconnect.

As I’ve previously documented, the way to Austin was not exactly conducive to this reconnection.  For my part, I found myself a little worse for wear having missed out on that experience.  This moment, though…this was exactly what we were hoping for.  Just what the doctor ordered.

It’s really cool when your friends are interested in what you’re passionate about.  Even better when it’s your best friend.

I can’t adequately express my gratitude or my enjoyment of that small moment in time.  All I can tell you is that I will treasure it as long I live.

And then…  Robbye got that look on her face.  The one where I know she’s committing to do something.  The one where I know said commitment WILL be fulfilled.

“I was thinking that I might write a screenplay.”

“Really?”

“Is that dumb?”

“Are you kidding?!?  No way, it’s not dumb.  I think it’s a great idea.  You’re a great writer.  Better than me.”

It’s true.  She’s got about the best natural voice I’ve ever read.  I think she’d write a great screenplay, and I, for one, look forward to reading it.

6. Kicked ass at judging the pitch competition – Robbye and I got in the night before the conference began and decided to stay in and rest up.  The AFF, after all, is a marathon, not a sprint.  Plus, we were celebrating having met each other three year ago to the day.  Champagne, jalapeño pretzels, beef jerky, and PROJECT RUNWAY.  What else did we need?

Well, over the course of the evening, we got no fewer than four calls from people asking if we were coming out meet up at the Driskill Bar.  One of the calls came from Monica Jones, who is the director of the AFF Pitch Competition.

“You’re a celebrity, Bill True,” was how she greeted me.

“Why thank you,” I replied.  “But to what do I owe this proclamation?”

“You’re judging the first round of the competition tomorrow, and it’s sold out.  And it’s the first session that sold out.  We’ve never sold out the first round before, much less it selling out before other ones.  I think it’s you.  People have been talking about your feedback during past years, and other people want to hear you give critique.”

Wow.  I was kind of speechless.  And kind of tickled.

Then, the next morning, as I stared ahead at the standing room only crowd in the small pitch competition room, I was a little nervous.  These people were there to hear what I had to say..?  And though I was flattered when Monica introduced me, I was also a little anxious when she referred to me as the “favorite pitch competition judge from the past two years.”  Ikes!

I was on the verge of psyching myself out, hoping I wouldn’t fall on my face or say something stupid or embarrass myself.  Or worse…that I wouldn’t disappoint these good folks who’d put their money on the line to participate in this competition and relying on me to be on my best game. I decided to use a little SagePresence connection exercise to get out of the little feedback loop I was generating.  As always, worked like a charm.  Thank you, Dean Hyers.

In the end, the round went great.  We all had a lot of fun, and people seemed to respond really well to the feedback.  In fact, if I can brag just a little, one of the co-winners of the competition, Jim Macak, wrote to me afterward with this really nice testimonial:

I’ve written episodes for a number of TV shows including “NYPD Blue” but pitching was always a huge problem for me.  The only reason I got the writing jobs that I did was because some producers like David Milch were forgiving enough to let me submit a written pitch.  But those producers are extremely rare and I inevitably lost out on numerous others jobs.  This year, I decided to give the Pitch Competition at the Austin Film Festival a shot.  I was fortunate enough to go second-to-last in a session judged by Bill True.  As I listened to his criticism of other pitches, I realized that what and how I intended to pitch that day would have left me in last place.  I chucked that pitch and improvised one on the spot.  And, yes, that’s scary as hell and I stumbled over some words.  But it was enough to get me into the finals.  Bill gave me additional some additional criticism after that – and I took every single note he gave me.   There were 120 contestants in the pitch competition – and I ended up tying for first place.   To say I would not have won without Bill’s advice would be a gross understatement.   He’s got to be the best coach in the business.

Cool, huh?

Honestly, I am just glad that I can help.  And it’s damned fun!  I mean, how cool is it to be able to sit with your kind and dissect movies for an hour-and-a-half?  And be a part of other people maybe getting their scripts sold or movies made, and seeing their dreams and all their hard work maybe come to fruition?

Twist my arm.

The feedback, however, is nice.  And affirming.  It tells me that I am on the right path.  That, though it rarely be easy, it is truly worth it.

BTW – my good and talented friend, Troy Miller, took second place with his pitch for THE WOODS.  In my humble opinion, the competition should have been a three-way tie, because Troy rocked the freakin’ casbah.  Way to go, Miller!

Over the next 5 days, I am going to post the highlights of this year’s
AFF screenwriters conference.  Well, my highlights, that is.

To continue our journey, here are #s 3 & 4.

Enjoy!

– – – – –

3. Had a writing epiphany – About two hours after our run-in with the deer, both Robbye and I were understandably a little shaky.  We’d done our best to soldier on through the night, but the wind was definitely out of our sails.  Even worse, everywhere I looked in front of me I saw deer.  Whether they were real or imagined made no difference.  My freaked out meter was near redline.

We needed to stop.

We pulled off the Interstate in the middle of nowhere.  This tiny oasis of light was the only thing we’d seen for over an hour.  There was a gas station and there was a small café.  Good enough for us.

We went inside the café, The Plainsman, and instantly felt like we’d stepped onto the set of some kitschy indie Americana drama.  As we walked in, we were greeted by—no kidding—a huge stuffed deer head nailed to the paneled wall.  Aside from the waitresses, who wore matching smocks (of course), the only other people in the place were two regulars, Bill and Carl, both of whom were members of the bib overall brigade.

Okay…I realize I need to take a sec to say this.  So hold on the story, please.

A common mistake by many new writers (yours truly included) is to write dialogue where characters are constantly calling or referring to each other by name.  It looks like this:

John: Martha, would you like a martini?

