Life Without Air

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Finally, a chance to breathe!

Today has been insane. I've been trying at every chance I get throughout the day to add agents to pitch to, and I swear I've spent more time in line and in pitches than in workshops so far.

First off, I did get to attend Cory Hebenstreit's workshop "Character Development: How to Make Them Pop." Even though it was at 8:30am, and it seemed most people were nose-deep in their coffee, Cory rocked! If I ever had a man-crush, it would be on Cory. He was insightful, funny, extremely knowledgeable, and kept us entertained and educated for 90 minutes. I'm psyched that he's one of the people that requested my work, cause even if he hates it, he'll still hopefully give me some great feedback.

OK....so that workshop ended and I had to head off to pitches. They went like this:

1. 10:15am - George Heller - Partner at FourSight Entertainment. George was a cool guy and said he liked "Like Brothers" and wanted me to send the logline to his story editor. While geeked out about that for hours, I later found out other people were told the same thing, so I'm not quite as thrilled about it as I was. Oh well, hopefully his story editor likes it.

After George I had a quick chance to call home and check in, then it was back-to-back meetings at 11:00 and 11:15. They were:

2. 11:00am - Mark Burrell - Partner at Half Shell Entertainment. Mark was cool too. His bio seemed to indicate he was only really looking for comedies, so I approached him with the attitude that I wasn't going to pitch anything to him, but just wanted to shoot the breeze about the industry in general. Quickly it came out that although they do a lot of comedies, they can still handle other genres, so I gave him the 10,000 foot view of "Like Brothers." I could tell it was too expensive, so I immediately shot into the fact that I had a cheaper action flick and threw out "Inside." Mark seemed very interested in "Inside" and asked me if I had a card. He said he would email me. Will he really? Who knows!

3. 11:15am - Jake Wagner - Literary Manager at Energy Entertainment. I made a fool out of myself with Jake at first, because when I was doing my last minute brush up on his bio, I suddenly mistakenly thought "wait, 'literary', does that mean he only deals with authors?" Told him I didn't want to waste his time, and he cooly said he handled movies too and we were good to go. I pitched him "Like Brothers" and he loved it. He said (and I quote....to the best of my zanax-influenced brain) "that was one of the better script ideas I've heard so far at the show." SAAAAA-WEEEET!!!

I had a bit of a break after these guys, so I attended the last few minutes of a workshop, then headed off to lunch. After lunch I called home and checked in. Heather couldn't believe it when I told her that out of five pitches so far at the conference, I've had 'something' requested from four of them!

My last pitch today was supposed to occur at 1:30pm, but the person was a no show. That turned into a bit of a fiasco. Lisa Zambri from Contra Films was someone that I was very, VERY interested in talking too, as I had heard from numerous people that she was here looking for big-budget action films. So, I showed up at 1:30pm, but there was no Lisa. The staff tried to track her down, but nothing. They told me I could reschedule with her, but I said what if she is booked and doesn't have any other times. They said I could get a refund. I told them they could keep my $15, I just wanted one minute of her time.

While I was waiting in line to look and see if I could reschedule, I saw a couple younger females head into the pitching area, so I got out of line to see if one of them was Lisa. Sure enough it was, but by this time the 1:45pm people were coming in and my window was closing. I ran over to her, told her we had missed each other (read: she jacked me and didn't show up for our pitch time), and that I really wanted to find a time to get with her. She was very nice, and said we'd make something happen, but to check with the front desk to try and reschedule.

The front desk people said Lisa was booked up, so I knew I'd have to effort it on my own and make it happen. So...about 20 minutes later I was sitting out with another writer, chatting about our experiences, and I see Lisa come out and start to walk off. I jumped up, got her attention and we figured "it was now or never."

Unfortunately, that really threw me. We headed back to her table, but I was already a bit flustered. I sat down and buttered her up (not intentionally, but truthfully) by telling her that I had heard she was a good fit for "Like Brothers." I started the pitch and she immediately got confused. (I think I was so amp'd and flustered that I was talking a mile a minute)

Anyways...I butchered the pitch and to make it worse, Lisa just couldn't see the struggle/motivation that would sustain Act II. Luckily I think she was on-board enough with the idea in general that she asked if I had a synopsis she could take back and see if she could make work. I gave her that and a card, but I won't hold out hope that I'll be getting a call from her.

Right now it's 3:15pm, so I'll attend the last workshop of the day. What a wild, wild ride so far!! But I can tell you that instead of feeling nervous today, I am having a blast (Lisa's butchered pitch withstanding). Whether she got it or not, she took info on it, and that makes it FIVE out of six people so far! And I have four more pitches tomorrow too, so you can believe I'll start by feeding them the "a lot of other people are asking for it, so you should too" line! Hey, it's Hollywood, and I'm playing the game now!!