Greetings Dear Readers,
Your humble narrator must begin with a heartfelt apology for not posting sooner after my triumphant return from Kidscreen. I had fully intended to pen a full account of my adventures in the Big Apple when I returned, foolishly believing that for the first time in my career I would bypass the annual post-Kidscreen cold. But pride goeth before the cough, and by the end of the week following the conference I was a sniffling ball of fevered delirium. But I thrilled to say that I am almost fully recovered and pushing the boulder that is content creation up that hill once again.
So you might ask yourself, “what has our heroic young entrepreneur been up to since he returned from NYC?” In a word: waiting. Those familiar with the entertainment industry know that it is one long game of “hurry up and wait.” You go from periods of furious activity, like preparing for, attending and following up on a conference to long stretches where you wait for your projects to be reviewed, analyzed and (hopefully) taken into development. And that is precisely where I find myself right now. The week of March 13th was spent furiously polishing and packaging my pitch materials in order to follow up with each of my meetings within one week of the conference. Once that goal is accomplished all you can do on that front is wait a few weeks before they either reply or you do your second round of follow up.
What’s an aspiring writer/producer to do once the last email has been sent? You get right down to work. In my case, I was fortunate enough to have several freelance commissions to start writing. I have had the great pleasure to start writing on an animated action comedy shortly after returning from Kidscreen. Another studio commissioned me to dream up a few concepts for a potential transmedia series. And I’ve always got a writing sample or rough original idea to polish up. In my humble opinion, this is the key to success in this business: produce. When you are not drumming up new business you should be creating product of some sort. ABC, baby! Always be creating. If you have paid work, get on to it right away. If there’s no paid work create something new or finish a spec that has been sitting in your draft file. (Editor’s note: Physician, heal thyself. I have a Phineas and Ferb spec that’s sat as a 1st draft far too long). I feel that if you can discipline yourself to ABC on a daily or weekly basis you’ll be ready with a killer writing sample when a freelance or staff gig comes up. And, that polish of an original project could land you your first development deal. Activity begets activity. Just because you’re waiting on the “man” doesn’t mean you sit around waiting.
Before winding this up, I’d like to share a few highlights (and thanks) from the past month. Launching Treason Media at Kidscreen resulted in some excellent press coverage in Kidscreen Magazine and Cynopsis Kids and has been one of the proudest moments of my career thus far. Thanks to everyone at those publications for picking up the presser and to my excellent creative partner Susie at Hop To It Prods for her patience as I pulled the web site together to hit the news cycle. A special thanks to everyone who took the time to meet with me at the conference, I really appreciate your time and I hope we’ll find something to work on together in the near future. Big shout outs to the Little Airplanes, Australian bowlers and the Irish castlers. Three wonderful parties I never want to miss. Sorry I missed the UK delegates’ party. Really wanted to see the Queen’s condo, but you can’t be everywhere at once. And finally, a special thanks to Sir Ben Sherman and Lord Fred Perry for helping to make me look so good on a budget. I’ll see you all next year, if not before. Now it’s time to get back to those scripts.
