by Jamie Campbell

The movies are great, obviously, the festivals showcase so many films that you probably wouldn’t get a chance to see anywhere else. It’s wonderful showing up at a screening and just getting to enjoy something different, something that probably doesn’t fit into the Hollywood cookie cutter, but something great nevertheless.

Plus, there are those movies that every screenwriting book tells you will never get made. You know the ones, they break every rule, don’t have a three act structure, and are completely insane. You walk out of there either amazed at its awesomeness or shaking your head thinking ‘my movie is totally better’. Either way, at least you feel something.

But, as a writer, I can get so much more from the festivals than just hours of entertainment. Many festivals offer seminars on all types of interesting things, including screenwriting. You get to hear from people in the industry that are actually getting their hands dirty in the trenches, living the dream, and willing to share their story with you. This is the kind of information you can’t get anywhere else, no matter how many times you Google it.

Many festivals offer seminars on all types of interesting things, including screenwriting

It was at the Gold Coast Film Festival a few years back that I first met Karel and heard all about The Story Department. Attending his free seminar, he somehow managed to inspire me to give screenwriting a shot and completely opened up my world from just being a novelist. From that day, I haven’t looked back.

A side benefit of the festivals is networking. How many times do we hear that it’s not what you know, but who? So many times I want to strangle that sentence but it’s also true so I leave it alone. Many of the filmmakers who made the movies attend the screenings. It could be the actors, the directors, producers, or the writers (sometimes all four). They are there, wanting to talk about their film, which means you can find out how they did it.

How did they get produced? How did they do it on that budget? What was the writing process? Where did the idea come from? There is so much information you can gather from the professionals that will help you with your writing. It’s guaranteed you will come away with knowing more than you did when you arrived.

They are there, wanting to talk about their film

And it’s not just the professionals you can network with. Everybody else there could be a potential filmmaker. Looking for someone to collaborate with? Someone you can endlessly talk to about your multi-million dollar alien movie that you’re writing? Someone who understands your obsession with movies? Chances are they are sitting two rows back from you to the left. Talk to everyone, see why they are there – at least you already have something in common.

So film festivals can change your life, don’t underestimate them. Get out there and join in the fun. As writers, we need to step out of our cave eventually and I can’t think of a better place to go than a festival, at least you will be amongst your people.

The Gold Coast Film Festival is currently on right now. Like, right now. Check out the full program here.

-Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest spine-tingling thriller Gifted is out now.

Photo Credits: Stock XChng

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

:: How To Write The Perfect Ending
:: Everything You Need to Know about Specs Part 1
:: Writing Dialogue Banter That Works
:: Great scene: Dr. Strange Love
:: The Difficulty of Short Film Writing
:: Creating Character and Characterization
:: Emotional Elements of Plot: Dramatic Action
:: V.O. Narration: The Shawshank Redemption
:: V.O: American Beauty
:: Building a Scene and ‘The Social Network’
:: Screenplay Review: Warm Bodies
:: Review of Un-Produced Hitchcock Script

Script Perfection

:: Why Some Movies Are So Badly Written
:: To Outline or Not to Outline — That Is the Question
:: Why Your First Ten Pages Count
:: The Fine Art of Editing and Rewriting
:: Writing a Scene in 11 Steps
:: Be An Expert
:: It’s All About The Tinkering
:: 10 Screenwriting Lessons You Can Learn from The Avengers!
:: 6 Tips For Writing A (Money-Making) Script

Pitching & Selling

:: Film Festivals: Why Did My Film Not Get In?
:: Write a Pitch or Shoot a Pilot
:: Prognostication
:: February 2013 Pitch Sales Roundup
:: 2013 Best Picture Nominees by Return On Investment
:: Fill Your Cup

Best of the Rest

:: Room 237, A Doco About Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
:: Writing the Academy Awards
:: 2013 Indie Spirit Award Winners: ‘Silver Linings Playbook’
:: Visual Effects Artists Protest Near Oscars
:: The Visual Effects Community Sees Red in the Wake of Oscar Protest
:: Introvert – Aversion
:: Why Write for Kids?: The Real Wuestion Is… Why Not?
:: Interview with Seven Psychopaths’ Martin McDonagh
:: Boxing at the Movies
:: Mercifully Short Reviews: The Loneliest Planet
:: What Are You Going to Do for Yourself?
:: What is a Set Piece?
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie Campbell and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

:: The Art Of Higher Stakes
:: Film Endings and ‘Rocky’
:: Death and the Modern Western in ‘True Grit’ and ‘Django’
:: Russel’s Rules For Redrafting
:: 10 Screenwriting Lessons from Inglorious Basterds
:: 3 Storytelling Tips From ‘Breaking Bad’
:: 9 Rules For Being Funny From David Steinberg
:: The Mistake of a Tone Shift Mid-Way Through a TV Season: Battlestar Galactica
:: Outlining Scripts in Fountain
:: Examples of V.O’s and Flashbacks That Don’t Work

Script Perfection

:: The 7 Deadly Dialogue Sins
:: Top Filmmaking Excuses and How To Avoid Them
:: Transcript of Scriptnotes, Ep. 76
:: Scriptnotes Podcast, 77: We’d Like to Make an Offer
:: You Are Not Tarantino
:: Stop Rewriting and Start Filmmaking
:: TV Writer Podcast 070 – Angela Ackerman
:: TV Writer Podcast 071 – Vivi Anna / Tawny Stokes
:: Genre-Shift
:: Oscar Winning Screenwriter and TV Showrunner Alan Ball

Pitching & Selling

:: How To Grow Your Filmmaking Network
:: The Continual Process of Work and Meetings
:: Alex Epstein on Crowd Funding
:: Networks Increase Pilots to be Ordered after Lackluster Season
:: Becoming and Staying a Successful Screenwriter
:: February 2013 Spec Market Scorecard
:: Film Festivals 411: Why Did My Film Not Get In?
:: Championing Your Screenplay

