Wednesday, November 10, 2004

LA Screenwriting Expo

Clutching crib notes, fighting butterflies and wearing the stricken look of cattle being led to slaughter, aspiring screenwriters from Ireland to Australia awaited their once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity to pitch The Great Idea to a battery of Hollywood producers, agents and managers.
The New York Times reports on the LA Screenwriting Expo, where writers pay $60 to attend and $25 per pitch.

What every writer is hoping for, of course, is the mega deal. Troy Duffy sold his first script to Miramax for $1 million, as documented in a new film about him, Overnight, reviewed in the New York Times.
There is something both infuriating and sad about the way Mr. Duffy mistakes money and entertainment-industry curiosity for real power and actual achievement. His stubborn refusal to heed good advice is matched by an angry belief, born out of unacknowledged impotence, that studio and record-company big shots are secretly afraid of him. He has fallen into the fallacy, endemic among aspirants to post-modern show business glory, that a contract or a big advance means at least as much as a good album or an interesting movie.

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