PITCH FEST FRENZY

Hi:

My name is Ian and this blog is about my random thoughts and experiences that you might find interesting and encouraging. I welcome feed-back on the stories, I'm using this opportunity to try out some stories for a collection of short stories that I plan to publish in 2010. Enjoy!

PITCH FEST FRENZY

His smile sparkled like a perfect white denture commercial, as he ushered me into the hallway. “So you wanna be a Hollywood screenwriter” he said, with all the compassion of a Big Mack. “Well, here’s your first bite of the cherry pie.” I looked down a packed

hallway of gyrating bodies all pressed together in lines behind poles fasten to the floors with names of production companies scrawled hastily on hand made signs. My event directory reference guide gave the briefest of outlines of Hollywood’s finest, their yesterday hits and

hyped up failures. As I wandered down the front of the line, cross-checking the company names between my book and the signs, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the stringent clanging of a cow bell. As I looked up in wonder as to where I was, a cow barn or the hippest

environ of the universe? I was accosted by a stream of Hollywood wannabes who careened past me in bovine good nature towards the hallowed grounds of the main arena were the ‘associate producers’ sat. Jumping into a line to avoid the stampede of my creative competitors

returning from their pens, I shuffled through my one-page hand-outs preparing myself to face the apocalyptic challenge of squeezing the story that had taken me years to write, decades to conceive, and a lifetime to pluck up the courage to present at this place, at this time,

into 25 words or less! As my heart pumped DVD sales numbers around my body, the clang of the cow bell crashed across my consciousness. Joining the herd I shunted into the main hall. A wide high ceiling stable opened up to me, as the cacophony of chattering

screenwriters preaching their hearts out to film buff neophyte perched on spindly chairs, picked purposely to keep the judges agitated - indeed irritated, throughout their two day ordeal. I waited in the holding pen, the room spread out before me. The red satin ropes with

the gold latched barriers, held us back. We, the next wave of desperadoes, choke at the bit as we waited for the cow bell to clang. All eyes were on the two sirens patrolling on a high up stage to our left, who took turns wielding the prophetic bell. We, the next swarm of

hopefuls, arched our backs in readiness to sprint to the tables and begin our well rehearsed condensed babble of character, action generated complex story line with multiple sub-plots, and the proverbial dropped name, because, ‘she/he it would be perfect for this

movie’ all into five minutes of fame and glory. It took me until the second day to really understand the pitch fest program. The ‘producers’ who had our fates in their hands, were for the most part, associates of the various ubiquitous production companies that pepper

the back pages of Variety. They had all come with very tight briefs for what to look for; an action film that could be done on the cheap! The great American story, they were not looking for, although they did have lots of advice…. And there we all were dreaming in Hollywood

land! Each of us, in the punter class of would-be screenwriters, had shelled out $500 a head to the organizers to stand in these swelteringly hot lines, with no air-conditioning, packed like rats in corridors with no windows and the stuffy air of overheated creativity. But this was

Hollywood, and all the stories of this fabled land reinforce suffering as a major ingredient to suck-cess! In the course of the two days over 400 people filed through this hallowed cattle market. I myself spoke with twenty reps the first of which chided my story of two couples getting

so drunk they marry the wrong partners, and who go on to live dysfunctional lives for ever after, as illogical! When I asked him if he was married, he answered in the negative. I then proceeded to waste my time explaining to him that the reason why most people originally

get married soon evaporates once they’ve lived together for any length of time; because love is an intoxicating emotion that cannot survive on reason and logic. Needless to say the X Company will not be producing my movie in its next blockbuster season! I did get a couple

of bites or should I say pinches! Perhaps because I got the rep early after lunch, or the last punter had bored the rep to death, I was listened too. After hours of being ‘processed’ by the Hollywood machine, it’s a small victory to have some young person engaged your eyes and

actually listen. But then my time was up – five minutes goes by really quickly when you’re talking about your passion – the clanging bell resonated just as the rep was beginning to offer me some ‘movie magic’ advice. What I found particularly disconcerting was that there

was never any phone numbers or addresses of the companies on the event directory reference guides, and although some of the reps gave me their names, and seemed genuinely interested to hear from me I never could follow-up or contact them. And of course, they never called me either!