Best of the Rest

:: Silver Linings Playbook – 30min Featurette
:: SNL : ‘Djesus Uncrossed’
:: Berlin Film Festival Honours Eastern European Movie-Makers
:: WGA Awards Winners
:: Organized
:: Screenwriters Ryan Belenzon and Jeffrey Gelber Sell ‘Endangered’ to Lionsgate
:: Does The All-You-Can-Eat Binge Spoil Social Viewing?
:: The 25 Coolest Catch Phrases for Scientific Concepts
:: Dare to Make a Scene
:: Movie Site Host
:: Stunning Interstellar Travel Doc ‘Project Kronos’ Trailer
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie Campbell and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

By Pauline Findlay

You try your luck at Sundance, they only received 7,000 submissions this year! You send off anyway telling yourself your genius will be seen amongst 7,000 cream floats.

Then a few months later you get the email; “We appreciate your genius but can’t programme your film this year.” They mustn’t have seen it!

Well I met the Sundance programmer and she assured us they watch every submission – even the one shot on a cat purring! You return to your festival spreadsheet. Where next?

Palm Springs should be at the top of your festival strategy.

Why you ask? It will teach you more in a week than film school does in years about the business. The industry panels alone are worth the entry and the expensive flight.

It will teach you more in a week than
film school does in years about the business.

Palm Springs ShortFest is a weeklong festival of short films. Yes shorts! I know, no feature films, movies stars or hot directors to dim your light. Just a bunch of emerging filmmakers, wanting to network their little hearts out and melt in 43C heat. Over 320 films were programmed this year. This makes your odds pretty good and let’s face it you need the odds in your favour. It is also incredibly well respected in the USA.

Industry people take it seriously and see it as a place to find new talent, (you!). This is hard to believe since Screen Australia recently took it off the list of credible festivals that are worthy of travel funding. I know they can’t cover every festival but Palm Springs also has a Film Market attached and this should be enough reason to have it on the list.

Industry people take it seriously and
see it as a place to find new talent, (you!).

Distribution for short films is becoming more viable with our insatiable appetite for all things short to view on our mobile devices. So getting some cash for your short allows you to make your next short film and not need to ask them for funding. Leaving space for the next up and coming short filmmakers.

Palm Springs is hands down the best experience of my film career to date. The festival is buzzing with filmmakers from all over the world dying to see their peers’ work. I’m quite sure if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas were making short films today Palm Springs would be where they would meet.

Palm Springs is hands down the best experience of my film career to date.

Oh, and if you think your film is a ‘thinking person’s’ film then you have the community of Palm Springs that are very well educated in all things film. Most are retired industry types from LA so you just might find a backer for your first feature. Throughout the Q&A’s (yes they want to know about your short) they ask questions you might expect from your filmmaking buddies, not the local punter.

Kathleen McInnis is the Queen Bee of the festival and she loves filmmakers, especially new filmmakers. Your genius has been discovered. Kathleen is a publicist for feature directors most of the year and knows how to program a diverse festival.

Most are retired industry types from LA so
you just might find a backer for your first feature.

Oh and she has friends in high places – the roll call looked something like this on the panels: journalists from Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LATimes, NYTimes; festival programmers from Sundance, Tribeca, Cleveland and Seattle. If I still haven’t convinced you that Palm Springs is where you should be then let me tell you what the Australian Consul-General in LA do for you. They throw a party and invite industry people, well-established directors and studio types to talk and mingle with you; you get the ins and outs of working in Australia and LA.

Journalists from Variety, Hollywood Reporter, LATimes, NYTimes; festival programmers from Sundance, Tribeca, Cleveland and Seattle.

It gets better: they create a DVD complication of all the Australian films. Why do they do with this I hear you ask? Well they only give a copy to the invited press and anyone they have connections with in the LA studios! We were the envy of every filmmaker at the festival.

So is Palm Springs now at the top of your list?

by Pauline Findlay

Pauline Findlay has written, directed and produced short films, documentaries, theatre plays and online web series. Trained as an actor in London, Pauline’s debut play Girls Talk played at the Soho Theatre in Covent Garden. In 2007 Pauline directed the first online documentary for the ‘Tropfest Super Short Series’. Pauline is a graduate of the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Screenwriting and Producing and was nominated for a Monte Miller award by the Australian Writers Guild (AWG) for her short film ‘Liv’ in 2011 and for her feature script ‘Lola’ in 2012 Pauline. Pauline also tweets and blogs.

:: About Backstory
:: Retiring The Scorpion and The Frog
:: Screenwriter Interview – Simon Beaufoy
:: “The Hunger Games,” Hollywood, and Fighting F*ck Toys

Script Perfection

:: Screenwriting Tips: Render Your Setting the Way Your Protagonist Sees It
:: Parenthetical or Personal Directions
:: Do What I Say…
:: Filmmakers, Get Married and Have Kids Early!

Pitching & Selling

:: The Complete Filmmaker’s Guide to Film Festivals
:: Alexandra Sokoloff: What’s the EXPERIENCE?
:: Sex In A Submarine: Social Media
:: The Official Scriptshadow Twit-Pitch 100
:: What Dcripts do you Need to Get an Assignment or Representation?

Best of the Rest

:: How to Bring Back Firefly in Five Terrible Steps
:: Joe Eszterhas’ Letter to Mel Gibson
:: ‘Game of Thrones’: Peter Dinklage Sees Series Challenges Ahead
:: Quentin Tarantino Reveals ‘Django Unchained’ Synopsis
:: The Clueless Guide to Watching Game of Thrones
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie C.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au