Martha:  If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, John.  I don’t like martinis.

Now…yes…people do, indeed, call each other by name at times.  What seems to be a universal problem with folks at the starting line of their writerly journey, however, is that they tend to overuse character names in dialogue.  Basically, you can spot a newbie a mile away this way.  And when you become attuned to it, it becomes absolutely glaring.

Because this has been an issue for me in the past, I am very cognizant of how many times I use character names in dialogue.  Of the several passes (i.e., editing reads) I give a script before I call it done, I always do a names once over.  It’s critical.

Okay…now I can return to the story.

Robbye and I are sitting in a booth, bleary-eyed and out-of-whack, sipping the colored water the place was trying to pass of as coffee.  During this time, something was working its way through the veil between my unconscious and conscious minds.  I couldn’t put my finger on it until I heard this exchange:

Kathy: You need more coffee, Bill (customer, not me)?

Bill: No, thanks, Kathy.

Kathy: How ‘bout you, Carl?

Carl:  I dunno.  Hmm…Sure, Kathy.  I’ll take some.

Bill: Well, Kathy, if Carl’s takin’ some, I’ll have one more cup.

Kathy: Sure thang, Bill.

I kid you not.  It sounded exactly like that.  Almost word-for-word.

Through the rest of our Plainsman dining experience, I had a hard time focusing on the conversation between Robbye and me because me ear kept drifting back to the conversations of the indigenous peoples.  Every time I tuned into one, it was a virtual replay of the Bill/Kathy/Carl exchange.

By the time we walked out, my writer’s mind was officially blown.  All of a sudden, my hard-and-fast rule wasn’t so hard-and-fast anymore.  I realized that there was at least one small pocket in the world where real-life people spoke like characters in a newbie script.  If there was one place, there were bound to be others.

I’d had an epiphany.  Though I will remain vigilant about my name usage in dialogue, I will relax a little.  Especially if I am writing characters who hail from small towns in the southern part of Kansas.

4. Kicked ass at moderating three panels – I mentioned in an earlier post that I had asked the AFF if I could try my hand at moderating a few panels this year.  I was very excited when they assigned my to three of them over the course of the conference.

I printed off pages of research materials, determined to be the sharpest, most engaging moderator the AFF had ever seen. My plan was to use the drive down to Austin to go through my research and notes and formulate a plan for each panel.  And even though I wasn’t exactly sure what angle of approach I was going to take for the “Know Your Rights” panel, I was feeling pretty damn skippy about the rest of them. 

That is…

Until we hit a deer.

CRAP!

And then I realized that I’d forgotten all my research and notes on my desk.

DOUBLE CRAP!

Luckily, there was a computer and printer at the Driskill Hotel.  Friday was a light day for me, so I had time to squirrel away and re-research.  I was able to re-print most of the stuff I’d left at home.  It was difficult, but also I managed to extract myself from the collective for an hour or so between Friday and Saturday and do my preparation work.

Also, I’d met a really cool guy by the name of Scott Richter on my Competitions panel.  Scott’s not only a writer, but he’s also a lawyer…and he won the 2007 AFF teleplay competition with his GREY’S ANATOMY spec.  He was a great co-panelist, and he and I had a rapport from the very beginning.  Felt very easy and very conversational, and we were able to build on each other’s points in ways that I think made the panel far more valuable for participants than it’s been in other years.  Anyway…he was slated to be one of the panelists on the Rights panel, so I asked him if he would have breakfast with Robbye and me beforehand and help me figure out how to make the most it.

Well, to make a long story er…not quite as long…the all three panels went swimmingly. Robbye had heard people talking about my Competitions panel and the Pitch Competition rounds I’d judged, and apparently the word on the street was that I was a guy whose panels you wanted to catch.  So all three were packed.  Standing room only, actually. 

I got a lot of great compliments from the folks that attended the panels, many of whom (and many of the panelist, too) said they were the best-moderated panels they’d ever seen at the AFF.  In fact, several people who were in attendance at my first Sunday panel showed up at the second one because they enjoyed the first one so much.

It was cool and humbling at the same time.

When all was said and done, I was just glad that I had delivered some value for the participants.  I was glad that I could bring a writer’s perspective—their perspective—the panel topics, and ask the questions they were burning to ask.  And I was glad people had fun.  That there was laughter at the same time as there was learning.

My two favorite moments:

–In the “Online World” panel, Brad Neely got defective instructions and showed up 30 minutes late.  TO make things worse, there was no chair for him.  We tried to get a standard AFF-issue high director’s chair for him, but all the volunteers could rustle up was a plain old chair.  As a result, poor Brad, though he’s kind of a big guy, sat a full 24 inches lower than the rest of us.

The first time I directed a question to him, I said, “Brad, I think you might want to weigh in on this.  What’s the perspective from the Shire?”

The place was in stitches for nearly a minute.  Brad, who was obviously feeling a little discombobulated and not quite sure why he was there in the first place got a big, ole smile on his face.

“That’s a good one.”

The ice was broken for Brad, and the conversation finally kicked into high gear.

–In the “Niche Projects” panel, Turk Pipkin brought in a twelver of Shiner Bock.  Everyone on the panel cracked one open, and we all swilled beer as we tried to talk smart.  During the Q&A, we rewarded the best questions with a beer.  So…okay…as much as I’d like to believe every panel was a favorite because of me, I have to admit that the beer was definitely the star here.

During the panel, we were talking a lot of about securing financing, in particular through getting sponsorships from companies.  At the end of the panel, I raised my bottle and said, “I’d like to thank you all for coming to the ‘Niche Projects’ panel, brought to you by Shiner Bock.”

People got a kick out of that.